To Fight For (17 page)

‘Cancer,' she said, as I sat.

‘What?'

‘If that's what you're wondering. I've been ill since – well, since you last saw me.'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘In my oesophagus.'

Oesophagus. It was probably the biggest word she'd ever known.

‘It's rare,' she said, ‘apparently.'

I said, ‘You remember me.'

She picked up her electronic cigarette. She'd decided to give up the fags, just as she was about to die. Maybe she was now so desperate for life that she'd do anything for a few more hours, minutes. I supposed I could understand that. I supposed we'll all be like that one day. Well, most of us.

‘I remember you,' she said, dropping the metal stick onto the table top. ‘You're death.'

The way she said it, I think she believed it. She was dying, anyway. Maybe I was death. Maybe I was a carrier, my blood poisoned, affecting everyone I came into contact with. Everyone I met died from something, like Brenda, like Kid, like Paget and Marriot, like this woman with her cancer.

‘So what you wanna talk about?'

‘You know.'

She reached down for a bottle of water, took a few sips and put it slowly back onto the floor. Then she picked up the electronic cigarette again and sucked on it and blew out smoky stuff.

‘I don't know anything,' she said after all that.

She didn't even try to sound truthful. I don't think she had the strength.

‘Her name was Brenda. She lived two doors up from you.'

‘I remember her. So?'

‘She died. Her place got smashed up by the law. So you said.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘It means you're a liar.'

Her eyes had been roaming the room, the lids drooping a bit. Now they snapped open and up at me.

‘You can't come into my fucking home and call me a liar. I might have cancer, but I don't have to fucking take that.'

She was trying too hard.

‘You were a grass.'

She tried to stand, but fell back in her seat. I could see the pain in her face, but she tried to hide it. She was breathing hard. She didn't say anything for a while. Then, with a sigh, she said, ‘Yeah. I was a grass. So what?'

‘Who'd you work for?'

She reached down for her water again and drank a few gulps, only this time it wasn't a delaying tactic. I thought she was going to throw up. When she didn't, she said, ‘A CID sergeant. DS Rose.'

I'd never heard of him.

‘What'd you tell him?'

‘I just told him what I saw, what I heard. I'm a very observant person. I'd see people calling at some flat and leaving a minute later with a package. I'd tell him stuff like that. Didn't have much choice. I needed the money, and I had a record and Rose made sure he had his thumb on me. That flat was a housing association place and he coulda got me thrown out.'

‘What did you tell him about Brenda?'

‘Nothing. I swear. I didn't know anything about her. She was just this woman who lived there.'

‘That's not what you said to me when I first saw you. You said she had a lot of friends.'

She tapped her hand on the arm of her chair, looked down at the floor.

‘Yeah, well …'

‘And the jewellery? The cash?'

Her hand stopped tapping. She looked at me now in a different way. I think she was stupid enough to think I'd been stupid enough to not twig what she'd done. She was right. I had been that stupid, or blinded by my distrust of the law.

‘What?'

‘I thought the coppers nicked it. That's why you made sure you told me the law had trashed her place looking for drugs, so that I'd think they'd taken the money, Brenda's jewellery.'

‘It was the law, I swear.'

‘Just tell me.'

‘I don't know—'

‘Don't,' I said.

She sighed. When she exhaled, her body shrank and seemed to become swallowed up by the chair.

‘I needed the money. She didn't want it no more. I'm sorry she died, honest. But she didn't need it no more and I did.' Her hand went to her throat again, as if she was scared I was going to attack her fucking cancerous oesophagus.

‘What did you do with the jewellery?'

‘I sold it. What else would I do with it? Wear it to the Queen's tea party?'

‘And the law?'

‘They were there. I swear to you. I didn't smash her place up. They did. And they were looking for drugs. They told me.'

That part sounded true. She was a liar and a thief, but she wouldn't smash the place up like that. There wouldn't have been any point. No, that had been done by someone searching for something. And I knew what.

‘Who were they?'

‘I don't fucking know. I never seen 'em before.'

‘Describe them.'

‘Oh, Christ. I can't remember. It was years ago.'

‘Okay. Was one of them stocky, about five-eight, white, about forty years old? He would've had short brown hair, thinning.'

‘No.'

‘His name's Glazer. He would've had more hair then, probably would've been slimmer.'

‘No.'

‘You say you can't remember. So how do you know one of them wasn't Glazer?'

She took her hand from her neck, sucked on her stick again.

‘Give me more money.'

‘Don't push it.'

She shrugged again. She was able to do that, at least.

‘I don't have to answer your questions. What are you gonna do? Call the police?'

I fished more money out of my pocket. I had about sixty quid left.

‘When you tell me,' I said, closing my fist around the money.

She thought about that for a while, but the sight of that money was enough for her.

‘The bloke you described wasn't one of them,' she said. ‘I remember that. There was two of 'em. One was tall, six something, about thirty, forty. The other one was older, had grey hair. Oh, and he had a moustache.'

My mind reeled. She was still talking, but I didn't hear it. I stood, not knowing what the fuck was going on. I think I said something because she stopped talking and looked at me.

‘Hey,' she was saying.

She pushed back in her seat. Getting as far from me as she could.

Compton. What the fuck?

There were more things I had to ask the woman, but I couldn't get my head straight, couldn't work out an order of words to use. Thoughts were mashed up in my mind. All I could think was that Compton had been to Brenda's flat, and had been there and searched it and trashed it.

‘When?' I said.

‘When what?'

‘This copper. When was he there?'

‘I don't know. Honest. I can't remember that far back. Christ.'

‘When?'

‘I don't know.'

Compton. It didn't make sense. Did it?

The woman stared at me. My legs felt shaky, like I'd been floored in the twelfth by a lightning fast combination and now, with my head still spinning all over the place, I was trying to stand while the canvas tipped around me.

