Get Carter (14 page)

“I wouldn’t know, would I?”

Albert went into the business of looking as if he was trying to remember when he’d last heard owt about Thorpey.

“No,” he said eventually, “the last I heard he was still working for himself. I think that must have been, oh, six months ago.”

I looked at him.

“Straight up, Jack,” he said. “As far as I know Thorpey still works for himself.”

“Then why the fucking hell would he be wanting to know where to find me?”

“Maybe he’s got something to tell you.”

“My mother’s fat arse. Remember that fracas at Skeggie?”

Albert didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Well in that case, maybe he wants to get to you before you get to him.”

“Why should a little squit like Thorpey knock off Frank? Besides, he wouldn’t have the guts. He’d pee his pants if you so much as looked at him.”

Albert shrugged.

“Well, I don’t know, Jack,” he said.

“Yes you do, Albert,” I said. “But I don’t expect you to tell me, even if it’s only an idea. But Thorpey’s different. Just who he’s working for?”

“Jack, I’ve told you. As far as I know he’s still working for himself.”

“As far as you know,” I said.

I stood up and threw my cigarette in the hearth.

“Well,” I said, “thanks, Albert. You’ve been a big help. You must let me know if I can do you a favour sometime.”

Albert put on a weary face.

“Think what you like, Jack,” he said. “I can’t say I know something if I don’t.”

“That’s right, Albert,” I said.

I walked over to the door.

“Well, don’t forget,” said Albert, “any time you’re up again, drop in. We can talk over the old days.”

“I’ll do that,” I said.

“Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight,” shouted the little girl.

I closed the door behind me.

The club was crowded. Old men sat riveted by dominoes. Young men thronged the six dart boards. There was no music, no singing, no women. Just the bad lighting and the good dark brown beer and the plain floor and a bar that was decorated only by some barrels of beer lined up at one end.

I looked round the room. The man I’d come to see was in the same corner he’d been in the last time I’d seen him.

I went over to his table. Nobody else was sitting with him.

He would have been a thin man if it hadn’t been for the size of his gut. Cider and Guinness had given him a barrage balloon for a stomach. It hung over the edge of the seat looking as though it needed a crutch to support it. A walking stick was propped between his legs. Both his hands were folded on the handle of the stick. His eyes were dead behind round gold-rimmed glasses. His tongue regularly darted out of his mouth and flicked this way and that along his lips like a tiddler under water. He smelt of what he drank.

I sat down beside him.

“What do you know, Rowley?” I said.

The tongue darted along his lips.

“What do you want to know?” he said.

“Who killed Frank?” I said.

“The Demon Drink,” said old Rowley. “That’s what I heard.”

He took one hand off his walking stick and adjusted his glasses.

“It’d be worth it if you knew,” I said.

“Don’t know that, Jack,” said old Rowley. “Don’t know that.”

“Think of all the mucky books you could buy if you had a few quid,” I said.

“Don’t know anything about Frank,” he said but his eyes weren’t quite so dead as they had been.

“You know there’s something to know, though. Don’t you?”

“There’s always something to know, Jack.”

“All right,” I said. “Who does Thorpey work for these days?”

He didn’t answer.

“A few quid,” I said. “Keep you in books for weeks.”

He took a sip of his cider and Guinness.

“Thorpey?”

“Thorpey.”

“Rayner pays him now and then to do the odd jobs,” said old Rowley, “or so I hear.”

“Rayner?”

He nodded. The tongue darted. I took my wallet out and took two fivers and put them on the table. He looked at them. A hand separated itself from the walking stick. The hand began to move across the table towards the money. Just like a crab. As the hand began to close over the money I whipped the notes off the table.

“Lying old bastard,” I said.

I stood up.

“No, wait a minute,” said old Rowley. “It’s true. Ask anybody.”

“ ’Course it’s true,” I said. “Why would you say it if it wasn’t?”

I looked at him while he watched me put the money back in my wallet.

“Ta-ra, Rowley,” I said.

He shrugged and adjusted his glasses again. I left him to his smell.

I drove back into town. I was feeling dry. The scotch was back at the digs. I thought I’d drop in and have a drink and a think and then take it from there. The night was young. The pubs were only just chucking out. The Chinese restaurants would be filling up, just like the wash bowls in the Gents at the Baths where there was a dance and a bar till one o’clock every Friday night. Waltzing till ten, fighting till one. Spot fights. Progressive Barn Punch-Ups. Quick-steps in and out of the groin.

I drove past the Baths, which were on the corner of the High Street and the street where my digs were. Yobboes were marching up the steps of the Baths in groups of half-a-dozen at a time. Hands in pockets, jackets open. Open-necked shirts and Walker Brothers’ hair cuts.

I turned left and slowed down and backed the car into the drive and got out. All the windows at the Baths were open to let the sweat out and the sound of the group was an ebbing muffled blast in the cold night air. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich were as precise as a Mozart quartet against these boys.

I locked the car and began to walk back to the pavement on my way round to the front door. There was a sound of footsteps. Running. I stood at the edge of the drive, out of sight of the approaching runner. The steps were closer. A figure shot past the end of the driveway. It was Keith. I grabbed his arm and pulled him off the pavement.

“Fuck me,” he said between gasps. “You frightened the fucking life out of me.”

