To Fight For Read online

  He started walking up the road before he remembered me. Then he stopped and turned.

  ‘I ain’t eaten yet. Fancy some grub? There’s a curry house nearby.’

  So we went up the street, towards the Roman Square market.

  We passed a lot of boarded-up shops, pawn-brokers, pound shops. Teenagers were hanging around here and there, eyeing us up.

  ‘Not much work for ’em,’ Green said. ‘There was up till 2012 and for a bit after. The Olympic stadium’s near here. Everyone thought it was the start of a whatsit, rejuvenation. Now, though …’ He shrugged. ‘Fine for some, but for the rest of us … The money’s gone and all them government tossers and big businesses are back to not giving a shit.’

  He took me to a small Indian place. There was a sign outside, dirty black writing on a dirty yellow background. ‘The Moghul’, the sign read.

  ‘They do buffets, all you can eat for a tenner. You got some money on you?’

  We went in. I wasn’t hungry going in. Then the smell hit me and I was starving. We got a couple of plates and piled food a foot high: samosas, tikka, koftas, balti, rice, nan bread. The works.

  ‘They even got falafel.’

  We took the food to a table by the window and sat down. Outside, a woman in a burkha came by slowly. She carried a couple of bags of shopping and had to keep stopping to adjust them. Then she had to stop again and adjust her burkha. It seemed like she was fighting everything just to get home.

  When I turned back to Green, he was looking at his plate, his jaw tight. After a while, he looked at me.

  ‘Look, Joe,’ he said, ‘I told you I’m legit now, right? I mean, I can’t get involved in things like this. I got a family.’

  ‘I just need some information.’

  He sighed.

  ‘Just some information. Fuck me. People are dying all around you and all you want is some information that’ll probably put me top of the death list.’

  ‘I’ll keep your name out of it. I know you’re straight, but you still know people. And I need your help.’

  ‘You don’t want no one’s help, Joe. You never did.’

  As I looked at him, I could see the fear in his eyes.

  ‘You’re right; I move and people die. And, yes, it might put you in danger, although I’ll never tell anyone where I got the information. But these are people who use children and women, use them and kill them. You’ve got a family – what would you do to protect them?’

  He sucked in a breath and shook his head.

  ‘You cunt,’ he said, a small, twisted smile forming on his mouth. ‘You’re a dirty fighter, know that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So what do you want to talk about?’ he said, picking up his fork and shovelling some food into his gob.

  ‘Kenny Paget.’

  He stopped eating, the fork halfway to his mouth. He looked around. All the tables nearby were empty. The woman in the burkha was gone now.

  ‘You mean the man you killed?’ he said.

  ‘Is that what you’ve heard?’

  ‘That and more.’

  ‘What more?’

  ‘That he killed your bird.’

  He’d forgotten about his food now, his knife and fork resting on the plate. Then he remembered it and started eating again.

  ‘Yeah, well, good fucking riddance to him.’

  ‘There’s more,’ I said.

  He stopped again.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘She was grassing Paget and Marriot up to the law. Only, she got a bent copper called Glazer who grassed her right back. That’s why she died.’

  ‘Right. Sorry about that. This Glazer – you asked me about him before.’

  ‘Yeah. I need to find him.’

  He went back to eating, pulling a piece of nan bread apart and using it to scoop up some curry. He was taking his time about it all.

  ‘Wouldn’t know how to help you there, mate,’ he said around the food.

  ‘You can tell me where Paget lived.’

  He was wiping his hands on his shirt now, watching me as he chewed. I put a forkful of something in my mouth. It was hot. I drank some water while my eyes melted. Green smiled, for some reason.

  ‘Would that be any good to you? Paget’s address? Police woulda been there, might still be hanging around.’

  ‘Maybe, but maybe they don’t know about Paget. I think Dunham would’ve cleaned it up. So, maybe Paget’s place is just sitting there.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘Possible, I guess. Okay. I’ll see what I can do. How about Marriot?’

