The Jack Hansard Series: Season One: Jack Hansard, #1

Preface

The Jack Hansard Series began several years ago as a personal experiment in playing around with episodic storytelling. I rather liked the idea of a television-esque reading experience that told a story in bite-sized, standalone chunks - episodes instead of chapters - which would also build into a plot arc spanning a whole series.

I released the original drafts for Season One on my website and on the reading platform Wattpad, and was overwhelmed by the positive response it received. I owe a lot to those early readers.

This book is a much-revised edition of the original online version, with exclusive additional content including an all new episode.

Going forward, beta episodes of Season Two will also be available free online so you can read the first draft of the series as it comes out.

This is an evolving experiment, and I invite you to be a part of it with me.

Georgina

Episode 1: An Inspired Mess

It’s a strange sensation, being dangled upside-down over the side of a bridge in the middle of the night.

You might say that it brings about a contemplative state of mind.

Look at the way the light shimmers over the surface of the Thames, your brain tells you. Probably big, sharp rocks under there, it points out helpfully. My, the rope around your ankles feels rather thin, doesn’t it? Sure hope it’s strong enough to continue holding a full-grown man . . .

These were my unfortunate thoughts as I swung helplessly in the breeze. I was especially concerned about my coat, where it was slipping slowly down my arms towards the swirling waters below. I’m rather attached to that coat. It’s a proper trench coat with lots of spacious pockets – I’ve no end of elixirs and doodads and curios stuffed away inside it.

There is a tendency to typecast men in trench coats as crooked characters, shady figures who lurk on the fringe of the crowd, generally with a range of dubious watches on offer for the discerning patron. This is totally untrue.

I don’t sell watches.

‘How are we doing, Mr Hansard? Have you reconsidered my offer?’

This was the slick voice of Mr Scallet from high above. It was at his leisure that I was currently being, ah, held.

‘I think I could be persuaded,’ I called up to him. I was quite proud that my voice barely squeaked.

I probably deserved this, I thought. I’d been going through a period of peace and quiet lately: not one of my sales had backfired in the past month, and no one had tried to kill me. This was quite an achievement, considering my usual run of luck was about as long as a one-inch length of string on fire.

‘Haul him up. Let’s see if he’ll be more co-operative this time.’

This is the sort of thing you come to expect, when you’re a dealer on the Black Market.

‘You want we should rough him up some more, boss?’

The real Black Market, that is. Not the mundane one, with its tedious smugglers of sex and drugs and other humdrum illegalities. There aren’t any laws that cover the goods you’ll find on my Black Market, the one where abstract concepts can be purchased in neat little boxes. Mine is the one where success is sold in the form of an edible powder and fame can be hung round your neck on a piece of cotton thread. In need of a little luck? Heck, I know a guy in Blackfriars who can sell you it in a bottle.

I’m a here and there man, myself. I specialise in everything, if you know what I mean.

When Scallet had found me, I was specialising in inspiration.

‘Mind his knees, boys. Wouldn’t want him bent out of shape now, would we?’

Inspiration is a funny thing. Some people are naturally lucky, and stumble blindly over stray lumps of inspiration while going about their everyday business. Then they wake up in the morning with the next cultural innovation bouncing around inside their skulls. But for those of us not as blessed, inspiration is a bugger to get hold of. I should know. A bit of inspiration nearly took my arm off once. It has a tendency to bite.

But it’s worth the effort (and risk of maiming) because there are many people out there – writers, musicians, talented artistes – who will pay through the nose for just a sniff of the stuff.

Mr Scallet had been in need of a bit of inspiration.

That was a month ago. He had stuck out in the crowd with his sharp Savile Row suit and equally sharp, well-groomed features. He’d approached my pitch, which, at the time, had been in the centre of the bustling Camden Stables Market. In the midst of the alternative scene, I offer the most alternative goods you could ever hope to find.

He flashed me a bleached white smile and asked for my best wares of ‘speciality’ interest, with that haughty tone of the wealthy and entitled. Instantly I took him for a naïve, rich fob looking for a novelty to waste his cash on. Perfect.

He listened to my spiel, and then dropped a grand on a purchase of nearly-rotten inspiration. I’m an artist myself, in my own way.

Except, it turns out he wasn’t as ignorant as I thought.

‘Steady there, don’t lose your footing.’ As I was yanked upright, Scallet made a show of brushing off my lapels. ‘Now that you are with us again, Mr Hansard, perhaps we can discuss this matter like gentlemen.’

