The light goes off, and I realise mostly likely that’s the kid just gone to bed. That tells me that room was where the little telly was from, and the whole floor clicks in my head.
I walked back to the van, feeling very professional indeed.
Next night I’m busy, and the one after. Not nicking. The Tuesday was our “anniversary” (or so Jackie says; far as I can see I don’t understand why we have them when we’re not even fucking engaged, and anyway—anniversary of what? We met at a party, got pissed, shagged in one of the bedrooms on a pile of coats, and that was that). Either way we ended up going up West and having a meal and then getting bladdered at a club. Wednesday night I’m not going fucking anywhere. I felt like shit.
So it’s Thursday when I’m outside the house again.
I was there a little earlier, about quarter to nine. You look a bit less suspicious, being out on the street at that time; but on the other hand there’s more people around to see you loitering about. I walked past the house first, seeing the curtains are drawn again. Can’t work out whether the lights are on full or not: there’s still a bit of light in the sky.
Id actually slowed down, almost stopped, when I heard footsteps coming up the street. I started moving again, sharpish. You don’t want the neighbours catching someone staring at a house. There’s some right nosey fuckers. They’ll call the old Bill quick as you like. Course the Bill won’t do much, most of the time, but if they think there’s lads scouting for opportunistics then sometimes they’ll get someone to drive down the street every now and then, when they’re bored.
So I started walking again, and as I look I see there are some people coming up the street towards me. Three of them. Actually, they’re still about thirty yards away, which is a surprise. Sounded like they were closer than that. I just walk towards them. I didn’t actually whistle—nobody whistles much these days, which I think is a bit of a shame—but I was as casual as you like.
Just as I’m coming up to them, them up to me, the streetlights click on. One of these lights is there just as we’re passing each other, and suddenly there’s these big shadows thrown across my path. I look across and see there’s two of them in front, a man and a woman. The woman’s wearing a big floppy hat—must have been to some fancy do—and the bloke happens to be looking across her, towards the street. She’s in shadow, he’s turned the other way, so I don’t see either of their faces, which is fine by me. If I haven’t seen theirs then they haven’t seen mine, if you know what I mean.
I’m just stepping past them, and I mean around, really, because they’re both pretty big, when suddenly someone was looking at me.
It was the girl, walking behind them. As I’m passing her, her head turns, and she looks right at me.
I look away quickly, and then they’re gone.
All I’m left with is an image of the girl’s face, of it slowly turning to look at me. To be honest, she was a bit of a shocker. Not scarred or nothing, just really big-faced. With them eyes look like they’re sticking out too far, make you look a bit simple.
But she was young, and I think she smiled.
I walked down to the corner, steady as you like. As I turned around it I glanced back, just quickly. I saw two things. I see the three of them are going into the house. They weren’t neighbours, after all. They’re the people from the actual house. The people with the jewellery. The people I’m going to be nicking from.
The second thing I notice is that the streetlight we passed isn’t lit any more.
* * *
I’m a bit unsettled, the next day, to be honest. Don’t know why. It isn’t like me. Normally I’m a pretty chilled bloke, take things as they come and all that. But I find myself in the pub at lunchtime, which I don’t usually do—not on a weekday, anyway, unless it’s a Bank Holiday— and by the afternoon I’m pretty lagered up. I sit by myself, in a table at the back, keep knocking them back. Clive pops in about three and I had a couple more with him, but it was quiet. I didn’t say much, and in the end he got up and started playing pool with some bloke. It was quite funny actually, some posh wanker in there by mistake, fancied playing for money. Clive reeled him in like a kipper.
So I’m sitting there, thinking, trying to work out why I feel weird. Could be that it’s because I’ve seen the people I’m going to be nicking from. Usually it’s not that way. It’s just bits of gear, lying around in someone else’s house. They’re mine to do what I want with. All I see is how much they’re worth. Now I know that the jewellery is going to belong to that woman in the hat. And I know that Baz’s sister is watching a telly that belonged to the girl who looked at me. All right, so she was a minger, but it’s bad enough being ugly without people nicking your prize possession.
That could be another thing, of course. She’d seen me. No reason for her to think some bloke in the street is the one who turned them over, but I don’t like it. Like I didn’t like Mr. Pzlowsky being in the Junction. You don’t want anyone to be able to make those connections.
I’m thinking that’s it, just them having seen me, and I’m beginning to feel bit more relaxed. I’ve got another pint in front of me, and I’ve got my stone in my right hand. It’s snuggled in there, in my palm, fingers curled around it, and that’s helping too. It’s like worry beads, or something: I just feel better when it’s there.
And then I realise that there’s something else on my mind. I want to find that jewellery. But I don’t necessarily want to hand it on.
The Pole is still gagging for it, I know. He’s rung me twice, asking if I’ve got any more, and that tells me there’s serious money involved. But now I think about it properly, with my stone in my hand and no Baz sitting there next to me, jabbering on, I realise I want the stuff for myself. I didn’t actually handle it, the last time. Baz found it, kept it, sold it to the Pole.
If a little bit of stone feels like this one does, though, what would the silver feel like? I don’t know—but I want to know.
And that’s why, on the Saturday night, I went around there. Alone.
* * *
I parked up at 5:00, and walked past once an hour. I walked up, down, on both sides of the street. Unless someone’s sitting watching the whole time, I’m just another bloke. Or so I tell myself, anyway. The truth is that I’m just going to do it whatever.
It’s a Saturday night. Very least, the young girl is going to go out. Maybe the mum and dad too, out for a meal, to the cinema, whatever. Worst case, I’ll just wait until they’ve all gone to bed, and try the back door. I don’t like doing it that way. Avoid it if I can. You never know if you’re going to run into some have-a-go-hero who fancies getting his picture in the local paper. Clive had one of those, couple years back. Had to smack the guy for ages before he went down. Didn’t do any nicking for three months after that. It puts you right off your stride. Risky, too. Burglary is one thing. Grievous Bodily Harm is something else. The coppers know the score. Bit of nicking is inevitable. The insurance is going to pay anyway, so no one gets too exercised. But with GBH, they’re on your case big-time. I didn’t want to go into the house with people in it. But by the time I’d walked past it three times, I knew I was going to if I had to.
Then, at half-past seven, the front door opens.
I’m sitting in the van, tucked around the corner, but I can see the house in the rear-view mirror. The front door opens and the girl comes out. She walks to the end of the path, turns left, and goes off up the street.
One down, I think. Now: how many to go?
I tell you, an hour is a long time to wait. It’s a long time if you’re just sitting there smoking, nothing but a little stone for company, watching a house in the mirror until your neck starts to ache.
At quarter-past eight I see the curtains in the downstairs being drawn. Hello, I thought. It’s not dark yet. Nothing happens for another twenty minutes.
Then I see the door opening. Two people come out. She’s wearing a big old hat again. It’s a bit far away, and I can’t see his face, but I see he’s got
long hair. I see also just how fucking big they are. Fat, but tall too. A real family of beauties, that’s for sure.
They fuck around at the door for a while, and then they walk up the path, and they turn right too.
Bingo. Fucking bingo. I’ve had a result.
I give them fifteen minutes. Long enough to get on the bus or down the tube, long enough that they won’t suddenly turn up again because one of them forgot their phone or wallet. Also, enough for the light to go just a little bit more, so it’s going to be a bit darker, and I won’t stick out so much.
Then I get out of the van, and walk over to the house. First thing I do is walk straight down the front path, give a little ring on the door. Okay, so I’ve only seen three of them before, but you never know. Could be another kid, or some old dear. I ring it a couple of times. Nothing happens.
So then I go around the side, the way we got in last time. It’s a bit of a squeeze, past three big old bins. Fuck knows what was in them—smelled fucking terrible. Round the back there’s the second door. Last time it was unlocked, but I’m not reckoning on that kind of luck twice. Certainly not after it got them burgled. I try it, and sure enough, it didn’t budge.
