Read Online September Song by Colin Murray - Free Book Online

permission to leave.
    â€˜What’s your name?’ I said.
    â€˜Billy,’ he said. ‘Billy Watson.’
    â€˜Well, Billy Watson,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to know what you do for a living that means you can afford that fancy Italian suit, but I’m willing to bet it isn’t working as a hod-carrier on a building site. And I bet it isn’t legal. I just hope it isn’t quite as illegal and ugly as I suspect it is.’
    He looked down at the floor and flushed an angry red. ‘You can’t talk to me like that,’ he said.
    â€˜Listen, son,’ I said in my best avuncular manner, ‘a word of advice. Forget the tough-guy stuff. You’re not cut out for it.’ I shook my head. ‘You’re not hard just because you’ve got a sock full of sand in your pocket and you’re happy to hit someone with it from behind. That’s just sneaky. So, as long as you’re just sneaky, I reckon I can talk to you like that.’ I shrugged. ‘I hope that you don’t grow up to be vicious with it. That’ll get you into all kinds of trouble.’
    Some more gagging and hoarse coughing and a little shuffling suggested that Ricky Mountjoy was stirring behind me. Now, he was already vicious and I was in no doubt about how cheesed off with me he’d be. Not only had I hurt him but I’d also humiliated him in front of a subordinate – Billy Watson was just a runner, and Ricky was something more than that – and he’d be after revenge. Ah well, it couldn’t be helped.
    I turned around and made my way over to him. ‘Ricky,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry that I had to hit you, but you didn’t give me any alternative.’
    He looked up at me with real malice. ‘You’ve made a bad enemy,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you for that.’
    I shrugged. ‘I’m sure you’ll try, Ricky,’ I said.
    â€˜You bastards,’ he said. ‘You’re all the same. Just because you’ve got a few medals, you think you’re heroes. Better than the rest of us.’
    â€˜No one I know thinks that,’ I said. I shook my head and stared down at him. ‘I’m trying to find someone,’ I said. ‘There was an American in here last night, looking to be  . . . accommodated. He’s gone missing. I assume you arrange for people to be accommodated here, so I wondered what you know.’
    â€˜I wasn’t in here last night,’ he said. ‘I don’t know nothing.’
    Mrs Wilson, my white-haired old teacher at Church Road School, would have tutted over his grammar there, but I let it go. I was more bothered by the fact that he was lying, but I decided to let that go too.
    â€˜Fair enough,’ I said. ‘If you hear anything, let me know.’ I started to walk out and then turned back. ‘You don’t know where I might find Del, do you? I fancy a chat with him.’
    He ignored me, and, after a few seconds of uneasy silence, I walked out of the room and down the stairs.
    I hoped that Lee had stumbled back into Pete’s Place during my absence, but one glance at Peter Baxter’s gloomy face as I was waved back in by Bill was enough to confirm that he was still resolutely AWOL. There were a lot more people standing around now than there had been before, and the other three members of Peter’s quartet were shuffling around on stage as if preparing to play.
    I joined Baxter and Jerry, who was cheerily slurping a pint, by the bar and admitted that all I had to show for my efforts was a lump on the head, the lasting enmity of a member of one of the nastiest families in my neck of the woods and the knowledge that Lee had been in the Frighted Horse the night before. Actually, I left out the stuff about the bash on the bonce and the sworn enmity of Ricky Mountjoy as being of no interest to him, but I told him everything else.
    Peter Baxter looked even