“But you said you'd never . . .”
“I know what I said. This is now.”
The door bell rang again.
“In any case,” I said, “it could be anybody.”
Sheila looked at me. I looked away and walked past her. She followed me into the lounge.
“Just open the door,” I said, pressing myself against the wall.
Sheila didn't move. I saw that she was crying.
“Sheila . . .”
There was nothing I could say to help. It wasn't a time for saying things. This could be the last time ever we would be together; but to act as if it was would make things even worse.
Sheila dried her eyes and slid back the bolts and turned the lock. I braced myself.
There was no great rush into the room. Sheila just opened the door and looked at whoever was standing there.
A voice said: “Can I come in, Mrs. Cracken?”
I knew the voice but for a moment I couldn't place it. Then it fell into place with the features of the face in the police car. Pettit. Detective Sergeant Pettit. And at that moment I knew I wasn't going to be done. Not because I knew Pettit particularly well, but because of the whole atmosphere of the scene.
“Who are you?” Sheila said.
“A mate of Billy's.” Pettit said. “Or at least I will be.”
Sheila wanted to look at me to see what she should do, but she daren't, still thinking that I wanted to stay hidden against the wall. Then Pettit walked into the room and Sheila stood back and I said: “Come in and make yourself at home.”
Pettit turned his head briefly in my direction but he didn't stop moving.
“What are you going to do? Chop your way through a dozen uniforms?”
Pettit drifted round the room, like a bored tourist in a museum.
“There would have been that many, would there?” I said.
“For Billy Cracken?” he said, pursing his lips. “All of that, I would have thought.”
“But there aren't any, are there?”
“No,” said Pettit. “That's right, Billy. There aren't.”
Pettit stopped moving and looked at me properly for the first time.
“Close the door, Sheila,” I said.
“Mind if I sit down?” Pettit said.
I gave a tired smile. Pettit sat down. Sheila stayed where she was, by the door. Pettit looked at her, then at me.
“Mr. Pettit wants to talk to me alone, Sheila,” I said.
“Billy . . .”
“Don't worry, love. It's all right. Everything'll be all right. Just go into the kitchen.”
Sheila looked at me for a while. Then she turned away and went into the kitchen.
I sat down opposite Pettit.
“I didn't know you were bent,” I said.
Pettit smiled.
“You're sure about that, are you?”
“Do me a favour,” I said.
There was a silence. Pettit said:
“I almost did for you yesterday.”
“I wonder what made you change your mind?” I said.
Pettit carried on as if he hadn't heard.
“In the car, when I saw you, I nearly called out your name, I was so surprised. In fact the driver went so far as to ask if I'd seen a face and did he want me to stop? I just said I thought I had, I'd been mistaken.”
I didn't say anything.
“Thought you'd been lucky, did you?” Pettit said.
“I had, hadn't I?” I said, looking him straight in the eye.
He smiled again.
“I could really do myself a lot of good by taking you in,” he said.
“So you could,” I said.
He looked at me for a long while, as though he was deciding what he was going to do.
“Know why I'm not going to?” he said at length.
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes, but the reason.”
I shrugged.
“All I want to know is what you think it's going to cost me. That's all I want to know.”
“The reason I'm not going to take you in,” Pettit said, “and I want you to know this, because, in a way, you ought to know, the reason I'm not turning you over is because I'm sick of it all.”
I watched and waited.
“Just sick of it all. Sick at the thought of sixteen straight years doing my job, and getting fuck all out of it while those others . . .”
“Don't give me that crap,” I said. “Or else
I'll
be sick. And I haven't paid for the carpet.”
Eventually Pettit smiled.
“All right, Billy,” he said. “I heard you were a direct sort of a person. I'll tell you what it's worth to me. It's worth a grand. In fact it's worth a lot more, but I'm realistic. And I shan't keep coming back for more. In the circumstances I think that's very reasonable of me.”
I gave the matter some thought.
