To Fight For (31 page)

There was this time, in that summer, a day when we didn't say much. I'd gone round because she'd called me up the previous night and told me to get there for lunch, told me not to eat anything.

She'd made us a picnic. It was a big thing for her, I could see that. She'd made sandwiches and a cake. She'd bought those small pork pies and sausage rolls. She had a couple of bottles of wine. And she'd put the whole lot in a cardboard box with some napkins and plates and cutlery.

It was a warm day, and bright. There wasn't a cloud out there. And it was midweek, so the people were at work.

She smiled at me when she opened the door. Then she put her arms around my neck, standing on tiptoes. She kissed me. She hadn't spoken. She hadn't needed to.

We went to a small park. I can't remember where. It doesn't matter.

We sat on the grass and ate the lunch and drank the wine. Then, we lay beneath the blue, blue sky. That's all we did, just lay there and stared up at forever. I lay on my back and Brenda lay sideways, her head on my chest, her hand on my stomach.

That's how I think I'll remember her, if I can.

Just that. Both of us on a warm day in London with the endless blue sky above. Just that, and nothing more.

She opened the door and looked up at me like I was death itself. Maybe I was.

She moved back a step. She had no life in her. She was limp, pale, worn out. Her hands were by her sides, as if she wanted me to see she didn't have a knife this time. She stood like a ghost and watched me move towards her, watched me in the way you'd watch an oncoming storm when you're exposed and alone and far away from home.

As I got near, her hand went up to my chest, but there was no strength in it. I don't think she was trying to stop me. Maybe she just wanted to see if I was real, if I was warm and alive, if a heart beat inside me. Anyway, her hand fell away and she turned her face up to me.

‘I'm sorry,' she said.

‘Yeah.'

I closed the door behind me. She didn't try to run, didn't scream for help, even though she must've known what I wanted to do to her.

It had been a few weeks since she'd stabbed me, but she hadn't run. Instead, she must've been waiting every day for me to come back.

‘I had to,' she said.

‘Yeah.'

‘You know why?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Is that all you're going to say?'

She put both her hands on my chest this time, and pushed and then, as she started to sob, she beat at me.

I said, ‘Yeah.'

Her fists pounded into my chest. They bounced off me like hail stones bouncing off a concrete road.

‘For God's sake, Joe,' she cried, as her hands grasped my shirt, holding it to keep her from falling down. ‘Hit me, cut me, kill me. Do something.'

‘Is that what you were expecting me to do when I came here before? That time when you opened the door and saw me and fainted.'

She nodded.

‘I thought you were here to kill me,' she said, ‘I'd been waiting for you. I thought, Now he knows.'

‘And all that stuff you said, about us starting again somewhere, about me stopping, all that was …'

‘Yes.'

I caught her by the wrists and held her, pulled her towards me. She gasped and her eyes widened in shock.

‘I know what you did,' I said. ‘I know you betrayed her.'

‘I loved her.'

‘I know.'

‘Kill me, then. That's what you want, isn't it? It's what I've been waiting for. I thought about running, but I knew you'd find me and if you didn't, I'd find myself. And I didn't want that. So, do it. Kill me.'

I let go of her wrists.

‘Why didn't you finish me when you had the chance?' I said. ‘You knew I'd come back for you if I could.'

She nodded.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I knew that.'

‘You had me. You had that knife in me and all you had to do was push.'

‘Yes,' she said again. ‘I knew that.' She took a step back, seemed to shrink into herself. ‘I couldn't do it.'

‘Why not?'

‘I had to. I mean …'

‘They forced you? Compton and that?'

‘Yes. No. I … he told me I had to call him if you came back, if you were getting close to knowing what had happened. Compton's scared of you, you know. Really scared.'

‘And you were scared of him?'

‘Yes,' she said in a small voice.

‘So it was his idea, to stab me?'

‘No, Joe.'

I nodded.

‘Go through,' I said, nodding down the hallway. She backed away from me a few feet, then turned and walked softly into the lounge.

