For Your Own Protection(18)

The owner of the shop also happened to be an exiled American. Jim was from the East Coast – New York – and had married an Englishwoman more than thirty years earlier. They’d lived in Camden for twenty of those years, buying the bookshop and running it ever since. Rachel had formed an instant friendship with Jim. And after that first visit, she’d returned to the shop at least once a week. Sometimes, when business was slack, Jim would offer her a cup of coffee: real American coffee, as he said.

‘Rachel,’ Jim said, standing up from behind the oak desk. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, you know, pretty bad,’ she said, closing the door behind her.

‘Still not sleeping?’

Rachel shook her head and was surprised to find tears filling her eyes. It was the first time she had cried since Alex’s death.

‘Cup of freshly brewed American coffee?’ Jim offered.

Rachel nodded, wiping the tears away with her finger. She managed to regain her composure, not wanting to lose it completely. She knew she needed to cry, to vent her emotions, but not yet.

The coffee was great. And the conversation helped, too. Jim was a good listener and was suitably comforting.

‘Do whatever you think is best,’ Jim told her, pushing an open packet of biscuits across the desk. ‘Oh, and keep quiet about the cookies. We’ve got a strict no-eating policy in here.’ He winked and smiled weakly, unsure whether his humour was appropriate.

Rachel smiled back to reassure him that it was. ‘Thanks.’

‘Just promise me you’ll think carefully before you do anything,’ he said. ‘Things are really bad at the moment, but they will get better.’

‘I know,’ Rachel said, finding the cliché hard to stomach. She stared into the bottom of her mug.

‘Now,’ Jim said, ‘did you just come here for a drink, or are there any books I can tempt you with? After all, I do run a business, you know.’

Rachel managed another smile.

‘Any interesting books come in?’

‘Early copy of Alice in Wonderland, decent condition. Also, we’ve got two Graham Greene novels, first print run, from a collector in Brighton. Very apt, eh?’

Rachel nodded without smiling.

‘Better get in there quick, before the rest of the locals get out of bed.’

‘Yeah, I’d better.’

Rachel finished the dregs of her coffee, wincing slightly at the harsh taste, then rose from the desk. ‘Thanks, Jim. You’ve been a real help.’

The second-hand section was in the basement. It was her favourite part of the bookshop. Over the past few years she had spent hours down there, hunting through the books with all the excitement of a small child looking for buried treasure. And there was treasure indeed. The collection of second-hand books was astounding. Wall-to-wall stacks of shelves reached from ceiling to floor, lining the room like fancy wallpaper. The stock was always changing, too. Books came in each week from collectors and book sales all around the country.

Rachel stepped on to the polished wooden floor of the basement. Down here, away from the contamination of the street outside, the smell of paper was intense. She looked down the tunnel of books that stretched out into the near distance. She had the floor to herself.

Rachel had always loved books, for as long as she could remember, and her room when she was growing up, although not quite as remarkable as this place, was certainly impressive in its own way. Her childhood friends had often referred to it as the library, as there were so many books crammed in – on shelves, in drawers, under the bed.

She moved across to the ‘C’ shelf and quickly found the copy of Alice in Wonderland to which Jim had referred. It was in perfect condition. Carefully turning over the first few pages, she read the faded message that one of its owners had penned:

To my darling Emma. Many happy returns. Love Father.

Rachel ran a finger over the ink, feeling for any bumps like a blind person reading Braille. She tried to guess how old Emma might have been when she received this gift. It was a loving message, preserved within fiction. The message had become part of the book, and now had as much right to be there as the White Rabbit or the Mad Hatter. As Rachel began to leaf through the rest of the text, she thought of her family back home. She did miss them terribly. Phone calls, emails, and Skype were okay, but nothing could match real face-to-face contact.

Rachel placed the book carefully back on the shelf. Sometimes she bought things, but often she’d just browse. And when she did buy a book, in a funny way she almost felt guilty for taking it away from what she saw as its rightful place on the shelf. She moved over towards the ‘G’ section, which was situated some way along. As she passed the staircase, she heard the ring of the bell. Someone else had entered the shop. Jim greeted the person with a friendly hello, but Rachel didn’t hear the visitor respond.

Just as Rachel was pulling out the copy of Brighton Rock, she heard the familiar creak of the wooden stairs. She had her back to the staircase, and immediately felt the need to shift her body slightly in a clockwise direction, to afford herself a better view of who might be coming down. A man who looked to be in his mid-thirties entered the room. Rachel’s eyes shot down to the book in her hand as the man turned briefly towards her. She felt uncharacteristically uneasy.

Rachel had never seen him before. Or at least had never noticed him. And she’d surely have remembered a man of such towering stature. He must have been pushing six foot five, and as she ventured to raise her eyes from the book, she noted that his shoulders spanned nearly half the length of the bookshelf he was now facing. He was dressed casually, in a blue T-shirt and khaki trousers. The shirt clung to his body, defining the contours of the well-developed muscles along his neck, shoulders, and arms. She noticed a pair of wraparound shades hanging from his back pocket.