Get Carter (16 page)

The night was very black and the roads were very narrow. The windscreen wipers droned on and on. I looked at my watch. The luminous hands said ten past one. If the dance finished at one o’clock it would take him about thirty-five to forty minutes to drive out to Burnham. I’d be ahead of
him by about twenty minutes. If the dance didn’t finish until half past one or two o’clock then I’d have a long wait. But I didn’t mind that.

The road dipped and the headlights picked out the sign that said Burnham. I slowed down. It was only a small village and I didn’t want to miss the house.

There wasn’t much chance of that. I stopped the car and wound the window down. Set back from the road on quite a steep rise was a new ranch-style house. All the lights were on. There were a lot of cars parked in the drive and up and down the road. A lot of noise was going on inside but I couldn’t hear much of it. I could only see the people who were making it. The house was packed with kids. A little party for the offspring while Mummy and Daddy kissed the Chief Inspector’s bum. Well, there wasn’t much point in ringing that musical doorbell for a while. I backed the car up on to the grass verge on the opposite side of the road to the house and lit a fag and watched and waited. A few people came out and got into cars and went and one young bloke came out on all fours and was sick all over the begonias but apart from that nothing much happened except that the insides of the windows got steamier and the music got noisier.

About quarter to two a nice new Rover crept down the road and turned into the drive. The car braked abruptly in the middle of the gateway. The engine was turned off. Nothing happened for a minute or two. Then the passenger door opened and Cliff Brumby got out. He looked very nice. He had on a beautiful dark double-breasted overcoat which he wore undone and draped round his shoulders was a tasselled white silk scarf. His height added to his elegant appearance as did his beautifully barbered greying hair. He looked more like Henry Cabot Lodge just come from the White House than a fiddling slot machine king just come from the Police Ball.

He stood looking at the house for a full minute, not moving, his hand on the car door.

“Fuck me,” he said.

He still didn’t move.

“Now Cliff,” came a woman’s voice from inside the car, “don’t get mad. You’ll only regret it.”

Cliff slammed the door of the car, as hard as I’d slammed the door of the car on his boyo earlier in the evening.

“I’ll murder the little bitch,” he said.

“Cliff …” said the woman’s voice.

Cliff strolled up the drive, deliberately not hurrying. He stopped once to look at the young blood sleeping among the begonias. He looked at him for quite some time before turning away. When he got to the front door he didn’t open it and simply go in. Instead, he rang the bell and stepped back and folded his arms. The musical chimes were just strident enough to separate themselves from the rest of the noise. A red dress rippled behind the full length frosted glass panel. The door opened. The girl was very pretty. Her eyes were very bright and her cheeks were very red and she looked very happy until she saw who was standing there before her.

“Daddy,” she said.

“That’s right,” he said. “Bloody Daddy.”

“But it’s only quarter to two,” she said thinking out loud. “The dance doesn’t finish till two o’clock.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Perhaps this’ll teach you never to bet on certainties.”

The girl’s face began to crumble.

“And this is what you call having a few friends in for coffee is it?” said Cliff.

“Oh-h,” the girl said.

Cliff began to walk past her into the house.

“Running bloody riot over my bloody furniture, drinking my bloody booze, spewing all over my …”

The rest was lost as he disappeared inside. The door on the driver’s side of the Rover opened and the woman got out. She was wearing a white evening dress, very plain and beautiful, and a mink coat, also very plain and beautiful.
The trouble was, she was fat, so the beautiful dress and the beautiful coat didn’t really matter very much. She stood there watching the house and chewing herself up. I couldn’t see a bloke like Cliff spending more hours a day with her than he had to.

People started pouring out of the house. The music stopped. Cars started. Cliff was visible through the windows as he went from room to room directing operations. Finally he appeared at the door, helping out a boy and a girl holding them by the scruffs of their necks. The girl looked very rumpled and the boy was having trouble with his fly which had somehow got jammed.

