George Barnabas - 04 - Fourth Attempt by Claire Rayner

who opened her mouth to speak but he shook his head. ‘What was that? … Yup. Seventeen? … Oh, seventy. Right. And the phone number?’ He was scribbling on a scrap of paper; George strained to see, but she couldn’t. ‘OK, Paul. Ta for your help … What? Oh, yeah, next Friday. You’re putting a team in?… Good. We’ll slaughter you, of course, but it’s always a pleasure to kill a mate … Garn! You lot play the worst snooker this side of Tower Bridge and well you know it. Probably see you Friday, then, work permitting.’ He hung up.
    ‘So?’ George demanded. ‘What do they know?’
    ‘Not a thing!’ he said and reached for the phone again. ‘They thought it was just an ordinary electrics fault and told the owner she’d have to get the car sent to her own garage and assessed by the insurance people. They offered to arrange it with the garage for her — got them to pick it up and so forth — since she wasn’t fit herself, and to tell them how to deal with the foam extinguisher they used, so they could tell me which garage it had gone to. He’s given me the number. He also said they’re going to advise the hospital on the state of the car park as far as fire risk goes —’
    ‘Yeah,’ George said impatient. ‘But about Sheila’s car —’
    ‘I’m checking. Listen, George, don’t sit there listening. You drive me barmy the way you bounce around when I’m trying to talk on the phone, like you want to join in the conversation. I can’t handle that. I’ll make the call, you go and tart yourself up a bit. We’ll get a bit of supper as soon as I’ve got what I can here. It’s a bit late, so there mayn’t be anyone there, but I’ll have a go. When you’ve gone. Hop it, now.’
    She was too eager for him to make the call to argue, irritating though it was to be banished like a schoolgirl, but he wasn’t wrong. She hadn’t tidied herself before she left the path, lab, and, she knew she looked rumpled and a bit drawn. Repairs would be worthwhile indeed, and she tucked herself into the policewomen’s loo and began to deal with her hair and reapply some make-up. She was tolerably satisfied with herself as she snapped her bag shut, settled it over her shoulder and went back to Gus’s office.
    He was sitting staring out of the window when she came in and she stood beside the door, frowning slightly. ‘What’s the matter? No one there at the garage?’
    ‘Eh? Oh, yes. There was someone there.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So it turns out that there is something a bit…’ He sighed and got to his feet. ‘Listen, let’s go to supper, hey? I’m bloody starvin’, and you look as though you could make a nice hole in a good bit o’ fish. I’ll tell you when we get there.’
    He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He insisted on driving over to the restaurant. He wanted to use the one he’d recently opened a little further down Shadwell towards Docklands, in Cable Street, instead of going to his biggest place in Aldgate, which added to her impatience. But he still refused to talk.
    ‘Listen, I need time to get this sorted out in my head. Just be patient, will you? We’ll be there, we can talk, it’ll be easier. Now do me a favour and belt up.’
    She belted up. There was nothing else she could do, andshe somehow managed to stay silent until they were settled at a window table by his favourite manageress, Kitty, who always had the job of launching a new place, and who hurried off to get him his favourite fried halibut and the grilled sole which was all George wanted.
    ‘Now!’ she demanded.
‘Now
will you tell me? And what it is that you have to be so — so secretive about it!’
    ‘I’m not being secretive,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I know you. If we talk about things that upset you in a public place, you won’t go off the handle the way you do if we’re on our own. You’re great at flying off into the stratosphere; like a Harrier jump jet, you are. Now …’ He paused and stared at her.