Lee Raven, Boy Thief

by Zizou Corder

She gave a dark smile. ‘I have forfeited my right to the book,’ she said. ‘But there is someone else who must not have it…’

  I am not so foolish as to think the young have no troubles, but what could have been so troubling to one so young?

  She attempted to reassert her proud air with a lift of her head and a little roll of her shoulders, but tears were slipping down her cheeks. She made no sound.

  ‘I was the last to see your father alive,’ I said.

  She gulped and rubbed her hand angrily across her wet face.

  ‘He spoke to me,’ I continued.

  Her chin was set firm, as if she were determined not to ask.

  Finally she asked.

  ‘What did he say?’ Her voice sounded as if it might crack all across and shatter into a hundred pieces.

  ‘He said he had been deceived by one he should have been able to trust,’ I said quietly. ‘He said that home was the last place he could keep the book.’

  She suddenly turned her eyes, flooded as they were with tears, and stared at me without shame or subterfuge.

  ‘He was right!’ she burst out. ‘He was betrayed, and he was killed, and… and… I…’

  My handkerchief was clean. I passed it to her.

  ‘It is only human to feel it is your fault when someone dies,’ I said. ‘If nothing else, to feel that one could have prevented it…’

  ‘I killed him,’ she said. ‘I didn’t shoot the gun, but I killed him.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t,’ I murmured. ‘Of course you didn’t.’

  ‘You know I did! I deceived him and I – he told you!’

  There was something in her eyes beyond grief, and something in what she was saying. A slow chill of doubt crept up my spine.

  ‘Monsieur,’ she said. And she closed her eyes for a moment and she gulped. ‘Monsieur, I have a brother. His name is Pierre. Pierre. I love him so much. Monsieur – he was a drug addict. Do you know about that? Do you know what it does? Monsieur, he had destroyed his health, and our family, and my heart. He was living in Paris. A month ago he came to me and he wept and he said he would go away and leave us in peace. I said no. He said he would kill himself. I said no. He said he would go to a clinic and learn how to be a human being again. I said yes. He said he owed money to the drug dealer. Masses of money. He said this man’s boss would accept this book in payment. Pierre had sometimes stolen books to pay for his drugs. I stole the book, to pay for Pierre’s life.’

  I was silent.

  ‘Otherwise they were going to kill him,’ she whispered, so quietly I could hardly hear her.

  What could I possibly say?

  ‘You meant no harm,’ I murmured. ‘You were in a difficult situation. You did what you could to help your brother.’

  ‘My father found me with the book and took it back from me. I could not pay. How could I know that these people wanted this book so much that they would kill my father? How could I know!’

  ‘You couldn’t know,’ I said quietly. Poor child. Poor foolish child. She probably didn’t even know that the book wasn’t Mesopotamian legends, but… perhaps… Shakespeare’s own diary.

  When her breathing had calmed a little I said, ‘Who were these people?’

  ‘I don’t know the dealer’s name. I met him only once. He had a moustache, and very nice manners. Pierre had told him about the book, and he became very interested, and wanted to see it. There was someone else – the boss – who wanted to see the book. I told him I would bring it the following night at the Ritz, and he would bring the boss. But before I could meet them, my father took the book and came to London. And the man must have followed him. Or had him followed. And…’

  She took up crying again. Crying and weeping. I put my hand on hers and she shook it off angrily.

  Alas, there was nothing I could do for her.

  ‘But the book was stolen from here,’ I murmured. ‘By the young boy…’ So was the boy working for the criminal book-lover?

  And Janaki was with him!

  ‘It’s true what it says in the letter,’ she said. ‘The book is cursed. Despite everything… it brings tragedy…’

  ‘Despite what?’ I asked, but she just shook her head and muttered, ‘If you don’t know, don’t ask.’ She would say no more and I couldn’t bring myself to press her.

  ‘What if those people have it?’ I asked. ‘Would you care?’

