Guns Of Brixton (13 page)

    After
the accident, he'd temporarily moved out of the police section house and lodged
with her and her kids, Luke and Daisy. A flat over the garage in the house in
Purley. But what had started out on a day to day basis seemed to have become
permanent. Sean didn't mind in the least. Lodged. Blimey, he thought. We've
been lodged together as long as I can remember.

    But
what will happen when Jimmy Hunter gets out? wondered Sean. Will he just vanish
into the world of social services and cheap bedsits, or will he come looking
for us? And what will we do if he does?

    Being
a copper, Sean was well aware of his father's movements over the last few
years. But, as no one on the force knew of his history, he'd had to be
discreet. Even when his mother had died and he'd telephoned Belmarsh to let the
governor know, he'd not given his new name. Christ, he went hot and cold at the
thought of anyone finding out who he really was. It wouldn't look too good in
his police personnel file. Not that he'd have one if the news did get out. Just
a big RESIGNED written in thick black letters.

    In
truth he didn't know why he'd bothered to let his father know at all. Just a
kind of closure, he supposed. And at the funeral he'd half expected Jimmy to
turn up dressed all in black. Not that he could remember much about Jimmy
Hunter, having been just a boy when he'd gone inside for the last time. His
mother had often told him there was a close resemblance between them, and
sometimes, when he shaved in the morning, he would wonder just how close. All
he could recall was a big, rough man who smelled of tobacco who would lift him
up in his muscular arms and swing him round the room whilst his mother begged
him-not to drop the boy. And Linda could remember even less when they spoke
about him, which wasn't often.

    Sean
continued to doodle on his pad. The hanged man motif over and over again, until
he noticed what he was doing and ripped the sheet off the pad and threw it in
the wastepaper bin.

    And
finally there was John Jenner. Up in his bedroom in the house in Tulse Hill,
stroking die sleeping cat beside him. He too thought back over forty years.

    He
wondered about the story he'd told Mark the night before, and laughed at the
memory until he began to cough and he cursed the disease that was slowly but
surely stealing his body away from him. But he wouldn't fight it. He'd learnt
to live with it instead. Like he'd said to Mark, it was a part of him. Even
though it was killing him, and itself with him. Ironic. He hated reading in the
papers about people who had 'lost their battle with cancer' as the obits put
it. Fuck 'em. Most of them wouldn't know a battle if it jumped up and bit their
leg. Never fought a battle in their lives. Not like him and his crew. Jesus,
but we were the lads, he said to himself, as he laid down the unfinished
crossword and his pen. He'd only just started the story of the little firm he'd
built up from scratch with Billy Farrow, before Billy made his life changing
career move from one side of the law to the other.

    It
started in the old Marquee in Wardour Street. He and Billy were still punting
the pills they'd stolen when someone decided to rip them off. John and Billy
and an older man, still trying to be seriously mod but lacking both the hair
and the style to get away with it, were crammed into the last stall in the
malodorous toilets of the club and the older man, a geezer from Hackney called
Maurice Wright, had a small handgun stuck Into
John's side. 'Fuck me,'
said Billy. 'Is that real?'

    'As real
as can be,' said Maurice. 'Now, this is my turf, and if you come in here
flogging cut-price pills again I'll kill both of you.'

    John
felt his stomach lurch and hoped that he didn't disgrace himself by soiling the
seat of his brand new beige cotton flares from Lord John.

    'Fuck
off, Maurice,' he said. 'You ain't got the bottle.'

    Maurice
cocked the hammer of his pistol and asked. 'You want to find out? Now I want
what you've got on you, then the pair of you will fuck off out of Soho for
good.'

    'No
chance,' said John.

    'Listen,
cunty,' said Maurice. 'I'll use this if I have to. So why don't you just give
them up, and the cash you've nicked off me, and we can all part friends.'

    Grudgingly
John took out an envelope containing about a hundred doobies and a wad of ten
shilling and one pound notes and handed them over.

    'Nice,'
said Maurice. 'Very nice. Now, like I said, piss off out of here and don't come
back.'

    'See
you later, Morry,' said John, apparently not scared at all of the gun stuck in
his ribs.

    'Not
if I see you first.'

    The
two boys came out of the stall, through the club and into the warm air of
Wardour Street that was still twenty degrees cooler than inside the packed
club.

    'Fucking
terrific,'- said Billy.

    'Not
to worry,' said John. 'Plenty more where they came from.'

    'I
nearly shit myself.'

    'Me
too, but it'll be his turn next,' said John.

    'We
ain't coming back here,' said Billy, who, although no coward, had not been
happy to see a gun involved in their little business.

    'Ain't
we?' said John. 'Don't you believe it.'

    'What
do you mean?' asked Billy.

    'You'll
find out,' replied John. Billy didn't like the expression on his friend's face.
In the orange light of the street lamps it looked like that of the Devil
himself.

    'Tell
us.'

    'Saturday.
Dave Clark Five at the Tottenham Royal.'

    'So?'

    'So
we go.'

    'But
Maurice'll be there.'

    'Yeah.'

    'With
his mates.'

    'Yeah.'

    'And
he's got a fucking gun.'

    'So?'

    Billy
stopped and grabbed John's arm. 'So he's warned us off…'

    'Fuck
his luck. Are you with me?'

