Garritty woke. Stale beer in his throat. Darkness behind the curtains. He must’ve been out for hours. Rising groggily from the camp bed, he smoothed his rumpled clothes and hit the light switch. Nothing. He clicked it rapidly up and down, then stood in the dark, cursing himself for not finishing the fusebox before lunching so heavily at the Crown. The wind had got up and was sighing about the house, buffeting the chimneys like some great beast.
The brass letterbox flapped loudly. He crossed the landing, peered over into the darkness, then descended, boots resounding on the carpetless stairs. In the faint glow from the fanlight in the front door, he could make out the the vague shapes of the plasterboard he’d stacked in the hall. There was no comfort in their looming angularity. Garritty shivered.
The wind rose again. A long sussurating roar that made the house shudder. He stooped for the small white oblong on the boards beneath the letterbox. A business card. His. Holding it up to the fanlight, he could just read the words he’d scrawled on the back. Be with you at twelve.
The charm. Either you had it or you hadn’t. Michael Garritty had, and spread it like butter over the streets where he operated. What his business lacked in size it made up for in entrepreneurial breadth. While admitting to general building work, he also dabbled in scrap metal, tarmacking, roofing, pressure-washing, house clearance, rubbish removal, even gardening. A truck with a cage on the back, a set of long ladders and a head for heights (Garritty had all three) opened up a world of opportunity. Provided you had the charm.
Today it was roofing. Garritty stopped in Peveril Road and took a moment to enjoy the autumn sunlight on the neat housefronts stepping gently down into Fairmead Vale. Nice, but too expensive unless he could find a bargain.
A bus nosed up the hill and Garritty watched as an elderly lady, fawn coat, dark hat, suitably frail, limped across the road to her door and fumbled with the key. He allowed five minutes for her to get the kettle on, then eased out of the cab. There wasn’t a bell, so he used the knocker on the big brass letterbox, rattling the flap for good measure.
Probably in her eighties. The face that greeted him in the foot-wide crack of the door was the colour of parchment, cross-hatched with wrinkles. Hair thin and white. Eyes black as dead coals. Suspicious but not hostile.
“Good morning!” Garritty flashed a practised smile. “Don’t worry!” (hands spread like a Medieval saint) “I’m not selling anything. My name’s Michael Garritty. I was just passing in my truck there,” he gestured up the street “when I noticed some slipped tiles on your roof. Looks like you may have a bit of a problem. Last thing you want is a leaky roof with winter coming on.”
The old woman’s gaze didn’t flicker. Speed was important now.
“You see I’ve got my ladders with me today and it wouldn’t take me a minute to shin up there and take a proper look for you. No obligation, of course. If it’s easy to wriggle them back I’ll do that right away. But if I can’t I’ll give you an estimate and come back later and do the work. You can’t say fairer than that now, can you?”
A grey cat had appeared in the gap in the door. Garritty, who also knew when to give a prospect time, bent to stroke it. The cat bared its teeth and hissed.
“Well, if you’re sure it’s not too much trouble, Mr?”
“Michael, please.” The cat slid into the front garden. “Friendly feller.”
“Oh, don’t mind Puddock. He doesn’t like strangers. Would you like a cup of tea?”
Garritty’s smile widened.
“That would be lovely, Mrs?”
“Miss. Briscoe, Amelia Briscoe. But call me Nan.” Bingo.
“That would be lovely, Nan. Two sugars, please my darling. I’ll just fetch those ladders.”
The ladders were fetched and Garritty ascended, having made sure to tell Nan to keep safe indoors. He spent no more than five minutes aloft, just long enough to disturb some tiles and make a bit of a racket. Then he let one fall, smashing on the front path and eliciting a satisfying yowl from the cat.
The noise brought Nan to the door. She held a tray with a cup and saucer and a plate of biscuits. Garritty descended ponderously, sighed and shook his head.
“Well, Nan, I won’t lie to you. It’s pretty bad. The whole roof’s shot. There’s no point trying to patch it up. You’re looking at replacing the whole thing, I’m afraid. Here, let me take that tray. Perhaps we should go inside?”
Nan Briscoe’s parlour was dark and sparsely furnished, containing a mahogany sideboard, a table (on which sat a couple of old leatherbound books) and an armchair on either side of the fireplace. Five small figures made of straw were propped by the grate. Another lay drunkenly beside Nan’s chair. She saw his puzzlement.
