“George, I love you,” she said, somewhat extravagantly. “I’ll have to get on it. The radio…”
She used her radio crisply, then rallied the remaining few men about her with sharp orders.
“George,” she said, putting her head back in the car, “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to get out.” Then, as I did: “But why that music?”
“Have you seen my stick? Oh, thanks. The Tchaikovsky sixth? Well, I suppose it was one of his little jokes. It’s known as the Pathetique, Grace. Perhaps he was referring to the crowd he was commanding. Maybe to your lot. Take your pick.”
I watched the cars backing up and shooting away through the gateway. Then I stood in the rain in the darkened field, and discovered that Carol’s hand was in mine.
“We’re getting wet,” I said. “Are you cold?”
I couldn’t see her. It had been a long time since I’d last observed how she was reacting to Sarturo’s treatment. The degree of her acceptance of the heroin would dictate the severity of her withdrawal from it.
“I’m awful cold,” she said. “It’s my feet.”
I was relieved to hear how normal her voice was. Perhaps she hadn’t gone too far, if only her feet were cold. Perhaps it could be done without a clinic.
“What’s the matter with your feet?”
“I haven’t got my shoes.”
I used a word I don’t usually employ when I’m with young ladies. “Here,” I said, “we’d better get you under cover.”
In their anxiety to leave, they’d not merely failed to notice that she was shoeless, but had left both the car and the caravan unlocked. But of course, they’d stripped them of evidence. The car was closer. I jerked open the door and shoved her in. The interior light was dim.
She seemed so terribly small, that was my first impression of her. But probably she’d not been troubling with food, and certainly nobody had cared much to persuade her to wash. Her face was muddy with past sweating turns, but now her cheeks were cold to the back of my hand. I took her chin in my fingers and turned up her face. The pupils were small, but not excessively so.
“I’ll have to take you home,” I told her.
“I haven’t got one.”
“But there must be somewhere…”
“I don’t want to go back to my Aunt Flo’.”
“You’ve got to go somewhere,” I said in desperation.
“I want to go with you,” she said, fixing those eyes on me.
I turned away. “I’ll go and look for your shoes.”
They were in a comer of the caravan. There was not much point in searching it for anything else — such as money, which I realised was going to be vitally important — but I did find the log book.
I took her back the shoes and slid in beside her. Even if I could pocket my pride and accept it, the £500 bail money wasn’t going to be available for a while. With only my miserable police pension to call on, I’d be in difficulties with Mrs Perkins as it was.
I could phone Anne. She’d welcome me — again, if I could pocket my pride — with only the pension. She might even fail to flinch at the sight of Carol. But I had to get her somewhere soon, very soon…
“I’ve got a landlady,” I said, “who’s going to play hell with me, getting in at this time.”
She turned and smiled for me. I grimaced back. I’d got a landlady who was thrilled to death that I was out on bail. She’d simply love a genuine drug addict.
“You know things’re going to be bad for you,” I said, not to build up false hopes. Mrs Perkins would scream in delighted disgust and plunge Carol straight into a steaming bath. “But maybe it’d help if I’m around?”
“I’d like that, Uncle George.”
“And then, when you’re better, there’s a lady I want you to meet…”
Christ, what’s happened to your pride, George Coe?
I started the car. It was fortunate that it was an automatic, so that I could drive it with one leg.
“But the first week will be bad,” I warned.
She gripped my arm. “It’s been bad.”
I let the car drift forward, put on the lights, and eased out into the road. I was reckoning I’d be able to sell it.
Sarturo owed it me, didn’t he? He’d landed me with a criminal charge that required bail. So he owed…All right, I know, it was still theft. But I’d come so low that the odd little nudge further seemed paltry. With a bit of cash behind me, though…
Suddenly I felt optimistic. “You’ll like Mrs Perkins.”
“Yes,” she said.
“How d’you fancy smelling like a pine forest?” I asked nursing the engine.
“If you’d like that, Uncle George.”
Five hundred, I thought, ignoring the hammer from the main bearings. Should be a good start.
Though actually I eventually got twenty, and that from a car breakers.
Oh, and ten for Carol’s.
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A Glimpse of Death (David Mallin Detective series Book 7) Page 15