Slippery Creatures Page 11

  He tried to make himself consider this calmly. Did the War Office want the information badly enough to put an undercover man on the job? Perhaps they did: Libra had wanted it badly enough to threaten torture.

  But Ingoldsby was War Office and he hadn’t tried to make Will trust Kim. He, or his sidekick Price, had said those unpleasant things about Kim, tried to put Will off him...and the net result had been to make Will trust him more. Of course it had. On another man the same tactic might have worked the opposite way, made him feel that Ingoldsby was the honest one, but Will had always been stubborn in the face of authority.

  He’d been played like a fish. No, it was far worse than that, he realised, with a plunging sensation. He’d been hooked, netted and put on a slab, and he hadn’t even seen it coming.

  Kim had trapped him so neatly. And carefully, too, with those lingering looks that never took it too far, ensuring Will made the first move. He couldn’t possibly call it entrapment. And Will had made that move, and now there was a small matter of two years or so for gross indecency to be used against him at any time. Doubtless Kim would disappear from the charge sheet, or maybe they simply knew that Will couldn’t risk it getting that far.

  Did Ingoldsby know? He’d dared Will to ask who’d given him the key. Had Kim told him how he planned to keep Will occupied?

  Will wanted to be sick. He wanted to strip the sheets off the bed he’d shared with Kim last night and burn the damned things. He wanted to burn down the entire fucking bookshop, in fact, just to make sure that piece of shit never got what he was after. If the tattoo people came back, he’d give them free range over the place.

  He finished his whisky and poured another, aware of his empty stomach but with no desire to put food in it.

  It all fit together too well for any other explanation. Kim was Intelligence of some sort, had been from the start. That was how he knew how to fight, not any nonsense about Bolsheviks. He’d been sent to ingratiate himself with Will. In fact, odds were he’d supplied the big thug himself as a way in and to give Will a reason to trust him. The giant hadn’t had any tattoos on his wrists, had he?

  And come to that, after Libra and his pal had attacked, Will had spoken of the second man’s tattoo as a sheep’s head, but Kim had said ram’s head. He knew who they were. He’d known everything all along.

  “Christ, Darling, you’re thick,” Will said aloud into the empty shop.

  He wanted to break things, important things, just like Kim had. He wanted, violently, to go back to the flat in Holborn and pound Kim’s face to jelly, the treacherous bastard. Or, he supposed, the dedicated patriot. He knew that attitude bitterly well. No action was too dastardly and no damage too great if one acted in the service of one’s country.

  Balls to that. Kim was a treacherous lying shit, Ingoldsby was a housebreaker and would-be thief, and if that was what it took to defend your country then your country could rot. Fuck the lot of them. He wasn’t standing for this.

  He made himself a couple of large sandwiches with the last of the bread and cheese, and a pot of strong tea, then he settled down to work. He checked the three Shakespeares first, page by tissue-thin page, a job so lengthy and boring that his resentment of Kim doubled for making him do it. He found no missing pages, no writing.

  Fine. He’d just find every other edition of Shakespeare, single plays or collected works, that his uncle had accumulated over the last forty-odd years.

  It was two o’clock in the morning before he was reasonably confident that he had them all. By this time he was dusty again—good, he didn’t want Kim’s cleanliness—and had learned to hate publishers who didn’t stamp the name of volumes clearly on the spine, but his haul included twelve complete Shakespeares, ranging from relatively cheap card bindings to an extremely nice leather-bound 1822 edition, and some fifty copies of individual plays.

  He checked the flyleaves on every single damn book, because “Ex Libris Dr. Draven” would have been a useful thing to see at this point, then he ferried the lot into the back room, stacked them under his bed, and settled down for the night with his knife under the pillow.

  The bedsheets smelled of Kim.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Will kept the blinds down and the Closed sign up the next morning. Quite a few people knocked on the door; he ignored them all. He didn’t delude himself that he could do so forever—he’d have to leave the shop for food at some point, and anyway night would come, and with it threats. He couldn’t live under siege, and even were that possible, he couldn’t afford to keep the place shut indefinitely. But for now, he needed the breathing space.

  He went through each Shakespeare methodically, page by page by thousands of pages, and found the secret in the fifth copy. It was an 1895 print of the Globe edition, cover faded, good condition, but nothing particular to attract a buyer. The writing, a spidery mass of black ink down both gutters of a spread, came in the middle of Timon of Athens, a play he’d never heard of. Will couldn’t make head or tail of it—it was all abbreviations and chemical symbols, plus some cryptic notes on production techniques.

  What he did find was the lines that must have given Kim the clue. That was what a posh education got you.

  What is amiss plague and infection mend!

  Graves only be men's works and death their gain!

  “My work is only graves,” Draven had written. Same thing. Not a good thing.

  “Cheerful,” Will muttered aloud, but irony wasn’t any sort of shield from the cold feeling in his head. Plague and infection, it said, next to a scientific procedure that people burgled and tortured and whored themselves to get hold of.

