Marion’s method, skimming hundreds of books for obscure clues and trails, scanning their chapter headings, their indexes, for her key words. Arsenic, for instance. She looked it up in the index of Harding’s book, and there it was, page 213. She turned to the place, and found no such page. It had been very neatly sliced away, close to the binding. ‘Look at this,’ she said, showing Pip.
‘You think da Silva vandalised it before he returned it?’
‘Who knows? I’d better tell Brock what we’ve discovered.’
When she got through to him and described the sequence they had uncovered, he was grimly pleased.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘I thought the answer must lie in those books somewhere. We’d better have him in.’
‘Yes.’
‘You sound unsure.’
‘No, I’m just wondering what was in that missing page of the Harding book. It may be nothing at all to do with da Silva of course, but I’m wondering. Suppose there was something there about using arsenic as a poison, some traditional Indian preparation perhaps that Harding described, which maybe Marion discovered and told her tutor about, and then da Silva used it on his two victims.’
‘I see, yes. Another link. All right, but there are other copies of that book, aren’t there? I seem to remember it appeared on the lists of both the National Archives and the London Library borrowings. I remember wondering why they needed to look at it in three different places.’
‘I’ll check.’
Kathy rang off, still uneasy. She hadn’t mentioned it to Brock, but what had really unsettled her was her session with the Warrenders. She was haunted by Emily’s sickly appearance, the unhealthy glitter in her eye and air of despair, and her mother’s comment that she thought she may have been poisoned too. And the terrible thought Not another one, please God, had been followed by an even more shocking one: Three young women, following obsessively in each other’s footsteps, like a suicide chain.
No, Kathy told herself, not that. Brock’s right, da Silva’s the one.
‘Come on,’ she told Pip. ‘Let’s take a drive. Where was the next place that Marion found this After Midnight book, after she discovered it in the archives here?’
Pip checked. ‘The National Archives.’
‘Okay, we’ll go there.’ twenty-nine
T he National Archives, housing nine hundred years of official records back to the Domesday Book, is housed in a modern building on a curve of the river near the botanical gardens at Kew. They found their way to a member of staff who listened to what they were after, intrigued by the request, and got to work on her computer.
‘Yes, it’s here.’
‘Do you have its borrowing record?’
‘I can get that.’ They waited a moment, then, ‘Not terribly popular, only two calls in the past year: T. Flowers within the past week, and before that M. Summers last August.’
‘No Anthony da Silva?’
‘’Fraid not. Do you want to have a look at it?’
‘Yes please.’
The woman returned after a while with the now familiar small green volume in her hand, and gave it to Kathy. This time the dedication in the flysheet read: To the Public Records Office, in appreciation of your generous assistance in the preparation of this little book. Robert Harding KCMG.
Kathy turned to page 213 and found it to be, as at the British Library, missing.
•
Kathy saw that the greenery in the square had thickened and darkened during the past week into more mature, summery foliage, although perversely the weather had turned cold again and grey. They mounted the front steps, went into the library and asked for Gael Rayner.
‘Any news?’ she said, voice hushed.
‘Not really, Gael. We’re trying to retrace Tina Flowers’ movements in the days before she died, last Thursday.’
‘Oh yes, we heard all about that, and of course your colleague came to collect the record of Marion’s borrowings.’ She nodded at Pip. ‘We just couldn’t believe it, Marion’s friend, taken in the same way. We’re all still in shock.’
‘Did you ever meet Tina?’
‘Yes, she came a number of times with Marion, helping her with her work. And after Marion died she came back again. She said she wanted to tidy up some loose ends in Marion’s research. She was obviously distressed by what had happened. I should really have charged her for a temporary reference ticket, but I felt sorry for her and let her in on the strength of Marion’s membership. But we couldn’t let her borrow books.’
‘Right, so we don’t have a record of what she was looking at here. Can you remember if she came in last week at all, in the days before her death?’
‘Oh yes, she was certainly here, her and the other girl helping her.’
‘Emily Warrender?’
‘That’s right. I’m a great admirer of her mother’s work.’
‘Would you have any idea what they were doing?’
‘Well, they had unsupervised access to the stacks, so I wouldn’t know really. Let me think… Yes, I do remember Tina asking about one book in particular, because she couldn’t find it.’
‘Do you remember what it was?’
‘It was in History, or should have been. But I don’t think I can remember… hold on, I may still have my notes.’ She took a sheaf of papers from a filing tray and thumbed through them. ‘Yes, this is the one, I think. Its shelfmark was H. India -that’s H for history-and Social etc. We arrange our books differently here, you see, not by DDC.’ She deciphered her notes. ‘Apparently it was shelved under Harding, R., but I don’t seem to have a title. I’ll have noted it as misplaced. Do you want me to check?’
‘I think we know what it was, Gael-a book called After Midnight? It was a memoir.’
‘You’re right, I do remember now. They spent quite a lot of time looking for it.’
‘Do you have the borrowing record for that book?’
‘I can check.’ She called it up on her computer and said, ‘Only one borrower-Marion herself, last September. Nobody else.’
‘And she returned it?’
‘Yes, on the twenty-sixth of September.’
‘So what happened to it? Did someone steal it?’
‘Unlikely, I think. We assumed it must have been returned to the wrong place in the shelves.’
‘How could that happen?’
‘Well, either by mistake or on purpose.’
‘Why would anyone do it on purpose?’
‘To hide it. What better place to hide a book than in a library?’ She smiled. ‘You look surprised. Obviously you were a very law-abiding student.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’m afraid it’s a not-uncommon practice in university libraries. If a book is in demand by students and on restricted access, the first one who gets to it places it on another shelf, where its location will be known only to them, although the computer will say it’s not on loan. Very frustrating for everyone else.’
‘But this book wasn’t in demand,’ Kathy said. ‘Only Marion was interested in it, apparently.’
‘True. Let’s see its publishing history.’ Another flurry of computer keys and she said, ‘Well, it was obviously a self-published memoir, a vanity publication, probably just for friends and relatives, with a very small print run. You might find a copy in the British Library, otherwise it’s probably vanished into obscurity. Is it important, do you think?’
‘I really don’t know, Gael. I might ask Emily. Tell me, is Marion’s tutor, Dr Anthony da Silva, a member of the library?’
‘Oh yes, I know him. He was here a lot when he was researching his wonderful book on Rossetti, but I haven’t seen him lately. Not for a while. Shall I check his borrowing record?’
