To Die For (9 page)

‘I saw that in a shop in Camden,’ she said, pointing to the picture I’d been looking at. ‘It’s called
The Fighting Temeraire
, by J. M. W. Turner.’

‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘The
Temeraire
was a famous ship, can’t remember why. But, thing is, here it’s being taken in to be broken up.’ She held her tea. When she spoke again, her eyes glistened.

‘It’s one of the saddest pictures I ever saw. That beautiful ship and it’s being dragged in to be pulled apart. Its time is up.’

We both looked at the picture for a while. The once-glorious fighter, now ghostly, was being pulled to its end by a squat black tug while Turner lit a funeral pyre in his sky. I’d never bothered with art, but as I looked at the picture, I saw she was right, it was sad. And yet, glorious also. I didn’t know why, I just felt it.

‘She fought at the Battle of Trafalgar,’ I told her. ‘She helped save
Victory
. At one point, she was locked between two French battleships and managed to outfight them both.’

Brenda looked at me for a moment.

‘You really know a lot.’

‘I know bits and pieces,’ I said.

‘And them holes, they’re for the guns?’

‘Yeah. She was a ninety-eight gun ship of the line.’

‘That’s a lot of guns.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Frightening.’

‘They were killing machines, those ships.’

‘Killing machines?’ she said. ‘Killing machines.’

She looked at the picture again, tilting her head to one side.

‘Why did they have to break it up, Joe? Why kill it?’

‘Like you said, its time was up.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, looking back at me. ‘I suppose so.’

She took her tea over to the settee. I took mine to a small table on the far side of the room. I sat on a wooden chair at the table, turning it slightly to face her. She moved across the settee so that she was closer to me. She smiled and I clenched my jaw. I was still waiting for the pitch. The silence stretched. Brenda fidgeted. I drank my tea. It was good tea.

‘Where are you from, Joe?’ she said, finally.

‘Tottenham.’

‘Yeah?’

She looked like she was trying to say something about Tottenham, but she didn’t seem able to come up with anything. Most people know it for the football club and the riots. She said, ‘I’m from Leeds. You ever been there?’

‘No.’

‘You ever been to Yorkshire?’

‘One time.’

‘Where’d you go?’

‘Sheffield.’

‘Yeah, well, Sheffield’s nice, but Leeds is, like, nicer.’

‘Maybe I’ll retire there.’

She laughed nervously. She was trying and I suppose I wasn’t making it easy for her.

There was another lull in the conversation. It was more lull than conversation.

‘I remember the riots in Tottenham,’ she said, having finally thought of something to say about the place. ‘I remember, I was going to go to a club there with my friend and I told her at the last minute that I didn’t really feel like it and then on the news they had about all them riots.’

‘The riots were in ’85.’

‘Oh. Must’ve been some other riots then.’

I was still waiting for the pitch. She waited for me to say something. She might as well have waited to be young again.

‘It’s funny, you know?’ she said. ‘The way things happen sometimes. You believe in God?’

‘No.’

‘No. Neither do I. You believe in fate?’

‘No.’

‘You believe in anything?’

I looked at her.

‘What for?’

Maybe I spoke harder than I’d meant to. There was a slow throbbing in my head and I was still riled about that encounter with Paget. I could’ve taken him apart in two seconds flat, but that would’ve meant trouble for me. I could’ve at least told him to fuck off, but that would’ve soured me with the casino. Once, I wouldn’t have given a fuck about that. What bothered me now, sitting in this damp flat, drinking tea, my head aching, was that I was losing my bottle, getting fearful of where I was, where I would be in five, ten years. I was getting old and my future was lousy and I damned well knew it, and someone like Paget could see it too and knew he could slap me down without any comebacks.

Brenda shifted in her seat, looked up, looked down. She put her mug on the ground, got up, went to a white, vinyl-covered cabinet and pulled out a bottle of gin and a glass. She filled the glass with gin and held the bottle up to me. I shook my head. She put the bottle down.

‘Mind if I smoke?’ she said.

‘It’s your place.’

‘Actually, it’s not. I rent it. Frank owns it. He owns lots of places and rents them out to his tarts. Sometimes he comes here to film stuff.’

