To Die For (28 page)

And then she had a knife and was skewering me and sucking something out and I felt empty, hollow. I’d always felt empty, but this was different; now I felt emptier. I didn’t think that was possible. It was more than emptiness. It was pain where emptiness used to be, and I thought, it’s better this way.

And then I saw Browne’s face close to mine and he had a syringe and was pulling it out of my arm and he was frightened, panic in his eyes, and then he was Warren and I was slapping him stupid, and then Kendall as he tried to make a dash for it, and then he was that kid, the Argentine, dying in front of me, lips pulling back in agony. And I wanted to say, ‘It’s better this way.’

But I couldn’t, because there was something I had to do, something I had to finish, and it wasn’t time. And I thought, one time I didn’t see her for a week.

And then I understood, and I knew what had happened, and my heart hit my chest and I slammed back in the seat. I knew why it had been me at the centre of this whole fucking thing – me from the start, played with, at the mercy of unseen hands, thrown into a bloody pit. I knew everything. I think I’d known for years. And the blood drained from my head and I lurched forward and Browne was saying something to me. I heard him, but I didn’t understand, couldn’t make out the words. And then he was shaking me and shouting something about hospital. The room was sliding and rolling in front of my eyes, and my head felt weightless. I tried to stand and hit the deck and tried to stand again. I was muttering something, but I don’t know what it was, and Browne looked at me in horror. I knew where I had to go. I’d been there before, years ago. I tried to make it to the kitchen door and I hit the table and Browne was grappling and pulling at me and I threw him off and I heard a voice say, ‘You won’t make it, Joe. You’re falling apart.’

I thought that was probably right. I thought it had been right for a long time.

It happened in a daze, a kind of waking dream. It was early morning, not quite light, and foul. Rain lashed against the windscreen and made the lights blurred and dazzling. I saw it through someone else’s eyes. The steering wheel was loose in my hand and the car slid around a road that moved before me. I think I scraped a parked car and set off the alarm. I think I heard a shout.

‘Poor old Joe,’ Brenda said.

I turned and saw her in the passenger seat, smiling softly at me.

‘You’re dead,’ I told her.

‘We’re both dead, Joe,’ she told me.

And then it was blazing daylight, hot, heavy, the shirt sticking to my body. We were driving through the Essex countryside, green trees and hedgerows lining the narrow roads, passing fields of wheat, brown and swaying in the breeze, catching the sun so that whole fields would shimmer with light. It must’ve been late summer. The sky was hazy; high white clouds lay in thin layers across the blue like they’d been sprayed from a can. It must’ve been a couple of weeks before she was killed. ‘In London there is no sky,’ the girl had said. Well, I saw the sky that day.

I had to keep my hand on the gearstick because of the roads, changing down to slow around a bend, speeding up on a stretch, changing down again for a steep hill. Her hand rested lightly on mine so that whenever I moved through the gears, her hand moved with it. Every now and then, she’d stroke my hand, just to let me know she was still there, still with me.

We had the windows open and the braids of her hair blew about like tiny ropes. She wore a thin cotton dress, and her skin glistened with sweat, though she looked cool. She always looked cool to me, and I wanted to touch her neck, where her throat was, and run my fingers down to the edge of the cotton, but I had to drive, had somewhere to go, had something to do. Hadn’t I?

‘Here,’ she said, pointing to the side of the road where a lay-by opened on to a huge flat field of glimmering bronze. ‘Here.’

I turned the car and the sun bounced off the bonnet and blinded me and I slammed on the brakes and Brenda screamed and I turned to her and she stared at me with blood pouring out of the gashes on her face and horror filled me.

And someone shouted at me and I blinked and it was dark and my car was halfway over the wrong side of the road. A van was in front, stopped a few feet from mine, its headlights blinding me. Someone shouted, swore at me. I reversed, swung the steering wheel round and put my foot on the gas and spun the wheels and clipped the van as I passed it. I had to remember where I was. Brenda was gone. I had to remember that. I’d lost her. Had to remember.

My head dropped a couple of times and I opened the window to let in the cold air and rain. My heart banged in my throat and I was drenched in cold sweat. These things didn’t matter. All I had to do was get where I was going. It was all clear to me, in my muddled mind. It all made sense, strings of moments tying together into a knot, tying around my throat.

