Summon Up the Blood (12 page)

He heard the resonating rasp of the pinking shears against the cutting table. The blades swept through a sea of shimmering colour. Quinn felt a pang of longing and loss at the richness and complexity of the fabric’s hues.

The lorgnette spun on a chain around the draper’s neck, as if dizzied by the intoxicating vision. ‘This’ll be perfect,’ growled the draper. ‘Jimmy’ll love you for it.’

W
ith the length of cloth enclosed in brown paper, as if its colours were too dazzling and rare to be revealed to public view, Quinn left the draper’s and ventured next door to the bookshop.

The relief he felt at no longer being subjected to the lorgnette-refracted gaze of the draper gave way to a new confusion.

The interior of the bookshop seemed like any other, apart from the preponderance of yellow-jacketed books on the shelves. At first glance, even a bookshop serving the needs of libertines will appear respectable enough. Reading, after all, is an activity engaged in by the educated classes. And the few, exclusively male, customers he could see browsing the shelves certainly gave every appearance of being gentlemen.

What confused and disturbed Quinn was the fact that he blended in so easily with them. They accepted him as one of their number without demur.

And yet he knew that Inchball would not have sent him to this shop without reason. He sensed the presence of other customers, lurking out of sight, hidden behind the stacks. These would be the depraved monsters his imagination required.

Quinn scanned the spines of the books erratically, his concentration shot. His education at a minor public school had equipped him with a passable proficiency in reading French, though he was less confident in his ability to speak it. He knew the names of a number of French authors. As a boy, he had particularly enjoyed, though in translation, the works of Alexandre Dumas, whose name was the first to jump out at him from the shelves. He pulled down an edition of
Les Trois Mousquetaires
.

He turned the uncut pages distractedly. He had not come here to read Dumas. And yet there was something comforting and wholesome about the stirring tale of adventure, something he could not quite tear himself away from.

The book represented the lost innocence of his boyhood, a time when his father was still a hero to him, when the dream of being a doctor himself had not yet been poisoned. When the notion of love between a man and a woman could still be conceived of as a romantic ideal, rather than the frustrating clash of mis-communicated desires. Or, as Quinn had experienced it, a sickness.

To his mind, the world in which he was planning to immerse himself was the extreme antithesis of the novels of Dumas
père
. The dangers it held were far more threatening to him than any faced by d’Artagnan. This bookshop, stacked with innocuous-looking volumes, was part of that world.

Quinn replaced the Dumas and approached the counter. To his dismay, the bookseller did not rise to his feet. In fact, he steadfastly refused to glance up from his book.

Quinn squeezed the package he was carrying. The crisp crackle of fresh brown paper at last drew the bookseller’s attention. A balding middle-aged man with a sour expression that only just fell short of a sneer, he looked at Quinn with obvious disdain. ‘
Oui?
’

‘To be entirely free?’ said Quinn.

‘
Pardonnez-moi?
’

‘To be entirely free. It’s a quotation, I think. It came into my head. But I can’t remember where I read it. I was hoping you might be able to help me.’

‘I’m sorry,
monsieur
. We only stock French books in the
original
.’ He spoke good English, but with a stubborn accent, giving certain words their French pronunciation. ‘No English books. No
translations
.’

‘Are there perhaps some other books that you have, that you keep in the back room possibly, or under the counter, shall we say? Books that you have not yet put out on display? Or indeed, that you are not intending to put out on display, because their contents are such as cannot be exposed to the common view? Not because there is anything wrong with their contents. But because they are too . . . sophisticated for the average reader to understand.’

‘
Monsieur?
’

‘If a gentleman were bold enough to reveal to you an interest in a certain kind of literature . . . literature of a highly specialist taste. A refined taste. A particular taste. One might almost say, a peculiar taste. If such a gentleman were to be so bold, I trust you would greet his revelation with discretion and sympathy?’

‘
Monsieur?
’

‘Do you have any books that deal with the subject of . . . the love . . . that . . . I believe the expression is . . . the love that dare not . . .’ Quinn trailed off, not daring to complete the phrase.

The bookseller made no attempt to come to his aid.

