“Got the V.P., Mouncey?” Greevo said.
Mouncey pulled the bottle out of his mac pocket.
“Course I have, mate.”
“Don’t drop it, Mouncey,” Croft said.
“Don’t be bloody silly,” said Mouncey, wrestling the stopper out of the neck. “Here, let’s have a swig now.”
“Now,” said Ghandi, “not here. Somebody might see us.”
“Fuck that,” said Croft. “Give it us here.”
Mouncey had a drink and handed the bottle to Croft. Croft took his turn and then the bottle was passed round and we all had a drink. Mouncey put the bottle back in his pocket.
“Come on,” said Peter. “Let’s all link up.”
We all linked arms and swayed off the pavement into the road.
“One two, one two, one two, one two,” Peter chanted.
We all fell in step and ran along the road towards school hill. The night was still and quiet and cold stars filled the sky.
“Let’s pack it in,” said Ghandi when we got to the bottom of school hill. “There might be somebody on staff about.”
We broke up.
“Here,” said Gilliat, reeling away from us, “do you reckon they’ll know we’re pissed up?”
“I don’t give two monkeys,” said Greevo. “I’m pissed, I’m pissed, I’m pissed.”
When we walked into the school hall the dancing had started. When you reached the fourth form, games like Musical Chairs and Pass the Parcel were abandoned, and in the fourth, fifth and sixth you just danced or sat around.
There were three or four pairs of girls dancing in the middle of the floor, and the rest of the girls were on one side of the hall and all the boys at the other, and at the top of the hall was the trestle table with all the food and stuff on it with two sixth form girls standing behind it waiting to pour the soft drinks. In front of the table there was Miss Hopley and Mr. Price, standing there watching the girls dancing.
We all clumped over to the trestle table and got some soft drinks. Mr. Price turned to look at us, looked away, then looked back again. I could tell he knew, but he just nodded vaguely. Price was all right.
We all drifted over to the wall that was on the boys’ side of the hall and leant against it. Gilliat stumbled into a tubular chair but he managed to stay standing up.
I looked round for Peter. There was no sign of him.
“Where’s Peter?” I asked Croft.
“Dunno. Probably spewing his ring up in the lavs.”
“Hadn’t we better go and have a look?”
“What for? He’ll be all right.”
I waited for a few minutes and went out of the hall and into the toilets. One of them was locked.
“Peter?” I said.
There was a sound like a foot scraping on the floor.
“Are you all right?”
“Bugger off.”
Peter’s voice was thick and throaty.
“Are you coming out?”
“No.”
“Price knows we’ve been drinking. He might come and check the lavs.”
Eventually the toilet flushed and the bolt was shot and Peter staggered out and made to leave the toilets.
“Hang on,” I said. “You can’t go back in looking like that.”
I guided him into the washroom and turned on a tap and stood there while he cleaned up his jacket and his face and his shoes and combed his hair.
When he’d finished he said, “Don’t you tell them others I’ve spewed up.”
“No,” I said, “I won’t tell them, Peter.”
We were walking back towards the hall when he bumped into Croft and Mouncey making for the cloakroom carrying their empty paper cups.
“Come on,” Croft said to us. “We’re off to have some more Rich Red Ruby.”
We went into the small changing room, the one the six formers used, and locked the door behind us.
Croft passed round the bottle. While Peter was drinking Croft said, “Susan’s waiting for you in the hall, Pete.”
“She can wait, then,” Peter said and took another drink.
“Hey up, Pete, are you off to dance?”
I knew Peter had been going to Mrs. Clees’ dancing classes on Tuesday nights with Susan, but he’d never mentioned it to anyone.
“Naw,” he said. “Dancing’s for lassies.”
“Are you off too, Plender?”
I shook my head.
“We are, aren’t we, Croft?”
“Yeah.”
Croft and Mouncey wrapped their arms round one another and began to dance up and down the changing room, singing in girlish voices.
