Drown My Books

by Penny Freedman

  She was back in the library by seven, having taken a break to go home and give Don his dinner. She laid out wine glasses and napkins on the table where she had sat drinking coffee with Jack Terry that morning. It was Eva’s turn to bring refreshments: the wine would be something rich and red, and there would be little canapés with pickles and sour cream, as well, no doubt, as strudel.

  Gina arrived early and flustered. ‘Sorry, Lorna, I can’t put my hand on my book. I had it on the coffee table for weeks but I hadn’t looked at it for a while, and then I sat down this afternoon to make some notes and pick out my favourite poem, and it wasn’t there. I’ve turned the place over but it’s not in the house. I can only think Matt or Dora has taken it. They put their books and stuff on the coffee table when they come for their lessons, and one of them must have picked my book up by mistake. I tried ringing Matt and left him a message, and I can ask Dora this evening.’

  She paused for breath and took off her coat. ‘What makes it even odder,’ she says, ‘is that when I found Kelly, there was –’

  ‘A copy of the book lying on the beach,’ Lorna finished.

  Gina stared at her. ‘Have the police been talking to you?’ she asked.

  ‘This morning. And I’m sorry, Gina, but I’ve promised to tell them if any book isn’t returned this evening.’

  ‘Do they think the one I found on the beach wasn’t Kelly’s then?’

  ‘They want to be sure, I suppose.’

  ‘Bugger!’ Gina said. ‘She’s just dying to arrest me and now she’s got her chance.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Paula Powell, in charge of the case. She’s been brought in from Marlbury. We have history.’

  ‘’And she’s dying to arrest you?’

  ‘She threatened me.’ She heaved a sigh and plonked herself down on a chair. ‘When I found the book on the beach I took it in out of the rain, and then I forgot to tell DC Green about it. I’m guilty of tampering with evidence.’

  Lorna sat down, too. ‘I think I would have done the same,’ she said. ‘Leaving a book lying out in the rain – it goes against all one’s instincts, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But you’d have given it to DC Green right away,’ Gina said gloomily. ‘Your good intentions shine from you, whereas mine – mine get obscured.’

  There was a silence, and then Lorna asked, ‘Do you think the book could have been your copy? Could you have had it in your pocket? Maybe it dropped out when you bent over the – over to look at Kelly.’

  ‘No. I don’t carry books in pockets. In handbags, yes, but not in pockets. Besides, I know for certain it wasn’t mine.’

  ‘For certain?’

  ‘Yes. Someone had defaced that copy – a big circle in red felt pen round the title and first few lines of Medusa. It could have been done any time, I know, but I felt sure it was Kelly who’d done it. Anyway, it certainly wasn’t my book.’

  ‘Well, if they don’t find a copy at Kelly’s house, they’ll know that one was hers.’

  ‘Not if I don’t find mine.’

  The door opened and Dora came in. Gina jumped up. ‘Dora!’ she said. ‘You haven’t by any chance got my copy of the book, have you?’

  Dora looked alarmed – her default expression, Lorna thought.

  ‘Your copy?’ she asked.

  ‘You didn’t pick it up at my house by mistake?’

  ‘No.’ She displayed her copy. ‘I just have this one.’

  ‘And you’re sure that one’s yours?’

  ‘Yes. It has my bookmark in it.’

  Seeing her distress, Lorna said, ‘Not to worry, Dora. Gina’s copy’s gone walkabout. It happens. I’m sure it will turn up. Have a glass of juice.’

  As she reached for the carton, there was a flurry of noise at the door and Eva burst in, laughing, with Lesley following behind, carrying a bag of clinking bottles and a platter. They presented the contrast they always did: Lesley, plump and comfortable in a padded anorak that did her figure no favours, and Eva, slim and immaculate in a black coat with a fur collar, and a matching hat. She called out as she approached, ‘My dears, I thought I was getting to be a daft old lady, but Lesley is not old so she has no excuse. We have both lost our books! Can you believe it?’

