The man shrugs. ‘Haven’t we all. Give me fifty quid, and a lad’ll be in early tomorrow morning and buy it off you for five hundred.’
Is there a point in discussing it? In arguing with this man? Attempting to send him on his way? There is not. They have chosen Kuldesh’s shop, and that is all there is to it. Give the man his fifty, keep the bag under the counter, hand it over in the morning and don’t lose any sleep thinking about what’s in the box. This is just how things are done sometimes, and it’s best to play nice.
Either that or you’ll get a petrol bomb through your front window.
Kuldesh takes three tens and a twenty from the till and hands them to the man, who quickly buries them deep in his overcoat. ‘You don’t look like you need fifty pounds?’
The man laughs. ‘You don’t look like you need five hundred, but here we both are.’
‘Your overcoat is exquisite,’ says Kuldesh.
‘Thank you,’ says the man. ‘It’s Thom Sweeney. I’m sure you know this already, but if that bag goes missing someone will kill you.’
‘I understand,’ says Kuldesh. ‘What is in the box, by the way? Between you and me?’
‘Nothing,’ says the man. ‘It’s just an old box.’
The man laughs again, and this time Kuldesh joins him.
‘God speed, young man,’ says Kuldesh. ‘There’s a homeless woman on the corner of Blaker Street who might appreciate that fifty pounds.’
The man nods, says, ‘Don’t touch the bag,’ and disappears through the door.
‘Thank you for calling,’ says Kuldesh, noting that the man is heading down the hill in the direction of Blaker Street. A motorcycle courier passes in the opposite direction.
An interesting start to the morning, but many interesting things happen in this business. Kuldesh had recently been involved in tracking down some rare books and catching a murderer with his friend Stephen and Stephen’s wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth runs a ‘Murder Club’, of all things.
This box will be in new hands tomorrow, and the whole episode will be forgotten, just one of those things that happen in a trade that is not always beyond reproach.
Trinkets and trouble, that was the antiques business.
Kuldesh lifts the bag onto the counter and unzips it again. The box has a sort of squat charm, but is not the sort of thing he could sell. He shakes it. It is certainly full of something. Cocaine or heroin is his best guess. Kuldesh scrapes some dirt from the lid. What is this worthless box now worth? More than five hundred pounds, that is for certain.
Kuldesh zips the bag up and puts it under his desk in the back room. He will Google the street price of heroin and cocaine. That will make the day go a little quicker. He will then lock the bag in his safe. It would be a very bad day for a burglary.
5
‘Mervyn, there isn’t an easy way to say this. Tatiana isn’t real.’ Donna holds out a comforting hand for Mervyn to take, but it remains untaken, as Ibrahim could have told her. Mervyn is not one of life’s hand-takers. He lives life at a safe distance.
They have asked Donna to visit Mervyn’s flat, to have a chat about his apparent new love, Tatiana. Joyce felt that a police officer might make more of an impact on him, though something in Mervyn’s eyes at the Boxing Day lunch had told Ibrahim that very little ever had an impact on Mervyn.
Mervyn gives a little smile. ‘I’m afraid I have photographs and emails to suggest otherwise.’
‘I wonder if we might take a look at those photographs, Mervyn?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘I wonder if I might look at your personal emails?’ Mervyn replies.
‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ says Elizabeth.
‘I know it’s difficult,’ says Donna. ‘And I know it might feel embarrassing –’
‘Not embarrassing in the slightest,’ says Mervyn. ‘You couldn’t be further from the truth there. You’re miles from the truth, my love.’
‘But perhaps a misunderstanding?’ says Joyce.
‘A crossing of wires? Simply that,’ says Ibrahim.
Mervyn shakes his head in amusement. ‘It might be unfashionable, but I have a little thing called faith, which, I venture, is undervalued these days. In the police force, and elsewhere.’
Mervyn looks at the whole gang as he says this.
‘I know that the four of you are very much the “cool kids” around here, I get that …’
Ibrahim notes that Joyce looks thrilled.
‘… but you don’t always know everything.’
‘I keep telling them that, Merv,’ says Ron.
‘You’re the worst of them,’ says Mervyn. ‘If it wasn’t for Joyce, I wouldn’t put up with any of you. I gave up Boxing Day lunch to keep you lot company, don’t forget that.’
‘It was greatly appreciated, Mervyn,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And, I agree, we are flawed, as individuals, and as a group, and, in my view, you are probably right to single out Ron as the worst of us. But I believe Donna would like to show you a few things that might sway you.’
‘I will not sway,’ says Mervyn.
Donna turns on a laptop and starts the business of opening some windows.
‘It is very kind of you to visit us on your day off,’ says Joyce.
‘Not at all,’ says Donna.
‘Do you know Donna arrested someone on Christmas Day?’ Joyce tells Mervyn. ‘I didn’t know you could do that.’
‘What was it?’ asks Ron. ‘Reindeer rustling?’
‘Soliciting a sexual act,’ says Donna.
‘At Christmas,’ says Joyce, shaking her head. ‘You’d think people would be too full.’
Donna has found what she is looking for, and she angles the screen towards Mervyn. ‘Now, Mervyn, Joyce forwarded me a photograph of Tatiana that you sent her –’
‘Did she indeed?’
‘I did,’ says Joyce. ‘Don’t act irked. You only sent it to me to show off.’
‘Male vanity,’ agrees Ibrahim, glad to have something to add.
‘She’s a cracker,’ says Ron. ‘Whoever she is.’
‘She is Tatiana,’ says Mervyn. ‘And your opinions are unwelcome.’
‘Well, that’s just it,’ says Donna. She shows Mervyn his photograph on her computer screen, next to another identical photograph. Same woman, same photograph. ‘You can do a reverse-image search of any photograph on the internet, so I did that with your photograph of Tatiana, and you’ll see that, far from being a photograph of somebody named Tatiana, the photograph is actually of a woman named Larissa Bleidelis, a Lithuanian singer.’
‘So Tatiana is a singer?’ says Mervyn.
‘No, Tatiana isn’t real,’ says Donna.
They can all see that this is as clear as day, but Mervyn is having none of it.
As Ibrahim listens, he thinks this is like trying to talk to Ron about football. Or about politics. Or about anything else. Mervyn calls this new theory ‘preposterous’. He even calls it ‘poppycock’, which, Ibrahim judges, is as close to swearing as Mervyn would ever go. Mervyn fights, says he has plenty more photographs, private messages, proclamations of love. The lot. He even keeps them in a file, which makes Ibrahim warm to him slightly more.
Joyce takes the baton now. ‘Have you ever heard of something called “romance fraud”?’
‘No, but I’ve heard of love,’ says Mervyn.
‘There’s a television programme all about it,’ continues Joyce. ‘It’s on after BBC Breakfast.’
‘I don’t watch television,’ says Mervyn. ‘I call it the gogglebox.’
‘Yes, I think lots of people do,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You didn’t invent that expression.’
‘This is a tangent,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And I mean nothing by it, but a surprising number of serial killers don’t own a television.’