When Sam Taylor opened the door to his flat, he looked like a ruffled academic who had just been rudely woken from a nap between tutorials. He was in his late thirties, early forties, Cross calculated, with long, dark, frizzy hair sprouting bountifully from the sides of his head but not from the top. Together with his goatee beard, there was something of Hergé’s Professor Calculus about him. He wore denim dungarees, a Viyella checked shirt and a pair of vibrantly yellow Crocs.
He was expecting the two police officers and let them in with a resigned, mournful gesture. His flat reflected his obvious bibliophilia. Cross looked around and saw there were books simply everywhere. Bookshelves sprouted up at all sorts of angles to the walls, often into the centre of the room. They filled the surround of all the door architraves. But he thought that even if it appeared a little cluttered, there was an odd sense of order about it all. It wasn’t in the least bit chaotic. Sam obviously organised his collection with great care. They were shelved alphabetically by author and into genres; biography, history, fiction, first editions: something Cross was appreciative, almost admiring of. The top-floor flat, off Whiteladies Road, was also filled with a large collection of houseplants, all well-watered and in good condition. Not a brown-tinged leaf to be seen anywhere. Cross had often considered having houseplants in his flat and made a mental note to ask Sam about his maintenance routine, if a more appropriate opportunity presented itself.
He observed that Sam didn’t look at either Ottey or himself for the entire time they were with him and wondered why this was. He made a note of it.
‘How long have you worked at Squire’s?’ Ottey began.
‘Over fifteen years now. Most of my adult life,’ he replied.
‘Is it a good place to work?’ she went on.
‘If you like books, it’s perfect.’
‘I can see that you do,’ she replied, looking around the book-lined room.
He made no reply to this.
‘What does your job entail?’ she continued.
‘Helping with acquisitions, cataloguing, that sort of thing, and running the shop. Well, helping to run the shop these days,’ he replied.
‘Could you explain?’ Ottey asked.
‘I was shop manager. Promoted ten years ago. I was only twenty-nine. It was a sign of faith by the old man, which is why I’ve stayed there so long.’
‘Why might you have left?’ enquired Cross.
‘I’ve always dreamed of running my own business. What bookseller hasn’t? But I felt I owed it to Torquil to repay his faith.’
‘Torquil, not Ed?’ asked Cross.
‘Well, it was Torquil who promoted me. Not Ed,’ came the reply.
‘Could you please go back and tell us what you meant by “these days”? Has something changed?’ asked Ottey.
‘Not officially, but Persephone’s arrival changed things somewhat. She started to get more involved. Ed encouraged her to do so.’
‘Was it Ed who brought her into the business?’ asked Cross.
‘Yes. Neither of his children are interested, which is fair enough. It’s not for everyone and it’s not exactly surprising that he would want to keep it in the family.’
‘So, her arrival changed things?’ Ottey went on.
‘Not initially, but once she got her feet under the table, as it were. Yes,’ he said a little testily.
‘In what way?’
‘You may have noticed that the front section of the ground floor is now populated with new books. It started with fiction but now includes non-fiction. This is Persephone’s project,’ he informed them.
‘I get a sense you don’t agree with it,’ Ottey suggested.
‘We’re a rare and second-hand bookshop. It’s what we’re known for.’
‘Were Ed and Torquil both agreeable to this change of direction?’ asked Cross.
‘Ed was, definitely. Torquil was less sure.’
‘Why?’ asked Cross.
‘Because it was a significant financial outlay just for stock alone and there are major competitors already out there, who are well established. Torquil knows what his trade is, what his market is and has made a great success out of it,’ Sam said, again answering the question without looking directly at Cross.
‘Victoria told us that they’d had to remortgage their house, at one point,’ Ottey said.
‘Which was all part and parcel of funding this nonsense. Percy bought a vast amount of stock and couldn’t shift it. She didn’t know her readership yet. What they wanted to read. Did no market research at all. What they were looking for. Then she was remarkably inefficient at returning stock. You have a year to return to the wholesalers and she kept missing those deadlines. It was a nightmare. The wholesalers had Ed over a barrel. Her answer was to hijack part of the website and sell the stock at ludicrously discounted prices “to get a foothold in the market”, she said. But you can’t do that when Amazon and Waterstones have got their size twelve hobnail boots all over it. Everyone knows that. Ed gave her far too much power and to be honest with you it was a mistake.’
‘Just financially, or in other ways?’ asked Cross.
‘Percy said new books would attract new, younger customers. But there are two problems with that. The location of the shop for a start. Shops selling new books rely on passing footfall. Our shop is off the beaten track, which is fine, because people with an interest in second-hand books know where it is and make a beeline for it. It doesn’t have to be on a high street. It’s part of its charm, if you like. They know they can come and browse, sit and read before they buy. It’s a club of sorts. But there was no footfall, we’re too far off Park Street. Customer numbers dropped off. Our traditional customers didn’t like the changes to the shop. Her stock took up space for the second-hand stock. The new customers didn’t turn up,’ he told them, as if it was all so sadly predictable.
‘Were you responsible for the traditional stock?’ asked Cross.
‘Absolutely. Then Ed had the nerve, during one meeting, to ask why my numbers were down. Well, you can’t sell stock that isn’t on display any more. It stands to reason, doesn’t it?’ he seemed to be asking them, in a genuine attempt to ascertain that he wasn’t being unreasonable. ‘I was furious,’ he added and then looked like he instantly regretted it.
