To Die For (18 page)

After a few seconds, or a few hours, I realized I was lying down. I was back on the mattress. I didn’t know how I’d got there. The room was black. There was a weight on my chest. I wanted to sit up, but something was pushing me down. My left side was numb.

I lay still for a while, drifting in and out of sleep. Thoughts came to me, tangled with dreams, and were gone before I could make them out. But always, far off, was a feeling of doom, like I was heading for some black hole lying in the black night. It was like it had been all those years ago, walking through the fog, knowing that somewhere ahead of me, maybe only a few yards, soldiers were waiting to cut me in two with their automatic fire.

When I woke again, I knew what the weight was. I could hear her breathing. I tried to lift her off, but I didn’t have the strength. She was facing my right side, my good side, curled up, her knees to her chin, her head on my chest. She’d placed herself as far from my damaged arm as she could.

I could feel her heartbeat in my chest. Her hand held mine. She murmured something. I couldn’t hear what. She twitched. She was so light I could lift her up inches just by breathing in. She was thin. I could feel her bones digging into me.

I slept again and she became a part of the confusion, part of the knot of thoughts and fears, and even while I wasn’t aware of what moved through my mind, I knew she was danger.

When I next woke, it was daylight. I had the feeling I’d been in and out of consciousness for a couple of days. My arm was painful, but the pain had dulled a lot. I tried to flex my fingers. They moved, but not much. They felt swollen and awkward, and I couldn’t make a fist. Someone had pumped my hand full of hot water.

I remembered the girl sleeping on my chest. Or I thought I remembered it. I might have dreamed it.

I listened and heard nothing but the odd car rumble past. The house was quiet and had the feeling of emptiness. I stared up at the ceiling and let my head gradually clear.

A few hours later, I heard the front door open and close. Browne looked in on me as he passed the room.

‘This time you stay there,’ he said.

‘How long...?’

‘It’s Sunday. That means you’ve been out a couple of days, in case you can’t work it out.’

He carried on through to the kitchen. It took me a second to see the girl standing in the doorway. She had a strange way of looking at me, always with that amazed and scared stare. And there was something else, something that I didn’t understand. She left then and came back a minute later with a mug in her hands. She came over to me, held the mug out.

‘Tea,’ she said, as if she thought I’d never heard of tea before.

I heaved myself into an upright position and took the mug from her. My throat was dry and my mouth tasted like something dead had gone to live there and died all over again. I gulped the tea. It was sweet, tasted good. When I’d finished, the girl took the mug and held it with both hands, her wide eyes moving from my battered shoulder to my battered face. I thought she’d shrink from the sight of me. I thought she’d move away in fear. Most people did, one way or another. But she just stood there, holding the mug.

‘What do you want from me?’ I said.

‘Nothing.’

‘Everybody wants something.’

She looked down at the mug in her hands.

‘Why did you help me?’ I said.

That question had been sitting at the back of my mind since the night of the shooting. I didn’t know why that was. I didn’t know why I’d care.

She shook her head a bit. She looked up.

‘I’m sorry I shot you,’ she said, as if that explained everything. ‘I think that you will be okay.’

‘What were you doing there?’

She didn’t want to answer that. She didn’t seem to want to answer anything I asked. Normally, that would have been okay with me, but this was different. The police were after me for multiple murder; Cole was after me for a million hard cash that I didn’t have; Beckett and Walsh and Jenson and Simpson were dead; Kendall was dead; I was wanted by everyone and running out of money and, on top of all that, this scrawny child had put a hole in my shoulder that felt as if acid was eating its way through.

‘Where’d you get the gun?’

‘It was there.’

‘Where? In the wardrobe?’

‘On the bed.’

‘Beckett’s?’

‘I do not know Beckett.’

‘He was the man... he was the one called John.’

‘John. Yes.’

‘Was it his gun?’

‘I do not know, sir.’

‘Christ, stop calling me “sir”. Why did you take it? The gun.’

She wouldn’t look at me now. She gripped the mug tightly as if losing it would cost her everything.

‘I was scared,’ she said so quietly I could hardly hear her. ‘I thought... I thought you had...’

‘Had what?’

‘Had come to take me.’

When she looked up, I saw that she was crying. She ran from the room.

