“The reservoir or whatever you said needs to be ill?” Louise was trying to lighten the mood.
“The rzezimieszek, the rzezimieszek!” Her daughter couldn't understand the Polish, so Rachel screamed it out in English. “The pickpocket, the cutthroat, that's what everybody called him in his camp. He wasn't in my camp, thank God!”
Harry the Pocket had a tattoo which consisted entirely of numbers under is left armpit. He first met Louise's parents, the future Mr and Mrs Wilson, in an American army field hospital. The man who would become Harry the Pocket was already called rzezimieszek along with accusations and rumours concerning his treachery. Harry had a Polish name, Rzezricki, which he now hoped was totally forgotten. He wouldn't want anybody remembering him from the old days. He grew into the accusative nickname the rzezimieszek during dark days when he used any means to further his ends. A name spawned in the cruel blood-soaked winter earth of a faraway Poland.
How Harry Graves came across his sombre English name no one knows. It's not even close in sentiment to his Polish name. In the current world Harry spends a lot of time talking of money in the pocket, keeping it away from the government, his percentage, and hamming it up with a continuous habit of putting his hands in the famous pockets and gesturing to all this is where his percentage should go. He continuously hams it up over his nickname probably in a subconscious effort to shift the truth of its origins. No one, absolutely no one, was allowed to even think about mentioning his nickname, it had a bleak history.
Rachel had been told by some local survivors that Harry (Rzezricki) arrived in the concentration camps late in the war. He was the son of a wealthy jeweller, and with careful spending and even more assiduous hiding he'd managed to avoid the Nazis for more than four years. However, in the autumn of 1944, the net finally closed in around Harry. Rumour was he tried to escape by implicating the innocent people in a flat below. Two of the soldiers shot a family in the kitchen, pushing the bodies from the window to fall into the street as an example to others. Harry was promised a visit to the gas chamber and did not escape.
The rumours had been rife about the Nazis hoarding gold and precious stones, so when they marched filth covered Harry directly to the showers from the train he made a final plea to a senior SS officer who beat him to the floor with his silver handled stick. Before he was unconscious Harry managed to scream out that he was the best jewellery expert in Poland. He could sort and value confiscated family heirlooms. He was very good at book work. He didn't die in the showers but awoke on a dirt covered floor in a crowded hut. He was alive! This had saved him for a few days.
To survive he made himself more valuable. Harry needed an edge to keep him alive, so he told the Nazis he was capable of finding all the hiding places in the camp, places where prisoners hid their precious belongings to barter for meagre scraps of food. He'd keep his eyes and ears open, and at the right moment would reveal where some of the more careful Jewish people kept their wealth. He also knew people hiding anything unapproved in the camps received a bullet to the back of the head, or were beaten to death in front of the others as an example.
In the final days of war, Harry used his influence and hidden wealth creamed off from his informing to hire four of the late arrivals. These Jewish men still had enough strength to fight. He promised he could keep them alive with his contacts and camp knowledge until the Americans arrived.
Tanks rumbled in the far distance, and daily retreating Germans marching past the camp in bedraggled convoys. Chaos reigned when the showers had stopped killing, the ovens had gone cold, and the guards were fleeing to avoid being slaughtered by enraged Allied soldiers.
Harry was crippled by fear after two of his “helpers” were found mutilated without throats, and the other two helpers disappeared as if they'd never existed.
Apparently a tough American sergeant was openly in tears as he described the scene after he'd opened a very thick gas tight door. He explained to the others he could hear a pathetic whimpering sound, the only noise in all that quiet horror. The hardened veteran couldn't believe somebody so brave had managed to survive all this horror. He'd plucked this man so close to death out from inside a mound of rotting corpses. The man was now being cared for and sent to the field hospital. All the others knew this man was the rzezimieszek and the truth of why he was hiding.
Many knew that he'd hidden among the rotting corpses of the very people he betrayed to prevent others hunting him down and killing him like a rabid dog.
In the American field hospital more rumours started, some of the survivors knew of Harry, and called him the rzezimieszek! Some of the stronger ones wanted to kill him, but to their annoyance the Americans cited it all as rumour and protected Harry. They moved him one hundred miles to another field hospital. This is where for a short time he made friends with Abraham and Rachel. They were soon to shun Harry because the truth was hunting him down. Others at the hospital already knew Harry only too well. A few days later they moved him again for his own safety.
The rzezimieszek reinvented himself as Harry Graves, friendly businessman and local antiques dealer, as a cloak of protection shrouding him against his purulent past.