  ‘Marriot’s been dead weeks now.’

  ‘Yeah. He’s still dead, far as I know. In fact, you killed him, right? Anyone you haven’t killed recently?’

  I said, ‘He’s been dead for weeks and the law know about his death. So how would I get anything by going to his place? Everything important must’ve gone by now.’

  ‘Well, Joe,’ Green said, while that twisted smile split his face, ‘you could always talk to his wife.’

  Now it was my turn to stop eating.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Marriot. Had a wife. Son too, I think.’

  It had never occurred to me that someone like Marriot could be married, could have children. Did his wife know what the old man had done? Did she care? Or did she just spend his money?

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘get me her address.’

  EIGHT

  I tried Paget’s place first. It was one of those modern apartment blocks, over in Muswell Hill. It had two entrances; one at the front with a keypad security system, the other a fire escape or delivery door at the back, by the car park. The front one was out. I could try to tailgate a person going in, or wait until someone came out and jump through the door before it closed. But both those would mean somebody would see me. I looked too dodgy to allow myself to get noticed. Besides, it was an expensive-looking place so it probably had CCTV cameras in the lobby.

  The door at the back was solid wood with a single handle, which had a lock in the middle of it. I wondered if that meant the building had a caretaker of some sort, someone who had a key in case of deliveries.

  It was a hazy day, with the sun weak in the weak sky, and still cold enough for people to wear scarves and gloves.

  I saw a cafe over the other side of the road. I went there and took a seat at a table by the window. From there I had a distant view of the back of the apartment block. All I had to do was wait and see who went in and out, and then figure a way to get access. Easy.

  I ordered a coffee from the girl who came up to my table.

  ‘What kind of coffee?’ she said.

  ‘White.’

  ‘What kind of coffee?’ she said again, looking at me like I was an idiot. I couldn’t think of any type of coffee except coffee.

  ‘Tea,’ I said.

  ‘What kind of tea?’

  I finally got my fucking tea. I sat and drank it. I was able to do that, at least. I looked out the window and watched the world creep by.

  A woman in her fifties walked along with a toddler by her side. The woman had hair that looked like it’d been coated in wallpaper paste. It didn’t move. The kid was stuffing a chocolate bar in its mouth. Every now and then the woman would wipe the kid’s mouth with a tissue.

  An old bloke crossed the street, hobbling on a stick. The cars slowed for him, but didn’t slow that much and he had to get over as quick as he could.

  An hour passed. I drank more tea then went and pissed it out. There was something in that which made me think of my life, but I couldn’t tell you what it was.

  The sky turned hazier, the sun got weaker still so that it became like a negative black space; a white hole in a white sky. I watched people go by. Nobody that I saw talked. Nobody did anything much except wander along as if they were all ghosts trapped in the afterlife, and I was stuck in some place between worlds, not knowing what was real, alive, and what was dead.

  The old bloke with the stick came back, crossing the road w
ith a look of anxiety in his face. A bag of shopping dangled from each hand, so that one bag kept bashing into his walking stick, making him even slower. A van slowed to a stop to let him crawl across.

  For a moment I thought I smelled Brenda, felt her next to me, and I turned. There was nothing there except a wooden chair. Emptiness swept through me, and I felt as if I was being sucked into that world of the dead, shone upon by that white hole which was emptier than anything should ever be.

  Movement caught my eye and I turned to look at the apartment block. The back door opened and a man came out. I shook my head, trying to clear it of the madness. I had things to do, I told myself. I had things to do, then I could rest.

  The bloke was dressed in black trousers and white shirt. He was too far for me to see him clearly, but he sure wasn’t a caretaker. He could’ve been a resident. I watched him go to a black Ford, open it and lean into the front. He stood up, put something in his pocket, closed the car up and locked it with the remote on his key. He went back into the building, using a key to open the back door.

  I waited again. Nothing happened except I got more tired, more fuzzy-headed. If I waited any longer, I’d forget what I was waiting for.

