Authors: Phil Rickman
‘In theory. In fantasy.’
‘Fantasy,’ Miss White said, ‘is a material. I prefer to spell it with a ph… as in phantasm. Phantasy is a material with which magic works. Ponder that, Watkins. Now go and tell your police friend.’
‘He’d think it was bollocks.’
‘Well then…’ Miss White smiled bleakly. ‘There you have the eternal dichotomy.’ She looked up into the rain. ‘We should go in.’
Merrily stood up. Held the Zimmer frame steady.
‘Get away!’
‘Sorry.’
Miss White looked up, her mascara starting to run.
‘That pool… has a reputation. Did you know that?’
‘Has it?’
Merrily zipped up her hoodie over the pectoral cross.
It’s got form
, Bliss said in her head.
‘Watkins…’ Bluing knuckles gripping the handles of the Zimmer. ‘Never thought I’d say this, but keep me informed.’
‘Which of us would that help, Athena?’
‘I can’t tell you what you don’t know, but I may be able to confirm what you think you might.’
‘I think I see.’
‘Good,’ Miss White said.
23
Victims
S
TANDING ALONE IN
the centre of his bookstore –
his
store, for Chrissakes – Robin had a panic attack so sudden it was like an altered state of consciousness. Spinning around on a terrifying carousel of half-filled, crooked shelves, his mouth dry, his brain turned into a wrung-out sponge.
Holy shit, what were they
doing
? They’d hired a hovel in which to sell their souls.
He looked around for a chair and there wasn’t one. He’d forgotten, once again, to bring a goddamn chair, and the only desk they had was too big, so they needed a new desk to sit at and take the money and discuss stuff with the customers. In two days there would be customers. Or not. Either way, in two days the sign would say
open
.
Robin pressed the tips of his fingers into his forehead, began to breathe very rapidly, each breath going like an old steam train starting up:
fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…
Two days left. Too freaking days to get this place fit to open. No going back now. He’d designed small posters for The Most Mysterious Shop in Hay, taken them round to the newsagents and anyone with a noticeboard. They’d have a proper, formal opening when there were a whole lot more books, flag it up over a much wider area. Maybe even invite the King to perform the ceremony. Saturday – this was gonna be half-assed, but if they didn’t make some kind of start the holiday season would be over.
All Betty’s fault. These days, he only suggested stuff so she could talk him out of it. Betty, who right now was back at the
bungalow, showing people around so they could sell it at the bottom of the market again. If this failed they’d be trapped in the rural poverty band, and he was horrified by the speed it had happened. An easy rental agreement, Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954 and before it even went through they’d been given access to measure up, test the lights, the plumbing, and Robin had come over, day after day, each time hoping it would look different.
And it had. Each time, despite the starry ceiling, it had looked a whole lot worse.
Worst of all, he didn’t like being alone here, now that he couldn’t run any more. He stared at the wall, the doorway to the kitchen and the stairs. The wall was solid, the doorway a shallow open space with musty air, which his imagination at once filled with some black, Lovecraftian needle-toothed denizen of chaos. He could’ve painted it for you in gouache, his medium of choice back in the days when he was
seducer of souls, guardian of the softly lit doorways
. The days before graphic artists been driven out of business by tightwad publishers and Photoshop.
The flash of anger took him to the door. He’d bring in another box of books. More shelves in here than he’d figured. In his head, all the shelves had been bulging after three truckloads had gotten unloaded, but whole boxes of books seemed to fill no space at all. Even though it seemed so cramped in here, the books had gotten swallowed. All his beloved books. The books he hated to sell – what kind of a start was that?
The truck was wedged into the corner, where the top of Back Fold merged with the track to the Castle across the road from the big parking lot. Loading, right? He’d put a sign to that effect on the dash. It also said, SAD CRIPPLE AT WORK.
The rain was holding off, and he stood and gazed across the cars on the scenic parking lot, all laid out like shiny-back molluscs on a beach, over to the sweep of the hill which hardened into the Black Mountains. Not black at all, and the view made his spirit rise a tad. So much here to paint.
He tossed his stick into the truck’s box, let down the tailgate and hauled over one of the book bags, a black bin liner. They’d actually found more books than expected, close to a couple thousand, some rarities, kind of, but he wouldn’t bring these till Saturday morning. Dragging the bag of books until it tipped over the tailgate, Robin squatted down. If he could get underneath it…
‘
Shit!’
The binsack had split. He tried to hold the books in, but the bastards were spilling over the road. Robin stumbled and the pain ripped into his hip.
