To Die For (2 page)

I didn’t know Simpson, didn’t know what jobs he’d done, how he’d done them. I wondered.

Truth was, I didn’t know much about any of the others either. Jenson was a tall gangly man with white-blond hair and a constantly joking manner that quickly became annoying. Walsh was the smallest of the outfit, wiry, covered in tattoos. I hadn’t spoken to them much; there hadn’t been time. I’d only been told a few days before what I was supposed to do. Beckett and Walsh and Jenson worked as a crew and had done some decent jobs. They’d been together a few years. Kendall had told me they were tight. But they didn’t trust me, the outsider. That was fine. I was doing the job because Kendall had always been careful not to mix it with cowboys.

Simpson stopped his pacing and looked over at me.

‘Hey, what do you make of this?’ he said.

I was about to ask him what he was talking about when Beckett came back, with Warren in tow. Warren looked neat now, and calm. Simpson turned off the table lamp. The room filled with shadow. The three of them left the room. I heard the front door open and close. It was 1.45 a.m. Less than an hour had passed since the woman had phoned her husband.

I moved a seat over to the back wall and sat down. And waited. I had about five hours left.

At first, she stared at me, her eyes on mine, unflinching and fierce. She had bottle, this one. More than her husband. I sat there and looked back at her. She hated me with everything in her. I didn’t take it personally. I didn’t take it any way at all. After an hour or so, she grew tired of hating me and started fidgeting, shifting in her seat as far as the tape would let her. When she realized she wasn’t going to get free, she bent her head forwards and closed her eyes. I didn’t think she was asleep. At about 4 a.m., I took a bottle of water from my jacket pocket and drank deeply. I took the bottle over to the woman and removed her gag. Her head snapped back.

‘Untie me,’ she said. ‘Please. I won’t try to run or anything.’

I lifted the bottle to her mouth and tilted it. She spluttered, trying to talk while the water sloshed around her mouth. She swallowed enough and I lowered the bottle. I waited until she’d finished coughing.

‘I need to go to the bathroom. Please. Please.’ I wiped her mouth. ‘Please.’

I put the cloth back in and reattached the tape. She fought me, twisting her head back and forth savagely. I took my seat again and watched her fight her restraints for forty minutes, the words of pleading muffled, sweat on her forehead. Finally, she urinated and her body jerked with sobs. After that she was quiet, sagging in her seat. There was a sour smell in the room now, mixing with the sweet-smelling flowers and the warmth of a house well lived-in. It was cloying.

It was 6.52 a.m. when my phone rang.

‘We’re done,’ Beckett said.

When I stood, she looked at me with fury. I went into the hallway, removed the stocking, unlatched the front door and pulled off my gloves, letting the door close behind me.

The air outside was cold. I walked for a half-hour towards the bus stop I’d scouted earlier. There I’d catch a bus to Walthamstow Central and then change. I didn’t think anything more about the job or Warren or Warren’s wife or Beckett.

It was starting to get light. The sky was the colour of concrete. I walked past a playing field, churned up and guarded by a row of lime trees that looked scratched in charcoal on grey paper. Rooks’ cries cut through the early stillness. I walked past an old man bent over a walking frame, dragging himself somewhere for some reason that he probably didn’t know or care about, dragging himself onwards for the sake of it. I walked past rows of the same semi-detached houses, drenched in the same shades of grey, coated by grime from the traffic, from the acid rain, from the wash of sameness, as if the life of them had become washed out from contact with their surroundings. I walked on, past these things, hardly aware of them, not caring.

When I woke, it was early afternoon, and still dull. Something like daylight crept through the small windows and gave up halfway across the room, leaving the far ends dark. Below, the traffic on the High Road whirred, the odd lorry or bus humming with a deeper sound. I lay there and listened to it and gazed up at the cracked ceiling, a long way from it all. It was another day to face, another one to cross off.

I thought about Brenda again. I turned my head to one side and looked at the picture of the ship, old and worn out and being dragged to its death by some ugly brute. It was a good painting. It made me feel something, anyway, though I don’t know what. It made me think of her, I suppose. I looked at it, as I often did, and tried to call the picture of her to my mind, to fill the empty moment. But it was getting harder to remember her, and the empty moments were getting emptier, and every second that passed took me further from her, further from the image of her. I looked at that picture more and more, and the picture itself became her, or she became the ship. Or something.

