Witch Hunters and Other Stories (2018-2019)

by Ecallaw Leachim

  "Of course you do, you're no fool, despite how you might be acting. But think of this, how else do you think I was able to keep trading all those years? I made sure the people close to me were looked after. It is ALWAYS the ones close to you that dob you in, Bobby... ALWAYS!" He let this sink in for a few minutes, "So, you want me to go talk with Suzy?"

  Bobby looked down, and said with resignation, "Yes please. A flat and ten grand a year."

  "Fifteen grand, Bobby. It is good business sense. Suzy knows everyone and if she is happy she will send her friends to buy their drugs from you, so this will cost you nothing. In the end you will MAKE money by being fair and looking after your family. Are you agreed?"

  Bobby was a little numb, but he agreed. Then the light dawned on him, "You are the counselor you were talking about, aren't you?"

  "Yes matey, I am. You don't get to my age and learn nothing about people. You keep the little woman happy, she doesn't say nasty things about you to your kids, and you grow up having a friend who loves you, not an enemy stabbing you in the back. It's not rocket science."

  He wanted to add, but didn’t, “You dumb fook!”

  Suzy

  Suzy, of course, cried like there was no tomorrow. Finally, someone was helping her in this hard, dog-eat-dog world her useless husband had dragged her into. She could barely believe it when Harry Jenkins called by and gave her the news. Her useless husband was finally taking some responsibility for his family. A home, her own home, and 300 quid a week. It was unbelievable. It was truly unbelievable, but it goes to prove that what people always said about old Harry was true. He really helped people.

  Her gratitude in bed was very genuine and she was surprised that a seventy year old was still so fit and virile. In fact, she was so grateful she invited him back, any time. Not stupid was Suzy, she knew where the bread was buttered. And of course she would not contact the Police or child protection about Tommy's business, not now she didn't have to.

  Harry was pretty pleased as well. This was working out quite well, and Suzy at thirty-six was still a good looking thing. What's more, he had just made everyone's life just that little bit better, so who would deny him a small reward every week. The girl was pretty damn lively as well, and much better than a hooker because he knew she meant it.

  Plus the little kids were good ones. He said he would have a word about getting them to better schools than the local, which he did. His broad Scouse accent and that big smile disarmed even the hardest of hearts. The local catholic school agreed to take both at a reduced rate, which Bobby would pay for, of course. He just talked about getting them out of a negative environment full of drugs, the single mother who needed assistance, the usual stuff that the Nuns love to hear.

  Everyone wants to do good, Harry mused, but they usually end up doing bad. And mostly, they only do so because they don't think the good will work. People want to get on, but they can't negotiate, so they come on all angry and pushy and try to dominate. This gets everyone's back up and the fights start. The real trick was to go easy, find something everyone can agree on, and work things so that all parties feel they are getting a win.

  For most people, it comes down to money. Everything costs something, yet so often you can find a solution with old fashioned barter, or a service that a person needs. The trick was knowing the right people, and connecting them in ways that made everything work. And Harry knew a lot of people. And many of them owed him a debt for some favor he had done them. When it suited, he would call it in.

  Nicely, you don’t need loud words or threats to remind someone of a debt. People knew they owed him and in these parts memories go way back. They also remember, way back, about what happened to those people who refused to be honorable.

  They also knew he took a bullet for Johnny Carlyle and never said a word. He could have, most of them would have, but Harry Jenkins didn't. He had respect and so when it came to him asking a small favor for another person, it carried a lot of weight. Plus that smile, and that laugh, no-one could dislike Harry.

  And there it was. Dear Suzy did indeed know a lot of people, a lot of men with old English bikes. They were all back in fashion now and when the word got out that Harry was back in town, the messages start coming in. So many that he would need a shop. He supposed it would turn up around the traps, somewhere. As always, just a matter of the right word in the right ear. Ideally, a lease on a piece of land on a farm where there was an old shed. Farmers always needed work done on machinery, so it shouldn’t cost anything with a bit of barter. Fair trade is no man’s loss.

  You needed a shop, a place for tools, a place to contemplate life. He could do the Triumph work in his own time, as well as any private work that came his way. Again, just a matter of negotiation. On top of this, Triumph wanted every one of their showrooms stocked with an original 50's or 60's bike, and he was the man for it. Things were indeed starting to look up.

  The Gypsy Woman

  It was on his way back to the build from Suzy's that he saw her, the old Gypsy woman in the traditional van sitting in a field by the side of the road. Well then, maybe this is just what he needed, a little fortune telling. Harry hopped off the train at the next stop and made his way up to the clearing where he saw her camped.

  "Hi ho," he says by way of greeting. The old woman just looks up, no expression, just watching him. "Would you be doing the fortunes then for a passing lad?"

  "You are no lad," the woman corrected him. "But yes, I still be doing the fortunes for those who have the ears for it."

  "That would be me then, old woman. I be wanting to know a few things, I am at a turning point and thinking of the best direction to go. Would you like to be reading me cards?"

  "Twenty-Five it is, and if you be willing I will set up the table."