Eventually the rumours found him in a northern town in England. Other survivors lived in this community, people with tattoos, who would like to kill him even now, their rage against him testimony enough. Harry stays very private in all things. Unguarded public appearances even seven hundred miles and twenty-eight years from his old home were a rare occasion. Rachel and Abraham arrived in that small northern town five years after Harry. They had rare glimpses and never acknowledged him.
So I knew why I couldn't call Harry “the pocket” to his face. And if I ever did I think I might end up another victim. The cold dark room with a concrete floor would probably be his basement, or someplace he rented. I wondered if I could use this information with the authorities to get out of the situation; grass up Harry to get time off. When I thought about it I was sure that other survivors would have reported him already, but what can the authorities do, all the evidence was dead.
The conversation continued with the obvious next question. If I owned a house, where was it? My sister told me the address. I knew the street, very quiet and out of the way.
“The ideal place to host wild parties, and do a bit of business with pleasure, why not?” Jane said, all the while staring hard into my eyes looking for a clue. I said nothing.
“That's how you described it to me last year!” Jane's spat the words.
She thought I was losing my mind because I'd been experimenting with the muck I sell. Now I was reaping the rewards of my decadent criminal lifestyle. She was not surprised I was suffering, nor that I had people after me. In fact she told me she was surprised I lasted this long in the business.
“All bad news, all villains your so-called circle of friends!”
The biggest surprise was who I actually worked for. I thought it was the notorious Harry, but no, I worked directly for Lenny the Helmet who I seemed to think was now doing the accounts for the businessman. John Smith worked directly for John Smith, and for neither of the other parties. It was all getting very confusing until my sister explained that I'd been taken under Lenny's wing after his accident during Christmas 1971. He could walk but he found it easier to use a wheelchair.
She'd given me the address of my house suggesting I'd be a fool to hide anything there. I couldn't even find my own house, a big pile of bricks in a street. How in God's name was I going to find anything I was hiding? Sadly, I agreed with my sister. I doubted I'd be foolish enough to hide drugs and money in my own house. I may have been rather cunning, so I had to go there and think out of the box, not looking for the obvious but the devious.
My sister had keys for both my places and even this puzzled me slightly, I don't know why she supported me. Had Jane helped me out more than I thought during the last two years, helping me hide stuff, keeping the law away from me, even earning herself a bit? I doubted the latter. However I knew she was doing things to keep me safe and I knew somewhere deep inside I didn't deserve it. Perhaps my sister was nobler with her family values than I was.
“I'll give you a lift.”
“You have your bike⦠here?”
She smiled. “Yes, little brother.”
I had a lift, I had the address and it wasn't in Shit Street.
I was!
I was terrified of my sister's riding at the best of times and she knew it! Jane was hammering the 750 cc Triumph Trident motorcycle along at breakneck speeds towards town. She managed to look over her shoulder a couple of times and give me her famous maniacal fast bike grin. When she wasn't doing that I was being whipped to death by long hair hanging out from the bottom of her helmet. Mind you it was a different torture from the light rain stinging my eyes. I didn't have a helmet and feared my skull would at any moment be smeared across the greasy, damp tarmac flashing by beneath my feet. I could scream and protest all I liked but she wasn't going to slow down. Was this punishment for the things she'd had to endure on my behalf during the last two years? Now was her chance to make me suffer for a while. Unless we crashed!
We arrived at my terrace house in minutes. The whole journey of terror seemed like hours of holding my breath, and wishing not to die by plunging to the tarmac from that vibrating monster. I think in retrospect she didn't want to be involved. The speed limited her involvement in my seedy affairs. We pulled up and as soon as I'd been able to get my stiff body off the pillion she revved up, shot away and didn't look back. It was as if she was helping the devil. If she didn't look at the beast it wouldn't bite her.
I squelched up the pathway, my American-style baseball boots saturated after the motorbike ride. This footwear was now as uncomfortable as the slippery handmade leather. I walked through all twelve feet of garden to approach the front door. It was locked which was a big relief. I expected it to be unlocked, broken off the hinges, or carrying some form of grim message. This could be painted graffiti, a note or a big hole blown by a shotgun, but I didn't care as long as it wasn't the last option. The door was unmarked and locked. Then I started to wonder if somebody had locked it from the inside. Until that moment it hadn't occurred to me that an adversary could be waiting in the shadows.
