To Kill For Page 5

  ‘Just a couple,’ Tina mumbled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just wanted to… put it… put it behind me.’

  After that, she was quiet.

  ‘She’s talking about the pills,’ the short woman said.

  ‘We’d better call an ambulance,’ Apron said.

  That was the last thing I wanted.

  ‘No. It’s only diazepam, it won’t kill her.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They were quiet for a moment, but then the short one stood and made for the phone. I had to stop her. When I did that, Apron rushed over and started to shake Tina, yelling at her to wake up. The walls of these places were paper-thin and if I wasn’t careful, I’d have neighbours banging on the door. I wondered when the police were going to arrive. I’d have to shoot out the back and hop over the rear wall. At the back was a concreted area and a row of garages. I’d left my car there.

  ‘I know someone,’ I said. ‘A doctor. I’ll call him. Okay?’

  That stopped them for a moment. They looked at each other.

  ‘He’s legit,’ I said. ‘A GP.’

  They agreed. I phoned Browne. He took a long time to answer. When he did, he muttered something unintelligible. He sounded drunk. I told him about the woman. That seemed to sober him up.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t do that. There’d be a report. I don’t want the law involved.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what you want. Call for a bloody ambulance.’

  ‘Tell me what to do for her, or I hang up.’

  He was quiet for a while. He didn’t know where I was phoning from, so he couldn’t call anyone himself.

  ‘I’ll come over,’ he said.

  I didn’t trust him not to dial emergency, so I told him to take the tube to Debden and then to call me. I’d direct him on the phone from there. In the meantime, he told me to give her black coffee, strong and sweet. I put the women on this. They were happy to be doing something.

  I poked around the house some. I got looks now and then, but nobody tried to stop me. In a drawer, I found bills and letters addressed to Christina Murray. I found no mention of a man.

  ‘Where’s her husband?’ I asked Apron.

  ‘She’s not married.’

  I titled my head at the framed photo on the TV. Apron shrugged.

  ‘Divorced.’

  We spent a while pouring coffee down the woman’s throat and then I hauled her into the bathroom and got her to vomit, then we fed her more coffee. I tried to get the swelling down around her eye. I didn’t want the other women to get the idea that an ambulance was needed. She didn’t seem badly hurt.

  Browne called and I told him how to get to the house. When he arrived he looked bleary and hungover. I carried the woman into the bedroom. He pushed me out and shut the door. After a half hour, he came out and glared at me.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I suppose not. Did you do that to her? Beat her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You know what happened?’

  ‘Cole happened. He wanted information from her. He set his men loose.’

  He looked at his hands, and rubbed them, like he was washing them.

  ‘They sexually molested her, you know.’

  ‘Uh-huh. She’ll be alright?’

  ‘Define “alright”.’

  ‘Will she talk?’

  He glared at me again, like it was my fault the world was fucked up. He fished around in his case and brought out a syringe and a bottle of something and went back into the bedroom.

  After another hour or so, she was in a reasonable state. There’d been no law, and I thought I knew why, but I needed to make sure.

  She was drinking the coffee by herself now, holding it in both hands. The other women were suspicious of me, but they could see that I wasn’t a threat. They’d relaxed since Browne had shown up and I think they must have realized I had something to do with Paget. They probably had an idea what he was. They didn’t want aggro. They were smart.

  Browne had taken himself into the kitchen and was making coffee for himself. He was a moral doctor, didn’t want to treat anyone when he was pissed.

  When I thought the woman was up to answering me, I said, ‘When did you call the police?’

  She looked at her friends.

  ‘I… I didn’t.’

  ‘Why?’ Apron said.

  The short one, I noticed, hadn’t said anything, hadn’t been surprised.

  ‘Didn’t want them involved.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to call them right now,’ said Apron.

  ‘No,’ Tina said. ‘Don’t. It’s okay. I’m alright.’

  The short one put a hand on Apron and gave her a meaningful look. Apron got the message. There wasn’t much more the women could do. It was early morning and they looked tired.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said to them. ‘I’m sorry.’

  They went home soon after that. They were glad, in the end, to get out of there. Friendship will only stretch so far. People are usually the same; they start off showing how much they care because they know it makes them look kind and decent. After that, they get impatient and start thinking about their own problems and, finally, they don’t give a shit about their beaten, drugged-up friend, they just want to get home to bed. Nobody gives a shit, when it comes down to it. Except, maybe, people like Browne. And Brenda. And look what happened to them.

  Browne was asleep. I could hear him snoring. He must’ve had a skinful last night and now it had caught up with him. He’d popped a couple of pills from his bag and was crashed out on the woman’s bed.

  ‘She won’t need her bed anyway,’ he’d said. ‘She has to stay awake for a while.’

  I sat and drank a mug of tea and watched the woman as she gradually came back to life. She sat opposite me, curled up on the sofa, one hand holding the coffee, the other hand on her lap. She watched me calmly and didn’t say anything. She didn’t know who I was or what I wanted, but she took it all in her stride. She didn’t seem to care.