“As I see it,” I said, “there are three things I could do. First, I could tell you to piss off. If I told you to piss off, you could either piss off or try and take me in single-handed. And you're not going to do that. Or I could take you apart and throw you down the stairs and before you came to I'd be somewhere other than sitting in front of this fire. Or I could tell you I haven't got that kind of money and there wouldn't be any alternative for you but to piss off or, as I said, try and take me in. Now, where, among the alternatives, is a course of action which gives you an advantage over me?”
“Billy,” said Pettit, “in a way, you're underestimating yourself. You don't think I'd come to Billy Cracken wide open, do you? If I'm not out of here and back with my driver in . . .” He looked at his watch. “. . . in fifteen minutes from now, then my driver'll radio through to send them up here mob-handed.”
I smiled.
“And for why?” I said. “Why should they? That'd mean you'd have had to let on, and you daren't do that.”
It was his turn to smile.
“Don't be naive, Billy. All I've let on to my driver is I might be on to something big. That's all. Given him the impression I'm glory-seeking. What could be more natural than wanting to case Billy Cracken's place on my own. I mean, all I was doing was making sure before I called the hounds in. Just unlucky, being clobbered. But it happens to us all.”
After a while I said: “I don't believe you. You're on your own in this one.”
Pettit shrugged.
“Believe what you like,” he said. “But if you're wrong then there's no way other than that you go back inside. And you'll have the next twenty-five years to work out how much a grand is actually worth.”
I rubbed my temple with my little finger.
“What's to stop you coming back at me once I'd paid you off?” I said. “After all, that's been known before as well.”
“True,” he said. “But you won't be here an hour after I'd gone. So I'd have to start looking all over again.”
“Not if you went back to your driver and said Billy Cracken's up there, he's moving, let's get the lads down to give him a hand.”
Pettit laughed.
“Billy,” he said, “you should learn to trust people.”
There was a silence. I thought about things.
“I could only manage eight,” I said.
Pettit looked at me, lips pursed again.
“Is it here?”
“Yes.”
Pettit leant back in his chair.
“All right,” he said.
I stood up.
“I'll go and get it,” I said.
I walked towards the kitchen door. As I passed the chair Pettit was sitting in, I said:
“Oh, by the way . . .”
Pettit leant forward in his chair so that he could turn and look at me. As he was twisting round in his seat I took the shooter from my pocket and hit him just to the right of his ear, at the base of his skull.
He rolled off the chair without making a sound.
I ran to the kitchen door but before I could get to it Sheila had burst into the room.
“Billy, what's happened? What have you done?”
She tried to get past me to examine Pettit but I grabbed hold of her.
“Listen,” I said. “He's all right . . .”
“But . . .”
“Listen. We've got to get out. He said he wasn't on his own. I think he was lying but we can't chance it. We've got to get out anyway now. But don't panic. If you panic we're sunk. Are you listening to me?”
She nodded.
“Start packing. Two suitcases. Anything you can't get in, leave. They'll do the flat for prints so that doesn't matter. While you're doing that I'll call Ronnie. But don't wake Timmy yet. Do the packing first.”
Sheila ran into the bedroom. I picked up the phone and dialled Ronnie's number.
Ronnie's wife answered the phone.
“Doreen?”
“Speaking.”
“It's Billy.”
“Billy. I was . . .”
“Where's Ronnie at tonight?”
“Tonight? He's at the Stable. But . . .”
“Doreen love, I can't talk. I'll be seeing you.”
I killed the line and dialled again. Eventually a woman's voice said:
“Stable Club.”
“Ronnie, please.”
“Who's calling?”
“A friend of Walter's.”
The woman went off the line and there was some clicking at the other end of the line. Then Ronnie came on.
“Yeah?”
“It's Billy. Can I talk?”
“Hang on.”
Silence. Then Ronnie came back on.
“What's up?”
“I've had a visit. Everything's all right but I've got to move on. I need somewhere for us tonight. And I need fetching from here.”
