Authors: Sara Sheridan
They finished their tea and Mirabelle gave him directions. They drove towards Marylebone until they turned right past Daunt’s and pulled up round the corner on Moxon Street.
Harry gestured at the bookshop. ‘Do you think Rose might be here?’ he asked plaintively.
‘Come along, and bring that torch you have in the boot,’ said Mirabelle, to Harry’s astonishment.
The pair walked towards the shop. It seemed an unlikely prison. The lock on the door was considerably heavier than those at the Oxford and Cambridge Club. Mirabelle extracted another hair pin. I’m going to look like a fright by the end of this evening, she thought as she applied herself to the mechanism. It took a few moments but she caught the tumbler and the door clicked open. Harry looked suitably impressed. Inside, he scanned the bookshelves with the torchlight. Mirabelle made for the cash desk, which yielded only stationery, a pile of bookmarks and a ledger.
Grabbing the torch, she turned to the rear of the shop with the ledger in her hand to minimise the light visible from the street. She checked the columns of figures. Every month the shop paid eighty pounds in rent to Paul Blyth!
‘Well, there you have it,’ Harry said. ‘He owns the place. That’s why he got the books here.’
‘Yes. But why?’
‘Because he’s the landlord. He wouldn’t buy the books elsewhere.’
‘No. Why does he own it? Why do they pay rent to him directly? Not a trust fund. Not a solicitor. Not a collection agency or a property agent. Not a bank. This won’t be the only property Paul Blyth owns. Not by a long shot. Yet they pay him, directly, don’t you see?’
Harry cast his eyes over the shadowy bookshelves, lost for words. ‘Why not?’ he managed weakly.
Mirabelle ignored him. She worked her way around the walls from the front to the rear. She checked the toilet, the kitchen and a cupboard full of cleaning supplies. Then she started on the floor, working from back to front. About halfway down there was a square of worn carpet. She pulled it up, and sure enough there was a trap door.
‘Here.’ She motioned to Harry, who turned the latch and pulled it open. A Sash with the torch revealed a low-ceilinged cellar reached by a wooden staircase.
‘Rose!’ Harry called out hopefully.
‘Oh really!’ Mirabelle popped a book beside the hinge so the trap door couldn’t close. Then she carefully made her way down the steps.
The cellar had stone walls and no windows. It didn’t smell damp, but there was a faint odour of candle wax and sulphur. The otherwise empty space housed three large trunks stored off the floor on heavy wooden tables. Harry looked as if he might burst into tears. Mirabelle scanned the area behind the stairs to see if there was a key.
‘We need the keys,’ she pointed out.
‘Can’t you do that thing you did before?’
‘The locks are too big. I’d need a proper pick.’
‘I’ll go and look upstairs.’ Harry disappeared.
Tentatively, Mirabelle tried to open one after the other, but it was no good. She could hear Harry moving overhead and then his footsteps coming down the stairs.
‘I couldn’t find a key,’ he said, ‘but how about this?’ He thrust a half-brick towards her.
‘You’re the brawn,’ Mirabelle grinned, and motioned towards the first trunk.
It took him less than a minute to smash the locks. ‘They’ll know we’ve been here now,’ said Harry.
‘They’ll know
someone
has been here,’ Mirabelle corrected him.
Together they peered into the first trunk. It was full of books, each one individually wrapped in brown paper. Harry took one and tore open the wrapping to reveal an unmarked blue hardcover. He flipped the book open.
‘Lady Chatterley!’ he hooted. ‘That old thing!’
‘It’s banned.’
‘Oh, it’s been banned for ever. My little cousins could get a copy of this if they wanted to. Honestly! Is that all they have down here? I thought Rose was going to be locked in the bloody chest! Dead or alive. I can’t tell you the relief.’
Mirabelle moved on. Awkwardly, with her uninjured hand, she opened the next lid. This time there were no books, only sheaves of papers. As she picked them up she realised they were prints that had once been bound.
