“I’ll drop in,” said Vivien. “I’ll be here anyway. I have a shift tomorrow, front counter.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Susan. “I have to work tomorrow, too. I’d forgotten, what with everything . . . but I guess I’ll be safe at the pub?”
“I’ll be with you,” said Merlin cheerily. “Like a remora stuck to a whale . . . no . . . something rather nicer, like a strawberry in champagne—”
He oofed as Vivien struck him sharply in the stomach, and subsided.
“Be careful, children,” said Helen. She spun her wheelchair around, back to her desk.
“Yeah, be very careful,” said Zoë. “And don’t eat the godawful pie they have downstairs!”
Chapter Twelve
Short stories are brill
Novels can thrill
A play’s just the thing
But poems can sing
SUSAN AND MERLIN FINALLY GOT BACK TO MRS. LONDON’S CLOSE TO seven, because after their very late lunch, which vehemently did not include stargazy pie, they had to go first to Northumberland House to drop off Vivien, who wanted to look at the wards there, and to wait for Merlin to pack and close a ridiculously large leather suitcase that boasted numerous straps. At Merlin’s insistence, aided by Vivien’s diplomacy to actually make it happen, they traveled in one of the bookseller’s cabs, this time driven by the very silent, focused Cousin Wendover, not Audrey.
Susan was exhausted, wanting only a bath and bed, but this was denied her, for as they walked in the hall, the door to what Mrs. London called the common room swung open to reveal Inspector Greene, wearing the identical clothes she’d been in the week before when she’d brought Susan from Highgate Police Station to this house. A definite look.
“About time you got here,” she grumbled, making a beckoning gesture. “Come on, then. Let’s be having you.”
“Can’t we talk tomorrow?” asked Susan. “I am totally knackered.”
“No, because I need to know what the hell is going on,” replied Greene, standing back to let them into the room. “As does my colleague from Organized Crime, who has graced us with his presence. Susan Arkshaw, Merlin St. Jacques, allow me to introduce Chief Superintendent Holly.”
“Reg Holly!” cried the older, heavily built, once-handsome ex-boxer type in a charcoal three-piece double-breasted suit, bright white shirt, club tie, and chunky silver-braceleted watch peeking out from under his French cuff, with gold yacht club links that made him look more like a banker than a police officer. “Call me Reg.”
Merlin looked from Holly to Greene.
“This is bookseller business,” he said. “No one outside of your unit is cleared, Greene. None of the regular police. You know that.”
“Don’t fret, lad,” said Reg. “I was in Greene’s job once upon a time, until I moved on to greener—ha ha—pastures, career-wise I mean, something I’ve suggested to young Mira here, because it’s a dead end working with you booksellers. And look at me now, chief super and in charge of what I like to call incompetently organized crime.”
“The chief superintendent has a historical clearance that has not been revoked,” said Greene evenly.
“And I called up Merrihew to make sure it was kosher for me to stick my head in,” said Reg. “Fine, she said. So here I am.”
Susan flopped down into an armchair. Merlin remained standing, looking at Holly suspiciously.
“So you must be Susan . . . Arkshaw,” said Holly, looking intently at Susan. He had small, cruel eyes, she thought, and looked away. “A newcomer to all the sort of things the booksellers get into.”
“Ms. Arkshaw has nothing to do with anything in your area of responsibility,” said Greene. “Sir.”
“What I’d like to know,” said Reg, ignoring Greene, “is what your arrival and the . . . uh . . . departure of our dear and unlamented friend Frank Thringley has to do with a bunch of Brummagen boys trying to take you off the doorstep here?”
“Sir, I will be advising the deputy commissioner—” Greene tried to interrupt, but Holly pressed on.
“Birmingham mob, organized crime, that’s my bailiwick,” he said, almost snarling at Greene, though when he looked back at Susan his face was placid again. “So I have to ask what the arrival of one Susan Arkshaw has got to do with the demise of Frank Thringley, North London mobster and Sipper, and then those gits turning up here for you and the sudden outbreak of violence between and within a number of usually quite-well-behaved gangs in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and Newcastle. Or in other words, the whole of bloody Britain that matters, since the Scots and the Welsh—or ninety-nine percent of them—are apparently sailing on oblivious.”
“What?” asked Susan. “It’s nothing to do with me.”
“Now, as there’s nothing written, no statements as is par for the course with you lot, I only got to know this morning from informal sources that you even existed and you were present when Frank Thringley was knocked off by Mr. Merlin St. Jacques here—”
“You have no operational involvement in this and you should not have been informed of either—”
“Shut it, Greene. I told you, I talked to Merrihew and she said I can talk to whoever I want.”
Again, the attack dog disappeared as he turned back to Susan. She frowned, wondering why on earth he bothered, as if she wouldn’t notice how rude he was to Greene. He could be as nice as pie to her and she’d still know he was a total arsehole.
“Now that was a week ago, so maybe I might think this outbreak of argy-bargy isn’t all connected. But this morning, two of the Milk Bottle Gang show up here, try a snatch and get their comeuppance, not counting on your Mr. Merlin being at the front door with a damned hand cannon. Why were they here? What’s the connection?”
“Why don’t you ask them, Reg?” suggested Merlin, though he already knew the answer.
“I did ask them, after Greene’s lot had a go, and their minds were like a plate of mushy peas. They
