Get Carter (9 page)

I drove down the High Street. There was hardly any traffic. The remains of the sun were blustered into long shadows by the thin wind. I drove past Woolworth’s and British Home Stores and Millet’s and Willerby’s. I drove past the Essoldo and the Pricerite and past the dead buildings at the end of town and abruptly I was out in the country. I followed the road as it rose up towards the top of the wolds. On either side of me, the steelworks darkened against the raggy, saffron sky. The road got steeper. I began to slow down, keeping to the crown, looking out on my right. There. There it was. I pulled the car over to the left and stopped and got out.

The air was not as noisy as I thought it would be. The wind was going. It was getting darker by the minute. I walked across the road. Just beyond the grass verge was a hedge and behind the hedge, hugging it, was an old rotten fence. There were tire marks in the ground on the verge and there was a hole in the hedge and behind it I could only see a few splinters belonging to the fence. I went and stood in the hole in the hedge and looked down.

It was more of an incline than a drop. It stretched down for about a hundred and fifty feet until it came to the water that filled the bottom of the disused sandstone quarry. The quarry looked enormous but that was probably because of the hundreds of little islands of sandstone that rose above the water. They gave you the impression that they
were bigger than they were because there was nothing to give them any scale, just the water. They were oblong shaped, twenty times as long as they were wide, with sloping sides forming ridges running the length of the islands. In the dusk it looked like a dumping ground for old Toblerone packets.

The car had been moved. From where I was there was nothing to show that it had ever been there. I turned slightly so I could look at the path the car had taken through the hedge. From the way it went, he’d been coming down hill, going towards town, which meant if it had been an accident, then he’d been drinking somewhere out of town in one of the villages—which was something else Frank wouldn’t have done. If he’d got any drinking to do, drinking like that (which was something else) he wouldn’t have left the town. As far as the outskirts, maybe, but not outside.

I walked back to the car and got in and sat there. I didn’t really know why I’d come. Just to see, I suppose. Just to see what it looked like.

I drove off down the hill towards the town and as I drove I decided that tonight I had to spend in The Cecil. I couldn’t piss about. They knew I was in town anyway. All hanging about in The Cecil would do would be to perhaps make them wonder why I hadn’t gone home, make them think I knew something, make them decide that I hadn’t just come for the funeral. And they’d know if Keith was tipping the wink. They’d see me and him and they’d get him and work on him until he told them things, which was hard luck for him but it would tell me what I wanted to know. He’d be able to put me on to the blokes who worked on him and from there I might get somewhere. Somewhere Gerald and Les wouldn’t want me to get. I remembered what was said in Gerald’s flat before I left. They’d both been there. Gerald in his county houndstooth and his lilac shirt, sitting at his Cintura-topped desk, the picture window behind him, Belsize Park and Camden
Town below him and Les sitting on the edge of the desk, in his corduroy suit, thumbing through a copy of
Punch
. I’d sat in the leather stud-backed chair with the round seat, and Audrey had poured the drinks and passed them round. She’d been wearing a culotte skirt and a ruffled blouse, a sort of Pop Paisley, and I’d wondered what would happen if Gerald found out that this time next week I’d be screwing her three thousand miles away instead of under his nose.

Gerald had said:

“I’m sure you’re wrong, Jack. I can’t really convince myself into seeing it your way. I’m sure it’s the way it looks.”

“It smells shitty, Gerald. It’s so strong it’s blowing all the way down from the north into your air-conditioned system and right up my nose.”

“Well,” he’d said, “if you feel you’re right, feel it so strongly, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to the funeral aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are, and then what?”

“I’ll see if anyone has any knowledge.”

“You’ll start sniffing?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, Jack, if Frank was mixed up, if he was knocked off, then you can bet the coppers know all about it. And they’re saying it was an accident. So if it wasn’t, then they’re keeping quiet because somebody with connections is involved.”

“That’s probable.”

There’d been a silence.

“Of course,” Gerald had said, “if that was the case, there are only two or three people up there who would have those kind of connections.”

“That’s right.”

There was another silence.

“You know, of course, how much we value our business arrangements with a certain gentleman who lives in the vicinity of your home town?”

“Do me a favour.”