So I looked at that picture and counted the cracks on the ceiling and stared at the wall and looked at the picture some more, and all the time I was getting further from her, inch by inch, second by second, day by lousy fucking day until those small things added up and became one big blur. And all the time that blur became duller, darker, emptier. And the jobs I did meant less and less until I was doing them for the sake of it, just to keep on doing something, just to keep from being swallowed up by the emptiness.

‘That poor old ship, Joe,’ she’d say.

And while the blur became bigger, and my memory of her became blurrier, and I became older and more worn out, the jobs became smaller. I was dying by inches.

And then this job came along. A big job. And all I had to do now was sit and stare at the picture and try to think of her and wait for my cut and wonder why the fuck I was getting so much for doing so little.

I’d decided to stash some of my cut, though I wasn’t saving for anything especially. I had nothing much to spend it on. I was saving for the sake of saving. I was like that old man, clinging on to his walking frame. I told myself it was emergency cash, it was a retirement fund. It was some fucking thing.

I hauled myself out of bed, feeling the ache in my muscles. I washed and shaved, trying to clear away the muzziness that seemed to stick to me more these days. I did a set of push-ups and a set of sit-ups, did stretching exercises for my back. When I finished dressing, I went into the kitchen and made tea, and cooked a cheese and onion omelette. Omelettes were about the only thing I could cook well. Still, I liked omelettes.

I sat at my small table and turned on the radio and ate as I listened to stories of lies and murder and mass murder. The world turned. Then the local news came on and the casino job was the second item after a stabbing in Kilburn. One million quid, that was the haul. I worked for a flat fee plus two and a half per cent of the take. I could’ve got a better cut if I’d joined up full-time with some firm, but I didn’t want to do that. I switched the radio off. I felt okay.

My cut came to twenty-five grand. Say, fifteen, if the money had to be cleaned. I didn’t know about that. Less twenty per cent. Plus the flat fee of four thousand. Sixteen thousand total. At least. That was the most I’d ever earned. For sixteen grand, I could lay off work for a while. I didn’t know what I’d do, but I could find something. Go somewhere, maybe. I couldn’t think of anywhere to go. I’d always had half an idea that I might go live in the country, but I knew that was bollocks. I belonged in the country like a traffic jam.

I finished the omelette and tea and sat for a while, not thinking of anything. All I had to do was wait for Kendall to tell me where and when to collect the money.

I’d met Kendall eight years back. I’d been fighting a bloke called Hadley. He was nothing special, and I should’ve had him on the canvas inside of three. He moved well, though, and I realized too late that he was after a TKO. He was quicker than me, and younger, and I couldn’t keep up with his punches. By the fifth, my left eye had closed up and I spent so much time covering it I forgot about the right, and Hadley, who was orthodox, was making a good show of being a southpaw. He connected with my right eye a few times and opened it up. I had to get in close and jam him up, but with the left closing and blood in my right, I was swinging blind. If I could’ve connected, I’d have flattened him, but I couldn’t find the fucker and finally I got counted out.

I climbed from the ring and was led into the changing rooms where Browne did a quick patch-up job, gave me a handful of pills and told me I’d probably have headaches for a week or so; told me I’d have to quit soon or risk permanent brain damage.

‘I’m serious, Joe,’ he said.

I nodded. I’d heard it all before.

I had a quick shower, switching the water from hot to ice-cold, trying to soothe the aches and wash some of the dullness out of my head, and when I came out, a small fidgety man in a camel-hair coat and tailor-made suit was pacing up and down, smoking a cheroot. He had dark hair, greased back and greying at the temples, and olive skin. He moved like a young man, full of pent-up energy, but his face was without flesh and the hollow, shadowed cheeks and deep-set dark eyes made him look old and sick, and his constant movements made me think that if he stopped for a moment he’d realize he couldn’t go on.

When he saw me, he crushed the cheroot underfoot. He looked me up and down, nodding to himself.

‘I seen you fight a coupla times.’

I grabbed a towel and started drying myself. My head hurt. My head always hurt. It was just one of those things. I didn’t need someone to make it worse.