Browne passed her on his way in. He looked at me.

‘I told you to be careful with her.’

Christ.

‘I’m going to need a new car,’ I said. ‘Clothes. A few things.’

‘I don’t have a car. And I don’t think my clothes would fit you.’

‘In my bag, there’s money in an envelope.’

Browne’s eyes narrowed.

‘Money? Where’d you get money?’

‘Relax. Some of it’s mine. Some of it’s stuff that they planted on me. That money’s all in new notes. Don’t take that, it’s not clean. Take what you want from the used notes. All right?’

‘Not clean?’

‘The new money’s traceable. Use that and we’ll have the law on to us, and Cole. Get an automatic car. An old Ford or something. So long as it runs. I’ll give you the name of a couple of places where they’ll sort you out and won’t ask questions.’

‘Fine.’

‘And dump the car I’ve been using. Take it to a railway station, somewhere a long way off. Buy a long-stay ticket. Buy it from a machine, don’t leave prints on the coins you use. Watch out for CCTV; wear a hat, something with a wide brim – a baseball cap is good – keep your head low. Wipe the car down.’

‘That’s not going to help you, Joe. Your blood’s all over it.’

‘Never mind that. Take care of your prints. My blood’s all over everything anyway. And take the girl. Give her some money. Lose her.’

‘Okay, Joe.’

There was a noise behind him. She was standing in the doorway. She shook her head.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I want to stay here.’

‘It’s probably for the best, darling,’ Browne said. He reached out and took her by the hand. He bent down. ‘I can take you to my sister’s. She’s a nice lady. She has a cat. Wouldn’t you like that?’

‘No. Please.’

She drew her hand in.

‘Just take her,’ I said.

Browne reached for her hand again. She snatched it away from him.

‘No,’ she shouted.

She ran from the room. Browne stood upright and sighed. I heard the girl run up the stairs and slam the bedroom door.

‘Let her stay here for a while,’ Browne said.

‘It’s better she’s gone.’

‘What do you want me to do? Kidnap her?’

‘If you have to.’

He was quiet for a moment.

‘She’s safer off out of it,’ I said.

‘She is that,’ he said. ‘She is that.’ He ran his hand over his head. After a moment, he said, ‘I’ll get you something to eat. Then I’ll need to change that dressing. Then, you rest. I’ll get those things done.’

After I’d eaten and Browne had gone, I leaned back and wondered why the girl wanted to stay. And I wondered why I wanted her gone. I still needed her to tell me what happened.

The house was quiet. I watched the room get slowly darker. I slept for a few hours. When I woke, it was fully dark. I went out to the kitchen for something to drink. Browne was there, sitting at the table, listening to the radio. He had a near-full bottle of Scotch in front of him. He saw me looking at it.

‘Courtesy of you,’ he said, lifting a glass in salute. He was drunk again.

‘Did you get a car?’

‘It’s outside. An old Jaguar. How do you feel?’

‘Fine.’

‘I am, frankly, amazed at what punishment you can take,’ he said. He didn’t sound amazed. He sounded irritated that I was still alive. ‘You know, I once thought you’d been pounded too much in the ring. There was a night, remember, when you fought that Gypsy monster. What was his name? Lawrence?’

‘Yeah.’

Lawrence. Christ. The bloke wouldn’t go down and he had a right cross like a tank shell. I’d won, but I’d taken punishment.

‘I thought, that night, you were finished,’ Browne was saying. ‘And I mean finished. You were blabbering. Incoherent. You didn’t know where you were. I thought, “That’s it. His brain is mush.” But I was wrong. You could take anything in the ring. Anything.’

I waited. I didn’t think he was finished talking. He put the glass to his lips and poured some Scotch down his throat. Then he put the glass on the table and filled it again.

‘You’ve been battered by life, Joe. That’s your problem. You’ve been beaten, clubbed by it so long you’ve become insensible to it. You’re in the twelfth, wandering around on soft legs, not knowing where you are.’

‘All done?’ I said.

‘No. I’m not all bloody done.’

He brushed his hand lazily over his hair from front to back, assuring himself that it was still there.

‘Kid,’ he said, with his hand on his neck. ‘There’s something wrong with her. Not everyone is like you, you know. Not everyone is insensible. Some people get hurt by this bloody awful world.’