“Corn dollies,” she said, proffering one. Garritty turned it over in his hands.
“Very nice,” he said, struggling for a compliment. The featureless mannikin stared blankly up at him. “Lovely workmanship.” He dropped the thing in the fireplace with the others.
“It’s a traditional craft,” the old woman was saying. “My mother taught it me, and her mother before her. They bring luck. And protection.”
“And that’s just what we need to talk about,” said Garritty smoothly.
They’d agreed a price before Garritty’s tea had gone cold. The work would cost just £10,786 (an exact figure being more plausible than a round one). 20% discount for cash, £5,000 up front, balance payable on completion, a further £2,000 earmarked for “contingencies”.
“Unfortunately, these jobs rarely prove straightforward,” Garritty said, and for Nan’s sake he wanted to avoid any more nasty surprises.
“I’d be happy to run you up to the bank if you wanted to pay the deposit today.”
“There’s no need. I don’t trust banks. I keep all my money safe, upstairs.” Garritty’s ears pricked up at “all”. “If you wait, I’ll fetch it.”
The old woman struggled to her feet and hobbled out, leaving Garritty triumphant among the corn dollies. He winked at Puddock, who was glaring from under the table, took another biscuit and stepped quietly out into the hall.
He watched Nan laboriously climb the stairs, her gnarled hand clutching the bannister. Then he listened. There was a clunk and a sliding noise that he couldn’t quite place, a pause, more sliding and another clunk. Garritty retreated. When the old woman returned, breathless and carrying a heavy plastic bag, he was in his chair, flicking through the property pages in the local.
There was at least £5,000 in the bag, fifties, twenties and tens.
“That looks about right,” smiled Garritty, “I’ll not keep you by counting it now. If it’s a little short, we can sort it out later. But I trust you. You’ve an honest face.”
“Are you sure you want to do this, Mr Garritty?” The old woman’s stare was so direct, the question so unexpected, that he was momentarily flummoxed.
“Cross my heart,” he blurted.
“As you wish.” And the cat leapt up and left the room as if in answer to a summons.
“When will you be able to start?”
This was something Garritty had not considered. The ease with which he’d extracted the deposit counterbalanced his natural instinct for prevarication. The sounds from upstairs also suggested that elements of this job would bear further investigation.
“Shall we say Monday?” he offered brightly. “About midday?” There was no need to be up too early. “Here, I’ll write it down for you.” Pulling out a card (Michael Garritty Enterprises. All work considered. Guarantees available, followed by a now defunct mobile number), he scrawled Be with you at twelve on the back and handed it to the old lady.
“Now, if you have any questions, just give me a ring. I’ll give you a receipt when I see you on Tuesday.”
“Monday.”
“Yes, Monday. That’s right.”
Garritty was whistling as he tossed the bag into the footwell. It was the charm. Got them every time.
Unfortunately, what with one thing and another (Garritty had fingers in many pies) several weeks passed before Nan Beddoes re-entered his mind. It was very early (he’d just unloaded some asbestos in Milman’s Wood) and there, waiting on the corner in the mist was a figure in a fawn coat and dark hat. Well, let her wait! She’d clearly not recognised the truck.
But the encounter got him thinking. Garrity had long been planning to diversify, and he’d built up a substantial nest egg which was earmarked for the refugees. If he could find a suitable property it wouldn’t take long to lash up some partitions, tweak the plumbing and electrics and rent the units out to Syrian families or whatever. Once you had one place, the income would fund another. Bingo.
Money was tight, though. If he could just extract two or three thousand more from Nan, or better still find some pretext for looking around upstairs, life would be much easier.
But when Garritty visited Peveril Street the following day, his half formulated story about illness in the family proved unnecessary. The place was deserted and an estate agent’s board stood out front. On enquiring with the agent, he was told the occupant had died three weeks ago.
Garritty bit back his astonishment. He must have been mistaken. It had been misty. Recovering quickly, he seized his opportunity and offered well below the asking price as a cash buyer. His offer was accepted the same day. It was a stretch, but by the second week of December he had the keys in his pocket.
