The Count of Eleven (33 page)

“Tender my apologies.”

Pether looked suspicious of Jack’s phrasing. “Thank you,” he said as if that might be only a temporary response.

Jack lingered by the pay telephone next to the counter. He hadn’t time to make the calls he intended to make, and indeed he hadn’t yet ascertained the numbers he should call, but the notion of phoning from the police station appealed to him now that confronting Pether had restored his faith in himself. He sprinted to the van and drove to the motorway, feeling that whatever happened until he made his next contact would be leading him to his goal. Even so, he didn’t expect the library to be such a help. Almost as soon as Jack arrived at work the librarian asked him to go on a quest for some expensive overdue books.

Jack was left in charge of the reference library while the librarian went for lunch. Once he was alone with the readers, all of whom seemed intent on their work, Jack carried the Merseyside telephone directory to the table behind the counter. His briefcase was in the van, but he knew all the names and addresses on the remaining envelopes by heart. He found the number of the name whose address he would be closest to that afternoon, then he moved the phone from the counter to the table and sat down out of sight of the public. When the other phone had rung eleven times five and a half pairs he broke the connection and tried again. “Nine, ten,” he chanted softly, el eve and the bell was silenced. “Bail’s Signs,” a man said.

Until he’d heard it spoken Jack wondered if the name in the directory might be a misprint for “Dial’. “Mr. Dail?” he said.

“He’s the only one you’ll find here this late on early closing day.”

“Forgive me. Can you spare a few minutes?”

“Depends what for.”

“I sent you a letter a few weeks ago.”

“Folk do.”

“It was a copy of one I’d received, asking me to send out thirteen copies. I was wondering ‘

“Is that all you called me back from going home for?”

“Just to follow it up, to see if you’ve done as it asked.”

“I don’t take kindly to being sent letters that aren’t even signed.”

“So you’re saying that if I were to tell you my name ‘

“I’d be interested in that, believe me, and where I can get hold of you.”

“And you’d send out copies of the letter?”

“It’s as good as done. You can trust me as much as you can trust your letter.”

He didn’t sound entirely convincing, perhaps because he assumed Jack was too stupid to notice. “So you’ve kept it,” Jack said.

“Need you ask? The place wouldn’t be the same without it,” Dail said, beginning to tire of the game. “Hang on, it looks as if one of the girls has chucked it out. The things staff do if they aren’t watched.”

“Suppose I were to send you another one, signed?”

“Why don’t you bring it yourself and then you can see what I do with it.”

“Which would be ‘

“Stuff it in your gob to shut you up.”

“Am I to take that as a refusal, Mr. Dail?”

“Do you know,” Dail said in a mincing parody of Jack’s tone, “I really think you should.”

“You’ve an adequate ear and a certain raw talent for mimicry,” Jack said as a clatter at the other end cut him off. He imagined Dail marching out of the shop, convinced he’d got the better of Jack. Jack felt almost sorry for him, though he was mostly experiencing relief, which renewed his sense of power; at least he knew where he was with Dail. He looked up the first of the names he hadn’t yet contacted and dialled the number.

‘… Ten, eleven,” he counted. “One, two and the phone emitted a shriek of tortured metal. “Yeh, wha?” a young male voice enquired.

“Is that Colloran’s Car Repairs?”

“It’s the gar ridge

“Could I speak to Mr. Colloran?”

“Danny,” the voice shouted. After a while the shriek of metal ceased and a different voice said “Colloran.”

“You don’t know me, Mr. Colloran. I sent you a letter a few weeks ago inviting you to improve your luck.”

“He sent me that fucking letter about luck,” Colloran shouted, and Jack really needed no further response. “So what’s your problem?” Colloran demanded.

“I was wondering if you’d had a chance to do as it asked.”

“Plenty of chances, pal. Just no inclination.”

“Have you still got the letter?”

“It’s hanging on the shithouse wall, isn’t it, Mark? Don’t worry, pal, we’ve put it to good use.”

Jack had started to grin. “Do you think I should give you another chance to change your luck?”

“The cunt’s asking if I want another chance. The only fucking chance I want, pal, is the chance to kick your fucking head in for sending me that crap.”

