To Fight For (29 page)

The bodies were still there. That meant I was in time; Eddie and Dunham didn't know yet. They probably still thought Buck was working on Glazer, that they'd get an answer soon. Well, Dunham might've thought that, but Eddie would've started to worry, after my phone call to Browne.

I was hiding the knife wound as best as I could. My jacket was buttoned and the dark material had soaked up the blood. I held my gun by my side. I felt cold, and I thought the rip in my side had opened again. And then, too, I was still feeling the beating I'd got from Buck, some swelling around my right eye, my left ear ringing.

There was nothing in me, no strength any more. But I didn't want them to know that.

I hadn't known if Tina would call them, but if she had, I thought she wouldn't say anything about stabbing me. Now, though, seeing them standing around trying to look casual, I knew Tina hadn't told Compton anything. Why would she? She hated him as much as she feared me.

So, as far as they all knew, this was the first time I'd been here.

They clocked the gun as soon as I went in, but they didn't make a thing of it. I put it in my waistband, just to play along for the time being.

Compton waited, wiped a hand over his moustache. Hayward was back against a wall, arms folded, ankles crossed. It was a good act, all this, but I could see the sheen of sweat glistening on Hayward's dark face. I could see that shake in Compton's hand. The bodies of Glazer and Buck must've scared them plenty. That was good. That was what I wanted; to snatch some of their control from them.

Bradley pulled a pack of smokes from his jacket pocket, opened the pack, put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a lighter. He did all that without taking his eyes off me. He'd smoked a half dozen already. The butts were strewn about. This was a crime scene, and these were coppers, and they didn't give a shit. I doubted these deaths would ever get reported.

‘Well, Joe,' Compton said at last, ‘have you come to give us something? Tell us something, perhaps?'

I was supposed to roll over now, be a good dog. That was the cue.

I said, ‘No.'

Compton's jaw twitched. Then he shrugged. That's okay, his shrug said, we don't really care.

Bradley nodded, half smiled. I think he wanted me to fight just so he could kill me. He'd probably been telling Compton not to trust me from the start.

Hayward just looked baffled, but didn't say anything. He couldn't take his eyes off the bodies on the floor, the pools of blood that shone like dark mirrors.

‘Looks like we're all too late,' Compton said, walking over to one of the corpses. ‘This is Glazer. Or was. Blood's still wet. Must've died recently.'

‘Know the big bloke?' Bradley said.

‘Yeah,' I said, without looking at the body. ‘His name was Roy Buck.'

Hayward unfolded his arms. His jacket was buttoned. I could see the shape of the gun beneath.

Bradley didn't move, but he was staring hard at me. Compton just nodded, as if I'd told him it might rain later.

‘Any idea what happened here, Joe?' he said.

‘Buck killed Glazer. I killed Buck.'

Bradley flicked his eyes over to Compton. Hayward ran his tongue over dry lips.

‘Okay, Joe. What's this all about?' Compton said.

‘It's about someone I knew. Someone I—'

My throat seized up. What I wanted to say was that it was about someone I'd loved. Maybe, after so long, the idea that I could love anyone was too difficult to believe. Who was I that I could love someone? How can a machine love?

And yet the pain of losing her was so deep it couldn't be known. It was more than in me. It was of me, it shaped me.

Maybe I felt the loss more than I'd felt love for her when we'd been together. You don't think of it when it's there as much as you feel the loss of it when it's not. It was like standing in the shadow of an eclipse of the sun, feeling coldness and seeing darkness and knowing that the warmth had gone. A forever eclipse, that's what it was.

I couldn't say any more, things had become too mixed up, the memory of her swamping and drowning every-thing else.

I tried to push the memories away but they wouldn't go. They were caught about the hatred; memory and loathing feeding off each other, each pushing the other further in.

Browne was right; the hatred was killing me.

And I didn't care because without it, I had nothing. Browne was wrong about that; I wasn't gutting myself. I was already gutted. I was that body on the slab, moving but dead, bloodless and grey.

