The Chimney Thief Read online

  2

  Although Jerry could hardly have been called a recluse, he socialised only on occasion. Following the death of his wife, Mary, he’d resigned himself to a certain solitude, having neither close friends nor immediate family. Weeks could pass and he would leave his house for just three reasons: to go to work, to attend Mass, and to get his shopping from the local supermarket.

  Which explained why Mrs Mulligan’s invitation, coming the Sunday before last, had served as something of a surprise. It might even have shocked him back into health, as recovered from his ‘flu-like illness he’d gone into work the very next day.

  When seven o’clock Wednesday evening finally arrived, Jerry walked to Mrs Mulligan’s armed with a bottle of fine white wine.

  ‘God bless you, but I’ve bucket-loads of the stuff,’ greeted the widow, opening the door to observe his offering.

  Jerry said nothing, only appearing a little crestfallen as he followed her along the hallway, through the living room, and out into the colourful garden.

  ‘I’ve no intention of staying cooped-up indoors on an evening like this,’ she declared, gesturing at the two chairs set out on the emerald-green lawn.

  There was also a low plastic table, on top of which was an opened bottle of wine, two glasses, a tray of nibbles, an ashtray and a deck of cards.

  None of this, however, really registered with the Irishman as he stared at the large, hexagonal lump of basalt that was placed beside her pond.

  ‘Is that…’ he said hesitantly, ‘what I think it is?’

  Mrs Mulligan nodded as they seated themselves.

  ‘It was Tom’s grandfather who stole it,’ she confided, adding, ‘The blackguard.’

  ‘What I want to know,’ said Jerry, helping himself to some peanuts, ‘is how he ever got it over to England.’

  ‘Either Tom never knew,’ she pondered, ‘or he’d never say. The only thing certain was that his grandfather was something of a giant himself – so perhaps he thought he was somehow… entitled… to it.’

  ‘It makes for an unusual feature, whatever the reason,’ Jerry remarked.

  ‘Yes,’ she shrugged, lighting a cigarette. ‘I suppose it does.’

  ‘I…’ he began, interrupted by the doorbell.

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, pulling a face as she stood reluctantly back up. ‘Will they just not leave an old woman in peace?’

  With that she walked back through the open glass doors of the living room; and as he rolled and lit a cigarette, Jerry heard a low male voice coming from the front of the house, followed by a sudden burst of laughter and Mrs Mulligan declaring, ‘God bless you!’

  Jerry’s expression, as he exhaled smoke towards the high, purple-tinged sky, was very tight. And his eyes were very beady. The fingers of the hand not holding his cigarette drummed on his bony right knee, covered like the rest of his legs by a smart grey pair of trousers. He glanced at his small silver wristwatch, as though he were being kept back from some more pressing engagement.

  But barely had a minute passed when Mrs Mulligan returned, carrying a badly-wrapped package with a card attached.

  ‘Don’t go telling me it’s your birthday,’ he said weakly, rubbing the inside corner of each eye with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

  ‘Next Wednesday,’ she replied, smiling as she placed her present on the table. ‘It’s the closest the simpleton’s ever got to getting the date right. Last year, he was almost a month out.’

  ‘Surely it’s the thought that counts, though,’ suggested Jerry, raising his eyebrows in emphasis.

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ she replied, staring levelly back at him. ‘I was merely stating a fact.’

  ‘Oh,’ he muttered; then, ‘You’ve never said anything about your birthday before.’

  As he spoke, Jerry wondered peevishly why the widow’s next-door neighbour, and not he, should be party to such privileged information.

  ‘That’s because I don’t want everyone to go making a great fuss over it,’ she replied, adding in answer to his mental question, ‘I’d have not told the simpleton, either, only we were once playing a game of cards and I’d had a few… libations, so that it just slipped out.’

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ said Jerry solemnly. ‘And, speaking of cards…’

  But the pair managed only a few hands before they again fell to talking, this time about Miss Jones and Miss Jessup, the two recent additions to St James’s congregation.

