Jack on the Tower: Jack of All Trades, #6

By DH Smith

The old lady next door has disappeared. Who in this house is set to join her?

Jack points the brickwork high on a scaffolding tower, keeping a wary eye on Mike, a half stoned musician. But Mike wants to use Jack as a babysitter so he can concentrate on the cleaner, while his wife Jean is out earning the money to keep him. When Jean returns early there is an almighty row, with Jack drawn in as she turns to him for solace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Earlham Books
• Release date: Jan 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781909804524

DH Smith

I write as DH Smith and Derek Smith. DH Smith is my pen name for the Jack of All Trades crime series featuring builder, Jack Bell. The first is Jack of All Trades. Jack lives in the Eastend of London, where I live, and makes a precarious living. On each job there’s at least one murder. Jack is variously a sleuth, a suspect and gets too close to being a victim. He’s always short of cash, a failed marriage behind him, and hopefully his alcoholic days. In each book there’s a romantic element as Jack is ever hopeful. He has a daughter, Mia who is ten years old in the first book.I have been writing for over 30 years, beginning with plays. I had them performed on radio, TV and theatre. After working in a community bookshop I began to write children's books as Derek Smith. Hard Cash, a young adult novel, was read on BBC radio, Frances Fairweather Demon Striker! was shortlisted for the Children's Book Award, both published by Faber. The Good Wolf won the David Thomas Prize.These days, I am concentrating on my Jack of All Trades crime series.

Book preview

PART ONE

Two Houses in Forest Gate

Chapter 1

The sand had arrived in a large, open glass-fibre sack, left on the pavement just outside the gate. Beside it were a stack of cement bags and a four litre container of plasticizer. Jack was annoyed at their carelessness at leaving it out. But it was all there; maybe thieves get up late.

So much of it. All to be made up and squeezed into the spaces between the bricks. Pointing was the most boring job on earth. Every brick of the house was embedded in mortar, open to attack by the weather, in this case, for more than a hundred years. No wonder the mortar was flaky, with holes and gaps. But boring or not, he needed the work, and they’d accepted the price. A job was a job. For five or six weeks, depending on the weather.

All he could do was get on with it, and hope something more challenging came up in the work to follow. He looked at his watch. The scaffolding tower was due in half an hour or so. He’d best make himself known to his employer. He brushed down the top of his paint-stained overalls to no observable effect, and flicked back his curly brown hair, receding a little at the brow. And looked up at the clouds. Floating cumulus and stratus. He’d become quite a cloud watcher as a builder, much of it working outside, preferring it to work inside. More room for sawing and planing, no one watching for scratches you might make on the piano. But weather didn’t always allow that freedom. Hence his cloud watching, useful too for his astronomy, for which the ideal was clear skies, or the usual compromise – some clear sky. The weather though was pleasant, the tail end of summer which any day could feel the blast of autumn.

Here’s hoping.

Jack needed to get this lot undercover. The sand would be all right but wet cement would set in the sacks. There was a shed in the back garden he’d been told he could use. Best tell the house he was on site. After that, put the cement in the dry. Then wait for the scaffolding tower to come. It was always surprising how much you had to do before you could actually start work. If it wasn’t stacking up materials, it was waiting for something vital to arrive.

Jack climbed the half-dozen steps to the front door, and looked up at the portico surrounding the door with its mock classical pillars, an arch over them with floral flourishes in the plaster work, one of the many variations for the Victorian houses on the road.

He’d put in a cheap estimate to get the work. Not that he really wanted it, just needed it. Quite a mood he was in this morning, the overlay of last night. It had hit him watching a talk show on TV; what he wouldn’t do for a drink. For several months, he’d been clear of such thoughts, but the untidy flat, the inanity of the celebs on the sofa, and he was struck by a wave of depression. Not assisted by the thought of six weeks of pointing. He’d phoned up Max, his mentor from Alcohol Halt. Max had come over and talked to him for an hour. Bless him.

