Get Carter (18 page)

“And you think you’re going to do it,” I said.

Nothing but smiles.

I leapt out of the bed and picked up the shotgun and pointed it at them.

“Right,” I said. “Right. So take me back to London.”

“Now, Jack,” said Con, “you know it’d be best if you just got dressed and came with us.”

“I mean, we don’t want to get all involved, do we?” said Peter.

I advanced on them. They stepped back a little bit. They were still smiling.

“Put it away, Jack,” said Con. “You know you won’t use it.”

“The gun he means,” said Peter.

“Out,” I said. “Out, out, out!”

They bundled through the door. Con laughed.

“If Audrey could see you now,” he said.

“Out,” I said.

They started down the stairs, stumbling against one another in their mirth. I followed. In the hall Peter stopped and said:

“We’ll have to take you back, Jack, whether we do it now or later.”

Con opened the front door.

“Come on, Jack,” he said. “Be reasonable.”

“Out,” I said.

They went through the front door, still smiling. I followed them. The street was slick with greasy rain. Peter’s red Jag was parked by the kerb across the street from the boarding house. He loved his shiny red motor. He kept it looking very nice.

Con and Peter went down the steps and stood on the path and looked up at me.

“Well, I suppose we’ll be seeing you later,” said Con.

“Out,” I said.

“We are out,” said Peter.

I began to go down the steps.

“Mind you don’t catch cold,” said Con.

They both laughed.

“I hope she’s got understanding neighbours,” said Peter.

They went down the path and got into the Jag.

“See you when you’ve got your trousers on,” said Con.

I went into the hall and closed the door behind me. There was a pay phone on the wall next to the hall stand. I went over to the phone and picked up the receiver. I dialled 0. After a while the operator came on. I asked for a London number. Transfer charge. I waited.

“A Mr. Carter is calling from — 3950. Will you pay for the call?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Gerald’s voice.

“Go ahead please, caller,” said the operator.

“Gerald?” I said.

“Hello, Jack.”

“I’ve just seen Peter the Dutchman and Con McCarty.”

“Oh yes? How are they?”

“Very well,” I said. “Providing they keep out of my way.”

“Now look, Jack …”

“No. You look. You look,” I shouted. “Get off my fucking back, Gerald, or there’ll be trouble. I’m telling you.”

“You’re telling me, Jack?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh, I must have got it wrong: I thought I was the boss and that you worked for me.”

I heard Les’s voice in the background saying, “Let me talk to the cunt.” There was a rattle at the other end of the line. Les came on.

“Now listen here, cunt,” he said. “You work for us. You do as you’re told. That’s what you’re paid to do. Either you come back today or you’re dead. I mean that.”

“Oh yes?” I said. “That’s very interesting.”

Gerald came back on the line.

“Les didn’t mean that, Jack,” he said. “He’s very angry just at the moment.”

I heard Les’s voice in the background saying yes he fucking well did mean it.

“Then what did he mean?”

“Look, Jack, why don’t you come home and save everybody a lot of trouble?”

“I am home. And who’s everybody?”

“You, for a start.”

“And?”

“Us.”

“Why?”

“Never mind.”

“You know something, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t, Jack. Just come home with Con and Peter and let’s forget it, eh?”

“I’m not coming back, Gerald. Not until I’ve found out who killed Frank.”

“You know we’ve asked Con and Peter to bring you back even if you don’t particularly want to come?”

“I did gather that,” I said. “Have they got shooters?”

“Jack …”

“Because they’ll bloody well need them,” I said and slammed the phone down.

I went up the stairs. My landlady was standing at the top. I walked past her into my room and went over to the window. I looked out. Peter the Dutchman was sitting on the bonnet of the car, smoking, looking up at the window. He waved when he saw me. I couldn’t see any sign of Con. He was probably round the back. I turned away and began to get dressed. My landlady came into the room.

“I want you to do something for me,” I said, tying my tie.

“What, and get myself beaten up again?”

“There’s no chance of that,” I said.

“Not much.”

“They’re friends of mine.”

“That’ll make me feel better, will it?”

I ignored her and packed my hold-all and picked up the shotgun. I went out of the room. She followed me downstairs and into the kitchen. I looked over the top of the lace curtains that covered the glass panel in the back door. I couldn’t see anything of Con. There were just dustbins and damp grey grass and beyond the thin rain more houses.

“We’re going into the garage by the door at the side,” I said. “I’m going to get in the car and the minute I start it up, I want you to open the garage door. Sharpish.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Sit in the car and whistle ‘Rule Britannia.’ ”

I opened the door and stepped outside. My landlady folded her arms and stayed where she was. I leant back and grabbed an arm and pulled her after me.

“Will you be coming back?” she said.

I pushed her into the space between the house and the garage and opened the side door.

“Eh?” she said.

I pushed her inside. I put the shotgun and the hold-all in the boot and got in the car and softly closed the door. I looked at my landlady. She was still standing by the door. She’d folded her arms again. I got out of the car and walked round to her.

“You’re not, are you?” she said.

I gave her a clout and shoved her over to the big door and went and got back in the car.

