A Body in the Bookshop

by Helen Cox

  Without a word then, Kitt pressed the nearest stop button.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘Change of plan,’ said Kitt. ‘Something more important than the alleged affairs of the staff at Bootham Bar Books has come up. But, I’m grateful, Ruby. For you asking around. And maybe if you hear anything else about the bookshop, you’ll keep us updated?’

  ‘I will that,’ said Ruby. ‘When I get home, I’ll have a look at the runes as well. They’re good for cutting through nonsense, those stones. I’ll let you know what they say. I’m sure whatever they point to will be of use to you. As two concerned citizens just trying to do right by their friends, of course.’

  Ruby’s smile was slow and sly. Had she somehow worked out that the pair were on another investigation? She wouldn’t have had to work too hard at figuring that out given how lame their cover story had been.

  Kitt only gave Ruby a knowing half-smile in response.

  The bus pulled up at the side of the road, and Kitt disembarked with Evie following just behind her.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she called after her best friend who had gone from zero to power walk in under a second.

  ‘Back to the library, to find out what Grace knows and to plan our next move.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be quicker to send her a text message?’

  ‘I’d like the full story, not the abridged emoji version,’ said Kitt.

  ‘Well, we’re not far from mine. Let’s swing round there and go in Jacob.’

  ‘Good idea, the sooner we get to the library the better. I’ve run out of Lady Grey tea back at the cottage and need to raid my stash at work.’

  ‘Run out of Lady Grey? You must be preoccupied with this case.’

  ‘Too true.’

  Nineteen

  ‘Right, Grace,’ Kitt said, raising her voice to a level that she could be heard over the sound of Jacob’s motor. ‘You’re in the car. You’re not being left out or left behind. Now will you please tell us what you’ve found out about the case.’

  Grace was sitting in the back seat with her arms crossed. She hadn’t said a word since they had set off from the library almost ten minutes ago. Before that, all she had been willing to tell Evie and Kitt was that they needed to head out of town on Wetherby road, which apparently was what the umbrella emoji was about. Grace was surprised the two hadn’t made the connection between weather and Wetherby, but Evie suspected she may have been laying it on thick to wind Kitt up further.

  ‘I’m sorry I had to go to these lengths,’ said Grace, ‘but I’m not going to be the one stuck behind a computer all the time. I want a piece of the real action.’

  ‘You’ve made your feelings quite clear,’ said Kitt. ‘We can only hope Michelle doesn’t clock you’ve taken an early lunch break.’

  ‘Is it really that big a deal?’ said Evie.

  ‘Everything’s a big deal with Michelle,’ said Grace, and then looking at her phone added, ‘but it’s not far out of town, just another fifteen minutes from here.’

  ‘Where exactly are we going?’ asked Kitt. ‘If you think I’m blindly following you for another fifteen minutes you’ve got another thing coming.’

  Evie met Grace’s eye for a second in the rear-view mirror and they exchanged a look of mild amusement. It wasn’t very difficult to get Kitt worked up, and they both had a lot of fun doing it.

  ‘Grace,’ Kitt pushed, turning in her seat to look at her assistant.

  ‘North Riding Auction House,’ said Grace.

  ‘Are the books on sale there?’ said Evie, slowing the car a little so that a motorbike could ease into the flow of traffic from a T-junction.

  ‘No,’ Grace replied. ‘But the person in possession of the books is.’

  ‘And who might that be?’ asked Kitt.

  Looking into the rear-view mirror once again, Evie saw a small smile cross Grace’s lips as she drove around a small roundabout. ‘A Mr Jarvis Holt,’ she said. ‘From what I can tell he makes his money in buying and selling, mostly property but he has his fingers in a few other pies too.’

  ‘If he’s not selling the books at auction, how do you know they’re in his possession?’ asked Kitt.

  ‘I found a listing on an eBay account in Holt’s name for a first edition copy of The Big Sleep.’

  ‘What about the other books?’ said Kitt.

  ‘No, it was just that one. I think he’s too clever to sell all of the books in one go. The book was hidden among lots of other vintage items on sale from teapots to typewriters.’

  ‘If the other books weren’t there, how do you know it’s the copy stolen from Bootham Bar Books?’ said Kitt.

  ‘Because eBay makes business users display their contact information and this book was the only one listed in the York area. The title of the listing was also odd. Instead of writing the title of the book, which would be the obvious way of attracting attention to the listing, it was listed as “First edition of a Raymond Chandler classic.” The photograph was of a first edition copy of The Big Sleep but the title wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the listing.’

  ‘That is a bit strange, I’ll grant you,’ Kitt mused. ‘And you’re sure Jarvis Holt is at this auction house, even though he’s not selling the book there?’

  Grace nodded. ‘He made the mistake of posting to their Facebook page a couple of hours ago to say he would be going to the auction house this afternoon to bid on some choice items. He didn’t bargain for Grace Edwards, Online Investigator Extraordinaire.’

  Evie saw Grace’s hands waving about in her mirrors, a sure sign she was getting a bit overexcited. Not that it took much, and not that Evie begrudged Grace a bit of excitement. She lived in Leeds, which had a bit more going on, but it was fair to say that studying and working in the city of York was likely to make any young soul keen to pounce on whatever excitement came their way.

  Evie glanced at Kitt while also keeping one eye on the road. She had expected her friend to pass some comment on Grace’s behaviour, or at the very least her new self-proclaimed title, but instead the librarian had pulled out her mobile and started dialling. ‘Who are you calling?’

  ‘Halloran. You heard what he said yesterday, we have to let him know about every new development. He might want to talk to Jarvis Holt himself. Or maybe even take him in for questioning.’

  Evie returned her full attention to the road as she approached a crossroads.

  A moment later she heard Kitt sigh. ‘Voicemail,’ she said before leaving him a message that explained Grace’s findings and where they were heading.

  Once she had hung up the phone, Kitt asked, ‘Why would Holt use a business account to sell the book when all of his details are listed on the eBay page?’

  ‘My guess?’ said Grace. ‘He’s trying to make it look legit. If he does it through his business he can pretend he bought the book in good faith and was just selling it on. If he had tried to sell it through an anonymous account, that would have looked beyond shady if the police had caught up with him.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Kitt. ‘We’re on the Wetherby road.’

  Evie smiled. ‘You’re usually a bit quicker at picking up the finer details than that.’

  ‘No,’ Kitt said. ‘Remember what Dennis said? About where he saw Olivia?’

  ‘In the pub on the Wetherby road, we passed it while you were on the phone with Halloran,’ said Evie. ‘So? You think there’s a connection between Olivia and Holt?’

  ‘Grace, is Holt’s business based in Wetherby?’ said Kitt.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what the eBay page said, why?’

  ‘Olivia, the shop assistant at Bootham Books, is seen with a mysterious man old enough to be her father out on the Wetherby road, and the man who is selling the books online happens to be based in Wetherby.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Evie. ‘When you put it li
ke that, it doesn’t sound like much of a coincidence.’

  ‘So, you think this guy used Olivia for insider information?’ said Grace.

  ‘Or . . .’ said Kitt.

  ‘Or she knew exactly what she was doing and it was a true inside job,’ said Grace.

  ‘She was acting a bit defensive when you asked her about the burglary,’ said Evie.

  Kitt nodded. ‘I put it down to her wanting to cover up the argument about Shereen’s affair, but given what we know now I’m not sure we can trust anything that came out of Olivia’s mouth that day.’

  An emptiness stirred in the pit of Evie’s stomach. ‘You think that Holt is the thief and Olivia in on it?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s not just a thief,’ said Kitt. ‘Perhaps he’s Alim’s murderer too.’

  At this, Evie pressed her foot harder on the accelerator. Jarvis Holt could be the key to unravelling this whole mystery. To unmasking the murderer who had killed Alim the moment he had become an inconvenience and to ensuring Charley’s name was cleared once and for all. If she could help it, Evie wasn’t going to let him get away.

  Twenty

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait for Halloran?’ asked Evie as she, Grace and Kitt approached the entrance of North Riding Auction House on a quiet street on the outskirts of Wetherby. Though she had played a bit fast and loose with the out of town speed limit in the hope of catching Holt while they had the chance, Evie was suddenly very aware of the fact that they could be about to have a showdown with a murderer – her second in six weeks – and for that kind of thing she would be much more comfortable with police back-up.

  ‘We can’t hang around,’ said Kitt. ‘Who knows when he’ll pick up that message? I’m hardly going to waste time waiting for him to get back to me if there’s a chance of recovering a first edition copy of The Big Sleep from the hands of thieves.’

  ‘This just feels like it’s escalating fast all of a sudden,’ said Evie, thinking back to her trip to the hospital and how much trouble she managed to cause with that one visit.

  ‘Escalating is good,’ said Grace. ‘Escalating is better than slow or dull. Like most days.’

  Evie pouted. She knew she couldn’t have counted on back-up from those quarters. From what Kitt had told her about their last adventure, Grace was more than happy to leap into things and just hope for the best. Looks like she was outnumbered.

  The auction house was comprised completely of brown stone save for its lead-paned, circular windows. The weather vane shaped like a fish on top of the ornate gable roof pointed south-west. There was something intimidating about it for such a small building and the closer Evie got to the tall wooden door the more sick she felt. The strong scent of pipe smoke lingering by the entrance didn’t help. The sweetly sour smell always turned her stomach.

  ‘Besides anything else,’ said Kitt, apparently not quite finished convincing her friend of the urgency, ‘both Grace and myself have got to be back at the library in about forty minutes unless we want to suffer the wrath of Michelle, and you’ve got massage appointments to keep this afternoon.’

  ‘All right, I get it – time is of the essence,’ Evie said with a sigh. ‘But let’s just go steady. We could just suss the guy out. We don’t have to approach him.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Grace. ‘I didn’t come out here to watch someone bid on a vintage teapot.’

  ‘Sadly, that does sound like my idea of fun,’ said Evie.

  ‘Given his weakness for younger women, I’ve got a much better idea,’ said Grace.

  Kitt narrowed her eyes at her assistant. ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll see, just follow my lead,’ said Grace, pulling open the door to the auction house.

  ‘Er, wait a minute, that’s not how this works, is it?’ said Kitt.

  ‘It does this time . . .’

  Kitt shook her head at Evie. ‘Oh dear. Why couldn’t I have recruited a shy and retiring assistant?’

  They hurried after Grace and the second Evie was over the threshold she was hit by yet another less-than-homely aroma, a mix of strong wood polish and damp bank notes that she decided was the reek of the upper class.

  The entrance to the auction house was fitted with a small reception desk, behind which a lady sat with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on the very end of her nose. She was giving all of her attention to a list of some nature and ticking off items as she went.

  Grace was already standing at the desk but the woman had yet to look up.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Kitt said, as she approached the desk.

  The woman, without looking up from what she was doing, held a single finger in the air. Evie watched as Kitt’s nose crinkled in agitation and Grace started pointing towards a set of heavy double doors nearby.

  Evie shook her head. Getting into trouble might result in them being pulled up in front of Ricci for another dressing-down – or worse.

  Kitt cleared her throat, trying to get the lady’s attention a second time. Still, she didn’t look up from her work. Kitt’s mouth tightened, and she turned to her two conspirators, put a finger to her lips and nodded in the direction of the doors. Grace started creeping towards the auction room and Kitt gave Evie a nudge, leaving her little choice but to follow on.

  The trio approached the doors. The handle was almost within reach but just as Kitt reached out for it, a floorboard creaked underfoot. All three of them cringed at once. Evie looked back at the woman at the desk but she was still engrossed in her work. Evie’s shoulders relaxed. They may as well have walked past with a brass band. Not even that, it seemed, would have roused the woman from whatever vital paperwork she was completing.