  She didn’t look too bad, now that she was more alive. She looked pale and worn-out, fragile, I suppose they call it, but there was something there, some depth. Her eyes, I saw, were a pale blue. She was younger than I’d first thought, maybe late thirties.

  ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ I said.

  She nodded.

  ‘I know Kenny’s mixed up in something,’ she said. ‘I know he worked for that man who was killed, what was his name?’

  ‘Marriot.’

  ‘Yeah. Marriot. Frank Marriot.’

  The hand in her lap started pulling at the dressing gown, turning it around, twisting it. She looked at the photos of the children. Her eyes flickered, flashing with some emotion I couldn’t read. Anger, maybe.

  ‘He won’t come back,’ she said quietly.

  Her hand was still twisting that nightgown. I didn’t think she knew what she was doing. I realized then that it was fear I saw in her. But it wasn’t fear of me or Cole or the police. She feared Paget.

  ‘What are you going to do to him?’ she said.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  She looked back at me, and drank her coffee, eyeing me over the rim of the mug. When she’d finished drinking, she leaned forward and put the coffee on the floor. Her actions were slow and deliberate. She looked like a drunk who was trying to appear sober. She leaned back in the sofa. She pulled the dressing gown tightly about her, and wrapped her arms around her, as if she’d felt a cold chill. She gazed down, at the floor, and her eyelids dropped a little. I thought she was falling asleep, but then she spoke.

  ‘They kept asking me, again and again, where is he? I kept telling them, I don’t know. For a while, every time I said that, they hit me. Then they started… doing other stuff. There was this small blond one, he kept smiling every time I told them I didn’t know where Kenny was. I don’t think he wanted to kno
w. I think he wanted to keep on… well, you know.’

  That sounded like Carl.

  ‘Who were they?’ she said softly.

  ‘They were dogs, belonged to a man called Bobby Cole.’

  She nodded slightly. She knew the name.

  ‘What’s it all about?’

  ‘Paget tried to fix Cole up for a fall, tried to take over his firm, him and Marriot. He’s still got a load of Cole’s heroin.’

  She took it well. She was taking it all well. I had to give her that. She said, ‘I knew when I saw him it must be bad. I haven’t seen him in five, six years. I thought I was free of him. Then he turns up one night, a couple of weeks ago. Him and this bloke. Mike.’

  ‘Mike?’

  ‘Some old friend of Kenny’s.’

  I thought about the second man in the car at Lee Valley, the one who’d run from my sights.

  ‘What’s Mike’s surname?’

  ‘Glazer.’

  ‘You know where he lives?’

  She shook her head, her lips tightening in a frown.

  ‘And I don’t want to know. About either of them. I made a mistake years back, with Kenny. I was young and stupid. He was flash, throwing the cash about. I always knew he wasn’t legit, but I never thought he was so… so vile, you know? I think I didn’t want to know. I thought I was going to live in a mansion. Look at me.’

  ‘You don’t know where Paget is?’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  Paget was going to be hard to find, but I might have more luck if I went after this Glazer. If, that was, Glazer was the second man.

  ‘You got a photo of Glazer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s average height, stocky, shaved head?’

  ‘He’s fat and bald, yes.’

  So, I had him. The other man. Paget’s accomplice. I looked at the pictures of the kids on the wall. If Paget had family, he might be vulnerable.

  ‘These kids, are they yours and Paget’s?’

  ‘No.’ She snapped the word at me, using it like a weapon, and her eyes sparked anger. She’d come alive for a moment, then the fury seeped away. ‘No, they’re not his. I met someone else. He had a couple of grown-up children. He… he’s gone .’ She tilted her head at the photos. ‘They’re the closest I’ve got to a family, and they’re not even mine. They never visit. They just send photos. Every time one of them has a new kid, they send a photo.’

  ‘Got any ideas where I could find him? Glazer?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about his life. He only came here because he was with Kenny. Kenny only came here because he wanted somewhere to stay for a while.’

  ‘Have you got anything of theirs? Any old address books? Photos? Letters? Anything like that.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing of theirs. Nothing.’

  ‘There was another man, with Glazer. Young, black.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Saw him once or twice. Don’t know him. Eric, something. Or Derek, yeah, Derek. Friend of Mike’s. They never talked about things in front of me. They were hardly ever here.’

  ‘Where’d they go?’

  ‘Oh, shit. I don’t know.’

  She sighed and her head lolled backwards and rested on the cushions behind her.

  ‘Ah, Christ,’ she said. ‘What a mess.’

  She stared up at the ceiling, searching it for something, trying to see where everything had gone wrong. We listened to Browne snore. I felt tired, my head was fuzzy. I wanted to find a dark room and lie down. I wanted to stop.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said to the ceiling.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For what you did.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  She didn’t hear me. She wasn’t listening.

  ‘Must’ve been shock or something,’ she said. ‘Didn’t mean to take so many pills.’

  It was as good an excuse as any.

  ‘Where do you think Paget went?’

  ‘I don’t know. And I don’t care.’

  ‘Give me something,’ I said. ‘Anything.’

