Get Carter (24 page)

Albert pressed himself hard against the pan.

“Jack, for Christ’s sake …”

“Don’t be a cunt, Albert. You knew what I’d do.”

“Yeah, but listen. Christ, I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t me.”

I took Con’s knife out of my pocket.

“I know it wasn’t you.”

“Well, then …”

“Doesn’t matter, Albert.”

I walked towards him. He fell on his knees and took hold of my trousers and began to cry. I remembered the film and I remembered how Doreen had been on her knees to him. I remembered the billiard hall like it was yesterday and I remembered Albert’s dark eyes full of scorn for Frank as he’d lain there on the floor and I remembered my own disgust at Frank and my admiration for Albert. And I thought of how it must have been for Frank while they
poured scotch down him and him knowing what they were going to do to him. I took hold of Albert’s hair and pulled him to his feet by it and pressed him against the pan.

“Jack …”

I gave him the knife. I put it in just below the ribs, thrusting upwards. Albert’s eyes and mouth opened wider than they’d done at any other time in his life. I left the knife where it was for a moment or two then I pulled it out very slowly, then put it back. Albert began to slide down the side of the pan in silence. I pulled the knife out for the last time and stood back and watched him die.

Then, when he was dead, I dragged him across the narrow track and along the edge of the slope to where they tipped the molten waste. It was still glowing orange from the last load. I let go of Albert’s arms and bent down and rolled him over the edge but he didn’t make the molten waste so I had to clamber down after him and lift him up and half throw him into the tip. The heat was so unbearable that I didn’t have time to watch what happened to his body when it hit the surface. But I heard what the heat did with his vocal cords.

I didn’t look back when I got to the top of the slope. I knew there wouldn’t be anything left to see.

I climbed the other slope and walked back towards the car. Glenda wasn’t there any more. I hadn’t expected she would be. But she couldn’t have got very far. Not far enough to get on the phone to Brumby. Although I was fairly sure she didn’t know what Cliff was up to. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have shown me the film, drunk as she’d been.

I got in the car and drove back to the house. Glenda wasn’t anywhere around the house or between the house and the road. She must have run like hell.

But even so.

I stopped the car and went into the house. The kitchen was empty. Over in the corner the telly was churning out the football results. I looked through to where the old
biddy had been. She wasn’t there any more. The bed was at the stage it had been at when I’d interrupted her.

I walked into the hall. Before me the front door was still open. I stopped and listened. Absolute silence. I started walking again and stopped when I reached the front door. I looked across the waste land to the road. Nothing. I turned away from the doorway and pulled the door to.

Behind the door was a straight backed dining chair and on the chair was a telephone.

I swore.

Then I hurried down the hall and across the kitchen and threw open the kitchen door.

Something moved.

It was the door to the outside toilet. A fraction. It could have been the wind.

I closed the kitchen door and walked towards the car and then when I was at my nearest point to the toilet, I rushed over and pulled the door wide open.

The old biddy was pressed in the corner against the pipes. Her mouth was opening and closing like a young sparrow at feeding time but she wasn’t making any noise. She covered her head with her hands and shuffled her slippered feet about on the damp floor. I took hold of one of her arms and yanked her out.

“All right, Ma,” I said. “Who’s coming?”

She kept her head turned away from me.

“I said who’s coming, Ma?”

She wouldn’t answer. I pushed her away from me. I had to get after Glenda before she got to Brumby. I turned away from the old biddy to make for the TR4 but the sound of a car getting closer to the house stopped me. The car was moving fast. I was exactly halfway between the TR4 and the house. I decided which way I was going when a black Austin Cambridge rocked round the corner, making for the space between me and the TR4. I dashed for the kitchen door. The old biddy ran back into the toilet. We slammed the respective doors behind us.

The car stopped.

In the car, there was Eric, in civvies, Con, Peter, two boyos and a girl. The girl was Glenda. She was sitting on Con’s knee in the front. They must have picked her up on her way down the road. Eric was behind the wheel. Nobody opened any doors.

I appeared at the window and looked at them all. Con said something to Eric and Eric nearly killed himself putting the car in reverse and manoeuvring it behind the back of the toilet.

I smiled. I’d nearly forgotten about Con’s shooter. Nearly.

Not that I wanted to use it. The estate was too near. More than one shot and the streets’d be full of women in pinnies fetching bobbies and that would interfere with what I wanted to do.

So I took the shooter out of my pocket and raised the kitchen window and stuck my head out so I had a better view round the corner of the lav. They were all still sitting in the car. Eric was shouting at Con and Con was looking weary and the rest of them were sitting there like stuffed dummies.

I waved the shooter about and they all faced front.

“Here I am, Eric,” I shouted. “What’s the matter?”

I took careful aim at Eric’s face. Everybody did what I thought they’d do. Doors opened. Glenda was heaved off Con’s knees on to the ground. Eric and the two boyos made for the back of the lav. Con and Peter stayed by the far side of the car, crouched down behind open doors. Peter tugged his big shooter out. Eric’s voice crackled hysterically from behind the lav.

“No guns,” he screeched. “Cyril said no guns, you stupid bastard.”

I bet he did, I thought. You can’t sweeten crime squads by using shooters.

But the trouble was that at the same time as Eric was shouting, the lav door opened and the old biddy darted out. She’d no idea where she was going but she’d decided
she wasn’t staying in there any more. The lav door was between her and Peter so Peter couldn’t see who it was but it didn’t stop him letting go with two into the door.

“Kee-rist,” screeched Eric.

The old biddy swivelled round. The bullets had slammed the door to and she wrestled with the latch until finally she managed to get her fingers round it properly and then jerked the door open and closed it behind her.

