As they drove past the Bristol Royal Infirmary, Ottey turned to Cross.
‘Do you want to pop in as we’re passing?’ she asked.
‘No. I’ll go in after work.’
‘Would you like me to come with you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he replied.
She smiled and made a mental note to text her mother and tell her she’d be late that evening.
*
Simpson’s bookshop was on a sloping street near the hospital. The downhill nature of the street gave the impression that perhaps the shop was falling over, as it appeared to tilt down the hill. What was also instantly noticeable was the difference between this establishment and Squire’s in Berkeley Square. This was a much humbler, less grand, establishment. More of an emporium of second-hand books. The inside of the shop was fairly chaotic. As if the owner had neither the time nor the energy to organise things in an orderly manner. It seemed predominantly a second-hand and used bookshop, rather than a rare and antiquarian dealer, like Squire’s. There wasn’t a leather-bound spine in sight. At the front of the shop was a small detached bookshelf with a scrawled sign saying, ‘Everything under a pound’.
It gave Cross the impression that it might be run as more of a hobby than an actual business. There was no one in evidence.
‘Hello?’ Ottey called out.
Cross noticed a once white, now grubby, piece of string hanging from a bookshelf with another scrawled sign which said, ‘Pull for service’. He managed to find a clean section of the string and did so. A small bell tinkled high above them. A few moments later a door with a reeded glass panel opened and a ball of white hair, in the middle of which could be two small black eyes, appeared. Denholm Simpson, for it was he, had a resplendently thick mop of hair on his head and a vast white beard almost covering his entire face, ending just below his eyes. His mouth was completely hidden somewhere in this hirsute undergrowth, its location indicated only by a brown nicotine stain. He looked like an out-of-control muppet on a windy day.
‘I was just making tea. Would you like some?’ he enquired politely.
‘No thank you,’ replied Ottey. Cross produced his warrant card.
‘Detective Sergeants Cross and Ottey, Avon and Somerset Police,’ he announced out of habit. Then he remembered. He held up his card again. ‘Correction. Detective Sergeant George Cross and Detective Inspector Josie Ottey,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ replied Simpson. The disappointment was palpable. ‘And there was me thinking you might be my first customers,’ he cackled with a modicum of self-reproach.
‘You haven’t had any customers today?’ asked Ottey looking at her watch and seeing it was nearly three.
‘Today? I haven’t had any customers all bloody week,’ he guffawed again. ‘The police? What’s happened? Someone stolen some books and you think I’m some kind of literary fence? Come to think of it, chances are I’ve handled some hot tomes in my time. Almost inevitable. How can I help?’
‘Edward Squire,’ Cross began.
‘Little shit bastard, son of a bigger shit bastard,’ the bookseller said vituperatively. ‘What about him?’
‘Have you not heard?’ Ottey asked, a little surprised as it had made the local news.
‘What?’
‘The little shit bastard was murdered a couple of nights ago,’ Cross informed him.
‘What?’ This seemed to knock the wind out of the old man.
‘Perhaps you’d like to sit down?’ Ottey suggested. He did so, disappearing behind a mound of books, underneath which presumably there was a desk, behind which presumably was a chair. ‘Can I get you some water?’ Ottey continued.
‘He was my godson,’ Simpson began, ignoring her. ‘I was a terrible godfather.’
Cross reflected that this was something of a modern refrain. One he heard frequently. So often, he wondered why people bothered with the concept of godparents any more. After all, did young people really believe they were renouncing the devil, when the chances were they didn’t even believe in the existence of such a thing anyway? The only explanation he could come up with was that it satisfied a need to belong. That it was a badge of honour, which marked your membership of an elevated echelon of friendship. Something that went beyond normal, run-of-the-mill friendship, as it involved your friends’ child. A fundamentally serious undertaking that, before long, wouldn’t be taken in the least bit seriously. This was an instance in which Cross was quite grateful his life was without such friendships, and that being asked to be a godparent wasn’t something he’d ever had to deal with.
‘You were the business partner of his father, Torquil, for some time,’ Cross observed.
‘That’s right. Is he okay? I should give him a call, I suppose, but…’
‘But what?’ asked Cross.
‘We haven’t spoken in over twenty years.’
‘Why?’ Cross pushed, even though they knew the answer.
‘We used to be partners,’ Simpson replied wistfully. ‘Before he dumped me as soon as the opportunity presented itself.’
‘What happened?’ asked Ottey. ‘Did it end badly?’