  ‘…They’re taking over,’ warned Mrs Mulligan, ‘and I’m a little less than happy.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Jerry, re-filling both glasses and giving up as lost the game of cards.

  ‘Well…’ began the widow, considering her most important grievance. ‘They scamper about just as meek as mice, but don’t you be fooled – if I wasn’t such a placid soul, I’d call them just plain devious.’

  Surprised by the severity of her language, Jerry said, ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘That’s just it, though,’ she replied, shaking her head as she stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’m not saying a thing.’

  ‘All right,’ shrugged Jerry, deciding that he wouldn’t split hairs. ‘In that case, why are you a ‘little less than happy’, as you say?’

  ‘Well,’ she began again, ‘take the church fête in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘There I was,’ she said indignantly, ‘with matters perfectly in hand. Now, Father says I’m to consult with those busybodies every other couple of minutes!’

  ‘What do they…’

  ‘My point exactly!’ she exclaimed, triumphant. ‘What do they know? Who’s been running the fete for almost the last five years, and with next to no help?’

  Jerry, who’d just had his last three words taken wildly out of context, coughed discreetly.

  ‘Of course,’ she said petulantly, ‘if it’s all right with Tweedledum and Tweedledee, you’ll still be needed to help put out the tables. I could also ask the simpleton – Oh! I’d like to see their faces once he gets to talking!’

  ‘I’ve only met him a few times,’ said Jerry, ‘but he does seem to…’

  “Chatterbox’,’ she declared, ‘isn’t the word…’

  It was almost eleven o’clock by the time Jerry left, worn out with wine and conversation. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d enjoyed himself so greatly; he felt determined to repay Mrs Mulligan for her hospitality.

  And what better way of doing this, he asked himself while walking home, than with a present for her birthday?

  That said, he was still stuck over exactly what he should give her. She claimed to be watching her weight, which ruled out confectionery, and another bottle of wine would clearly not be appreciated. Deep in thought, the Irishman stopped for a few moments, so to roll and light a cigarette.

  Directly opposite him stood a large, derelict house, its windows boarded and a sign outside stating that it was due for demolition. It stood on the corner of two wide and leafy roads, so that on one side there was a pavement and a tree, and on the other a small church hall.

  Luck was with Jerry that night, as he dragged on his cigarette and stared idly up at the shattered roof of the house. For just then the moon paused behind the crooked chimneystack, silhouetting the answer to his problem.

  ‘Bingo,’ he murmured, marvelling at his good fortune. He crossed the road and walked along the accessible side of the house, to where a crumbling, six foot high brick wall separated the large back garden from the narrow pavement.

  Lifting himself up on his forearms, Jerry glanced over, his sharp eyes assisted by the strong moonlight. What he saw confirmed his worst suspicion: that this garden was even more overgrown than the one at the front of the house. There, at least, the council had to maintain some sort of order, so that the raging vegetation did not spill out onto the road.

  Then Jerry realised that the state of the back garden actually offered him a little hope. For only a fool would dare to venture into
it, certainly if he held any expectation of reaching the house beyond…

  ‘I’ll give it my best shot,’ vowed Jerry, while realising that he would be doing no such thing tonight. First, he needed to obtain a few items. So with one last look at the chimneystack, he turned and walked away.

  Silence greeted his return home a few minutes later, as silence had every day for the past five years. And as he climbed the stairs to the bathroom, he recalled all those times before when he’d returned to find Mary crying, or sat in the living room staring at a blank television screen, or once –

  Or once lying in bed, an empty bottle of pills and a scribbled note placed on the pillow beside her. A ‘cry for help’, she’d later claimed, and after her GP had had her sectioned. On that occasion, she’d been just twenty minutes away from death. And upon her release from Stanmore House, the local hospital’s psychiatric unit, she’d promised never to do anything so foolish again.

  ‘What a day,’ remarked Jerry as he clambered wearily into bed.