‘Over a glass of wine and a cigar?’ I said.

‘Funny. You’re a funny man, Mr Hansard. I enjoy your jokes. I find it especially amusing that a man in your position would take his own life so lightly.’

One of his thugs prodded me hard in the chest. I teetered dangerously on the ledge for a second and my stomach lurched. Vertigo. I vaguely remembered selling a package of vertigo recently.

‘Of course, I’d be happy to offer you recompense,’ I said hurriedly. ‘This is all a misunderstanding. I never like to see a dissatisfied customer.’

‘Ah, another joke.’ Scallet pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed at his temples. ‘Is that the reason you disappear the instant after you’ve sold something, Mr Hansard? You’re a tricky man to find.’

‘I see you had no trouble,’ I said weakly. The back of my mind was ticking over how much I could sell a vertigo cure for.

‘You leave a certain trail of, what did you say? Dissatisfied customers.’ Scallet genteelly folded the handkerchief back into a square. It looked greasy, and his face still shone with sweat. ‘Let’s be clear, Hansard. The inspiration you sold me was stale. You’ve ruined a multi-million pound project and rendered an eminent engineer woefully worthless. Your life is not worth the profits I’ve lost.’

Ah, yes. The engineer. Perhaps the only innocent victim in this case, though I’d argue he was guilty by association. Anyone who associates with a man like Scallet must have something coming to them.

I cleared my throat. ‘It seems to me,’ I said, shifting my weight away from the chasm behind me, ‘It seems to me, if I’ve understood your predicament correctly, that what you’ve really got here is a problem of audience. That is to say, a lack of one for the product you’re selling, rather than a problem with the product itself vis-à-vis improperly applied inspiration, to wit–’

‘Shut him up.’

Fist to the face. No messing about, these boys. They’re professional goons. My head swam.

I suppose you could say I was starting to regret dealing with Scallet back in Camden. But how was I to know he was head bod of some engineering company that designed cars so expensive you’d have to be a millionaire just to purchase a brochure? How was I to know he’d give that faulty inspiration to his lead designer, expecting the next great Lamborghini to come rolling out the doors? You can hardly blame me for his poor life choices.

Besides, no one can say it didn’t work. The inspiration performed like a charm. (I happen to sell charms as well, if you’re interested.) Scallet was speedily presented with the plans for five revolutionary new cars that were perfect in form and function. So what’s the problem?

The form: bulky, lumbering, utterly unsexy people-carriers designed with single mothers in mind. The function: boot space and large crumple zones. Nothing like the sleek and stylish sports cars coveted by Scallet’s rich and insecure customers.

Apparently, that’s not the result he wanted.

Scallet tucked his sodden handkerchief away. ‘We seem to be suffering a communication problem, Mr Hansard. You don’t seem to understand just how much I want to throw you off this bridge. The only reason you are still alive is that you have a debt to pay.’

‘I’m good at those,’ I mumbled through the ache in my jaw.

Scallet frowned. ‘Let me be clear. I want something more than just money out of you, Hansard. I want something to truly justify the continuation of your miserable life. A man of your unique . . . profession . . . must be able to offer something valuable enough to buy it back. If your life can be said to have any worth at all.’

‘You’re not wrong,’ I said with what I hoped was a disarming smile. It was probably spoiled by the blooming black eye. ‘Trust me, my life is the most valuable thing in the world to me, and I can happily offer you a fair trade. It’s rather fortuitous that on this evening I do happen to have about my person an item that is widely considered to be the key to ultimate success.’

‘I see it hasn’t done you any good so far.’

‘On the contrary, I appear to still be alive.’

‘Appearances can be deceiving.’

‘Hear me out. You won’t regret it.’

Scallet pursed his lips. ‘I feel I’ve heard that before. But very well, let’s hear what you have to offer.’

Though his gaze was hard and sceptical, there was the faintest touch of intrigue in his voice. I know his type. I was wrong to misjudge Scallet the first time, I shouldn’t have taken him for a complete mug. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He might not be just a dumb tourist, but he’s not from my world, either. Just because he knows all the cool slang and walks the walk, it doesn’t make him one of us. You can tell by the way he wears his suit, his shiny shoes, the stiffness in his oily face. And by the shifty way he watches the shadows, because he doesn’t really know what’s in them.

He’s still green. He’s had a taste of my world and thinks just because his tongue’s been scratched it makes him some kind of expert. He’s the guy in the restaurant who makes like he knows all about authentic Asian cuisine because he once spent a business trip in Vietnam. But his fork never touched the bottom of the bowl, and underneath it all he’s still just itching to find out what other dishes are on the menu.