  As Lorna glanced at Gina’s stunned face, she knew her own must be looking much the same. Eva raised her hands in protest. ‘It is not a tragedy, my dear book-lovers. We shall find them or pay for new ones. We shall not be drummed out of the service.’

  ‘It’s not our standing with the library service that we’re worried about, actually, Eva,’ Lorna said, helping her off with her coat and going to hang it in the office. The others were happy to sling their coats over empty chairs but Eva liked hers to be treated with care.

  As she went, she heard Gina say, ‘Come and sit down and pour us some wine and we will tell you a tale. And then we will see if we can work out the answer before the police do.’

  She was suddenly much more cheerful, Lorna thought, now that she wasn’t alone as an object of police suspicion. As she came back from the office, Gina was splashing wine into glasses. ‘I’m too agitated,’ she was saying. ‘I shall tell the tale vilely. Lorna can tell you all about it while I recover my wits.’

  So Lorna told the tale as briefly and undramatically as she could: the visit from DC Green, the book found on the beach near Kelly’s body, the request from DC Green that she inform him of any missing books.

  ‘But the thing is,’ Gina chipped in as soon as she had finished, ‘the book on the beach had distinguishing marks; someone had drawn a circle round the first part of Medusa. Does that ring a bell with either of you?’ As they shook their heads, she said, ‘Nor me,’ and flopped back in her chair.

  ‘So the book must have been Kelly’s,’ Lesley said. ‘But why take it onto the beach when she was going swimming in the rain?’

  ‘And what has happened to our books?’ Eva added.

  ‘Well, there’s an answer to the first question,’ Lorna said. ‘She must have had it in her pocket and it fell out when she fell. What was she wearing, Gina?’

  ‘That pink anorak she usually wore.’

  ‘So, she had taken it with her somewhere in her pocket and it was still there. It’s only a small book, after all. You could easily forget it was there.’

  ‘I’m not sure Kelly was someone who took a book with her everywhere she went,’ Lesley objected. ‘You and Gina, maybe, but Kelly was usually doing something active.’

  ‘She had the book by the till in the shop one day, I noticed,’ Eva put in.

  ‘And she might have taken it if she had a doctor’s appointment,’ Lorna persisted, determined to carry her argument. ‘Or the dentist’s – somewhere where she thought she might have to wait. She didn’t like being bored.’

  ‘OK,’ Gina said. ‘Let’s say for the moment that Kelly might have had her book with her, then there’s the other question. What’s happened to our books?’

  ‘It could be coincidence,’ Lorna said slowly. ‘As I said, it’s a slim volume – probably the smallest book we’ve read – more easily mislaid…’ She tailed off.

  ‘Come on, Lorna,’ Gina said. ‘You don’t really —’

  She stopped as Alice Gates came flying in, panting hard.

  ‘So sorry,’ she gasped. ‘It’s my fault, letting the house get to be a tip. I’ve shouted at the boys and I’ve shouted at Simon, but —’

  ‘You can’t find your book,’ Gina said.

  Alice waved her empty hands. ‘Obviously not,’ she laughed. ‘Well deduced, Sherlock!’

  ‘Join the club, Alice,’ Gina said. ‘Fortify yourself with a drink and we’ll explain.’

  Lorna went to lock the outside door now that the group was complete, and returned to find that the job of explanation had aga
in been allocated to her, but as soon as she had finished Gina took up her earlier question. ‘So what we were considering, Alice,’ she said, ‘was, assuming it was Kelly’s book on the beach, who has taken our books and what the hell for?’

  Nobody was in a hurry to answer the question. They sipped their wine in silence and looked at Gina, waiting for her to answer it herself.

  ‘I think it’s someone’s idea of a joke,’ she said. ‘Someone who knows the group and knows what we’ve been reading, obviously. They’ve heard somehow about the book on the beach and they thought it would be funny to get us all questioned by the police.’

