“Where do you hide a tree?” I asked Jayne.
“The main question is, why would I want to hide a tree?”
“Irrelevant. Pretend you do. Where do you hide it?”
I’d torn Jayne away from the group of women surrounding her, said our quick, apologetic goodbyes to Alice and Kate, avoided Betsy, who’d started to inquire as to if her son had asked me on a date, and ran out the door as fast as I could without attracting more attention than I already had.
We were now walking at a brisk pace, heading for the nearest tube station.
Jayne thought about trees and hiding places for a long time. “I guess the best place to hide a tree is in a forest.”
“Exactly. Where do you hide a book?”
She grinned at me. “In a bookstore.”
I pulled out my phone and called a recently used number. “Tamara, hi. Gemma Doyle here. Do you know if the police have taken the tape down at the bookshop?”
“Paul’s father’s been given the keys. He called Faye and me to tell us we can go back in if we’ve left anything. Mr. Erikson’ll be handling whatever they intend to do with the shop. If he’s going to sell off the stock at discount prices, there might be some things I’d be interested in getting, but I don’t know when, or if, that’s going to happen. I don’t think the shop will ever open for business again, except to get rid of the contents for whatever price they can get. He’ll want to pack up the new books and send back the ones that are returnable. Faye’s agreed to help him with that.”
“Do you still have a key?”
“Why are you asking?”
“I’m looking for something, and I think it’s in the shop. I’d like you to help me with the search. Do you have time now?”
“Not really. But this sounds so intriguing, I’ll make time.”
Tamara beat us to Trafalgar Fine Books. We knocked and she opened the door immediately, her face alight with curiosity. “What are you looking for?”
“I won’t know until I find it. You know the stock, Tamara. Some of those used books look like they’ve been there for a long time.”
“Which they have.”
“I’m not looking for a specific book, but something tucked into one. I suspect Paul hid something, likely a letter or a photograph, in the pages of a book. He’d been keeping this … whatever it is … at a friend’s place, but he had to collect it a few days ago. If he didn’t have any fresh options, it’s possible he slipped the book onto the shelves here to hide it, rather than wherever passed for his home these days or even in the office where it would stand out. The book we’re looking for will be new to the shelves, placed there within the last few days. If nothing’s obvious to you, we’ll have to check them all.”
She shook her head. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to what we get in fiction. The nonfiction I usually browse in case there’s anything that might help with my paper. Nothing comes to mind now.”
We climbed the stairs to the upper level, and I looked at the shelves, jammed with books of varying ages and conditions.
On the way here, I told Jayne what I was thinking. The only reason Paul would keep one small, light box in his friend’s mother’s cellar would be if he didn’t want it to be found. If he’d kept it in the usual places, such as his own bookshop, then it might be located by person or persons he didn’t want to have it.
He could be hiding a book, and if so, he’d had that book for some months at least. But that made no sense. Paul was broke. He needed money now; he’d be trying to sell this find, whatever it was, now. At the time he’d taken the box to his friend Ian’s house, he hadn’t known I’d be coming to London for Pippa’s wedding. I could think of no reason he’d keep this book hidden waiting for me to see it. I’m not a used book buyer, and I’m not all that much of an expert, although I have some knowledge. Any rare book he’d be trying to sell wouldn’t be kept under wraps. He would have sent out feelers to the sort of people who were buyers and experts at that level, but no one had heard rumors of anything coming onto the market. No one Grant or I had spoken to, at any rate. Furthermore, before putting in an offer for a potentially valuable book, buyers would insist on examining the item. Yet Paul hid it in a cellar in an old duplex in Hounslow?
If it was a rare or valuable book, and for some reason he was keeping it out of sight, Paul would have known better than to store it in a cardboard box in a damp London cellar. Therefore, I had to conclude, he was hiding something the value of which wouldn’t be reduced by exposure to a bit of humidity for a short while.
Not a book, and not an old document.
“We’re in no hurry,” I said, “so let’s try not to make too much of a mess. Jayne and I will take the books off the shelf, give them a check to see if anything’s concealed inside, and put them back. Tamara, watch us and let us know if you spot anything that shouldn’t be there. I’m initially only interested in the used books, but if we don’t find anything, we can go downstairs and do the same with the new ones.”
“I can do that,” Tamara said, “but remember some of these used books have come in by the caseload. I have nothing more than a vague idea of what’s where.”
“Good enough,” I said.
One at a time, Jayne and I took books down from the shelves and flipped the pages. Jayne sneezed steadily. The staff had dusted the front of the books, but many of them had not been moved for a long time, and the shelves behind them were thick with dust and the occasional desiccated insect. Occasionally, Tamara said, “I don’t recognize that one,” so I pulled it out and checked inside with additional care, but they all ended up back where they’d started.
Jayne began at the top left shelf, and I took the top right. We were about to meet in the middle, and I was beginning to fear I’d wasted everyone’s time, when an image of Paul flashed into my mind. The last time I’d seen him. In the hotel lobby, lying in wait for me to leave my sister’s wedding. It had been raining out and he wore a loose beige raincoat. A coat with big pockets. He had a book in his hand. As he rose to greet me, he slipped the book into a pocket. Mentally I focused on the image. Farewell, My Lovely. Raymond Chandler.
I stepped back and studied the shelves. And there it was. Bottom shelf, neatly lined up with books of similar genre and age. I crouched down and gently pulled the book off the shelf.
“Is that it?” Jayne said.
“I think so.”
I knew as soon as I had the not-too-bad-condition paperback copy of the mystery classic that something was inside it. I got to my feet as Jayne and Tamara gathered around me. I cradled the book in both hands, and it fell open to reveal a single sheet of paper, folded. “What have we here? I’d prefer not to get my prints on it until I know if it’s significant or not. Jayne, can you grab a pen out of your bag?”
She did so. I didn’t worry about getting my fingerprints on the book itself—this was a bookshop after all—as I carried it to a table in the center of the room. Jayne handed me a pen, and I used it to edge the paper out from between the pages of the book. I then slipped the closed end of the pen into the paper and flipped it open. The paper was still white and crisp, the writing in ballpoint pen, the words legible. We leaned in and read.
“I do think,” I said when I’d finished, “Pippa will want to see this.”