  "I be willing, and would this be now?"

  "It be now." she said, and pulled from the back of her van a table and some fold out chairs. She laid out a curious cloth, all embroidered with mystic designs, upon which she placed a very battered old set of Tarot Cards.

  Harry smiled. He loved the old Gypsies and had made sure in his time that the ones he knew who were not thieves always had a field to camp in when they were passing through. It was not a one-way affair, they brought with them interesting stuff to trade, so it was in both their interests. And he always got a reading from the old lady each little band took with them. "It's very odd to see you out and about on your own without your people with you, then?"

  "Is that so?" She questioned right back at him.

  Harry just smiled. She kept her cards close to her chest and that's not a bad thing. "As you will my dear, just curious is all. Not wanting to interfere."

  She just nodded, and handed him the cards. “Shuffle a bit and think of your question.” Which he duly did, asking inwardly for a sign that would show him his next step. Did he buy a van, like this gypsy one, did he just rent a shop that had accommodation? He had learned to trust the ways of a people not bound to the confines of society and found the old folk to be pretty accurate in their predictions.

  She said very little, and just fanned out the deck, whistling and clicking her tongue as she started to make sense of the cards that were pulled out. "I see loneliness in the past, but no fear. I see wealth around you, but it isn't yours. And yet it is." and then she stopped, she stopped completely. "And you would be Harry Jenkins then, wouldn't you?"

  Harry laughed. "So do you know me then, old woman?"

  "No, but you saved my dead husband from jail once, where he would have died sooner and had less time with me. You wouldn't remember, but he got arrested for a robbery and you gave him an alibi, saying he was sleeping in your shop at the time."

  "Ah, that‘s no big thing. I did that a lot, woman. The police were always picking on the Gypsies and I had a fair interest in keeping them out of jail because a jailed man cannot trade anything with you then, can he? If I had helped him, it was also a help to me."

  She still did not smile. "I recognized you from th
e kindness in the cards, and they had already told me one day you would turn up needing my help, for what it would be worth. And so I give it, but you may not understand it for a blessing."

  Harry was almost amused, but the woman looked dead serious. "Well then, what is it that the cards say, woman?"

  "They say you will be getting a new heart, Harry Jenkins. This is what they say."

  "But damn you woman, that is hardly a blessing. Are you saying I am in for a heart attack? Well, when?" Harry was worried. He really had been out of breath and he did have strange aches in his arms. He knew these were symptoms of a heart condition, but as always, he shrugged it off. But now it was staring him in the face.

  "Soon," was all she said.

  Nothing for it but to book in to the local doctor and have himself checked out. If the old girl was right, you can save a whole lot of suffering by finding out early. And he needed to know before he got into the rest of the build.

  The Doctor

  Doc Andersen had passed away, but the new one, a nice little Chinese girl, seemed competent. And she was pretty, no difficult thing to put up with. "It's something I felt I had better get checked out, as I am doing a lot of work and can't be sure if it is just old age or something else leaving me breathless with odd pains, Doc."

  The girl checked him very thoroughly - His weight, his arm strength, his blood pressure. She even tested his heart rate before light exercise and after walking for a few minutes on a machine they had at the surgery. She checked his teeth, of all things, then got a little viewer thing, and looked inside his ears, inside his eyes. She tested his reflexes, how his eyes followed her pen when she moved it. A really complete, solid going over.

  After a good forty-five minutes she sat with him, and went over the data. "Basically Mr. Jenkins, you have the constitution of a man in his forties. You are in remarkable health for your age, truly remarkable. You have no problem at all with the heart. I know you were concerned, and most reasonably so, but there is no reason to be worried. What you were experiencing is simply what I would expect from the new workload you have taken on.

  "It will all settle down over the next couple of weeks, as muscles adjust to the new environment. Also, I went over your past history as well, it is all on computer now, so I don't have to go pulling out old files. I have to say, apart from the accidents, and the broken bones, you have had almost no serious health issues at all.

  "I would say you have another twenty years in you at least Mr. Jenkins, with only the risk of arthritis to slow you down. You will be good to finish this job you have taken on and I have to say, I am impressed not just at your general level of fitness, but by the clarity of your thought and your ability to focus. You are more than good to go, though we will take some bloods to check in case there are some deficiencies we need to cover. But I can say that you have nothing to be concerned about at all."

  Harry lit up a spliff outside the Docs office. That old woman had put the hebbie jeebies right up him, she had. But it was probably good because he had been putting off visiting the doctor. Getting such a strong all clear message brightened him up and he made his way back to the build.

  Weeks Two to Seven

  Week two of the build was well underway. Some halfway decent men had turned up for the plumbing and electrical and things had moved along in those areas without stress. They were sons of old mates of his who had passed away and apparently they too had stories to tell about how Harry had helped them in some fashion. He didn't tell them that all he ever really did was pour oil onto troubled waters, just words, not a lot else, to calm the situation. He didn’t tell them he only did so in order to keep his own harbor calm.

