Attack and Decay, page 9
There was indeed a promising smell wafting from the direction of the kitchen.
“First date?” said Agatha, managing to make those two lone syllables sound impressively scathing.
“What has dating got to do with any of this?” added Nevada. “You paid the little anchorite for a table dance and that’s all there is to it.”
“I am maintaining a dignified silence,” said Tinkler. “And don’t think I don’t know what an anchorite is.” He paused. “I don’t know what an anchorite is. What is it?”
“A kind of nun,” said Nevada. “A particularly reclusive nun.”
“So that would be irony, right?” said Tinkler.
Before Nevada could confirm this, probably in a tone of excoriating sarcasm, Barbro called from the kitchen, “All ready.”
Tinkler immediately headed in that direction. Followed, to be candid, no less eagerly by the rest of us. The long drive and the bizarre luminous hunt for dog excrement had evidently given everyone an appetite.
All of us were converging on the kitchen, including Magnus, Emma and the previously missing-in-action Christer Vingqvist. As Barbro began serving us, Christer took me aside.
“I am so sorry. I can’t believe it. She has taken all the Bang & Olufsen equipment out of her system and put it into storage, except for a second-generation Beosound A1 Bluetooth speaker in pink. Apparently she is playing tunes off her phone with it. My god. She’s listening to nothing but digital files off her phone. This is a woman who espouses a genuine love of music. Listening to her phone.” He shook his big head in audiophile despair. I shared his disappointment but, to tell the truth, I was more focused on the refreshments Barbro was dishing out.
The cakes proved to be several big white plates covered with a squadron of identical little pale green marzipan cylinders filled with a chocolate-rum truffle. The things were shockingly, addictively delicious. I had to force down the urge to stuff my mouth with several handfuls of them.
“These are fabulous,” said Nevada. “Did you make them yourself?”
“No,” said Barbro. “I bought them at Ikea.”
“Can I be buried with a pack of them in my coffin?” said Tinkler. “In fact, line the entire damned coffin with them.”
The coffee was also surprisingly good. Only instant, but single estate instant. As I drank it I felt, as I often did in times of need like this, that I was pouring it directly into a hollow behind my eyes where it would refill a reservoir in my brain and allow it to start working at full capacity again, like vital oil for an intricate piece of machinery.
Barbro Bok watched with satisfaction as we stuffed our faces. But her attention was mostly elsewhere, and her eyes lit up every time she looked at Christer Vingqvist. She was so pleased to see him that it was embarrassing, at least to him.
She sat close to Vingqvist at the big kitchen table and frequently touched his arm, his shoulder and sometimes even his face. He clearly felt this was oppressive, and when she excused herself at one point and disappeared for a few minutes, he immediately started grousing.
“What’s she being so fulsome about?”
“You were in a burning car, man,” said Agatha. “You could have died.”
“Even so.”
“I think it’s sweet,” said Nevada.
“Do you think she’ll notice if I abscond with the rest of these green marzipan things?” said Tinkler.
“Hands off, Tinkler.”
“Find anything good amongst the books?” I said.
Nevada nodded. “Agatha was straight in looking for classic Penguin editions of Chandler and Hammett. And she found them.”
Agatha nodded. “She has an amazing collection here. Although most of it is hardback.” This last word was uttered with the thinly veiled contempt of a paperback fanatic.
“If you let me glom a bag of these marzipan things, I’ll help you steal some books. Hell, I’ll help you steal all the books.”
“Shut up, Tinkler.”
As soon as Barbro returned, Christer excused himself and went out the front door. For a moment I thought he was fleeing the scene, and on foot at that, but I glimpsed him through the kitchen window. He opened the door of the Mini and began to hunt around inside for something.
“How do you like Trollesko?” said Barbro.
“Very clean and orderly,” said Tinkler.
“And pleasant,” added Nevada.
“We love our hotel,” said Agatha.
“There seems to be no one there,” said Tinkler. “The staff are invisible.”
