To Kill For (13 page)

‘What's his name?'

My mind went blank. I'd seen a dozen names and I couldn't remember a single fucking one. She stared at me.

‘Zimmer,' I said finally.

‘Oh, Mrs Zimmer. I… uh… who are you again?'

‘Never mind.'

I turned and went back to the stairs and climbed them slowly, trying to think what I should do now. I knew the nurse was watching me, wondering, probably, why someone like me would want to see some Jewish lady who, for all I knew, was a hundred-and-eight-year-old Hungarian. I didn't think it would take the nurse long before she made a call or two.

Back up the top, I started walking along the corridor, the flowers crushed in my hand. I passed the cleaner again and she looked at me and smiled uncertainly. I stopped and went back to her. She was scrubbing the floor of a small toilet. She stopped scrubbing, but stayed on her knees.

‘I can't find my friend,' I said.

‘You go to the nurse,' she said, pointing back to the stairs.

‘She's not there.'

This surprised the woman.

‘No?'

‘No. My friend is black, tall and slim.'

She thought about this for a moment. Then her face cleared.

‘Black man? Young?'

‘Yes.'

She stood up. She wasn't much taller standing than she'd been kneeling. She looked along the corridor, towards the far end. She walked that way and stopped outside a door and pointed to the nameplate: Zimmer.

‘A man,' I said. ‘Not woman. Black man.'

She was confused now. She pointed at the nameplate again.

‘Black man. Young.'

And I knew I'd found him. And I knew I was in trouble. The cleaning woman was going to go back to her work and she was going to stop and wonder how it was that I didn't know my friend's name. And then she was going to wonder why the nurse wouldn't be at her station. And, meanwhile, the nurse was calling the law or security and telling them that someone had come to find ‘Mrs Zimmer' who was, in fact, a man under police protection. Yes, I was fucked. But I'd found him. The cleaner looked at me curiously as I opened the door. Then I saw I was really fucked.

There were two of them, one each side of the bed. They were looking at Hayward, who was sitting up, bandaged from his shoulder to his torso.

They were white, one tall, about six-two, in his late thirties, early forties, the other shorter, older, maybe late fifties. Their suits were of a type; one in grey, the other blue, both plain. The ties around their necks were loose, their top buttons undone. The taller one was in the blue suit. He had thin hair and puffy eyes. The one in grey had short grey hair and a greying moustache. He was grey all over. Both were unshaven. I could smell stale cigarette smoke in the room. I could smell cheap aftershave and booze. I could smell the sameness and endless disappointment of life. It was a uniform, of sorts.

They looked like middle-managers who'd become stuck in middle-management hell, too old to move up, too young to retire, too fat to do anything else. They looked like a million men, washed-up and wasted and worn out, but I knew them for what they were, I smelled it on them. They were the law. They stank of it. They were the fucking law and I'd walked right in on them.

Hayward saw me first and his eyes widened. The others turned. Their dead eyes flickered. Nobody said a thing, nobody moved. We all just looked at each other. There was something unreal about the whole thing, something not right, and I thought, This is a trap.

The room, the building was closing in on me. The stench of the place, the putrid air, sweet with the smell of urine and antiseptic, seeped into my nostrils. It was suffocating me. The cloying heat made me want to tear off my jacket and shirt just so that I could breathe properly. But I stood there, like the fool I was, rooted to the spot, staring at two plainclothes coppers.

Then Hayward said, ‘That's him.'

They moved as one. I dumped the flowers and reached for my gun. The cleaner screamed. The one in blue charged me and slammed his shoulder into my stomach. It threw me off balance and I crashed back against the doorjamb and lost grip of the Makarov, which clattered to the floor. I drove my elbow down into his back and he yelled in pain and collapsed at my feet. Grey Suit was at me now, smacking his fist into my face, his mouth twisted in fury and effort. I took his pounding and batted him off as best I could while I tried to move. Blue Suit realized what I was trying to do.

‘His gun,' he said.

