The news elicited a smile from Rey, 'Great, we wait for it to be put up on the internet, Akosua can watch the site and buy the book as soon as it appears. In the mean time, we'll go and see the first dealer and hear what he has to say about the person he bought the book from in the first place. I have a few thoughts about how we can approach him and keep our involvement to a minimum. With any luck, that'll take us directly to the thieving little git who stole it and lead us to the
Sigil Ring
! You may be right. We could have this whole thing wrapped up by Monday evening!'
'I knew you had been brought in for a reason!' Frans grinned, lifting his glass of beer up in salutation. '
Proost
!'
'Meekness is weakness'
- The Challenge of Thor - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Gertrude had looked up from gazing into the depths of her coffee cup, both hands comfortingly wrapped around the hot porcelain. Her shallow trance of contemplation had been broken by her friend's sudden exclamation and the hollow plastic crack as she had peremptorily slammed the phone receiver down.
'What did they say?' she asked somewhat pensively.
Her friend Carola took a moment and then smiled weakly, 'I told him what you said, that you would be loading books up onto the internet from Monday. I'm sure he can wait, it can't be that urgent. If he is that keen then maybe you can make some good money next week.'
She tried to keep the mood light, 'So, the business appears to be taking off, hey?'
'Yeah, it is not quite how I expected this day to go though,' Gertrude nodded, her lips momentarily creasing into a wan smile.
Carola sighed in commiseration and walked over to the sofa, settling down with her elbow cocked against the soft cushions of the backrest.
'I know it is sad but there is nothing anybody could have done, nothing that you could have done. From what you said she just walked right out in front of the tram.'
'I know,' Gertrude shrilly responded, her voice cracked by an impulse of emotion, 'but it was just that moments before, seconds before, she had seen me and I had smiled to her. I looked down to put some more books onto the table and when I looked up again the tram had stopped and Mrs. Korteweg was gone. It all happened so fast.'
'But you didn't really know her did you?' Carola asked rhetorically, trying to put the event into perspective, a weak effort of consolation for her friend.
'No, not really I guess. We'd had coffee a couple of times, after she had visited my stall on Thursdays. I think she was lonely; she just wanted somebody to talk to. She was a nice old lady who enjoyed talking about when she was younger. I had some books for her. I just feel, I don't know, I guess I feel a bit responsible. She was coming to my stall after all.'
Carola frowned, somewhat frustrated, 'Come on Gertie, it wasn't your fault, she would probably have visited the market anyway. You can't blame yourself. Just give it a couple of days rest, call in sick to the office tomorrow and have a break from it all over the weekend. It is understandable that you don't want to do the market next week, but it will give you plenty of time to get your books on the internet. You'll be fine, you'll see. It is early yet, it only happened this morning and you're still in shock.'
She glanced at her watch and guiltily raked her lower lip with her teeth, knowing that she was planning to bail out on her friend, 'Look, I have to go, I'm supposed to be meeting Erik in an hour and he's taking me to the cinema.' She thought for a moment, 'Do you want to come?'
Cocking her head to one side, Gertrude smiled, understanding that the offer was only half-hearted, 'No, that's alright, I'll be fine. You're probably right. I may have a hot bath to relax, watch a film on TV to take my mind off things and get an early night. You go have fun, say 'Hi' to Erik for me.'
Carola pushed herself up and stood, glancing down at the flattened weave of the carpet in the middle of the room, the bald indentation of the six plastic boxes containing Gertrude's book stock from that morning.
'Are you going to be able to lift all of those boxes back up here?'
Gertrude followed Carola's gaze and inwardly slumped for a moment, 'Yeah, sure, don't worry about it, I'll leave them in the van tonight and bring them up tomorrow morning.' She stood and faced her friend, 'I don't like leaving them down there but I can't deal with it right now.'
'Right, well, I'll call you tomorrow, I have to work in the morning but I can drop in during the afternoon.'
Carola leaned in and hugged Gertrude, rubbing a hand against her upper arm in awkward consolation before they kissed cheeks.
