To Kill For Page 19

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want you to watch the DVD.’

  ‘Tough shit, then. I haven’t got a DVD player.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You know what’s on it.’

  ‘Do I? There were lots of them.’

  ‘This one was with a kid, a girl, eight, maybe ten. Long blonde hair.’

  She laughed a small, bitter laugh.

  ‘There were lots of those too.’

  ‘There was a man, rich by the looks of it.’

  She brought her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs.

  ‘There’s always a fucking man and they’re always rich.’

  ‘Would you know who he was?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know him if he came in here singing the national anthem. For all I know, you were one of them.’

  ‘There was another woman.’

  She looked at me then.

  ‘Another woman? There were never other women.’

  ‘There was on this one. Her name was Brenda.’

  ‘Brenda.’ Her eyes went filmy. ‘Brenda. Yes. I remember her.’

  ‘You remember the film?’

  ‘I knew her. We both worked for Frank. What happened to her?’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘Died. Yeah.’

  I watched for her reaction. I wanted to know if she’d had something to do with Brenda’s death. She turned away from me, but not before I’d seen her eyes fill with tears. I pulled a chair opposite her and sat down. She swung round.

  ‘What the fuck do you want from me? You want me to come clean, own up? You want me to pay for my crimes? Well, I’ve been paying. For years. So why don’t you fuck off.’

  The tears were coming now, but she wasn’t crying. They were tears of anger.

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  She smeared the tears away with the back of her right hand.

  ‘Is there something wrong with you? You don’t get angry. You don’t get sad. You don’t get anything, do you? You just sit there and stare and ask questions like a fucking robot. You want to know about Brenda? Fine, I’ll tell you. She was a fool. She thought she could outthink them, outsmart them. She was wrong. Then she died.’

  ‘Why was she there?’

  ‘Fuck off and leave me alone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ she screamed.

  She jammed her ears up with her hands and turned away from me and curled into a ball. Then she cried. I waited a while, then I got up and went looking for some booze. I found some vodka and poured it neat. When I took it back, she was still curled into a ball, but now she’d calmed down. I handed her the drink. She took it. I sat down. I said, ‘I killed Frank Marriot. I’m going to kill Kenny Paget. I’m going to kill them all. Understand?’

  Like a child, she nodded, sipping her drink, looking up at me with wide eyes, torn red from sobbing. It was like I was telling her she had to be careful of strangers.

  ‘Why was Brenda there?’

  ‘Bloke wanted it, I suppose. Frank gave them what they wanted. They paid and Frank gave it to them.’

  ‘And the filming?’

  ‘Frank. Liked to have secret films.’

  ‘Blackmail?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘And Brenda thought if she got a copy of the film she’d give it as evidence to finish Marriot and Paget?’

  ‘Yeah. She thought. She was a brave woman, Brenda. Braver than me.’

  ‘It was in your house. You must have known what Brenda wanted to do. You must have helped her.’

  ‘I warned her. That was my help. I told her not to do it. She wouldn’t listen. She thought she was safe.’

  ‘Because she’d have the film?’

  ‘No. Because of some bloke she was going out with, some hard man she thought would protect her.’

  She tilted her head sideways and narrowed her eyes, like she was examining something odd.

  I think I’d known it for a while. It was something Bowker had said to me. He’d said everyone had known about me and Brenda. He’d said it like it was an in-joke; like beauty and the beast, I suppose. He was right. It was a joke.

  I sat down and reached over for the coffee and lifted it to my mouth. The coffee was bitter. It tasted like ashes. I drank it down. I felt that hollowness open up.

  Maybe I’d known it all along, right from that moment in the casino, six years ago, when I’d been working security and she’d come up to me at the bar and started talking to me. I remembered that Paget had been in the casino that night.

  I tried to think back over those days and weeks we were together, all those years ago. I’d thought then that she was what she’d said she was, a lonely person who needed someone, someone else who was lonely, someone like me.

  But she’d known who I was, what I did. I suppose she’d known everything about me. I suppose I was the part she needed before she could carry out her plan. And, yes, she’d made sure we were seen together. I thought of the night in the pub when she’d smashed Paget on the head with the glass. Had we been there by accident? Or had she known Paget was going to be there too? How much had she used me?

  What did it matter? What did anything matter?

  Tina moved. I’d forgotten she was there. I looked up and saw her staring at me.

  ‘It was you,’ she said. ‘You were the one she hooked up with, the one she thought would protect her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You and me. Her saviours.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I drove in a daze. I might have passed a hundred other cars. I can’t remember. I remember staring ahead, the night closing in around the car’s headlights.

  When my phone rang, I had to pull over.

  Green said, ‘Bingo. Ever heard of a bloke called Laing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Gary Laing; not big time, but big enough. Bought a load of smack a few days ago.’

  ‘From Paget?’

  ‘No idea, mate. If I were a betting man, I’d say so, yes.’

  ‘Where can I find Laing?’

  ‘He’s got a house in Hackney, but I wouldn’t go there if I were you.’

  ‘Tight?’

  ‘As a fucking duck’s arse.’

  ‘Will he talk to me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t chance it. He’d probably shop you to Paget, or cut your head off and give it to him. He’s a bastard, Joe.’

  ‘They all are.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How do I get to him?’

  ‘Can’t help you there, old son.’

  ‘Has he got anyone? A bird? Anything like that?’

  ‘He’s got a hundred birds. And I doubt he gives a shit about any of them.’

  ‘Family?’

  Green was quiet for a while.

  ‘You sure you want to go there, Joe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you use his family, he won’t rest till you’re dead.’

  ‘He can join the queue.’

  ‘If any of this gets back to me—’

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘Christ.’

  There was another long pause.

  I said, ‘It won’t get back to you.’

  ‘Use his old man. He’s got a dodgy ticker, though, so for fuck’s sake don’t overdo it.’

  Green told me that Laing’s dad lived in Wanstead, in a place called Ross Grove. It was a retirement court of a hundred or so brick flats set off from George Lane, a wide, long suburban cul-de-sac. Before I did anything, I’d driven over and scoped the place out. It was going to be too hard to do anything in the small space around the flats. There were too many overlooking windows, too little space, not enough cover. I’d seen a sign, though, for a Manager’s Office, and that helped me. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t need to use Laing’s old man at all.

  I drove back to the road. Access to the retirement flats was through a wide brick gateway. The wrought iron gates were open and probably never sh
ut. At this point, the trees that lined the road made for good cover from witnesses, but the road itself was wide and straight and almost empty of parked cars, most of which were in the garages and long driveways of the detached houses spaced along the road. I didn’t think I was going to be able to ram Laing’s car as he drove up, like I wanted to do – there was too much chance he’d see it and even if he didn’t, he could still manage to get away. I’d hoped I could smash the car side-on or maybe box it in. That was out. I had to think of something else.

  Green had told me Laing drove a blue Lexus and he’d given me the number plate. I had his home phone number. I positioned myself and made the call. The voice that answered was foggy with sleep. I said, ‘Can I speak to Mr Laing?’

  ‘Fuck is this? You know what time it is?’

  ‘I’m the manager from Ross Court.’

  Immediately he was awake.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s your father, Mr Laing. He’s been taken ill.’

  ‘What does that mean? Taken ill? Is he alright?’

  ‘He felt faint, dizzy. He wants to see you.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Here, in his flat.’

  ‘He should be in a fucking hospital.’

  ‘The doctor doesn’t think it necessary, but he is concerned that he’s going to make himself worse by worry about seeing you.’

  Laing sighed.

  ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  He hung up.

  This was where my luck would show. If Laing decided to call the manager back or if he wanted to talk to his old man, I was fucked. If he got straight into his motor and drove over, I was alright.

  Street lights glowed orange along the road, but there were pools of darkness between them, and the areas around the gate, where tall oaks stood, were dark with shadow. I fixed the gate then parked my car a few yards up. I got out of the car, walked back to the shadows and slipped into them, among the trees. There was only one way he could approach. I had to wait now and see if he was sending an army to meet me.

  I pulled my coat tight, put my hands in my pockets, my right gripping the Makarov. The night was clear and a weak wind moved the coldness slowly into my limbs. I buried my face in the collar of the coat.

  The branches moved and cracked. I thought of the girl, Kid, her body so thin, now nothing but ashes somewhere. She’d been used by Paget, trampled by him. But it had been me, probably, who’d killed her. I’d been firing blind and those walls were thin. I’d saved her and killed her at the same moment.

  I tried to blank my mind, but the image of her kept coming to me out of the gloom. I saw her staring up at me, her eyes wide, her stick-thin body hunched against pain and fear.

  Where I stood, in that darkness, I was only a couple of miles from the cemetery where we’d burned the girl. Were her ashes about me now? Were they on the wind or on the ground where I stood or in the rattling branches? And Brenda? Where was she now? What had her life come to? And that boy, that Argentinean conscript who’d never had a choice, whose life had taken him to me and the rounds I’d fired on that foggy damp hill all those years ago? What had become of him? I saw his face again, there in front of me, frozen into a vile smile, as if he could see it all as a lousy joke, and see me, too, as part of the same joke. Did people think of him still, see his face, as I saw it?

  I swayed and felt myself falling. I staggered into branches. I caught myself and shook my head. I was sweating, despite the freezing cold air. I shivered. My head was empty and light and, for a moment, I didn’t know where I was or why I was there. All I saw was darkness. I felt the Makarov in my grip. It was solid and heavy and real. It was good. The feel of it brought me back. I remembered where I was.

  Then I heard a car’s deep engine slow and I knew it was Laing turning into the road. I flexed my gun hand and felt anger surge through my blood. Murder was on my mind.