“Jesus.”
“Ronnie?”
“Yeah, yeah. Listen. Tobin's got a man here tonight. And he's covering the flat pretty regular. I've got to be careful.”
“I need moving fast, Ronnie. I might only have ten minutes.”
“I couldn't be there inside of ten minutes anyway. Listen, Billy, can you meet me somewhere?”
“Where, for Christ's sake?”
“I don't know. Can't you walk somewhere, and wait?”
“Hang on.” I called through to Sheila. “Sheila, is that park open at night?”
“What?”
“The park where you take Timmy. Is it open?”
“I don't know.”
I cursed and said to Ronnie:
“Look, there's this park near us, five minutes' walk away, on the road we're on. We'll meet you there. At the gate.”
“I'll get there as soon as I can.”
I put the phone down and ran into the bathroom and pulled the cardboard box from the airing cupboard and carried it into the bedroom. Then I got Timmy's carrycot and set it on its wheel base and lifted the carry-cot mattress and stacked the unassembled guns in the bottom of the cot. Then I got a blanket and folded it up and wadded it over the guns and put the mattress on top.
Sheila finished packing the suitcases and opened the wardrobe and took out my jacket and my coat and handed them to me. While I was putting them on she went into Timmy's room and I heard her disturb him. I followed her in case I could help. Sheila was lifting Timmy out of the cot, bedclothes and all. She hurried back into our bedroom again, and again uselessly, I followed her. Sheila made a cocoon of Timmy's bedclothes and eased him down into the cot. He moaned a bit, but he didn't open his eyes. Then Sheila tucked her mac over the top of the bundle and adjusted the hood of the cot. I went back into Timmy's bedroom and stuffed his Teddy and his Matchbox combine harvester into my coat pocket.
“Billy!”
I hurried back into the bedroom and picked up the suitcases. Sheila was already by the open door. She pushed the carry-cot out on to the landing. I followed her with the suitcases. I put the cases down and closed the door behind me and together Sheila and I manhandled the carry-cot to the bottom of the stairs. Then I ran back up the stairs to get the cases.
The park gates were locked. We couldn't stay on the main road so we kept going until we came to a left turning which ran alongside the park. Halfway down this turning there was a smaller park gate.
“You stay here,” I said to Sheila. “I'll walk back to the corner and wait for Ronnie.”
“Billy, they'll see you.”
“What else can I do?”
“You stay here, I'll go.”
“Supposing the Filth think you're a tart? The park and all.”
“It's still safer.”
Sheila walked back to the corner. I looked at my watch. It had been nearly twenty minutes since I'd phoned Ronnie.
Timmy stirred in his cot. I leant over him and peered into his face. His eyes were still closed. I tucked the blankets more snugly round his head. Then I straightened up again and looked back towards the comer. Sheila wasn't standing there any more. Then a black Dormobile rounded the corner. Christ, no. I turned and looked at the carrycot. I couldn't run. I could do nothing. The van slowed down. I sagged at the knees. The van stopped. Sheila got out one side and Ronnie got out the other.
Tears of relief sprang to my eyes.
“Christ, I thought it was the Filth,” I said.
Ronnie was round the back opening the van doors.
“No chance,” Ronnie said. “In ten minutes' time, maybe.”
Sheila and I loaded the carry-cot in the back and Sheila got in after it. I followed her and Ronnie handed me the suitcases. Sheila and I sat down on the floor and leant against the bench seats. Ronnie slammed the doors and ran round to the front and got in the driver's seat and we took off.
“Thanks again,” I said to Ronnie.
“What happened?” he said.
I told him.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Pettit. That bastard would have sold you right back inside again. He's a real twisted little bastard. You can't trust him no way.”
“That's what I thought.”
“Anyway, the point is, what about accommodation? My place is right out. Too dicey for all of us.”
“I know. And we daren't risk the night in a flea-trap.”
“There is one answer,” Ronnie said.