  I wandered over to the apartment block. I passed the bloke’s Ford and gave it a good boot. The car alarm screeched. I stood next to the door and waited. People would probably be looking at me, but I just didn’t care by then.

  After a minute, the door opened. I shoved my way through, slamming into the bloke. He bounced back.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said.

  He was dazed. I snapped a quick right cross onto his jaw and he went down, dropping his car key. I picked it up, turned off his car alarm and let the door close behind me.

  We were in a stairwell, the stairs going up to the top of the building and a door leading to the ground floor.

  The man was unconscious. I rolled him over onto his side and used his shoelaces to tie his wrists behind his back. Then I bound his ankles together with his belt. I tore his shirt off and tied that around his mouth.

  I climbed the stairs to the third floor and opened the fire door. This put me into a carpeted corridor. Paget’s place was number 3C.

  I moved down the hallway, my feet silent on the thick carpet. Paget’s flat was at the end. When I got there, I put my ear to the door and listened. There was no sound inside. I tried the handle. It was locked, of course. I didn’t have lock picks, and I was lousy with them anyway. I put my shoulder to the door and leaned. It wasn’t a heavy door, and I felt it start to give, but not enough. I took a step back, raised my foot and kicked the thing in.

  Then I waited for someone to shout at me, waited for an alarm to go off, anything like that. When none of that happened, I walked in.

  As soon as I entered, something felt wrong. I didn’t know what it was exactly, maybe something I’d noticed without realizing it. I shook the feeling off. My mind was wandering around so much, I didn’t know how much I could trust it.

  I trawled through the drawers and cupboards, looking for something that would link Paget with Glazer. Anything would do, a scribbled note, a diary with Glazer’s initials. There was nothing.

  There was a bookshelf against one wall, paperbacks lined up. I started to pull the books off and hold them open to see if anything fell out. Then I saw it. The bookshelf was dusty, but there was line in the dust just in front of the spines of the books. Someone had already pulled the books out – pushing the dust back – and had replaced them. It wasn’t much, and I might’ve missed it.

  I knew I wasn’t going to find anything here, others had beaten me to it. Dunham, I thought. Only he and Cole and me knew that Paget was dead. Well, that’s how it had been and I couldn’t think Cole or Dunham would’ve reported it to the law. Dunham must’ve disposed of Paget’s body.

  But then I realized that was wrong, and I knew what that feeling had been. The place had been done over, sure, searched from top to bottom. I’d expected that. The problem was that it had all been put back again, nice and neat. And that meant that whoever had done the searching was expecting someone to come here. Either someone had searched the place not knowing Paget was dead and expecting him to come back, or someone who knew Paget was dead had searched the place and was waiting for someone else to turn up.

  Either way I’d made a big mistake.

  Too late.

  I saw them as I turned, saw their grey suits, their grey faces, their grey eyes watching me coldly. I went for my gun, but I fumbled it and dropped it. I saw the blackjacks they held, the Taser. I said, ‘Fuck, not again.’

  NINE

  They hauled me up into a sitting position, one on each arm. I couldn’t see them and I tried to throw them off, but my arms were tight behind my back. I could feel the plastic ties binding my wrists together, cutting into my flesh. I pulled at them anyway, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.

  Then a man came before me. I looked up and cursed.

  He was in his fifties, dressed in a badly fitting suit and white shirt. There was a tie around his neck, but it was pulled down so far it didn’t serve any function. He wiped a hand over his grey moustache. His name was Compton and he was the fucking law.

  ‘Hello, Joe,’ Compton said. ‘We must stop meeting like this.’

  I told him to fuck off. He laughed.

  The other two moved over to stand either side of their boss. I knew them too. Bradley was tall, white and slim with thinning hair and puffy eyes. Hayward was the youngest. He was black, too good-looking for this life. If he’d taken the time to study the other two, he would’ve seen the haggard look he was bound for.

  ‘You’re getting sloppy, Joe,’ Compton said.

  Bradley laughed at that for some reason.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘You’re lucky.’

