I WOKE UP AT quarter to three. Stiff as a bloody board. I unscrewed my hip flask and took a long pull then I dragged myself back into the driver’s seat and made a U-turn back on to the runway.
When I got back to the road I turned right. Towards Sowerby. Five minutes later I was in the village.
I didn’t have to look hard to find Kinnear’s place. It was an old Georgian farmhouse. Three or four acres of land. Plenty of trees. Set way back from the road. The party was still in full swing and every light in the house seemed to be on.
I drove past the gates and carried on down the road for a hundred yards or so before I stopped the car. You never could tell. There might be his own personalised little squad car tucked out of sight up the drive to keep the gatecrashers out and the drunks in.
I waited for a while before I moved. Nothing happened. So I got out and walked to where the high boundary wall ended and stuck my head round the corner to see what we’d got.
We’d got some more wall.
I swore. I’d have to take her in through the main entrance. I looked back down the road to the gates. The road inclined downwards very slightly.
I walked back to the car and let the hand brake off. Then I closed the door and stuck my shoulder through the window and took hold of the steering wheel with my left hand and began to push.
I stopped the car a few feet away from the gates and then walked over to the driveway and stood there and listened. There were no sounds of car doors slamming outside the house. There was no sound of anything approaching up the road.
So I walked back to the car and got Margaret.
I drove back to the phone box at Malton. I was a long time getting an operator. When she came on the line I asked for a London number. She asked me to insert two and six. I put in the change I’d taken from Margaret’s purse earlier on.
The phone rattled at the other end. The voice that answered was full of sleep.
“Scully. Yes?”
“It’s Jack Carter,” I said.
After that had sunk in the voice was a little less rumpled.
“Yes?”
“I’ve got a story for you.”
“Go on.”
“Involves blue films, a killing, bent cops, drugs and a friend of a couple of people you’ve been trying to wrap the fish and chips in for a long time now.”
There was a long pause.
“It sounds beautiful,” he said. “But I’m forced to wonder why it’s coming from you?”
“The man who was killed was called Carter.”
Another pause.
“Does it have to be over the phone?”
“There isn’t time for any other way.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
“There’s a condition.”
“I thought there might be.”
“You handle the story the way I tell you to.”
“Yes you can. When you hear the story.”
“Go on.”
“Not far from where I am there’s a party going on. Wild. Cardboard dungeons and things. Right now one of the guests is lying in the grounds full of heroin. She used to be my brother’s girlfriend. Until he was killed. After he found out that this woman had pulled his daughter into a blue movie. The man who had my brother killed has enough influence with the local scuffers to make them decide it was accidental. At the same time the scuffers are having to talk to the two birds involved in the movie. One of them being my brother’s daughter. The other works for the man I’m talking about. The chances are they’ll try and keep things nice and private.”
“So what happens?”
“You get one of your local men to phone the scuffers about the bird in the grounds. He tells them he’s been tipped off. The scuffers phone the man we’re talking about and put him wise and then scream over themselves. But the trick is some of your boys are already there. With cameras and everything. Maybe even yourself if you leave the tip-off late enough. So then of course the scuffers have no choice but to put the pressure on the man we’re talking about. And everything’s all over the front pages.”
“It’s beautiful,” Scully said.
“Especially as I’ve mailed you a print of the film in question,” I said. “It’ll be at your office on Monday morning. I should go through your mail yourself just this once.”
The track was only wide enough for one car at a time. There were the occasional stretches where at one time or another they’d got some old bricks and stuck them next to each other to make a surface but the rest of the track was stony and covered with fine red brick dust. On either side of the track were reeds and beyond the reeds the flooded brick-pits stretched broadly under the faintly lightening sky. There was no wind at all and the rain had stopped.
The house was at the end of the track. Beyond the house was the raised bank of the river and on the left four crumbling kilns shaped like Aztec architecture rose above the roofless buildings of the brickyards. Nothing had changed since I had been there last. Twenty-three years ago.
A light was burning in one of the downstairs rooms of the house, its glare deepening the surrounding blue of the dawn. A figure appeared at the window and stared down the track at the approaching noise. I drew closer and the figure disappeared. I reached the end of the track and stopped the car outside the house. I switched the engine off. I could hear the dim sound of the river rushing by beyond the bank. The light went out and the front door opened. Eric appeared, carrying a hold-all. He closed the door behind him and began to walk over to the car.
I rolled the window down. He looked me straight in the face but I was still only a pale blur in the dawn light.
He was only six feet away from the car when he saw who had come to collect him.
He gave a short high scream and dropped the hold-all. Then he began to run.
I got out of the car and leaned back in and picked up the shotgun off the back seat. I propped it up against the car while I took the bottle of scotch from my bag. I put the bottle in my coat pocket and began to walk off after Eric. I had plenty of time and there was nowhere for him to go.