  She looked back at me, and there was new fear in her face, like she’d just woken and was seeing me for the first time, seeing this hulking danger, lurking, waiting to strike. She pulled back, curling her legs further underneath, holding her arms more tightly about her.

  ‘You’re one of his men,’ she said. ‘You’re one of his fucking men.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re one of Mike’s fucking men.’

  ‘Mike’s men? What does that mean?’

  ‘You are. You’re one of them.’

  She pushed away from me, scrambling backwards on the sofa, trying to get as far from me as she could, pushing herself back with her legs and arms. She was like a cat with its heckles up, claws out.

  ‘What does Glazer do?’

  ‘You’re Cole’s, then. This is a trick. What do you want? Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a man who wants to find your ex-boyfriend.’

  ‘Why? Who are you? Are you going to help him? Are you one of them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re after the drugs, then.’

  ‘You’ve seen the drugs?’

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what you fucking want.’

  ‘I don’t want anything from him.’

  ‘What do you want, then? What do you want? What the fuck do you want?’

  ‘I want to kill him.’

  She stared at me, her mouth open, her face white, her eyes wide. She was panting, and her hand was twisting the life out of her dressing gown.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Kill him. Kill him.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Browne said, ‘It’s to do with this man, Paget, isn’t it? All this.’

  The sky had lightened some, but not enough to give any depth to the buildings. We sat there, in the car, not saying anything, whirring down the road with grey above and grey around and grey between us.

  There was something wrong with the woman. I thought it must have been delayed shock, or trauma or something like that, but I’d seen enough of that before and her reaction didn’t fit, she was too violent too quickly. If Browne hadn’t been there, I could’ve squeezed her more. Browne would go so far for me, for old times and because he thought he owed me, but the moment I touched the woman, he would’ve been on the phone grassing me up to anyone who’d listen.

  It didn’t matter. What I needed to know right then was about this Glazer character, and that information I could get from someone else: Derek.

  So, I’d drop Browne off back at his place then make a few calls to local hospitals. That was the plan, anyway. It wasn’t much of a plan. For one thing, I didn’t have a surname for this Derek. For another, if I turned up at a hospital and asked about a man with a gunshot wound, they’d call the law.

  I switched on the radio and listened to the eight o’clock news. They mentioned a stabbing in Hackney and a drugs bust in Bermondsey. There was no mention of a shooting in Ponders End, nothing about a man being shot. That could mean Derek ran out of blood and was lying face down in Epping Forest. Or it could mean that it was too early for the report. I wondered if anybody had yet discovered the car. If it was still there, I might find something about Glazer or Derek inside it.

  I pulled over. Browne looked out.

  ‘What is this godforsaken place?’

  ‘Chingford.’

  ‘And?’

  I fished twenty from my pocket and handed it to him.

  ‘Get a cab.’

  He sat there for a moment.

  ‘Did you see her arms?’ he said.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Scars. Old puncture scars.’

  ‘She was a user?’

  ‘Once. What are you going to do?’

  ‘You know what I’m going to do.’

  ‘You’re going to kill them. You’re going to find Paget and anyone else who gets in your way or had anything to do with Brenda’s death and you’re going kill them all.’
>
  ‘If you know, why’re you asking?’

  ‘I said once you’d been beaten by life. Remember?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I was wrong,’ he said. ‘I mean, that wasn’t right, not exactly. You haven’t been beaten by it, Joe. You’ve been gutted by it. There’s nothing left inside of you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘That woman back there. I don’t know who she is. I don’t want to know, but she was… Damn it, I don’t understand this world any more.’

  If he’d only just discovered that the world was a stinking pit of snakes, each turning on the others, there wasn’t much I could do for him.

  I said, ‘Are you telling me you don’t want to be involved?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake. No, I’m not saying that. Cole went to Kid’s funeral. Then he does something like that to that woman. All you people, I just don’t understand it. I just…’

  He sighed. He didn’t seem to know what he was trying to say. He didn’t understand that there was nothing to understand.

  He ran a hand wearily over his head, over the thinning grey hair, over the years of wasted effort and forgotten ideals. He wanted something; order or hope or just a reason, and I couldn’t give it to him.

  ‘I know the bloke who did it,’ I said. ‘If I get the chance, I’ll fix him.’

  Browne looked at me, gazing right into my eyes. I had the feeling he was trying to find something there, trying to find an answer, maybe. Finally, he turned and opened the car door and got out and walked away.

  I pulled out and turned into Kings Head Hill. When I hit the top of the hill, North London lay before me, like a slug beneath a sluggish sky. The reservoirs were the colour of dishwater. Beyond them was Ponders End.

  The traffic was getting heavy and it was another twenty minutes before I got to the site where, only a few hours earlier, I’d put 7.62 mil rounds into Glazer’s car. By now there would’ve been people who would have seen the car. If I was lucky they wouldn’t have paid any attention. The car would’ve looked just like a joy-rider’s wreck. There were plenty of those around. It was possible, though, that someone had seen the bullet holes and called the police.

  I pulled into the car park and cruised slowly, ready to turn and leave quickly. There was no law. There was no car. I found broken glass and, further along, dried blood on the concrete. But the car was gone.