After Cliff had propelled this particular couple on their way, he wandered over to the begonias and picked up the young blood and carried him down the drive and dropped him on the grass verge by the gateway.

“Cliff, be careful,” said the woman.

“Shut up,” said Cliff.

He walked back to the house. The woman followed. Cliff stood to one side to let the last few people leave. He looked into the face of each one of them as they passed him. When they’d gone he went into the house.

“Sandra!”

It was a wonder his double glazing stayed intact. The woman went into the house and closed the door but I could still hear Cliff’s voice.

“Sandra!”

There was a silence then I saw Cliff appear beyond one of the upstairs windows. He stood with his back to the window looking down at a point out of sight inside the bedroom. He began shouting again.

I got out of the car and closed the door.

I crossed the road and walked up the drive. I stood outside the front door for a few moments. Cliff was still delivering his spiel upstairs. The rest of the house was silent. There was no sound of glasses being moved or ashtrays being emptied or furniture being straightened.

I opened the front door and closed it behind me without making any noise at all.

I was in a square hall. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t small. A fitted carpet washed across the floor and its floral pattern was far too big to fit into the space it occupied. There was a low staircase, central to the hall that turned at right angles three times before it reached the balcony that ran all the way around the four walls. The banisters and balcony railings were white-glossed wrought iron. The wallpaper was floral, too. The pattern was not much smaller than the pattern on the carpet. There was a print of the green-faced Oriental Girl in a white frame on one of the walls and on another wall high up there was a pair of plastic duelling pistols. In one corner near the front door was a glass topped wrought iron telephone table with a red telephone on it. All the doors leading off the hall had full length panels of frosted glass set into them. One of the doors was open. Without moving from the front door I looked through it. I could see the whole of a big white armchair and part of a matching sofa. Beyond the sofa, I could see part of a farmhouse-style brick-fronted fireplace with an electric fire set in the middle of it. The fire was just warming up. On the mantelpiece there were lots of glasses and ashtrays. Above the glasses and ashtrays there was Flatford Mill.

I walked into the room. Mrs. Brumby was sitting at the end of the sofa that had previously been out of sight. She still had her coat on. She was looking at the bars of the electric fire. Her elbow was resting on the arm of the sofa and her fingers were slowly stroking her forehead, as if she was trying to get rid of a mild headache. She didn’t notice me at first.

“Good evening,” I said.

At first all she did was to turn her head slowly as if she wasn’t aware of anything out of the ordinary, but when she saw me she stood up very quickly and knocked an ashtray off the arm of the sofa.

“I’m sorry I startled you,” I said. “I pressed the bell but nothing happened. So as the door was open …”

“Who are you?” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The name’s Carter. Jack Carter.”

“Have you come about the noise?”

“No, no,” I said. “I’m an old friend of Cliff’s. I thought I’d drop in as there’s something I’d like to talk to him about.”

At first there was slight relief in her face then her subsequent expressions described what was going through her mind. An old friend. From the old days. At this time of night. She looked at her watch, then up to the ceiling. Cliff’s voice droned on and on.

“I know it’s a bit of an odd time to be calling,” I said. “But it is rather urgent.”

“What do you want to see Cliff about?”

“Well, actually, it is business …” I said.

“I know all about Cliff’s business,” she said.

“I’m sure,” I said.

“Well?”

“Look, Mrs. Brumby,” I said. “I’m not acting for myself, understand. Just tell Cliff Jack Carter from London’s here to see him.”

She raised her chin a bit and looked at me.

“How am I supposed to know it’s business?” she said. “Why should I take your word for it? I don’t know.”

“But you know Gerald and Les Fletcher, don’t you?” I said.

She looked at me some more and I could tell she believed I was with Gerald and Les. But she didn’t know what to believe about why I was there. But whatever the reason she knew I wouldn’t be leaving until I’d seen Cliff. So she concentrated her look for a bit longer and then walked quickly out of the room and up the stairs.