  Then again, he really did help out a lot of people over the years. Getting their bikes sorted was one thing, but his innate understanding of people made him a natural problem solver. He could always see where things would end up if let to run their course and he often stepped in to make little changes, so that everyone ended up at a better place.

  It was good marketing. Help someone a little and they come get a cheap TV off you, or a better car, some weed, whatever they wanted. Harry was the fix-it man for everything and he always managed to do it without a fuss. Almost always, because there were occasions where a man continued to beat his wife after he had settled it and so Harry made sure the fool understood what a real beating felt like. If some junkie wanted to steal things, he made sure they understood what having nothing felt like.

  One of the reasons the coppers left him alone for so long was because he was such a useful member of the community and, on the odd occasion where there was a small infringement, he could always trade himself out of the predicament. Everyone always needed something and he was the man to get it for them.

  The little cottage was framed now. Study oak it was, though where Ed got it he didn't know, because it was old. The paneling was all pine on the outside, good six inch shiplap that he oiled both sides to stop any warping. Ed didn't want paint, which was good. Exactly as he would have it. Why cover beautiful wood? All the uprights were drilled, wires run through, plumbing connected to the sewer and all passed inspection by the council shire man, with a couple of cartons of Guinness in his boot to make sure.

  "Thank goodness this is a utility room," the man wisely intoned when ticking off the kitchen, "and that that gap there doesn't have a stove in it, because then it would be a kitchen, and therefore illegal. I like the moon room at the top with the outlook over the Alt River. It will be a lovely place to contemplate at night for the person using this studio. Fortunately, it is not a bedroom, which of course, would be illegal."

  It was no matter to Harry that Ed had schmoozed council to get this second house through. Everyone knew a granny flat was supposed to be connected to the main house, so calling it a studio and passing over the suitable gifts, or whatever was needed to get it ticked off, was a smart move. Once up, if the neighbors don't complain, you never saw Council again. And everyone around here was old school, and trustworthy.

  It was a damn nice place to live, and Harry went that extra mile with all the little trimmings to make sure the sister Ed had coming over would really love the place. Small things, a carving of a mouse on the banister leading to upstairs, ala Mouseman. He made little storage compartments in odd spots, all those little details that in the end meant so much.

  The roofer was almost done, the plumber was here, and the electrician was wiring in the final switches. Harry was looking over the almost completed job. The mahogany panels were something else and he remembered something in the past about those.

  Were they the same panels he hawked to the shipbuilder in Southampton in the '70s? Excess from the QE2 refit, every one cost a small fortune, not that he paid much for them. They cost so much because they were not ply, but solid eighth-inch sheets. He used these to sheet the ply he had nailed over the extensive insulation. No plaster walls for him!

  This was going to be one little gem of a cottage, and the bits and pieces must have cost a fortune. The light fittings were Art Deco, again from some boat refit. He remembered hawking things like that, things that fell off the back of the truck on the way to or from the Liverpool docks.

  "Damn," he whistled to himself as he started to recall just how much stuff had passed through his hands from the truck to the new owner. Every government build always was a goldmine for small operators like himself, and even the small things, like redirecting a concrete truck to some poor guys house who needed a cement driveway, paid well.

  Half the jobs were on the tick, the person would sort him out at some time, the rest were pure profit. Imagine if he had charged everyone full whack! The government would have repossessed ten houses, not four. He laughed at the stupidity of it all and then shouted at the roofer as he stepped outside. "Hey, more tar on that before you felt it matey. We don't want leaks appearing in a few years do we?"

  "No Mr. Jenkins," the man replied, and duly applied more tar.

  Harry was nothing if not the perfectionist and
though a taskmaster, he always rolled a fat doobie for the lads at the end of the day, and cracked them a beer. They seemed happy enough, but as Ed was paying their wages, he was going to make sure he got his monies worth, so you don’t want them to be too happy.

  Finally, it was done and towards the end of Week Seven. he was carving a few little details to make it a home. Varnishing the wood, he looked up at the wood stove in the main room. That dual water jacket Aga, one set of pipes he had plumbed into the hot water, while the secondary jacket he plumbed into the concrete floor to run the underfloor heating. He got to thinking, was that the one from his old family home in Merseyside? Goes to show how old school lasted and would outlast anything built in the modern age. Be damned, it WAS the old Aga from his parents house, he remembered it clearly now. Good, it was a very economical chip heater, and they used up almost no wood once they heated up.

  On to the final details and he had to admit to himself, he had done a really first-rate job. Ed had not spoken to him since they had met at the pub, but he presumed he had taken a peek in on weekends to make sure things were all OK. Harry took his lack of complaints as a sign he was happy and so he should be. This place was an absolute little gem. Great position, terrific view, just the perfect little cabin for retirement.

  Tom's voice calls out from the river side. He had walked down from his house, "Hey Harry!" he shouted, "You decent for a visitor?"

  Harry let loose that famous smile. Tom really was the best thing he had ever made. "Sure son, come on down. It’s finally done."

  Tom walks in and whistles, "You have outdone yourself, father. This little cottage is something else. Is that real mahogany paneling on the walls?"