‘And when I learned you’d traveled to Indiana, I knew you wouldn’t have returned empty-handed. I’ve discovered a lot about you during my time here. You should be dead, but the fact that you’re not is indicative only of resilience, and a measure of good fortune. You’re a remarkable man, but that’s all you are, despite what others may believe. As for what you yourself believe, I couldn’t possibly speculate.’
Parker didn’t bite, but quietly filed away the name of the woman: Mors.
‘The vellum additions,’ he said. ‘What are they?’ He gave Quayle no clue that he was aware of the larger work of which they were a part.
Quayle’s dead eyes took on a new light, like flames igniting in a pair of polluted pools.
‘Maps, or parts of them.’
‘To hidden treasure?’
‘Of a sort.’
‘A lot of people have died because of them.’
‘You have no idea how many. So where is the book?’
‘It’s safe, but you’re not.’
Quayle dismissed the threat with a wave.
‘No safer than Owen Weaver, perhaps. You could call the police, but they’ll find nothing to connect me to those killings, beyond the presence in Indiana of someone who might have borne a passing resemblance to myself. My background is in law, Mr Parker. I know whereof I speak. But while all that is going on, Owen Weaver will be dead, and soon after so will his daughter, and Karis Lamb’s son, before we move on to everyone who matters or has ever mattered to you or your friends, until no one will be left to speak your names.
‘And it won’t change what is to come, because eventually the book will be traced. I’ve been hunting it for a very long time, and I’ve never yet been closer. I can wait a little longer. I’m very patient. You, by contrast, have no room to negotiate. You’ve already seen what we’re prepared to do. Don’t add your own child to the list of the dead.’
With those words, any doubts Parker had entertained about killing Quayle vanished. Whatever might occur in the hours or days to come, he would eventually find Quayle and Mors, and put an end to their lives.
‘So,’ said Parker, ‘how do we do this?’
112
Quayle departed first, and didn’t appear worried about turning his back on Parker. He stepped outside, a car appeared, and Quayle climbed in the passenger seat. By the time Parker got to the sidewalk, the car had turned down Forest Street at speed and vanished into the night.
Parker first called Louis, and waited for him to get out of earshot of the Weavers before updating him.
‘It’s like I thought,’ Parker said. ‘Quayle doesn’t care about the boy. He only wants the book.’
‘Are you going to give it to him?’
‘What choice do I have? It’s a simple trade: the book for Owen Weaver.’
‘And no police.’
‘No police. He says the woman will kill Weaver if they see blue. And he’s only given us an hour to get moving, so there’s not enough time to call in outside contractors.’
‘Which, unless I’ve miscounted, just leaves the two of us.’
‘Quayle told me to come alone.’
‘Doesn’t mean you have to.’
‘Call Moxie. Get him to move the Weavers again, just in case. I’ll meet you back at the Inn.’
Parker next called Bob Johnston, and told him he was on his way to collect the book.
‘It’s still in pieces,’ said Johnston.
‘Then stick them together again.’
Parker hung up, but didn’t return to his car. He crossed the street to the taxi stand by the bus station, hopped in the only cab waiting, and asked the driver to cruise around while gradually making her way toward the East End. He kept an eye on the traffic behind as they pulled out, but could detect no signs of pursuit. He didn’t want to lead Quayle straight to the book.
‘Worried about being followed?’ the driver asked. She was small and white-haired, and her cab smelled of the kind of perfume that stores didn’t bother to tag against thieves. Parker had seen her around town over the years. Her license declared her to be Agata Konsek, and she looked old enough to have once driven horse-drawn carriages.
‘Not with you at the wheel, I hope.’
‘Okay. Just so’s I know.’
Agata Konsek had missed her calling as a spy – or given her name, maybe she hadn’t – because she demonstrated a skill at elusion that was obviously hard learned. She ran red lights, cut down one-way streets, and took shortcuts through alleyways, all while watching the rearview for signs of pursuit, before making a bootlegger’s turn after a blind curve and crossing two lanes of 295 at speed. Parker might have been even more impressed if she hadn’t caused him to fear for his life. Eventually they reached Bob Johnston’s building, where Parker asked Konsek to wait. He could see no lights burning, but Johnston must have been watching for him because Parker was buzzed in before he pressed the bell. He walked up to the top floor and found Johnston seated at his desk, the book loosely assembled beside him, although the vellum leaves remained separate from it.
‘I didn’t even bother trying,’ said Johnston.
‘What did you want me to look at?’
‘Where would you like to start?’
‘Bob, I don’t have time for games. Just give me the simple version.’
Johnston opened the book at the plate from ‘The Frog Prince,’ and handed it to Parker.
‘There isn’t a simple version,’ he said. ‘Unless you can explain the changes.’
Parker instantly spotted the alteration. The tapestry on the wall was once again indistinct, the bull-headed creature no longer visible. He flipped through a couple of the others, including ‘Snow-White and Rose-Red,’ with the same result. None of the figures that previously appeared to have been added to the plates could now be seen.
‘They’re all gone,’ said Johnston. ‘Every one of them. And that’s just the appetizer. This is the entrée.’ He showed Parker the third sheet of vellum, about six inches in length and an inch wide. ‘It was concealed in the spine of the book. My guess it’s of the same age and provenance as the other two.’
‘Have you opened it out?’
‘It’s blank – kind of.’
‘Bob …’
‘Look, I can’t be certain. At first I thought I was looking at veins from the original animal, whatever that might be, because blood collects in the skin at death. Also, natural flaws in the parchment can sometimes resemble topography. I began to wonder if I’d just been looking at the pages for too long, but I took a break to rest my eyes, and when I came back they were still there: rivers, islands, coastlines.’
He unfolded the sheet, and pulled the magnifier and its light into place.
‘See?’
Parker stood over the glass, and saw that Johnston was right. The lines were very faint, but not random. It confirmed the truth of what Quayle had told him: these were pieces of a map.
‘If it’s a country,’ said Johnston, ‘it’s none that I know.’
Parker stepped back from the desk. ‘Why would this have been hidden?’ he asked.
‘Why is anything hidden? Someone didn’t want it to be found, but didn’t care for it to be lost either. The concealment might have been done in a hurry. The stitching on the spine wasn’t perfect, but if the binding had been properly reinforced, I might not have spotted it at all. Maybe the other two pieces are less important than this one, or are incomplete without it. You know: the book is found, the visible sheets are removed, the remnants are discarded, but whoever has only those two pieces is still denied all the information.’
Although time was pressing, Parker took a few moments to think. He wondered how much Quayle really knew about the book and its contents. Had Quayle ever seen it? How detailed were the available descriptions? Judging by what Karis Lamb had shared with Leila Patton, the man from whom she stole the book had spent years searching for it, and he wasn’t the only one looking. Was Vernay aware that it contained three fragments, or was he under the impression it held only two? And if so, was Quayle also laboring under the same misapprehension?
Suddenly, Parker had an advantage.
‘Just what is this thing?’ Johnston asked, his gloved hands lightly moving over the cover of the book like a blind man searching for braille, the question more rhetorical than anything else. ‘Those fragments aren’t vellum. It’s skin of some kind, but it doesn’t burn. Well, it does burn, but it doesn’t stay burned.’