From somewhere behind Quinn came a snigger. It had something of the loutish quality that he had detected in the laughter of Pinky’s friend. Not all the
amis des littérature
were such gentlemen as all that, it seemed.

Quinn glanced around. All eyes were on him. And they were so far emboldened that they did not shrink from his challenging glare. The young man whom he had seen in Pinky’s company in the draper’s was leering at him from around the corner of one of the book stacks.

‘I have made a terrible mistake,’ said Quinn to the bookseller. ‘I beg your forgiveness. I was under a misapprehension regarding your premises. A friend of mine had told me that I might find such books here. Jimmy. Perhaps you know him?’ Quinn took out the portrait and offered it to the bookseller.

‘You are a friend of
Zhimé
’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘I ’ave never seen you with him.’

‘Well, you know Jimmy. He has a lot of friends. One cannot hope to know them all.’ Quinn did not hurry to return the portrait to his pocket. Instead, he brandished it rather ostentatiously.

‘That is true.’ The bookseller closed his book and placed it on the counter. ‘You have a . . . particular book in your mind,
monsieur
?’

‘There was one that Jimmy mentioned. I can’t remember the title though. I think it began with D. D-something, P-something, perhaps? I should have written it down.’

‘I do not know of that book. But I know the kind of book that
Zhimé
likes. I think that also you will like it.’

The bookseller disappeared into the back room. Quinn gave another glance around the shop. The other customers appeared once again engrossed in their browsings. Pinky’s young friend had disappeared.

A moment later, the bookseller returned with a second brown paper package for Quinn. ‘Do not open it until you get home. Do not open it in front of your wife, if you have a wife. You will not be disappointed. I recommend it very much to you. It is
Zhimé
’s favourite. It could be the story of his life.’

Quinn hesitated before taking the parcel off the bookseller, as if he was afraid it would burst into flames in his hands. When he finally did accept it, he discovered it was disappointingly cool and neutral to his touch.

Quinn was aware of someone on his heels as he left the bookshop. He spun round on the pavement to see Pinky’s companion from earlier. The young man pushed the pale brown bowler back on his head and grinned.

‘What do you want from me?’ asked Quinn.

‘What do you want from
me
?’ parroted the young man, weighting the emphasis with a challenge.

‘What makes you think I want anything from you?’

‘I’ve seen you looking at me.’

Quinn could think of no answer to that.

The young man took out a silver cigarette case. Quinn’s heart began to pound like a steam hammer.

The cigarette case flashed open. A row of fat cigarettes lay in languid readiness. With the waft of tobacco came a sense of temptation and disrepute. The enlarged girth of the cigarettes and the faintly yellow papers suggested that they were Egyptian.

Quinn’s companion took out a cigarette and snapped the case shut before whisking it out of sight.

‘Where did you get that?’ said Quinn.

‘What?’

‘The cigarette case. I would like to see it. I was looking for just such a case.’

‘A friend gave it to me.’ The young man spoke with the unlit cigarette bobbing on his lips. The effect was insolent. He made no move to take out the cigarette case and show it to Quinn.

‘Was it the gentleman with whom I saw you in the draper’s shop? Pinky?’

‘You ask a lot of questions, doancha?’

‘Perhaps I am interested in you.’ Quinn couldn’t look at the youth.

The other sensed his discomfiture and laughed. ‘I thought you was a friend of Jimmy’s?’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Ain’t seen him around for a while.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘Mebbe I do, mebbe I don’t. Who wants to know?’

‘My name is . . .’ Quinn hesitated, consciously stopping himself from giving his real name. ‘Quentin.’

‘Quentin? You don’t look like a Quentin.’

Quinn shrugged.

‘Well,
Quentin
–’ The young man gave the word a sceptical emphasis. He held his cigarette affectedly between his second and third fingers. ‘Why are you so interested in finding Jimmy? As if I didn’t know.’

‘If you already know, then I don’t suppose I am obliged to answer your question.’

‘I seen all what Jimmy has to offer.’ The young man raised his eyebrows. ‘You got a light, Quentin?’

