Get Carter (19 page)

He tried to kick the notes off the bed but he was too stiff. Just a few of them floated down on to the lino.

I turned away and began to go through the door.

“My fiancée’s coming tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “All the way from Liverpool. Nice surprise, isn’t it?”

I closed the door and went down the stairs.

“Keith won’t be in this morning,” I said to the barman who’d told me where Keith lived. “You’d better tell the boss.”

“What’s up with him?” said the barman.

“Stomach trouble,” I said. “Very bad.”

I picked up my large scotch and went and sat at one of the tables under the window to wait for Margaret.

Ten minutes later, Con McCarty and Peter the Dutchman walked in.

They looked round and about and finally saw me. They came over.

I realised I wouldn’t be getting a Christmas card from Peter this year. Con was his usual smiling self.

“I’ll fucking do you for that,” said Peter. “You’re really going to know you’ve done something.”

“Mean of you, Jack,” said Con. “Very mean.”

I took a drink of my scotch and said nothing.

“Well?” said Peter.

“Well what?” I said.

“Are you coming?”

I laughed.

“No, I’m bloody not,” I said.

Peter looked at Con. Con was smiling at me.

“So where do you go from there?” I said.

Peter said nothing.

“You’re not going to try and take me? Here? Those barmen’d be over here pulling us from together before you could say Eric Robinson. And they know me and they don’t know you. You’ll just have to wait till I’m elsewhere, won’t you?”

Peter looked like midnight in Brixton. Con said:

“Well, we may as well have one as we’re here. You don’t mind if we join you?”

“Make yourselves at home,” I said.

Con went over to the bar and got two halves of bitter. Peter stayed standing up till Con came back. Con put the beer on the table and sat down. Peter waited a few more seconds before he did the same.

Con drank.

“So how’s it going?” he said. “How’s your luck?”

I said nothing.

“Somebody must be worried or else we wouldn’t be here,” he said.

I said nothing again.

“All right,” said Con. “Who’s going to win this afternoon? Spurs or Arsenal?”

“Spurs,” I said.

We both smiled.

Con took another drink.

“Saw Audrey last night,” he said.

“Oh yes?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Asked me if I’d heard anything.”

“And?”

“I hadn’t heard anything.”

“They say she’s a good screw,” said Peter, looking at me.

“Oh?” I said.

“Yes,” said Peter. “Jokey Jim was saying so.”

“He’d know would he?”

Peter shrugged.

“Why should he bother to tell you, poof-dah?” I said.

I thought Peter was going to get up but he didn’t because he thought about it first.

“Incidentally,” Con said to Peter, “I expect you know Stone Ginger’s back at the Swiss?”

“I knew it,” said Peter.

“Just thought I’d mention it. Apparently he’s not feeling friendly towards you at present.”

“I knew that too.”

“You could always kiss and make up,” I said. “Or do you make up before you kiss?”

“Be funny,” said Peter. “Enjoy it. There’s always later.”

Con finished his beer.

“Another?” he said.

He picked up the glasses. I put a pound on the table.

“It’s my shout,” I said.

Con shrugged and picked up the money and left me and Peter looking at each other.

The doors opened and Margaret came in. She was wearing dark glasses and her green coat. She couldn’t see me at first but she didn’t take her glasses off. When she saw where I was sitting she pushed her hands in her coat pockets and ambled over on her shaky heels. Con got back with the drinks at the same time as Margaret reached the table.

She looked at us all.

“Margaret,” I said, “meet two old friends of mine from the smoke. Peter and Con. Margaret.”

Con put the drinks down and shook hands. Peter nodded.

“What are you having, Margaret?” I said.

Margaret was having a vodka and lime. She was also having second thoughts about being there. Peter and Con had got her worried. All sorts of thoughts were going on behind the dark glasses.

I pulled a chair away from the table. She sat down. I went and got her a vodka and lime. When I got back Con was doing the talking.

“Lived here all your life, have you?” he was saying.

“ ’cepting a year, yeah,” she said.

“Fellers,” I said. “You wouldn’t mind, would you, but me and Margaret have a few things to discuss. Frank’s affairs and that …”

Con stood up.

“No, of course not,” he said. “We’ll wait for you at the bar.”

Peter stood up but not so quickly.

“See you later,” I said.

Peter looked at me and then he and Con picked up their drinks and went over to the bar and sat on a couple of stools. I sat down next to Margaret.

“Glad you could make it,” I said.

She had a drink.

“Who are them fellers?” she said.

“Them? Just some blokes I know from London.”

“What are they doing up here?”

“Dunno,” I said. “Maybe they’re on their holidays.”

“Funny,” she said.

“Why?” I said. “Do they bother you?”

“Why should they?” I shrugged. “No reason.”

“Well they don’t.”

I took my fags out and gave her one. Lighting us up, I said:

“Doreen was saying she could stay with the parents of some friends of hers. More or less indefinitely, like. Know anything of them?”

She inhaled.

“She’s a friend called Yvonne, ’spect it’s her.”

“Know what her folks are like?”

“Her dad’s a bus inspector. They live up Wilton Estate.”

“Reckon she’s telling the truth? About being able to stay as long as she likes?”

“Don’t see why not. She’s always having her tea round there and staying nights and that.”

“So you think she’d be all right with them?”

“They’d look after her. They’re like that.”

“Because I told her she could come away with me if she wanted.”

“What did she say to that?”

“Not much.”

She took another drink.

“How did she seem, all in all?” she said.