I entered slowly, my eyes peering ineffectively into the gloom. Inside I cannot say it was anything like I remembered because of course I can't. I was in the dark afraid to use the lights for fear of being watched. I waited for my eyes to adapt to the gloom and found myself looking in to the lounge at the same time glancing through a door leading to the back room and the kitchen beyond. It was all very tastefully decorated for a small space. I was wondering if I'd actually paid a designer do this for me. It didn't seem my style at all.
Each shadow was a muted grey, the sky outside coloured the same in a continuous light rain. In my paranoia I recalled John stepped from the shadows in the gymnasium. I could see forms and dangerous shapes in every dark shadow. Was he going to step out from the gloom now? I thought being my old friend he might have a key. This thought alone had sent shivers up my back.
I was thinking of picking up an ornamental object to use as a weapon. Nothing seemed to come to hand until I saw a pool cue. This was the pool cue used to thrash Mike on the green baize when I wasn't thrashing the lovely Sam in the marital bed, or perhaps I planted a few balls with Sam on the pool table! The cue was the two-piece type, so the obvious choice was the handle which I hefted by the thin end to make a weapon. It's effectiveness as a weapon would be very much reduced if Dave was in the room with his dark-eyed friend Millicent. I crept around my own house, scared of my own shadow, thinking every moment could be my last.
The house after careful inspection appeared to be completely empty of anything harmful. I moved back to the front door locking and bolting it. I wasn't sure it was completely empty of harmful substances, especially if the police found them. This was what I was here for, finding the stash before anybody else got their hands on it. Knowing I didn't have a lot of time I rushed at it starting with the basics. All the drawers, every little nook and cranny, all the difficult spaces in the kitchen, the pots, pans, the ice box in the refrigerator.
These are places everybody searches, and to find the stuff I would have to force myself to start thinking outside the box. Was it hidden in the house? Could it possibly be in the back garden if that's what you could call the bleak concrete enclosure at the back of the house? And so it continued for around two hours. All I had to show for my efforts was a jumbled mess. Everything strewn around looked like other people's stuff. I didn't recognise anything.
I was upstairs sitting morosely on the slashed mattress of the double bed looking out into the grey street through a small opening in the blinds. I was pondering my childhood. What went wrong to get me to this place? As far as I was concerned I had gone from awkward adolescent and arrived in this dark place in the last forty-eight hours. Gazing at nothing in particular I was consumed by fatigue brought on by my mangled thoughts.
My eye was drawn to the alleyway off to the left, attracted by a small puff of smoke. It rose up through the grey drizzle that filled the afternoon. What a joy England is in the summer. From behind the blinds (another nosy neighbour) I watched these traces of white smoke until I got a glimpse of the cigarette smoker glancing around the corner to take a swift look up and down the street. A face not unlike a small weasel, it took no effort to recognise the well-known rodent, Smiggy!
Did he expect me to leave the house with bulging pockets, filled with drugs and money? No, to my mind he was making sure I didn't run. Moments later this idea had transformed itself. I was starting to believe Double-Barrelled Dave and this little weasel had already robbed me with the knowledge that I'd be in the shit and they'd get away with quite a haul. They needed a victim to satisfy Harry's lust for revenge. Me!
At that moment I realised if they knew I was seeing my girlfriend's mother, there'd been following and closely watching me for some time. For some reason Dave assumed I was getting married or was engaged to Vicky. Perhaps I was, I didn't know! Then, of course, there was a thing with the baby doll which still had me confused. Was I sleeping with her or was she taunting John Smith because he wouldn't? I couldn't see John being worried about Harry if he wanted to share her bed. I shuddered at this remembering the thought that perhaps we'd all shared a bed.
I'd been in Smiggy's company on the last night I could remember. Did he know something about the events of that night and now used them to influence me? A nice way of saying blackmail I suppose. The last thing the weasel organised was me going off to lose my virginity with some girl at a small party. What dubious angle could he get on that?
Now I'm not a hard case by any means but you could handle Smiggy with a broken arm, so for a moment I thought about collaring the little git to make him talk. Twist his arm until he fessed up. That wouldn't work of course because it would get straight back, and I was more afraid of John Smith than anybody, or was it Harry I was more afraid of, or Hartley Sparrow? I was afraid of my own shadow and paranoia was painting a dark picture. I was in a panic and I didn't have a clue about anything. In fact I didn't have any idea if I was a hard case or not. I now carried the bulked physique of somebody who could handle themselves, but if I'd had the brute aggression it no longer existed.