“Eh,” I said. “Shurrup. You’ll have Pricey down on us.”
“Bollocks,” said Croft.
But just the same he and Mouncey stopped dancing.
The bottle went round until it was nearly empty.
“Hadn’t we better save some for the others?” Mouncey said.
“That’s their look-out,” said Croft, taking a pull.
I looked at Peter. Beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead and his face looked even greyer than it had when he’d come out of the toilet.
“Give us it here, Crofty,” he said.
Croft passed him the bottle. Peter took a long swig and suddenly he pulled the bottle away from his mouth and a long jet of sick spurted out, spraying all over Croft and Mouncey.
“Bloody hell, man,” said Mouncey, dancing back to the opposite end of the changing room. “Look at me shoes, man.”
“It’s gone all over me fucking trousers,” said Croft.
“Oh, bloody hell,” whispered Peter, and sank over on his side on the locker top and closed his eyes. He began to dribble on to the floor.
“Fucking bloody bastards,” said Croft. “Me mam’ll leather hell out of me.”
“Come on,” said Mouncey. “Let’s go get cleaned up.”
The two of them went out and left me alone with Peter. He seemed to have gone to sleep. I looked at the mess on the floor. It had to be cleaned up before any of the staff saw it. I found a pair of football shorts in one of the lockers and went into the washroom. Mouncey and Croft were by the sink cleaning themselves up. I had to shake my head to stop them going in and out of focus. I made my way over to one of the bowls and turned on the tap and dropped the shorts in the bowl.
Croft leant against one of the other bowls.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he said.
“Got to clean up,” I said. “Before Price sees.”
“Silly fucker,” said Croft. “Let Price find him.”
“Naw,” said Mouncey, “come on, we ought to. Else we’ll all be in it if he gets caught.”
The shorts must have blocked the plug-hole because the water began to overflow on to the floor.
“Look what you’re doing, man,” said Mouncey.
I stared at the water as it flowed over the side of the sink.
“Give us it here,” said Mouncey.
He took the shorts out of the bowl.
“Come on,” he said to Croft. “Let’s go clean up.”
They both stumbled out of the washroom.
“Hey, wait,” I said. “I was off to do that.”
“So fucking what,” said Croft.
“You’re too pissed up,” said Mouncey.
“No, I’m not,” I said, detaching myself from the bowl. “Wait on.”
“Greasing bastard,” said Croft.
I followed them into the changing room. Peter was being propped up by Croft and Mouncey was busy swabbing the floor. Peter seemed to be recovering again.
“Sorry about this,” he said. “Sorry.”
“S’all right,” said Mouncey. “I’ve nearly finished.”
“You’re real mates,” said Peter. “Real mates.”
KNOTT
Kate stopped the Hillman at the entrance to the car park.
“Well, it’s there,” she said.
I looked at the Mercedes, standing alone and gleaming white on the black-wet tarmac.
“That’s Daddy’s car,” said Nicola.
Kate said, “What time am I to expect you back?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
I’d fallen asleep in the car on the way back from Kate’s father’s and now the only effect the drink had on me was to heighten the sick emptiness in my stomach and to make the paraphernalia of the world around me depressingly over-real.
“I’ll expect you when I see you, then,” Kate said. “I imagine you’ll be spending the evening talking over old times. After you’ve thanked him for stealing your car at the dead of night, that is.”
I opened the car door and got out and said goodnight to the kids. Kate started to drive off as soon as I closed the door.
I stood there, looking at the Mercedes. Rain swept over it and raced across the car park. To my right I could hear the river chopping away in the blackness.
I walked over to the car.
The doors were locked. I went round to the back and looked at the boot. A part of my mind took in the fact that there was no trace of where the damage had been but the rest of my mind was looking beyond the metal to the black space where Eileen’s body had lain, bent and twisted and dead.
Or still was?
