Days (15 page)

“How much did you pay this man Ng?” he asks the shoplifter.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And how long did he agree to wait before reporting it missing? A week? Two weeks?”

The man does not answer.

“OK, fine. We’ll have a word with Mr Ng, see what he says.”

But Frank and the shoplifter both know what Mr Ng is going to say. He is going to say either that he lost the card or that it was stolen from him, and he will express delight at having it back, and he will swear to look after it more carefully in the future, and nothing further will be done about the matter. The store’s policy is always to reunite cards with their owners, whatever the circumstances, no questions asked. To do otherwise would not make commercial sense.

“Now,” Frank tells the ponytailed man, “the guard is going to take you downstairs for processing and eviction. If at any time you attempt to resist him or to escape, he is within his rights to subdue you using any means necessary, up to and including lethal force. Do you understand this, sir?”

The shoplifter gives a short, weary nod.

“Very good. Don’t come back.”

Yet even as he utters those last three words, Frank knows it is useless. The shoplifter will be back just as soon as his hand heals, if not sooner. The ponytail will be gone, as will the earrings and the blue suit, and he will be disguised – as a Burlington, perhaps, or a foreign diplomat, or a priest (it has happened) – with yet another black-market card in his pocket and yet another legerdemain tactic for obtaining goods without payment. If only the Days administration didn’t cling to their belief that permanent banishment from the store is suitable punishment for any crime committed on the premises and didn’t refuse to prosecute shoplifters through the courts, professionals like this one wouldn’t exist and Frank wouldn’t feel as if he is trying to bale out a leaky boat with a sieve. As it is, all he can do is make the arrests, have the thieves thrown out, and catch them at it again the next time. The most he can hope for is that one person in the now-dispersing crowd of onlookers, just one, having seen how shoplifters are treated when they are caught, will think twice before succumbing to the temptation in the future. It’s a slim hope, but what is the alternative?

None of this, of course, will matter after today, and that is why Frank is calmer than he might have been as he pulls back the flap of the shoplifter’s jacket and fishes out the purloined matchbook from the slit in the lining. It gladdens him to think that tomorrow he will no longer have to be stoically playing his part in this cyclical exercise in futility; that tomorrow he will be free.

9.25 a.m.

“O
H MY,
”
SAYS
Moyle. “Oh dear.” He holds up the two matchbooks side by side for comparison, switching them over, switching them over again. “That’s a skilful piece of forgery, that is, and no mistake. He must have had it made up from the picture in the catalogue. A perfect copy right down to the split in the cover hinge. You can see why I was fooled, can’t you?”

“Yes, I can,” says Frank, “but what I can’t see is why you turned your back on him. That was negligent in the extreme.”

“He seemed legitimate.”

“They
all
seem legitimate, Mr Moyle.”

“True. And you know, now that I think about it, the way he suddenly changed his mind about buying a matchbook
was
rather odd, wasn’t it? It was as if he couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

“He couldn’t.”

“Well, you’ve caught him, that’s the main thing,” Moyle says. “You’ve caught him and I get my Raj Tandoori original back. All’s well that ends well, eh?” He raises his eyebrows hopefully.

“It’ll have to go down in my report that you turned your back on him.”

Moyle nods slowly to himself, digesting this information. “Yes, I thought as much. That’s the sort of mistake that can cost a chap his job, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that. A few retirement credits docked. A slap on the wrist.”

Moyle gives a resigned laugh. “That I can live with, I suppose. The main thing is that you recovered the matchbook, for which I and all other
genuine
phillumenists thank you, Mr Hubble, from the bottom of our hearts.”

“Just doing my job.”

Moyle carefully slots the genuine matchbook into its wallet and tosses the replica contemptuously into the waste-paper basket.

“It must seem rather odd to you, my interest in these little cardboard trifles,” he says with a self-deprecating smile. “Most people find it incomprehensible. My former wife, for one. Though that surely says more about her than it does me.”

“I must admit the fascination is rather lost on me.”