That seems unambiguous enough,” Jack said, and pressed the receiver rest delicately until it terminated the sound of jeering. He found the number for the name which most appealed to him, but Fazackerly of Fazakerley must be out on a plumbing job. Maybe a woman would give him a more sympathetic hearing than he’d had so far today, he thought, and phoned the first name that suggested itself. The phone rang eleven times, then eleven again, and Jack was about to abandon it when it was picked up. “Janys Day?” he said.

That’s me.”

“You don’t know me. I sent you a letter a few weeks ago inviting you to improve your luck.”

“I know.”

She meant she remembered, Jack told himself. “I was wondering if you’d had a chance to do as it asked.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“It’s important, Miss Day. I can assure you from my own experience ‘

“It’s Mrs. Day, not that it’s more than a name any more. I’m sorry, I’ve no time for your kind of thing.”

“I hadn’t either until I found it worked for me. Have, you still got the letter?”

“I’m afraid it’s been torn up.”

“I could provide you with another copy if you’d care to reconsider. It really would be in your best ‘

“You’d be wasting your money as much as you’re wasting your breath now, and my time. Who are you, by the way? Am I supposed to know you?”

“Just a mystery benefactor.”

“I don’t like mysteries, and I don’t like receiving any kind of call from someone who won’t identify himself.”

“I never knew who sent me the letter. It’s the luck that counts, not who the sender is. If you’ll give me just a few minutes I’m sure I can

‘

“That’s men for you, always sure of themselves,” Janys Day said, and cut him off.

“You do know me, or you will,” Jack murmured. “I’m your bad luck.” He was leafing through the directory when someone coughed behind him. “Sorry, have you been waiting long?” Jack said.

“Only a few moments. I only wanted to know where I could find local history.”

“You’re talking to a piece of it. You were seeing it in the making.” Jack escorted the small nervous woman, who cleared her throat several times in the thirty or so seconds it took him, to the secluded alcove where books about Merseyside were shelved, and then he spoke. “I was just phoning in search of some overdue books.”

“I thought that was what it might be.”

Another reader asked Jack to help her discover the law on trading from her house, which took an armful of massive books and over half an hour. Jack had never realised the law was so convoluted; he was glad it didn’t touch him. By the time the reader was satisfied, the librarian was back from lunch. “Ready for the road?” he asked Jack.

“Whenever you give me the licence.”

“You’ll be dealing with an odd customer.”

“I’m used to handling people.”

“Lives by Bromborough Library. They know him there, so he came here.” As Jack set off the librarian added The scenic route is via Eastham.”

That sounded to Jack like an invitation to take his time, though he didn’t intend to take any more than he needed. He drove out of Ellesmere Port, between brick blocks of ‘thirties flats and then clumps of increasingly newer and similar houses, and onto a road which paralleled the motorway and which made him feel rather as though he was excused from participating in a race. Sunlight fluttered through a rank of poplars before the road climbed over the motorway and wound through fields. A long rodent darted out of a hedge and into the hedge opposite. An oil refinery blocked off the fields to Jack’s right, then the road was claimed by Eastham, a village of white cottages built around a churchyard. A dual carriage way divided it from Bromborough, the next village. This radiated from an old stone cross, but most of the buildings around the cross had been occupied by modern shop-fronts, one of which said Bail’s Signs. Several hundred yards around the corner, closer than Jack had anticipated, was the library, and he found himself a space in its car park.

The borrower of the overdue books lived in a small house squeezed between two larger ones overlooking a green in front of the library. As Jack crossed the thirsty grass, he glimpsed a net curtain falling into place at a window not much larger than a car windscreen above the front door. He reached gingerly for the bell push which was dangling from a single screw and exposing its wires, and pressed the grubby plastic button. When even leaning on it provoked no response, he managed to raise the brass knocker and slam it against the tarnished plate on the knurled black door. The knock was answered by a screech of rage, and the door was flung open. “Mr. Samson?” Jack said.

The door had been opened by a tall thin stoop-shouldered man with very red prominent ears. His trousers were bright blue except for the faded knees; his old tweed jacket, like his skin, seemed at least a size too large for him. “Eh?” he shouted, glowering and shoving one ear forwards with a cupped hand.

“Mr. David Samson?”

“What do you want?” he demanded, adding “Eh?” before Jack could open his mouth.

