Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry) (54 page)

'Oh?'

'Apparently, the Germans were into it in a big way. They thought they could destabilize the British economy and bring the country to its knees. They were producing half a million counterfeit notes a month at one stage of the war. The Bank of England stopped issuing denominations of over £5, so that it wasn't worthwhile making counterfeits. Of course, there were £1 and ten-shilling notes as well then. The white fivers were the first to go, though.'

'So George Malkin's haul is worthless.'

'Not exactly,' said Cooper. 'Not now. If he'd put them on the market judiciously, he could have been coining it in handsomely for a few years now.'

'How do you mean?'

'I'm told they're collector's items, those notes. According to the expert, white fivers from 1944 in good condition would sell for about £60 each.'

'Jesus,' said Fry. 'George Malkin had two thousand of them stashed away.'

'Nice, eh?'

'And we've got to return them to the RAF. Not so nice.'

'Blasted collectors,' said Cooper. 'Why don't they live in the real world? They distort the value of everything.'

'It's like anything else,' said Fry. 'Things are worth whatever somebody will pay for them.'

'It's crazy.'

'It's called a free market economy, Ben. That's why a footballer is paid millions of quid for kicking a ball about once a week. And it's why you can't afford to buy somewhere decent to live. Let's face it, mate, what you have to offer just isn't marketable.'

'Thanks.'

'Don't thank me. Thank the ungrateful public.'

But Cooper wasn't thinking of his own position. He'd learned never to expect thanks. He was thinking of Walter Rowland sitting at his dining-room table, unable to lift a mug of tea, unable to help himself, and too stubborn to ask for help from anyone else. He was thinking of Rowland starving in a house full of tinned food because he was too proud to tell anyone he couldn't use a tin opener, of an old man frightened to turn up the heating because he didn't know whether he could afford the electricity bill. That was how much society valued what Walter had done for it. And George Malkin had sat and watched his wife die because it had never occurred to him that people would be willing to pay much, much more for a bagful of outdated and useless bank notes than for the treatment to save a woman's life.

'Where are we going next?' said Fry. 'Shall I guess?'

*    *    *    *

Lawrence Daley was alone in the bookshop as usual. He looked over his glasses in outrage at Cooper and Fry when he finally answered their banging.

'Had any customers today, Lawrence?' said Cooper.

'I'm doing my best. A customer here, a customer there, you know. I expect to reach double figures by the end of the year. What do you want?'

'There are lots of other things in life apart from books,' said Fry. 'Can we come in?'

'You can find everything you want to know in books. Life, death, love, the specifications for a 1968 Ford Capri ignition system.'

'And aircraft wrecks?' said Cooper.

'Sorry?'

'You sell books on aircraft wrecks.'

'You know I do – you bought a couple yourself.'

'I've heard there's quite a demand for that sort of thing. And not only books. Other items. Souvenirs. Collectibles.'

Lawrence nodded. 'I believe you're right.'

'Fetch a good price, do they? There's more profit in aircraft souvenirs than in books that never move off the shelf, I guess. A bit of diversification?'

Lawrence fidgeted with a set of keys, watching Cooper's eyes.

'Will you show us the upstairs room, Lawrence?' said Cooper.

The bookseller took off his glasses and fiddled inside his waistcoat for his tiny screwdriver. His eyes looked weary without the glasses. There were blue patches underneath them, and the tired creases that come with age.

'It's not illegal, you know.'

'Then there's nothing to worry about, is there?' said Fry. 'Lead the way.'

*    *    *    *

Lawrence Daley led the way to the foot of the bare wooden stairs, past the sign that said '
staff only
'. The stairs were narrow and unlit, and the boards creaked alarmingly underfoot. Their footsteps echoed in the stairwell, and once they'd turned a corner halfway up, they lost the benefit of the light from the shop. They could see their way only by a naked bulb somewhere high above them, and its reflection in a series of tiny stone-mullioned windows set into the back wall. The light picked out thick strands of blackened cobwebs clinging to the ceilings and the highest corners. The banister rail felt slightly sticky under Cooper's fingers, but he was afraid to let go of it, in case the stairs disappeared in front of him and he lost his footing.

He could see that the building had once been a town house for some wealthy family, a tall, rambling place that the bookshop occupied only half of. The stairs they were climbing were so narrow that they must once have been designed only for the use of servants, who were expected to be thin and undernourished. Probably they were expected to be able to see in the dark, too, and survive the winter without any heating.

Along the skirting boards and on the window ledges, Cooper saw more black mouse droppings. He wondered if Lawrence would be interested in having a cat.

Lawrence stopped in front of them and jingled his keys. Cooper could make out a dusty corridor ahead. Unsurprisingly, it was piled high with books stacked against the walls. There were two or three doors further down, but they were inaccessible because of the number of books in front of them. To the right, though, there was one clear doorway near the head of the stairs, tucked under a sloping section of roof. They must be close to the eaves of the building.

Fry stood behind him, just below one of the mullioned windows. Cooper turned to exchange a look. He saw her face was lit by a strange mottled pattern from the light reflected off the dust on the window.

'No wonder people like Eddie Kemp are never out of work,' she said.

All the doors were narrow and low, as if they'd been made for the use of midgets. The paint on them was old and peeling, but must once have been dark green, and they had brown bakelite handles that had got chipped over the years. There was no carpet on the floor of the passage, and probably never had been. The floorboards had been painted black, and that was the limit of decoration. Cooper shivered. The passage was cold, as cold as George Malkin's farmhouse, but with a different feel to the coldness. Malkin's house had dripped with the chill of emptiness, but this place felt full of phantoms. He could imagine a crowd of pale, thin ghosts in ragged clothes who walked continuously backwards and forwards, day and night, bearing bowls of hot water and candles for their masters.