She lit a cigarette and, while the smoke was still in her lungs, downed her drink. She poured another.

‘What do you want from me?’ I said.

‘Nothing. I mean... Oh, Christ, I don’t know.’

‘Everyone wants something.’

‘Do they?’

‘Yes.’

She stood slowly and brought her drink over to the table and put it down. She stood and watched me for a moment before sitting next to her drink, pulling it towards her, looking at it like it was her child.

‘I just wanted someone to talk to,’ she said to the drink. ‘That’s all right, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not the talking type.’

‘I know. We established that.’

‘So, why me?’

‘Bloody hell,’ she said, looking up sharply. ‘Are you always so suspicious?’

I was about to tell her that I wasn’t being suspicious, but I stopped. There I was, looking for her angle. That was suspicion, wasn’t it?

‘Why?’ I said.

‘Why what?’

‘Why do you want to talk to me?’

‘I dunno.’

‘You’ve got to have a reason.’

‘Have I?’

‘Yes.’

She thought about that for a moment.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘I think because I thought you were like me. I thought that you wanted someone to talk to, you know? I thought you were, well, lonely.’

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t feel lonely. I didn’t feel anything. I wondered if not feeling anything was what feeling lonely was like. I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t remember anyone ever just wanting to talk to me. Maybe that was loneliness.

‘I think you are like me,’ she said. ‘A bit, anyway. I think you do want to talk.’

‘Why would you think that?’

She smiled a small, sad, uncertain smile.

‘Well, you’re still here, aren’t you?’

She was right. I was still there.

I went to see her a few days later. I gave her a new kettle and a book about the Battle of Trafalgar. She smiled then, one of her wide smiles.

There were lights on, but nobody answered, and I couldn’t see any movement inside the house. I banged on the door again. After a while, I could see a small figure through the frosted glass. The figure hesitated and then moved quickly forwards and snatched the door open. I found myself looking down at a woman. Her face was pale; her eyeliner had streaked from crying. She was scared, but she looked straight into my eyes and held my gaze. She was a good-looking woman, slight in frame, with large brown eyes that had a cat-like slant to them. In her hand, pointed at me, was a kitchen knife.

‘I’ve called the police,’ she said.

I wondered if Bowker had called ahead and tipped them off. The woman didn’t seem to know how to react to my calmness. She kept edging backwards and then forwards again. She was lost, caught between anger and fear and bewilderment and a bloody great kitchen knife.

‘Go away,’ she said at last.

She tried to slam the door, but I held out a hand and caught it. She fought me for a moment, trying to push the door shut. She gave in and the door flew back against the wall. She held the point of the knife a foot from my stomach.

‘I’m looking for a Ray Martin,’ I said.

I didn’t force my way into the house, and that seemed to confuse her more and for a few seconds she forgot how to talk. When she remembered, she said, ‘Who are you?’

‘Nobody he knows. I need to talk to him.’

‘Haven’t you people done enough?’

‘What?’

‘Bastards.’

She spat the word, then started sniffling. She reached her hand up to wipe her eyes, forgetting that the knife was in it. I could’ve slapped her down easily enough, but smacking sobbing women and smashing down doors leaves a trail. She remembered the knife and brought it back to aim it at me.

‘Others were here?’ I said.

There was doubt now in her eyes.

‘You’re with them.’

‘I’m not with anyone. I don’t know who the hell “they” are.’

I took the gun slowly from my jacket pocket. When she saw it, she gave no sign of fear except to grip the knife more firmly. I held the gun out to her.

‘I only want to talk to him.’

I put the gun on the floor, took a step forwards into the hallway. She didn’t stop me. She was scared, but she wasn’t panicky, and she had the determination of a she-cat protecting its young. She moved backwards so that she was lit by the ceiling light. I pushed the door closed.

With the light of the hallway now on her face, I could see that she was older than I’d first thought. Lines had been scratched into her face. You could see a history of hardship. Martin had done a long stretch, King had told me. Had she waited years for him to come back? She was probably in her middle forties, but still attractive. I moved forwards slowly and she moved backwards, equally slowly, keeping the knife pointing up at me, keeping her fierce eyes on mine. It was a dance, of sorts – two-step with blade. I could have taken the knife from her anytime. I don’t know why I didn’t.

