To Fight For (14 page)

‘ …something?'

It was that fat bird talking. I'd forgotten she was there. I felt her near me, her smoky breath touching my neck.

I rolled the print up and added it to the book under my arm.

‘Who did this?'

‘Police were here,' she said.

Now I turned to face her.

Coppers smashed places apart, sure. But not if the place belonged to the victim. This was as if they were treating Brenda like the suspect.

‘Why?'

‘Looking for drugs.'

‘Drugs?'

‘What they said.'

Drugs? What the fuck?

‘What did they tell you about her? About the woman who lived here?'

‘Didn't tell me nothing. Only it was drugs. Asked me who came here. I didn't tell 'em nothing.'

I saw a vase on the floor. It was a cheap thing, not worth a penny, but inside it was where Brenda had saved her cash. She'd wanted to be a beautician, and that had been the money she'd saved so she could do a course. Fucking coppers, I thought. Bent, all of them.

‘She's dead,' I said.

The woman backed up a step.

‘What? Dead?'

‘Who were they?'

‘How? What do you mean?'

‘She's dead. She didn't deal in drugs. She was murdered.'

She edged back further.

‘I don't know nothing about that.'

‘Were they drug squad, these coppers?'

‘Dunno. They were coppers.'

‘They show you a warrant card? They tell you what branch they were with? Were they CID?'

‘They flashed something. Didn't see what.'

‘Uniformed?'

‘No.'

‘If you didn't see their warrant cards and they weren't in uniform, how do you know they were law?'

I found myself breathing hard. I found myself closing in on her, this woman who'd had a dig at Brenda. I had to hold onto myself. Her cigarette hung limply from her fingers. I watched the smoke coil up and fade into the air.

She snapped out of her fear and started to walk away from me. She didn't go far. I rested my hand on her shoulder and she stopped moving.

‘Tell me exactly what happened,' I said.

She turned. Right then, for an instant, all I wanted to do was destroy, as others had destroyed. She was in my way. Destroy her, my head said. Destroy them all. She saw it in me. She pissed herself, the smell of it mixing with the heat in the flat so that everything seemed even more like it was dead and rotting around me; that smell of sweet foulness, that heat of corruption when the body fed on itself, ate itself up.

I pushed her away, sick of her, of myself.

It was my rage taking control of me again. She was a sour, mocking cunt, but that was all. She hadn't murdered Brenda.

I told her to go.

I went into the bedroom. That had been trashed too. It was worse here, more like a rape. I wanted to find these coppers and tear them apart for that, for the disrespect. Brenda had never done drugs. She was murdered in an alley, left to bleed out while the sky dripped its thin blood on her. She died smelling waste and wet petrol and slime. And now they'd done this to her, and I wanted to murder them for that, beat into them the fact that I would never see her again. And all I had now was a memory and the image of a ruined flat.

Over on the dressing table, her jewellery box had been opened and emptied. Some copper had helped himself to that lot. There was nothing of value in it for him, but for me it was more of her that had been taken. I'd wanted a necklace I'd bought her. I'd wanted the rings she'd worn.

I went over to her bed. I tried not to think of the moments we'd spent there, of the times she'd stroked me, asked me about my life. Or when, her back against the wall and her knees up to her chin, she'd looked so young, so lost and I, in my clumsy stupid way, had tried to comfort her.

I tried not to think of all that but, of course, I did.

When I smelled her on the sheets, I cracked, as if some part of me had finally gone as far as it could and just broke apart, as this flat had. I was in pieces on the floor, shattered.

When I was able, I lifted myself from her bed and sat there and stared at the carpet. I don't know what I was looking at, or why. I just stared.

After a while, I realized I was looking at her underwear, scattered all over the place. I leaned over and picked a bra up and held it to my face.

And then I saw it. On the carpet, beneath the clothing, lay a photograph album. It was closed. I opened it and flicked through the pages. They were all empty.

