Guns Of Brixton (11 page)

    'Piss
off.' He laughed.

    'And
did you take the job?'

    Mark
nodded. 'Sure.'

    'What
was it?'

    'He
asked me to kill someone.'

    Chas
didn't speak for a moment, and when he did he said, 'And did you?'

    Mark nodded.
'Sure. I'd had the practice and the money and hours were better than working in
the bar.'

    Chas
nodded, then looked up at the kitchen clock. 'Blimey, is that the time? I'd
better take the boss up his tea and see if he needs anything.'

    'Times
certainly have changed here, Chas,' said Mark as Chas boiled water and put tea
in a pot.

    'How
so?'

    'You
used to be an enforcer. Now you're chief cook and bottle washer.'

    'I do
what needs to be done. But don't get the wrong idea. I can still do the
business when necessary. I ain't gone soft because I've bought a cook book or
two. No one should ever make that mistake. It could be fatal.' And with that he
left the kitchen, tea cup on a tray, leaving Mark to think about what he'd
said.

    John
Jenner came down later in his dressing gown, grey stubble on
s
^:
his
cheeks.

    'A
good night?' asked Mark.

    'Not
too bad. Only about half a dozen trips to the pisser. That's good- for me. What
are you going to do today?'

    'I'm
going to shoot back to my place and pick up my stuff.'

    'And
then?'

    'I'm
going to have a think about what you said.'

    'Good.'

    'What
about you?'

    'I'm
going to take the paper back to bed with me, do the crossword.'

    'Still
crosswords eh, Uncle?'

    'It
keeps my mind sharp. Will you call me later?'

    'Course
I will.'

    And
they left it at that.

    In
fact John Jenner had had a particularly bad night. Seeing Ma Farrow again had
brought back a lot of memories. Some pleasant, so. not so. And talking about
Hazel had brought back the worst. She'd always been the lively one out of the
two of them. The heart and soul of a pi that lasted a lot of years. But then
she'd started to slow down all of sudden; the heart had gone out of her soul.
But she refused to see a doctor, though Jenner nagged her rotten. It was only
when she collapsed one day whilst out shopping in Oxford Street that she was
forced to: an ambulance took her to Queen Mary's Hospital. When John Jenner
arrived a couple of hours later, the cardiac consultant gave him the first of
several bits of bad news. As far as they could tell at that early stage there
was a problem with one of the valves in her heart and she needed immediate
surgery. The valve was replaced with a mechanical one that ticked like a ten
bob watch, but Hazel never really recovered. There was talk of a heart
transplant, but even though John moved heaven and earth, the right match never
turned up. And all the money in the world couldn't buy his wife's life back.
Watching her die was the worst. Just as Mark had remembered the previous day in
the restaurant. Watching the woman he loved fade to a shadow of her former
self, her once lustrous red hair growing thin and dull and falling out in
handfuls. And the light in her eyes slowly being extinguished.

    John
Jenner hated to admit it, but when the end came it was almost a relief. Hated
to admit it, and hated himself for feeling that way. Feelings he'd never shared
with anyone, but which came back to haunt him in the darkest hours of the
night. And now, he was fading himself. 'Serves you right,' he said to himself
as he slowly made his way back to his bed and the
Telegraph
crossword.

    Mark
Farrow drove to Canvey Island around noon. He'd rented a place there to lie low
until Jimmy Hunter came out of prison. But the word that John Jenner needed to
see him urgently had changed all that. Not that he was sorry. The place he'd
rented was a dump, and he wouldn't miss it. By the time he left Tulse Hill, the
snow had stopped and the roads had been salted.

    The
chip shop underneath his flat, if that wasn't too grand a title for the couple
of rooms he inhabited, was doing a desultory lunchtime trade when he got there.
He dragged open the warped old double doors in the alley at the back of the
shop and parked the Range Rover next to an overflowing dumpster that stank of
rotten fish even in the freezing cold. He sighed as he climbed the icy, metal
flight of stairs to his door. The place might be rank, he thought, but at least
I could get the car out of sight. It was probably the sharpest motor for miles,
and although not strictly his property, he didn't want it stolen or damaged.
Too much hassle.

    He
unlocked the door and slammed it behind him. The temperature in the' flat was
sub zero. There was no central heating, only a couple of ancient gas fires. He
went into his living room and drew back the curtains, allowing the thin
daylight into the room. He looked around in disgust as he shucked off his
overcoat and muffler and threw them on to a chair. He struck a match and the
fire came to life with a burp, as he dropped into his lumpy armchair and
surveyed the room, contrasting the dirty, scored beige wood chip wallpaper, the
thin carpet and mismatched furniture with the inside of his uncle's house. As
the room warmed the window steamed and he went into the kitchen and put the
kettle on. One mug, one plate, one knife, fork and spoon sat on the draining
board by the sink. He found still fresh milk in the fridge, which he admitted
was the one advantage of a freezing room. A teabag and sugar went into the mug
and he brewed his tea, dropping the sodden bag into the Asda carrier that
served as his dustbin and went back into the living room.

    He
looked through the few vinyl albums stacked against the wall, picked out an
ancient copy of
Otis Blue.
It was an original American pressing on the
yellow Volt label and would have been worth a fortune if not for the fact that
the sleeve was torn and the grooves scratched, But Mark didn't care. He put it
on the turntable of the ancient record player he'd picked up at a boot sale,
side one, track one, and let the first few bars of
My Girl
fill the
room, thinking as he did that there was probably a mint copy back at John
Jenner's house.