'Useful-looking attic,' said Fry. 'Have you ever thought of converting it into student bed-sits?'

A gleam came into Lawrence's eye for a moment at the prospect of income from student rents. But he looked at the stacks of books, and his face fell.

'I don't think it's practical.'

'Let's have a look at this room,' said Cooper. 'It's what we came for, after all.'

*    *    *    *

The upstairs room at Eden Valley Books was full of aviation memorabilia, much of it of Second World War vintage. One of the most eye-catching items was an RAF pilot's Irving jacket, which fit Cooper fine when he tried it on. There had been a few repairs to the leather, but the zips and the belt still worked, and the lining was very warm. He could have kept it on and worn it all day.

'Two hundred pounds,' said Lawrence. 'It's still got the MoD label and everything.'

'I'll not bother.'

A cockpit clock was dated 1940. The label said it was in working condition, though it currently showed the time as four twenty-eight. It was priced at £75. A leather flying-helmet with attached oxygen mask seemed to be one of the prime exhibits at £450. Cooper could see that Lawrence put more thought into the prices for his collectibles than he did into pricing his books.

'It's all perfectly legitimate,' said Lawrence.

'That depends on the origin of the items, doesn't it? Where do they come from?' asked Fry.

'People bring them to me.'

'Do they provide any evidence of their origin? What you might call a provenance?'

'Hardly ever. But these people are collectors, or other dealers. The things they bring have been changing hands for years.'

'If you have reason to believe that any of them are stolen or dishonestly obtained – .'

'I don't.'

Fry nodded. 'In that case, you're right. It's legitimate.'

'Do you get any medals?' asked Cooper.

'Sometimes.'

'I was thinking of one particular medal. A Canadian Distinguished Flying Cross.'

'I don't think I've ever had one of those here.'

'Have you ever been offered one?'

'Not as far as I'm aware. I get job lots sometimes. I don't always sort them out. There might be a boxful of medals around here now somewhere.'

'Are you saying that someone could have browsed through your stock and found a medal like that? A Canadian DFC?'

Lawrence shrugged. 'It's possible.'

Cooper reached the table at the far end of the room. 'And what's this?'

He'd picked up a bag. It was a leather bag with flaps, like a large satchel or saddle bag. The label said:
Original RAF leather money bag, 1945
.

'And where did this come from, Lawrence? How much have you been paying Gorge Malkin for his collection?'

'I'm in business,' said Lawrence. 'I pay Malkin what I pay other people.'

There was a tiny window at the back of the room, so high that Cooper could only just see out of it. He rubbed some dirt from the pane, and found he was looking down from the back of the shop into a small yard illuminated by a security light. The backs of tall buildings were clustered all around it. There must be access to the yard somehow, because there was a pair of wooden gates facing him, set into a stone wall protected by bits of broken glass cemented to the coping stones.

'What's in the yard?' asked Cooper.

Slowly, Lawrence selected another key and opened the door. It let a burst of bright light into the room and a cold wind. Cooper could see the top of an iron fire escape, which led down the outer wall of the building. Down there, it was like a junkyard. All sorts of objects lay around. There appeared to be engines, propellers, wheels, and a section of cockpit, but many of the items were unidentifiable. A lot of them were covered in a layer of snow that had frozen on their horizontal surfaces, giving them an enigmatic appearance, like objects in a puzzle, seen from an unfamiliar angle. The snow on the ground was covered in the clawed footprints of birds, which seemed to have wandered aimlessly backwards and forwards, frequently crossing their own path, perhaps looking for food. The aircraft cockpit was one of the larger objects. In the snow on its upper surface, there were bigger, neater footprints prowling among the bird tracks. So there was a cat around, after all.

'I can see the stock,' said Cooper. 'But where do the customers come from? How do you advertise?'

'Through the website mostly,' said Lawrence.

'A website. Of course. Everybody has a website these days.'

'Most of the business isn't done here, you see – this is small-scale stuff. What the website does is put people in touch with each other, all over the world. We just have to maintain the site.'

'Do you have no control over who uses it?'

'We don't check on anybody's
bona fides
. Even if they have an entire aircraft to sell, we don't ask any questions.'

'Who's "we"?' said Cooper.

Lawrence fiddled with the keys. He pulled the door shut, as if ashamed of the view. 'There's a terrible draught with the door open,' he said.

'Who else is involved?' said Cooper.

'I have a bit of help sometimes,' said Lawrence. 'A few people who are interested in the aviation archaeology business.'

'We'll need names.'

'I can't do that. Confidentiality –'

'Rubbish.'

'Who else has access to the yard, apart from you?' said Cooper.

'No one,' said Lawrence.

'What about your business partners?'

Lawrence seemed to think for a moment. He turned to Fry, but her expression was hard and unsympathetic.

'We need names,' she said.

*    *    *    *

When he finally got back to the flat in Welbeck Street that night, Cooper was in no mood to find that there were two cats in the conservatory instead of one. The cat flap had been treated as an invitation to take in guests. The new occupant was a mackerel tabby with blue eyes, and it was another balloon on legs. He wondered how it had managed to squeeze through the cat flap at all without getting stuck.

'Randy, who's your fat friend?' he said.