Gith by Chris Else Read Free Book Online

somewhere around
my left shoulder.
    'I know,' I said. 'Hi.'
    'My mum said you might give me a job. Sir.'
    Piss off, I wanted to say, but it was hard with those damp
brown eyes. I felt I had to let him down gently. 'You any good
with cars?' I figured I knew the answer, given the state of
Pansy's Honda.
    'Aw, yeah?'
    'What've you done? Experience and so on.'
    He looked down at the floor and did a little shuffle with
his feet. Then he looked at me straight, just for a second. It
was a helpless look, like he was begging me for something. I
figured I had to put him out of his misery.
    'We don't have anything right now,' I said.
    'Oh.' Then suddenly his eyes shifted. A blue Peugeot had
drawn up on the forecourt and a young woman was getting
out of it. She was slim and blonde and wearing a pink blouse
and close-fitting black pants. An out-of-towner. Billy was
staring at her with his mouth open. Slowly, the tip of his
tongue drew a circle over his lips.
    'We don't have anything right now,' I said again, louder this
time. 'Okay?'
    He nodded. 'Sure, sure.' He looked at me like he was
scared.
    I moved round the counter and out towards the door. The
woman was standing by the car waiting to be served.
    'So bugger off,' I told him over my shoulder.
    Did she hear me? No. I smiled at her and she smiled back.
I could feel Billy behind me shuffling away from us. She
looked at him and then at me.
    'Fill it up, please.'
    'Yes, ma'am.'
    She turned away from me and looked out over the road
towards the bus shelter and the trees on the boundary of the
Domain.
    I set the pump going and then started to wash the Peugeot's
windscreen. I could still see Billy. He was down by Kath and
Len's place now, moving with a half-sideways kind of walk
like he was fighting through a crowd. I felt weird watching
him go. Part of me felt sorry for him. He seemed so hurt and
bashed around. On the other hand, I sure as hell didn't want
him anywhere near Gith. Or any other woman I knew, for
that matter.

3
    BY THE TIME Monty got back, Gith had finished with the
ute.
    'What did you do to it?' I asked her.
    'Withgat,' she said. It sounded kind of like 'waistcoat' but I
knew what she meant.
    'Wastegate on the turbo,' I told Monty. 'Stuck in open.'
Gith nodded. 'If it'd been stuck in closed you could have had
serious trouble. Blow your whole engine, that can.'
    'Yeah. I know.'
    I charged him thirty bucks. Mate's rates.
    'You on for a beer later?' he asked me. Monty's wife had left
him a couple of years back and these days he spent most of his
evenings in the pub.
    'Not sure. Maybe. A few things to do here first.'
    'Thanks for this.' He winked at Gith.
    'Take it for a run before you thank us,' I said.
    We usually closed at six, so from about five-thirty it was
packing-up time. We tidied the workshop and rolled Jack
Henare's Cortina further in so we could shut the doors. The
car had been with us since the day before, waiting for a clutch
plate to come over from Parts-4-U. Jack was an easy-going
sort of bloke but I could see him getting a bit pissed off if
something didn't happen soon. I called up to see what the
story was and got shunted around between the supplier and
the courier so I gave them both a bollocking. Then I went into
the shop and cashed up, locked the money in our floor safe,
which was in a cupboard off the back room.
    Gith was drinking a mug of tea and staring at the list I'd
pinned to the corkboard. She looked at me, wanting to know
what it was.
    'Van owners,' I said.
    She reached up pulled the pin out, took the list to the table.
The pen and pad were still there from the time we talked to
those two cops. Gith bent over the list with the pen in her
hand. Slowly, she started to cross names out. There were three
left when she'd finished: Rick Parline, Colin George and 'the
bloke in Ramp Street'.
    'You know all the others?'
    'Gith.'
    'Could be anybody, anywhere,' I said. 'Could be somebody
who never comes in here.'
    'Na-narg.' She made a waving move with her right