“What are you trying to do? Get us all done?” Eric shouted.

“Get fucked,” said Peter.

He took aim at the window, resting his arm on the rolled-down window of the door he was behind but Con, who was in front of the door, just reached up and took hold of the gun by the barrel and jerked it out of Peter’s hand. Peter leant through the window of the open door and tried to get the gun back from Con.

“Give us the fucking gun back, Con,” he said. “I’ve had enough of the bastard.”

“Leave it, Peter. Gerald’ll want to see him first.”

I wondered why. The way he said it made it sound as if there was something I should know.

Peter gave over trying to get the gun and slid back through the window to his side of the door. He sat on the floor of the car and stretched his legs out in front of him and fucked and blinded to himself.

One of the boyos behind the lav said to Eric:

“I didn’t know there was off to be any guns.”

Eric didn’t answer.

“I mean,” said the boyo.

Eric told him to shut his bloody trap.

Then there was silence.

“Well,” I shouted, “are you coming in? Or do we piss about all day?”

There was more silence. Then Eric’s voice came from behind the lav full of rage and spite.

“You’re finished, Jack. You know that, don’t you? I’ve bloody finished you.”

“I’m not finished until I’m dead, Eric. And that won’t be until after you are.”

Eric laughed.

“You’re dead now, Jack, only you don’t know it.”

He laughed some more. If I hadn’t wanted him the way I wanted him I’d have walked over to him and emptied the shooter into his face. That was the way his laugh made me feel.

“Tell him, Con. Tell him how I’ve fixed him. If he ever leaves here altogether that is.”

Con shifted a little before he spoke. Shifted back into the car so that I couldn’t see any of him at all.

“See, Jack,” he said, “before we were summoned here, we were all having a little chat, me and Peter and Eric. Came up in conversation, like, the speculation around about you and Audrey. Eric thought it’d be only fair to Gerald if he was put in the picture. Give him a chance to talk to Audrey about it to see if it was true or not.”

Eric laughed again.

“Didn’t believe us at first, did he, Con? Then Peter talked to him.”

“Didn’t even say goodbye,” said Peter. “Just asked us to take you back to him alive.”

“I should imagine Gerald’ll be talking to her round about now, wouldn’t you, Peter?” said Eric.

“Shouldn’t be surprised.”

Christ. Audrey. He’d mark her. He’d do it good. It’d be the end of her. She’d kill herself afterwards.

My guts turned over.

I had to get to her. I hoped to God Gerald had been at his office when they’d phoned. That was the only chance.

I hurried across the kitchen and down the hall to where the phone was. I picked up the phone and sat down on the chair facing the kitchen door so that I could see if anything was going on. I put the phone and the shooter in my lap and picked up the receiver and dialled 0.

Eric’s voice drifted in through the kitchen window.

“What do you think, Jack? Maybe you’re kinky for birds with no faces.”

“Number please.”

“I want 01-333-8484.”

“01-333-8484. And what is your number, please?”

“—5985.”

“Trying to connect you.”

The ringing tone began.

Outside there was silence.

The ringing tone carried on. She’d have answered by now if she’d been there. Been there on her own.

I flashed the operator. She was a long time coming back on the line.

“Look, can you get me 01-898-7436?”

“01-898-7436. Thank you.”

The ringing tone only went once before someone lifted the receiver.

“Maurice?”

“Yes, Jack.”

“Maurice, listen. You’ve got to get to Audrey. Gerald knows. You’ve got to get to her first.”

There was a slight pause before Maurice answered.

“How much time do I have?”

“Get on with it, Maurice. If Gerald gets to her first you’re in the cart as well.”

Maurice hung up.

I sat there on the chair and stared at the hall but I didn’t see anything. All I saw was what was in my mind: what I was going to do to them all. For everything.

Then the front door began to open.

Just a fraction at first. Then it stayed like that for a while. I sat very still. The door opened a bit more and stopped again. I stayed exactly as I was. The door swung open until it was about one hundred and twenty degrees to the doorway.

Then whoever it was stepped into the hall and waited.

It wasn’t Eric because Eric’s voice rang out from behind the lav.

“I wonder if you’ll still fancy her when Gerald’s finished with her, eh, Jack?”

Whoever it was stopped waiting and began to ease their way down the hall. Very slowly I moved my right foot until it was touching the door. Then I gave it a little push so that it slowly swung back away from me.

Peter froze in mid-tip-toe. I picked the phone up from my lap and put it down on the floor but I didn’t get up. Peter hadn’t moved.

“Put it on the floor,” I said.

He bent down and put his shooter on the floor.

“Stay there,” I said.

He stayed crouched down, squatting like a big frog, balancing himself with his fingertips.

I stood up and walked over to him and stuck the muzzle of the shooter against the back of his head.

“Now then,” I said.

Peter farted with fright.

“Don’t,” he said, “don’t.”

He fell forward on his face. When he realised the shooter hadn’t gone off he began to crawl along the floor towards the kitchen door. I strolled after him.

“What do you think Gerald’ll do to Audrey, Peter?”

Words came out of Peter’s mouth but they didn’t mean anything. He didn’t stop crawling. He crawled through into the kitchen and across the floor but he didn’t try and get up because I was right behind him all the way. I stepped across him when he got to the back door and opened it for him so that he’d be able to crawl out and down the step.

Outside the scene had changed. Con was still behind the car door with Glenda, and Eric was still out of sight behind the lav but the two boyos were out in the open. One of them was pressing himself against the lav door staring at me and Peter and the other one was crawling along the ground by the wall of the house so that he couldn’t be seen from the kitchen window. He didn’t see me at first and carried on crawling towards the back door.