Where to next? Then it struck me. Go to my flat. Perhaps it's there. No, I won't have hidden anything there for the same reasons as I wouldn't hide anything in my house, though I still wasn't certain. How crafty could I be? Then it struck me that I spent a lot of time at my girlfriend's house. This might be the best place to hide £10,000 and 6000 tabs, whatever they looked like. I was in total ignorance of what form my product came in, or what it looked like, so how was I going to find the stuff?
It was another three miles back to the edge of town where my flat was located perilously close to Sam's house. I couldn't think of that house as anything to do with Vicky, or her father Mike. Everything seemed so familiar in their home, even if only remembered by instinct. At that moment base instinct took over and I knew my main enemy wasn't Harry, but the fearsome John Smith. I had a feeling he'd be smiling as he twisted my arm until it broke, or laughing as he carried out grim tortures with pliers on parts of my body⦠Instincts cannot be ignored!
I slipped out of the rear door into the rain, closing it as quietly as the proverbial mouse. I was even more careful locking the door with the utmost care not to make the slightest of noises. Though why it mattered I do not know. My watcher was out front fifty yards away in a fairly busy town centre with traffic noise close by. Smiggy would need uncanny hearing ability to detect anything. I could have nailed the door shut!
Even at that distance I was equally careful with the big gate to the back. This was a hefty metal framework with tongue and groove wood screw to it, a secure gate you couldn't see through. I opened it the smallest amount and looked out into the dismal alleyway.
Millicent was looking straight back at me from very close quarters. She didn't seem to be very malevolent keeping quiet on this occasion. The owner of this very short hunting weapon was smiling. I looked the other way, into a face carrying a brighter smile â John Smith's!
David Hartley Sparrow stood his ground and lowered Millicent before slipping her inside his raincoat. He wouldn't want his favourite girl to get wet. It might spoil her looks. John Smith, however, strolled over to within a couple of feet. I was about to dive backwards through the gate and slam it, or wince in terror as he started the beatings. None of this happened because I was frozen in the very bright gaze of the magnetic John. He was smiling as he put his arm around my shoulders, all matey, pals together again.
“Not found it yet? Or are you leading us on a bit of a wild goose chase? Remind me. Didn't you know we're following you? I'm following you,” John Smith whispered into my ear. He looked along the alleyway, all the while judging the distance to Dave, lowering his voice even further.
“You know I don't care a fuck about them anymore. I just want to have my end, and be friends again. You've got something planned you crafty bastard?” John was barely audible.
He used the hand on the arm draped over my shoulder to pinch my cheek very playfully. In fact so playfully it brought tears to my eyes. He was still smiling.
“Where're we going next? Do you want a lift?” he asked.
I lied and told him I was going to my flat to see if I could remember what I'd done with everything. He again leaned in close making a tut tutting sound with his tongue as if to say I was being foolish.
“You only have to remember my bit, that's all,” John said. He seemed to think my denial was part of a master plan I was playing out like a method actor. Perhaps he thought I was stalling until the right time came along?
John Smith's chauffeuring service had reduced the surveillance numbers down to one. He wouldn't have Dave and Smiggy in his car. When Dave got stroppy about this I thought John was going to get out of the car and hand out a beating. He didn't seem the least bit worried about Millicent hidden beneath Dave's raincoat. John Smith owned a viciousness of spirit you could feel in a visceral sense even through his lustrous smile.
During the car journey John referred to the other two as halfwits. This was the first time I'd heard him refer to them like that. Then again I'd only met him for the first time that morning. He assured me he wasn't jealous of me and Baby Doll. He laughed like a drain after he said this. The other thing that occurred to me was perhaps Baby Doll wanted rid of Harry, sickened by his constant voyeurism, insisting she work out naked at all times so he could satisfy his own form of sexual perversion. Was she forming a partnership of some kind with the malicious John? Then again, perhaps I was being paranoid.
John dropped me off in the road outside the flats, and bade me farewell like an old friend before driving away. The sound of his car disappeared into the distance until quiet came when it was several streets away. He wasn't watching me. Was he was watching the other two pretending to be following me as his cover? More paranoia set in. John Smith's confidence was so high I started to believe he knew everything, and everybody else was living in a fog of ignorance, all the time John machinating for his own gain.
He seemed so confident about everything, including me. Had John Smith drugged me as part of some twisted scheme I'd invented, or had I drugged myself? This would explain why I couldn't remember anything. To make any sense of this I would have to write all the known facts down like they do on the blackboard in detective shows. I had the sensation of being on a very steep hill covered in ice wearing very slippery shoes and with seismic shifts the gradient was getting steeper and steeper. I couldn't turn round, I had to go on, but every moment I was more out of control.
Soon I would be in freefall plunging towards what?