“How fascinating,” said Barbro.
“Aren’t all of the hotels in Sweden like that?” said Nevada.
“Not the ones I’ve been in,” said Barbro. “Anyway, sounds like a place for a good juicy murder, ha-ha-ha.”
“Murder at the Swedish Addams Family Hotel,” said Tinkler. “Catchy title.”
“Where is this hotel?”
Barbro directed the question at Magnus and her sister, but it was Tinkler who answered. “Opposite the vattentorn,” he said, astonishing us all. I had no idea where, or what, the vattentorn was, and I was willing to wager that a few hours ago neither did Tinkler.
“Oh, I know that part of town.” Barbro nodded. “It is very pleasant there.”
“Your friend is surprisingly well informed,” said Magnus, looking at Tinkler with a gimlet gleam in his eye.
He turned to Barbro. “He also knew about the Red Iron Inn.”
Barbro shook her head. “Under normal circumstances, the mere mention of that place would be enough to fill me with fury and disgust. But today…” She gazed out the window at Christer, who was still standing half in and half out of the Mini, bent over at the waist, absorbed in some obscure enterprise. “I am just so grateful that my friend is alive and well. Let them have their stupid little squalid striptease bistro.”
“Pizza and flange,” said Emma, summing up the situation with commendable brevity.
Christer finally emerged from the Mini with a white plastic shopping bag bearing the name Hemköp in red. The bag contained something heavy, judging by the way he carried it. He entered the house, left the bag by the front door and came to rejoin us, just as Nevada and Agatha were rising from the table. “Do you mind if we continue snooping through your books?” said Agatha.
“No, please do,” said Barbro, turning on her the huge smile that had greeted Christer’s return. “And ‘snooping’ is so appropriate to a collection heavily devoted to the noble art of sleuthing.”
“I will join you,” said Christer hastily, moving away from the table and hurrying ahead of us. I thought he just wanted to get out of range of Barbro and her adoring gaze. But he doubled back to the front door, picked up the bag, and headed for the veranda on the other side of the house like a man on a mission.
This veranda housed the portion of Barbro’s collection that Agatha and Nevada hadn’t examined yet; the other half of the library, with authors from N to Z. Or, as Agatha put it, “Magdalen Nabb to Roger Zelazny.”
The mention of Zelazny led to a discussion of science fiction writers who also wrote crime, with special reference to Fredric Brown, Henry Kuttner and Leigh Brackett.
All these authors, and more, were represented among the books in Barbro’s library. They were ranked on long rows of handsome rosewood shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. It was indeed an impressive collection.
There were recessed lights in the ceiling, angled so that they provided a pale but adequate glow for reading the spines. “Museum standard lighting,” said Agatha. “It won’t fade the dust jackets.”
Christer Vingqvist had got here ahead of us with his plastic bag and he was busy unpacking it. As we’d approached the veranda along the hallway, we had heard the thud of a considerable weight hitting the floor. We could now see that Christer had dropped a pile of books. I read the names Jack Vance—another science fiction turncoat—and Barbara Vine on the dustjackets of the books that now lay scattered on the floor.
Christer looked at us, face sweating, trying for merriment in his eyes, but being foiled by his nervous blinking. We’d apparently caught him red-handed. He had clawed out the works of Vance and Vine from a shelf near floor level, creating a gap adjacent to the works of Charles Williams, into which he now began stuffing over a dozen examples of his own opus. We’d arrested him in the act of clumsily scooping these copies of Cold Angel, Dead Angel from his bag.
“Barbro will want these to give to people, as gifts,” he said by way of explanation, pushing his books neatly and lovingly into place, then tidying up the volumes of Jack Vance, Barbara Vine, et al, or at least dragging them together into a disorderly knee-high pile and nudging them none too gently away from the bookshelves, to allow free access to the multiple copies of his own work.
Agatha immediately kneeled in the space he created.