  ‘Not all of us,’ Dora said quietly. ‘I have my book and so does Lorna.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Gina conceded. ‘Well, you two are the quietest and best behaved of the lot of us. Perhaps he decided to let you off.’

  ‘He?’ Eva queried.

  ‘Well, it’s got to be a man, hasn’t it? They don’t like us, they think we’re witches and if they took a look at this book it would confirm their worst fears. The review extracts on the back alone would do it.’ She picked up Dora’s copy. ‘subversive, a feminist classic, a swipe with a dishclout at the famous men of history,’ she read. ‘He wouldn’t even need to read the poems to be affronted.’

  ‘But you’re thinking about the old codgers in the pub, Gina,’ Lorna objected. ‘They couldn’t possibly know what we’re reading. It would have to be someone who knows one of us well.’

  ‘By which I think you mean someone who is married to one of us,’ Eva said with a wry little smile.

  ‘Well, it’s not Don,’ Lorna said. ‘He’s probably more of a feminist than I am. And he’s got nothing against the book group – he’s used to sharing me with books. Besides, I’ve still got my book.’

  ‘Simon doesn’t like the group much, if I’m honest,’ Alice said. ‘I think he does suspect that we spend our time slagging off men, but there’s no time in his life for plotting elaborate practical jokes, breaking into people’s houses and stealing books. Two kids, a full-time job and a working wife just about leave him time for football once a week, and that’s it.’

  ’Well, Peter’s bad leg rules him out as a cat burglar,’ Lesley said. ‘And actually he’s been away at a conference all this week, so I think he’s in the clear.’

  ‘And I’ve still got my book so it’s not my dad,’ Dora said, producing a small burst of laughter as they each pictured the dignified patriarch breaking and entering.

  ‘And Gina and I live in blessed singleness,’ Eva concluded. ‘So that’s that.’

  In the pause that followed, there came a thunderous knocking on the outer door. Lorna went to answer it, speculating on a second visit from DC Green and pushing aside fanciful thought of the ghosts of Lily and Kelly demanding entrance. A large male figure stood outside. It was not DC Green but a big raw-boned lad whom she remembered as an occasional library-user, generally in search of Coles notes on his A level texts.

  ‘Is this the book group?’ he asked.

  She told him, warily, that it was and let him in. He fished a book out of his pocket. It was, of course, a copy of The World’s Wife.

  ‘I’m just bringing this back,’ he said.

  Lorna could hear Gina behind her, talking as she came towards them. ‘Oh my God! Is that my book, Matt? Am I reprieved?’

  As she stretched out a hand for the book, he pulled it back. ‘It’s not yours,’ he said. ‘I got your message. That was what reminded me that I had this. Kelly lent it to me. She said I ought to read it. Can’t say I have but you said you needed the books tonight so I brought it round.’

  He looked round at six pairs of horrified eyes, hesitated for a moment and then fled. Straight round to the pub to tell them he’s been hexed by the Broomstick Brigade, Lorna thought as she locked the door after him.

  She and Gina sat down again.

  ‘Back to the drawing board, then,’ Gina said, looking at the book. ‘This is a whole new thing, girls. Now we’re in an Agatha Christie. Just up your street, Eva.’

  ‘Well, if we’re going in that direction,’ Eva said carefully, ‘there is something I thought of saying but had decided not to, because, of course, I made my living translating Christie and Sayers and Allingham and the rest, and I was afraid you would think I was letting my imagination run away with me, but —’

  ‘Oh, say it, Eva, do,’ Gina broke in. ‘Imagination is what we need right now. Speak, do!’

  ‘Well, Jack Terry had tea with me this afternoon. He came to clean my windows and I invited him in. He didn’t say much. He is not an articulate young man at the best of times, but it was clear to me that he does not believe that his Lily’s death was an accident. So it is possible, isn’t it, that the police should be looking for a serial killer and that we are the potential victims?’