'I'll see myself out, try and get some rest. We'll speak tomorrow, hey?'
Gertrude's smile was indulgent but sincere.
'Sure, have a nice night with Erik, and Carola, thanks for coming over this afternoon; I know I'm just being silly, but,' she paused, 'well, you know.'
'It'll be alright, I'm sure,' Carola nodded before she turned and started to leave. 'See you,
doei
!'
She wagged her hand a couple of times in farewell and was gone, the sound of her heeled boots clicking on the tiled floor of the kitchen before her departure was demarcated by the squeal of the apartment door swinging open and then easing shut with a double click of the latch.
Standing by herself in the middle of her very quiet and strangely unfamiliar living room, Gertrude suddenly felt overtly alone. She sat down and let her shoulders sag, resting in a trance-like state for what could have been seconds or minutes.
Picking up her coffee cup, she nestled it into her lap and curled her fingers about the mug. Although she did not notice it, the previously steaming black liquid had now become quite tepid and it would yet cool down to room temperature before she realised that she had not taken even a single sip of it.
'Still is it Thor's Day!'
- The Challenge of Thor - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The evening sky had already blackened following the demise of the short winter day, although only an hour had passed since Frans and Rey had appraised the apparently straight-forward situation they were now facing.
After calling Akosua and setting her off to watch for their book on the internet, Rey had insisted that they follow up with the first dealer to get a lead on the
Sigil Ring
. Each minute they wasted was a minute lost on the trail.
Taking a couple of trams to reach their destination, they had hurriedly decamped to a quite café, on the opposite side of the road and a few doors down from the book store from which Gertrude had originally made her purchase.
Although Rey had misgivings about their current task, he was feeling at ease with life. The simple fact that the café turned a blind eye to smoking on the premises gave him some faith in humanity and he had a cigarillo resting in a tray, burning gently to ash beside his coffee cup, a passing thought fantasising that the ban would soon be overturned and Dutch society would once again exemplify the ideals of civil liberties.
In defiance of the fact that the wind had picked up a little and the gusts were bitingly cold, the top half of the
Dutch Door
to the outside world was wide open, allowing a breeze of cold but fresh air to circulate with the plumes of stale smoke emanating from the small group of patrons idly chatting at the bar. The pair of strangers sitting apart from the regulars occupied a small table near the wide and ornately signed front window, a position from which they could clearly see the façade of the object of their attention; the
Gevonden & Geleverd
antiquarian book store.
Frans grimaced, jutting his bottom lip and nodding at the shop, '
Found and Delivered
, eh? Let us hope that the dealer Mr. Johann Janssens can give us our man.'
Rey frowned and looked about to remind himself that they were out of earshot, 'Frans, we need to be clear on something, does the guy live?'
'Which one?'
The interrogative response made Rey consider both the book store owner and the opportunistic thief who had originally stolen property from their Order.
'Either of them.'
Easing his expression enough to take a sip of coffee and then hovering the cup at his mouth as he spoke, Frans tried to be objective, 'Well, old man Johann in the shop, at best he's innocently handling stolen goods or at worst he's an accomplice running a little side line. Let us see how it goes. We don't want any come back. We're not moving too quickly but at least we can be quiet about it.'
'Yeah, I thought you might say that.'
Rey looked at the shop again and breathed out heavily through his nose.
'He still has some boxes of books outside but he must be shutting up soon. We should go in just before he closes.'
'Thursday,' Frans muttered matter of factly.
Rey looked at him quizzically.
'Late closing. Many shops stay open until at least six o'clock this evening so he may be around for another half an hour or so. Not too many people about though so I guess that he will pack up pretty soon.'
Rey gave a guttural grunt and slowly shook his head, 'This is a fine line we're treading here. This may seem easy, but it could blow up in our faces and we have to be careful. I don't want to be hung out to dry simply trying to get information about some little shit with light fingers.'
'What are you thinking?'