“Yes, right. Well, all I’m saying, Jack, is think. Whatever you come across, think. I wouldn’t want the business, us, to be embarrassed in any way.”

“You don’t know anything, do you, Gerald?”

“Jack …”

Another silence.

“All I can say is this,” he’d said. “They’ll all know you’re there. That’ll mean trouble. With some people, all right. With others, well … we wouldn’t want to make a bad situation worse by sticking by you. And if you caused a bit of trouble, and you got sorted out, well, you wouldn’t be all that fit to do the job you’re doing now. Would you?”

“I’ll survive.”

“Of course you will, Jack. All I hope is you won’t do anything, you know, thoughtless.”

Les, still flicking through
Punch
, had said:

“One thing, Jack. If there has been any funny business, and the scuffers are keeping mum, well, if you create a bit more, they might feel they’ll have to do something. You know. They don’t like members from town going up there and doing whatever they like.”

“Yes,” said Gerald. “It might get into the papers, then they’d have to, like it or not.”

“I know all that,” I’d said, “so don’t tell me about it.”

Another silence. Then Gerald had said:

“Well, there’s only this; you do good work for us, Jack. I’m not saying we couldn’t do without you, but it’d be an unnecessarily difficult job finding someone to replace you.”

I’d said nothing.

“So whichever way you look at things, have a think before you make any important decisions. Like going to a funeral, for instance.”

He’d had to smile then, to make the last bit seem like more of a joke than it was meant to be.

I parked the car in The Cecil car park, but I didn’t go in by the side door. I walked round the front and in by the main entrance.

I walked over to the bar. Keith was on duty three barmen away. He looked at me. I shook my head. He looked away. I had to keep up the pretence of secrecy in front of him in case he wondered why I wasn’t bothering to play it cagey.

I got my drinks and turned round and leaned against the bar, so that I could see the Friday-nighters as they got them in down and over. Nothing had changed.

The double doors opened and a man came in.

He was fairly tall, on the thin side, his hair, what you could see of it, was dark, and he walked erect with one hand in his jacket pocket, royalty-style, a cigarette in his other hand, held at waist height, pressed into his middle, and he wore a peaked hat that had a very shiny visor and a double-breasted blue serge suit, three-button, silver buttons, the kind of suit all chauffeurs wear.

It was my old friend Eric Paice. How nice to see him, I thought.

He walked up to the bar and pretended not to see me. He’d seen me the minute he’d opened the door, if not before.

While he was ordering I picked up my drinks and walked along to where he was standing. I gave him a minute while he counted out his change, still pretending.

“Hello, Eric.”

He turned. His expression was meant to be full of amazement. All that happened was his right eyebrow moved an eighth of an inch towards the peak of his cap.

“Good God,” he said.

I smiled.

“Jack Carter,” he said.

His voice was as surprised as his face.

“Eric,” I said. “Eric Paice.”

He put his money in his pocket.

“You’re the last person I should have expected to see round this way,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “You didn’t know this is my home town, like?”

“Well, blow me,” he said. “I never knew that.”

“Funny isn’t it,” I said.

“So what’re you doing? On your holidays?”

“Visiting relatives.”

“Relatives, eh? Very nice.”

“It would be. If they were still living.”

“How do you mean?”

“A bereavement. There’s been a death in the family.”

“Oh, what a shame. Nothing serious, I hope.”

I gave him credit. His face was as straight as a poker.

“Yes,” I said. “My brother. Car accident, you know.”

“Oh, dear,” he said. “What a pity—here! Not that feller that went off top road? Monday?”

“That’s right.”

“No! Well, blow me. Would you believe it. Read about it in the paper, Tuesday night. And he was your brother, eh? Well, well. I mean, I read the name, but I never dreamt …”

“Small world,” I said.

He downed his drink.

“Are you having another?” I said.

He looked at his glass.

“Well,” he said, “I shouldn’t.”

I ordered more drinks. When they came I said: “Fancy sitting down?”

“Well …” he said.

“Come on,” I said, “we can talk about the old days.”

I walked over to one of the tables at the back. He made a show of deciding whether or not to follow. He followed me, as I knew he would.

I sat down and he sat down.

“Cheers,” I said.