There was music on, an old soul track.

‘Turn it off,' I said.

Tina walked over to her stereo unit, pushed the button, made everything quiet. She turned, walked towards me, stopped.

Neither of us talked for a while.

Finally, I said, ‘I've seen Compton. I think I understand it all now.'

She nodded.

‘He came to you first?' I said.

She nodded again. Her lips were pale. I thought she might faint again. Her hands were holding each other. She said, ‘He had evidence against me, told me that he could put me away for a long time. I … I used to do drugs, and sell them. I couldn't go to prison, Joe. I couldn't.'

I didn't say anything. I felt cold. She looked up at me and, seeing something in my face, looked back at the hands she was wringing together.

‘So,' she said, ‘I was his. He told me there was a man. I don't know who he was. But Compton knew him, knew all about him. He knew he'd been to see Marriot. And he knew he liked children. I don't know how he knew that.'

‘Compton was MI5,' I said. ‘He had the man under surveillance. Probably for months.'

She nodded, but I don't think she was listening.

‘Compton knew I worked for Marriot,' she said. ‘He knew all about me. He knew everything. It was frightening.'

‘Go on.'

‘He asked me about Marriot, and about what he did with these sorts of men. I told him, and I told him that Marriot made films, to use as blackmail.'

‘What else did you tell him?'

When she looked up at me again, there was a blank expression in her eyes.

‘What else?' I said.

‘I was scared, Joe. You don't know what it's like to live your life scared of men, all men. Paget would've cut me up if he'd known I was talking to Compton. Compton would've sent me to prison for ten years if I'd held out on him. These men, Joe. All men …'

‘I know,' I said. ‘What else did you tell him?'

‘I told him what Brenda had told me, that she'd contacted a policeman who was working vice. She'd read about him or seen him on TV or something. Some operation – Elena, or some name like that. I told you that, didn't I?'

‘Yeah. You told me.'

‘Anyway, Brenda said she'd contacted the man in charge of the operation. But she didn't have any evidence to give him.'

I felt the muscles tighten in my shoulders. She saw it, but didn't move away.

‘I know why you wanted to kill me,' I said. ‘I understand. I'm just like them. I'm a man and you're as scared of me as you were of Marriot and Paget and Compton.'

‘Yes,' she said softly.

‘You told Compton. About Brenda, what she was doing.'

‘Yes. He thought about it, then told me he had an idea, a way of keeping me and him out of it. Let Brenda do it, he said. Let her steal a copy of the film, then take it from her. And all I had to do … all I had to do—'

She collapsed then, doubled up, with her hands to her face, sobbing. She crumpled into a ball and fell to my feet.

I was sick of myself, of terrifying women, threatening them with violence, with death. In my mind, I was doing it for Brenda. But I also knew I was betraying Brenda by doing it. I was just another in a long line of men who hurt women. Tina had suffered at the hands of men most of her life. I couldn't let myself be another one.

So, I waited. Finally, she rolled over onto her side. Her crying stopped. She wiped her nose, her eyes.

‘We met in a pub one night. She asked me if I could get a copy. I told her I was scared. She told me she was safe, we were safe. She had a protector, she said. A man. A hard man. He fights death, she said. He doesn't lose, she said.'

She moved her hand out, touched the tip of my shoe. I crouched down. She flinched. I put my hands under her, lifted her, took her to the sofa.

She wiped her face again. She wouldn't look at me. She curled into a ball, her knees up against her chest, her hands around her legs.

‘I persuaded her to do the film, Joe,' she said quietly. ‘I told her I was too scared to make the copy.'

I sat down in the chair opposite her.

‘I thought it must've been something like that.'

‘Compton gave me a laptop. I gave it to Brenda, explained how to do it. We made the film. Then, when Marriot was showing the bloke out, Brenda got a small laptop from her handbag. It was called a notebook. She used some cable to plug it into the camera and made a copy.'

She looked up at me.

‘Can I have a drink?'