‘Well, if I say I don’t think this business ever recovered, what would you think?’ he asked her. The two detectives said nothing. ‘Do you see a rare or antiquarian book on these shelves? I can’t even remember what a first edition looks like. I’ve just become a recycling centre for books that no one has any further use or room for. The council should be paying me a fee for the service.’
‘How did you come to be in business with Torquil Squire in the first place?’ asked Cross.
‘That man owed me everything and what did he do? Left me high and dry. Then tried every trick in the book to force me out of business. It’s one of the only reasons I haven’t retired – to stick it to him.’
‘Could you elaborate?’ asked Cross.
‘I won’t give him the pleasure. Do you know he even tried to buy me out once? Early on. He had no real interest in it. He just wanted to close me down. Get rid of the competition and put me in my place, as he saw it.’
‘You don’t look much of a competitor to me,’ said Cross.
Simpson laughed at this. ‘Talk about getting straight to the point. I like you. You’re quite right, of course. I have no idea why I keep going. A mixture of pride, I suppose, and the need to have something to do. It’s a struggle, I admit. But it’d be more of a struggle if I gave it all up and just sat staring at the walls. I don’t make any real money, but then again, I don’t lose any. So why stop?’
‘How did the two of you meet? You and Squire?’ asked Ottey.
‘Farringdon Road book market, London. He had a barrow. I used to buy books from him. I’ve always been interested in books. But I was a signwriter at the time. Something I didn’t really enjoy, to be honest. Anyway, my father died unexpectedly and left me some money. Long and short of it, Torquil knew about a bookshop that was up for sale in Bristol. You’re standing in it. We went into business together. It was terrific, until it wasn’t. Happiest days of my working life,’ he said ruefully.
‘So you used the money from your dad?’ asked Ottey.
‘Correct. We couldn’t have done it otherwise.’
‘What were the terms of the agreement?’ asked Cross.
The owlish man sighed a long sigh of regret.
‘In many ways I was so naive. I owned, still own, the freehold of the building. But he supplied all the additional stock and bought half of the stock that came with the shop. So we were equal partners, pretty much, until Cynthia Sumner died and he left.’
‘Were you upset?’ asked Ottey.
‘Of course I was. He wouldn’t have been in a position to inherit from her if it hadn’t been for our business, and our business wouldn’t have existed at all without my finance.’
‘Did he consider taking you with him?’ asked Cross.
‘You don’t know him. Once a barrow boy, always a barrow boy. Look for the upside in any given situation. Take opportunities when and where they present themselves. He was used to always thinking on his feet, looking out for number one. I tried to persuade him we’d be better off together. Use this as a second-hand shop and the Berkeley Square building as a rare and antiquarian establishment. We could become the south-west equivalent of Bernard Quaritch. But he was having none of it,’ he said, with an ache which longed for what might have been.
‘Bernard Quaritch?’ asked Ottey.
‘A leading rare booksellers, established in the mid-nineteenth century, still in business,’ replied Cross, jumping in before Simpson had a chance to answer, relishing the opportunity to display his knowledge, as usual.
‘It obviously hurt. Still does,’ commented Ottey.
‘That was just the beginning of it. First off, he tried to make me buy him out of half of the business, which I was in no position to do. So he took half of the stock and buggered off,’ he complained.
‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ asked Ottey.
‘He did it overnight, didn’t he? It was like a declaration of war. As I said, he seemed to make it his purpose in life, from then on, to put me out of business.’
‘Why?’ asked Cross who, from experience, knew there was always more to these kinds of stories than people let on.
‘You’d have to ask him that,’ Simpson replied tersely.
Cross would do exactly that when he got the chance.
‘What was his background?’ Cross asked.
‘He started as a runner,’ he replied.
‘What’s that?’ asked Ottey.
‘Someone who trawled around bookshops in the country and found things they knew a certain bigger London bookshop might be interested in. They bought it and then sold it for a profit. They also worked between the London bookshops themselves. If they couldn’t afford a book and were well enough known by the bookshop, they might take it on approval and if they sold it, give the original bookshop a commission,’ he explained.
‘And he went from there to barrows?’ asked Cross.
‘Yeah, he wanted to work for himself, rather than just being an agent, or a go-between. A lot of them did it. Big business, the barrows in those days. There were several markets where you could find book barrows all over London. Farringdon, Shoreditch, Portobello Road. All pretty much gone now.’
‘There’s still one on the South Bank,’ Cross commented.