  I didn’t feel lucky.

  ‘Very,’ Hayward said.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘We coulda been anyone,’ Bradley said. ‘We coulda been part of Glazer’s crew, or Dunham’s. What do you think would’ve happened to you if that’d been the case?’

  I knew the answer to that.

  ‘They’d work you over, Joe. They’d make you hurt.’

  They were law, this lot, but they weren’t dangerous – annoying, yes, but not dangerous. They had a habit of turning up when I didn’t have any means of escape.

  They were investigating corruption in the force, and had been given the job of targeting vice corruption, especially Glazer. That put us on the same side – for the time being. Well, sort of. Of course, that didn’t mean I trusted them. They were still fucking law.

  Bradley pulled a pack of smokes from his jacket pocket and lit one. Hayward glanced at him and moved away. One thing was for damned sure; they were in control here, far too casual.

  I shook my head, trying to get it clear.

  ‘Punchy,’ Bradley said.

  Hayward laughed at that. They were having fun.

  ‘Do you lot do everything together?’ I said.

  ‘Only where you’re concerned, Joe,’ Compton said. ‘Well, you and Glazer.’

  ‘You were watching the block,’ I said.

  ‘Not exactly. We have friends in the local nick. Someone saw you enter the building. They called it in, and the locals called me.’

  I tried to stand again, made it up to a crouching position before Bradley put the boot in. I went sprawling backwards. I would’ve ripped his head off if I could’ve. Instead, I cursed myself.

  I pushed myself back into a sitting position then managed to put one foot down, the other leg bent so that it looked like I was being knighted. That wasn’t what I had in mind, though, and they knew it. They stepped back enough that if I’d tried to charge them they would’ve been able to move aside.

  ‘What’re you doing here, Joe?’ Compton said.

  I looked up at him.

  ‘I was just passing,’ I said. ‘I heard a cry for help so I came in.’

  Compton smiled.

  ‘There�
��s a bloke downstairs. We found him tied up and unconscious.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  He sighed and shook his head.

  ‘We know you want Glazer. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? Anyway, we know everything. A word from us and you’ll do thirty years. You know who we are, Joe. You know we’ve got clout.’

  ‘I’m guilty till proved guilty,’ I said. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s it in a nutshell, mate,’ Bradley said.

  ‘But you are guilty, Joe,’ Compton said. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  They were doing their tag-team thing, taking me for some mug who’d been caught shoplifting. I pulled at the binds.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere, son,’ Compton said.

  ‘Guilty of what?’

  ‘Oh, just about everything, I reckon. Murder, armed robbery, assault, obstruction of the law etc. etc. and so on ad infinitum.’

  ‘That means forever,’ Bradley said. ‘Like your prison term’s gonna be.’

  ‘You’ll have trouble proving it.’

  ‘Fuck proof. We make our own proof. You’ve been around. You know how it works.’

  I knew. If they’d wanted to arrest me, they’d have done it already. Which meant they wanted something. I said to Compton, ‘This place has been searched. Was it you lot?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What were you looking for?’

  ‘Same as you, I expect; anything that’ll lead us to Glazer. Anything that’ll help convict him. Anything that’ll help us find him.’

  ‘You don’t know where he is?’

  They glanced at each other.

  ‘He’s fucked off,’ Bradley said. ‘Gone to ground. And that’s your fucking fault.’

  ‘Officially, he’s on leave,’ Compton said. ‘No one’s seen him for a couple of weeks. He’s supposed to be back in a few days. I don’t think he will be. He hasn’t been to his home, nobody’s heard from him. We could do with your help there.’

  Now it was Hayward’s turn. He said, ‘Come on, Joe. We all want the same thing. In different ways, maybe, but the same result: Glazer has to pay.’

  He was putting a lot of emotion into his voice.

  ‘You know about Operation Elena; the whole point of that was to target the immigrant sex industry, to help women, children. That’s what you want too, isn’t it? To help the victims.’