  This was very, very bad. Should he just tear out the pages and burn them? That might be best all over, but it wouldn’t get rid of the War Office or the tattoo people. If he told them he’d burned the information, he doubted he’d be believed, and if he was believed, he’d probably face retaliation. Libra hadn’t seemed a man to take defeat with grace. If he didn’t burn it he’d have a bargaining chip, but not one he wanted to use, and there was always the risk they might find it.

  He couldn’t see any way to square that circle without damning himself. Could he pass the black spot to somebody else, as Draven had to his uncle? No: that was unfair, and he didn’t know anyone he could trust. In books, the hero usually had an uncle or family friend who worked for an unspecified intelligence agency and could be relied on to get one out of a tight corner. Will was fresh out of uncles, and his only friend who worked for an unspecified intelligence agency was bloody Kim.

  Fine. He’d do it himself.

  “I didn’t live through Flanders to get killed in Charing Cross,” he said aloud, and took the books’ silence for agreement.

  BY ELEVEN HE HAD A plan of sorts. He went out through his back yard and over the walls to carry out his scheme and made a trip of it, eating a large lunch at a nearby Lyons. He also bought food for a couple of days. When he got back to the shop with his bags, Price was waiting on his doorstep.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” Will told him. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “You were warned,” Price said. “I’ve a message from Captain Ingoldsby.”

  “If he wants to give me a message he can deliver it in person. I’ve a few things to tell him myself.”

  “Will you hear the message?”

  Will indicated that he would not, and added his opinion of proceedings to date, using verbal skills honed over four years in the trenches. Price’s ears went extremely red, and he retreated in short order. Will let himself in to the shop, flipped the sign to Open, and set about raising the blinds.

  Two men came in about a minute and a half later. “Afternoon, gentlemen,” Will called, without looking up. “Can I help you?”

  “Just browsing,” came the reply from behind a shelf.

  “That’s fine. If you’re after Shakespeare, it’s at the front.”

  There was a short but expressive silence, then a man appeared round the shelves. He was a nondes
cript sort of fellow, not one Will had seen before. “What was that?”

  “If you’re after Shakespeare, it’s all here.” Will indicated the small set of rolling shelves he’d set up next to his desk, with four Collected Works and all the single-play copies. “Browse away. Or let me know if there’s a particular play you’re after.” He swung his feet back on to his desk and carried on reading War of the Worlds, a copy of which he’d found between Measure for Measure and a battered volume of Mrs. Beeton.

  The man hovered a moment. Will looked up again with the put-upon expression of a bookseller expected to sell books. “Anything I can do for you, sir?”

  The man tensed. Will pulled open the drawer to his right, where he’d put his knife. “Whenever you like.”

  Their eyes locked, then the man turned and walked away. Will heard extremely quiet whispering from behind the shelf. He got silently to his feet, the Messer behind his back, and cat-walked to the end of the aisle.

  He wasn’t at all surprised to see the second man was Libra.

  “Hello, there,” Will said. “I asked your pal if I could help you.”

  “You’re playing games,” Libra said. “That’s a bad idea.”

  “I am now,” Will agreed. “Everyone’s been playing with me, and the name of the game is silly buggers. I’ve had enough of it.”

  “Then let’s not play. You have the information. Mr. Darling. You’ve found it. Now you need to hand it over.”

  “I told you before. Draven made conditions on who it should go to, and set a password. If you have that word, I’ll give you what you want.”

  Libra took a step forward. Will did too, settling the knife hilt in his hand. “No funny business. I’m not in the mood, and I’m not a fool. The information isn’t on the premises any more.”

  “I expect you could lay your hands on it easily enough.”

  Will grinned mirthlessly. “That wouldn’t be very clever of me, would it?”

  Libra scanned his face, then stepped back. “You’re a shopkeeper, Mr. Darling. I suggest we make a deal.”

  “You’re offering to buy it?”

  “It’s valuable information. I’m happy to pay. I can be more generous than any other buyer, just as I can be more implacable than any other enemy.”

  “Don’t threaten me,” Will said. “I don’t take it well. As you say, I’m a shopkeeper so I need to consider my price. Come back to me—in three days’ time, say, at four in the afternoon, no earlier. And no funny business before then or the information goes direct to the War Office. That stunt you pulled the other night won’t do any more. I’ve got the whip hand now and I’m taking precautions.”

  Libra didn’t move, but Will could see the tension in his stillness. He shifted his weight slightly, letting his knife hand come to his side. Libra’s eyes flicked down then met his.

  “I wonder if you’re a brave man, or a stupid one.”

  “Mostly I’m annoyed,” Will said. “Clear off. I’ve work to do.”

  The next arrival of note was Ingoldsby, an hour or so later. He stormed down the street past the window, threw the door open with a wild jangle, and stamped to the desk. Will kept his feet up. If he was going to be a member of the awkward squad, and he was, he might as well play the game to the full.

  “Ah, Captain. Pull up a chair.”

  Ingoldsby glanced around, realised there wasn’t a chair, and gave him a fulminating glower. “Well, Mr. Darling?”

  “Well, what?”

  “You informed my colleague you wished to talk to me.”

  “No, I told him you should deliver your messages in person. I expect you’ll start with an apology for trespassing.”

