Guns Of Brixton by Mark Timlin Page 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 IntoJohn'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,'