“Those books on the stairs, Mr. Samson. I’m from the library.”

Behind Samson, at the end of a short dim hall whose carpet was dusty with fallen plaster, Jack could see a pile of large books halfway up the stairs, which also bore some tins of food and an indeterminate crumpled item of clothing. Among the titles on the spines were the names of all the artists who were the subjects of the books Jack had been sent to reclaim. That much he saw before Samson moved to block his view, shouting “You’re not from the library’ and pointing across the road.

“Not this one. Ellesmere Port.”

“Ellesmere Port? Half the time you can’t get a bus to it. They say one’s coming and it never does. If you ask me they want to keep us in our houses so we won’t be able to use our bus passes,” Samson yelled, and glared accusingly at Jack.

“I’m not from the bus company,” Jack said, aware that an interested audience was gathering outside the library. “I just want the books.”

“Eh?” Samson shouted, pushing both ears forward.

“The books, Mr. Samson,” Jack said, lowering his voice.

“You want to take away the only pleasure I’ve got left, do you? Those books belong to everyone. We pay for them out of our poll tax, them and your wages.”

“It’s because they belong to everyone that the library would like them back.”

“Eh?”

“I don’t think you’re as deaf as that, Mr. Samson,” Jack said in an ordinary voice.

“You don’t, eh?” Samson shouted, and his face crumpled with fury. He rose to his full height, towering unsteadily over Jack, and shook a finger at him while haranguing the dozen or so people outside the library. “Look, here’s the latest thing. Here’s how we can expect to be treated in future. Better not borrow any books, because if you’re too ill to return them the authorities will send a thug to break into your house.”

“I haven’t touched you or your house,” Jack said for only him to hear. “But I won’t leave without the books.”

“Come and look at him. He’s enjoying himself.” When nobody made a move Samson peered at Jack’s face and shuddered. “You’re mad. You’re dangerous.”

“Only when I have to be.”

Samson ducked into the cottage. “Don’t you take one step closer,” he said, no longer shouting. “Here, have your books if they’ll get rid of you. God help the world if there are many like you in it.” He stalked rapidly along the hall, his feet crunching fallen plaster, and grabbed the top book from the pile. “El Greaso, he’s yours, isn’t he? He sounds like he paints,” he said, and shied the book along the carpet. “Who else are you after? Piss Arrow? Pick Arso?”

“If you throw the books I’ll have to come in to stop you,” Jack said.

Samson clutched the entire pile of books to his chest and staggered towards Jack. “Nobody comes in, not even to read these,” he shouted, nodding sideways at the gas and electric meters just inside the cottage. “When they come to carry me out in a box, then it’ll be open house. Here, take the lot if it’ll make you happy, if it’ll wipe the grin off your face,” he said, his voice beginning to falter, and dumping the books at Jack’s feet, slammed the door so hard that the dangling bell push danced against the wall.

They were all library books. Jack loaded them against his chest and made for the car park. Most of the audience had gone inside the library, but an old couple with a wheeled basket and a Yorkshire terrier walked along with him. “You did better than the gas man,” the woman said.

“We could use a few like you to chase our tenants,” her husband told Jack. And we never even saw you lay a finger on him.”

“I didn’t.”

“Of course not. All it requires is not taking no for an answer.”

“More power to you,” the woman said. “You’re an asset to the community.”

By the time Jack unlocked the van they were out of sight. He piled the books on the passenger seat and strolled towards the shops. Those which faced Dail’s Signs were closed for the afternoon, and the view of the shop from near the stone cross was obscured by a bus shelter. As Jack left the car park a small queue of people with their backs to him climbed on a bus for Ellesmere Port. The bus swung round the crossroads, and then the street was deserted.

Both Bail’s shop window and the glass panel of the door were opaque with signs: KEEP OUT, BEWARE OF THE DOG, NO TRESPASSING, NO CREDIT, NO SMOKING … Jack squatted in front of the door, his briefcase nudging his calves, and prised open the letter’ slot which was only a couple of feet from the ground. The floorboards in the gloom were bare, and directly in front of him a gap between two of them, as wide as a gap drawn with a felt-tipped pen, led to a counter encrusted with plastic signs. “The line of fire,” he murmured, and applying his lighter to the nozzle of the blow lamp poked the flame through the metal slot.