And really things weren’t that bad, not bad at all in fact. As Max had said over and over. He was working, off booze, his health good, more or less solvent, his daughter fine. No love life but that didn’t mean never, just no one at the moment.

How would getting drunk help? asked Max. The answer was mundane. It did and it didn’t. While you were blotto you had not a care in the world. But when you woke up, you were yourself again, same hassles, same universe, and with a hangover to boot.

Max and he had talked; well, mostly Max talking, Jack nodding. Finally he’d pushed Jack into the shower, and once out he’d felt a lot better, coming into the sitting room to hear Tracy Chapman singing Fast Car. A song for the road, with a woman by your side, on the journey to hope. He mattered, Max told him. Things would get better.

Until the morning.

He must busy himself. Quit the self pity. Max was 100% right. He must see what he had, not what he hadn’t. Meet people, look them in the eye. You have every right to be living on the planet, Jack. And other fortune cookie slogans.

Jack rang the doorbell, just as the front door opened. Before him was a woman in a navy blue business suit over an open-necked, white shirt. Her face was pink and youngish, with layered, reddish-brown hair, obviously rushing and halted only by his presence.

Jack was stuck for words. Was she a visitor or did she live here? She looked like a banker or a solicitor.

She spoke first. ‘Our builder, I presume.’

Jack smiled in relief. He’d placed her. She was the woman of the house. It was good to be expected.

‘Yes. Jack Bell. And I’ll be around for some time. I thought I’d come and show I was on the job.’

‘My husband, Mike, took you on,’ she said with a nod.

‘That’s right. I was here early last week to do the estimate. It’s your signature on the contract, Jean Lucas, I got in the post?’

‘Yes, it is. I’m Jean. Pleased to meet you, Jack,’ she said biting her lip and looking at her watch. ‘I really must go. Sorry to be unsociable. Usually I work from home… but I have an appointment this morning. I’ll see you around.’ She turned and called into the hallway. ‘Mike! The builder’s here.’

And she was clipping down the steps in her black three-inch heels. Jack waited at the open door to be invited in. On one side of the hallway were two long pine shelves, held up by bricks at the ends. On the bottom shelf and on the floor underneath were a variety of outdoor shoes: boots, trainers. On the top were hats, male and female and unisex. On the other side of the hallway was a child’s pushchair.

A head poked out of the first door in the hallway. Youngish, with straggly fair hair, and in need of a shave. Jack recognised him from last week.

‘Come in, mate,’ called the head.

Jack wiped his feet on the mat and entered. It was important to be polite and exude confidence, especially in first meetings. Politeness came easy enough, confidence though was a trick he was sometimes better at than others. Today he was at the negative end, as if he could see his future stretched out over a tundra of pointing jobs to a gravestone on the horizon. Forget the fictitious future, insisted Max, see the instant, here and now. That’s enough. Try meditation. Max swore by it.

Never worked for Jack. Max told him he wasn’t doing it properly. At such points he preferred Max washing dishes.

Work. That did the trick. Mostly.

He stood at the doorway of the sitting room.

‘Hi, Mike,’ he said brightly. ‘The sand and cement have arrived. I’m just waiting for the scaffolding.’

‘Then how about a coffee?’

Mike was seated on the pale brown leather sofa. He had striking blue eyes and was wearing a dirty green T-shirt under a denim jacket. His jeans were torn at the knees. The room was uncomfortably tidy which was why Jack was at the door, not wanting to invade. The only untidiness was created by a child on the carpet doing a jigsaw with very large pieces. All the books were shelved, the items squarely on the mantelpiece as if spaced out to the inch, the floor and carpet achingly clean, two large abstract paintings on the walls precisely in the middle. One half of the room, almost to the French windows, had a long, dark polished wooden table with six high-backed matching chairs. A huge television set was on with a man and woman walking around a largely empty room.

‘I should get the cement into the shed,’ said Jack with a wave of his arm in the direction of the clouds. ‘In case of rain.’