So I get myself up close to the glass panel in the door, and look through the dusty little panes. Some people, soon as they get burgled, they’ll have a system put in. Bolting the stable door. It’s why you’ve got to be careful if you find some keys the first time and go back a couple weeks later. Can’t see any sign of wires.
So I take the old T-shirt out of my pocket, wrap it around my fist. One quick thump.
It makes a noise, of course. But London is noisy. I wait to see if anybody’s light goes on. I can be back out on the street and away in literally seconds.
Nothing happens. No lights. No one shouts “Oi!”
I reach my hand in through the window and would you fucking believe it: they’ve only left the key in the lock. I love people, I really do. They’re so fucking stupid. Two seconds later, I’m inside.
Now’s here the point I wish Baz is with me. He’s not bright, but he’s got a good memory for places. He’d remember exactly where he’d found everything. I don’t have a clue, but I’ve got a hunch.
The bureau with the empty drawer. The place where I got my stone. Well, Baz found it, of course. But it’s mine now.
I walk through the kitchen without a second glance. Did it properly last time. The main light’s on in the living room, and I can see it’s even more untidy than last time. The sofa is covered in all kinds of shit. Old books, bits of clothes. A big old map. Looks very old, in fact, and I make a mental note to take that when I go. Could be the Pole’s contact would be interested in that too.
I stand in front of the bureau. My heart is going like a fucking jackhammer. Partly it’s doing a job by myself. Mainly I just really, really want to find something. I want the jewellery. More even than that, I want another stone.
I look through the drawers. One by one. Methodical. I take everything out, look through it carefully. There’s nothing. I’m pissed off, getting jittery. I’ve always known it might be that there just isn’t any more of the stuff. But now I’m getting afraid.
In the end I go to the drawer I know is empty, and I pull it out. It’s still empty. I’m about to shove it closed again, when I notice something. A smell. I look around the room, but at first I can’t tell what’s making it. Could be a plate with some old food on it, I think, lost under a pile of books somewhere. Then I realise it’s coming from the drawer. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s definitely there. It’s not strong, but...
Then I get it, I think. It’s air. It’s a different kind of air. It’s not like London. It’s like... the sea. Sea air, like you’d get down on the front in some pissy little town on the coast, the kind people don’t go to any more and didn’t have much to recommend it in the first place. Some little town or village with old stone buildings, cobbled streets, thatched roofs. A place where there’s lots of shadows, maybe a big old deserted factory or something on a hill overlooking the town; where you hear odd footsteps down narrow streets and alleys in the dark afternoons and when the birds cry out in the night the sound is stretched and cramped and echoes as if it is bouncing off things you cannot see.
That kind of place. A place like that.
I lean down to the drawer, stick my nose in, give it another good sniff. No doubt about it—the smell’s definitely coming from inside. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. So I slam it shut.
And that’s when I realise.
When the drawer bangs closed, I hear a little noise. Not just the slam, but something else.
Slowly, I pull it back out again. I put my hand inside, and feel towards the back. My arm won’t go in as far as it should.
The drawer’s got a false back.
I pull it and pull it, but I can’t get it to come out. So I get the screwdriver out of my back pocket and slip it inside. I angle my hand around and get the tip into the join right at the back. I’m feeling hot, and starting to sweat. Fucking tricky to get any pull on it, but I give it a good yank.
There’s a splintering sound, and my hand whacks into the other side. I let go of the screwdriver and feel with my fingers. An inch of the wooden back has come away. There’s something behind it, for sure. A little space. I can tell because my fingertips feel a little cold, as if there’s a breeze coming from in there. Can’t be, of course, but it tells me what I need to know.
Something’s behind there. Could be the jewellery I came for. Could be even better. Could be another stone. Another stone that smells like the sea. So I get the screwdriver in position again. Get it good and tight against the side, and get ready to give it an almighty pull.
And that’s when I feel the soft breath on the back of my neck, and her hands coming gently around my waist; and one of the others turning off the lights.