  He lay for a while with the lamp on, staring at the photograph (also placed on the bedside table) of a slightly-built young woman with haunted black eyes. Stood beside her was a considerably more youthful version of himself – he could still remember handing that obliging Cornish fisherman his camera on his and Mary’s honeymoon…

  Half a decade had passed since Mary’s death – five years of returning to silence and solitude; fifty-six months of sleeping unloved and alone. Jerry held the memory of his late wife dear in his heart, but he was still a man; and every man has needs.

  Slightly alarmed by this strange stirring in his soul, Jerry set his alarm, turned off the lamp, and attempted to sleep.

  3

  Over the next couple of days, Jerry wondered whom exactly he should ask to help him liberate the chimney pot. For if not too heavy, then the pot would still be far too large for him to be able to carry it back to his house.

  So, he needed to find someone who’d access to either a car or a van.

  But who? His options seemed somewhat limited. There was always his moronic nephew, Nigel – but Jerry preferred to keep his distance from his late wife’s side of the family. He would never forget, nor forgive, their cutting words following Mary’s funeral, as though his caring actions had somehow attributed to her death.

  Father Simon was the proud owner of a Vauxhall Astra, although Jerry doubted that the priest would respond favourably to his request. The Irishman soon realised that there was only one real option: Mrs Mulligan’s next-door neighbour, Martin, who got from A to B in a converted ambulance.

  So that Sunday, following Mass, Jerry again began painting the backroom of the presbytery – and then suddenly remembered that he’d left his front door wide open.

  ‘God bless you, but you’ve probably been cleaned out of house and home by now,’ commented Mrs Mulligan, who’d just entered with a cup of tea.

  Slyly eliciting the information that she’d be here for another hour yet, Jerry then hurried away. But he turned right rather than left as he left the presbytery, before walking with quick, excited steps in the direction of Mrs Mulligan’s road.

  ‘He’s an individual,’ was how the widow sometimes referred to her neighbour, on the occasions when Martin escaped being called either ‘the simpleton’ or ‘Catweazle’.

  A tall, dishevelled-looking man with twinkling blue eyes, a scruffy beard and long, silvery-brown hair, Martin was working under the bonnet of his ambulance, parked outside his house, when Jerry approached.

  He greeted the Irishman with enthusiasm, going so far as to get two bottles of Guinness from his fridge. And toasting Jerry’s health, wealth and happiness, he then embarked on a lengthy commentary concerning his own affairs.

  Finally, with a determined effort, Jerry succeeded in stating the reason behind his visit. Martin listened attentively, only interrupting to refuse the offer of payment. He tried, as requested, to imagine Mrs Mulligan’s delight as she was given her gift; but one thing was confusing him.

  ‘She’s already got one,’ he reminded, indicating with a grimy finger towards his neighbour’s roof.

  Taking a deep breath, and another sip of ale, Jerry tried again. He explained that a chimney pot could conceivably have more than one use, especially when it was as old and beautiful as the one he’d seen. (He’d since gone back to the derelict house, in daylight, to have another look.)

  ‘…Can you imagine how it would look in Jane’s garden,’ he said in closing, ‘filled with soil and planted with some sort of shrub?’

  Martin gave a broad grin, enlightened.

  ‘I get you,’ he said, adding with a suggestive wink, ‘You old dog.’

  In vain did Jerry protest that the pot was intended only as a birthday present. Martin merely chuckled and shook his head.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘What’s private’s private. When do you want to get it, anyway?’

  ‘Now?’ returned Jerry, deciding that with Mrs Mulligan safely out of the way, there was no time like the present.

  With another shake of his head, Martin explained that his converted ambulance would be off the road for the rest of the day. He also explained the nature of the vehicle’s fault, although to Jerry he may as well have been speaking Swahili.

  ‘What about tomorrow?’ he finally suggested.

  ‘That’d do,’ said Jerry thoughtfully, ‘though I’m never back from work before half-four.’

  ‘Any time’s fine by me,’ shrugged Martin, ‘so long as we don’t meet up here.’

  ‘How come?’ asked Jerry.

  ‘’Cause Jane might see us, and wonder what’s going on.’