“She’s not as bad as she might be. But I should think that’s because she’s a little tougher than most.”

Margaret didn’t answer.

“Will you keep seeing her?” I said.

“I should think so.”

I took a drink.

“How are you feeling about it all?” I said.

She shrugged.

“I expect it was a bit of a shock,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Especially Frank being the sort of bloke he was,” I said.

Inhaling, she nodded.

“You don’t know of anything that might have been worrying him? You know, getting him down one way or another?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you know, something on his mind big enough for him to go out and tank up on scotch in order to sort it out. Or to forget about it.”

She shook her head.

“Nothing?” I said. “Nothing at all?”

“Why should there be anything?”

“Just funny that it happened that way of all ways,” I said.

“One way’s the same as another,” she said. “Makes no difference in the end. Makes no difference to Frank, does it?”

“It might make a difference to me.”

There was a pause that some people mightn’t have noticed before she said:

“How do you mean?”

I changed course.

“How did you feel about him?”

“He was all right to me,” she said.

“Nothing more?” I said. “Just another feller?”

“He was nicer than most.”

“But he was still just another feller, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Even though he was nicer than most?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t say anything to that.

“Well I can’t help the way I am,” she said.

“Why did you see him so regular?”

“Only once a week.”

“I’d call that regular.”

“Well it was a change. He was gentlemanly. I liked that.”

“So long as it was once a week.”

“Look, I’m me, right? You’re not. We’re what we are, like it or not.”

“And you being what you are enjoyed the Big Night of the week out with a bloke like Frank?”

“He liked me. It makes a difference.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did he like you?”

Red spots jumped to her cheeks.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Are you sure like’s the right word?”

She didn’t answer.

“I expect you know he never got owt from his missus,” I said. “A bloke like Frank’d never admit to himself that it’d worry him. He’d pretend it didn’t matter. But if somebody like you made it easily available he just might twist himself into believing that he liked you for what you were and not for what you’d got.”

She didn’t answer.

“So that’d make him just like the rest of them, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said between compressed lips. “Yes, I suppose it would. But if he’d convinced himself then maybe it wasn’t too hard to convince me. And that works out like what I said, doesn’t it?”

I looked over to the bar. Con and Peter were talking and drinking, occasionally looking across to see what I was doing.

“Anyway,” she said. “What is this? Flaming
Dragnet
? Why all the bloody needle?”

“Look,” I said, “I’ll ask you again: You don’t know of anything, anything at all that Frank might have been worrying
about? Any trouble he might have been in? Anybody he was frightened of?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on, Margaret,” I said. “Do you really think that Frank just filled himself up with scotch so that he couldn’t see and accidentally drove off top road?”

“What do you mean? That’s what happened.”

“If he did that it was for a reason. And I’d like to know the reason.”

“You mean he might have done it on purpose?”

I said yes. I wanted to see what she’d say if she thought I felt it was suicide. She thought a lot about things before she said anything.

“You won’t like this,” she said. “But it’s the only thing I can think of.”

“What is it?” I said.

“Friday night, the Friday before the Sunday he was killed, there was trouble. See, Frank’d been asking me to leave Dave, me husband. He wanted me to go and live with him. Get a divorce. Even if I’d wanted to I wouldn’t have. Dave would have killed us both. But Frank was always asking. He was asking Friday night. I said no for the umpteenth time and he turned nasty. There was a scene. I left the pub. Frank came out in street after me. I told him to leave me alone but he kept following me. He followed me all the way home. He’d had a few. I went in but he wouldn’t go away. He kicked up stink in street for about half an hour before he buggered off. Dave wasn’t home but he heard about it next day. We’ve got nice neighbours round our way. He gave me one of his good hidings and in due course asked me who the feller was. Well, I wouldn’t tell him because he would have killed Frank. And I didn’t want Doreen involved. So I said, look, if I promise to stop at home and never look at another feller, would he leave it at that? I’d never said that before and he was so surprised he said yes. So Sunday morning I went round to tell Frank I wasn’t seeing him any more. Doreen wasn’t there. He
went mad. He did everything. He crawled, he threatened me, he said he’d do anything. When he saw it wasn’t any good he said if I didn’t go with him, he’d kill himself. He said he meant it. ’Course I didn’t believe him. I just thought he was going on. But after what happened on Sunday … I mean, whether he meant it or not, it looks as though that’s why he went out on the scotch.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she said. “I was frightened what you might do. But I reckon you’ve a right to know.”

I finished my drink.

Now what she’d just told me was very interesting. Because if Frank’d wanted Margaret to leave her husband he’d have asked her just the once and if she’d said no, he would never have mentioned it again. Likewise, if she’d gone to tell him they were washed up he wouldn’t have argued about it. He’d let her do what she wanted to do, what ever he felt about it. Frank didn’t like people seeing inside him.

So assuming my feelings about my own brother were true, what she’d just told me wasn’t. It was a pack of lies. And if she’d told me a pack of lies there was a good reason for it. Probably just the reason I was looking for. But I wasn’t going to find it sitting in The Cecil with Con McCartey and Peter the Dutchman and half a dozen barmen for an audience. So I said:

“So that’s it then. I was right.”

She didn’t say anything.

“It doesn’t make me very happy, Margaret, but it’s best you’ve told me. It’s a thing I’d got to know.”

She finished her drink.

“Let me get you another,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said.

I stood up. Con and Peter slid off their seats the minute I moved but they slid back again when they saw I was approaching the bar.

“Making progress?” said Con.