Let’s see how this one tastes.

‘The key to ultimate success,’ I said, affecting an air of calm, ‘lies in a rare and mystical elixir from the Amazon which, when drunk, will grant the individual a charmed life of fame, fortune, and superior sexual attraction. It’s a closely guarded secret, worth millions. It’s in the left inside pocket of my trench coat,’ I added nonchalantly.

With a nod of permission, one of the thugs plucked the glass vial from my pocket and proffered it to Scallet for inspection. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

‘You just drink it, do you?’ he asked.

‘No. Well, yes. It must be consumed on a moonlit night at the strike of eleven in a meadow of thyme. Ideally with a virgin nearby. Tastes of strawberries. So I’m told.’

‘Strange that you haven’t tried it yourself.’

‘I wouldn’t have any wares to sell if I went around sampling them all the time.’

Scallet’s eyes flashed. ‘Do you really consider me so stupid, Mr Hansard?’ Rough hands closed around my arms and shoulders. ‘Why don’t you have a taste.’

It wasn’t a question. My head was forcefully tipped back, and the liquid rammed down my throat. I spluttered and choked, but managed to swallow, all the same.

‘Now let’s see what your little trick really meant to accomplish,’ he said triumphantly. ’Poison, perhaps?’

I grimaced theatrically. ‘Not my style.’

‘What is your style, Mr Hansard?’

‘Not as greasy as yours.’

Scallet’s lip curled. ‘I’d have thought you could come up with something more inspired. Cut the rope.’

I closed my eyes again. I heard the thunk of a blade going through thick nylon. The boot planted in my chest was sudden but expected.

I tumbled backwards, air streaming past and the sound of blood rushing in my ears. I braced myself for the sting of water . . .

. . . and was pleasantly surprised to encounter a soft, rather slippery landing. A very ripe smell invaded my nose.

‘’Ere, Gary! Some bloke’s fallen in the fish!’ an astonished voice yelled. I grinned.

In the distance high above, I thought I could hear the faint sound of a car engine roaring into the wind.

One by one, the confused faces of the barge crew popped into my vision.

‘Any chance of a ride?’ I said.

They were kind enough – and puzzled enough – to drop me off at the next pier, and I stumbled up the ramp to the familiar wet, murky streets of London. I navigated by the light of yellow streetlamps and glittering tarmac. Eventually I found my car, in the same dark spot where Scallet’s men had jumped me earlier.

I watched from the shadows for a while, checking for movement, voices. Nothing. I suppose Scallet didn’t think I’d come straight back to it. Hey, with a little luck, he might have missed my miraculous escape altogether.

I’d have to give my mate in Blackfriars something to refund his loss. I was meant to deliver that bottle, not drink it.

I stepped back and surveyed my assets. One elderly Ford Escort: a pile of worn and slightly moth-eaten clothes on the back seat; a half-finished jam sandwich on the dashboard; a smattering of business cards for Jack Hansard, Purveyor of the finest Occult Goods – that’s me, by the way – a map of London holding the remains of yesterday’s chips; parking tickets scattered about like confetti . . . and a trunk full of second-hand, second-rate inspiration waiting to be offloaded.

I smiled. Time to move on.

Episode 2: Sandman

Dreams. People are full of them. They permeate us, define us, and reinvent us.

But dreams are just lies, when you think about it. Regardless of whether you’re misremembering the past, speculating about the future, or making up stories about the present: people are constantly dreaming up new versions of the world around them. An active imagination could be better described as an internal network of self-deception.

So if everyone is already quite happy lying to themselves – dreaming to themselves – on a daily basis, then surely there’s no harm throwing a few lies of my own into the mix? I mean, I’m just trying to further the cause of self-delusion.

Is it really my fault if a customer believes some tatty, broken piece of pot is actually a priceless relic of a bygone age? It’s not like I outright lie about it. I just help them believe what they already want to believe.

I mean, who’s to say that little piece of pottery didn’t once belong to Pharaoh Whatsit of the Thingummy Dynasty? I can’t know the entire history of every artefact I sell, can I? If anything, I’d be lying if I told you I was certain it wasn’t of royal Egyptian descent. In that sense, I am a very truthful salesman.

And just what am I, Jack Hansard, a salesman of?

Well.

I sell dreams, my friend. Interested?

At least, dreams are what I’m selling this week.

