Winter Falls: A Jimmy Blue novel, page 1
WINTER FALLS
A JIMMY BLUE NOVEL
IAN W. SAINSBURY
Copyright © 2021 by Ian W Sainsbury
Published by Fuse Books 2021
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
A preview of the next book in the Jimmy Blue Series
Run, Hide, Die - Chapter 2
Run, Hide, Die - Chapter 3
Run, Hide, Die - Chapter 4
Available now
Author’s Note
For Ash Robin
CHAPTER ONE
The hot, bright evening sun made the shadowed corners darker, and it was in the dusty gloom under the scaffolding that Tom saw him. Tom hadn't thought about Jimmy Blue for a while. Not much, anyway. He'd dreamed of him, but Tom's dreams were confusing, and often hard to remember.
How long had it been? Was it while Tom was working here, on the housing site in North London? Or at the last job in Manchester? If Manchester was the last job. It might have been Cambridge. Cambridge had been the site near a river. Tom tried to think back. When he concentrated, the images that drifted through his mind didn't help. There weren't enough of them, and he couldn't sort them into the right order. He gave up. It might be weeks, or months, since Jimmy Blue last came for him.
The figure in the shadows nodded; wraithlike in the dust, insubstantial. Two men were laying an exterior wall in the shade of the planks. Neither of them had noticed they weren't alone. Tom knew he mustn't acknowledge Blue. He looked away, ducked under the wooden planks, squatted, and tipped the hod to slide its load next to Kev and Craig. They didn't pause, caught up in the rhythm of bricklaying, their movements out of time with the thin beat from a dust-caked, paint-splattered radio hanging on a ledge. Craig spoke without looking up.
"Two more of 'em, Tiny."
The men on the building sites used more than one nickname for Tom. On a good day, when they accepted his mostly silent presence, they called him Tiny. Tiny seemed strange until Tom's latest landlady, Myra, explained that sometimes people used the wrong word deliberately.
"You know, dear, like Little John. Robin Hood's friend. He was a big fella like you. They call you Tiny because you're huge." It made no sense.
The nickname Tom didn't like was Mad Tom, but he didn't react when they said it behind his back, and when they said it to his face, he blinked and ignored them.
"Mad Tom! What are you mumbling about?"
He looked up. He was still standing by the pile of bricks. Craig had stopped to roll a cigarette and now waved a hand in front of Tom's face.
"C'mon, pal. Shake a leg. Two more trips. Off you pop."
Tom picked up the hod and walked back the way he'd come. He couldn't see anything in the shadows, but he knew Jimmy Blue was there.
Tom Brown was thirty-two years old, maybe thirty-three; he wasn't sure. His real surname was Lewis, he knew, but he had to pretend it was Brown. The police lady, Debbie, had told him that. She had tried lots of other surnames for him, but Brown was the only one he could remember.
His childhood had been a happy one, he thought. Sometimes, when about to fall asleep, or during the confusion of waking, he would remember his mother's voice, or the roughness of his father's beard.
Trying to remember more didn't work. It was like picking up wriggling wet fish. Thinking about the future was equally pointless. Tom existed where he was, and when he was. Jimmy Blue took care of the rest.
Physical labour suited Tom best. Cash in hand, a few days here, a week or two there. This building site had kept him busy for more than a month without the usual restlessness.
In the building trade, few hod carriers were as strong and as tireless as Tom. The hod, a three-sided box on the end of a rod, carried bricks from the pallets by the office to whoever needed them on site. Tom braced the wooden handle alternately against his shoulders. Brick hods usually held twelve bricks. Tom carried eighteen without a problem, and the first foreman to realise this built him a bigger hod.
Carrying more bricks than anyone else didn't make Tom any more popular with those who worked alongside him. He was a good, strong, reliable worker, but he was tolerated, rather than liked. The other men—and they were usually men—didn't like his silence; they were suspicious of his solitude. He didn't laugh at their jokes and turned away when they made fun of him. Tom frowned when they called him the Odd Carrier. Being odd meant not fitting in. The bricks he hefted hour after hour onto his shoulder slotted into the hod, each individual block nestling perfectly against its fellows. If Tom had been a brick, he would have been rejected before reaching the building site. He didn't fit with the others. Too big, roughly cut, unfinished, wrong.
It was Friday, so Tom joined the back of the queue leading to Mrs Hartnell's office. The creature in the shadows had gone, but Tom's hand went up to the hard, raised scarring on his skull. Jimmy Blue was calling him.
The men talked louder and laughed more easily at six on a Friday. A hard day's graft at the conclusion of a long week meant the brown envelope they picked up from Mrs H would travel less than half a mile before being ripped open and its contents depleted at the bar of the Coach and Horses.