‘Have a coffee first,’ insisted Mike, rising. ‘We’ll have it on the patio.’ He turned to the child. ‘Come on, Lily. We’ll go outside.’

Lily got up on her stumpy legs and took his outstretched hand.

‘She’s not talking,’ added Mike. ‘A good listener though.’

He led his daughter down the sitting room to the French windows. Jack followed, aware of his boots on the carpet and polished floorboards. Mike opened the windows, put his head out for a moment and pondered.

He turned to Jack. ‘Look after Lily for a moment while I get her coat and bring out our coffees.’

Mike turned back into the house while Jack went on to the patio with Lily. Jack sat down on a bench and thought, Mike shouldn’t do this. He didn’t know Jack, and really shouldn’t leave his daughter with a stranger. The child was on a little three-wheeler bike and was driving around the patio between the furniture and the pots. There was a rattan table with four matching chairs. Smart, but Jack wondered how it stood up to the weather. He supposed, it being plant based, that it would survive for a few years. Then they’d burn it and buy something new.

The garden was easy maintenance. Mostly lawn, with two edges planted out with roses, some blooms still, and to the front of the bed, tired geraniums. The shed was down at the bottom. He hoped there’d be room inside for the cement. He wanted to get working but reckoned it did no harm getting to know the homeowner. It was with him that he’d have to talk through any problems. Or maybe the wife. The little he’d seen of her, she’d looked tougher in her business suit. Couples can be difficult. You have to know which one makes the decisions.

Mike came out with the coffees on a small tray plus a child’s cup of juice. Also on the tray was tobacco, a lighter, cigarette papers and a lump, of what Jack presumed was cannabis, in silver foil. Over his shoulder was a child’s coat. Mike put the tray on the table and beckoned Jack over.

Jack joined him at the table.

‘Nice out here,’ he said.

‘Gets me out of the house,’ said Mike with a smile. He was putting the coat on Lily who was reluctant to get off the bike. He coaxed her in that half-baby language, so embarrassing in front of strangers. With one arm in, she resisted and Mike snapped at her. Not quite so laid back, thought Jack. Mike pulled at Lily in annoyance and pushed her into the coat. Jack was tempted to say something but knew it wouldn’t be welcomed. He drank his coffee.

His daughter’s coat on, Mike came back to the table. He was good looking, if untidily so. Jack supposed they were the same age. His face was taut with impatience after his little battle, but broke into a smile as he sat down.

‘I’m the house husband. Jean is the breadwinner,’ he said. He pulled towards himself the items for rolling a joint, fixing three Rizla papers together as he spoke. ‘I’m a musician. I did eight years with the show Liverpool Lullaby.’

‘Up the West End,’ said Jack, recalling the show. ‘60s Liverpool scene with flower people, something like.’

‘Yeh. The Beatles crossed with Hair, with a love story between a Vietnam deserter and a hippy earth mother. Pure drivel. Nice music for the first few months. Then a drag. Oh, what a drag. You cannot believe how boring it had become by years 6, 7 and 8.’ He stopped and smiled as he sprinkled tobacco on to the cigarette papers. ‘But it paid well. Got this house between us. I played keyboards and guitar, sang a bit. And now I’m resting, between looking after Lily.’

‘I’ve a daughter,’ said Jack, thinking he should contribute. ‘Thirteen now. Lives with her mum, but I see her pretty often.’ He watched Mike crumbling the weed into the spliff, and wondered if he always began the day this way. Not good, like morning drinking, a way to do nothing.

‘I haven’t worked for 18 months,’ said Mike. ‘Unless you call this work. I am a kept man. She makes the money. I spend it.’ He had put cardboard in the end of the joint and was licking the paper edges. Jack watched the artisan who was plainly pleased at his handiwork.

‘What does your wife do?’

Mike smiled, the joint in his fingers ready to go. ‘She’s an entrepreneurial zoomer.’

‘Sorry…’ said Jack.