  ‘I would stick knives in their hearts,’ she said. ‘I would wish them all the ill luck that book can bring them. I have no doubt it is heading their way already.’

  ‘The bad luck could be the police, coming to arrest them for murder,’ I said. ‘If, that is, you go and tell them what you have told me.’

  ‘I am on my way there,’ she said, with a grim little smile. ‘I am going to lay the truth open at last.’

  I offered to accompany her. Until Janaki was located, I was without purpose. I could at least escort a foreigner in mourning. As we left, I tried to condole with her on her father’s death; she just looked at me from those dark eyes. I felt so sad for her that I suggested she stayed here with us until the situation became clear; and I went to bed that night very troubled indeed.

  CHAPTER 21

  According to Julie Mordy

  Soon as I heard Mrs Lurch yell I knew what had happened. She’d been all set up for it, desperate for it. Everything was in place and soon as she got this book we’d start.

  Start what? I didn’t know myself. All I knew was Mrs Lurch was paying me over the odds to be there and do it, and it was indoors (mostly – apart from that trip to Mr Maggs, where it turned out we’d missed the boat), and it was clean and comfortable, and there was no police involved. All fine by me.

  So ‘Jenny!’ she yells, up the stairs, and I come down nice and quiet like she likes me, and she’s all flushed on the sofa.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Lurch?’ I respond, standing in the doorway.

  ‘We can start tomorrow,’ she says. Little rounds of red on her cheeks and it ain’t the make-up and it ain’t the champagne either, though lord knows she had put away enough of it last night. ‘Tomorrow morning, bright and early.’

  I.e., by her standards, about noon. Though to tell the truth she did look really perked up.

  ‘There’s the book,’ she said. She had this smug grin on like she couldn’t contain herself. She poured herself some more champagne. ‘Have a drink, Jenny. Drink to my luck.’

  ‘No thanks,’ I said.

  ‘Look,’ she said. She gestured to the low table in front of her. ‘That’s it.’

  And then she shrieked.

  She had gestured to an old book on the table. What she hadn’t realized was that standing on the book was seven mice. Standing, I mean, on their back legs, and giving her what can only be described as filthy looks.

  Well, I shrieked too. You would.

  ‘Go ’way!’ she yelled, flapping at them. She wasn’t afraid of them. The shriek had just been shock at the unexpected.

  But the mice just sat there and stared.

  Mrs Lurch went to pick up the book.

  Now she really shrieked.

  ‘The little graspole bit me!’ she yelled. ‘Call Maxim! Get him in here!’

  I called Maxim.

  We all stared at the mice.

  Then Maxim got a broom and they ran off. Couldn’t see where they went – too quick. It was all a bit odd. I never heard of no one being bit by a mouse before.

  Mrs Lurch sat up late that night and put away another bottle of the Moët ’36. I don’t know what she was doing in there all alone. She made a phone call, telling someone that yes, she had it. She said, ‘I’ve got it, and very little thanks to you, so you just take your pretty moustache back to Paris and – you know what? You stay on your best behaviour.’ After that I heard her laughing a lot, big self-satisfied laughing, and then she was quiet for a long time. Maybe she was reading the book. Make a change. For a lady who used to be a writer – sorry, is a writer – she don’t read much.

&nb
sp; Tell the truth, I was a bit distracted. There was mice in the hall as well when I went through to get my supper. They was quick but I saw ’em. I was surprised. Lady as rich as Mrs Lurch, you don’t expect mice, even if she is a writer.

  So the next day, about noon, we go out into her dark leafy back garden like a graveyard, and we go up the twisty iron fire escape through the ivy, that I’m not to tell anyone about, and go up to the dark secret little room under the roof that I’m not to tell anyone about, and she sat me in front of the computer at the desk under the roofbeams.

  I opened the book. For a moment, as I glanced at the first page, the words looked out of focus, wobbly. I blinked and squinted, and they soon came clear. Maybe I need glasses or something.

  Anyway, I settled down and I started to type.

