The Woman Who Died a Lot

“It’s Malevolex,” said Finisterre, sniffing the air, “an organic acid used in the pulping industry to prepare remaindered books for being turned into MDF. When they cracked the phial in the bag, the two parts mixed and the book was history.”

I’d been staring at the plastic bag for a while. It had been a slick operation.

“They came up here knowing they would destroy these pages,” I said, climbing to my feet. “They didn’t copy it or even have enough time to read it all.”

“They’d have been seriously bored if they did,” said Daisy, handing me the rest of the book. It was titled Trawling around Tewkefbury after darke while piffed and the pleafuref to be found therein.

“A thirteenth-century racy novel that early members of the Sisterhood used to entertain themselves,” explained Daisy.

“It’s all a bit more proper these days, I take it?” asked James delicately.

“Goodness gracious no!” replied Daisy. “We’re more into Jilly Cooper and Daphne Farquitt. This particular racy codex is a bit . . . well, unimaginative—unless you like that sort of thing.”

“Who wrote it?” I asked.

“Stephen Shorts of Swine-dome,” said Finisterre. “You’d know him better as St. Zvlkx.”

“Ah!” I said, having come across Swindon’s very own saint before. Aside from his Revealments, which turned out to be a complex sporting fraud, St. Zvlkx wrote only banal books that revolved around drunkenness and womanizing. The purpose and reason for his sainthood are somewhat obscure but, knowing St. Zvlkx, probably had some basis in blackmail.

Daisy was flicking through the book, trying to find which page had gone.

“He pulled only one leaf out,” she said, studying the volume carefully, “which lay across the spine, so from two parts of the book. The first part was a report on which tavern in Tewkesbury offered the best opportunity to get totally plastered for a farthing, and the second section—if memory serves—was a lengthy digression on how best to handle the fallout from getting a town elder’s wife pregnant, an area in which Zvlkx was something of an expert.”

We stood in silence for a moment. Finisterre aired the thoughts we all shared.

“Why would someone attempt to break into a library guarded by dangerously violent nuns—sorry, no offense meant—”

“None taken.”

“—only to read the licentious ramblings of a despicable rogue from the thirteenth century?”

“Goliath is smart,” I said, “so there would have been a good reason. Perhaps that, too, was a diversionary measure—do something utterly random and incomprehensible, knowing full well we’d spend hours trying to figure it out. No, we take this as an attempted theft and vandalism. Was this the most valuable book?”

“It was possibly the least valuable,” said Daisy. “Almost every book in this room is worth more. Have a look at this.”

She drew out a volume almost at random and passed it to Finisterre, who stared at it, lower lip trembling.

“Pliny the Really Very Young’s account of being unable to see the eruption of Vesuvius due to being put to bed early for some bullshit excuse.”

“We have only fragments of this stuff,” I murmured as Finisterre reverentially placed it back on the shelf. “Worth ten million?”

“More. Much more.”

We looked around at the book-lined chamber.

“We’re surrounded by about half a billion pounds’ worth of books,” said Daisy. “Do you think we should consider insurance, and if so, what would be a reasonable excess?”

My ears had stopped ringing by the time Finisterre called in Colonel Wexler, who arrived with ten of her crack Special Library Services troops dressed in their Antiquarian Book camouflage of musty browns and water-stained dark reds. Colonel Wexler nodded respectfully as she passed me, and we were about to leave when Detective Phoebe Smalls turned up.

“Smalls, SpecOps 27,” she said to us when she arrived, presumably for Mother Daisy’s benefit, as we knew who she was. She was in a police tiltrotor along with half a dozen armed cops.

“Hello, Phoebe,” I said brightly. “I knew we’d meet again soon. What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking charge,” she said. “Why didn’t you report this in straightaway? I had to find out about the break-in through the grapevine.”

“Is there a grapevine?” asked Finisterre.

“I’ve heard there’s one,” I returned with a half smile.

“Very funny,” said Smalls. “I want you to turn over the command of your SLS troops to me and have a full report on my desk by tomorrow morning—after you’ve given me a debrief on what you know right now.”

“Where are your own people?” I asked, since she had arrived without any SO-27 operatives.

She glared at me. “We’re having recruitment . . . issues,” she said quietly. “I went through the list of reassignment requests. The formation of SO-27 has been on the cards for weeks. Lots of time for officers to ask to join me.”