“I can’t stand it, Joe. Sometimes, I just can’t stand it. What they do.”
I knew what she was talking about. Marriot did things with kids.
“Get out, then. I've told you, do something else. Fuck Marriot. He gives you any grief, I’ll rip him apart.”
She smiled vaguely, like she was humouring a child. But the smile wore away from her face, and her gaze was back into that middle distance again, between here and nowhere, between what she was and what she knew she could never be. I don't know why she did that to herself. I’d told her enough times that life was a piece of shit. If she'd got used to that, she wouldn't have been endlessly disappointed. But when I would say that to her, she would look at me with her thin smile and it would be like she was sorry for me, like I was the one suffering, and she was here to make everything all right. So she carried on with her suffering, and with her life, and with me. She was a romantic, I suppose, or an idealist or whatever. You can't do much with people like that.
Whatever she saw there, in that middle-land, she didn’t want me in on it. I think she thought she was protecting me. Maybe she was.
It’s funny; Brenda thought she could protect me. Kid thought so too. And Browne. None of them could do anything for themselves except be victims, but they all thought they could protect a violent, war-torn monster like me. I say it’s funny. It’s not. It’s about as far from funny as you can get.
“We could go somewhere,” I said. “We can start again. Somewhere.”
“You don’t understand, Joe. I can’t explain it. I have to carry on. Not for me, but…”
There were tears coming down her face. She stubbed her cigarette out and took a long drink from the glass. She shook her head and wiped away the tears. She looked at me and forced a smile.
“I’m being stupid,” she said. “Come on, let’s go and get some fresh air.”
I should have listened to her. Things would have been different. She might have had six years more life, for one thing. We might still be together. Who knows, she might have got her beauty parlour.
Anyway, I should have listened to her. I should have understood what she was telling me. I should have done lots of things. I should have killed Marriot and Paget back then, before they’d killed her, before they’d used Kid, before anything.
I should have done those things.
But I hadn’t, and people were going to pay for that.
REVENGE AND THE MACHINE
Coming in 2014
About this Book
A BROKEN MAN.
Joe was a British soldier, then a bare-knuckle boxer.
Now he’s a gangster in London’s East End.
Once, long ago, he fell in love. But people like
him don’t have happy endings.
A BROKEN CITY.
Hackney’s most vicious gang is hunting
All he knows is that until he kills them,
he’s a dead man walking.
A RAY OF HOPE.
A twelve-year-old runaway, Kid, needs Joe’s
protection. Life has made Joe a machine.
Can this little girl make him human again?
About the Author
PHILLIP HUNTER has a degree in English Literature and an MA in Screenwriting. He was also part of the team that sequenced the human genome.
A Letter from the Publisher
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The story starts here.
First published in the UK in 2014 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Philip Hunter, 2014
The moral right of Philip Hunter, to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (eBook) 9781781852064
Typeset by Ben Cracknell Studios
Head of Zeus Ltd
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Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Preview
About this Book
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright