The Henchmen's Book Club

by Danny King

  Pretty much everyone around Petworth liked Stewart, despite his obvious eccentricities and musky odour. He was a character, but an amiable one, so it raised a few eyebrows when he was found unconscious at the wheel of his car, stinking of scotch and wrapped around a tree just outside of town. Stewart was arrested when he came to in the back of the ambulance, but didn’t have a clue how he could’ve got in such a state.

  “I don’t even like scotch,” he protested afterwards. “Especially at eleven o’clock in the morning when I’m coming back from an auction, for goodness sake. I don’t know what could’ve happened.”

  What indeed?

  I didn’t give Stewart’s denials much credence because I had a few secrets myself, and fully intended blaming everything on a huge international Masonic conspiracy when my own skeletons finally caught up with me. But then a couple of nights later the bookshop was broken into – but nothing stolen.

  I learned this when I strolled up to work on the Thursday morning and found Stewart waiting outside his front door nervously smoking a cigarello.

  “Hey Johnny Walker, what’s going on?” I’d been in the middle of greeting him, only to stop dead in my tracks when a uniformed police Sergeant stepped out of the shop doodling into his notepad.

  “We’ve had a break-in, Mark. The whole place is a disaster area,” Stewart said, rushing towards me as if a hug and a reach-around were on the cards. Fortunately my stunned reaction was misinterpreted by all parties and I was able to regain my composure before the Sergeant focussed his pencil on me.

  “And what might your name be, sir?” he asked.

  What might your name be, sir? What a way to ask that! Why not simply, “What’s your name?” instead of all the hyperbole? No wonder foreigners had such a hard time learning English with wordsmiths like him stalking our land filling sentences with unnecessary prose. But then, his phrasing had been no accident. Those extra few words and inclination added rich layers of intrigue to the Sergeant’s question and had me mentally feeling for the stubby throwing knife in my belt buckle.

  “Mark Jones,” I eventually replied when I remembered.

  Stewart confirmed like a nodding dog. “Yes this is Mark. Mark works for me.”

  The Sergeant lifted an eyebrow to join his tone. “I see,” he mused. “New in town are you, sir?”

  “No, I’ve lived around here for almost ten years,” I replied, hosing down that particular line of inquiry to a fine steam.

  “I’ve never seen you before. I’d think I’d remember you too,” the Sergeant needled.

  “The face is new. I’m not,” I said, referring to my scar.

  “Nasty,” he whistled. “How d’you come by it?”

  “At work.”

  The Sergeant looked back at the bookshop. “Paper cut was it?” he chuckled, all pleased with himself.

  “My other work,” I clarified.

  “And what might that be, sir?” he asked, lining up his pencil in case it was breaking into bookshops at night.

  “I’m an engineer,” I told him.

  “I see,” he repeated, reminding me of the Agency interviewers. “And where exactly do you work, Mr Jones?”

  “Abroad, the Far East mostly. Indonesia, Mongolia, Malaysia. Bosco Drilling,” I elaborated, which was an Agency front and employed half the battle-scarred engineers in Northern Europe. “Do you need their details?”

  “No no, that’s quite alright,” he assured me. “Just an address will be fine.”

  “They’re in Humberside somewhere. I’ll have to look out their exact address.”

  “No,” the Sergeant smiled. “I mean your address.”

  “Oh, it’s Petherton Farm, Station Road, just past the river.”

  “Oh really, I know it. I’ve always wondered who lives there,” the Sergeant perked up.

  “Then the mystery is finally resolved,” I told him.

  “Yes, well quite,” the Sergeant agreed then redirected his pencil at Stewart. “Well, like I was saying, it’s probably just kids messing about but make a list of what’s missing and drop it by the station as soon as you can and we’ll keep our eyes peeled.”

  Stewart made as big a deal as he humanly could out of agreeing with the Sergeant, so the Sergeant suggested he allowed himself a nip of scotch. “For the shock. Just if you’ve got any with you,” he added, raising an eyebrow my way before pedalling off with a chortle.

  “Do you need a drink?” I double-checked.

  “No I don’t,” Stewart objected. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” he fizzled.

  We spent the best part of the day tidying and checking the stock, and sure enough found nothing had been taken, not even the first edition John le Carré that Stewart kept in the window, the one he’d optimistically marked up £800 after someone had scrawled John le Carré on the title page, supposedly John le Carré, which could’ve been possible, but the love hearts and kisses looked an ill-advised afterthought on the part of the last trader.

  The break-in had undoubtedly been kids. Stewart and the Sergeant both agreed on that and the file was closed with a claim to the insurance company, but I was less sure. Kids took souvenirs. Kids left fingerprints. Kids broke things for fun.

  The shop had been trashed but it hadn’t been joyously trashed. There was very little in the way of real damage. Books had been tossed out of the shelves. A window had been broken. A door yanked open. But the breakages looked somehow cosmetic. Like how you’d expect a bookshop to look had it been broken into by a bunch of naughty kids.

  Something was up. Just what was Stewart into?

  I was in my local in town a couple of nights later, having a quiet pint after work with the Guardian crossword when the pub rhubarb suddenly stopped. It took me a few moments to notice this, so entrenched was I to find a four letter word that meant appendage, third letter M. I kept putting ARMS and scribbling it out when nothing else fitted, and it was only when I finally arrived at LIMB that I become acutely aware of the sudden silence.

  I’ve experienced this before, not in my local, but in the jungle. A big cat will step into a clearing and all the tweeting and warbling will immediately stop. But it wasn’t a big cat that had just stepped into The Star, but an astonishingly luscious piece of crumpet that would have the Ferraris piling into each other had she been waiting by the lights in Monte Carlo, let along a few Rotarians choking on their real ale in Sussex.

  She was a redhead, but a redhead of such dazzling richness that the second thought to cross my mind concerned her collars and cuffs. I almost didn’t have to wonder either, for she was dressed in a figure-hugging mini-dress that revealed more than it covered and sporting an unbelievable set of pins, decked off with a dazzling pair of ruby heels that wouldn’t have looked out of place sticking out from beneath a fallen house.

  She ordered a Dubonnet Manhattan.

  “Stirred, that’s very important,” she’d insisted, but had to rethink her whole order when a quick search of the optics (and the internet) by the landlord revealed they were all out of Rouge Vermouth, not to mention Maraschino cherries. Obviously there’d been a recent rush. After several more aborted orders, she finally had to make do with a vodka Red Bull and a bag of dry roasted before turning to face the gobsmacked pub.

  Quick as a flash, the pub started staring at their pints again, including me, who’d inadvertently taken half a dozen digital photos of her arse while she’d been up at the bar. For the next few seconds, the redhead’s eyes drifted across all the locals as her heels circled the pub, and eventually her tumbler and packet of Planters parked themselves in front of me to indicate she’d made her choice.

  “Osteology,” she said when I looked up, taking a careful little suck on her curly straw without breaking eye contact.

  “What?” I replied.

  “It’s the study of bones,” she elaborated, lifting an eyebrow to suggest she knew what she was talking about, even if I didn’t.

  “Is it?” was all I could think to say.

&nb
sp; “Fourteen across.”

  “Huh?” it was then that I realised she was referring to my crossword. “Oh!” I finally twigged, and scribbled it in.

  “Glory Days,” she then said.

  I checked the crossword to see where that one fitted, but she called my attention back.

  “No, I’m Glory Days – Gloria Days,” she said before adding, “Doctor Gloria Days.”

  “Oh, right,” I acknowledged, but left it at that. I didn’t tell her my name. Not even my fictitious name as it was getting a little worn from all its recent use, so I just stared at her and waited for her next announcement.

  Glory teased her straw a little longer before asking me if I’d ever seen charms like hers, dropping her eyes towards her chest to give me permission to check out her knockers. Clearly, she was referring to the weird geometrically-shaped pendant that decorated her cleavage, but I took it all in just out of courtesy.

  “Ever seen anything quite like them?” she jiggled, a naughty smile dancing across her scarlet lips.

  Now obviously, I’d seen tits before, even nice tits, and they’re always a welcome distraction when I’m struggling to finish a crossword, but I was still stuck for what exactly it was she wanted.

  “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

  “No,” she replied. “But my father’s Professor Days… or at least, was.”

  “Who’s your dad now?” I asked.

  “No, I mean, he’s dead,” Glory amended.

  “Oh,” I ohhed again, none of this meaning the slightest little thing to me. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry? What are you sorry for? You killed him after all!” she snapped, causing old Trevor to look up from his shepherd’s pie in surprise.

  “Me? Look, there’s been some mistake, I’ve never even heard of your dad, let alone killed him. Are you sure you’ve got the right bloke?”

  “Don’t worry, he was an arsehole anyway. I’m not here for revenge,” she reassured me, dispensing with her straw and staring over at old Trevor until he blinked and looked away. “But you should know one thing. I’ve got the Dymetrozone now,” she whispered.

  “Good for you,” I said, still feeling my way around this conversation. “Can they do anything for it?”

  “Tell your boss, if he wants it, he’ll have to deal directly with me,” Glory then instructed.

  “And he’ll know what this means? Because Stewart’s not…”

  “Remember, if he doesn’t want it, I can always deal with the British,” she warned me, before knocking back her Red Bull, ice cubes and all.

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” I assured her, scribbling down Dymetrozone on the corner of my paper, tearing it off and folding it up.

  “You have twenty-four hours to answer,” she said, crushing the ice cubes between her teeth without even flinching.

  “That can’t be good for you,” I was just saying when she swept away, knocking over her chair and rushing headlong for the door without checking her stride or taking her peanuts with her.

  Old Trevor look up from his pie again. “Friend of yours is she, Mark?”

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, thoroughly baffled by the whole exchange.

  “Seems nice,” he said, a piece of mash to his mouth as he thought to qualify his assessment. “I would.”

  I did as Glory asked and gave Stewart her message, but I might as well have given it to the cat for all the meaning it held.

  “Like I said, if you don’t want it, she’ll deal with the British,” I repeated for the umpteenth time.

  “The British what?” Stewart asked.

  “I don’t know, she didn’t say.”

  “But I’m British. Does she know that?” Stewart furrowed.

  “I don’t know,” I simply shrugged. “I don’t think it matters.”

  “What did she say she had again?”

  “Dymetrozone,” I said, reading the little corner of newspaper I’d torn off.

  “Perhaps it’s a book,” he pondered, picking a random hardback off the shelf to look at its copyright page.

  “It could be,” I agreed, before heading off to the backroom to sort through a box of Dick Francis that Stewart had picked up on his way to the shop this morning.

  “Did she give you her number?” he called after me.

  “No,” I called back.

  “Well, did she say how I should get in touch with her?”

  “No.”

  “Is she going to the pub again tonight?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well how am I meant to give her my answer if I don’t know how to get in touch with her?” Stewart exclaimed.

  “Beats me,” I replied, unwilling to get drawn into Stewart’s affairs too deeply.

  I didn’t know how much of his ignorance was genuine, because some odd things had been happening to him just lately so he was clearly up to something. I preferred not to know though. I liked this job. And I liked being around the books. I only worked here a few mornings a week so I could stay clear of whatever he was getting himself into, but if it was dealing hooky books (which was my guess) then he was odds-on to lose his shirt, socks and pants because he wasn’t savvy enough to go head-to-head with some of the sharks that swam in that pond.

  Oh you might laugh, but there’s a lot of money to be made from trading rare books. They were lightweight, practically untraceable and eminently forgeable. For every £1,000 of genuine sales, there’s always a couple of hundred done away from the public gaze. And this money was easy to hijack if you were so inclined. And a little bit of cleavage and a suggestive look or two would certainly dazzle Stewart into parting with his life savings if that was Glory’s plan. Or whoever had hired her.

  I wondered if I should take Stewart for a beer and tell him about the facts of life but reasoned this could open up a whole horrible can of worms for me, so I kept my mouth shut, played deaf, dumb and blind, and continued filling our recycling bin out back with Katie Prices.

  Stewart went to The Star that night. He had a shave, wore his best jumper and waited there until closing time, much to the concern of the landlord, who’d insisted on patting him down for his car keys at eleven but Glory Days never showed up. And she didn’t show up the next night either. In fact, she left Stewart sitting there for three nights straight, drinking alone and vehemently denying he had a problem to whoever put an arm on his shoulder.

  It was only on the fourth night, when Stewart had given up and I’d popped in for a cheeky half on my way home that she finally appeared again, decked out head-to-toe in a purple latex cat suit that was so tight, I realised why she’d not been able to leave the house for the last three nights.

  “So, what’s your answer?” she demanded without so much as a “how’s it going?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I sighed at the sight of her camel’s hoof.

  “You think I’m bluffing, don’t you?” she snapped in response.

  “Listen, seriously, I don’t care. Tell it to Stewart, he’s the bloke you want.”

  “Twenty per cent, that’s my offer. If he can’t come up with that then I will go to the British,” she warned me.

  “Then go, this has nothing to do with me.”

  Glory thought about this for a moment, then turned a chair around and sank down on it in a way that had old Trevor choking on his ploughman’s.

  “But it could,” she purred, dispensing with the spikes and all but liquefying before me. “I don’t have to sell it to your boss, you know. If you help me get a copy of the accelerant software, we can always go to the British together. And I know they’d pay more than twenty per cent too. I’d be personally extremely grateful.”

  She dipped a finger into my Guinness’s head, let the creamy froth dribble down her digit, then sucked it clean with a murmur of indulgence.

  “Are you alright Trevor?” I heard someone ask across the pub.

  “That’s an interesting offer,” I admitted, momentarily wondering if I could con a quick handful out of her on a
ccount. “But I really think you should speak to Stewart. He’s in the shop most days.”

  Glory’s demeanour changed yet again. She refound the scowl she’d temporarily pocketed and snatched her more than generous offer back up off the table.

  “Fine, if that’s the way you want it,” she hissed. “And there was me thinking you were someone I could talk to. Someone important.”

  “Nope, not me. Never,” I promised her.

  Before I could say another word, Glory was off again, flying through the door in a hail of stiletto sparks and chairs.

  I spent the next hour carefully reviewing my mental transcript of our last conversation and came to two conclusions; firstly, she probably wasn’t selling books; and secondly, the boss in question probably wasn’t Stewart.

  As slow as I was to grasp this, when I finally did, it almost suffocated me like a blanket of nerve gas. My professional life had somehow caught up with me at home. But how? And who could be the boss Glory was referring to?

  To the best of my knowledge, almost every boss I’d ever worked for had died, and died horribly at that (except for Stewart, although there was still time). Connaughtard Cottletrophff, Zillion Silverfish, Polonius Crump, Condoleezza Vice, Jed Choo, the Tamar twins, to name but a few. I wrote all their initials down the right hand corner of my newspaper and saw that only Morris Merton, Hope Verity and Kimbo Banja had been alive when I’d left them, though Morris had just been taken into custody by the Turks, so I didn’t fancy his chances of still being in large enough pieces to get anything going. Hope Verity, on the other hand, had shacked up with that hairy-arsed Italian secret service agent and blown the Nepal job just as we looked like pulling it off. A lot of boys had got roasted on that one, so there was a fair amount of ill-will floating about for her, not least of all from the Calcutta mob, who’d put up a ten-million dollar contract on her the day after their outlay went up in smoke. Literally. But still, that had been seven years ago. And I’ve never known anyone to survive that long with a ten-million dollar contract on their heads. Which left only Kimbo Banja. And the less said about him the better.