He’d run up the side of the bank and was making for the brick-works, stumbling along the cycle track that the brick-yarders had worn into the bank in the old days. I walked up the side of the bank and followed him watching him disappear into the overgrown brickyard and when I couldn’t see him any more I could hear him scrambling over miniature screes of bricks that had fallen from the decaying walls. The sound had the rattle of death.
Now it was getting lighter by the second and on my right the river was changing from purple to grey and I could see the opposite bank a mile and a half away. The tide was out and the mud rippled with dawn colours and from out in the middle of the river the sound of the lightship bell travelled quickly over the vast flatness of the river and its banks.
I paused at the spot where the bank ran into the brickyard. The sound of Eric’s running had stopped. I walked forward.
The yard was square. On my right the boundary was a long low kiln so old that its top was totally covered with grass. To the left and in front of me two low broken-down walls occasionally protruded above the briar and the elderberry. On the left, facing on to the river, were the roofless shells of the tileries, half their original height due to natural decay and the erosion of the local kids. Beyond the tileries, out of sight, were the remains of the landing stage. In the centre of all this were the four main kilns, still solid, and two large vats, full of old bricks and rain water. Frank and me, we used to sit on the edge of the vats and throw bangers in and watch them fizz across the surface of the water.
I stopped again and listened. There was still no sound. I walked over to the tileries and looked in each one. He wasn’t there. I didn’t go beyond them. If he’d gone that far he’d still have been running when I’d come into the yard.
I looked in both vats. Nothing. So I laid the shotgun down on the edge of one of the vats and took out the bottle of scotch and put it next to the shotgun and began to climb up the face of the nearest kiln. The kilns were stepped at intervals of four feet and as lads the trick was to pull yourself up from step to step until you got to the top. But now I was twice the size and there was no problem.
When I got to the top I swivelled round on my backside and dangled my feet over the edge and looked down at the vat twenty feet below. I wondered if the shotgun would tempt him out. I doubted it. Not old Eric. I smiled to myself. When we’d been kids and Frank and I and some others had used to come here we used to play exactly this kind of game. We’d pick one of us to go off and get lost and we’d give him a quarter of an hour and then we’d all fan out and start tracking him. When you were caught you had to pretend you’d been shot by the person who’d found you. It was a great game, whether you were hunter or hunted. But it was only good when you were a hunter if the hunted was good at hiding. Otherwise it got boring because it was all over too quickly. So if the bloke that was being hunted was no good I’d let the others hare off after him and I’d stay behind and climb up the kiln and lie low and wait and I’d always spot the bloke somewhere or other, thinking he was safe as houses. Then I’d stand up and shout bang and he’d almost kill himself trying to see where my voice had come from.
But of course if it was Frank I never bothered. It was one of the few games he ever took seriously. I’d always know where to find him, but I never did. I’d leave it to one of the others. But on the other hand I’d never let him catch me. That had been different. And he’d always wanted to, I knew. And I wish I’d let him once or twice.
I took Con’s shooter out of my jacket pocket and laid it down on the bricks next to me and then I took out my fags and lit up.
It’s nearly full light now. From where I am I can see the sweep of the river for a good twelve miles and to my right, inland, the glow of the steelworks is pink against the grey sky.
I scan the yard. There is no sign of Eric. But he’s there. Somewhere. And when he moves I’ll see him. Even if he scratches his arse.
I smoke my fag and when I’ve finished it I throw it out over the vat and watch it spiral down until it hits the water and hisses and dies.
When I look up again I see Eric.
He is crawling face down along the top of the low kiln that is covered in grass. He must have been there all the time, waiting and sweating and listening. He’d never thought to look up. He probably thought I was half a mile down the river poking sticks into bushes.
I let him crawl a little further before I speak. This is too nice to rush.
“Eric,” I say.
The sound of my voice bounces off the water in the vat and echoes round its walls.
Eric stops crawling. His head jerks about from side to side, trying to see where my voice is coming from.
“Over here,” I say. “I’m up here, Eric.”
This time he freezes. When he finally manages to move again his head swivels slowly round until he’s looking at me.
The movement is like that of a lizard on a warm rock.
“Get up,” I say.
He gets up. He doesn’t take his eyes off my face.
“Down,” I say.
He doesn’t move. I show him Con’s shooter.
“I said down.”
He walks to the edge of the kiln and slithers down its eroded overgrown side.
“Lean against the kiln. With your back to me.”
He stretches his arms out and does as he’s told. There is nothing else he can do.
I climb down from the kiln and stand and look at Eric for a minute or two. Then I ease myself up on to the edge of the vat next to the shotgun and the bottle.
“Turn round,” I say.
He turns round. I look into his face and I smile. Then I unscrew the top of the bottle.
“You look as though you could use a drink,” I say.
He sways slightly and tries to straighten up again but he can’t quite make the true vertical again.
“So why don’t you join me? After all, you were a drinking mate of my brother. Weren’t you?”
