The Serpent Pool by Martin Edwards

changed the subject.
    ‘I’m a book man,’ he said. ‘Living dangerously isn’t for me.’
    ‘You never know till you try.’
    ‘A place like this can’t be too exciting for a young woman like you.’
    ‘That isn’t what I meant,’ she said softly. ‘I enjoy it here. I find it fascinating…to learn from you.’
    He’d tried to explain how much he loved it here, surrounded by thousands of second-hand books. Each had a story to tell, and not just in words written on the page. Every volume on every shelf had a past life. Sometimes all was revealed by an inscription in a flowing hand – ‘To Daisy, Merry Christmas, 25 December 1937’, ‘Given to Hubert Withers for one year of unbroken attendance at Cark Sunday School’ – sometimes the books came with no provenance and you had to play detective to find out how a rare book printed in Gibraltar when Victoria was on the throne finished up in a junk shop at Gateshead one hundred and twenty years later.
    He relished teaching her how to buy and sell rare books, couldn’t help feeling flattered by the way she hung on his words as he described the tricks of the trade. How to spot books that weren’t what they seemed, like alleged signed firsts of The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy – neither of which was published until Ian Fleming was dead and buried. Book values flipped up and down like the stock market.
    Pricing had little to do with literary merit, let alone critical acclaim, when the books were new. Winnie the Pooh wasn’t worth quite as much this year, while a set of early whodunnits by Miles Burton in pristine jackets would set the rich collectors aquiver with desire.
    ‘I’d hate to bore you,’ he said.
    ‘You don’t bore me at all.’ She considered him. ‘But has anyone ever dared to suggest you care more about books than people?’
    From someone else, the question would be offensive. He wondered if she was referring to Hannah. He leant against the desk and smelt the coffee. Pungent Arabic, spiced with cardamom. Still too hot to drink.
    ‘Depends on which people.’
    She pointed at the clutter of documents, paper clips and ring binders. ‘But you hate being a businessman.’
    ‘Running the shop and having to worry about cash flow and stuff is the price I pay for being my own boss.’ She was trying to find out about him, she must be interested. ‘There are plenty of other things I dread more.’
    A light shone in her eyes. ‘Such as?’
    ‘The taxman, for a start,’ he said lightly.
    She frowned, as if the answer disappointed her. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’
    As she moved away, he felt a stab of disappointment.
    ‘Any time,’ he said.
     
    When he took the empty mug downstairs to the cafeteria, Cassie was behind the counter, talking to a customer on the phone. Some long and complicated inquiry about a search for a book whose title and author the caller couldn’t remember. A frustratingly common form of amnesia. She didn’t spare Marc a glance as he walked past.
    A coal fire burnt in an inglenook on the ground floor, in between the bookshop and the café. The wind whistled in the chimney and from cracks in the window seals, but the crackling blaze kept the winter at bay. Marc warmed his hands before helping himself to a fat slab of chocolate gateau. As a penance, he sacrificed a couple of minutes to an exchange of pleasantries with Mrs Beveridge, who hadtaken over the running of the café from Leigh Moffat. A slice of the legacy from Aunt Imelda had enabled Marc to take a lease on premises in Sedbergh, now designated as a book town. For the moment, the store was little more than a handful of shelves annexed to Leigh’s café. He missed her, and wondered if she missed him as much.
    Mrs Beveridge was efficient but voluble and he was already bored with her jokes about the suitability of her surname for someone who spent her working life serving tea, coffee and soft drinks. She was large and jolly and smelt of banana