He saw no need for a survey. The place looked OK, and it’s not as if he was going to be living there. At least, not permanently. For Garritty, anxious to avoid an interview with a former client, soon found it expedient to move temporarily into Peveril Road. It would be convenient to be there during the renovations, he reasoned. Not enormously comfortable, but he’d stayed in worse places. The question of rent owed to his former landlord could be addressed should they happen to to run into one another.
The first thing Garritty did was to squeeze a skip into the front garden, rip out the remaining fittings and all the carpets, and thoroughly search the place. But as Christmas neared he gave up all hope of finding Nan Beddoes’ hoard, assuming any of it was left. All that mattered now was finishing the conversion.
There was one thing, though. He thought he’d seen the old woman again, and despite its impossibility, the incident was preying on his mind.
It had been a filthy afternoon, fine rain falling steadily from pewter skies, the High Street full of scurrying shoppers silhouetted against the bright store fronts. Traffic was heavy and Garritty reached the lights just as they turned red.
The wipers thumped percussively as the engine idled. A young couple laden down with bags was caught garishly in his headlights as they crossed in front of the bumper. Beyond them, a hunched figure in a fawn coat and dark hat slowly negotiated the crossing. Garritty couldn’t see her face, yet there was something familiar about that parchment white cheek. She reached the pavement and turned, but the lights changed and a horn sounded behind him. Could have been anyone, of course. They all dressed alike. But it had given him a turn just the same.
Garritty opened the front door. The force of the wind snatched the business card from his hand and whirled it into the night. Beyond the dark bulk of the skip, the trees threshed and parked cars gleamed orange in the streetlamps. Up in town, the church clock chimed the third quarter. A cat paused in the middle of the deserted street and regarded him for a long moment before slinking back into the shadows.
He shut the door with a bang. Kids, probably, although how they’d got his card and why they’d put it through the door escaped him. Remembering his phone, he used the screen light to find his way back upstairs, its faint luminescence like moonlight. Well, there was nothing he could do now. He’d spent all his ready money, there was no food in the house and the electricity was off until the morning at least. Best just get back to bed.
Recrossing the landing, straining to see in the pale light, Garritty stumbled. A long black rectangle opened suddenly at his feet. Wide awake now, he pushed aside the loose board. With rising excitement he realised Nan’s hiding place was not in a room at all, but here on the landing. Garritty propped his phone against the skirting board and rolled up his sleeve.
The wind was roaring all around the house now. Garritty’s fingers inched forward under the boards, feeling their way. His arm was in beyond the elbow when his hand met resistance. He withdrew the bag and sat back on his haunches. Reaching inside, he felt a papery roughness. It was a straw mannikin, its limbs crushed and twisted from the bag. The head, half sliced through, lolled to one side. Garritty grimaced his disgust and threw the thing into the shadows.
Good luck and protection Nan had said. Breathing heavily, he forced his arm back under the boards. A door banged somewhere downstairs. He jumped and his hand met something yielding and soft and warm that shifted at his touch. Garritty recoiled, tearing his forearm as he fell backwards against the bannister.
Above the wind, a new sound. Somewhere overhead, a shifting, sliding clattering like something heavy being dragged through shards of pottery. In his mind’s eye Garritty saw a figure out there in the storm, clinging to the roof, crawling over the tiles, its hands and feet seeking purchase. Trying to get in.
The church bell began to strike the hour. Then Garritty knew. He sprang to his feet and flew down the stairs two at a time. He careened into the front door, fumbling desperately at the catch, only to be brought up short by the skip hunched in the darkness. The twelfth chime struck.
Someone was waiting just beyond the lamplight on the other side of the road. She turned but Garritty never saw her face.
The postman found the body. It had been there a couple of days, hidden by the skip. He’d been so upset that he hadn’t seen the big grey cat that slipped out through the garden gate, or the old woman in the fawn coat who stooped to stroke its head. A freak accident, the police concluded. The poor man’s head had nearly been sliced clean off. A loose tile, they said.
# # #
David Webb writes stories and poems, some of which have been published. Recent work has featured in the Hauntings (a ghost story anthology published by Hic Dragones); Sein und Werden magazine; Life is a Roller Coaster (poetry anthology); The Pre-Raphaelite Society Review and The Casket of Fictional Delights. He has yet to be recognised as a major 21st Century talent, but feels it can only be a matter of time.
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