Laurie King - The Language of Bees

“Do you know who printed this?”

He raised an eyebrow at the book under his nose, then turned the raised eyebrow on me. I shut my eyes for a moment. “I beg your pardon. It's been a hot and tiresome morning, but that's no excuse. Do you by any chance know who might have printed this book?”

Mollified, he took the thing and opened it, as twenty-one men already had that day. He, too, ran an interested professional eye across it; he, as the other twenty had, paused to study the illustrations; then he, as they had, swung his heavy head to one side.

“I can't be certain, but it might be Marcus Tolliver's work.”

I stood motionless, my hand half-extended to receive the book. “What? Where?”

“Tolliver? Not sure. Somewhere up near Lord's.”

“ St John's Wood?”

“Or Maida Vale, perhaps.”

My hand completed the gesture and returned the book to the carry-bag. I gave him my best smile, and said, “Sir, you don't know how close you came to being kissed.”

He was imperturbable. “Next time you have a print job, madam, just keep us in mind.”

A casual stroll past Tolliver's bindery told me that this establishment did not do much of its business printing menus and playbills. Two small windows faced the street. One of them had neat black-and-gilt letters across it:

Tolliver

BOOKS BOUND

The other window looked more like the display of a jeweller than a printer, with two small volumes nestled into folds of deep green velvet. One book stood, showing a cover of bleached deerskin that invited touch. The leather was graced with a delicate vine curling around letters that said, with an incongruous lack of originality, ALBUM. The vine had three blue-green fruits, round turquoise beads set into the embossing.

The other book lay open, and showed a page from what looked like the diary of a very gifted amateur watercolourist, with a shadowy sketch of a Venice canal surrounded by handwritten commentary.

I had found the shop twenty minutes earlier, passing on the opposite side of the busy street, then making a circle around its block of shops and flats. Unfortunately, there was no access to the back of the shop, as there might have been for a printer that used greater quantities of ink and paper. If I wanted to break in, I should have to do so through the front door.

I tore my gaze away from the pair of books and went through that front door now. The air bore a rich amalgam of expensive paper, leather, ink, machine oil, and dye-stuffs, with a trace of cigar smoke underneath. A bell rang, somewhere in the back, but the man himself was already there, bent and balding although he moved like a man in his thirties. He greeted me with an encouraging smile.

I laid my prepared tale before him: aged uncle with an interesting life; upcoming birthday; big family; multiple copies needed of his round-the-world journal. Many colour pages: Could Mr Tolliver help?

Mr Tolliver could help.

I then drew out the copy of Testimony and placed it on the counter. “I rather liked what you did with the sketches in this, and the paper-what's wrong?”

He had taken an almost imperceptible step away from the book; his smile had disappeared. “Is this your book?” he asked.

“No, I borrowed it from a friend.” His expression remained closed, so I changed my answer. “Well, not so much a friend, just someone I know.” Still no response. “And not so much borrowed. I sort of took it.”

“You stole this?”

An effective witness interview is dependent on tiny hints and clues, reading from words, gestures, and the shift of muscles beneath skin, just what the person is thinking, and what he wants to hear. It happens so swiftly it seems intuitive, although in fact it is simply fast. Here, Tolliver was disapproving of the theft, but also, faintly, reassured.

“No no, I didn't steal anything, I borrowed it. But I didn't give my friend too much of a choice in the matter, short of snatching it out of my hands. I will return it, honest, I merely wanted to look at it more closely. Apart from the words, it is very beautiful.”

I hoped he might relent a shade at the compliment, but if anything, he appeared less forthcoming than before.

And sometimes, an effective witness interview is dependent on techniques one finds distasteful. Such as telling the truth.

I sighed. “I am not actually in need of a printer. A friend's wife was murdered. I believe the police are looking in the wrong direction. I think the man who had this made knows something that might help. I need to find him.”

He studied me for a long time, until I began to feel nervous: He had no reason to know that I was avoiding the police-my image was not yet posted across the news-but it was possible he knew of Damian Adler's connexion with this book. At last, he reached out to caress one leather edge with his thick finger. He looked regretful, like a father whose son had committed a shameful crime.

“Twice in my career I have turned down commissions for reasons other than practical ones,” he said. “The first was early, just my second year, when I was asked to bind a photograph collection of young girls that I found-well, intrusive. The second was to be a privately issued novel built around a series of police photographs of murder victims. Again, the salacious overtones were repugnant.

“In neither case, you understand, was it the display of flesh that made me say no. Why, just this past autumn, I bound a collection of, shall we say, personal drawings and poems as a gift from a wife to her husband. It turned out very pretty indeed.

“Those other two projects I rejected because I didn't like the thought of my work around that content. Do you understand?”

“I believe so.”

“This book,” he said, laying his hand flat on the cover, “made me wonder if I shouldn't regretfully decline it as well.”

“But you did not.”

“I did not. I read it, before I started on the plates, which I do not always do. I found it odd, but not overtly offensive.”

“So why were you tempted to reject it?”

He tapped the cover thoughtfully with his fingertips: one, two, three, four . “It might have been the attitude of the man himself. Somehow he reminded me of the two men who brought me their little prizes to beautify. A trace of defiance, as if daring me to find fault with requests they knew to be unsavoury.”

“But in this case, you could not.”

“The sketches alone justified the project. In fact, I suggested to him that he might like to do a second version with just the artwork.”

“What did he say to that?”

Tolliver's eyes twinkled. “He wasn't entirely pleased-the words, I understood, were his. He did say that he was working on a simpler version of the text, to be used with those same illustrations, a book intended for higher numbers. But I had to tell him that on my equipment, I should not be able to do a large print run.” Tolliver did not sound regretful about the refusal.

“When was this?”

“January,” he said promptly. “I generally take two weeks' holiday the beginning of the year-I'm always rushed off my feet December, and seldom finish the last-minute commissions until after Christmas-and he was one of the first customers to come through the door after that. Which may explain my inclination to take on his job.”

“What-” I started to ask, but he had not finished his thought.

“Although the sketches would probably have decided me even if he'd come in during December, because Damian Adler was a client I wished to keep.”

My heart gave a thump; it was all I could do to keep from looking over my shoulder to see if the police lurked outside of the door: The wry tone to his words told me he knew that Damian as a long-term customer was no longer a sure thing.