Quinn took out a box of England’s Glory. His hand shook as he struck up the match and held it to the young man’s face. He was shocked by the other’s touch, hand enclosing hand to steady it. In fact, the touch was more than shocking; it disturbed him deeply.

He wanted to snatch his hand away, to clench his fist and punch him for his impertinence. And the unflinching challenge in the young man’s steady gaze indicated that he knew full well what turmoil Quinn was suffering.

The young man held on to Quinn’s hand long after the cigarette was lit. He blew out the match with a swirl of smoke just as it was about to burn Quinn’s fingertips. When he finally did release his grip, which was all the more disturbing for its lightness, he twisted his index and middle fingers together. ‘Me and Jimmy, we’re like that.’

‘So you do know where he lives?’

‘Jimmy likes to move around. Like you said in there, he has a lot of friends. He likes to visit them all from time to time. He likes to put himself about, you might say.’

‘He has no fixed abode?’

‘Ooh. Harken to you. No fixed abode. What do you sound like?’ The young man’s face hardened. ‘I’ll tell you what you sound like, friend. You sound like a rozzer. Is that what you are? One of them lousy agent provokers?’

‘No.’

The young man smoked his cigarette in silence as he considered Quinn’s denial. ‘What you got there?’ he said finally, nodding at the parcels Quinn was holding.

‘I bought a book.’

‘So I heard. What’s in the other one?’

‘Some silk.’

The young man snorted.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘My my, what an innocent you are, Quentin. You’re so innocent, I really think you must be a copper after all.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Nobody goes in that shop to buy cloth, Quentin.’

‘I see.’

‘Were you looking for Jimmy in there too?’

Quinn nodded.

‘And she sent you next door, did she? Cheeky bitch.’

‘Where else should I look for Jimmy?’

‘Forget Jimmy. Why don’t you and me go somewhere private so we can look at that book of yours together in peace? It might give us some ideas, you know, of what to do with ourselves.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘You can call me Tommy. If you like.’

‘How did you come to this life, Tommy? What led you here?’

‘Yer what?’

‘Listen to me, Tommy. This, what you do, picking up men in the street . . . you’re putting yourself in grave danger. Mortal danger.’

Tommy gave a careless laugh. ‘If it’s my soul you’re worried about . . .’

‘No. Not your soul. Your soul is no concern of mine.’

‘What then? My arse’ole!’ Tommy was inordinately delighted with his joke.

‘Don’t you ever worry? Aren’t you ever frightened? There must be some men you meet . . .’

‘I ain’t frightened a’ nobody. You don’t understand where I come from. What I’ve been through. I seen what it’s like in the workhouse. In the Limehouse men’s ward. Why should I get bummed by some dirty tramp for nothing when I can get ten bob off a gentleman what’s had a bath and smells of cologne?’

‘Tommy, listen to me. Jimmy is dead. His throat was slit. Most likely by a gentleman smelling of cologne.’

‘No!’

‘When did you last see Jimmy?’

‘I don’t believe you! How do you know? Who are you?’

‘You were right. I am a policeman. But, Tommy, listen. I’m not interested in anything you’ve done. Your crimes. I’m trying to find out who killed Jimmy. I’m going to need your help, Tommy. And the help of boys like you. But more than that, Tommy, I need you to take care. I implore you to be careful. The man you were arguing with in the draper’s, Pinky . . . Who is he?’

‘Pinky wouldn’t hurt no one. Pinky wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

Quinn was not ready for the speed of Tommy’s reaction, though he recognized what fuelled it: rage. He didn’t see the fist coming. The fist that whipped up into his nose. In truth, he did not believe it was a heavy punch. But it was perfectly timed and fast. It was enough to knock him off his balance.

As he staggered back he threw out his arms, dropping both his packages.

‘That’s for wasting my time, you lousy agent provoker!’ screamed Tommy, as he snatched up one of the parcels and ran off.

Quinn put a hand to his face and felt a profuse dampness streaming from his nose. When he looked at his hand it was red with blood.

M
acadam was replacing the earpiece of the telephone just as Quinn came into the department. ‘Blimey, sir! What happened to you?’