    He
smiled to himself, sat back down and thought about what his uncle had told him.
He knew it was time he got his life sorted out. He was just marking time there
on Canvey. Hiding from his past, his parent's past, his surrogate uncle's past
and everything that was happening in south London.

    His
time away had changed him. It would've changed anyone. He let his thoughts
drift back.

    When
his father had been killed, Mark had been just a kid, his mother was in her
early thirties and couldn't cope with what had happened. Suddenly losing the
only man she'd ever loved, being at the centre of a notorious murder case, and
being left to look after a child alone had been more than she could deal with.
She'd never been strong. Billy had been the strong one in the family. And after
all the fuss had died down, Jimmy Hunter given his life sentence and the case
closed, she went from bad to worse. There was money. The Met made sure of that.
Compensation and a full pension meant that Susie Farrow and her son wouldn't
starve. In fact, if Susie had been forced by penury to look for a job, things
might never have ended up the way they did. But a widow with a bit of money
would always be the target for men. And men came and went until Bobby Thomas
turned up and didn't go away again.

    Bobby
was a boozer who dabbled in drugs on the side. Nothing serious really. He liked
a joint and maybe some coke at the weekend with the odd pill now and then.
Nothing to get excited about. But when he was pissed up and speed ran through
his veins he tended to get a bit violent. And Susie was no match for him. Nor
was twelve-year-old Mark Farrow. He'd tried his best, but Thomas was a big man
and loved to show just how big. Especially with women and children. Susie had
been an orphan and never really got on with Billy's mum and dad, and Bobby
Thomas didn't encourage any contact, until eventually they just faded out of
Susie and Mark's life.

    At
Mark's father's funeral, John Jenner, just another big man in a dark suit and
black tie who wouldn't go to the wake after the service because of the big
police presence, had spoken briefly to him, and given him a plain white card
with his name, address and telephone number printed on it. He'd told the boy he
was an old friend of his dad, and if he ever needed anything, anything at all,
he was to ring the number. Anytime, night or day. Just do it, the big man in
the dark suit had said before he'd climbed into a green Jaguar driven by an
even bigger man who wasn't introduced.

    As
Thomas's drug and alcohol consumption - financed mostly by Susie's money -
increased, so the violence worsened. What had been just a few digs, the
occasional slap and twisted arm, escalated. In the summer of 1985, Thomas and
Susie got married. The beatings took on a new edge, and with them, Susie,
encouraged by her husband, began to drink more, sometimes also joining him in
his drug taking.

    Mark
was at his wit's end. His school-work, which had never been much cop, went from
bad to worse. After one particularly bad weekend, he took the card that he had
hidden on the evening of his father's funeral and called the number. A raspy
voice, sounding like the creature from the black lagoon, answered after half a
dozen rings and Mark almost hung up. Stutteringly he asked for the name on the
card, and the voice demanded to know who was calling. Mark almost wet himself,
and only the thought of his drunken mother, crying herself to sleep in the
bedroom upstairs stiffened his resolve. He gave his name, the phone went down
with a bang and after a minute, a softer, but still frightening voice took
over.

    Mark
told the owner of the voice what was going on, and after a second's pause he
was told to wait where he was. It didn't occur to him until years later that whoever
he was talking to knew exactly where that was. Thomas was still snoring in
front of the television when there was the sound of a powerful engine outside,
a soft tap on the door and the two men from the cemetery, the driver, a man
mountain who simply introduced himself as Chas, and the man in the dark suit
now wearing a leather jacket and jeans were on the doorstep. With them was a
redheaded woman wearing a black leather suit and high heels. Jenner called her
Hazel and she was the most beautiful woman Mark had ever seen. For a second he
felt disloyal to his mother for thinking that.

    The
next few minutes mapped out Mark's future. The woman we upstairs to the bedroom
to see to Susie. John Jenner and Chas went and found Thomas. They dragged his
comatose form out on to the back patio, Chas filled a vase with cold water from
the sink and tossed it into Thomas's face. He came to with a start. When he saw
the two men, with Mark in the background, he demanded to know what was going
on.

    Neither
man spoke, just stared with disgust as he blustered about calling the police.
Then Chas produced a sawn off baseball bat and proceeded to give Thomas a
beating. His arms, legs, back and groin took the brunt of Chas's fury until
Jenner stepped in to restrain him. Chas asked Mark if he wanted to give his
stepfather a few licks, but he refused. They left Bobby Thomas groaning in
agony on the floor and went into the kitchen where Mark stood trembling with a
mixture of elation and fear whilst Chas and Jenner helped themselves to beers
from the fridge. When Hazel came down she told them that the girl needed the
hospital but wouldn't go.

    She
asked the boy if he wanted to get some things together and come with them, but
Mark refused again, being terrified of what would happen when Thomas was alone
with his mother. He was told not to worry, just to go and pack a bag. But he
knew he couldn't leave her in pain, not even at the behest of the beautiful
Hazel.

    'John,'
said Hazel.

    'He's
got to please himself,' said Jenner.

    'We
can't leave him here,' said Hazel.

    'If
that's what the boy wants.'

    Before
they left, Jenner went outside again and Mark saw him kneel beside Thomas and
talk to him, his mouth close to Thomas's ear. He spoke for a long time. When Thomas
nodded, Jenner rose and collected Hazel and Chas and they left. 'The offer's
open,' he said before he closed the front door. 'Anytime. Nothing's going to
happen to you now.'

    'Thank
you,' said Mark to their retreating backs before going upstairs to tend to his
mother.

    The
atmosphere in the house was never the same again. Mark realised for the first
time in his life that some things, once done, can never be undone.