  It wasn’t a very long story. It was about a statue of a prince on a column and it was all covered in gold leaves, and from his column he could see all the poor people in his kingdom having a hard time, so he got this little bird to take the gold leaves to all of the poor people, only in the end the swallow died because he should have gone to Egypt in the autumn. It didn’t take long to type but it was really sad.

  Anyway, so then I didn’t have anything to do. I didn’t quite see why Mrs Lurch had got so excited about this book when all she wanted was me to copy out the story. Seemed a bit of a fuss about nothing.

  Anyway, then she came back and she yelled at me and said to start again at the beginning. So I was a bit worried that she’d lost her marbles and I was being paid fifty dirhams a week just to type out the same story over and over again.

  Only when I went back to the beginning, there was a different story.

  And that was weird. It didn’t look like some computer or something which just put out lots of different stuff. It looked like an old book of just writing, but it must have been some kind of machine I suppose, otherwise how could it have done that?

  Anyway I started typing. This time the story was about a selfish giant who wouldn’t let the children play in his garden but gradually he came nice and by the end of it I was nearly crying again. Mrs Lurch, however, was in a temper.

  ‘Very funny,’ she said. ‘Very bliddy funny.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Mrs Lurch?’ I asked. ‘They’re good stories, ain’t they?’

  ‘They’re very good,’ she spat. ‘They’re by Oscar Wilde. They’re some of the most famous stories ever written. I want NEW ONES!’

  Well, I didn’t see what she expected me to do about it.

  ‘Keep typing,’ she said. ‘Keep going back to the beginning.’

  So I did. I typed a story about a dwarf who thought the princess liked him only she didn’t really, a story about a fisherman and his soul, one about a child who came from a star, one about a student who had to get a red rose for his girl but there was only white ones so the nightingale pressed her chest against the rose’s thorn and all her blood made it red, and she died singing her beautiful song, but then the girl just tossed the rose in the gutter anyway because some other young man was going to give her a diamond ring… I cried and cried over that one.

  Then there was stories about twins lost in the woods, boys dressed as girls and girls dressed as boys, magic love potions and lovers trying to trick each other. There was one where the queen of the fairies fell in love with a bloke with a donkey head. There was one with a shipwreck, then loads about kings and queens, and murder. There was a really sad one where the son and daughter of two families that hated each other fell in love, and everybody died, and the girl was only thirteen. I cried over that one too.

  Mrs Lurch came back.

  ‘I haven’t got time for this,’ she muttered, angry as you like, and she sat down on the floor by the desk and propped her chin up on her fists. She got hold of the book and stared at it, as if it was the book’s fault, and the book could answer her problems. Perhaps she was right. A book that has a different story in it each time – who knows what it can do?

  She opened the book herself, looked at the opening page, and then threw the book on the floor in disgust.

  ‘The Hundred and One Dalmatians!’ she yelled. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’

  I picked the book up carefully. It wasn’t broken. I opened it and inside was Jack and the Beanstalk. Even I know that story.

  ‘What do you want me to do, Mrs Lurch?’ I asked.

  ‘Keep typing!’ she shouted. ‘Skip any story you’ve already heard. I’ll be back soon.’

  So I skipped Jack and the Beanstalk. The next one was really good though. I didn’t know if it was new or not. It was about a rich merchant and his three daughters, and the youngest was his favourite…

  CHAPTER 22

  According to Mrs Lurch

  Jack and the Beanstalk.

  The Selfish Giant.

  Things were not going according to plan. It was as if the book knew what I wanted to do and was teasing me. Why was it giving me children’s stories that everybody knew? When it started giving me Harry Potter, I very narrowly controlled my temper and sat down to think.

  I needed stories to be a writer.

  Sooner or later it would run out of stories that had already been told and have to start providing new ones. But when? It could go on for years at this rate.

  I thought deeply.

  I made some phone calls.

  Perhaps we could speed up the process. A little technology, perhaps.

  Then I sat down in my leather chair and read Publishing News. I felt more writerly already.