But Christer’s delight was short lived, as it became evident that she was less interested—much less interested, it has to be said—in the adventures of Penumbra Snow than the collected works of Charles Williams. “She’s got everything by him,” said Agatha. “Both in English and translation.”
Nevada crouched beside her. “You know, you’ve got to watch out for those Serie Noire editions,” she said. “The French editors rewrote some of those completely.”
“I know. You told me. Sacrilege. I doubt they would have dared try that with Charles Williams, though. Very big in France, Monsieur Williams.”
“Cher Charles,” said Nevada, pronouncing the name in the French fashion, and they both giggled.
Apparently unable to endure the discussion of any literary works other than his own, Christer flounced out. A moment later Barbro came in, and fell sprawling on her face as she promptly tripped over the pile of books he’d left on the floor.
A pile of books by writers, it seemed safe to say, whose works had a greater claim to the space on the shelves of this library—indeed, any library—than the debut of Miss Snow. However hot she was.
We rushed to help Barbro, but she waved us away. She got calmly to her feet again and stood there for a moment, looking at the books on the floor and then at the slab of self-published fiction that had been crowbarred into her library in their place. Then, when she finally spoke, there was a genuine note of delight in her voice—a sort of rich undercurrent of a chuckle. “I’ll put them back when he’s gone.”
She winked at us and shook her head in affectionate exasperation. She seemed like a woman who was finally relaxing after a long hard day.
Agatha was still inspecting the Charles Williams section, which filled almost an entire shelf by itself. “You’ve got the Cassell Crime Club editions,” she said.
“Yes, I’m particularly proud of those. Please feel free to come over to peruse them if you like. I’d say take them back to your hotel with you to read, but as you know they are quite rare.”
“That’s very kind of you. But it’s his paperbacks I’m into.”
“Well, of course. All Williams’s early books were originally paperbacks.”
“Published by Gold Medal,” said our girl.
Barbro nodded. “Until around 1955, I think. You know about the title changes?”
Agatha nodded. “Scorpion Reef into Gulf Coast Girl, that sort of thing?”
“Yes, exactly.” Barbro smiled at us. “Your friend knows her stuff.”
“Speaking of friends,” I said, “where’s Tinkler got to?”
“We’re using the term ‘friend’ here loosely, you understand,” said Nevada.
We went looking for the wayward Tinkler, leaving Barbro staring thoughtfully at her bookshelf. As soon as we were out of earshot, Nevada said quietly, “You didn’t sound too impressed with those Cassell Crime Club editions.”
“Logo’s way too big,” said Agatha. “Squeezes out the artwork.”
“Like the title on the self-published priest’s book.”
“Like the self-published priest’s name on the self-published priest’s book.”
There was no sign of Christer Vingqvist, though, or indeed of Tinkler. When we went into the kitchen, we found Magnus sitting alone. “Where’s Emma?” said Nevada.
“She is driving Tinkler to the café. It’s all right. I will drive the rest of you back to the hotel in the van.”
“To hell with the hotel,” said Nevada. “Let’s go to the café.”
11: DEVILISH DICKHEAD
When we got outside, we found that Tinkler hadn’t left yet. He was still moping aimlessly, as Emma busied herself in the Mini, apparently restoring order to the interior of the vehicle after Christer had ransacked it in his search for his books. It didn’t seem possible to have brought quite that much chaos to such a small car, but clearly the self-published priest had managed it.
Tinkler paused in his nervous pacing and nodded at us. He rubbed his hands together. Perhaps because they were cold—or perhaps he just wanted to put things on a brisk businesslike footing. “Well, my ride is almost ready.”
“You’re abandoning us?” said Nevada. “We’ve just arrived in Sweden and you’re abandoning your oldest and closest friends on our first night here?”
“I wouldn’t frame it in those terms.”
“You wouldn’t frame it in those terms. But you are abandoning us.”
“Sorry. It’s a matter of not disappointing Ida.”
“Ida,” said Agatha, lending considerable mirthful contempt to those two syllables.