‘You got a great left,’ he said. ‘I never seen a jab with so much behind it. And you can take punishment, I’ll give you that.’ He hesitated, looked down at his crushed cheroot like it was an old friend he’d lost. ‘But you’re old.’

Everyone was telling me that. The doctors, the other fighters, the crowds.

‘You’re too slow for these kids,’ he said. ‘They’re running all over you.’ He held out his hand. I looked at it. It was small and sweaty. ‘My name’s Kendall. Dave Kendall. Ever heard of me?’

I hadn’t heard of him, but didn’t say so. When he got tired of holding his hand in the air he pulled it in and used it to scratch his ear.

‘I used to fight. Crystal Kendall. Crystal on account of my glass jaw.’

I still hadn’t heard of him.

He glanced at his watch. It was an expensive watch. Or maybe it was a good fake. He looked like the kind of person who’d try and con someone with a dodgy watch. Maybe he’d got confused and sold it to himself.

‘Look, I gotta get over to Deptford in a coupla hours, but I’m free till then. Fancy a pint?’

I was waiting for the pitch. I was bored of him. He smelled of hair oil and cheroots. He moved too much.

‘Don’t talk much, do you?’ he said. ‘That’s all right. I don’t need a talker. Look, I’m not trying to con you or nothing.’

I started dressing. Kendall backed away from the lockers, giving me room. He scratched his ear again.

‘Look, you’re getting seven shades of shit knocked out of you, what, once, twice a week? How long you gonna be able to do that? How would you like another job?’

He pulled a cheroot from a pack in his coat pocket. He lit it, blew out some smoke and said, ‘A decent fucking job.’

I sat down. My head throbbed. My eyes stung. My ribs were trying to unhinge themselves and run away. Even my hair hurt.

Eight years later and he seemed to have kept his promise. A decent job, decent money. Easy. All I had to do was wait for him to call.

I didn’t own a phone. There was a newsagent a couple of doors along and the owner there, bloke called Akram, would take the call for me. He’d come up with a message, then I’d go see Kendall or phone him back from a public phone. Akram was also my landlord. He owned three buildings along the road. I had an arrangement with him: he paid all the bills and I gave him the cash. Nothing was in my name. Recently, I’d moved flats to a smaller, single-bedroom place. I’d done this because some of Akram’s old relatives had come over from Pakistan, and Akram, who was paying their living costs, wanted them to live as cheaply as possible and because his old grandmother couldn’t manage stairs so well.

The attic flat needed updating, as estate agents would say. The putty around the edges of the single-pane windows was cracked and falling away, and cold air leaked in. In summer, the flat would probably be hot. In February it was fucking cold. The previous owner – an old man who smoked roll-ups and wheezed more each day climbing the four flights of stairs – had never had money to spend on things like a new cooker or a coat of paint. It didn’t matter. The flat was far away from other people, which was fine by me. I didn’t plan on holding many dinner parties.

I sat in all day Monday. Nobody called.

On Tuesday, I went to my local gym, an old-fashioned boxing place called Murray’s which smelled of sweat and menthol and rubbing oil. I was on nodding terms with the punters there, but I hardly ever talked to them. Sometimes one of the old-timers would have a word about boxing, but that was about it. I stood by myself, pounding the heavy bag, trying to ignore the glances I got from the others, the change in mood. There was less banter when I was there, less joking, as if the air had changed, become thicker, heavier.

On my way back from the gym, I stopped at Akram’s to see if there was a message for me. The shop was long and narrow, with discoloured yellow and white vinyl floor tiles, and a layer of dust and filth in the unused corners. One wall had racks of magazines from floor to ceiling, and newspapers bundled along the floor. Along the other wall were shelves of groceries, sweets, crisps, drinks. Stuff like that.

Akram always wore the same beige-striped shirt and brown trousers, and never seemed to realize they were too small for him. He was always behind his counter, always sweating behind his thick black beard, always worried about something and apologetic, always surrounded by women, or so it seemed. The shop was always open and always staffed by Akram or his sisters or his mother. His wife spent her life at the back, behind the bead curtain, where she cooked spicy food and listened to a London-Asian radio station. She never came out, as far as I could tell, but she would call out to Akram in her sharp voice, getting him to do some task or other.