Free To Fight For by Phillip Hunter Page A

bloke.
    I stood and the room spun. I waited for the world to slow down, holding onto the sink while I swallowed the bile that had come up. I managed to reach the door, held onto the frame and heaved myself into the hall. The front door was open. The old man had gone. I kicked the door shut. If he was off to call the law, I didn’t have long.
    I heard a woman’s voice, low and desperate.
    Then the voice changed.
    â€˜Oh God,’ it said, and her eyes were on me, huge with horror.
    Somehow I was in the lounge and Marriot’s wife had a phone in her hand. When she saw me, she fumbled the phone and dropped it. I reached down for the phone and put it to my ear and heard no sound. I put it in my pocket.
    â€˜Who’d you call?’ I said, hearing the words coming out in a slur, knowing she couldn’t understand me.
    What did it matter who she’d called? Whoever it was would be trouble.
    The flat was small, but well decorated. It was the ground floor of a converted Victorian house, with high ceilings, coving, a fireplace – all the trimmings. The furniture was proper antique, I thought. It was rosewood and mahogany, anyway. And there was silver all over the place. It looked like she’d managed to keep some of Marriot’s money after all.
    There were no photos of Marriot, which was odd. Christ, he’d only been dead a few weeks. There was a picture of her as a young woman and another of her with a bloke who looked like the one who’d just scarpered. I suppose she didn’t want her dead husband to ruin things. I suppose she wasn’t that bothered he was dead.
    â€˜I want Glazer,’ I said.
    I could see the lines beneath the face cream she’d spread on. I could hear the crackling of nicotine soaked lungs.
    â€˜Glazer,’ I said again.
    â€˜He … he knew my husband,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything else. Is this what you do,’ she said, moving backwards, ‘threaten women?’
    She stumbled and fell, the breath leaving her in a gasp. One hand clawed at the carpet. I could see blood vessels in her yellowy eyes, as if the pupils had grown red roots.
    â€˜If I have to.’
    But even as I said it, I thought, Is this what I’ve become? I, who was never floored in the ring? I, this monster, feared by men of power, killer of soldiers? Now I terrify small women.
    Christ, the rage, the fury kept pulling me into its depths. I saw myself as I was, as that monster, but now full of the fury of impotence, standing above an old woman who was more impotent than me. I was like some mad dog, snarling and frothing at an insect.
    â€˜Policeman,’ she said. ‘He was a policeman. My husband paid him.’
    â€˜So, you do know more. Stand up.’
    She stood on weak legs. She kept her eyes on mine all the time.
    â€˜Can I sit down?’ she said.
    I nodded. She sat. I sat. I watched. She watched. I let the rage sink, fade.
    â€˜I haven’t had anything to do with Frank for a long time,’ she said. ‘We split up a couple of years back.’
    â€˜Just tell me what you know about Glazer.’
    â€˜He and my husband knew each other. He’s a policeman. That’s all I know.’
    She knew I’d killed her husband and she must’ve thought I’d kill her. That’s why I believed her.
    â€˜Your husband must’ve had notebooks, address books, something like that.’
    She jumped up and almost ran to a tall chest of drawers. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a bunch of papers and a couple of books. She held these out to me like she was making an offering. I suppose she was.
    â€˜Go,’ she said, pushing the stuff into my hands. ‘Take it all and go. Please.’
    I looked through what she’d given me, but it was rubbish, all domestic stuff; bank balances and car payments, shit like that.
    â€˜Where’s the rest of it? His business papers?’
    â€˜It was in his office,’