Five small children, each of whom had won a school prize, were slowly and, with endless changes of mind, choosing books at the far end of the shop when Rupert Barr came in and began to browse. Rachel smiled but was then called down to help a girl unable to decide between Room on the Broom and The Tiger Who Came to Tea.
It was another quarter of an hour before they had been chivvied into making final selections and taken them to the counter. Rupert glanced over occasionally, marvelling at her patience and attentiveness.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, when the children had eventually gone out of the shop, like a flock of little chattering birds, ‘but you can’t hurry important decisions. Can I help or are you happy browsing?’
He took a piece of paper out of his wallet. ‘I have numerous family birthdays in the next month and I usually buy books unless someone hints otherwise, and your professional advice would be golden.’
Rachel laughed. ‘You may remember that I’m only a stand-in and tomorrow is my last day. I can try but I’m no professional.’
‘You could become one.’
‘I’d like to. The trouble is, I make grand plans for this shop while I’m here but I don’t think Emma is up for any of them.’
‘So, how is business?’
‘So-so.’
‘But it might be so much better if you had your way?’
She smiled as he handed her his list. ‘Which ones do you need help with?’
‘All of them … shall we just start at the top?’
The first two were men, both over seventy, one easily satisfied with biography and memoirs, and the other with anything military.
‘Has to be new, though, otherwise he’ll have got it.’
Rachel went down the list and from shelf to shelf, offering books, discussing them, having a sudden clever idea, failing to find anything about Italian Renaissance painting but hitting on the perfect book of poetry, among the very small selection in stock, for someone who would only read things that rhymed.
‘You’re a genius. Now for the children? Will this be harder or easier?’
‘The trouble is, we don’t have enough – it isn’t Emma’s real interest and she tends to buy the old classics or a few the publishers’ reps push onto her. We could do so much more with this end of the shop to entice the children. They’re the readers of the future and they deserve it.’ She blushed. ‘Rant over, sorry … Now, let’s look for – oh, groan, a book for a twelve-year-old boy.’
The completed selection was on the counter and Rachel was starting to add up when Rupert said, ‘That rant of yours.’
‘Sorry …’
‘No, you were spot on. You could turn this shop right round and make it buzz, without question.’
‘Give me a chance to try. That’s a hundred and forty pounds.’
He set down his card. ‘Would you have dinner with me to discuss it?’
Rachel gave him a panicky look. He smiled, before glancing round. But there was no one else in the shop.
‘To set your mind at rest, I have a partner and he happens to be in Beijing on business but even if he weren’t I would be inviting you to dinner.’
Rachel felt both relieved and rather put out. But she was intrigued at what he might say about the bookshop. She had also not been out to dinner for some time and it seemed likely that Rupert Barr, personable and interesting, would make good company.
A message box flashed up in the bottom corner of a laptop. It was an older make, a Lenovo T420, unusual in the ownership of someone who had the taste, the money and the need for far more up-to-date and sophisticated hardware. But that was elsewhere, the on display, fastest available desktop, an iPad nearby, iPhone on the coffee table. The T420 was kept for one purpose and wiped clean immediately after every use.
‘Blind Runner’ flashed again.
He typed.
‘Log in please.’
There was a pause, then a long series of encrypted letters and numbers.
‘Logged in.’
Then, ‘Good evening, Blind Runner.’
‘Who is that?’
‘Green Hovercraft.’
‘Confirm.’
Hieroglyphics. A scroll of numbers.
‘Confirmed.’
The screen went blank for a split second, then came on again with a slightly different background, as if a light had been switched off in one room and on in another.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Bit concerned about radio silence.’
‘You got the round robin?’
‘Yes, but that was a couple of weeks ago.’
‘If everything is still quiet at the end of this week we’ll go online again. Leave it to me. Better safe.’
‘OK, but the membership fee is pretty high for a non-service.’
‘You can opt out any time.’
‘Don’t want to opt out, just want some action.’
‘When I’m happy with security.’
‘OK.’
‘New password details will follow your logout as usual, BR.’
‘Ciao.’
The T420 screen went black. Nothing else flashed up. After five minutes, it was closed down, and returned to its place of concealment.