  Without waiting another second to be caught out, they scurried into the main hall and whipped the door shut behind them. Inside, somewhere near a hundred punters were seated, some of them raising their paddles as the auctioneer called out ever-rising prices for a pottery ornament of a frog sitting on a lily pad reading a book. Evie had some weird and wonderful things in her vintage-inspired home but she decided there and then that this was one trinket she could do without and kept her arms straight at her side in case there was any confusion.

  ‘Going once. Going twice. Sold for the sum of £12,000!’ The auctioneer slammed her hammer down and an assistant approached the lectern to take away the ornament and replace it with a crystal punchbowl.

  Evie curled her lip. ‘Twelve grand for that thing?’

  ‘When you’ve got money to burn there probably comes a point where you don’t much care what you spend it on. Let’s focus on the bigger issues, shall we?’ Kitt said with a knowing smile. ‘Grace, can you see Holt?’

  Grace pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen a couple of times. ‘Difficult to identify him from the back of his head,’ she said. ‘But this is the guy you’re looking for.’

  Grace held up her phone while Evie and Kitt examined a screenshot taken off Facebook. At Evie’s guess he was somewhere in his forties. He had blue, watery-looking eyes, and a full crop of ginger hair with a grey streak at the front.

  ‘The fact that he’s a redhead narrows it down,’ said Kitt, stroking the end of her own red locks. ‘Just ten per cent of the UK population have naturally red hair, you know.’

  ‘I do now,’ said Grace, scanning the crowds. ‘All right, I can make out two guys with red hair. How about you?’

  Evie and Kitt stared at the back of the crowd’s heads just as Grace had a moment ago.

  ‘Two,’ said Kitt, and Evie nodded her agreement.

  Grace put her phone back into her pocket. ‘Right. I’ll take a look at this guy on the left, you two check out the guy over there and just give me the nod if you think it’s him.’

  Kitt sighed. ‘Fine, but please don’t do anything rash, will you? I can handle answering to Halloran but Superintendent Ricci is another matter entirely.’

  ‘Not
to mention the impact any wrong moves might have on Charley’s career,’ Evie chipped in.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten the stakes,’ said Grace. ‘Let’s regroup in a couple of minutes.’

  The women nodded to each other before Grace walked off towards the left of the room and Kitt and Evie walked off to the right.

  The man Evie and Kitt were approaching had shorter hair than the man in Grace’s picture, but nobody looks exactly like their profile picture.

  ‘Now, where shall we sit?’ said Kitt. Evie could tell by the tone Kitt had no intention of taking a seat but was using her feigned search as an excuse to walk around a bit and get a good look at the red-haired man. This was made more difficult by the fact that his head was tilted downwards as he read from the auction catalogue.

  ‘That’s not him,’ Kitt whispered as they edged a bit further round.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Evie said, craning her neck as though she was looking generally for a seat rather than at a particular person.

  ‘He’s too young,’ said Kitt.

  ‘You’re right. Grace must have— Oh, my God. Grace . . .’ Evie said. Her eyes widened as she looked across the other side of the room to see Kitt’s assistant take a seat right next to the other red-haired gentleman, flashing him a smile.

  Kitt and Evie exchanged a wide-eyed look and then quickly, yet still casually, walked around the back of the seating area to get closer to where Grace was sitting.

  ‘There’s a couple of seats a row behind them, let’s just squeeze past these people,’ Kitt muttered to Evie. ‘Excuse me, sorry. Excuse me.’

  Kitt and Evie squeezed past a sixty-something woman who was wearing a suffocating amount of designer perfume, a man wearing a flat cap even though he was indoors, and another man who tutted as the pair hurried past.

  Evie and Kitt sat down as quickly as they could. Grace and Holt were just in front of them, a little off to their left, but they could still hear the conversation that had already got going.

  ‘I can’t quite believe you’ve never been to an auction before,’ Holt said to Grace in a tone one might expect an adult to talk to a small child.