Taking a drag from his cigarillo and breathing out the smoke between his clasped teeth, Rey shook his head and waved a trail of smoke in the air with an expansive gesture of his hand, 'This, all of this. Making the buy from the girl, Verker, that is one thing, but this is something else. If the dealer won't play ball then we'll have to take it to the next level. If that happens then we have a liability on our hands. Maybe he'll call the police and complain about being roughed up. If he leads us to the thief and the ring then we have to accept that it may get ugly trying to get it back. If Janssens watches the news and sees some story about a guy found dead, the same guy that we have a little
tête-à-tête
about, he will almost certainly call it in. He can't help but make a connection. Depending on how things go, the police may be calling on his door rather than the other way around. Either way, the authorities may get involved.'
He looked at his boss with the tired eyes of a soldier who had been through it all before.
'Frans, this may spiral out of hand, we have to be ready for all eventualities.'
Frans nudged his coffee cup in its saucer, edging the handle around and hooking his finger through the loop, 'This doesn't need to be complicated. You said that to me earlier. You said that you had some ideas about how to handle this. Are you having second thoughts?'
The implicit challenge and accusation caused Rey to sit back sharply, pausing before tapping his cigarillo against the ash tray rather too harshly for it to be relaxed, 'Just be ready to accept that we may have to contain events. As you said earlier, we'll do it my way.'
He looked out of the window across the street and squinted, his narrowed eyes a clear expression of focussed thoughtfulness.
'You go in first and take the soft approach, your Dutch may smooth things over. I'll come in a couple of minutes later and, if we need to, we can expedite things. If it has to go down then you make to leave and lock the door and we'll deal with it together. If it all goes well then I'll stay in the background, you never know, I may find something interesting to read.'
A rasp of amusement blurted from Frans. He paused for a second as a questioning furrow appeared in his brow, 'Why don't you lock the door after you come in, that will stop any other customers from entering? We would have the place to ourselves then!'
'Because, Frans, if a customer tries to come in when you're innocently chatting with the dealer then they will see us and rattle the door or knock on it. Janssens will know that the door is locked and may become suspicious, we'll have extra hassle. If we only lock it when, or I should say if, we need to take him to one side then we keep our options open. We have to play it by ear, hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Besides, look what happened this morning, that didn't exactly go to plan!'
Frans emitted a murmur of acceptance and turned slightly in his chair to get a better view of the shop. After a moment he jerked his head forward at an old gentleman with a mane of white hair lifting a box of books from the small wooden table standing against the front window of the store. The old man heaved the box up and then scuttled back inside with his burden.
Frans grinned widely as he swivelled back to the table, 'You'd better drink up my friend, it looks like we are on. That's Janssens; he's started to pack up.'
Leaving Rey to pay the bill, Frans calmly stood and slipped his jacket on before wandering outside and across the road, eventually disappearing into the book store after nodding to the dealer and exchanging a few pleasantries.
After collecting his change and thanking the café proprietor, Rey slowly walked out and stood for a moment on the pavement, unobtrusively scanning the whole street as he adjusted his coat, an effort to garner at least a modicum of intelligence before following Frans into the store. He was satisfied that it was all clear.
Taking his time to follow Frans into the shop, Rey could see that their oblivious informant had remained in the premises, holding the fort, perhaps anticipating a profitable sale with which to finish off the day.
He felt sorry for the old book dealer, not wanting this day to end in misfortune for Janssens, but, as the old gambler's adage reminded him, knowing that they both had to play the hand they had been dealt.
It was, perhaps, ironic that their white-haired opponent was playing blind considering his stake, but ultimately, it was his own actions that would dictate the consequences that befell him.
Rey opened the door to the store a few full minutes behind Frans and made his entry just as any another last minute browsing tourist might, half truth that it was. He was announced by the tinkling jangle of a miniature clapper rattling against the brass bell that bounced freely from the end of a springy shaft of metal above the door.
He quickly examined his surroundings; the store was a rectangle with a large glass frontage, the interior veiled from the damaging effects of the sun's rays by a large intricately embroidered muslin sheet. Each of the remaining three walls was hidden behind floor to ceiling bookshelves, lined with row upon row of at least a couple of thousand leather spines.