Tom kept his head down and shuffled behind the rest. It had been Ken's birthday last week, and Tom hadn't been able to avoid being added to the invitation to meet for drinks. His lemonade tasted funny, and when the lads told him it was his turn to buy a round, it had cost eighty pounds. When Tom tried to protest, they all pretended not to understand.
He smoothed the black bandana over his shaved head. Kev had pulled it off when he'd left the pub last week, and everyone had laughed. When Tom asked for it back, and they all saw the front of his head, they stopped laughing. Steve had even said sorry when he threw the bandana back to him, but, once outside, Tom heard their voices through the open window.
"Car accident, d'ya think?"
"Brain damage, I reckon."
"Explains why he's such a numpty, though, dunnit?"
Inside the office, Mrs Hartnell, a skinny middle-aged woman with a Jack Russell always at her feet, kept the wage slips and cash in a plastic box on top of her desk. Everyone signed for their pay, so Tom preferred to be last in line.
Mrs H pushed the paper across to him. Her husband, Les, faded blue tattoos on his muscled forearms, stood behind her. He glared at Tom. The only time Les Hartnell didn't glare was when asleep. The brickies described him as 'hard but fair', but Tom had never known Hartnell to be fair. He paid as little as possible, and he paid Tom less than anyone else, because Tom couldn't argue his case, and no one was there to argue it for him.
Bobby, the Jack Russell, darted out from under the desk, sniffed Tom's trousers, then lay on his feet, tail wagging. The small dog was infamous on the site for hating everyone apart from his owner, and for confirming his opinions with a bite or two. But, like most animals, he loved Tom, much to the disgust of Mr Hartnell, who muttered, "Get off him, you stupid little bastard." Bobby huffed happily and ignored him.
Tom made his mark on the paper. He drew something that looked like Tom and added a squiggle. The squiggle changed from week to week, but if he looked at the letters for long, his head ached. Les added a smirk to his glare.
"There you go, love." Mrs H handed him the envelope. It felt even thinner than normal. He opened it. Four of the pinky purple notes. There should be many more. He looked back at the thin, brittle-haired woman.
"It's a government thing, Tom." She'd never used his name before. "It's your last week, I'm afraid. No more work. We've deducted your National Insurance, your contractor's insurance, and your union dues."
"Mm, mm." Tom couldn't remember if the last time he'd spoken was today or yesterday. It took a while to get the first words out.
"But mm, but—"
"But nothing." Les Hartnell took a step forward. He stood a few inches shorter than Tom's hunched six feet, but his glare, his knotted muscles, and an old murder conviction he made sure everyone knew about, meant he wasn't shy about picking a fight.
"You're lucky I gave ya a job at all."
"Mm. Work hard." Tom pushed the words through his tight lips.
Hartnell seemed momentarily stunned at the interruption. He leaned across the desk and put a dusty, cracked and blackened fingernail on Tom's sternum. "You're a hoddie, pal. You carry bricks. I could train a monkey to do it, and it would be less of a bloody liability than you. What if there was an accident, an emergency? You couldn't find your own arse with both hands. What use are you if the scaffold collapses, or there's a fire?"
Les Hartnell talked too fast, and Tom struggled to keep up.
"Mm. Mm."
"Yeah, yeah, mm all you like. Mrs H's sister's boy gets out on Monday, so you're surplus to requirements. We don't need you anymore. That's your pay up to date. Now piss off out of it. On yer bike."
Tom rested his fingers on the scar under his bandana. "No bike," he whispered.
Les Hartnell's neck turned purple. Mrs H put a warning hand on his arm.
"He doesn't understand, Les. Look, I'll make it easy for you. Job is finished. You go home. Don't come back."
Tom looked blankly at her. She pointed at the door.
"Fuck off, love."
Tom looked at the few notes in the envelope one more time, then up at the hard-set faces of his former employers. Before leaving, he took a last look around the cramped office and bent down to stroke Bobby's head.
The bus stop was a hundred yards out of the site to the right, but Tom turned left and headed downstairs to the underground, boarding the first tube south. He wouldn't be going back to Myra's bed and breakfast tonight, or ever again.
Jimmy Blue was waiting.
CHAPTER TWO
Soho was packed. Tourists from every nation jostled ad agency designers and office staff on their way to the pub. Actors, restaurant staff, and sex workers hurried to another paid performance. Motorcycle couriers darted through the traffic shoals, helmets flashing like silver minnows. Taxis inched forward, sweaty arms hanging out of their windows, leaning on their horns.