He nodded, then drank. I looked at him.

He looked exactly the way he’d looked last time I’d seen him. Five years ago. In the office at the Hamburg Club off Praed Street, standing behind Jimmy the Welshman who’d been sitting behind his big antique desk, well, not his desk, the desk which Tony Pinner had provided him with, and Jimmy the Welshman had been
sweating like the fat pig he was. Myself and Jock Mitchell and Ted Shucksmith had been standing at the other side of the desk. Jimmy the Welshman’s sister, Eric’s girlfriend, had been lying on the floor crying, which is what she’d been doing ever since Jock had put her there in order to stop her screaming. There had been no boys left to help Jimmy because since five minutes and three hundred pounds ago, three of them had started working for us and a fourth one was lying in the toilet presently not working for anybody.

“You’re out of a job, Jimmy,” I’d said to him. “How’s your pulling these days? You might have to brush up on it.”

He’d managed to say, “What’s up?”

“Everything,” I’d said. “This club isn’t owned by Tony any more. Neither is the Matador, or the Manhattan or The Spinning Wheel. They are now owned by certain parties who have instructed me to inform you that as from tonight the gaff is under new management.”

He’d thought about that for a while. Then he’d sweated a bit more and he’d said:

“I can’t leave. Tony’d kill me. You know what he’d do.”

I’d smiled at him.

“Get out, Jimmy,” I’d said. “Tony doesn’t care about you any more.”

He’d sat there for a bit and then very quickly he’d got up from his desk almost knocking his chair over and he’d gone out. As he’d walked out, his sister had moaned at him but he’d stepped over her, not looking at her. After the door had closed, I’d said:

“That leaves you, Eric.”

“And the bird,” Jock’d said.

“What happened to the others?” Eric had asked.

“Seventy-five per cent are working for us.”

“And me?”

“Gerald still remembers Chiswick, Eric. He asked me to remind you about it.”

Eric’s face had gone the colour of lemonade.

“Gerald’s wife still has the marks, you know. I must admit they were very discreetly placed.”

“And Jack’d know,” Jock’d said, then he’d wished he hadn’t because I’d looked at him.

“It was her,” Eric’d said, indicating the girl on the floor. “It was her that wanted to do that. All I’d been told was to get hold of her and scare her, get Gerald rattled, you know. It was her that wanted to do that.”

“Of course, Eric. And just let’s say that’s the truth. You couldn’t have stopped her, could you?”

“No,” he’d said, “no, I couldn’t. Wes the Spade was there. He egged her on. I couldn’t do anything. Honest.”

“We were talking to Wes earlier,” I’d said. “He said it was you two.”

“Ask Gerald’s wife, then. Ask her. She’ll tell you.”

“Audrey,” I’d said.

Audrey had walked into the office. Now Eric’s face was ice-cream soda.

“What’s the story, Audrey?”

Audrey had looked at the girl on the floor, who by then had been trying to crawl into the space under Jimmy’s desk.

“Her,” she’d said. “I want her.”

“Yes, I know,” I’d said. “I know what you want. But the truth? Tell it to me. After all, if Gerald knew you were here …”

“I want her,” she’d said. “He can watch. Unless he’d like to take her place.”

We’d all looked at Eric. He’d made no movement.

“So,” I’d said.

Audrey had sat on the edge of Jimmy’s desk and had taken out a cigarette. Jock and Ted had picked up the girl and they’d neatly and quickly taken off her dress, put the belt to her dress on Jimmy’s desk and tied her to Jimmy’s chair.

“Eric,” the girl had said. “Please.”

Eric had remained standing where he’d been when we’d first entered the office. Afterwards we’d let him walk out
of the room and since then nobody had seen him around town. The way he’d looked when we’d let him go suggested he might have been off for a long holiday.

And this was where he’d ended up. In a chauffeur’s uniform in my home town. Acting quite normally towards me. Not afraid any more. Obviously working for someone. That’s why I wasn’t frightening him. He was at home. I was the away team. If he knew anything, had anything to do with it, and I hoped he had, he was cool; it didn’t matter, he had his backers. He could afford not to shake. He could afford to drink with me. Oh Eric, I thought, I hope you can help me. I really do.