Get Carter Read Free Page B

blackness low clouds touched with pink from the steelworks sidled across the sky. I turned left again into another street exactly the same as the first except that at the end of it was a stretch of narrow road that ran out of the town between the steel works and up into the Wolds. I walked to the end of the street and opposite me on the other side of the exit road was Parker’s Garage and Car Hire.
    I crossed the road and tapped on the office door. Nobody was in sight. I tapped again, harder. A door beyond the filing cabinet opened. A man in overalls and a woollen hat with a bobble on top appeared. He crossed the office and opened the door.
    He looked into my face and waited for me to tell him what I wanted.
    “I’d like to hire a car,” I said.
    “How long for?” he said.
    “Only for a few days,” I said. “I shan’t be staying long.”
    I drove up through the town but via the back routes that paralleled the High Street until I came to Holden Street, a street in which I knew every other house did Bed and Breakfast; after Frank had been buried I didn’t want to operate from the house, not with Doreen around. I didn’t want her involved unless I could help it. I found one with a garage and parked the car in front of the house, walked up the path and knocked on the door and waited.
    The house had gabled windows and a mean little porch. The top half of the front door was panelled in opaqueglass with a border of little squares of coloured glass running along the top and the two sides. On either side of the door there were two more panels exactly the same except that they were narrower. Inside the hall a shadow approached the front door and opened it.
    She wasn’t bad. About forty, probably the right side of it, hair permed, squarish face, well powdered, big tits, open-necked blouse shoved tight into her skirt. No nonsense with the wrong people but what about the right ones?
    She looked as though she might be pleased to see me.
    “Am I in luck?” I said.
    “What for?” she said.
    “A room. Have you any vacant?”
    “We have.”
    “Oh, good,” I said. She stepped back to let me in. I hesitated.
    “Look,” I said, “the point is, I don’t actually need one right now, tonight that is, it’ll be tomorrow and Saturday, maybe Sunday.”
    She altered her stance, resting all her weight on one leg.
    “Oh, yes?” she said.
    “Yes, you see. I’m staying with a friend for tonight, but you know how it is, it won’t be convenient tomorrow, you know.”
    “Her husband changes shifts tomorrow, does he?”
    “Well, er, it’s not exactly like that,” I said.
    “No,” she said, beginning to turn away, “it never is.”
    “There’s one other thing,” I said.
    She turned back and adopted the stance again.
    “See, I’ve got a car, and I know it’d be all right if I left it in the road, but I notice you’ve got a garage and I was wondering if it was empty if maybe I could put it in there. Tonight, like.”
    She carried on looking at me.
    “I mean,” I said, “I’ll pay.”
    She looked at me a bit longer.
    “Well, you can hardly park it outside her house, can you?” she said.
    “Thanks,” I said, following her in, “that’s very nice of you, it really is.”
    “I know,” she said.
    She began to go up the stairs. Her legs were all right, and so was her bum, muscular but not as big as it would have been if she didn’t look after herself. When she got to the top of the stairs she turned round while I was still watching her.
    “Traveller are you?” she said.
    “You could say that,” I said.
    “I see,” she said.
    She crossed a landing and opened a door.
    “Will this do?” she said.
    “Oh yes,” I said. “Just the job.” I looked all round to show her how much I appreciated it. “Just the job.” I took my wallet out. “Look, I’ll pay now and if you like I’ll pay for tonight just to keep the room open.”
    “That’d be a bloody silly thing to do,” she said. “You’re first one