Compton. Christ. How far did this thing go back? How long had they been toying with me?

She called after me. I might have said something back, but I don't think I knew what it was.

It was only as I was leaving that it hit me, what she'd said. Her flat was a housing association place. I stopped and turned. She was standing close behind me, her hand out.

‘My money,' she said. ‘You—'

Her face fell. I don't know what she saw when she looked at me. Her death, I suppose. I moved towards her, she backed away, put both her hands up to her throat.

My mind was going back and forth, from then to now, and I was losing track of when I was. I saw her, this cancerous woman, but with her fat around her, telling me Brenda was gone. I saw that other woman, Debs, telling me she'd bought the place from this bird who, as I was looking at her, seemed to be shedding her flab. I saw her telling me that her place had been a housing association flat.

She'd been a grass. She'd left a couple of months after Brenda got killed. That was nothing in itself, but she'd sold the flat, not vacated it. So, where had she suddenly got the money to buy her council place? And how could she buy it and sell it so quickly? Two months was too fast.

‘Please,' she said. ‘I'm dying.'

She stumbled as she backed up and fell heavily on her arm and cried out. I watched her as she lay on the ground, watched this thin, old-looking, cancerous woman at my feet.

Then I reached down and held out my hand. She took it. I pulled her up.

She rubbed her arm.

‘Day before you were there,' she said.

‘What?'

‘That's when he was there. The man with the moustache. The day before you came. The day before I saw you.'

‘Why did you tell me you couldn't remember?'

‘Coz I was scared you knew I'd grassed you up.'

‘What did you tell them?'

‘I told them about you,' she said. ‘I remembered you. I'd seen you before, with her. I'm sorry.'

‘What did you tell them?'

‘I told 'em she was your bird. I told 'em your name was Joe. I'd heard her call you that.'

‘Why? Why'd you tell them about me?'

‘They asked me. All I did was answer their questions. That's all. They were coppers, for fuck's sake. What else could I do?'

Fuck. She told them about me, told them I was with Brenda, that my name was Joe. And Compton had told me he only learned about me years after Brenda was killed, and only then because he was investigating Glazer and his connection with vice corruption. There were pictures of me in the file relating to Paget and Marriot, Compton had said.

What the fuck was going on? What was Compton after?

‘And the money for your flat? And the clout to get it through the system so you could sell it?'

‘It was him. The copper.'

‘Why?'

‘I told him I wouldn't talk coz you could find out and come back for me. People knew I was a grass. He came back the same day with some council bloke. They gave me forms to sign and told me I owned the flat.'

He must've had clout to do something like that; cutting through the red tape, handing over a flat.

‘What did they want?' I said. ‘What did they ask you?'

I took her by the arm and led her back to her seat. She sat meekly. I gave her one of the spliffs and she lit it up.

‘Thanks,' she said.

She took a few hits. I gave her time. Her eyelids came down a bit, her mouth drooped, she sank back into the seat.

‘I lied,' she said. ‘Some of that stuff I told you. It was a lie. Now, I probably ain't got much longer to live. So …'

I nodded.

‘Start at the beginning.'

‘I was a grass for this copper, DS Rose, like I told you.'

‘Where was he from?'

‘Local nick. Anyway, all that was true. He told me to keep my eyes open, report things. There were gangs, drugs. There was a crack house a few floors below. All I done was make notes, car plates, names I learned. Then I give them to Rose. We'd meet each week in a pub near me.'

‘Right,' I said, just for something to say.

‘Well, one day I was in another pub, can't remember where, and Rose comes up to me. There's another bloke with him. The copper with the moustache.'

‘Did he give you his name?'

‘No. Rose told me to do what he said. Then he left. And this other copper, he buys me a drink and says don't bother with the drugs and stuff now. There's a woman, he says, lives next to you …'

‘When was this?'

‘Two, three weeks before she died.'

That would've been before she made the film.

My mind span away from me, and I felt Brenda near, saw her as I'd seen her that night in the pub, standing waiting for me to tell her I wasn't going to dance with her. I remembered what she smelled like that night; the sweetness of her perfume, the dankness of cigarette smoke, the tang of alcohol.

‘Poor old Joe,' she'd say, ‘heading for the breaker's yard.'

‘He told me to keep a look out for people coming and going,' Sanford was saying, ‘make notes, like I done for Rose.'

Her voice was thick and sleepy. She took another pull on the spliff, sucked it in hard and let it go in a breath of relief, as if she didn't have the strength not to.

‘What did you see? What did you tell him?'

‘Nothing. Really. There wasn't much I could tell him. Nothing happened. Aside from you.'

The spliff was down to its roach and she took a final hit, holding it between her finger nails, and dropped it on the carpet.

‘Apart from when she was killed,' she said. ‘Then stuff happened.'

‘What happened?'

‘They came, like I told you. The one with the moustache and the tall one. They went round there, that copper, with the other one, the tall one, and pulled the place apart. They said if anybody asked, I was to say they were from the drug squad. Then I nicked some stuff because the door was open. And that's it.'

She spread her arms.

‘So you knew she was dead. When I came round that time, you knew and you pretended you thought she was still alive.'

‘Yeah, that's right. I pretended. I thought you might think I had something to do with her getting killed. I didn't, but I thought you might think so.'

‘What were they after, the coppers?'

‘As if they'd tell me. When they were gone I went in and took some stuff. Jewellery, money. I stole it, okay? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'

There had to be more than that. Why bother with relocating her, going through all that shit with the housing association?

‘What did you tell him?'

Her eyes were closed now. Her movements were slow. I put my hand on her shoulder, felt the bones through thin flesh. I shook her a little, not hard. Her eyes opened.