Bowker was twisting around in my head, one of those pieces of string, terrified of me, squealing me up to Paget as soon as he could, strangling me with his shifty eyes.

‘Some funny little bloke,’ she’d said. ‘I seen him around the place.’

Warren was there too, telling me about the scam with the prostitutes at Cole’s place. Cole’s casino had a scam with the pros run by Wilkins. Marriot ran the same scam at the Sportsman way back. It fitted that Wilkins and Marriot knew each other, probably worked together.

Then there was Cole telling me that the Ellis job I should’ve done was another of his. Yes, it was there, it had been there for years and now it was around my neck, killing me, and I was fighting it because that’s what I did. I fought. Everything. Always. It was all I could do.

‘All that anger in you,’ she’d said. ‘All that hatred.’

All the anger in me. Yes, the rage. It was all I really had, maybe all I’d ever had.

There were the Albanians, too, with their connections. Marriot would’ve known the Albanians, must’ve done, would’ve used some of the women and children they’d brought in.

And then Paget, not out to capture me and question me, but on a mission to kill me.

And the girl. Yes, the girl. Kid. Yes, it had all been there.

I dumped the car a block away and climbed out and watched the pavement fall away from me. I took a few deep breaths and walked, putting one heavy leg before the other, trying to keep in a straight line. Buildings swayed to the side of me, but the rain soaked me and the wind made me cold and that was good. I was dead, heading to the breaker’s yard. That was fine. That was okay. Just one thing to do, just one more thing.

I floated through the door. I remember a man putting an arm out to stop me. I remember snapping it. By the time I was in the club, I had the Makarov in my hand. A few shadows were scattered around the place. One of the shadows turned to me and said, ‘Fuck.’

He meant it. Every word.

The shadows moved, slowly at first, and then with cries and shouts they flew around. The rain, or sweat, or something, made me shiver and I felt light, out of myself, and the Makarov felt heavy like it was dying in my hand, like it was wasting away. It needed life. I needed to give it life. I gave it life.

I unleashed the gun and death had come, and chaos, and I watched the shadows fly, some one way, some another. One of them slammed into me and bounced off, and I moved my arm and the gun with it and when I’d stopped moving, the shadow stayed on the ground.

I walked through the club. I heard cracks here and there, but they meant nothing to me because I had something I had to do. I was dead anyway, but I had to finish things. I put a fresh magazine in the gun and carried on.

The office was at the back, along a corridor. I remembered that much. As I went down the corridor, a shape appeared and raised a dark object and rounds sprayed all over. I raised my arm and the figure disappeared.

The door was shut and when I turned the handle small holes appeared and splintered the wood. I thought that was funny and I looked at the holes. I think I laughed. I might’ve cried. I shot the lock away and fell in.

I saw his face clearly, and I saw the ruined eye and I saw what he held in his hand and I heard words come from his mouth and I took his hand and bent it back until it broke and he screamed and crashed to the ground. And someone said something, and I think it was me and, in a broken voice, he said, ‘My hand, my hand.’

And I said something else and he looked at me through a ruined face and said, ‘I’ll get it for you. Please, Joe. Please, don’t do anything.’

He crawled to the corner of the room and opened a cupboard and fiddled with something large that looked like an iron safe. He pulled out a big black shape and then another, throwing them towards me. And he said, ‘It’s all there.’

And I thanked him and all I could think of was Bowker fixing a date with Brenda, and Paget slicing her to death, and all because she was grassing Marriot up to the law, staying with him, fucking the johns, fucking in his films, living in fear because she couldn’t bear to abandon the children he used, and all the time she thought she was safe. And all the time Marriot knew she was in with the law and thought I was in on it too. And all that led to her death in some fucking alley, and to this shit he’d plunged me in, his revenge, a long time coming, setting me up with Cole so that he could use me to take over Cole’s firm, get back on top, using me because it completed the circle, strangling me with the past. His past. My past.

He stood slowly.