  “That isn’t my intention,” Ingoldsby said through his teeth. “Make no mistake, you would be well advised to co-operate, starting now.”

  “If you threaten me, I will throw you out of here by the scruff of your neck,” Will said. “Be quiet and listen. I found your information.”

  “Where is it?” Ingoldsby snapped.

  “Where you knew it was. Written in the margins of Timon of Athens.”

  “Where?”

  “All the copies of Shakespeare I have are on that shelf.” Will indicated it with a lazy hand.

  Ingoldsby took two steps to the bookshelf, glowered at it, and swung back. “What are you playing at?”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “There was at least one other copy, a different edition, that’s not here.”

  “Well observed,” Will said. “Actually, there’s quite a few others gone as well. I spent some time this morning distributing them outside this shop. But I expect you already knew that because you were having me watched.”

  “Enough tomfoolery. Where is the information?” The cords of Ingoldsby’s neck were standing out.

  “Where you won’t find it. If you want my cooperation, you’ll need to persuade me I ought to cooperate, and I mean persuade, not threaten. I’ve already told that to your friend Libra and his gang.”

  “Libra,” Ingoldsby repeated.

  “Also round here this afternoon, looking for Shakespeare—”

  “Are you certain of that?” It was almost a bark.

  “Ask your watchers if you don’t trust me. I intend to give this thing only to someone who can give me Draven’s password, or who can persuade me that their right to have it outweighs my uncle’s obligation to keep it safe. So what I want from you is frankness. Not orders, not trespassing, and if I get one more threat from you you’ll never see it at all. I mean that. I will burn the damned thing if you menace me again.” He let that sink in. “But if you give me an honest explanation, and have a reasonable case, I’ll be reasonable too. By the way, I’m sure you know this Libra chap knocked me on the head and tied me up and so on. If you want to have him arrested for his efforts in this business, I’d be very happy to cooperate in that. As a starting point, he’ll be back here in three days to offer me money for the papers—which, for the record, I have no intention of selling to him or anyone. I thought you might be able to use that.”

  Will had planned what he was going to say and thought it was pretty good overall—sensible, suggesting a possible way forward without giving in, and offering something useful. Ingoldsby didn’t react as he had hoped. He simply stared in a silence that lasted a worryingly long time. Finally, and in a much calmer tone than before, he said, “You really have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

  “That’s because nobody will tell me anything. Feel free to start.”

  The man breathed very deeply, in a commendable effort at self-control. “I will need to discuss this. In the meantime—and this is not a threat but a warning—I strongly suggest you stop playing with fire. You are swimming in deep waters, Mr. Darling.”

  “Wouldn’t that put the fire out?”

  Ingoldsby snarled, and left. Will grinned to himself and returned to HG Wells while he awaited further developments.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Further developments duly came the next day, just before closing time, in the form of Kim.

  Will had the warning from the bell. He heard the jangle, then footsteps, then the scrape of the bolt as someone locked the door. He sat up, reaching for the knife, and didn’t hurry to put it down when Kim appeared around the shelf.

  He seemed different, harder-faced, or perhaps that was Will’s imagination, but he sounded quite normal as he said, “Good afternoon.”

  Will looked at him, looked at the knife, considered his options, and went for, “Go fuck yourself.”

  “I take it that means there’s nobody else here?” Kim enquired, and waited for Will’s nod. “Good. I realise I’m not welcome.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Will said. “You set me up, lied to me for days, and stole my key. You worked out the answer in front of my face, and sent your War Office pals to rummage around my shop instead of telling me. You got me to trust you and abused my trust, and that’s not the half of it. You betrayed me, you lied— I’d call you a whore b
ut you’re nothing so honest. Were you really going to let yourself get fucked all night just so your War Office pals could search my shop? I don’t even know a word for that.”

  Kim didn’t respond. His face was impassive.

  “And apart from what you did to me, you also dragged me into the shitty way you treat your fiancée. You were trying to throw her out so you could—with me, for the sake of the fucking War Office— I hope to God she finds a better man than you. It shouldn’t be hard.”

  “You might think so. Is there any chance you’d listen to me?”

  “I listened to you last time. Didn’t do me much good.”

  “Indeed not. Nevertheless, I don’t want to see you suffer over this.”

  Will took a long, slow breath and let it out silently, the way he’d been trained. “If you’ve come here to blackmail me—”

  “I suppose I deserved that,” Kim said tightly. “No, I have not.”

  “I don’t know why you’re getting on your high horse. Does it not count as blackmail if you supply the evidence and let someone else do the extortion? You sold me to Ingoldsby, you shit!”

  “Christ, Will. I am not here to threaten you.”

  “You’d better not be, or I’ll break you in half.”

  “You’re the one who’s going to get hurt here,” Kim said, with unsettling certainty. “I understand you found the information. Was it Timon of Athens?”

  His tone was so matter-of-fact that Will found himself responding, “How did you know?”

  “That letter had been nagging at me since I read it. My work is graves. Couldn’t place it. Then I quoted a line to you—Men shut their doors against a setting sun—which also happens to be Timon, and it clicked.”

  “So you ran off to give your boss my key and tell him to raid my shop.”