‘It’s about witchcraft in the eighteen hundreds,’ said Nightingale.
‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘This book I’ve seen before, but only reproductions. This is a first edition with the original illustrations. They were changed in later editions because some people found them… offensive.’
‘Is it valuable?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Would you buy it from me?’
She looked at him over the top of her glasses. ‘Young man, if I wanted to buy this I’d have to remortgage my house. A second edition sold for fifteen thousand pounds last year. This is a first edition and it’s in perfect condition.’
‘But you can’t buy it?’
Mrs Steadman sat back in her chair. ‘It’s out of my league, young man,’ she said. ‘If you like, you could leave it with me and I’ll see if I can sell it for you. For a commission, of course. Say, ten per cent.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Nightingale. He took out his cigarettes. ‘Do you mind if I…?’
The woman patted her chest. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘Asthma. And you know those things will give you cancer.’
‘Please don’t tell me I’m going to hell,’ he said. ‘That’s the last thing I need to hear right now.’
‘There’s a big difference between dying of lung cancer and going to hell.’
‘Do you believe in hell?’ asked Nightingale.
The woman fixed him with her eyes. They were so dark brown that they were almost black, glistening like pools of oil. ‘No, young man, I do not.’
‘There’s no such place?’ The tea was very strong, the way his mother used to make it. ‘Strong enough that the spoon stands up in it,’ was what she’d always said.
‘How could there be? Fire and brimstone and suchlike.’
‘But I thought…’ He was going to say ‘witches’ but caught himself just in time. ‘… people in your line were big believers in heaven and hell and devils.’
‘Young man, you have a very strange idea of what my “line” entails,’ she said. ‘I channel energy, I use the power of the natural world to make changes for good. It has nothing to do with God or the devil, with heaven or hell, and everything to do with the natural order of things.’
‘Love potions?’ said Nightingale.
‘Trinkets,’ said the woman. ‘We use the real power to help people, to cure sickness or at least to ease pain and suffering. It has nothing to do with condemning people to eternal damnation.’ She picked up the second book. It was leather-bound, a history of the Salem witch trials of 1692. ‘This is nice,’ she said. ‘Not my sort of thing but you’d get a thousand pounds or so if you can find the right collector. It would probably fetch a higher price in America.’
‘Can you sell it for me, Mrs Steadman?’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘I know a lady in Boston who would probably be interested,’ she said. She put it aside and picked up the third. It was a Victorian book on natural healing that Nightingale had found open on a display cabinet. It was filled with watercolour paintings of plants and flowers and appeared to offer cures for everything from earache to bunions. ‘Now this I can definitely sell,’ she said. ‘I sold a copy over the Internet last month and I had several people chasing it. How does five hundred pounds sound?’
‘Like music to my ears,’ said Nightingale. ‘Could you pay me now?’
‘If you’re happy with a cheque.’
‘Delirious,’ said Nightingale.
She picked up the next book and smiled. ‘This one too. It’s one of the best books on pagan rituals there is and I think…’ She opened it and nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, it’s a second edition. There’s a market for it here in Camden – we’ve got quite an active pagan community. Would you take three hundred for it?’
‘Excellent,’ said Nightingale.
‘Tell me, is there a reason you’re selling them?’
Nightingale smiled. ‘I have a cash-flow problem,’ he said, ‘and they’re not really of any interest to me.’
‘Your father’s books, you said. Was he a big collector?’
‘I’d say so,’ said Nightingale.
‘And, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you come to my little shop rather than trying an auction house?’
‘I want to keep a low profile,’ said Nightingale. ‘I figured if they were in an auction there’d be publicity. My father died a short time ago and I don’t want newspapers trying to drum up a story.’
‘Why would that be a story?’
Mrs Steadman was as sharp as a knife and a better inquisitor than the detectives who had quizzed him after Simon Underwood had fallen to his death. ‘He killed himself, Mrs Steadman.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘It’s okay. We weren’t exactly close. Now I just want to sell a few of his books to raise some money.’
‘I quite understand,’ she said. She picked up the last book. ‘Now this one I’ll definitely buy, but I’m afraid it’s not in the same league as the others,’ she said. ‘I sold a copy just last week, here in the shop.’ It was a collection of spells and seemed more like coffee-table book than one that a witch would use, full of glossy photographs and recipes – it reminded Nightingale of a Jamie Oliver cookbook. ‘It’s only worth about twenty pounds, I’m afraid. Several thousand copies were published in the seventies.’
‘Twenty pounds is fine,’ said Nightingale. ‘I really wanted to know what you thought about it. It says anyone can work a spell, that you don’t have to be in a coven or be a real witch. Is that right?’
‘That’s a difficult question, young man.’
Nightingale pointed at the book she was holding. ‘But you believe in it, don’t you? That if you light a candle of a particular colour, use a particular incense and the right herb, and say the right words, something magical will happen?’
‘Would you like a biscuit?’ asked Mrs Steadman. ‘I get the feeling that you’re going to be here for a while so I think I should give you something to nibble.’
Nightingale laughed. ‘A biscuit would be wonderful, thank you.’
Mrs Steadman went over to a shelf and returned with a packet of chocolate Hobnobs. ‘My weakness,’ she said.
Nightingale took one, wondering if it had been an attempt to distract him, or if she was simply being hospitable. ‘I guess my question is, does magic work?’ he said.
‘Well, of course it does, young man,’ she said, taking a biscuit for herself and placing it on her saucer. ‘If it didn’t, people would soon lose interest, wouldn’t they? If those girls out there buy that potion and use it and it doesn’t work, well, I’ll have lost two customers and they’ll tell all their friends and before long the shop will be out of business.’
‘But I thought you had to believe for magic to work.’
‘Well, you could say that about medicine,’ said Mrs Steadman. ‘With most illnesses, placebos work almost as well as the genuine article. Not for antibiotics, of course, but for the drugs that treat depression or high blood pressure or relieve pain it’s more a question of belief than of a true chemical effect. People believe that paracetamol will take away their headache so it does, when in fact a sugar pill would do the job just as well.’
‘You see, now you’re confusing me,’ said Nightingale. ‘Is it the spells that do the business, or is it believing in them that makes them work?’
‘Belief helps,’ said Mrs Steadman, patiently. ‘It probably makes the spells more efficient, but even someone who didn’t believe would get results. It’s like cooking. You don’t necessarily understand why yeast makes bread rise, but follow a recipe for bread and you’ll get a loaf.’
‘And what about black magic?’
‘The chocolates?
Nightingale chuckled. He was starting to like Mrs Steadman – she had a sense of humour not dissimilar to his own. ‘I mean spells that perhaps aren’t as well meant as the ones you sell in your shop.’
‘There’s no such thing as black magic,’ she said earnestly. ‘There’s no black magic and no white magic. There’s just magic.’
‘But I thought-’
Mrs Steadman silenced him with a wagging finger. ‘It’s like electricity, young man,’ she said sternly. ‘You can use it to power a life-support machine, or an electric chair. One saves lives and the other takes them, but the electricity itself isn’t good or bad. It’s just a power to be used.’