* * *
It is just a question of attitude, it turns out. The student tosser had it right. It’s all a matter of how you see the people you’re doing over, whether you think about them at all, or if you just see what you can get from them. What you need.
I gave them Baz, on the Sunday night. They didn’t make me watch, but I heard. An hour later there was just a stain on the carpet, like the one we’d seen upstairs. They gave me another one of the stones, even prettier than the one I had before. It’s beautiful.
Fair exchange is no robbery. I’m giving them Jackie next.
THE TAINT
by BRIAN LUMLEY
JAMES JAMIESON LOOKED through binoculars at the lone figure on the beach—a male figure, at the rim of the sea—and said, “That’s pretty much what I would have wanted to do, when I was his age. Beachcombing, or writing books; maybe poetry? Or just bumming my way around the world. But my folks had other ideas. Just as well, I suppose. ‘No future in poetry, son. Or in daydreaming or beachcombing.’ That was my father, a doctor in his own right. Like father like son, right?” Lowering his binoculars, he smiled at the others with him. “Still, I think I would have enjoyed it.”
“Beachcombing, in the summer? Oh, I could understand that well enough!” John Tremain, the middle-aged headmaster at the technical college in St. Austell, answered him. “The smell of the sea, the curved horizon way out there, sea breezes in your hair, and the wailing of the gulls? Better than the yelping of brats any time—oh yes! The sun’s sparkle on the sea and warm sand between your toes—it’s very seductive. But this late in the season, and in my career?” He shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks. You won’t find me with my hands in my pockets, sauntering along the tidemark and picking over the seaweed.”
He paused, shrugged, and continued, “Not now, anyway. But on the other hand, when I was a young fellow teaching arts and crafts: carpentry and joinery, woodcraft in general—I mean, working with woods as opposed to surviving in them—now would have been the ideal time for a stroll on the beach. And I used to do quite a bit of it. Yes, indeed. For it’s autumn when the bes
t pieces get washed ashore.”
“Pieces?” Jilly White came back from wherever her thoughts had momentarily wandered, blinked her pretty but clouded green eyes at Tremain, then glanced from face to face in search of a hint, a clue. “I’m sorry, John, but I wasn’t quite...?”
“Driftwood,” the teacher smiled. “All those twisted, sandpapered roots that get tumbled in with the tide when the wind’s off the sea. Those bleached, knotted, gargoyle branches. It’s a long time ago now, but—” He almost sighed, gave another shrug, and finished off, “But searching for driftwood was as close as I ever got to being a beachcomber.”
And Doreen, his tall, slender, haughty but not unattractive wife, said, “You’ve visited with us often enough, Jilly. Surely you must have noticed John’s carvings? They were all driftwood originally, washed up on the beach there.”
And now they all looked at Jilly...
There were four of them, five if you included Jilly White’s daughter, Anne, curled up with a book in the lee of a sand-dune some twenty-five yards down the beach and out of earshot. Above her, a crest of crabgrass like some buried sand-giant’s eyebrow framed the girl where her curled body described a malformed eye in the dune’s hollow. And that was where Jilly White’s mind had been: on her fifteen-year-old daughter, there in the lee of the dune; and on the muffled, shuffling beachcomber on the far side of the dunes, near the water’s edge where the waves frothed and the sand was dark and damp.
All of them were well wrapped against a breeze off the sea that wasn’t so much harsh as constant, unremitting. Only endure it long enough, it would cool your ears and start to find a way through your clothes. It was getting like that now; not yet the end of September, but the breeze made it feel a lot later.
“John’s carvings?” said Jilly, who was still a little distant despite that she was right there with the others on Doctor (or ex-Doctor) James Jamieson’s veranda overlooking the beach. But now, suddenly, she snapped to. “Oh, his carvings! The driftwood! Why, yes, of course I’ve noticed them—and admired them, honestly—John’s driftwood carvings. Silly of me, really. I’m sorry, John, but when you said ‘pieces’ I must have been thinking of something broken. Broken in pieces, you know?”
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