‘They’re Victorian,’ Harry grinned. ‘Don’t look, Miss Bevan! One of my more perverted uncles collects these things.’
Mirabelle leafed through a series of etchings of anguished ladies in tightly laced corsets and then returned them to the chest.
‘And in the third chest?’ Harry whooped like a circus ringmaster. ‘More of the same, no doubt!’
Mirabelle sat on the stairs as Harry heaved open the third trunk. He took out several leather-bound volumes, one after the other.
‘Now
these
are pretty valuable,’ he said, examining them carefully. ‘Collectors’ items. Specialist stuff. Erotica. And it’s early in date. More of the same but better. Do you want to have a look?’
Mirabelle waved him off. There really was no need. This made sense, of course; she just had to process what they’d found. Paul Blyth had always been good at getting sensitive information that other people wanted; this was simply an extension of that skill. He was a natural pornographer – of course he was. Then when Harry had come on the scene he had reacted strongly, but now it seemed he hadn’t only been defending his daughters: he was defending his trade as well. Here was a young blood, already notorious for pornography, taking pictures of his daughters. And worse, should Harry find out what Blyth was up to (for the circles must be small) Blyth would suddenly find himself vulnerable. No wonder he’d come down on the boy like a ton of bricks.
‘The Zeitgeist,’ she murmured.
‘What did you say?’
‘How much is all this worth?’
Harry considered carefully. ‘The D.H. Lawrence? Not much – maybe five guineas each. Though he has at least fifty copies here. The Victorian prints might make twenty or so each. But these books are worth a lot. Hundreds. Depends on the rarity of the edition. Some early Georgian drawings and engravings are worth thousands. It depends on, er, the raunchiness of the subject matter. Anyway, as I understand it, our cousins across the pond collect them, and they’re known for their generosity.’
Mirabelle raised an eyebrow. ‘You seem
remarkably
well informed, Harry.’
‘You can’t ask me a question and then get sniffy about it because I know the answer, Miss Bevan.’
‘I’m not getting sniffy at all. You simply appear very well informed.’
Harry relented. ‘All right. After a brief foray into something similar at Eton – on a very small scale, Miss Bevan – I became quite interested in this sort of thing. This is well out of my league, though. And, I should point out, these prints do have artistic merit. Do you think old Blyth knows about all this?’
‘Without question.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Well, for a start, eighty pounds’ monthly rent is far too much for these premises. That’s a shade off a thousand a year on a back street in Marylebone! And, to be honest, I thought he overreacted when he took Rose. It seems an overly dramatic solution to a simple problem. I mean, he could have sent a couple of heavies round to beat you up. He could have broken into your rooms and stolen the photographs if that was all he was after. But he didn’t – he wanted to frighten you – to put you out of the game completely. Now I understand. He’s been defending more than his daughters’ honour. That kind of criminality is a small world, and Blyth’s a bully. He wanted to put you off for life, Harry. He’d rather have the march on you than the other way around – at any price. And you’re young, enterprising and, well, interested. And you know him. Know all about him. That makes you dangerous competition. I can understand how that idea would make him jumpy. He’s defending his greatest secret. He’s a mastermind! An international pornographer. If anyone found out he’d be finished.’
‘Old Blyth!’ Harry seemed delighted. ‘Seems like such a stuffy old duffer! Well, he might be out of my league but I’ve got something over him now.’
‘Harry, honestly. Have you no intelligence? Would you poke your hand in a wasps’ nest just to teach the wasps a lesson?’
‘No.’ Harry sounded glum. ‘I suppose not.’
‘This makes Blyth twice as deadly. God knows what else he’s up to.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not sure yet. But people in one illicit business often have links to another. Gangsters who run booze run brothels. If you wanted an illegal passport you’d start somewhere illegal – an opium den or an underground casino. If Blyth is running an international business specialising in erotica, he might well be involved in other illegal activities.’
‘Gosh.’ Harry seemed genuinely taken aback. ‘Do you know exactly what the old fellow did during the war?’