Oh fuck, fuck, fuck…
‘Hold on, boy…’
A man was under the sack, taking the weight. Robin leaned back against the cab, breathing hard. The guy had the sack back on the truck. Bent to pick up a few of the books and then gathered the whole mess into his arms.
‘You OK?’
‘’Cept for feeling like a dick.’
The guy who’d rescued him was much older, a tall, narrow man in a drooping tweedy jacket and a flat cap, hands behind his back, head tilted, peering.
‘Mr Thorogood, I think.’
Robin looked up, blankly at first, into a half-remembered, half-moon face. Then the past was around his shoulders like a greasy old coat.
‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘You shaved off your moustache.’
Dumb response, but despite all the hours the guy had spent by his hospital bed, he couldn’t recall the name. Pretty clear now, though, why the whole damn town had access to his and Betty’s history.
‘Jones,’ the guy said. ‘Gwyn Arthur. Former detective superintendent of this parish and others either side of Brecon, and now… after an undistinguished but sporadically interesting career… retired.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I live here. People do. Even old plods.’
‘Hell…’ Robin shaking his head. ‘My apologies. Only, anyone connected with that particular stage of my life…’
‘I can imagine you’d want to wipe us all from your memory. A bad time, boy. You caught the attention of a fanatic in need of a target. My greatest regret that we were unable to put him away for peculiar offences. But when no one will testify… hands are tied.’
Robin recalled Jones in the orthopaedic ward, murmuring questions in his mild, West Wales rumble. Recording all Robin could tell him – not enough, evidently – about the ordained minister who’d aroused hatred against Betty and him while abusing women in the name of God.
‘Where’s he now?’
‘Ellis?’ Jones followed him into the store, arms full of leaking bin liner. ‘Over in your homeland, last I heard.’
‘One good reason never to go back. So you’re out of it, now, huh?’
‘Should’ve gone abroad, boy. Retired to Spain like the criminals. My wife wouldn’t. Too much family. Well, hell, I said, they’ll visit. No good. So I bought a share in a bookshop. Just to feel useful.’
‘It working?’
‘Crime fiction. A popular misconception, it is, that policemen despise it. Why should that be, when the police always win? So… there we are. Serve in my shop two days a week, rest of the time prowl the streets, seeing too much. All very sad, Mr Thoro-good.’ He smiled, clapped Robin gently on the shoulder. ‘Should’ve seen the way things were going with that man, long before we did.’
‘Nobody saw,’ Robin said. ‘Nobody outside of the valley.’
‘In this area, the past is like the ditches… well overgrown and full of rusty old barbed wire.’ Jones was looking around the store. ‘Shop all right for you, is it?’
‘Yeah, it… it’s OK. Gets us started. Just dump them anyplace.’
Gwyn Arthur Jones let down the sack. Murry Hope’s
Practical Celtic Magic
and
Myths and Legends of the North American Indians
by Lewis Spence fell out onto the concrete floor.
‘Lot of paperbacks, Mr Thorogood. Unless it’s something like a vintage green Penguin, you can’t make much on paperbacks, I’m finding. Rarely collectors’ items, so people buy the e-books instead.’
‘Well, thanks for those encouraging words.’
‘No, no… you just need more hardbacks. And a reputation for collectors’ items at reasonable prices. Like the cricket boy next door.’
A wave of tiredness washed over Robin.
‘We’re haunting boot sales and charity outlets. Checking out dealers who might pick up books along with furniture in house-clearances.’
‘Well.’ Jones stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at the rubblestone wall above the main shelves. ‘Anytime I can help you, you let me know. All right? With the shop or… anything else?’
Glanced at Robin, like he was waiting for him to speak. Robin dug out a wry smile.
‘I’ve a police pension,’ Jones said, ‘so it’s no more than a diversion for me now, an escape. But I’m thinking it’s serious for you. And your good lady? She’s well?’
‘Sure. Um… I guess it was you told Kapoor. About me and Betty?’
‘When I heard you were taking that shop, I told him I knew you, yes. As well for people to know you were the victims, that’s what I thought. Was that wrong?’
‘No, that’s… thanks.’
‘Remember what I said.’
‘We’re gonna be OK,’ Robin said.
‘Of course,’ Jones said.
* * *
The retired couple from Coventry who came to view the bungalow this morning had been taciturn, appeared incurious. They clearly disliked all the fitted bookshelves, were quietly critical of the garden where Betty grew herbs and Robin struggled to keep the lawn down.
And yet… within an hour of them leaving, the agent was on the phone. They’d made an offer: three thousand less than the asking price. A glow spread through Betty like alcohol. Even Robin had expected to have to come down at least five K.
‘Perhaps you can tell them we’ll think about it,’ she said coolly.