She crumbled then. The knife wavered in her hand and then fell and landed on the carpet. Her face creased.

‘I can’t lift him,’ she said.

‘Where is he?’

She pointed to a room at the back of the house.

‘He won’t let me call anyone.’

I eased past her. She caught her sobs and followed.

The room was small and dark, but it was comfortable. There were flowered curtains and quilted cushions and those small bowls of dead, dried petals that smelled. It was a woman’s place, a cluttered refuge full of books and easy furniture and warmth. On a mantelpiece over the fireplace were framed photographs of a smiling couple. There was no money on show, but there was security. The room didn’t fit with my profession. There couldn’t be anything here that would link with Beckett and Cole and a missing pile of cash.

And then I saw the man.

He was on the floor with his back against the wall. He’d dragged himself over. There was blood spattered on the carpet in the middle of the room. He looked like he was in his fifties, but it could have been that he was a damaged forty-something. He’d done some fighting once. His nose had been broken long ago, and there was scar tissue around his eyes. His hands were broad and gnarly, but they’d gone soft. He’d been big once, but he’d thinned so that the skin around his face was loose.

He was a mess. His brown hair was matted with dried blood, his right eye swollen and livid, his lips split and bloody. I lifted him from the floor and put him in one of the two comfortable chairs. He looked up woozily and made a weak attempt to push me away and stand up. I eased him back and he gave up trying.

‘Martin?’

He didn’t try to answer and when he looked at me he had trouble focusing. I sent the woman off to get water, ice and a cloth. When she came back, I wiped the blood from the man’s face, put ice in the cloth and pressed it to the swollen eye. I held the glass of water to his lips. He swallowed a little, then winced and pushed the glass away. He took the ice-press from me and held it to the left side of his face. He wasn’t making a fuss about it. He shook his head and looked up, noticing me for the first time.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Right.’

‘You’re Martin.’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘Who did this to you?’

‘Two men. Dunno who. Have an idea.’

‘Describe them.’

‘Both white. One thin, tall, blond, and a shorter one, heavy, with red hair, shaved short.’

‘What did they want?’

‘Same as you, I expect. Wanted to know where Beckett is. Told them I don’t know.’ He gestured to his face. ‘They didn’t believe me.’

‘I’m calling an ambulance,’ the woman said.

‘No,’ Martin said.

‘Look at you. Look at your face,’ she said.

‘I’ve had worse. Don’t get hysterical.’

‘I’m not getting hysterical. I’m going to call an ambulance, that’s all. What’s so fucking hysterical about that?’

‘Call them and they’ll report it to the police,’ I said. ‘Get the law here and this’ll be peanuts to what’ll happen next.’

‘He’s right,’ Martin said.

I held Martin’s face in my hands and probed it. I knew what I was doing and he knew that I knew. I suppose we each took one look at the other and knew we’d both been there before. He jerked back once in pain, but said nothing. I lowered my hands.

‘I can’t feel any broken bones. You might need a brain scan.’

‘Tell me if they find anything,’ the woman said.

‘What did you tell them?’ I said.

‘Who says I told them anything?’

I tilted my head towards the woman. She was staring at me, her face gaunt, her hands clutched before her.

‘They didn’t touch her,’ I said.

‘She wasn’t here.’

‘You must’ve known she’d be back sometime. You knew they’d use her as leverage.’

I was guessing. It made sense, though, and the grim look that ran across Martin’s face told me I was right.

‘Ray.’ The woman had taken a half-step forward. ‘Is he right?’

She’d started crying again. Martin waved her back.

‘Is there a first-aid box in the house?’ I said to the woman.

‘I can find some things around,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘What do you need?’

‘Antiseptic, gauze, bandages. Anything like that.’

She hurried off. When she’d gone, Martin said, ‘Gauze ain’t gonna do it.’

‘I wanted to get rid of her.’

‘Right. Thanks.’

‘You know where Beckett is?’

‘No.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘Maybe they could find Walsh.’