‘Information.’ Mirabelle sidestepped the question reflexively and then wondered if by chance she’d hit the nail on the head. Paul Blyth had contacts and access to intelligence. He knew the system backwards and forwards. Mind you, he was dyed-in-the-wool Establishment. He’d never sell information to the enemy – whoever that was these days. She dismissed the thought.
‘If he’s hurt Rose …’
‘I think we should try to find Rose tonight,’ Mirabelle decided.
‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Not yet.’ Mirabelle checked her watch. It was getting on.
‘But I think I might know a man who can help us. Find me an
A to Z
, would you? I think we may need one. I’ll put everything back here.’
On the way to the car Mirabelle scanned the flat above the bookshop. It appeared to be occupied by a lone woman with young children. The door to the communal hallway was open, and a bashed-up pram was parked alongside two pairs of small wellington boots at the bottom of the stairs. It seemed unlikely that Rose would be up there.
‘He might have owned it.’ She pointed at the Sat. ‘Wouldn’t that have been easy?’
Harry started the engine and Mirabelle opened the street guide. Further up the pavement the figure of a caped policeman peered down Moxon Street from Marylebone High Street. Mirabelle could have sworn he looked too short to be taken on by the constabulary but it was difficult to tell with the custodian helmet and at such a distance. The policeman earlier hadn’t exactly been a giant. Perhaps the force’s recruitment criteria had changed.
Expectation is the root of all heartache.
Charlie laughed at her crestfallen expression. ‘Trust me, sugar.’
Vesta had been disappointed at first with Charlie’s choice of dinner venue. When they left Duke’s they had trailed arm in arm across town towards Charing Cross and up beyond Leicester Square. It felt dreamy. She’d expected a candlelit bistro at the very least, so when Charlie stopped in front of a harshly lit greasy spoon on the edge of Chinatown she’d dropped his arm in dismay. The air smelled stale here – of soy sauce and musty spices. Inside the café, the menu boasted bacon butties and pots of tea. This was not what she had expected.
‘Charlie Baker!’ a voice shouted from the back of the café. A fat man with a beaming smile emerged from the kitchen and flung his arms around Charlie’s frame. One or two of the other diners turned to witness the commotion – mostly solitary men lingering over plates of chips.
‘Max, this is Vesta,’ Charlie introduced her. ‘We’ve come for dinner.’
‘Romantic?’
‘Only the best for us.’
Max disappeared into the back. Vesta lowered herself primly onto a plastic chair that squeaked as she manoeuvred it nearer the table. If there were things she had intended to do with Charlie later that evening she now mentally retracted the possibility. As a sign of her disapproval she refused to take off her coat.
Charlie didn’t seem concerned. ‘You’ll never be bored with me, baby,’ he grinned. ‘Cocktails in Duke’s and dinner at Max’s.’
‘Do you bring your jazz friends here?’ she asked pointedly.
‘Only the black guys,’ he said.
After a rather uncomfortable atmosphere Max returned to the table with a huge platter of what turned out to be the best jerk chicken Vesta had ever tasted, outside the Caribbean. As they tucked into the steaming chicken pieces and a mound of rice and peas Vesta could feel the spices awakening her taste buds. Damn, this was good! She felt as if she was floating.
‘You see?’ said Charlie, watching her face intently. ‘You forgive me now, right? It beats the hell out of my mama’s. I bet it beats yours, too.’
Vesta smiled. ‘We can
never
bring her here,’ she said. ‘That’s the deal.’
‘Our secret,’ Charlie promised.
After the dishes were cleared and greasy fingers cleaned on paper napkins Max removed the plates. ‘You wanna make the lady your special dessert, Charlie? Get into the kitchen, man. You’re not gonna believe this, Vesta.’
Vesta was astounded. ‘What’s this, Charlie?’
Charlie looked sheepish. ‘Dessert is what I do, sugar,’ he said. ‘That and the drumming.’
‘You didn’t know about Charlie Baker? Makes the best, but
the best
cakes, pastries and puddings to the gentry.’