Why would the law want Brenda's photos? Were they looking into Marriot for something and wanted evidence from Brenda? But that couldn't be, not if they were after drugs, as they'd said.

There had once been prints of photos, so maybe there were negatives. I searched, and did my own pulling apart. Brenda's place had gone, now. Brenda had gone. It didn't matter about her place any more. I tore it apart, and in doing that I tore into myself, unleashed some of the rage I felt. I ripped the mattress to pieces, as if it was the memory of her death. I flayed it. I lifted it up and threw it. I smashed the table with a blow, and then slammed my fists into the wall until the plaster fell away in chunks.

Then I really lost control. I can't remember what happened next, only that by the time I'd finished my knuckles were dripping blood and my head was light and my face was wet. And the place was properly destroyed. I mean obliterated. It seemed the right thing to do. In a way, it was what I wanted, it was a funeral service, of sorts. She was gone, there should be nothing left. That was how I felt back then. The lousy fucking world had torn her apart, now I would tear the world apart, make it bleed.

I crumpled to the floor.

I stood slowly, gathered the book, the Turner print, and left.

As I went out the front door, I saw her, standing outside her place, fag in hand, mouth tight in hate. She glared at me.

‘I seen you, you know,' she said, as I was walking away. ‘I seen you with her. Just another one of her friends, weren't you?' I carried on walking, but her words cut into me. ‘How do I know you didn't kill her? Who the fuck are you?'

I stopped and turned, took a step towards her. She ran for her front door, opened it and stopped to look back at me.

‘I'm death,' I said. ‘Remember me.'

Back then I'd cursed that woman for an idiot, then for disliking Brenda. But, mostly, I'd cursed the law for being a bunch of thieving cunts, and for being too fucking stupid to realize that Brenda was a victim, not a criminal. I'd thought it was typical law, that they'd put her death down to a drug deal or something and were more bothered about the drug angle than her.

But since then I'd learned a few things. Now I didn't think it was because they didn't give a shit or because they were dumb. Now I knew how much the law was involved in things, and to what purpose. Glazer was law. He had a reason to want to search Brenda's place.

Now I thought those coppers knew exactly what they were doing. They'd searched Brenda's flat, ripped it apart, looking for something – not drugs, though, not fucking drugs.

And that gave me a reason to find this woman again, and question her more.

So I climbed the same stairs, smelled the same damp smell, saw the same fucking graffiti. Each step took me back, back until I had to stop and remind myself that I wasn't going to see Brenda, that she wasn't there any more. It was as if the stairway itself was my history, each step marking a moment in the last six years, each one harder to climb. This step was Paget's death, this the casino robbery. Up they went. Back they went. If I kept climbing, maybe Brenda would be up there waiting for me.

I tried her place first, just on the off-chance. There was no answer, no sound from inside. I tried again, but my knocks had a dull, dead sound, as if I was knocking on rock. The place was empty.

I went further along the walkway and heard a woman's voice, sharp and loud.

‘Zach,' the voice said, ‘make me a drink. And put your bloody clothes on.'

I knocked. When the door opened, I saw that this was a different woman. She was about the same age as the other one, mid-forties, I reckoned, but looked a hundred times better. She had a deep tan and a spark in her eyes, and she looked like she enjoyed life, as if it was something that was there to be grabbed and wrung out. She gave me a once over and pulled a cigarette from the packet she was holding. She lit the fag, sucked on it and said, ‘You're a big one. I don't owe any money, if that's why you're here.'

‘It's not.'

‘You remind me of my husband, only he was about a third your size. God rest him.'

I caught a glimpse of a young bloke, mid-twenties, good looking in a kind of pop star way. He was holding a towel over his lower body. He glanced at me for a moment, and there was a wide-eyed look to him, as if he'd been taken out of some other life and shoved here, and now he didn't know where he was or what he was doing.

‘Debs,' the boy said, ‘I can't find my trousers.'

The woman rolled her eyes.

‘He's a bit soft, that one,' she said to me, ‘but he'll do for the time being.'