‘One of these new online wizards. You must have come across them. She writes fantasy and blogs and runs Skype courses. I can’t keep up with her. Two years ago she was nothing and then bingo – she hit the method. Now she is so busy, her books on Amazon and Kobo, sending out fan newsletters, making up videos. This morning she’s off to see an agent. In another year, she’ll be taking over Europe. In two, the northern hemisphere.’

Mike lit the joint with the lighter and sucked in deeply. He closed his eyes as the smoke went down and the drug began to bite. He held it in for some time, then blew out the remnant of smoke and took another long drag, and then a third. Contentment radiated from his face to his limbs as he held out the joint.

‘No thanks, I’ve scaffolding coming. Did you sort out next door about the fencing?’

Mike gave him a lazy smile. ‘I thought I’d leave that to you.’

Thanks for nothing, thought Jack. OK. He’d got the measure of the househusband, stoned before nine in the morning, far too preoccupied to talk to a neighbour. Nice house, busy wife. He wondered how that worked. Jack’s phone rang. A call he was expecting.

‘Jack Bell,’ he said.

‘Got your tower outside.’

‘I’ll be right out.’ He switched off the phone and jumped up. ‘Scaffolding has come. Better get out there.’

‘Take the side door,’ said Mike pointing the way with a lazy hand.

‘Right. Thanks for the coffee.’

Jack strode off the patio down the path between the two houses. There was the fence he’d have to negotiate about. He needed this section down to have room to put the scaffolding tower up. Unfortunately, it belonged to the neighbour.

He opened the back door, and put it on the latch as he would need to be in and out with the cement and then the tower. Once he’d sorted out the fence which should have already been done. Mike had most definitely said ‘leave it with me.’ Yeh, well.

In the street, at the front of the house, was an open backed lorry with two men in green overalls and yellow hard hats awaiting him.

‘Where’d you want it?’ said one, obviously in a rush, making Jack realise how much he’d slowed to match Mike’s pace.

‘Put it in the front yard.’

The yard was paved over, so nothing to damage. The men set to laying out the elements that made up the scaffolding tower. Jack would have helped but could see at once that they knew exactly what they were doing and he would’ve been a hindrance. In a minute or so they’d offloaded the pile of aluminium poles, metal sides, platforms and the bag of fittings. Jack signed for it, hoping it was all there. Though how could you tell on sight if anything was missing? You’d only find out once you’d got to the end point of the assembly. Better be there. £140 a week it was costing him. They left Jack with a booklet and were gone.

Jack looked at the tidy pile. Quite a jigsaw, but he’d assembled towers a number of times, even been on a course. It wasn’t complicated, and quite logical. Though a chore on his own, especially the top sections. Just don’t rush it.

Cement bags first. He didn’t trust that sky.

Jack got the wheelbarrow out of his van which was parked a little way up the road. He wheeled it to the bag of sand and mound of sacks. He put two 25kg sacks of cement in and headed through the garden door, past the side of the house and the patio where Mike was still smoking. He’d moved to the bench and was reading Lily a story out of a big picture book. He gave Jack a wave.

Jack took the path down the garden, along the fence. Halfway down, over the fence, he spotted a man in the next door garden. He was building something at the end. He glimpsed a concrete mixer. Jack would dump these sacks and have his necessary word with the man.

The shed was, of course, full. Standard for sheds. They begin with the best of intentions, but gradually become a muddle, that grows worse as there is no room for anything, and the next items are pushed in anyhow. Jack spent ten minutes throwing deckchairs, timber, buckets, bicycle wheels further in, to clear some space at the front. He had complete freedom as none of it was his, and so he didn’t know, or care, what was wanted when, or if it ever would be. His only responsibility was to his sacks of cement.

Once he’d made space, and laid the first two bags, he crossed to the fence to talk to the man in the next door garden. Jack watched him a little while. The man was shovelling sand into the concrete mixer. Jack could see at once by the neatness of the string lines and boards, to hold the cement in place, that he knew what he was doing.

‘Excuse me,’ called Jack. ‘Can I have a word?’

The man put down the shovel and came over. He had a bulbous nose that looked as if it had been broken in