  Congratulating the man on his genius, Jerry then suggested that they rendezvous at his own address.

  ‘Okay,’ said Martin, who knew already where the Irishman lived. ‘In that case, I’ll be there waiting for you at half-past four on the dot.’

  And Mrs Mulligan’s neighbour proved as good as his word. Promptly, at the agreed time, he and Jerry set off for the derelict house.

  Less than a minute later Martin bumped his ambulance up on the pavement beside the house, switched off his engine, and announced, ‘Here we are.’

  ‘Okay,’ breathed Jerry, picking up a hefty coil of rope and a light canvas rucksack from by his feet.

  ‘I’ll not be long,’ he told Martin, who gave a slow nod as he folded his arms and closed his eyes. Within the space of a few seconds he appeared to fall fast asleep, evidently having little to no interest in what was about to occur.

  ‘Charming,’ muttered Jerry peevishly, as, like before, he followed the crumbling brick wall almost to its end. For only here, by the back of the garden, was there a section capable of taking his weight.

  The rucksack was the first thing to be thrown over the wall, closely followed by the coil of rope and finally by the Irishman himself. His descent disturbed a swarm of midges, which immediately sent scouts foraging inside his eyes, ears and nose as he attempted to retrieve his two items from the depths of a prickly bush.

  Successful at last, he produced a pair of shears from his rucksack and began to attack the nettles, brambles and long grass. A machete, he soon realised, would have been more practical – and with his hands already scratched and bloodied, he cursed his folly in having not brought a pair of builder’s gloves.

  He swatted and swore at the midges, which continued to pester and plague him just the same. And in a sort of clearing beneath a small tree, he stared in horror at what appeared to be a freshly-gnawed thighbone. Human or not, he thought with a shudder, he was unable to tell...

  The garden grew right up to the rear of the house, which had at ground-level three boarded windows and a closed door. And the handle of this door now came off in Jerry’s hand.

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Contrary to his initial supposition, this house was as secure from the back as it was from the front. So it seemed he could do little more than return the way he’d come, pot-less and despondent.


  Then Jerry realised that it was possible to walk around the side of the house facing the small church hall, rather than the quiet, leafy road. And walk round he did, in the process circumnavigating a stagnant pond before staring, open-mouthed, at the man-sized hole that had at some point been knocked in the wall.

  ‘Would you look at that now?’ he murmured, scarcely believing his luck. Thick cobwebs covered the aperture, although these were removed by the Irishman as he entered into what had once, he assumed, been the living room.

  Certainly nothing remained to identify it as such. Jerry’s footsteps rang hollowly on the bare, blackened floorboards; and as he tapped the blown plaster on the damp walls, he reflected that a strong cough would probably be sufficient to bring this house down around his ears.

  Much to his relief, the staircase out in the darkened hallway was still in existence, although minus its spindles and banister rail. For as Jerry well knew, the council usually removed the stairs in a derelict property with a chainsaw, so to discourage intruders like himself.

  It was considerably brighter upstairs, as neither the landing nor any of the four former bedrooms had ceilings. The many gaps in the roof above, allowing entry to the rain and snow, had long-since caused them to collapse. The ceiling beams, however, remained, along with the loft hatch set in the landing.

  Fortunately, there was a pile of bricks inside one of the upstairs’ rooms – selecting eight, Jerry then stacked them in pairs below the open hatch. Using this as his ‘hop-up’, he was able to place both his rucksack and the coil of rope onto one of the four wooden boards surrounding the hatch.

  In spite of his slight build, Jerry was a strong man. So using first his hands, then his forearms and finally a curious waggling of his legs, he succeeded in raising himself into the attic.

  Crouched on an area of board supported by a beam, he turned to face the chimneybreast. This was situated close to the edge of the roof, on the side overlooking the road. The point where the breast became a stack was surrounded by tiles, although there was a large hole nearby – easily big enough for Jerry to be able to worm his way through, once he’d removed the obstructive battening. Thankfully – given that he’d forgotten to bring a knife – the age of the roof predated the use of felt.