I looked round the room. Over on the other side of the room in front of the picture window that looked out on to I don’t know what was a reproduction refectory table with matching dining chairs. The table was awash with
drink. Empty Pipkins took up a third of the table top. The rest was just glasses and booze from Cliff’s musical cocktail cabinet. On one edge of the table a cigarette had burned a nice little groove in the polished oak.

Upstairs things were happening. The voices were now droning on, but much softer. Then there was quiet. A door opened and closed. Footsteps ruffled the stair carpet. Cliff Brumby came into the room. I turned to face him. He didn’t look very pleased at all. I don’t think I could have been looking too happy either because there was something stirring down in my gut, a feeling I didn’t like very much. It had something to do with my looking at Cliff’s face and seeing what I saw there.

“What the fucking hell’s all this?” he said.

I didn’t say anything.

“I suppose you know what the bloody time is?”

I nodded. He told me anyway.

“It’s quarter past two in the bloody morning.”

“I know.”

“Well?”

I took out my fags and lit one.

“Dot told me the Fletchers sent you. What’s so bloody important it can’t wait till the morning?”

I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “The Fletchers didn’t send me.”

He looked at me. Then he walked forward and clenched his fist and pointed his index finger at my face about an inch from my nose.

“Now look,” he said. “Just bloody look. I’m not in the mood tonight. I’ve had it. Right up to here. So let’s not try and be too funny, eh? Because I don’t feel much like bloody laughing.”

“I made a mistake,” I said.

“What?”

“I said it looks as if I’ve made a mistake.”

“A mistake? About what?”

“I was given some wrong information.”

“Wrong information? What about?”

“I was given some wrong information about you. I’ve known it was wrong since you came into this room.”

Cliff sat down on the arm of the sofa. Things were dawning.

“It wasn’t business, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t business,” I said.

There was a silence. Things dawned on him.

“You came here to do me. Is that it?”

I didn’t say anything.

“What for, Jack?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“You’d rather not say?”

“Cliff, I made a mistake. I’ve got to get back. See somebody about something.”

I began to walk over to the door. Cliff whisked up from the sofa and grabbed my lapels.

“Now just you bloody well look here. I don’t like hard cases walking in and out of my house in the middle of the night threatening to do me. You’re not leaving here until you’ve explained your bloody self. You came here to do me and I want to know what for. If somebody’s been putting something about about me, I want to know who the fucking hell it is. And when I know what it is and who’s been saying it, I just might want to take the matter up with you, Jack, mightn’t I?”

“You might,” I said. “And then again, you might not.”

“Meaning?”

“Cliff, you’re a big bloke—you’re in good shape. But I know more than you do.”

It wasn’t exactly the best thing I could have said. Cliff swung me round with all his strength and flung me down on the settee. He leant over me and only just managed to stop himself from smashing my face in.

“Now then, cuntie,” he said. “Let’s be having you.”

I let him have me. I kicked him hard on his shin and gave him one in his gut, not too hard, but hard enough.

I stood up. This time it was my turn with the lapels. I straightened him up and looked into his face. It was slightly greyer than it had been before.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “Some things go against the grain.”

I walked out of the room. Mrs. Brumby was standing stock still on the stairs.

“Goodnight,” I said.

I opened the front door. Mrs. Brumby ran into the front room.

“What happened?” I heard her say. “Are you all right? Who was it? What did he want?”

“None of your bloody business.”

“There was trouble, wasn’t there?”

“Isn’t it about time you started clearing up the bloody mess your daughter’s made?”

A slight pause.

“Yes, Cliff. I suppose it is.”

I closed the door as quietly as I’d done when I’d come in.

I backed the car into the garage and walked round to the front door of the boarding house. It was open. Only a few inches, but it was open.

I didn’t make any noise. The light was still on, illuminating the air a few feet round the bulb and nothing else. There was no sound in the house.

I walked over to the foot of the stairs. The door into the kitchen at the end of the hall opened slightly. Whoever was in the kitchen preferred to be in there without any lights on.