The Death of William Posters Read Online Free PDF

town. He stood by the car window and Frank twisted the ignition off, tempted to let the wheel roll over his boot and end his days in prison. ‘A man’s got out of Upton Asylum, and he’s dangerous. You haven’t given anybody a lift today, have you? He’s a young feller of nineteen. Got out early this morning. Wearing a soldier’s uniform, and stutters a bit.’
    Frank lifted his face, hand on chin as if truly thinking, yet instinctively answering: ‘I didn’t see anybody.’
    He was waved on. It must have been that soldier I picked up. Maybe tonight he’ll be raping little girls or coshing an old couple for their pension books. Perhaps I said I hadn’t seen him because it would have kept me back from a drink for an hour while they checked my answers. I suppose it’s no good, though, not to be bothered, but in most things that’s how they like you to be, to watch the telly or have a few drinks and not be bothered, because if I was bothered I wouldn’t put up with the death camp I’m living in. So they’ve got to be satisfied when I can’t be bothered to help them to capture some poor soldier who has jumped the looneybin. I couldn’t be bothered to tell the police where that soldier was because I couldn’t be bothered to be bothered. But they’ll get him because thousands of others can be bothered to be bothered, but maybe this dangerous soldier will get his hands on the throat of some fleshhead who can be bothered to be bothered and drop him dead in some dark corner, because those who can be bothered to be bothered are bothered about the wrong things and never bother to get bothered about things that really matter.
    Still, it worried him that he hadn’t told them where he’d driven that soldier to in Loughborough, and now so long afterwards it seemed much more a crime that, in his lunacy of the last day, he had committed without thought, worrying him more and deeper even than his departure from wife and kids.
    He looked around the room, at the writing desk, bookcase loaded, mirror above the fireplace. ‘It’s good furniture you’ve got.’
    â€˜It belonged to my mother. I brought it up from Surrey, and some of it came from auction rooms around here. What else do you want to know?’
    He played along with her light-hearted mockery, unused to the idea of eating in such silence. ‘I didn’t think you came from the norm. How did you end up in Lincolnshire?’
    â€˜I hope I don’t end up anywhere. By marriage I lived in London, and by appointment I got this job here. It’s a hard one, but I like it. Have another cup?’
    â€˜I will. You’ve set me off, with such good tea’ – and again she gave a smile as if to say: ‘I might have taken you in out of the goodness of my heart, but you don’t have to say anything nice for it. I’m in charge here.’ She laughed at these thoughts: wrinkles beginning around the eyes, but her skin was white and smooth. The dress was buttoned to her neck, and the cardigan didn’t hide completely the small swell of her breasts. ‘I’d better be on my way,’ he said. ‘Knock a few more miles back.’
    â€˜I don’t imagine you’ll get to Lincoln tonight.’
    â€˜It doesn’t matter. I’ll sleep somewhere snug. I’m glad of the healthy life for a while. It’s not too cold yet, and a barn will do me.’
    â€˜Why are you on the run?’ she asked. ‘I’m curious.’
    That makes two of us, he thought. ‘I’d had enough of married life. It was getting to be like that play on in London, “The Rat Trap” – now in its fifth year. It kept going along, dead as a doornail, and then, all in the space of a day I’d decided everything, packed in and left, as if those five years were only a sizzling fuse leading to a load of dynamite that suddenly exploded.’ All