‘It was Paget, Joe. Not me. It was him told me about Brenda grassing me up. It was him carved her up. I didn’t know anything about it. I swear to you.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I don’t know, Joe. Honest. He’s run. It was him. Look, Joe – ’

I shot him in the stomach. He crumpled to the floor and gripped his gut, writhing in pain. His glasses had fallen off. After a while, he tried to crawl away, like some insect with its legs broken off. He left a bloody trail as he went. I don’t know where he was going to. I think he was just crawling. It was the only thing he could do. When I got tired of watching him crawl, I put another round in the back of his head. Then I shot him six times more for no reason that I could think of except that my gun still had six rounds left in it.

I reached down for the bags and the fucking floor hit me in the face. When I came to, things were clearer. The Makarov was still in my hand, the bags in front of me. Marriot’s blood crept slowly across the floor and pooled around his body, what was left of it.

I opened the bags and checked them. They were full of money, Cole’s money, bundles of used twenty- and fifty-pound notes. I counted off sixteen grand and put it in my pocket.

I must’ve blacked out again. When I came to, I stood slowly. When I heard the noise, I swung round, and that made me dizzy and I staggered. I managed to get the Makarov up, but I knew it was empty. A voice said, ‘Hold it.’

I focused on the figure standing in the doorway, and saw that the figure was Eddie. He had his hands out. They were empty. I lowered the gun and he lowered his hands. He shook his head slowly.

‘I don’t know how you do it.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Symbiosis.’

He was talking circles again. The whole thing was a circle. I was tired of fucking circles. He walked over and kicked Marriot. He was still dead. Eddie smiled.

‘I guess you figured it out, huh?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He had ambitions. That’s the trouble with ambition. Was he in it with the Albanians?’

‘No,’ I managed to say, my tongue thick, my mouth dry. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t have gone after Cole. Marriot played them.’

‘He gets out of nick and tries to take over Cole’s turf.’

‘He was after it before he got nicked.’

‘How do you know?

‘Paget.’

Eddie nodded.

‘Right. That’s why Paget was in with Cole. He and Marriot had already arranged it. Paget works Cole from the inside and they take him down. But Marriot gets nicked and they put it on hold and strike when Marriot gets out. Neat. That the money?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come on, I’ve got a car out back.’

He called back to a couple of his men. They came in and took the money. Eddie reached down to give me a hand. I ignored it.

‘You’re not going to make it by yourself,’ he said.

‘I’ll make it.’

I stood, wavered, and steadied. He said, ‘Right. Let’s go.’

‘What are you doing here?’

He smiled again. He was finding it all amusing, in his way.

‘Like I said, symbiosis.’

My gun came up. He saw the gun and made a small movement.

‘Don’t,’ I said. He froze. He wasn’t smiling any more. ‘You set me up.’

‘Joe, come on, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I know.’

‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

‘You led Cole to me.’

‘No, Joe. I didn’t. You’re not thinking straight. I don’t know where you’ve been staying.’

‘But you knew I was at Dalston, that I’d been shot in that house. You were the only one who knew. Cole knew someone was there, but he didn’t know it was me. You told him. After that, he was able to find me, through Browne, because he knew I’d been hurt and would need a doctor. How long have you known it was Marriot?’

‘What does it matter?’

‘It matters.’

‘I knew he and Wilkins went back. Long time ago. You narrowed it down to three, remember? Wilkins was one of them. I figured it from there.’

‘You let Cole get me.’

‘Just business. We let you and Cole have some rope, that’s all. We knew you’d get there eventually. Vic likes to keep a low profile.’

‘You knew I was coming here.’

‘Yeah, I did. Had some men outside. But we couldn’t get involved yet, didn’t want to tip off the Albanians. So, we waited. Vic said you couldn’t do it yourself. I disagreed. What else could I do? Would you have let me stop you? Nothing could’ve stopped you.’

He was right.

‘And now?’

‘Just making sure you’re all right. Vic and Cole have come to an arrangement. These Albanians are getting ambitions, getting a bit too big for their Albanian boots. Pretty soon, they’re going to start encroaching on our turf. So, my enemy’s enemy and all that. We’ll get the money back to Cole, he’ll pay them off and then, in a while, Vic and Cole will join up and take them out.’