Get Carter (15 page)

“Do you want some?” I said. “Or do you only work as a double act?”

The yobboe didn’t answer. I walked past him and his mate who by now was resting his forehead on one of the steps trying to remember how he’d happened to get such a terrible pain in his gut. Nobody else stood in my way and so I walked on leaving the lights from the inside of the Baths streaming over the praying yobbo on the steps. Thorpey, of course, walked with me. I let go of him only when we turned into the street where my digs were.

The car was where I’d left it. One of Thorpey’s boys was helping the boyo I’d given the forearm to into the back seat. The one giving the helping hand looked at me and Thorpey but that was all. Then he went round the other side of the car and lifted the legs of the boyo on the front seat and packed them away under the dashboard. After he’d done that, he got into the driving seat and did what I didn’t do; he reversed very quickly into the High Street. Thorpey was very sensible. He didn’t run screaming after the car. Keith was standing on the pavement outside my digs talking to a woman. The woman was my
landlady. Across the street there were lights on that hadn’t been on before.

“Now then,” said my landlady when I got there, “just what the bloody hell do you think you’re on?”

“I’m very sorry,” I said.

“You look it,” she said.

“No, I am, really,” I said.

“Don’t come that bloody flannel with me,” she said. “If you’re a travelling man, I’m bloody Twiggy. What the ’ell’s going on? And who’s he?”

Thorpey continued to be at a loss for words. An elderly woman wrapped inside a dressing gown traipsed across the road.

“What’s going on? Have you no thought for others?” she shouted. Her thin voice was whipped away by the wind and carried off above the street lights.

“Maybe if we went inside it’d be better,” I said.

“Inside?” said my landlady. “Why should I give house-room to your sort?”

“Everybody knows you, Edna Garfoot,” shouted the old woman. “Everybody knew there’d be trouble. This is a respectable street.”

I looked at my landlady and smiled. My landlady frowned. She turned to the old woman.

“You keep your bloody trap shut, Ma,” she said.

“Oh! Oh!” said the old woman. “I’ll send my old man over to see you.”

“Yes, and wouldn’t he love it, you dried up old biddy,” said my landlady.

“Oh!” said the old woman. “Oh!”

She began to retreat across the street. I nodded to Keith and gave Thorpey a shove. We went into the house.

“Here!” said my landlady. She rushed up the path. We waited for her in the hall. She didn’t close the door.

“Well?” she said.

“Well,” I said, “you might as well close the door. We’re in now.”

She glared at me for a minute then breathed in and closed the door. Keith and Thorpey and me began to go upstairs.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she said.

“To my room,” I said. “We’ve got one or two things to talk over.”

She followed us up the stairs.

“What are you going to do?” she said.

I opened the door to my room.

“Why don’t you go and make us all a nice cup of tea?” I said.

I nodded to Keith. Keith bundled Thorpey into the room.

“What are you going to do?” she said again.

I closed the door in her face and locked it.

“Make us a nice cup of tea and I’ll tell you,” I said. “I might even let you come in and watch.”

“I’ll call the police,” she said.

“No you won’t,” I said.

There was a silence.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Nothing’s going to happen. Just get us that tea.”

There was more silence, eventually the silence of her going away.

Keith and Thorpey were standing in the middle of the room. Keith had his hands in his trouser pockets. He was looking at me. Thorpey was looking at me too but he didn’t have his hands in his pockets. He was standing to attention looking like somebody from the British Legion. His thumbs were turned down following the lines where the uniform stripes would have been.

“Sit down, Thorpey,” I said.

He didn’t move.

“Relax,” I said. “Keith, get Thorpey a chair.”

Keith got the chair that my landlady had displayed herself on earlier in the day. He put the chair down in the middle of the room behind Thorpey.

Thorpey remained standing.

I rooted in my hold-all and got a bottle out and also my flask.

I unscrewed the cap of the flask and very carefully poured in some scotch from the bottle. I handed the flask to Keith and sat down on the bed. Keith took a pull and I took off my jacket and loosened the laces in my shoes.

Thorpey remained standing.

