Free Get Carter by Ted Lewis Page B

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 outof 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.
    “Well, Eric,” I said. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
    He nodded.
    “Funny, too. Here I am, working in London, visiting my home town, and you, you’re not living in your home town but working in mine.”
    “Yeah, funny.”
    “Who, er, who are you working for, Eric?”
    He gave me a sidelong glance and smiled and snorted, which meant I must be out of my tiny mind.
    I smiled too.
    “I’m straight,” he said. “Look at me. Respectable.”
    “Come on,” I said. “Who is it? It can only be one of three people.”
    He carried on smiling into his beer and began shaking his head from side to side.
    “Rayner?”
    More smiling.
    “Brumby?”
    Shaking.
    “Kinnear?”
    Bigger smile than ever. He looked at me. I smiled back.
    “Why do you care?”
    “Me? I don’t care, Eric. Just nosey.”
    “That’s not always a good way to be.”
    I laughed and put my hand on his leg.
    “So you’re doing all right, Eric, then,” I said. “You’re making good.”
    “Not bad.”
    “Good prospects for advancement?”
    He smiled again.
    I squeezed his leg and smiled even bigger.
    “All right, Eric,” I said. “All right.”
    I took a drink.
    “When was the funeral?” he said.
    “Today,” I said.
    “Oh,” he said mildly, as if he didn’t know. If he were here for the reason I hoped he was here for, he’d know all right. He’d know what colour braces I’d worn to it.
    “You’ll be off back to town soon, then,” he said.
    “Oh, pretty soon. Sunday or Monday. Got a bit of tidying up to do. Affairs. You know. Shouldn’t be later than Monday.”
    “Ah,” said Eric.
    While we’d been talking the band had drifted on to the stage. There was an old fat drummer in an old tux and a bloke on an electric bass and at the organ with all its magic attachments sat a bald headed man with a shiny face, a blue crew neck sweater and a green cravat. They struck up with “I’m a Tiger.”
    I got up.
    “Off to the Gents,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
    He nodded.
    I picked my way