She went off to help Zach find his trousers. When she came back, she was smiling.

‘Bless him,' she said.

‘I'm looking for the woman who used to live here.'

‘Yeah?' she said. She wasn't smiling now. ‘What for? You sure you're not a money collector? She owe you something?'

‘No.'

‘No, but you're trouble.'

‘I just want to talk to her.'

‘Yeah, well, there's only me here, since my husband got run over by a bus.'

She said that as if her husband had done it to piss her off. Anyway, whatever had happened to her husband, she didn't seem too bothered about it. I suppose Zach had something to do with her feelings there.

‘This woman lived here about six years ago,' I said.

She took another drag from her cigarette.

‘Yeah, I knew her. Bought the place from her just about then. Sour bitch. Had a face like a shrivelled twat.'

‘I need to talk to her.'

‘Yeah? About what? You don't look like the police, I'll give you that. So what is it?'

‘She knew someone,' I said. ‘A friend of mine who lived a couple doors up.'

There was a change in the woman now. The spark had gone from her eyes. She came out of the flat and pulled the door to behind her.

‘The girl there?' she said, pointing at Brenda's flat.

‘Yeah.'

‘Shame. I heard about her. All that was just before I moved here, but I remember people talked about it. Nice girl, I heard.'

There was a different kind of glint in her eyes now, and I thought this woman must feel things strongly, must be one of those honest people who don't bother with the bullshit of it all – like Browne, like Brenda herself.

I said, ‘Yeah.'

Then the woman put her hand on mine. I didn't know why. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I looked at her hand.

‘Were you close to her? The girl there?'

Was I close to her? ‘I'm still close to her,' I wanted to say. Instead, I said, ‘I need to talk to the one who lived here.' The woman nodded like she understood it all. ‘I won't tell her anything you tell me.'

‘Tell her,' she said, pulling her hand away from mine. ‘I don't care. Couldn't stand the cow. Her name's Maggie something. Hold on.'

She went back inside. A few minutes later she returned with some documents.

‘Margaret Sanford.'

‘Know where she went?'

‘She said she was moving to Canada to be with her son. But that's bollocks coz I saw her a year ago in Tesco in Drayton. You know, near the Arsenal stadium.'

‘You sure it was her?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Anyone with her?' She sucked some smoke, shook her head. ‘How much shopping did she have?'

‘Trolley full.'

That meant she must live nearby – or she had done a year ago. Had she gone to Canada and come back? That didn't seem likely, not for her. She was one of those fat, lazy types who could barely bring themselves to move off their sofas. So, why had she lied?

It was only then that I realized what this Debs had said earlier. My mind had been so full of holes that it had passed right through. Now it was coming back and getting stuck.

‘You bought this place from this Margaret? Direct from her?'

‘Yes.'

‘When?'

‘I told you. Just after that girl – just after your friend was killed. Six weeks, couple months after, I think. Police'd gone by then, but the odd reporter came by.'

So, the old cunt had sold up and lied about where she was going. And all that was a couple of months after Brenda had died.

Fuck.

The first thing I did when I got back to Browne's was to call Ben Green and tell him I needed to find Margaret Sanford.

He wanted to know why I needed to find her, said he wouldn't help me if the woman got hurt. I told him she'd been a neighbour of Brenda's, which was true, and that I wanted to ask her some questions, which was also true. Green didn't need to know the rest. I told him I'd send some money his way and promised I wouldn't kill her.

Then I waited.

It was early evening now, and going dark. I'd had a busy day, but I felt no closer to anything than I had in the morning. I had to think about things, which meant, first, I had to not think about things, let my head clear a bit.

I went into the kitchen and took a look out through the peepholes I'd made in the wooden screens. I watched the gloom for a while and then went and sat at the table and listened to the fridge drone and the odd bus or lorry rumble by.

It was darker at the back of the house because of the covered windows. I didn't want the light on. I wanted to let the darkness fill the space around me so that I could let my head float off and empty, just for a while.