He was sweating like a pig. There was the start of a bruise above his right eye. The knot in his tie was somewhere up
behind his left ear. The sleeve of his jacket and the knees of his trousers had damp and gravel on them. He didn’t have a lot of skin left on the knuckles on his right hand.

“What’s up?” I said.

There was the sound of a car screaming round the end of the street. Abruptly the sound was reduced as the car slowed right down. The soft noise got closer.

“Thorpey,” said Keith. “They were waiting in car park. They thought it’d be easy.”

“Was there many?”

“Four of them.”

“Including Thorpey?”

He nodded.

“Three then,” I said.

An old Zodiac slid past the driveway at about two miles an hour, two wheels up the pavement. Four faces gaped into the darkness where we stood. The car stopped. It blocked the exit to the driveway. Nobody got out.

“Hang about,” I said to Keith.

The nearside back window was wound down.

“Jack?” said Thorpey’s voice.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Like a word with you, Jack,” he said. He didn’t sound very happy.

“That’s nice,” I said.

“Confidential, like.”

“Stay in the car and I’ll come and listen.”

“All right.”

I walked the short distance to the car and bathed myself in yellow light. I leant forward and rested my arm on the open window.

“What do you want to tell me, Thorpey?” I said.

Thorpey shoved his shaky claw out of the window. There was something in it.

“I’ve been asked to give you this,” he said.

He dropped the something into my hand. It was a British Railways ticket to London. I smiled.

“Train goes at four minutes past twelve,” he said. “You’ve just got time.”

“Well that’s very kind of somebody,” I said. “Who do I have to thank?”

Thorpey said nothing. His ratty eyes glittered yellow in the dark of the car.

“What happens if I miss the train?” I said.

“I’ve been asked to make sure you don’t,” he said.

His voice was getting braver by the minute but not quite brave enough.

“Oh?” I said. “Getting optimistic in your old age, aren’t you, Thorpey?”

“Let’s stop fucking about,” said a voice nearest me in the front.

“Are you coming, Jack?” said Thorpey. “It’d be best.”

I let the ticket fall to the ground.

“Right lads,” said Thorpey.

Three doors opened. Thorpey’s wasn’t one of them. The bloke who’d wanted to get on with it started to climb out of the front seat. I grabbed the door handle and pulled the door wide open and with all my force slammed the door into him before he could do anything about it. I timed it just right. He was half-way in and half-way out. The top edge of the door caught him on his forehead and on part of the bridge of his nose and the side edge caught a knee cap. He was very hard hit. He fell back across the front seats and started being sick. I jumped on to the bonnet of the car and kicked the driver on the side of his head before he’d had time to turn round completely after getting out of his seat. He went over but only for a minute. The third bloke was squaring himself up. I jumped down off the bonnet into the street. He made the mistake of coming to me instead of letting me go to him. He swung at me and I took hold of his arm one handed and pulled him to me giving him a forearm smash in the windpipe with my other arm. He went down trying to catch hold of the breath he’d just lost. I gave
him one for luck on the back of his neck. His face hit the concrete before any of the rest of him. I turned back to see the bloke I’d kicked. He’d got up but Keith was there giving him a boxer’s right but while my back was turned Thorpey had wriggled out of the car and was off down the road like a frightened rabbit.

“Thorpey!” I roared.

He kept going.

I got into the car. There was no time to turn round or to shove out the bloke lying across the seat so I sat down on him. I pressed the starter and put the car into reverse. I caught up with Thorpey at the end of the street but he turned right into the High Street. I couldn’t reverse round the corner so I got out and ran after him. There were plenty of people about but neither me nor Thorpey was particularly interested in them in the way that they were interested in us.

The mistake Thorpey made was to decide to go and hide in the Baths. Fucking hell, I thought at first when I saw him racing up the steps but the next minute his foot slipped and he was flat on his bloody face sliding down them again. A few people burst out laughing when they saw it happen but they soon stopped when they saw me rush up and turn him over and pull him up on to his feet. It wasn’t so much that as stopped them but the short jab I gave to Thorpey’s ribs.

“Now then,” I said. “What was that confidential information you were going to tell me about?”

“Don’t, Jack,” he said. “Don’t, Jack. It wasn’t my idea, honest.”

“Right,” I said. “Let’s go and find out who’s bloody idea it was then.”

I took hold of his collar and tie and started to pull him after me down the steps. Somebody pushed me hard in the chest.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” a voice said.

A yobbo was standing in front of me, a step below me, and below him was another yobboe. They were both looking up into my face with much interest.

“Nothing you’d be interested in,” I said.

“Oh, yes?” he said. Then to Thorpey: “What’s up, mate? Do you want any help?”

Thorpey didn’t know what the bloody hell to say.

“Look, fellers,” I said. “Don’t get yourself into something you can’t get yourself out of.”

“Oh, yes?” said the yobboe.

I started to walk down the steps again. The yobboe pushed me in the chest again. Only harder this time.

“He’s littler than you are,” the yobboe said.

“So are you,” I said, “so why chance it?”

The yobbo drew back to have a go. He thought the movement made him look tough but all it did was to make him slow. I gave him one in the stomach. His Walker Brothers’ hairstyle flopped over his face and he sank to his knees on the steps. His mate watched him go all the way down then slowly turned his gaze on me.