‘True, but it’s very different. You don’t get the quality of books you could unearth on the barrows.’
‘Why?’ asked Cross.
‘Death duties played a big part back then in the availability of good books. People with country houses they could no longer hold onto sold their libraries. Believe it or not, just after the First World War, books were still filtering down from the French Revolution. There were so many around at one time that the big bookshops couldn’t cope, so they found their way to the barrows. Those boys were ahead of their time in many ways. Far more entrepreneurial. Seeking out libraries for sale, rather than just waiting for them to land on their doorstep,’ he told them.
‘Was Torquil much of a success?’ asked Ottey.
‘Terence he was then. Tel. He changed his name when we set up the shop,’ the old man scoffed.
‘Really?’ asked Ottey, a little disappointed.
‘He thought it sounded more like a bookseller. But frankly Terence Squire sounds just as credible to me,’ Simpson said.
‘So he had the expertise, you had the cash and a desire to leave the graphic arts?’ Cross put to him.
‘Yes, pretty much. He had great taste. A terrific eye for a book, it has to be said. He also had this way of finding where the great collections were and persuading people to sell them even if they hadn’t planned to. He was spot on when it came to valuing and pricing books. Absolutely nailed it every time,’ he informed them.
‘Was he a popular figure in the book trade?’ asked Cross.
‘Depends who you ask. He was very outspoken about certain things and had a tendency to rub people up the wrong way.’
‘How?’
‘Like I said. By getting access to private libraries before the London bookshops.’
‘How did he manage that?’
‘The man had spies everywhere. In all the great houses. That man had the contact details of more butlers and servants than an employment bureau for domestic staff. He was like a detective, following leads. Nothing made him happier.’ He laughed. Ottey noticed an element of affection in the old man when he recollected this. It made it all the sadder, really. ‘And then there was the whole ring debacle,’ Simpson continued.
‘The ring?’ asked Ottey.
‘It was a mechanism whereby big bookshops would go to auctions around the country and agree amongst themselves not to bid against each other, thereby preventing a proper auction taking place,’ said Cross, jumping in again. ‘This would keep the price low. They would then meet in a nearby hotel and hold another private auction. The prices would remain much cheaper than they would have been, had an uncontrolled open auction taken place. The difference between the auction price and the price paid in the ring would then be shared out among the members. A dealer who was a member of the ring could actually go to an auction, not make a bid or buy anything and walk away with cash in his pocket. All completely illegal, of course.’
‘The detective knows his stuff,’ declared Simpson, obviously impressed. The truth was, in this instance, that Cross had steeped himself in researching the world of bookselling in the days since the murder. But he was happy to take the compliment.
‘As DS Cross says, it was illegal and completely unfair. Torquil didn’t like it and said so. They tried to shut him up by inviting him to join. But he wasn’t having any of it. Spoke out even more. He made quite a few enemies that way. Got him into a lot of unpleasantness.’
‘Such as?’ asked Cross.
‘Threats of arson here at the shop. Physical threats. At one auction the bigger bookshops even employed a gang of thugs to surround Torquil and prevent him from bidding. It was quite outrageous.’
‘Do you know who these threats came from?’ asked Ottey.
‘No. I mean, we had a pretty good idea. But this was decades ago. The ring petered out well before the millennium. I can’t believe it had anything to do with this week’s tragic events.’
‘That’s true,’ Cross observed. ‘But it shows that Mr Squire wasn’t frightened of making enemies.’
‘Was Ed a good bookseller?’ Ottey asked.
‘I think so. But as I said we haven’t been in touch much.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘The fallout from Torquil’s leaving the business, and me in the lurch, has been long term. Ed became part of that problem, part of the opposition.’
*
George spent most of the weekend sitting at his father’s side. He would normally work the weekends during an investigation, but he was instructed by none other than DCI Ben Carson he was to do no such thing while his father’s health was in such a parlous state. There had been no change in his condition and another scan was scheduled for the beginning of the week. He and Christine mostly took it in turns to sit by the bed, giving the other a break. Stephen brought her back from mass on Sunday morning and stopped by to say hello to George, briefly.
George used the time at Raymond’s bedside to think about the case. He may have been told to stay out of the office but that didn’t mean he couldn’t spend the time usefully reviewing where they were up to. Then a nurse suggested that Raymond might actually be able to hear George, so he began to run through the case quietly, out loud. This was useful in so far as it made him feel he was making good use of his time, but it also confirmed that they really had very little to go on, currently.