If he was trying to make a point, he was taking a long time doing it. He sat and stared into space for a few seconds. I waited. It was better to let him get it out of his system.

‘It’s not physical,’ he said. ‘I wish it were. But it’s not. She’s scared and she’s been hurt. More than you ever were. She shakes, you know. She wets her bed. She’s going to need help.’

He was right. The girl was fucked up.

Browne seemed to remember that his hand was still resting on the back of his neck. He pulled it away and used it to lift the glass of Scotch. Hands were useful for that sort of thing. He drank deeply. He got slushy like this when he got drunk. He usually got self-pitying too. I waited for him to list his failures, his regrets.

‘I think she should stay here for now,’ he said.

‘Why?’

He put the glass down wearily, as if his arm, the glass, everything had become too heavy to bear.

‘For some reason, she wants to be with you. Don’t ask me to explain it. It’s ironic, really. At least, I think it’s ironic. In some way. I don’t really know any more.’

The girl didn’t come near me for a couple of days. She’d be there, sure, looking in through the crack of the door or standing on the landing, her face hardly above the banister, her hands tight on the rail, staring down, watching Browne and me from a safe place, ready to bolt into her bedroom if either one of us tried to go near.

We left her alone. I was itching to speak to her, press her for answers, but I was getting to understand how she’d react. Browne was keeping an eye on me, too, just to make sure I didn’t frighten her.

We only really saw her when she came down for meals. Browne’s cooking was hopeless, but he tried to do his best.

‘I’m sorry it’s not very good,’ he said to her one lunchtime.

He’d given her macaroni cheese on toast. It was more macaroni than cheese, more toast than macaroni. The girl scraped the stuff off the toast and spooned some of it into her mouth. She chewed it for a while and swallowed and put her spoon down. Browne looked at her helplessly.

‘Is there anything you’d prefer?’ he said. ‘What do you like to eat? What did you eat at home?’

‘I like Egusi soup,’ she said.

‘Egusi soup?’ Browne said. ‘Egusi soup.’

So that was that. Browne went off to the library and got a book on African cooking. He spent half a day searching out the ingredients, trotting off to somewhere in west London, Notting Hill or Shepherd’s Bush or somewhere. He made the soup in the evening and dished it up to us. It was okay. The girl enjoyed it and Browne was happy with that.

After we’d eaten, the girl washed the dishes while Browne dried. She sang quietly and Browne started to hum along with her. He’d had a few by then. He started to jig about. The girl stopped and turned and looked at him. I looked at him. His face was red and shining. He jigged a bit more and slowed down and stopped.

‘Highland dancing,’ he said. ‘I used to be quite good.’ He looked at the girl, then at me. His face got redder. ‘Well, for God’s sake,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you ever danced? Didn’t you take that lady friend of yours dancing?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But I probably should’ve done.’

Browne spent the rest of the day jotting down recipes.

I had the radio tuned to a London station and listened to the news every hour. There was something about a gunfight in East London, police calling it a fight between rival East European gangs. They obviously didn’t know enough, but it sounded like one side could’ve been Albanian.

There wasn’t much on the news about the Dalston killings. The law was sticking to the idea that it was a drugs deal fuck-up. That was good. It helped that Walsh had his habit – they’d found a load of smack under the floorboards.

They’d found Kendall and his wife, too, but they’d put that down to a robbery and they hadn’t connected it to the murders in Dalston. Money and jewellery had been nicked from Kendall’s house and I guessed that Paget or his men had taken them when they’d gone there. There was nothing at all about the two I’d left in my flat – Dirkin and that boy. I didn’t know why that was.

The world turned on. I managed to keep breathing. But that didn’t stop Browne eyeing me up all the time, checking my pulse, sticking me with needles, that sort of thing. It kept him busy. One time he got the girl to help change my bandages.

My arm got better. My head got worse. I didn’t tell Browne.

We were sitting in the lounge, Browne and me, watching some programme on the box. It was supposed to be a comedy. It didn’t matter what it was, it was just something that stopped us having to talk to each other. I was still too fucked up to do anything except sit there and try not to hurt too much. Browne’s head bobbed and his eyes closed and opened.