  Chapter Six

  SOMETHING TO ANSWER FOR

  Saturday 15th February 2014

  I am not really surprised to find DI Paula Powell outside my house at eight-thirty this morning. Well, I suppose I had hoped to have time to walk Caliban before she came thundering on my door, but conscientious Lorna must have rung DC Green at first light to report the missing books and now here is his boss stepping out of her car just as I emerge from the house, pulled by an eager dog with important things to do. I play stupid.

  ‘Paula!’ I say. ‘You just can’t keep away from the seaside, can you?’

  She slams the car door and comes very close. ‘This isn’t a joke, Gina,’ she says. ‘I am this close to arresting you.’ She raises thumb and forefinger a couple of millimetres apart and pokes them at me, narrowly missing my right eye. Caliban, alert to aggression, growls threateningly. He is not, I suspect, really fond of me, but I am his source of food and shelter and he is programmed to defend me.

  ‘Sorry, Paula,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better than a chat at the police station, but Caliban’s bladder waits for no woman. You can either go into my house and search for clues while I take him down to the beach, or you can come, too.’ I look at her nice leather boots. ‘But take care on the steps in those heels,’ I say, and head across the road.

  On the beach and off his lead, Caliban does his own thing, while keeping a wary eye on us, and we stand in the shelter of the sea wall. It is too cold for standing still, really, but Paula will ruin her boots if we walk on the pebbles. We hunch into ourselves and keep our hands in our pockets. I am better prepared for this in my padded anorak and woolly hat; Paula is incongruous as well as cold, bare-headed and in her town coat. We stand side by side, not looking at each other; we could be a couple of spies in a Le Carré novel. We ought to have cigarettes.

  She doesn’t speak immediately so I take the initiative. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard from David at all, have you?’ I ask, nudging pebbles with the toe of my boot.

  ‘Nope.’ She says, shortly. I don’t look at her but I can hear that she has gone pink. ‘You?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I say airily. ‘But I took steps to go off his radar.’

  ‘What sort of steps?’

  ‘Sold my house, changed my email, threw my mobile into the sea.’

  ‘Oh well, that should do the trick,’ she says. She is actually laughing at me. ‘I mean, he’s only a DCI with the Met,’ she says. ‘Without your address or email or phone number, what can he possibly do?’ And then before I have time to recover from being wrong-footed, she asks, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that book was part of a set? What stupid game are you playing now? The problem with you is you think we’re stupid – you always have – but we’re not – I’m not – and you’re not getting away with anything.’

  I put my resentment at being laughed at into sounding righteously injured. ‘You didn’t give me a chance,’ I say. ‘As soon as I gave you the book I found on the beach you went ballistic. You swore at me in a quite inap
propriate way, ordered me to stop thinking and threatened to arrest me if I tried to make any contribution to your investigation. So I did as I was told. I went and got finger-printed and then I shut up, as instructed.’

  She is very cross. If she had Caliban’s vocal equipment she would growl at me. She opens her mouth to speak but I add, ‘And that was in spite of the fact that I think I may be in personal danger.’

  ‘Ha!’ She throws back her head with a noise that is somewhere between a laugh and a yell of fury. ‘So it’s actually all about you, is it?’ she asks. ‘Of course it is. Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Not just about me. The whole book group may be in danger.’

  ‘Oh, spare me, please!’

  ‘Think about it, Paula. Two women in the group have died in the past three weeks – both in ‘accidents’.’

  ‘The first one – Lily Terry – was an accident. We’ve checked it out. There was never any doubt about it.’

  ‘That’s not what her husband thinks.’

  ‘Grief does that. People need someone to blame.’

  ‘All right. But you must admit that Kelly’s death wasn’t accidental. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think she was killed. And a copy of The World’s Wife was found beside her body. It’s a feminist book. It’s subversive. It mocks men and celebrates women. The men around here don’t like our group as it is. They call us The Broomstick Brigade. Now one of us is dead and someone put a copy of the book beside her body. It wasn’t her copy and it wasn’t mine, so —’