Chapter 16
Jo
Ismile at the girl at the top of the staircase, who – judging from her terrified expression – is wondering how I got into the shop. “Oh, hello. There’s quite a crowd outside trying to pry the front door open, so I went around back. One of the windows was loose, so I just…”
I mime pushing the sash up and rolling into the shop. When there’s a body to be examined or new reading material to be procured, breaking and entering doesn’t concern me. I take my work – and my words – seriously.
“Heathcliff isn’t opening the shop today,” the girl – Mina, she said her name was – says cautiously.
I guess she’s aware that behind my smile is the woman with the power to send her to jail for a long time.
“I’m trying to convince him it might be better to brave the gawkers, lest we end up with a riot. ”
“I say bring on the riot,” I shrug, tightening my grip on the handles of my tote bag. “The last time anything exciting happened in Argleton was when Danny Evans drove his lorry into the side of the pub.”
Mina laughs. “I was eight when that happened. Are you local, then? You look about my age, but I don’t remember you from school.”
Oh, interesting. I don’t remember her, either, and I’d remember someone like her with excellent fashion sense.
Lesbians tend to notice the minutiae. I know she’s friendly with Darren, because he’s been talking about the girl in the bookshop all week.
Normally, I don’t make a habit of paying attention to whiny straight boys and their crushes on women who are obviously out of their league (and let’s face it, we’re talking about Darren.
All women are out of his league), but that was before Nevermore Bookshop was the focus of a murder investigation.
“I’m a couple of years older than you,” I say, since I know her age from the murder board Inspector Hayes has in his office.
“My mum died when I was six, and my dad didn’t want to stay in Argleton.
We moved around a bit, then I went to uni, worked down in London, then found myself back here again.
Guess this village is hard to escape, eh? ”
“It sure is. I thought I’d escaped to New York City, but…” Mina’s expression darkens. “I’m sorry about your mum.”
“I’m sorry about the dead body in your shop,” I shrug. “If it’s any consolation, I finished my examination this morning, and I don’t believe you’re the murderer.”
“No?”
“The knife had been wielded with some considerable force, which usually rules out a female assailant,” I say. “I try not to be sexist, but your arms look a little too scrawny for this attack. But it’s not me you have to convince, and Chief Inspector Hayes is definitely looking at you.”
“Oh, goody.” Her body slumps. “So if you didn’t come about the investigation, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, right. Yes. You probably think it’s totally insane that I just broke back into a crime scene, but the truth is, I left my sweater here last night, and I was hoping I could get it.
It’s my favourite one. Also… I’m heading down to London for a vitreous and enucleation course, and I need something to read on the train.
” I gesture to the shelves in the front hallway.
“I actually didn’t know this place existed until last night, and now I don’t know where to start. ”
“A what course?”
“Vitreous and enucleation. Vitreous is a clear fluid between the lens and retina in your eye. I’m teaching pathology technicians how to extract it with a syringe for toxicology testing. Enucleation is removing the whole eyeball—”
“That’s fine. I don’t need to know. Sounds like fun.
” Mina looks like she’s going to be sick, which is a common reaction people have to things I say.
Being a medical examiner is a super hot commodity on the dating scene.
Not. “I saw a book I think you’d like, but I’ll have to ask where to find it.
Feel free to have a look for your sweater while I run up and speak to Heathcliff. ”
In a flash, she’s gone.
I scan the bookshelves in the hallway, but they’re filled with women’s fiction and historicals.
Not my kind of thing. The bookshop is intriguing, though.
Above my head, along one of the ceiling beams, is an arrangement of tiny taxidermy mouse heads mounted as hunting trophies.
Strange artworks hang from the few inches of wall space not occupied by bookshelves.
My feet sink into well-worn carpet as I head slowly up the staircase to the next floor.
A black cat watches me from the landing.
I sniff the air. The place smells familiar. Sort of… equiney.
Growing up, I was a horsey girl. Dad felt guilty about Mum dying on me, so he basically gave me whatever I asked for – so when I asked for riding lessons, he obliged.
I had five years of being a serious horse girl before Bianca Harrington – the head bitch of dressage class, who called me all kinds of names to my face and made my life miserable – pulled me into the tackle room to make out.
I quit shortly after, when my teenage hormones kicked in and I realised I was more excited about kissing girls than riding.
If I’d known my first queer moment would be at the mercy of Bianca Harrington’s butter-churner tongue, I’d have handed back my lesbian card.
I step onto the first floor and head to the Sociology shelves, where the equine scent is even stronger.
The crime scene has been cleaned by a blind wombat.