I looked at her and she looked at me. I switched the engine on. She didn’t do anything. I waved my arms about at her. She pulled a face at me. I started to get out of the car. She bent down and put her hand on the handle in the middle of the big door. I sat back and nodded to her. She turned the handle. I pressed the starter and the engine caught first time. She pushed against the garage door and it slid upwards. I put my foot down and the car began to move forward.

Peter the Dutchman was still sitting on the bonnet of his Jag. It was still parked across the road from the boarding house. As the door clanged upwards his head turned slowly round so that he was facing the garage. He found himself looking into my eyes. My car picked up speed. It wasn’t going fast but it was going fast enough for what I wanted to do. I kept it going straight for the Jag. Straight for where Peter the Dutchman was dangling his legs over the edge of the bonnet. He didn’t move. He was still staring into my eyes. I kept on going straight right up until the last second and then I wrenched the steering wheel hard over. The car drifted broadside toward the Jag. The back of my car began to gain momentum. Peter the Dutchman moved. Backwards over the bonnet. His legs up in the air, his cigarette still in his mouth. I pulled the steering wheel back again and straightened the car up. At the same time, I pulled the handbrake on and immediately let it out again. The boot
of my car waltzed into the side of the Jag and waltzed back again into the straight. I’d hit the Jag between the bumper and the front wheel. I took off up the road and looked in the mirror. Peter’s pride and joy didn’t look quite so pretty any more. Neither did Peter. He’d rolled off the bonnet and was on all fours in front of the radiator getting the knees of his twills dirty. He wasn’t looking at me as I receded up the road; he was looking at what I’d done to his nice red Jag.

Con had run out of an alley near the boarding house when he’d heard the noise. Now he’d slowed down and was strolling across the road towards Peter the Dutchman and the red Jag. Con was looking up the road in my direction. He was still looking when I turned the corner.

I did a square circuit finishing up in the High Street. I turned right into Clifton Road. On my right was the back of United’s main stand. Between me and it was the ground’s car park. I pulled over and trundled the car across to the far corner of the car park and stopped under the shadow of a solitary tree that bent over a garden wall at the back of what were once a row of private houses that now had shop fronts facing on to the High Street.

I got out of the car and locked it. I walked back across the car park and turned left and left again back into the High Street. Damp women bundled shopping bags and prams up and down the pavement. Schoolgirls in jeans and anoraks danced in and out of record shops. Television test cards added their own greyness to the grey day. Cyclists traced greasy lines up and down the tarmac.

I bought the
Express
and went into the Kardomah. I got a cup of tea and sat down in a booth at the back. I looked at my watch. It was half past nine.

At twenty-five past ten I left the Kardomah. At twenty-five to eleven I was walking through the front doors of The Cecil. I was the first in. The barman who served me when I came in with Keith came over. I ordered a large scotch
and I asked him what time Keith was on that day. He told me he was supposed to be on the morning session but he hadn’t turned up yet. I asked him if he’d got Keith’s address. He had. He gave it to me. He kept the change.

I knocked on the door of 27 Priory Street. It was part of a row of bay windowed terraced houses with three-foot gardens. The dustbins were next to the front door, inside the porch.

The door opened. A man in a cardigan was looking at me.

“Yes?” he said.

“Keith in?” I said.

He turned back into the small hall and stood at the bottom of the stairs.

“Keith,” he shouted. “Somebody to see you.”

There was no reply.

“Keith?”

There was a reply but there was no way of telling what the words were.

“Sounds as if he had too much last night,” I said.

“Keith?” the man shouted.

“Shall I go up?” I said. “I’ve come from the pub to fetch him. He’s wanted.”

“Better had,” said the man.

I went up the narrow stairs. I stood on the landing.

“Keith?” I said.

Silence.

“Keith?”

I opened a door.

The room was very small. The curtains were drawn. A big double bed took up nearly all the space. Keith was lying face down on the bed. He was wearing the clothes he’d had on last night. He still had his shoes on. The back of his jacket was torn. I couldn’t see his face.

“Keith?” I said.

There was a silence before he answered.

“Bloody well fuck off,” he said. His voice was soft against the eiderdown.

“What happened?” I said.

Nothing.

“Eh?” I said.

Keith moved. It took him a long time, but he moved. He managed to turn himself on to his side and lean on his elbow.

“What you knew would happen,” he said.

“They beat you up,” I said, although I didn’t know why.

He didn’t say anything. I looked at his face. They’d marked him very well. They’d made a point of it. They’d done a proper job on it.

“You knew they’d come back, didn’t you?”

When he spoke he moved his lips as little as possible. Too much movement would have been too painful. He talked like a bad ventriloquist.

“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

Keith tried to give an ironic sneer.

“What did you come for? Professional curiosity?”

“I came to square things up,” I said.

“Oh yes?” he said. “How?”

“I owe you some money.”

“No,” he said. “No, you don’t.”

I took a lot of money out of my wallet and put it on the bed.

“I don’t want it,” he said.

“Yes you do,” I said.

“No, I don’t,” he said.

“All right,” I said. “You don’t want it. But I’m leaving it there anyway. You’ll be glad of it in three weeks time when your face is back to normal. You’ll be glad of all the things you’ll be able to buy with it. You might even feel grateful.”