‘That’s impossible,’ says Kuldesh Sharma, pushing eighty, handsomely bald, and wearing a lilac suit and a white silk shirt unbuttoned to a point beyond the confidence of any ordinary man.
‘Improbable, certainly,’ says Stephen. ‘But not impossible. I saw them with my own eyes. Book after book, all just sitting there.’
Donna is browsing at the back of the dark shop. ‘This is beautiful,’ she says, holding up a bronze figurine.
‘Anahita,’ says Kuldesh, looking over. ‘The Persian goddess of love and battle.’
‘Love and battle, good for you, Anahita,’ says Donna. ‘I love her.’
‘Unless you love her two thousand pounds, I might have to ask you to put her down,’ says Kuldesh.
Donna places Anahita down very carefully, her eyebrows rising in counterweight as she does so.
‘Is full of stuff, your shop,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is very beautiful. Very beautiful.’
‘One acquires things,’ says Kuldesh. ‘Over the years.’
‘And if I put everything you’ve acquired through a police computer,’ says Donna, ‘is there anything that would raise an alarm?’
‘Save yourself the time,’ says Kuldesh. ‘The only dodgy old things in this shop are Stephen and me.’ Donna smiles. ‘Now, shall we get to the business at hand?’
Stephen shows Kuldesh the list he wrote in the car. ‘And these were just the ones I could identify. Books everywhere.’
Kuldesh runs a finger down the list, puffing his cheeks as he goes. ‘The Deeds of Sir Gillion de Trazegnies?’
‘A few million?’ guesses Stephen.
‘At least,’ says Kuldesh, still reading the list. ‘This list is completely insane. You would need billions to buy all of these. The Monypenny Breviary? How does Billy Chivers have all of these?’
Bogdan pulls up a wooden chair to sit with Kuldesh and Stephen.
‘I wouldn’t sit on that,’ says Kuldesh. ‘It’s worth fourteen grand, and you are tremendously large. There’s a milking stool somewhere.’
Bogdan locates and pulls up the milking stool. ‘Maybe don’t worry about Billy Chivers. Maybe someone else bought them.’
‘Chivers is just looking after them,’ agrees Stephen.
Kuldesh folds the list up and puts it in the pocket of his suit jacket. ‘I will ask around. But this is pretty big, even for me.’ He looks over to Donna. ‘I am but a humble shopkeeper, I don’t really know any criminals.’
‘And I’m the goddess of love and battle,’ says Donna, now looking at a pewter inkwell in the shape of a chihuahua.
‘But you might know someone who knows someone?’ Stephen asks Kuldesh.
‘I might,’ says Kuldesh. ‘I would like to help.’
Donna wanders over. ‘And would you ever be tempted to help the police, Mr Sharma?’
Kuldesh shrugs a little. ‘Let me tell you a story, Donna. A story that I suspect will not surprise you. I’ve been in this shop for nearly fifty years, opened up in the nineteen seventies, Kemptown Curios, proprietor Mr K. Sharma, written so beautifully over the window. Like a British shop, you know? Like the shops I’d seen in films; I did it myself. The first night, bricks through the window. I fixed, I repainted, I reopened. The moment I reopen, bricks through the window. Every night until they got bored, until they moved on to someone new.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Donna.
‘Not at all,’ says Kuldesh. ‘A long time ago. But perhaps you can guess how helpful the Brighton police were to me in the nineteen seventies?’
‘Not particularly?’ guesses Donna.
‘Not particularly,’ agrees Kuldesh. ‘If you’d told me the bricks were theirs, it wouldn’t have shocked me. And so I have steered clear of them ever since and, largely, they have steered clear of me. Best for everyone, I think.’
Donna nods. She can only imagine.
‘Stephen,’ says Bogdan. ‘I need to speak to Kuldesh by myself for a moment. Is OK?
‘You know best,’ says Stephen. ‘I’ll fetch the car.’
‘Maybe …’ Bogdan says. ‘Maybe Donna could go with you? Keep you company.’
Donna gives Bogdan a wink, and takes Stephen by the arm.
‘Thank you, Kuldesh, old chap,’ says Stephen. ‘Knew you’d be the man for the job. Give my love to Prisha. Dinner soon?’
‘Dinner soon,’ says Kuldesh, rising and embracing Stephen. ‘I will tell Prisha I saw you, and I will see her face light up, I know.’
‘You’re a lucky sod with that one,’ says Stephen.
Donna leads Stephen from the shop. Bogdan and Kuldesh wait until the final reverberations of the shop bell have silenced.
‘Prisha is dead, I think?’ asks Bogdan.
‘Fifteen years ago,’ says Kuldesh. ‘But I will tell her I saw Stephen, and she will smile.’
Bogdan nods.
‘And I was a lucky sod, he’s right there. How ill is he? Getting worse? I cannot tell you how kind Stephen has been to me over the years. Lucrative too, but the kindness is the real treasure.’
‘He remembers what he remembers,’ says Bogdan. ‘And for now he doesn’t really know what he forgets.’
‘That’s a mercy,’ says Kuldesh. ‘For now.’
‘You can help with Stephen’s list?’ asks Bogdan.
‘If one person owns all of these books,’ says Kuldesh, ‘then I might be able to find out who. Difficult. I’m guessing it’s not Bill Chivers, though?’
‘No, is not Bill Chivers,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is someone who wants to kill Stephen’s wife.’
‘Elizabeth?’
Bogdan nods. ‘Elizabeth.’
‘Then I will find out,’ says Kuldesh. ‘That is my promise. She’s still firing on all cylinders I hope?’
‘Most of them,’ says Bogdan. ‘I’m sorry I brought a police officer into your shop. But is only Donna.’
‘A friend of Stephen is my friend,’ says Kuldesh. ‘Even if they’re in a uniform. Give me a couple of days to see what I can find.’
Kuldesh shakes Bogdan’s hand and starts to usher him to the door. But Bogdan seems reluctant to leave.
‘Is there something else?’ asks Kuldesh.
Bogdan is shifting his weight from foot to foot. Then he nods his head towards the back of the shop.
‘The statue that Donna liked?’ asks Bogdan. ‘How much for cash?’
53
Joyce
I met Fiona Clemence today, that’s my big news. Also, I had a gun in my handbag which, on any other day, would probably be the big news. Thirdly, Blackfriars Station has the tiniest branch of WHSmith you’ve ever seen in your life.
What a day we’ve had of it, though. We left at about ten, and we weren’t back till gone seven. Viktor is still not back from seeing Jack Mason. All his bits of paper are scattered all over the floor. The financial records. This morning I asked him if he’d had any luck, and he said there was no luck involved, and I said, well, I was just making conversation, and he said, yes, I was quite right, and then he put the kettle on. We rub along just fine.
Normally Alan would have a field day with all those bits of paper. Chewing them, tearing them. But he was stepping around them politely. Viktor has explained their importance to Alan, and asked him to be very careful with them. Viktor does have a persuasive tone. For example, he had me watching the Formula 1 the other day, even though there was a Poirot on ITV3. He makes everything feel like it was your idea in the first place. Alan and I just sit there nodding half the time.
Before I come into the flat now, I have to do a special knock so Viktor knows it’s me. It’s just four quick knocks, and it sort of matches the rhythm of the moonpig.com advert. Viktor says that if he hears the door open without the knock, I will find him behind the sofa with a handgun. ‘I don’t want to shoot you by accident,’ he said, ‘but I will.’