CHAPTER SEVEN
So this FitzRoy fella was dead. That didn’t mean this investigation was over. Billi left Sr George to ponder his life choices and she even collected a biscuit from the tea tray at reception, and a scowl form Agatha, then had the door firmly closed, and locked, behind her.
What to do next? She had the list from Sir George and that was a start. She didn’t know to where to go next, but she wasn’t going to let it go because of a single suicide. The djinn jar was in their hands, but there were more items out there, which not being traded through Lawrence. The Templars had dealt with mystical artefacts throughout the ages. They remained guardians of the Holy Grail, despite Billi having broken it one Easter, and once they’d had the fabled Cursed Mirror, the device that had allowed access with the realms of angels and devils. It didn’t have to be as grand as the Ark of the Covenant but there were rumours that somewhere out in the Iraqi desert were the Tablets of Destiny, last read by Alexander the Great. The flower of immortality bloomed in some remote oasis, and in the Alborz mountains were the gates to Alamut, the secret fortress of the Assassins, now said to lie between the mortal, physical world and the ethereal realm of spirits.
She needed more information and where did you go when you needed to know something?
To the library.
A short tube trip north on the Victoria Line and Billi was out at Finsbury Park. Then a stroll down the darkening streets and an hour after having left Outremer Consultancy the doorbell chimed gently as Billi entered Elaine’s Bazaar.
How could this be the same place? Even the smell had changed, and she’d thought that had been soaked deep into the building’s brickwork soul.
A hipster looked up from his laptop. He frowned momentarily, before adjusting his earplugs and returning to his screen. There was a stack of screen-writing guides on the table, along with a cappuccino cooling in a painted jar. There were three other tables, all occupied by off-duty mums continuing the gossip they’d started at the school gates. The countertop was laden with gluten-free cakes and the coffee machine hissed noisily.
She’d heard Lionel had given it a make-over but… this?
Original artwork hung upon the bare brick walls and the lighting over the front of house café was provided by a chandelier that looked like it had been stolen from a ballroom. It was outrageously grand for this street corner store.
Where was the lingering stench of tar and cigarette smoke? The musky odour of dust and cobwebs? Where had the mould gone, and the mousetraps? And the windows… she could see through them now.
“Billi?”
The guy at the counter was perched on a high stool, paperback in his hand and a pair of wire-rimmed specs perched on his prematurely balding head.
Billi shook his hand. “Hey, Lionel. I like what you’ve done with the place.”
He inserted a leather bookmark before tucking the book away in his apron pocket. “Elaine hates it.”
“Your granny is a hard woman to please. I gave up trying a long time ago.”
He smiled as he nodded. “These floorboards are original. Can you believe that?”
She still couldn’t believe this was Elaine’s grandson. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more, that Elaine had been a mum once, or that this guy could be remotely related to her. Elaine had been wiry and hard, held together by cigarette tar, but this guy was a cuddly great bear. His brown eyes were as soft as chocolate and the smile open and sincere. It was as if the Almighty was overcompensating for having created Elaine in the first place.
“How’s Elaine doing?” Billi asked. She should have dropped her a line but she was always too busy. Still, she’d definitely call her tonight. Tomorrow for sure.
He laughed. “Miserable. She says the seagulls keep her awake all night and the salty air saturates all her clothes. She hates the nurses and is fed up with all the old people. She says she’s planning to become a roadie for a heavy metal rock band. Says she wants to die dancing in a mosh pit.”
“There are worse ways to go, I reckon.”
Lionel polished his glasses. “Carados brought the djinn jar, in case you’re wondering. It’s put away somewhere safe.”
“That’s not why I’m here. Did you get my text?”
“About Lawrence and this FitzRoy guy? Yes, found something that might interest you quite a bit. Come downstairs and we’ll have a look.”
Elaine’s Bazaar had been a pawn shop, first established in the latter half of the 19th century. The place had been a dusty, chaotic junk shop with no organization, and everything just piled in or squeezed into every little gap available. There’d been suitcases full of outfits from the roaring twenties, dining sets from old cruise liners, fur coats last worn during the reign of Queen Victoria and once Billi had found a stainless-steel whiskey flask with a bullet lodged in it.
But Elaine’s Bazaar had been a cover. Elaine had been guardian of the Templar reliquary, responsible for those treasures taken from the Paris headquarters when the order had been destroyed. That, of all the mysteries, remained the greatest. The French king had opened the treasury to find it empty. The Templars had smuggled out their great treasures, mundane and magical, loaded them onto their ships at La Rochelle and simply disappeared.
How would people feel, knowing it was now in the basement of a North London bookshop?
Lionel held his belly in as he led the way through rows of closely-lined mahogany bookcases. “We keep the latest blockbusters up front but in the back are the second-hand shelves.”
“And first editions you’re saving for your pension?”
Lionel grinned. “You heard of Harry Potter?”
They stopped by a back door, guarded by a stuffed bear. Lionel flushed a little red. “I couldn’t bear to get rid of it.”
“The feather boa was your idea?”
“Yeah. You know it used to