I stood, went to a cabinet and got her a half bottle of vodka and a glass. I handed them to her. She cracked the lid open, poured half a glass, drank it all.

I sat on the sofa next to her. She looked at me over the rim of the glass. When she'd finished drinking, she wiped a hand across her mouth.

‘I knew she was scared,' she said. ‘I think she was more scared of making the film than of betraying Marriot and Paget.'

‘And then?'

‘Then … then she died.'

‘Yeah,' I said. I knew that part.

‘And then all hell broke loose. Compton came to see me, said it's gone wrong, said Brenda's dead. He was panicking. He didn't have the DVD yet. He said we've got to cover our tracks. He asked me if there was anything connecting me to Brenda. I told him she had some photos of us. There was one that I knew she had. We were on a beach—'

‘I saw that,' I said ‘I saw a photo, Brenda showed it to me. She was on a beach, smiling.'

‘Yes. We had a holiday once, me and Bren. We went to Norfolk, to the seaside.'

‘You told Compton about the photo.'

She nodded.

‘There was that one and a couple of others.'

‘That's why he took them all from Brenda's place, because he didn't want anyone to connect you and her as friends, in case they got the idea you might know something about her death. He had to take all the photos, though, otherwise someone close to her, like me, might realize which ones were missing.'

‘Yes. We had to cut all ties. I did.'

‘And the DVD? The copy Brenda made?'

‘I asked Compton how Brenda had died. He said he didn't know. Said she'd been found cut up in an alley. Then I knew. Marriot had found out she was grassing him up. Paget would've used a knife. It was his thing. Day after she died, I got a copy of the DVD in the post. I was supposed to give it to Compton.'

‘But you didn't.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because Compton wouldn't have wanted Glazer if he already had a copy. He would've used the copy he had, years ago. So, you didn't give it to him.'

‘No. Brenda sent it to me to hide. Compton told me I was to give it to him if Brenda gave it to me. Then … then Brenda died and …'

She took a deep breath.

‘I destroyed it. I didn't know what else to do. I was scared. I couldn't trust the police. Paget and Marriot would've killed me if they'd known I had it. If I'd sent it to the papers, Paget and Marriot would've worked out it came from me. Anyway, Compton would've known, and would've known I betrayed him. So … I burned it.'

‘You had black hair,' I said. ‘In the photo.'

She nodded.

‘The pub you went to that time, to meet Brenda, it was a place called the Fox and Globe.'

She nodded again.

That was the night, in the Fox and Globe. That's why we'd gone there, why Brenda had wanted me there with her. She'd met Tina, told her about me, showed her who I was, to tell her they had protection. ‘He fights death,' Brenda had told Tina. ‘He doesn't lose.'

The girl with the dark hair and the pale skin: Tina. She'd dyed her hair, of course. That's why her skin had seemed too white to me.

I remembered how Brenda had been, after she'd come back from the bar, how she'd stood there, at the table, and looked at me with a smile on her face, and pain in her eyes, and asked me to dance with her.

‘She said she had protection,' Tina was saying. ‘I didn't know what that meant until I saw you. I understood what she was doing then, that she knew she was risking her life but with someone like you, she thought they might not do anything to her. Anyway, that's what she told herself.'

I listened to what she said. I didn't know words could hurt so much. Was I, then, just protection, after all? Part of me believed it, had always believed it. Part of me knew, or thought it knew otherwise.

‘But you knew better,' I said. ‘You knew she wasn't safe, even with me.'

‘I told her. I tried to. She wouldn't listen.'

Did it really matter? If she hadn't loved me, wouldn't I still want to help her, avenge her?

‘She loved you,' Tina said, perhaps knowing what I was thinking.

I found that my hand had moved up to Tina's throat. She kept her hands in front of her, and looked up at me with huge eyes.

‘Do it,' she said.

I felt her blood pumping through her carotid artery. I didn't need to put much pressure on there. Just a little. Just a little.

Maybe I was all killed out, the need for death all used up. I think, though, I was so sick of it all, the endless bloodletting, that I just couldn't face it any more.