“You obviously don’t have the soul of a collector.”

“I do accumulate objects. Possessions. By accident, mostly.”

“And then, without realising it, you find your possessions have come to possess you?” It is more of a statement than a query.

“I try to keep things in perspective.”

“Then you aren’t a collector,” says Moyle. “A collector’s perspective is entirely skewed. He sees only that which obsesses him. Everything else is relegated to the background. I speak from experience.” He sighs the resigned sigh of a man too set in his ways to change. “But I mustn’t keep you. I know your job prohibits you from fraternising at length with other employees. Thank you again, Mr Hubble. I am in your debt, and if there is any way I can repay the favour, I will. I mean it. If I ever have the chance to do something for you, I’ll do it. Anything you need, anything at all.”

“Just keep a closer watch on your stock,” says Frank.

13

Seven
: in the Bible, indicative of “many sons”, for instance in
I Samuel
, ii, 5 – “The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.”

9.26 a.m.

U
P IN THE
Boardroom, Thurston has been rattling through the day’s admin with characteristic efficiency, typing notes and e-memos into the terminal at the same time as he talks.

Currently he and his brothers are discussing a fire which broke out at one of the Days depositories the previous week. Thurston can reveal that an exhaustive internal investigation has traced the culprit: a sacked forklift operator nursing a grudge. However, since the fire was discovered and extinguished by a night watchman before it could do much damage, and the destroyed stock was insured anyway, the brothers vote as one not to prosecute the arsonist – a decision which has nothing to do with magnanimity and everything to do with the brothers’ aversion to dealing with the courts of the land. Days, they like to think, is a nation within a nation, a law unto itself, and resorting to common legal procedures would tarnish, and perhaps diminish, the store’s scrupulously cultivated aura of sovereignty.

Next on the agenda is the possibility of a new and even lower grade of account. This idea has been put forward by Fred, who, as he is only too keen to remind everyone, was responsible for initiating the Aluminium scheme that rescued them during that bad spell a couple of years back when the monthly figures dropped into the red for the first time ever. Now, with sales falling again – though still healthy enough, Fred hastens to add – it might be a good idea to allow another stratum of the population in through the doors of Days.

Wensley wants to know what Fred would call the new grade. Tin? Lead? Rusty Iron?

Fred thinks Copper has a nice ring to it.

Thurston wonders whether an account which will be available to just about anybody might not fatally compromise the exclusivity that Days relies upon to attract and keep its clientele. Why not, he says, if the store is going to go
that
downmarket, simply throw the doors wide open and let the whole world in?

Mungo concurs. For all the extra income that another grade of account will bring in, wealthier customers and regulars of some years’ standing might decide that the world’s first and (naturally) foremost gigastore has let its standards slip a shade too far and transfer their custom to another gigastore in protest – the EuroMart in Brussels springs to mind as a likely candidate, confusingly laid-out and ill-organised though it is. Besides, the effort it takes to become an account-holder is precisely what makes Days so alluring to so many. You don’t value highly what you haven’t had to struggle for.

Fred concedes the point, and in the ensuing show of hands votes against his own proposal, which is defeated six to none.

Thurston then lists the latest appeals that have been made to the brothers for charitable donations. Each is voted on in turn. Human rights campaigns are summarily dismissed. The countries that supply the store with the cheapest raw materials and manufactured goods tend, by uncanny coincidence, to be those whose governments most loosely interpret the meaning of the term “democracy”, and the brothers are reluctant to be seen to be censuring the dictatorships and military juntas that help fatten their profit margins. Animal rights groups, conservationists, and disarmament lobbyists are also deemed too politically sensitive. Which leaves societies for the disabled, arts funding, and a scheme for providing inner-city children with two-week holidays in the countryside as the least controversial recipients of tax-deductible gifts from Days, and at the same time the most likely to enhance the store’s prestige.