I took a big drink from the bottle. I put it down on the floor and took my fags out and offered one to Keith. We lit up.

“Well now, Thorpey,” I said.

He didn’t say anything.

“Seems I’ve got a secret benefactor,” I said.

I took another drink. Thorpey watched the bottle on its way up from the floor into my mouth and down to the floor again.

“It’s a very nice thing to know is that,” I said. “Isn’t it, Keith?”

Keith didn’t answer. He didn’t nod either. I got the feeling he was worried about something.

“Trouble is about a secret benefactor,” I said, “not knowing who he is, it makes you feel a bit embarrassed, like. I mean, there’s no way you can say Ta, is there?”

Thorpey was still gazing at the bottle.

“There’s also this about it,” I said. “A benefactor like that, well, you get to wondering why they’ve picked on you. I mean, out of all the needy cases there are about these days.”

There was silence.

“I’d like to know who it is, Thorpey.”

Nothing.

“All right, all right,” I said wearily. “If you like, we’ll stop mucking about. Somebody sent you to put me on a train because they’re shit scared of me sticking my nose in something or other and I’ve a good idea of the something or other they don’t want my nose in. If I’m right then one or two people are going to be in quite a little bit of trouble.

Now, I don’t know, but you might be one of them. If you are, God help you. Because if you are, I’ll find out. But you may not know anything about it at all. Maybe all you know is that somebody gave you a bundle of fivers to do a job. What I want you to tell me more than anything else is who gave you the bundle of fivers.”

Thorpey looked at me.

“I can’t, Jack,” he said. “How can I?”

“Yes you can, Thorpey.”

“Honest, mate, I can’t.”

“Come on now. You know it’s for the best.”

He looked at the floor and shook his head.

“Did you have anything to do with it, Thorpey?” I said.

“What?”

“Frank.”

“What?”

“Were you there?”

“When?”

“When they poured the whisky down his throat?”

“What?”

“Did you hold the bottle?”

“What?”

There was a knock on the door. I nodded to Keith. He let her in. She was carrying a tea tray.

“Did you have a good laugh when he was sicking it up as fast as you could pour it down him?”

Thorpey stared at me.

“Was it a giggle when you let out the hand brake and Frank’s car started rolling down top road?”

His head began to shake.

“Did you all pass the bottle round after the car went through the hedge? The same bottle you’d shoved halfway down his throat?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack,” said Thorpey.

“Well, I do,” I said.

I jumped off the bed and grabbed Thorpey’s scruffy neck and shoved him back on to the chair.

“I’m talking about me bloody brother, Thorpey. That’s what I’m talking about. So bloody well start spouting or else!”

Thorpey kept staring up into my face so I let him have three across it. He raised his arms to cover his head and said:

“No, don’t, Jack. Don’t.”

“Who killed him, Thorpey?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“But you know he was killed.”

“No. No.”

“Who asked you to get me out of it?”

He shook his head. I hit him again, a low uppercut connecting smack in the middle of his bowed head.

“No, don’t hit us, Jack,” he said.

“Then tell us.”

“All right. All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”

I stood back. He stayed perched on the edge of the seat, still crouching forward.

“Brumby,” he said. “He gave us the money. But that’s all I know. Honest.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He just said find out where you were and make sure you caught twelve o’clock train.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all. Honest, Jack.”

“Did the boyos know where the money was coming from?”

“No, only me.”

I went back to the bed and sat down.

“Brumby eh?” I said.

“But for Christ’s sake don’t tell him I said so, Jack. Please.”

“Do you work for him all the time these days?” I said.

“No,” he said. “Just the odd jobs.”

“He wouldn’t have paid you to do something for him recently would he? Like say last Sunday?”

“Honest, Jack, that’s all. Honest.”

I took a drink. My landlady was still standing in front of the door holding the tea tray.

“Ah, that’s nice,” I said. “Just what we all need. A nice cup of tea.”

She didn’t look quite so indignant as she’d looked before. She put the tray down on the dressing table and began to pour the tea out.

“Brumby,” I said again.