  I watched the car’s headlamps throw light onto the road. Then the car was slowing down again and I heard the tyres grind grit as it passed me and made to turn into the entrance for Ross Court. It was the blue Lexus, just like Green had said. It braked sharply. There was one man in the front, none in the back. Laing had come alone, then, and now he was staring at the gates and wondering why they were shut. That was when he could have realized something was wrong, but I was hoping he’d never been here this late at night and that he didn’t think there was anything strange about the gates being closed. I heard the handbrake go on. He opened the door and got out and went over to the gates. I moved. He turned when he heard my feet crunch the dead leaves. I saw it in his face. He knew he was fucked. There was desperation in the way he grappled in his jacket for a weapon. I brought the Makarov down on the side of his head. He grunted and fell to his knees, his hands flat on the ground. When he tried to get up, I smacked him again at the base of his skull and he hit the floor face first. I checked him for weapons and found a lock knife with a three-inch blade. I removed his trainers, took out the laces and used them to tie his wrists together behind his back. Then I grabbed the back of his jacket and hoisted him up and carried him to my car. I stuffed him into the boot and drove off.

  We were a couple of miles away, in the park, near the Eagle Pond. I’d stashed the car in the middle of a group of trees. I took a recce, found no sign of anyone. I unlocked the boot and let it glide open. Laing was conscious, curled up as much as he could be. He stared out at me with eyes wide, part angry, part scared. I told him to get out. He struggled onto his knees, using his shoulders to lever himself, and then climbed out slowly, looking at me all the time.

  He was a small man, no more than five and a half feet and slim, but he was wiry, his muscles ropey and tight. On his left wrist he wore a Rolex watch. On his right a thick gold bracelet. He had a deep suntan. He had money alright, and he looked like he’d gotten used to the easy life. I wanted to rip that tan from his body.

  I smacked him, a short jab to the mouth. My fist was half the size of his head. His lip split and he staggered backwards, doubling over and dribbling blood. When he straightened up he backed further away from me so that he was almost back in the boot of the car.

  ‘I haven’t got much money. Take it.’

  ‘Where’s Paget?’

  ‘What? Who the fuck’s Paget?’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. I don’t know anyone called Paget. You’ve got the wrong fucking man. My dad’s ill. I was on my way to see him. That’s all.’

  He could see what was coming. He pulled at the binds around his wrists. He looked for a way out. I gave him a quick combination to the body. His legs buckled and he swayed and fell, doubling up and vomiting. I waited. When he’d finished retching, he fell over onto his side, took deep breaths. I hoisted him back to his feet and gave him some more body shots, finishing off with his kidney.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  I slammed my fist into the side of his face. He flew sideways and hit the ground four feet away. His face was in mud and he didn’t move. I thought I might have hit him too hard. I didn’t much care.

  I realized I hadn’t found a mobile phone on him. I should’ve checked his car. I wasn’t thinking right. I was being stupid, making mistakes. If I didn’t calm down I’d go too far and fuck myself up. I wanted Paget. I had to remember that.

  After a few minutes, Laing came round and tried to get to his knees. I waited. He gave up and stayed where he was.

  ‘I don’t know what you want,’ he said into the mud.

  ‘Where’s Paget?’

  I walked over to him. He tried to crawl away but with his hands tied behind him, he had no leverage and as he rose he fell again. I lifted him up and held him under his shoulders so that his feet dangled above the ground. He was limp, his head rolling backwards and forwards. I set him on his feet but held him up with my left.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong man.’

  ‘Where’s Paget?’
/>   ‘Paget who?’

  ‘Kenny Paget. You bought some heroin from him.’

  There was a flicker in his eyes. He knew something. I brought my right back.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Honestly, I swear, I never heard of him, I don’t know what this is about. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know anything.’

  I lowered my hand. Maybe Green had wrong info. Or maybe Paget had got someone else to sell the drugs for him. One thing, though; Laing wasn’t denying that he’d bought the junk.

  I let go and he crumpled to the ground and stayed down there.

  ‘You bought some heroin a couple days ago. A lot of it.’

  He lifted himself up onto his knees. He stood slowly.

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Paget. There’s been some mistake here. I was going to see my dad, that’s all. He’s – fuck. He’s not ill, is he? That was you on the blower.’ He spat blood. ‘That was stupid of me. I exposed myself.’

  He used his shoulder to wipe away some of the blood from his mouth.

  He was tough, and he was successful in a dangerous trade, which meant he was smart enough to know that he wouldn’t be in business long if he grassed his suppliers every time he got slapped. He could go on telling me he didn’t know Paget and I could go on beating him until he stopped saying anything. Maybe he’d eventually spill it all, but I didn’t have time to make sure he was telling me the truth; I wouldn’t get a second chance to question him. I’d have to try something else.

  I took the lock knife from my pocket. I flicked open the blade. He watched it.

  ‘You think that’s going to make me know who Paget is? You start slicing me up and I’ll just give you a load of bollocks.’

  I grabbed him and spun him round and cut the laces that bound his arms. He turned slowly, rubbing his wrists. He was looking up at me, no anger or fear in his face, just a kind of bafflement. He ran his tongue round the inside of his mouth.

  ‘I think I swallowed a tooth.’

  ‘Buy another one.’

  ‘You’re not the police. You’re not trying to rob me. You don’t work for my rivals. Who do you work for?’

  ‘Myself.’

  ‘Oh? You’re pretty good. Not many people can control violence like that. You were a fighter, right? Boxer? I could give you a job. More money than you earn now.’