Thurston mentions in passing that the cost of maintaining Days Scholarships in Retail Studies at the nation’s two oldest universities is due to increase as a consequence of fresh government education cuts, and that they should give serious consideration to scrapping at least one of the endowments. Since all of the brothers attended one of the universities and not the other, their natural inclination is to favour their alma mater at the expense of its rival. However, as Sato slyly points out, since the other university can’t boast the Day brothers among its distinguished alumni, it, surely, is more deserving of their beneficence. The vote is split, three to three, and since Sonny is not on hand to cast a deciding vote, Thurston resolves that both scholarships will remain in place for the time being.

Then there are the numerous requests for television and newspaper interviews to be dealt with. These the reclusive brothers turn down without exception, but it is always a pleasure to read the letters from editors and producers forwarded to them by the Public Relations people in the Basement. They find the tone of the letters – a syrupy cocktail of flattery and extreme unctuousness – amusing.

Likewise, it is customary for invitations to attend this or that prestigious dinner or art gallery opening or film première to be read out by the day’s chairman, and then equally customary for them to be consigned with lofty disdain to the rejection pile. The brothers take great pleasure in confounding all efforts to popularise and demystify them. There is always speculation, of course. Almost daily the electronic and print media run stories attributing bizarre illnesses, manias, and eccentricities to the sons of Septimus Day, and at Thurston’s request Fred, the brothers’ self-elected media monitor, reads aloud a list of the latest, gleaned from the tabloids and the TV gossip shows.

1) Sato has taken to walking naked around the Violet Floor all day long;

2) Wensley’s weight has ballooned to two hundred kilos;

3) Thurston has contracted a wasting disease;

4) Thurston is going blind in his left eye (a story headlined, “Their Father’s Disfigurement Is A Curse!”);

5) Fred is dependent on barbiturates and can’t sleep at night unless he is sharing a bed with Mungo;

6) Mungo has so overdeveloped the muscles in his arms and thighs that he can no longer straighten his limbs fully;

7) Chas has had plastic surgery to correct a minor defect in the cleft in his chin; and

8) Sonny has cleaned up his act and has subscribed to a phone-in alcoholics support group – anonymously, of course.

If only (the brothers wish) that last story had any basis in the truth. As for the other fictions, they laugh them off. Let the world believe what it wants to believe about them. Let it ridicule them, turn them into cartoon figures. Nothing anyone can say can affect them. Over a hundred metres above the ground in their self-contained Violet Floor eyrie, insulated from the sweat, fuss and filth of the city, why should they care what people think of them? As long as customers keep coming to Days, what difference can a few tall tales make?

Further points of business are raised and tackled, and then Thurston comes to the matter of a territorial dispute between two departments.

“This one’s been pending for quite a while,” he says. “I came across it yesterday evening while going through the files in preparation for this morning. Something we’ve all been overlooking.”

“Probably with good reason,” mutters Fred.

“The e-memo comes from both sections of Security,” Thurston continues. “E-memos plural, actually. The first reads, ‘The Heads of Strategic and Tactical Security would be grateful if the administration would investigate the present hostilities between the Books Department and the Computers Department and deliver a binding judgement to resolve the situation.’” He taps keys, reading selections from the texts of the subsequent e-memos. “‘The ongoing “state of siege” that exists between Books and Computers shows no signs of improving and every indication of impending deterioration.’ ‘Numerous customers have been caught in the “crossfire” of acts of aggression and intimidation...’ ‘Possibility of fatalities arising as a consequence of the state of mutual intimidation...’ ‘Violence and sabotage...’” He looks around at his brothers. “Has anyone heard anything about this before?”

Heads are shaken.

“Apparently it’s been going on for well over a year, ever since we authorised Computers to expand into floorspace occupied by Books.”

“A sensible decision,” says Sato. “Computers has a larger turnover of product and therefore demands a greater amount of display area. Books has been consistently running at a loss, so it seemed logical that it should surrender floorspace to its immediate neighbour. We told Computers to annex a strip of floorspace one metre wide and ten long. Ten square metres of Books.”