‘It must be doubly upsetting seeing these changes knowing they’re not going to work and then being proved right,’ Cross observed.
‘Of course. I mean, the notion that her books would attract a younger clientele was just nonsense. Even if it had worked, I doubt they’d’ve been interested in the second-hand stock.’
‘People do love a bargain, though. Don’t they?’ asked Ottey.
‘Sure, but a lot of that generation use Kindles and their phones these days. They don’t buy books and if they do their first port of call is the internet to find the cheapest price,’ he argued.
‘Do you have regular management meetings with Torquil and Ed about the running of the business?’ asked Cross.
‘Of course,’ he answered defensively, as if this question had implied a certain amateurishness about the business.
‘And did you make your views known?’ Cross went on.
‘I tried, but Ed would have none of it. He was convinced it was the right direction for the survival of the business. Persephone’s answer to my objections was that we should sell more of the used stock on the internet. As if we weren’t already doing that,’ he said, still addressing the carpeted floor.
‘That must’ve made things quite difficult for you,’ said Cross. ‘What is your relationship with her like?’
‘Professional. We tolerate each other. I’ve moved to the first floor with Ed now, which makes things a little easier,’ he replied.
‘How did you feel about that? Wasn’t the ground floor something of your domain?’ asked Cross.
‘It was. For over a decade,’ he said wistfully. ‘I remember Persephone being brought in as a child by her mother and here she was, with no experience, usurping someone who had shown the Squires nothing but loyalty. Someone well-read with experience and taste.’ He seemed to stop himself at this point. Like someone who felt they had, or were in danger of, giving too much away.
‘How have things been recently in the shop?’ asked Ottey.
‘Tense.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘You have to work hard in the book trade. Get to know your customer base. Get on first-name terms with some of them, even. Curate your stock for them. Not just obtain what they want but be a source of knowledge for authors they don’t know yet, but you know they will enjoy. Change your stock enough so they come back. Percy lets it go stagnant. Week on week it’s the same books on the central table. They need to be refreshed regularly, otherwise people don’t have a reason to return. To be fair to her she does try, in her own way. It’s just that her ideas are so cart before the horse. Her latest idea was to introduce a coffee shop on the ground floor. This was too much for Torquil. He said he wouldn’t have cups of coffee sploshing all over the place with all the rare books in the building. It caused quite a ruckus with Ed, which wasn’t unusual, it has to be said. Then she wanted to start a book club. That never happened, of course. She has enthusiasm in spades. The ability to deliver, not so much.’
‘In what way was the ruckus not unusual?’ asked Cross who wished people would be more specific in these kinds of situations and not allude to things so vaguely.
‘A father and son working together is often going to lead to different sorts of tensions, isn’t it? Particularly when the old man has set it up from scratch. I mean, they have to try and develop a new relationship at work and move away from the personal,’ he pointed out.
‘And that was proving difficult?’ asked Ottey.
‘The truth of the matter is that everything was fine until Torquil gave control of the company to Ed.’
‘When was this?’
‘Just before Covid. Twenty nineteen, I think. Then things got a lot more difficult. Disagreements about libraries and collections to buy. The direction of the business. The internet. Torquil had always been resistant, but even he knew he had to move with the times.’
‘What was the problem with the internet?’ asked Cross.
‘It’s been a blessing and a curse for the second-hand bookseller, to be honest. On an esoteric level it’s taken a lot of romance away from the book-collecting world. In the old days you had to do masses of research and even travel to get hold of a particular book for a customer. Torquil was particularly good at that and he loved doing it. Travelled to all parts of the world in order to acquire books. He was known as the Indiana Jones of the book world at his peak. But that might have had more to do with the hat, if I’m honest,’ he explained affectionately.
‘And that’s all gone?’ asked Ottey.
‘A few clicks on a keyboard and you can find almost anything, wherever in the world it might be,’ Sam replied.
‘It’s taken the fun out of it,’ Ottey suggested.
‘The fun and the adventure. But the main issue is the pricing. That’s where Ed came a cropper, in my opinion. We’d be selling a book at a certain price then someone would come along and say they could get it somewhere else, on AbeBooks, for half the price. But they had no idea of the condition of the book or the authenticity of the edition. There were reasons it was priced as low as it was,’ he told them.
‘Such as?’ asked Cross.
‘The dust cover is a prime example. Pristine dust covers can add immeasurably to the price, especially with a first edition. But Ed would concede almost immediately on the price, just to get the sale. He was quite impatient in that way. Torquil got more and more frustrated that books he’d acquired, sometimes years before, and had valued properly, were being constantly undersold.’ He stopped as something occurred to him. ‘I should go and see Torquil.’
‘I have one more question. What will happen to the bookshop now? The two children don’t want it. Do you have any idea?’ asked Cross.
‘I don’t know. It really depends on Torquil. I mean, this obviously wasn’t the plan. I would imagine that Torquil still owns the shop. I just don’t know. You’d have to ask Victoria.’
‘Perhaps it might be left to Persephone to run it?’ suggested Cross innocently. ‘That would keep it in the family.’
‘That would be insane and will never happen, despite her delusions,’ scoffed Sam.
‘What delusions?’ Cross pushed.
‘She talks, at times, as if the place will be hers one day. But to be honest with you, she lives in a parallel universe most of the time,’ he replied.