“Ida Tistelgren. Isn’t that name sheer poetry?” said Tinkler.
“Tinkler,” said Nevada wearily. “What is she, seventeen?”
“Mid-twenties and wise beyond her years.”
“Wise in the ways of fleecing English chumps,” suggested Agatha.
“Chump-hood denied. And if you’re so interested, you can come along.”
“All right,” said Nevada and Agatha instantly and in unison. Nevada looked at me. “Assuming that’s all right with you?”
“More coffee?” I said. “Always.”
“And the cake, of course,” said Tinkler, “though on this occasion the presence of Ida renders that an almost secondary consideration.”
* * *
Tinkler insisted on travelling in the Union Jack Mini even though we were now all headed to the same destination. “Very antisocial of him,” said Nevada.
“He doesn’t want to be with us because he wants to use his phone,” said Agatha.
“To call the anchorite?” said Nevada.
“The dancing anchorite.”
“The lap-dancing anchorite.”
“Exactly,” said Agatha.
Magnus, who had put up with us all day since collecting us at the airport first thing this morning, now went above and beyond the call of duty—chauffeuring us back over the dark river and past the shadowed docks into Trollesko.
First a brief return to the hotel, where the girls both made a quick pit stop, reappearing even more dolled up and ravishing than before, before he took us on to the café.
We drove there through the shopping district of Trollesko, which was pretty much deserted at this time of night. The modern glass shopfronts had posters of smiling young people in stylish bright clothes. Half the models looked like Agatha.
Magnus couldn’t entirely conceal his relief—to which he was more than entitled—when he dropped us off a short distance from the café in the centre of town. “You can book a lift to take you back.”
“Or we can walk,” I said. I’d memorised the route from the hotel, and it wasn’t far.
“Or you could walk,” agreed Magnus with the patient approval of a man who wanted to encourage us in this line of thinking and never trouble him for a lift again. He drove away into the night.
“He was glad to get rid of us,” said Nevada.
“Perhaps he’s rushing back to his wife, innit?” said Agatha.
“Unless she’s here with Tinkler, know what I mean?” said Nevada.
Then they both laughed at this rather cruel Mockney mockery of the way Emma spoke. “After all,” said Nevada. “She did drive him here…”
“In her motor.”
“In her well trendy motor.”
“Her motor is bang on trend.”
But there was no sign of the Union Jack Mini; indeed, there were no vehicles anywhere on the clean empty streets as we walked towards what declared itself, in gilt fin de siècle script spread across wide glass windows, as the Notre Coeur Café and Patisserie. Those windows generously spilled light out into the empty streets and there was definitely an Edward Hopper feeling to the place, just at this moment, on this night.
There were still some people inside, but the café was the last outpost of life in a street of dark and empty shops. As we drew nearer, it became clear that the café too was preparing to close. Many tables were empty and the staff, all in white shirts and black trousers, were chatting among themselves or checking receipts.
The café appeared to have once been two buildings which had been joined, with a reception area and a main entrance added in the middle. The service desk, a handsome art nouveau artefact of chrome and glass, was situated here. Its illuminated interior consisted of pale green frosted glass shelves on which were displayed the—by now much-depleted—selection of enticing cakes and pastries.
Standing awkwardly by this strikingly handsome piece of commercial furniture was the not-quite-so strikingly handsome Jordon Tinkler. He looked fretful and not much cheered by our arrival.
“Is she late?” asked Agatha solicitously.
“I thought I’d better stand here in case I missed her,” said Tinkler. “I’ve got the two of us a table. A really nice table. I chose one through there…” He gestured vaguely to this half of the café, up a few wooden steps and through an arched doorway. “There’s a great little alcove looking out on the courtyard and it has a nice sofa and table in there. But I didn’t want to wait in there in case I missed her.”
He looked at us, spaniel eyes beseeching us to confirm that this was the smart thing to do, or at least normal behaviour.