Tom moved through it all with his head down, shoulders hunched, following the sinuous progress of the masses, allowing the crowd to guide his route.
As he passed an alleyway, its entrance half-blocked with black and green bin bags, Tom joined a human tributary hugging the shopfronts. He left the flow, diverting into a passage just wide enough to accommodate a vehicle. A white Transit van meant Tom had to turn sideways, folding its wing mirror to squeeze past. The van's owner, bearded and belligerent, registered his displeasure as he came out of the door at the end of the alley.
"Oi! What are you playing at? Hands off, unless you—"
Tom straightened, pressing his back against the wall to ease his bulk through. The bearded man looked him up and down, registering his size. "Nah, don't worry, no harm done, mate. You coming in? I'll get the door for ya. Nice one."
Tom's gaze dropped back to the floor. The door slammed shut behind him. In the outer room, a middle-aged woman flicked through a magazine behind a counter. Shelves full of packing materials filled the walls; boxes, sticky tape, bubble wrap, polystyrene pellets, all marked with a bright orange sticker stating Sam's Soho Storage.
The woman didn't look up. Tom entered a five-digit number into the keypad on the door. Tom remembered the pattern his fingers needed to make, and the door beeped. He pushed it open.
Inside, the bright orange theme continued on the roller shutters of every unit. The height of the ceiling suggested the building's Victorian provenance, and the birds in the rafters were far from the first generation to nest there.
Tom could count to ten, and he only needed to get to seven to find his unit. It was on the left side, the same as the scar on his head. He unlocked the metal grille, sending it clattering upwards. Inside, he yanked it halfway down again before clicking on the light. Then he pulled the grille shut and slid the bolt.
The unit was half the size of a standard garage. Big enough to accommodate a double cupboard, suitcases, cardboard boxes and a clothes rail. Chests of drawers of various sizes partially obscured one wall. Against the other, the most notable item was an old-fashioned writing desk with a red leather swivel chair.
Tom was, as always, drawn to the writing desk first; antique walnut, with three drawers on one side. He sat on the swivel chair, which creaked under his weight. His thighs, even with the chair lowered as far as possible, pressed against the underside of the desk. He slid out the felt-topped guide rods and lowered the writing lid on top of them. The writing surface was topped with the same red leather as the chair. It was a beautiful piece of furniture, marred only by the side blackened and scarred by fire.
Tom placed his hands on the stretched red leather surface, closed his eyes, and breathed in, leaning right to avoid the charred wood. The mixed scent of old leather and skin cream brought him a sense of peace, of home. There were no accompanying images, no comforting memories, but he knew this desk had been his mother's.
The sense of peace didn't last. Jimmy Blue was waiting.
Blue didn't frighten Tom - but he could no more refuse his call than a starving baby could refuse the breast that kept it alive.
He shut the desk and opened an empty wheeled suitcase, propping the lid against the wall. He took running shoes, underwear, and a razor from a drawer, a black motorcycle helmet from one of the boxes. The clothes rail yielded designer jeans and two shirts. All of it went into the suitcase with a roll of bin liners, a MacBook, and a charger.
Tom's last stop was the cupboard. Each shelf held four mannequin heads. The hairpieces on the heads were blonde, dark, ginger, and many shades between. Half of the staring faces also sported facial hair, from sideburns, through moustaches and goatees, to a full beard.
Tom picked up a bag containing glue, double-sided scalp tape, and various bottles and tubes. He removed a shoulder-length black wig, putting it into a net. He couldn't have explained why he chose the items he did, only that they were right.
With the suitcase zipped up, Tom took one last look around the storage unit. Jimmy Blue had acquired this eclectic collection of odds and ends. Tom didn't know how long it had taken. His concept of time periods longer than a week or two was hazy.
Tom smiled. This unheated aluminium box, lit by a single fluorescent tube, comforted him.
He put his thumb on the bolt to slide it open. Something was different this time. Jimmy Blue's call had been stronger than ever. Tom thought back to the earlier glimpse, Blue's insubstantial form twisting through the shadows, watching him. His head throbbed with the effort of assembling his scattered and amorphous thoughts. Something had changed. Something.
A rare sliver of memory: his father coming into his bedroom late one night, putting an object on the bedside table.
Tom, half-asleep, lifting this object, holding it up so the light from the street illuminated his prize. A book. A new story. He reached down the side of his bed, found the torch and—once he'd tucked the duvet back around him—clicked it on to read. It didn't seem strange that he could read. He accepted it. It was the way the book made him feel that was important. Tom was almost feverish with excitement. He'd been waiting for this a long time. It was the final story in a series. He was dry-mouthed with anticipation as he turned the first page.