He scrambled along the floor, reached for the gun. I kicked him in the stomach. I was off balance and hadn't connected, but I caught him enough to double him up. He sucked deeply and clambered to his feet and came at me again. The cleaner was at my feet, balled up and covering her head. The nurse downstairs must have called for the police by now. If I didn't get out quick I was done. I put my right foot flat against the wall and pushed with everything I had, flinging both men backwards. We crashed onto the bed and Hayward cried out as we landed on him. Grey Suit was up again, staggering but balling his fists, ready to strike. I took hold of his jacket and smashed him in the jaw. He went down cold. Blue Suit was struggling to right himself and Hayward was crying out in pain. I jumped up and grabbed the cleaner and threw her at the three men. She shrieked and she landed on them heavily and I had the gun in my hand.

Grey Suit was coming to. The cleaner scrambled off the bed and balled herself up in the corner of the room. Hayward's bandages were soaked through with blood and there was a glazed, sick look on his face. Blue Suit was staring at me. I levelled the gun at them, spitting blood.

‘We know who you are,' Blue Suit said. ‘You won't get far.'

I backed out and took the nearest stairs down. I barged through a fire exit and onto the street. The cab was still there, the driver leaning back smoking. I walked up to the car, opened the driver's door and pulled him out. He yelped when he hit the ground. As I got in, I could hear sirens screaming towards me.

The first police car rounded the corner as I shot away from the kerb. They slewed their car across the road, blocking my path. There wasn't enough pavement to go around them. On one side was the brick side of the building I'd just come from. On the other was a grass verge with trees. I skidded to a stop and threw the car into reverse. When I saw flashing lights in my rear-view mirror, I knew I was fucked. I swung my car round to block the road and took the keys out of the ignition. The second patrol car pulled up behind me, trapping me. Something in my mind was telling me something was wrong, somewhere. Everything was pushing in on me, squeezing me. If these boys were tooled up, I didn't have a chance. They looked like regulars to me, but I couldn't be sure. I thought, Fuck it.

I opened the door and got out and walked up to the first cop car. Both coppers got out and started to walk towards me; their batons were out, but they weren't armed. That was a mistake. I pulled my Makarov and added ten years to any stretch I'd ever do. The gun opened their eyes. They scrambled for cover. I got in their motor and gunned it away. Behind me, I could see the other patrol car trying to nudge past the cab.

I was in south Cambridge. I hit the side roads, going through residential streets, avoiding traffic cameras. After a half mile or so I eased the speed down and looked for a place to ditch the cop car. I left it beneath a large cedar tree. I could hear sirens in the distance. It wouldn't be long before they got the chopper over here. The car would be hard to spot from the air and it would take a while before the patrols found it. That meant I had a bit of time, but not much. The station was about a mile north of me with the city centre another mile further. The police would be all over there by now. If I went south, it was a short way to the edge of town, but then I was exposed, a lone figure in fields. It was dark, but I'd show up on infrared. They'd get me easy. I pulled the collar of my coat up and started walking towards the station.

I spent an hour ducking down side roads, turning back on myself the moment I heard a siren up ahead, twisting this way and that like a worm on a hook. When I finally got to the road leading to the station, I saw police all over the place, coppers on foot standing at the station entrance, patrol cars parked. I kept walking.

I was on a main road now and it was busy. Buses and cars and trucks whirred past me, people on bikes and foot all around. I could see the steeples and taller buildings of the town centre ahead. That was where I had to get to. A patrol car turned into the road a hundred yards up and headed my way. I ducked into a pub and waited for it to pass by. After that, I was okay. Once I was in the centre, I got my bearings and made for the old part of town.