  There was a very interesting article about the future of publishing: ‘No More Books!’ was the headline. The journalist wrote that everything was going to be on pods and discs. Reading from paper would die out. Everything would be written in txt. Old stories would have to be translated for new generations.

  I laughed.

  Did my book know txt?

  I thought I might buy a few publishing companies and invest in some of these new technologies. Being a writer was going to be wonderful but I have a businesswoman’s heart. Once I had a never-ending supply of stories from the book, if I owned the new technology too, how very powerful I could be!

  I could…

  As I began to think seriously about it, the possibilities made me giddy. I leaned back in my leather chair. I would be able to control what stories were published and what weren’t! I could destroy careers – destroy writers – by not publishing them! I could publish only my own stories, from the book! I could publish everything my father wrote!

  And with the new discs and pods I could, if I felt like it, destroy books altogether.

  That would serve them all right for ignoring my father, wouldn’t it?

  I’d start by closing my bookshops. Who needs bookshops, anyway?

  I called Maxim.

  What fun I was going to have. As soon as I’d got all the old stories out of the book and could start on the new ones. What fun.

  CHAPTER 23

  According to Lee

  It was pretty clear what had happened. Bliddy Billy had nicked the book to take to Nigella Lurch and get the reward. So I had to go and get the book back off Nigella Lurch. I was scared of what might happen to him. What did Nigella Lurch want with him? Did she know about him? Did Mr de Saloman? Did Mr Maggs?

  I eyed Janaki. How much did she know? I was pretty sure she didn’t know. If you knew that a book gave out different stories, or talked, you wouldn’t be able to shut up about it, and if you had to shut up about it for safety reasons you would have this air of just about bursting with the amazingness of what you know. She’d have been eyeing me with an electric look, an ‘I know something incredible, do you know it too?’ look. The look I was trying really hard not to have. She’d have been looking to see if I knew. And she hadn’t been. She was still on planet normal. She didn’t have a clue of what she was involved in.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she said. ‘Can I eat that stuff back there?’

  We went together to look. In the cupboa
rds under the bar were peanuts and crisps and Pringles.

  ‘What’s the sell-by date?’ she said.

  I passed a pot over to her. I’ve got loads of little tricks to cover not being able to read.

  ‘I can’t read it,’ she said, and my heart skipped a beat in the second before she continued her sentence. She couldn’t be illiterate. Not her – look at her! Could she? Then she continued. ‘I lost my glasses when that bloke who looks like you and you won’t tell me who it was even though you know pushed me down the manhole.’

  It was a double whammy. Or a triple whammy, if you count my moment of confusion about whether she could read or not.

  I had to cover not being able to read the sell-by date. And I had to cover the fact that it was my brother who stole the book off me.

  I grinned like a sick frog.

  ‘Er,’ I said.

  ‘So who is he?’ she asked. ‘You might as well tell me. I’ll only keep asking and it’ll drive you mad.’ She had that calm girl look on her face; that ‘I ain’t going nowhere’ look that girls get and there’s no point arguing with them. She would too keep on asking.

  I sort of panicked. I sort of thought if I answered one question, the other wouldn’t come up. Well, I can give as many excuses as I like. I caved in at the first sign of trouble. I told her.

  ‘My brother Billy,’ I said.

  She gave me a huge smile. ‘That’s brilliant!’ she said. ‘So you’ll know where he’d go, and we can go and steal it back – that’s really good. Brilliant.’

  And to think that moments before I’d been thinking she was intelligent. How wrong can one girl be how many times in one sentence?

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said.

  ‘So what about those Pringles?’ she asked.

  Ouch.

  ‘I can’t see,’ I said, holding them up and squinting at them. ‘The light’s bad.’

  ‘Hold them in the light then,’ she said. ‘Stupid.’

  I didn’t like that.

  ‘You look,’ I said crossly, shoving them at her.

  ‘I told you, I can’t read it,’ she said, ‘without my glasses.’