    'Course
I am. No question.'

    'Then
don't worry, son,' said John, pulling his friend close and looking him in the
eyes. 'We're fucking minted.'

    'Yeah,
you're right,' said Billy. 'Bleedin' magical, that's us. Fuck Maurice's luck,
he doesn't know who he's dealing with here.' And the pair lost themselves in the
bright lights, almost dancing along the pavement as they went.

    John
bought his first gun that weekend. He got it from an old soldier who ran a
pawnbroker's shop in Lewisham. He told John he had liberated it during the
First World War from an officer he'd killed after he kept trying to send him
and his mates over the top at Ypres. John knew it was that old but didn't
believe the story. The man sat behind the counter of the dingy emporium dressed
in a filthy, food-stained sweater and trousers that smelled of piss. He had
half a dozen cats and they slunk around John's legs as the two men, one just a
boy really, the same age as the pawnbroker would have been at the time of the
story he told, talked. The rumours locally were that, if the women of the parish
need to claim their belongings but didn't have the wherewithal, then they could
take the old man's cock out of his trousers and suck him off. Then they got the
goods and the cash too. John couldn't believe that any woman could be that hard
up. But the story persisted until the shop burnt down one night in 1969, and
the old man and several of his cats perished.

    The
revolver was a Webley Scott.455 calibre Mark III Government Model with a
seven and half inch barrel and hinged frame. It needed special ammunition made
only by Webley themselves. The bullets looked as ancient as the seller, but he
assured John they still worked. John didn't think to ask how he'd know. There
were six in the gun and he had six spare. The whole deal was available for a
bargain price of fifty quid, a fortune. John did the deal on the Saturday
morning of the Dave Clark Five concert. He shuddered as the old man's hands
touched his, and the cats rubbed up against his trousers. But a gun was a gun,
and as soon as the transaction was done he fled back home.

    He
showed Billy the pistol in his bedroom when he arrived. It was massive, and
fully loaded weighed almost three pounds. 'Fucking hell,' said Billy. 'Are you
sure? If we get nicked with that we'll go down.'

    'Then
we won't get nicked then,' said John. 'This is groovy. It'll show that fucker
Maurice.'

    'Not
'alf. Are you going to use it, John?'

    'Not
much point not to,' replied John.

    'But
you ain't going to kill him?'

    'No,
you silly sod. Just hurt him bad.'

    'Christ,
mate, this is serious.'

    'So's
being scared to go up west,' said John.

    'Yeah,'
said Billy. 'That won't do at all.'

    'We
need a motor,' said John. 'How about Wally?'

    'If
he's about.'

    'Go and
give him a call, will ya mate?' The Jenner household, like so many at the time,
not only had an outside lavatory, but it also did not have a private telephone.
Wally's dad, being something in the city, did.

    Billy
went out to the nearest callbox and John unloaded the gun. Being something of
an aficionado of crime books and films, he cleaned the gun as well as he could
with what was available in the house. Just as well, he thought, as he pushed a
lump of cotton wool on the end of one of his mother's knitting needles through
the barrel and dug out what looked like an ounce of muck. The last thing I need
is for this bloody thing to blow up in my hand.

    Billy
came back with good news. For a fiver, plus ten bob for petrol, Wally would
chauffeur them to to Tottenham, wait and return.

    'Terrific,'
said John, tucking the Webley inside the waistband of his jeans and trying a
fast draw which snagged the front sight of the gun in his belt. 'Billy. Tonight
you and me are going to make history.'

    And
make it they did.

    The
shoot out in the Tottenham Royal made the front pages of Monday's papers, and
John and Billy's reputation for ever.

    Wally
drove them up to north London in his Minivan. All three boys were flying on
purple hearts and John had bought a bottle of vodka and some Cokes and doctored
the soft drinks with the liquor, which was passed around the van until all
three were drunk.

    'Want
me to come in?' asked Wally when they'd parked the vehicle at the back of the
dance hall.

    'No,'
said John. 'This is our job. You just wait here.'

    'How
long?'

    'As
long as it takes.'

    'Got
any fags?'

    John
passed over a half empty packet of Bristol, today's cigarette, if the
television adverts were to be believed.

    'A
light?'

    'Don't
you ever buy your own?'

    'Not
if I can help it.'

    John
felt around in his pockets and found a book of matches and tossed them into
Wally's lap. 'Want me to smoke it for you too?' he asked.

    'That's
all right, mate,' replied Wally with a big grin as he lit up. 'I can manage.'

    'Fine,'
said John. 'Just be here.'

    'I
will. You owe me five quid, remember.'

    John
and Billy exited the car and joined the throng queuing to hear the last local
performance of the 'Tottenham Sound'. The Dave Clark Five were due back in
America where their popularity at that time, as one of the top three British
invasion bands, was huge. The ratio of birds to blokes inside was about five to
one and the smell of so many perfumes made the boys wink at each other as they
squeezed through the crowd, rubbing up against as many girls as they could on
their way to the ticket booth.

    They
paid their six and sixpence each and were soon inside the massive interior of
the hall.

    'Maurice
always hangs out by the bar,' said John. 'Near the gents so he can do his
business inside.'

    'That's
where I like to do my business too,' said Billy with a grin. 'Inside the
gents.'