There are streaks on the floor. I feel so bad for Mina, having to deal with a dead body in the middle of the shop.
Unless she – or one of the men who live here, who Hayes also has as suspects – did it, in which case, no empathy from me.
I scurry around, looking behind bookcases and under knick-knacks. It’s got to be here somewhere. I would have taken it off to put on my PPE and… ah!
I spy my hoodie. I must have tossed it at the bookshelf on the opposite wall, and it fell behind it. As I step backwards with it clasped triumphantly in my arms, my foot slips in something squishy. I catch myself on the bookshelf before I go flying.
I look down at what I stepped in.
Horse manure?
On my boot.
It’s mostly dry, so broken into chunks, but the centre isn’t quite crusty yet, so there’s a smear on the bottom of my boot.
Gross.
And also, what?
Why is there horse manure on the floor of the first storey of a bookshop? It looks like it’s been here for a few days. It’s outside of the crime scene cordon and behind a shelf, so I hadn’t noticed it when I conducted my investigation.
As I wipe my boot on the rug, I notice a weird tear in the wallpaper I hadn’t seen before.
We’re on the opposite side of the room – it seems too far from the crime scene to be related, but…
I step over and examine it. Yup, something sharp has slashed through the wallpaper. Something like a sword or…
…or a jewelled dagger.
Hmmm. This should probably go in my report.
It suggests a struggle, and maybe that the killer began his attack over here.
But was the killer a knife-wielding centaur?
I whip out my phone and snap pictures of the cut and the horse poop.
I’m just slipping my phone away when I hear heavy boots clomping on the stairs.
I grab my hoodie just as Mina appears, her arms laden with books.
“Oh, there you are. These are all true crime stories and grisly things you’ll like. This one’s on the history of poison, and this is about the H. H. Holmes murders in Chicago…”
I study the cover of the book about poisons she holds up. On the one hand, Mina is assuming that because I’m a medical examiner, I like creepy stuff. On the other hand, she’s correct. I decide not to hold it against her. “This looks perfect. I’ll take it.”
“Awesome. I’ll ring it up for you.” Mina leads me downstairs to the old desk.
She leans in close and squints at the buttons on the ancient till.
I know from her statement to Hayes that she’s going blind, but she seems to be managing fine in the gloomy shop.
“Just do me a favour and tell me about it when you get back. The book, not the course. I don’t want to hear anything about eyeballs and syringes, but I want to read this. ”
“Will do. Maybe we could have coffee, and I could tell you all about the poison cases I’ve worked on over the years.
Did you know that strychnine poisoning is often mistaken for tetanus until the postmortem toxicology reports otherwise?
” I slap my hand over my mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry.
Is that weird? It’s totally weird, right?
I don’t mean to talk your ear off about eyeballs and poisons. ”
“Just weird enough for me.” Mina grins as she scribbles something illegible into the store’s ledger book. “You into punk?”
I notice her staring at the Misfits hoodie in my arms, and I know that I’ve called her right. Mina Wilde might be just the straight bestie I need – provided, of course, she didn’t just off her last bestie with a jewelled dagger.
“Hell yeah. Especially stuff that’s about horror and blood and guts.” I exchange numbers with Mina. “We can talk more about poison and punk when we get that coffee. And now I’m certain you can’t have written that text—”
“What text?”
“Oh.” I clap my hands over my mouth. This is why I work with corpses.
I’m far too much of a hot mess to handle conversations with living people.
“I’m not supposed to say anything. You’ll be hearing about it from the police soon.
But don’t worry about it – they’ll see it doesn’t match your usual diction and look elsewhere. ”
Mina escorts me back to the window. I clamber out and sprint around the corner, my new poison book tucked protectively under my arm.
Once I’ve passed the crowd of lookey-loos, I duck into the bakery, order a sausage roll and a cream bun from Greta, and head to a bench on the green to eat my treats. I scroll through the photos on my phone, stopping to look at that pile of horse manure and the tear in the wallpaper.
I like Mina. I feel a delicious little fizz in my veins after talking to her. The fizz of potential new friendship. It’s hard to make friends when you’re in my line of work – people think you’re imagining what they’d look like with all their skin carved off. Which is true, but still.
And I’m currently on the outs with my Lesbian Film Club because I dumped Leslie, who runs the Lesbian Film Club. Lesbian Film Club politics could rival the Tudors for drama and beheadings.
So I could do with a friend.
But that cut in the wall. The horse manure on the first floor of a building. The text.
If Mina Wilde isn’t the murderer, then something strange is going on at Nevermore Bookshop.
I glance up at the strange old building behind the bakery. “Mina Wilde, what have you got yourself mixed up in?”