I realized then, at that moment, in front of these cunts, that I'd never told her what I felt for her.

‘Fuck,' Bradley said. ‘Will you look at that? He's human after all.'

‘Let him speak,' Hayward said.

I think, of all of them, he understood most – maybe because he had a woman.

‘It's about someone I knew. Her name was Brenda.'

‘Yes,' Compton said. ‘You told us about her.'

‘But I didn't need to tell you about her, did I? You already knew.'

There was silence for a moment. Then Hayward broke it.

‘John?' he said.

Nobody paid him any attention.

‘You were there that time,' I said ‘at her flat, after she'd been killed. I know you were because there was a witness; a woman who lived near Brenda. I went to see her.'

‘Is that what this is about? Yes, I was there. I was investigating Operation Elena then. We knew Glazer was bent and we thought she might have evidence against him, so, when I heard she'd been killed, I went there and looked for it. Nothing to get wound up about.'

It was a good story. I almost believed it.

‘What did you find?' I said.

‘Nothing,' Bradley said, flicking his ash onto the floor. ‘Waste of time.'

‘Did you find any photos?'

‘Photos?' Bradley said.

‘Yeah. Things that come out of cameras.'

Hayward wasn't saying a word. I think this was the first time he'd heard any of this. He must've been wondering why that was.

‘No, we didn't find any photos, Joe,' Compton said. ‘Why do you ask?'

‘You were looking for drugs.'

‘Who told you that?'

‘Brenda's neighbour. She said you told her you were looking for drugs.'

I could see dots of sweat on Compton's brow. I knew way more than I should. What else did I know?

‘That's what we told her,' he said. ‘It seemed best. We wanted to keep a low profile. Drugs round there were a common problem.'

‘You're lying, Compton.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean fuck you. You weren't investigating Operation Elena back then. Glazer was still running it, which he wouldn't have been if anyone was suspicious of it. The investigation into Glazer came after.'

‘Okay. Look, there's stuff I can't tell you, that's all. You just have to trust me.'

‘Why should I trust you? You've lied to me from the start.'

‘Not from the start, Joe,' Compton said, smiling.

He looked at Bradley and Hayward. It was all funny. Bradley made an effort to smile, but his eyes gave him away. Hayward didn't bother at all.

‘Joe,' Compton said, all friendly now. ‘Joe, you've got things all wrong. We're the ones who were out to get Glazer. Remember?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘You wanted him alright. You wanted him dead.'

‘Bollocks,' Bradley said.

‘Who do you work for, Compton?'

‘You know who.'

There was a surge of pain in my side that made my head swim for a second. Then the sweat came. I don't think they saw it. I said, ‘I know who pays your bills. I know you wear a uniform. But I don't know who pulls your strings. One thing I do know, you don't care about any anti-corruption shit.'

‘You don't know what you're talking about, Joe, old son. You've gone paranoid.'

‘All them blows to the head, probably,' Bradley said, waiting for a laugh from the others. He didn't get one.

‘We're investigating Glazer because he's corrupt,' Compton was saying. ‘That's all. Simple. No conspiracy. You know he was bent, Joe. You know better than anyone; he grassed your woman up to Marriot, didn't he? And Marriot got Paget to kill her. Right?'

‘That's why you killed Marriot and Paget isn't it?' Bradley said.

‘I know about you, Bradley,' I said. ‘You were Special Branch, weren't you?'

Hayward was looking from one to the other. Bradley stared at me, his mouth open.

‘I saw a copper called Rose,' I said. ‘Remember him?'

‘No,' Compton said.

‘He was a DS, ran a few informants. One of them was a woman called Margaret Sanford. She was Brenda's neighbour. You took over running her from Rose. You used her to keep an eye on Brenda. This was before the film was even made, which means you had foreknowledge of the film, of Brenda's part in it, of her plan to get a copy to send to Glazer.'

Compton looked at me for a long time and I saw him as he really was, without pity or conscience, cold and deadly.