It took me another hour to find what I was after. I thought it was too late in the day, that I must have missed them. Then I saw them coming out of one of the colleges, a dozen people, mostly old, following a tour leader. I tagged on at the back, getting slowly closer as the group stopped before one place and another. I got a few odd looks, but nobody said anything. After a half hour, they stopped for a bite to eat and I pulled the tour guide aside. He was a stuffed shirt type, more interested in showing off his knowledge than keeping the people interested. He hadn't even known I wasn't supposed to be there. I told him I was on another tour group but had got separated. I asked if I could tag along. He thought that was against policy or something. I pulled some money out of my pocket and handed him a score and policy went out of the window. After that, he told everyone I was joining the group. I had to put up with them for another couple of hours, traipsing round museums and that sort of shit. I saw a few patrol cars cruising, but they were looking for a lone figure. Finally, with the dark fully upon us, we went to a park and climbed aboard a coach. I took a seat at the back and pushed myself into the corner. I'd found out the group was from Birmingham, so that's where I was going.

By the time we got onto the M6, I was tired. I listened to the hum of the wheels, the soft twitter of music coming through the small speaker above. I watched the shadows blur by, the lights of cars and lorries.

But I couldn't sleep because something nagged at me. It was that bunch at the hospital. Something was wrong and I couldn't put my finger on it. The two suits were law, but they weren't behaving like they should've been. They had a man in custody and that man had been involved in a shooting incident, but they'd shipped him out to a hospital in Cambridge, when he should have gone to Whipps Cross or somewhere near the incident. They were protecting him for some reason. It could have been that Hayward was an informer. But the coppers' manner bothered me.

I thought of these things and of the conversation I'd had with Hayward's wife or whatever she was. The first time I spoke to her she was agitated. She hadn't heard from Hayward, she thought he might be hurt. The second time I'd spoken to her, she'd seemed calm, as if, by then, she'd got news of him. But if her old man was nicked and in hospital, would she be calm? Then there was Glazer; when I mentioned his name, she gave no sign of recognition. No, I was missing something.

For a moment, I thought the whole thing had to have been a set-up, that they'd used Hayward as bait to lure me after him. But that didn't make sense either. Why hide him in Cambridge if they wanted me to find him? Why were the detectives unarmed if they expected me to hit Hayward? But that, of course, that was the last thing they wanted. When I'd walked into that room they'd been as surprised as me.

Those detectives hadn't been quizzing Hayward, either. There'd been no notebooks, no recorder. It was all wrong.

I leaned back in my seat. It was darker now and the coach was hot and stuffy. The people in front of me were quiet, some resting, some talking softly, travelling back to their dull lives in their dull homes. Christ, I wished I could be them. To be able to go home, go to work, live quietly, boringly. That was what I wanted.

I watched one middle-aged couple a few seats in front of me. The woman was rabbiting away about her friend Wilma who'd done something to someone for some reason. It was the bloke that got me, though. He was bored, but there was something else. He was trying not to look bored, trying to look like he didn't mind being there even though he was itching to escape. It was like he was doing his duty, putting up with it all. Something about that snagged in my mind and I realized that he reminded me of the detectives in Hayward's room when I'd first seen them. There had been that half second when I'd first barged in and everything had stopped and I saw the men in front of me like a scene frozen from a film. Those detectives had the same expression then as this bloke did on the coach.

Then I realized. They weren't there to question Hayward. They hadn't nicked him. They were visiting him. Hayward was one of them. Hayward was a fucking copper. Now I understood that conversation I'd had with his wife. And I understood too why he was in Cambridge, why the gunshot wound had been hushed up. They were protecting him, protecting their own.

It was late when we hit Birmingham. I found a chain hotel near the station and paid for a single room, high up so I could get away from the traffic. Things were building up and I needed to sort them out. I took a shower in the room and popped some pills to sort my head out. After all that I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I could hear the drone of the traffic from the street, six floors below. My head throbbed. I had to think.

Paget was at the root of it. We all wanted him – me, Cole, Dunham. All for different reasons. Cole wanted to get his heroin back and restore his reputation. Dunham wanted something else, but I didn't know what. I wanted something simple. I wanted revenge. And the law? What about them? What the fuck did they want with Paget? Was Hayward a plant of some sort? And if he was, what was he after? One thing I knew, the law wasn't interested in arresting Paget. If Hayward had been attached to him for a while, which he must have been, why hadn't he nicked him? And Glazer? What of him?