Good dreams, bad dreams, fantasies, nightmares. I’ve got ‘em all for sale, here in the boot of my car.

I suppose I should have mentioned, I’m not your regular ‘it-came-off-the-back-of-a-lorry-guv’ street vendor. I’m a purveyor of Black Goods: that is, I sell goods hot off the real Black Market. The one where you can buy anything from luck to revenge in a bottle, and cursed newts’ eyeballs count as legal tender.

The Black Market isn’t so much a place as it is a concept. Sure, there are some locations you can visit year-round to browse a limited array of specialist goods, but for the most part the Black Market is made up of many seasoned traders, like myself, who travel up and down the country, taking our wares where they will be most appreciated. It’s a skill all its own, working out how to be in the right place at the right time.

You see, it’s all about matching your stock to your audience. I once got hold of a crate of deliciously vindictive little voodoo curses and, as luck would have it, happened upon a divorcee speed-dating convention at the same time. I have never before made so much money in my life.

Lately, I’ve heard that dreams are very profitable if you’re willing to put the work in. And if you can catch them.

Dreams are like wild creatures, see. They zip in and out of reality – and in and out of our heads – like flies flitting between dustbins. The garbage in our heads is the ideal nesting ground.

If you’re in the business of selling, then first you must capture one of these wild dreams. Unless you’re a fool, you leave that part to the professionals. I once met a man who’d lost his whole lower torso wrestling with the vicious dream of a six year old. Tore him clean in half. ‘Legs,’ he was called.

He’s also the guy I got my info from.

‘Never underestimate them kiddy dreams,’ he told me, drawing on a scatty dogend from one hand and hefting a pint of Guinness in the other. I distinctly recall he wore an eye-patch too, though I feel that was just for show. ‘Them kiddies, they like they’s dreams the most. They’s the most unwilling to let them go.’

‘What kind of dream was it, the one that took your le–’

‘Pride! It took me pride more’n it did me body!’

I looked him up and down, scruffy old man in a battered wheelchair holding court to his peers in the back of a dingy, run-down rugby club, and I thought that I’d much rather have my legs.

‘So what did it look like?’ I pressed.

‘Ah, it were terrible,’ he said, stubbing out his sliver of cigarette. ‘Terrible, like no man’d seen before. It shakes me memory, it does.’ He held out his hand, beckoning.

‘You really shouldn’t be smoking in here,’ I muttered, but offered him another roll-up, regardless. I hoped this story would be worth the price of tobacco and beer. I watched him light up and take another long drag.

‘Terrible!’ he declared anew. ‘Every dream is different. Depends on who it comes out of. This kiddy dream, it were a girlie’s. So as you might ’spect, it were full of ponies.’

‘Ponies?’

‘Pink ones. Purple ones. Yeller ones. In dresses they were, if you can fathom a horse in a dress. And they were champin’ and kicking away, and I was dancing and giving them a good fight. Almost had it, I did! Got the net right over the whole thing. But then one pony gets its tooth in me boot, and way! That’s half me gone.’

I’m still not sure the story was worth the price, but Legs told me a whole lot more about dreams and what you do with them. After you’ve got your captive dream – assuming you’re still intact, right – you grind it down until it’s the consistency of fine sand. The term ‘Sandman’ is, of course, just a name for those merchants who trade in dreams. I don’t think they usually meet up in rugby clubs, but Legs practically lived in his.

Anyway, you mix your dream-sand with some tasty beverage and drink it like a tonic (I hear the Hackney Sandman does a rather good cocktail). Et voila – you drop quite unconscious and have yourself whatever dream you drank, albeit extremely vividly.

If you want to pretend you’re the ruler of a magic kingdom for twelve hours? Knock yourself out with a dream tonic and you’ll believe you are living your fantasy. While your body sleeps, your mind experiences a full sensory explosion akin to reality. I’m told it’s the ultimate escapism.

Though I’ve also heard ghastly stories of people who have overdosed, mind. Take a sip too much and you might be doomed to live in your dreamworld for the rest of your life. Never wake up again. Terrible stuff.

I’m sure you can see why such a thing would fetch a high price on the Black Market. Especially as customers tend to be looking for just the right sort of dream to fulfil their cravings. High demand for limited edition products? Score!

Well, not quite.

As I said, the sale of dreams is my current business venture. At present I have a menagerie of sweet dreams, wet dreams, nostalgic dreams, and one very furious nightmare rattling around in the boot of my car. I bought these wild dreams off a grim young gentleman with no name, and obtained the curiously shaped glass bottles ready to be filled with lucrative dream sand. The problem?