“Can I go now?” said Thorpey.

“No, you bloody well can’t,” I said.

“Who’s Brumby?” said Keith.

“Cliff Brumby?” I said. “Ever been to Cleethorpes?”

Keith nodded.

“Ever walked into an arcade and put a penny in a slot machine?”

“Yes,” said Keith.

“Well, ten to one the slot machine belongs to Brumby and like as not the bloody arcade as well. Same in Brid and Skeggie. Isn’t that right, Thorpey?”

Thorpey didn’t answer.

“Where does Cliff hang out these days, Thorpey?”

No reply.

“Thorpey?”

“You might find him at the Conservative Club. He goes there most Fridays. He’s a snooker player.”

“And where does he live?”

“He’s got a house at Burnham.”

“What’s the address?”

No reply.

“Thorpey?”

“House is called ‘Pantiles.’ He had it built a year or so ago.”

“Well,” I said. Thanks very much.”

My landlady gave me a cup of tea.

“Thanks very much, Mrs. Garfoot. Or may I call you Edna?”

“Suppose you tell me just what the bloody hell’s going on. It is my house you know.”

I poured some whisky into my tea and stirred it up.

“Yes,” I said. “You’ve been very good about the whole thing, Edna, you really have.”

“Stick the soft soap. Let’s be having it.”

I drank my tea and stood up.

“Can’t explain right now,” I said. “Have to go out for a bit. Keith’ll put you in the picture.”

“Keith?”

“Oh,” I said shrugging on my jacket, “I’m ever so sorry. Edna, Keith. Keith, Edna.”

“Who says he’s staying here?” said my landlady.

“Well, he has to, doesn’t he? Till I come back. Make sure Thorpey doesn’t walk out and make a couple of phone calls.”

“Oh, heck,” said Thorpey.

“Now just a minute …” said my landlady.

“Ta-ra,” I said. “Oh and Keith, ta very much. You’ve been a big help. I’ll see you’re all right. Okay, mate?”

Keith half smiled.

“Right, mate,” he said.

I closed the door and went down the stairs.

I tried the Conservative Club first.

There was no receptionist this time. I walked straight in. There was a badly lit hallway with two fruit machines standing on either side like sentries. Nobody was playing them. Rooms with closed doors lined the hallway. At the far end were some double doors and beyond those doors there were the sounds of snooker. I walked down the hall and through the doors.

There were six tables, all occupied. The ceiling was very, very high and the table lights looked a bit daft suspended on their thin wires that went upwards through the acres of darkness. There was a raised platform about a foot high going round the whole of the room and on this platform there were benches flush to the wall so that the non-players could sit and watch the players. Brumby was among neither of these two groups. Apart from the lights above the tables the only bright light in the room was in one corner and it came from the tiny curved bar at which the steward leaned, his chin cupped in his hands, watching the game on the
table nearest the bar. That is, until he saw me. Then he straightened up and frowned. He was about to lift the bar flap and come through to say a few words to me but I didn’t give him the chance. I was at the bar before you could say ‘Members Only.’

“I’m very sorry to intrude like this,” I said, “but I have an urgent message for a Mr. Brumby. Could you tell me where I’m likely to find him?”

“This is very irregular,” he said. “We never allow non-members unaccompanied into the club.”

“No, I know,” I said, “like I said, I’m sorry to intrude like this, but it is rather urgent.”

“And nobody’s allowed in after eleven,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I know. But you see I was told Mr. Brumby might be here and it’s a matter that really could do with his attention …”

“To do with his business is it?” said the nosey old bugger.

“No, not exactly,” I said. “But it is rather urgent.”

“Who are you?” he said.

“A friend of Mr. Brumby’s. Now …”

“Never seen you before.”

“No. I’ve just driven up from London.”

“Oh, yes?”

I began to walk away from the bar.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he said.

“To look for Mr. Brumby.”

“Well it’s no good looking here,” he said. “Mr. Brumby hasn’t been in tonight.”

I turned round.

“Oh?” I said.

“No,” he said. “Not tonight. It’s the Police Ball, isn’t it?”