Taciturn and incurious were no bad things, sometimes. Neither of them had asked why a squat, green candle was burning in the window in full daylight.
‘If I’m honest…’ The agent sounding a bit resentful. ‘I doubt you’ll get a better offer.’
‘One of us will get back to you,’ Betty said.
Call it a feeling.
Betty looked over to the window, where the candle was burning low enough, now, to see the jagged end of the front door key embedded in the green wax.
He started to rearrange the shelves with more books face out:
Natural Magic
,
The Book of English Magic
,
A Witch’s Bible
.
If one in three books was face out, he reckoned he could fill all the shelves. Also, they needed to think about getting some of these signed by the authors. Famous pagans. Jeez, how many famous pagans
were
there these days? Gerald Gardner, Alex Sanders, Doreen Valiente – all dead.
Days ago, he’d brought his old Black and Decker and some wooden steps. He shook out some wall plugs into his hand, wondering if they’d be deep enough to plug the outside wall, take big enough screws to hold the sign up:
Thorogood Pagan Books
That seemed so feeble now. It needed a cooler name, more enigmatic.
Too late. Everything was too goddamn late.
Robin lugged the sign outside. Damn. Gonna need a second pair of steps, so he and Betty could hold it up from either side of the doorway. He went over to the cricket shop, see if Kapoor had any.
Kapoor looked suspicious.
‘You OK up a ladder?’
‘Sure.’
‘We could get some guys.’
‘I don’t know anybody.’
‘I’ll get Gore,’ Kapoor said.
‘Gore?’
‘Gwenda’s guy. You know Gwenda’s Bar?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Dead centre of town, opposite the clock. Actually, I was finking… you need to meet people, don’t’cha? Few of us fetch up there most nights. We meet up to bemoan our lot, as Connie Wilby likes to say.’
‘Wilby?’
‘Veteran bookseller. Long established. You wanna meet some other whingeing booksellers, come over to Gwenda’s tonight… say nine? That convenient for you?’
‘I get to bring my wife?’
‘Good idea. Course, the first fing they’ll tell you is to rip up the lease and run like hell.’
Robin grinned. Then he didn’t.
‘Kapoor… seriously,
is
there anything we aren’t being told?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like about the store? The cop was here. Jones? Crime books? Guy who told you how I got to be a cripple?’
‘They don’t use that word any more, Robin.’
‘Cripple’s what I am. It’s like you can’t touch a black guy for calling himself a nigger.’
‘I’ll work that out later. What did Jones say to wind you up?’
‘Nothing. He just kept looking around the place. And not much at the books. Like he knew something and didn’t know whether he needed to tell me or not.’
‘You’re too sensitive, mate.’
‘That’s Betty,’ Robin said.
‘What is?’
‘OK, I realize you don’t believe in this shit, your god being a guy in cricket pads—’
‘Nah, nah, that’s different, innit?’ Kapoor came out from behind his computer. ‘My gran, she was… she’d tell you fings and she was… most times she was on the money. More fings in heaven and earth, all that. I don’t knock noffing, mate.’
Robin stared down at his feet. He used to like discussing this stuff.
‘Betty picks up memories. Vibes. Back when I was in one piece, she got something we’d discuss it. Now… I dunno.’
‘Seems to me that ain’t how it works, mate. Else she’d’ve foreseen a bleedin’ wall coming down on you. Let’s get that sign up, eh? You can put a cloth over it till Saturday. You don’t wanna leave fings too late.’
‘Maybe it’s already too late,’ Robin said.
Kapoor was back towards the end of the afternoon with a crop-haired, close-bearded guy in his thirties. Wore a Welsh rugby shirt and carried a short orchard-type ladder under an arm.
‘Same size as Oliver’s?’
The guy had like an army officer’s voice. He looked up at the gap where Oliver’s sign had hung.
‘Bigger, but it oughta fit,’ Robin said. ‘But it’s pretty damn heavy. It’s oak. I’m just hoping it isn’t gonna drag out any stone.’
‘Should be OK.’ Guy’s hand came out. ‘Gore Turrell. You want to do it now?’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Jeeter said you had a drill. Masonry bits?’
‘I guess.’
Robin went back into the store, found the drill, lugged out the sign. It was heavier than he remembered. Was the storefront even gonna take this kind of weight?
‘Hmm.’ Gore Turrell stood looking up, his hands on his narrow hips. ‘Let me get some more steps.’
‘Anybody can do it, it’s this guy,’ Kapoor said.
Gore Turrell was gone no more than five minutes, returning with a toolbag, the steps under his arm. Kapoor extended a hand like a TV host.