At irregular intervals, the uniform tessellated fascias of the shelves were interrupted by a framed single page with a particularly interesting woodcut or print on it. Interspersed at irregular intervals were the ornately decorated cover boards of carefully propped and spread tomes, the pages facing away from the viewer rather than toward them. Rey noted a couple of small portraits; a stern faced patrician with an expression of learned disapproval and a willowy beauty demurely reclining into a coy but provocative pose.
The shop was a veritable library of seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century impressions, the heady aroma emanating from the collection delivering the scent signatures of a subtle blend of tanned hides and skin, the product of the antiquarian book binder's skill, a sublime and multifaceted art form in itself never mind the literary work printed upon the pages that they contained.
Frans was already animatedly chatting to the dealer across the dark and heavy wooden counter, clearly an antique in itself. Just behind them was a small doorway leading off to a dimly lit and narrow corridor onto which various back-rooms converged, the glimpse of a bottom step indicating a staircase leading off to one side. It was likely that the dealer lived above his shop.
Rey could see that the corridor ended in a rear exit and could not help but think that it might come in useful.
Although he was not able to understand the fast exchange of Dutch, Rey felt that the intonation of the conversation was indicative of a negative outcome, at least for the initial phase of their encounter. He needed to prepare for the worst.
Rey moved to one of the side walls and surveyed the spines arrayed before him, his ears cocked to the ongoing but incomprehensible discussion, his lateral vision distracted by the gesticulating arms of the old book dealer. He automatically started to stretch his fingers, his hands hidden within the pockets of his coat, readying the joints for sudden movement or impact, bending his wrists to stretch them and prepare them for stress.
The painful crick of a finger or twinge of a nerve caused by rapid hand articulation could throw off the grip and power of any protagonist. The recognition and exploitation of such weaknesses formed the basis of many of the most effective martial arts moves and Rey's self awareness of such failings was all part of good preparation, regardless of the age or fitness of his opponent.
His mind was racing ahead and if need be the staircase could be used to stage an accident. After extracting the information they wanted they could push him down the stairs and then ensure that his neck was broken. Any ensuing investigation would only reveal the necessary evidence of an entirely accidental fall.
Perhaps some books scattered about the body would add further colour to the scene? The natural assumption would be that the old man had been carrying a heavy pile; a lost footing, a tumble down the stairs, the crash of the body as it had rolled into a heap at the last step, the neck snapping as the head connected with the wall or floor of the corridor.
Rey glanced around as the old man enunciated three dots and jabbed at his right eyebrow, he saw him shrug and shake his head. Janssens appeared morose, disappointed, he was shaking his head and, in an expansive sweep of his arm, seemed to be indicating the books adorning the walls. Rey was a little confused as he saw Frans shaking his head, as if in disbelieving agreement and consolation of a shared opinion.
Turning back to the shelves, he heard Frans talking again. A short conversation followed and he suddenly recognised the familiar
doei
of a Dutch goodbye. He looked around and saw Frans turn and walk to the door, a deadpan glance between their eyes indicating no assent or confirmation of action required.
His confusion increased as he saw Frans wave a casual farewell, swing open the door and meander out to the street, turning about to wander off in the direction of the café that they had vacated some quarter of an hour ago.
Frans' actions had implicitly declared a reprieve for the dealer; it seemed that the old man had unknowingly played his hand to perfection and his stake was safe, if not enhanced by winnings taken from his opponents.
Scanning the array of book spines once again, Rey's eyes alighted upon two volumes on the shelf before him. He picked them out and approached the counter, sliding the pair across to the dealer who was now smiling at him.
The old man looked down at the books and then up at his erstwhile nemesis, regardless of whether he knew it or not. Although ignorant of his narrowly averted fate, Johann Janssens could immediately tell the nationality of the customer standing before him. Without consternation he switched languages with ease and started speaking in accented but very clear English.