Then, he half smiled and spread his hands. He didn't care. People like him never do. People like him and me. I could've killed them then and there, and wouldn't have felt anything about it. But I wanted to end this, get things straight, finally. For that, I had to wait a while.

It was the photo in Tina's album that did it, told me what was happening – the photo of Tina on the beach; the pale skin, black hair. I'd seen her years back, in the Fox and Globe, when I'd gone there with Brenda. Well, it was the photo and her knifing me. She'd done it out of fear; fear that I knew what she'd done.

By itself, it wasn't much. But when I added it to everything else I knew …

Meanwhile, my blood was seeping out, my head was getting lighter, fuzzier. The room moved. I stumbled forward a half step. None of them saw it. They were all too worried, each in their own way.

‘John,' Hayward was saying. ‘What does this mean? What's he talking about?'

There was panic in Hayward's voice. I think he'd seen the same thing in Compton I had and that, I think, more than anything, frightened him. Everything he thought he knew was crumbling, and the cause he'd been devoted to – fighting corruption and murder – and Compton – the man who'd embodied that cause – all that was becoming dust in front of him.

‘He doesn't know what he's talking about,' Compton said.

‘Beyond his understanding,' Bradley said. I think he wanted to say something just to remind everyone he was there. ‘He knows fuck all.'

But I did know. Finally.

I said, ‘You're MI5, aren't you, Compton? You must be if Bradley was from the Branch. My guess is you had this bloke in the film under surveillance. You would've known he had a thing for kids. So, when he made contact with Marriot, it would've been easy to figure out what he wanted. There was your chance to get him, to blackmail him, control him. But you couldn't trust Marriot, so you investigated people working for Marriot, and found a woman you could put the frighteners on. Her name was Tina.'

‘John,' Hayward said. ‘Sir? What's he on about?'

‘Shut up, Del,' Bradley said.

He was still smoking his cigarette. I had the feeling that when he stopped, people would die.

‘What the fuck is he on about?'

I turned to Hayward.

‘They used you, Hayward. They needed a real copper to get onto Glazer's vice unit. They fed you the same spiel they've been feeding me, that they were investigating Glazer's connection to Marriot.'

His face was grim. He was standing now with his feet a little apart and his arms by his side. He looked like he was getting ready for a fight, but hadn't decided who it was going to be with.

‘Why was this so important?' I said to Compton ‘Who is he? A terrorist? Arms dealer? Politician?'

‘Something like that. He's foreign. He's powerful. And if we get him under our thumb, we'd have that power. You were a soldier once, right? You fought for God, for Queen and country. You must understand loyalty.'

‘Fuck Queen and country. Fuck God, too. None of them ever did anything for me. And fuck you lot.'

‘Look, son, I know what this means to you. The man in that DVD is a vile human. He used people, abused them, your woman included. But he means a whole lot more to us. We'll make him pay, don't worry about that. Leave it to us.'

I didn't say anything to that. It was interesting, in a way, watching Compton work, watching the absolute certainty of his authority override his fears.

‘You want him?' Compton said. ‘What are you gonna do? You'll never find him. You'll never get close. Look in a mirror, son. You haven't got what it takes. We're out of your league.'

‘That's what Eddie Lane told me.'

‘He was right.'

‘I know.'

‘Joe, you may hate us, that's fine, but we didn't do anything to hurt anyone. We didn't kill your woman.'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Paget and Marriot did that. And now they're dead.'

‘You should know,' Bradley said.

‘You're right, I killed them. I keep killing people. It's a bad habit.'

Bradley glared at me. I turned back to Compton.

‘Paget had a copy of the DVD. He probably had copies of all the films that Marriot made, and they're probably sitting in some bank safety box. But I don't think he knew who was on the DVD, otherwise he and Marriot would've used it before. Marriot would've used it to keep out of the nick.'

‘So?' Compton said.

‘So then Marriot gets out of prison, and he and Paget try to take over Cole's turf and use me as a scapegoat. It goes wrong and I kill Marriot. Now Paget is running for his life, me and Cole both after him. And he goes to Dunham for protection and offers a copy of the DVD as a fee.'