I couldn’t do it.

The grinding part, that is. I thought I’d cut out the middle-man and do that bit myself, save on costs, sort of thing. Even bought myself the comically-sized pestle and mortar to do the job with. But could I do it? Bugger me, if the stupid creatures didn’t look up at me with the most ridiculously soulful eyes I have ever seen.

All dreams look different, that should go without saying. They can be cute and cuddly, they can be mean and sly, they can look human or animal or both or neither. One of the ones in my car looks like a cartoonish cross between a riverboat and the Eiffel Tower. (It becomes even stranger when you notice it has eyes and legs and a tail that wags when you pet it.)

So I was looking at this bizarre assortment of creatures, and found them looking back. I suppose I’m not cut out for dirty work after all.

They had seemed like such a bargain at the time, when I’d picked them up on my way out of London. Just the boost I was looking for, the lucky break to turn my trough into a peak.

Now they were just a waste of several hundred pounds, and I had the awful dilemma of figuring out what to do with the weird little beasts. My only chance was to sell them on again – but who to? I’ve never had any contacts in Worcester.

I was currently camped out in the train station car park at Shrub Hill. (I love station car parks. Always open, always free. For someone with a forged disabled badge, anyway.) It was empty except for me at one in the morning. I would have been asleep, except the dream-creatures constantly uttered unsettling chittering noises from the back of the car.

‘Shut up, you little demons,’ I groaned.

I pulled my blanket tighter. What a mess. I wondered if a pet shop would be willing to take them off my hands. I could probably pass off the fluffiest one as a rare new dog breed. It did look puppy-like, though its coat appeared more like glued-on cotton wool than fur. And the eyes were just a little too big.

Mind you, it sorted of floated, which wasn’t very dog-like at all. Would be a hell of a prize-winning trick at Crufts though.

I pondered this for a while, eyes drooping as I imagined training the fluffy dream-thing on a leash. I could teach it to run an obstacle course and to sit very still while a serious woman examines its teeth. I wondered if it even had teeth.

An eruption of snarls had me wide awake again. This time I flung open the door and marched round to the boot, banging my fist against it.

‘Pack. It. In.’

The snarling stopped, replaced by pathetic whimpering sounds. I relented and opened the lid.

I had two cages in there: one for the dreams, and one just for the nightmare. The nightmare was an ugly thing. Its slobbering jaw hung loose from a face so drooped and wrinkled it looked as though it was melting. Small but wicked claws usually scraped the floor as its arms dragged limply along, but right now the thing was scrabbling at the cage wire.

The dreams cowered in the corner furthest away from it. All but one. The fluffy dream, with the big eyes and cotton wool coat, sat calmly facing off with the snarling nightmare.

I smacked the top of the nightmare’s cage.

‘You can’t get to them you silly bugger. Leave them be.’

The creature quietened a little but didn’t back down from its stare-off. The others remained tightly pressed in their corner.

‘Look, it can’t get to you,’ I said to them. ‘Your friend has the right idea.’

I shook my head and turned to lean against the car. This was probably going to be a long night. I wish I smoked. This seemed like the right kind of time for a smoke.

I leaned back and kicked at the sand under my feet.

. . . Sand?

Slowly, I looked down, and then up, and realised what I had been seeing all along, but my tired brain had helpfully ignored for me.

Sand. Pale blue under the light of the moon, stretching as far as the eye could see to a black horizon. I didn’t recall parking in a desert.

I glanced up at the moon.

‘Oh, bugger.’

It had a face.

The moon smiled down at me and winked.

I brought my gaze level with the horizon. The horribly flat horizon. It was flat all the way around. You’d think there would be dunes in a desert. In a real desert, anyway.

I looked back at the jittery dream creatures. Damn. Was I asleep? Stupid question. I recalled the very dream tonics I had foolishly been intending to try my hand at. Dreams so vivid you’d think you were awake.

But I never made any tonic. I didn’t have the stones.

Didn’t you? uttered a treacherously knowing voice in my head. What if you did, and something went wrong? Would you remember it in your dream? For that matter, how do you know everything up ’til now hasn’t been a dream too? Maybe you’ve been lost in the soup of your mind for years. Look, there goes a crouton.

For a moment I was too stunned to think. It was the feeling of having the rug pulled from under your feet, except you hadn’t even known you were standing on it in the first place.

‘Stay calm,’ I said aloud. The words popped from my mouth in translucent bubbles and floated up to meet the