A skein of geese flies over from off the river.
“Come here,” I say.
He seems to have difficulty in putting one foot in front of the other. When he finally gets to me I pick up the bottle.
“Let’s have this one with Frank,” I say.
He doesn’t move.
“Take it,” I say.
Somehow he manages to stretch out an arm and take the bottle. I look into his eyes until he forces himself to lift the bottle to his mouth. He tips the bottle and opens his mouth but because he is trying not to swallow, the whisky runs out of the sides of his mouth and down his neck and chin.
“Swallow it, Eric,” I say. “Every drop. Just like it was with Frank.”
He puts the bottle to his mouth again and takes a sip and then another and the third time I put my hand to the base of the bottle and hold it tilted so that he’s either got to drink or choke.
This is where I am very wrong.
I have one hand on the bottle and my other hand is gripping the inside edge of the vat to stop me falling forward as I tilt the bottle.
I am wide open.
The movement is very slight. I’m concentrating on his face and it isn’t until I hear the thin click that those things have that I know what is happening.
For a split second there is unbelievable coolness. The bottle smashes on the edge of the vat. Then the heat comes and the pain climbs inside me.
As the blade leaves me I fall sideways along the edge of the vat. Eric lunges for the shotgun but as I roll over I catch the stock with my foot and the gun slides off the rim and clatters down inside the vat. I continue rolling and for a moment I am staring up into the sky and it is red. Then I fall. I land on my back, my torso on a pile of bricks, my legs in a few inches of water.
Something is sticking up into my field of vision down near my right knee. It is the butt of the shotgun. I stretch my hand out towards it. My fingers are nearly there but the pain is too much and I have to let my arm splash down useless in the shallow water by my side. Then Eric appears, standing on the edge of the vat. I raise my arm and try for the shotgun again. When Eric sees what I am trying to do he jumps down into the vat splashing water up the sides and as my fingers close on the butt he kicks my hand away and drags the shotgun from underneath me causing me to slide off the bricks and end up wholly in the shallow water.
I close my eyes to shut out the pain and when I open them again Eric is standing over me, shouting something but I can’t understand the words. Still shouting he lifts the shotgun to his shoulder and draws the hammer back.
Then he stops shouting and takes careful aim at my head. The thought strikes me that there is no need for him to do that. Not at this range.
I watch his fingers as they tighten on the trigger. His hands seem very close. There is a ring with the initial E on it, on the third finger of his right hand.
The gun goes off and the sound of thunder echoes round the vat. The noise explodes into my body. Birds race across the sky.
There is a ringing silence. When I open my eyes Eric is no longer standing over me.
Pain wells up in me again and I look down to my stomach. The blood is pumping out too quickly. Much too quickly. The water round me is becoming streaked with thin red lines that swirl slowly towards my feet. But surprisingly there is no evidence of the shotgun blast. The blood that is creeping out of me is coming from the knife wound.
I look beyond my feet. Eric is lying on his back at the far end of the vat. All I can really see of him is one leg bent double, the knee pointing up to the sky.
I can’t see his face at all because his head is out of sight below the line of his chest. But I don’t think there would be very much face for me to see. The water around Eric is much redder than it is around me.
And between us, beyond my feet, half in the water, is the shotgun, what’s left of it, twisted and black, still smoking, the smoke curling up into the grey morning sky.
Faint sunlight warms my face. The water’s surface ripples for a second as a slight wind drifts in and then out of the vat.
There is the sound of a car. A long way away. The sound stops. A door slams. Time passes and I carry on staring up into the sky.
The pain went a long time ago.
Now I can hear someone moving aimlessly through the foliage near the kiln. Footsteps approach the vat. Suddenly they stop.
I try and call out but no words come. There is a movement at the edge of the vat. Out of the corner of my eye I can see a hand touching the smashed remains of the whisky bottle. I manage to move my arm and a piece of brick makes a small splash in the water by my side. Con’s face appears at the rim. For a while he just stares down into the vat.
“Jesus Christ,” he says softly. “Jesus H. Christ.”
Then he scrambles over the top and drops down next to me, squatting on his haunches. He looks at my wound with interest.
“Well now, Jack,” he says half to himself. “What’s to do. What is to do?”
I stare at his face but I can’t speak.
“I’m supposed to take you back to Gerald and Les. Yes, indeed. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”
He pushed his hat back on his head.
“But this, I would say, makes things different. That’s what I would say.”
He looks at the wound again and thoughts pass through his mind. Suddenly he stands up and brushes his coat down. He turns away from me and has a closer look at Eric. “Jesus H. Christ,” he says again. Then he notices his shooter lying on the wall where I left it. He picks it up and looks it over. He slips it in his pocket and clambers over the edge of the vat without looking back. I hear him jump down on the other side and begin to walk away. Then there is silence for a long time until I hear the car door slam again and the engine start up and I listen to the sound until it dies away and then there is nothing, nothing at all.