Stephen Leather - Nightfall

‘Love potions?’ said Nightingale.

‘Trinkets,’ said the woman. ‘We use the real power to help people, to cure sickness or at least to ease pain and suffering. It has nothing to do with condemning people to eternal damnation.’ She picked up the second book. It was leather-bound, a history of the Salem witch trials of 1692. ‘This is nice,’ she said. ‘Not my sort of thing but you’d get a thousand pounds or so if you can find the right collector. It would probably fetch a higher price in America.’

‘Can you sell it for me, Mrs Steadman?’

She nodded thoughtfully. ‘I know a lady in Boston who would probably be interested,’ she said. She put it aside and picked up the third. It was a Victorian book on natural healing that Nightingale had found open on a display cabinet. It was filled with watercolour paintings of plants and flowers and appeared to offer cures for everything from earache to bunions. ‘Now this I can definitely sell,’ she said. ‘I sold a copy over the Internet last month and I had several people chasing it. How does five hundred pounds sound?’

‘Like music to my ears,’ said Nightingale. ‘Could you pay me now?’

‘If you’re happy with a cheque.’

‘Delirious,’ said Nightingale.

She picked up the next book and smiled. ‘This one too. It’s one of the best books on pagan rituals there is and I think…’ She opened it and nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, it’s a second edition. There’s a market for it here in Camden – we’ve got quite an active pagan community. Would you take three hundred for it?’

‘Excellent,’ said Nightingale.

‘Tell me, is there a reason you’re selling them?’

Nightingale smiled. ‘I have a cash-flow problem,’ he said, ‘and they’re not really of any interest to me.’

‘Your father’s books, you said. Was he a big collector?’

‘I’d say so,’ said Nightingale.

‘And, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you come to my little shop rather than trying an auction house?’

‘I want to keep a low profile,’ said Nightingale. ‘I figured if they were in an auction there’d be publicity. My father died a short time ago and I don’t want newspapers trying to drum up a story.’

‘Why would that be a story?’

Mrs Steadman was as sharp as a knife and a better inquisitor than the detectives who had quizzed him after Simon Underwood had fallen to his death. ‘He killed himself, Mrs Steadman.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘It’s okay. We weren’t exactly close. Now I just want to sell a few of his books to raise some money.’

‘I quite understand,’ she said. She picked up the last book. ‘Now this one I’ll definitely buy, but I’m afraid it’s not in the same league as the others,’ she said. ‘I sold a copy just last week, here in the shop.’ It was a collection of spells and seemed more like coffee-table book than one that a witch would use, full of glossy photographs and recipes – it reminded Nightingale of a Jamie Oliver cookbook. ‘It’s only worth about twenty pounds, I’m afraid. Several thousand copies were published in the seventies.’

‘Twenty pounds is fine,’ said Nightingale. ‘I really wanted to know what you thought about it. It says anyone can work a spell, that you don’t have to be in a coven or be a real witch. Is that right?’

‘That’s a difficult question, young man.’

Nightingale pointed at the book she was holding. ‘But you believe in it, don’t you? That if you light a candle of a particular colour, use a particular incense and the right herb, and say the right words, something magical will happen?’

‘Would you like a biscuit?’ asked Mrs Steadman. ‘I get the feeling that you’re going to be here for a while so I think I should give you something to nibble.’

Nightingale laughed. ‘A biscuit would be wonderful, thank you.’

Mrs Steadman went over to a shelf and returned with a packet of chocolate Hobnobs. ‘My weakness,’ she said.

Nightingale took one, wondering if it had been an attempt to distract him, or if she was simply being hospitable. ‘I guess my question is, does magic work?’ he said.

‘Well, of course it does, young man,’ she said, taking a biscuit for herself and placing it on her saucer. ‘If it didn’t, people would soon lose interest, wouldn’t they? If those girls out there buy that potion and use it and it doesn’t work, well, I’ll have lost two customers and they’ll tell all their friends and before long the shop will be out of business.’

‘But I thought you had to believe for magic to work.’

‘Well, you could say that about medicine,’ said Mrs Steadman. ‘With most illnesses, placebos work almost as well as the genuine article. Not for antibiotics, of course, but for the drugs that treat depression or high blood pressure or relieve pain it’s more a question of belief than of a true chemical effect. People believe that paracetamol will take away their headache so it does, when in fact a sugar pill would do the job just as well.’

‘You see, now you’re confusing me,’ said Nightingale. ‘Is it the spells that do the business, or is it believing in them that makes them work?’

‘Belief helps,’ said Mrs Steadman, patiently. ‘It probably makes the spells more efficient, but even someone who didn’t believe would get results. It’s like cooking. You don’t necessarily understand why yeast makes bread rise, but follow a recipe for bread and you’ll get a loaf.’

‘And what about black magic?’

‘The chocolates?

Nightingale chuckled. He was starting to like Mrs Steadman – she had a sense of humour not dissimilar to his own. ‘I mean spells that perhaps aren’t as well meant as the ones you sell in your shop.’

‘There’s no such thing as black magic,’ she said earnestly. ‘There’s no black magic and no white magic. There’s just magic.’

‘But I thought-’

Mrs Steadman silenced him with a wagging finger. ‘It’s like electricity, young man,’ she said sternly. ‘You can use it to power a life-support machine, or an electric chair. One saves lives and the other takes them, but the electricity itself isn’t good or bad. It’s just a power to be used.’

‘But stuff like selling your soul to the devil. Is that possible?’

Mrs Steadman looked concerned. She reached forward and put her hand on his. ‘Is that what this is about? You want to sell your soul?’

Nightingale shook his head emphatically. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said.

‘You swear, on all you believe in?’ She stared deep into his eyes.

Nightingale met her gaze levelly. ‘I swear,’ he said quietly. ‘I just need to know, that’s all. Is it possible?’

She pulled her hand back and sipped her tea, still watching him with those intense black eyes. ‘There are spells that supposedly enable you to give your soul to the devil,’ she said eventually. ‘One I know is actually quite simple. You go to a churchyard at night – any churchyard will do, but the older the better – you draw a magic circle on the ground, and within it you draw two crosses. You take some wormwood in each hand and hold a Bible in the left. Toss the wormwood in your right hand up and the wormwood in your left hand down taking care not to drop the Bible. Then you say the Lord’s Prayer backwards.’ She sipped her tea.

‘And that’s it?’

‘That’s it. Bob’s your uncle. On your way home, you leave the Bible on the steps of a church.’

It sounded too easy. ‘So there’s no contract? You don’t do a deal?’

‘It’s a spell,’ said Mrs Steadman. ‘Quite a simple one.’

‘And what if you change your mind? What if you want to take it back?’