A deep shudder convulsed my body. The urge to see came over me again. Independently of my mind, my hand, like a magnet, stretched out towards the handle of the boot. Cold freezing drops of rain soldered my fingers to the metal. I pressed the button. There was a click and the lid sprang upwards half an inch. Open. It was open.
Very quickly I pushed downwards and closed the lid.
I looked towards the pub. Inside the pub was Brian Plender, my old school friend.
PLENDER
The door opened and Peter Knott came in.
He stood in the doorway, looking at me. I smiled and stood up and went to meet him.
“Peter,” I said, putting my arm round his shoulder. “How does she look, then?”
I walked him towards the bar. He seemed unable to answer.
“The car,” I said. “What do you think? Done a good job, eh?”
Knott nodded.
“Evening, Mr. Knott,” the barman said.
Knott turned his head in the direction of the voice as though he was tracking some visible object to its source.
“What’ll it be, anyway?” I said.
“Usual, Mr. Knott?” said the barman, putting a glass up to the whisky optic.
Knott nodded again.
“Large one,” he said.
His voice was thick and throaty.
“Large one it is,” said the barman, pressing the glass against the metal.
“And I’ll have a Vodka with ice and a twist of lemon,” I said. “Just a small one.”
“Very good, sir.”
I put a pound note on the bar. The barman did the drinks. I picked up my change and raised my glass.
“Cheers,” I said.
Knott was halfway down his when I said, “Let’s go and sit down, shall we?”
He followed me over to the table. I sat down first. Knott hesitated for a moment before pulling his chair back and jerking himself down into it like a marionette.
I nodded at the unfinished half-pint on the table.
“Masters and Drew,” I said. “Thought I’d have a half for old times’ sake.” I smiled. “Remember Mrs. Burnett? The Volunteers?”
Knott stared at the half-pint glass. Then he tippled the rest of his drink back. I made signs at the barman and he brought us over two more. When he’d gone back to the bar I took out my cigarettes and gave one to Knott and as I lit us up I said, “No, I suppose it was a bit naughty of me, really, coming back and taking the car like that, not letting you know. But you must admit, the bloke did a good job.”
Knott just kept on looking at me. I took a sip of my drink.
“And under the circumstances,” I said, “perhaps it was as well that I did.”
“What have you done?” he said. His mouth moved like the mouth of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
I smiled and looked down into my drink.
“Well,” I said, “really, I think it’s best not to go into details too much. Best for everyone concerned. The less you know the less it can hurt you sort of thing. Although,” I said, turning the smile into a bit of laugh, “I really ought to be the one asking you what you’ve done, eh, mate?”
“It was . . . an accident,” he said. “An accident.”
“Sure it was,” I said. “Sure. But whatever it was, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve taken care of things. Your old mate Brian’s seen to everything.”
“What have you done?”
I shook my head and smiled.
“Let’s just say this,” I said. “You’re safe. And let’s leave it at that, eh?”
“I want to know,” he said.
“No, you don’t,” I said. “You don’t want to know, really.”
He galloped his drink down.
“What am I going to do?” he said.
He began to shake his head from side to side.
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” I said, “if you start behaving like this. That is you’re going to let the whole of East Yorkshire know what happened last night. That’s what you’re going to do.”
Knott looked towards the bar. The barman looked away.
“But I didn’t mean it,” he said. “It was an accident.”
“What does it matter what it was?” I said.
“But I haven’t done anything.”
I smiled.
“You were just taking her home to tuck her up in bed, were you?” I said.
“I didn’t know what I was doing. I was out of my mind.”
“Well, it’s a good job I wasn’t.”
“Now I can’t . . .”
“Can’t what?” I said. “Go to the Law?”
He didn’t answer.
I called for some more drinks.
“Look,” I said, “I’ve done you a favour. You’re fireproof. I wouldn’t have done it if there was the slightest danger. Because if you’re in the cart, I’m in the cart. So stop worrying.”