The Overnight (28 page)

"Seems like I've got to be. Did my best." Woody hears the phone fall away from the writer's mouth to be replaced by a glass that immediately sounds emptier, and then Bottomley's voice fumbles its way back to the receiver. "Here's a thought," he insists. "Here's a good one. Try telling the feller I met and the rest of them when you're clear of that place. See what they think then."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Think about it when you're somewhere else."

This has to be the worst sort of undermining, so indefinite that it's almost too insidious to be fought off. "Here's just fine for everyone," Woody says and cuts him off.

He's about to start dealing with the people Bottomley exposed when Agnes straightens up with a book. More than ever he's reminded of an animal feeding, not least by her sullen almost bovine expression. "That wasn't Gavin," she says.

"Hey, you noticed."

"I thought we were going to try and make sure he's safe."

"No need to think except about your stock." This doesn't seem to please her, but he doesn't see why he should. "I won't be phoning from down here," he says for her to interpret how she chooses. He's on his way to order Angus upstairs when the phones rouse themselves again.

Is the outside world determined to interrupt their work? The mouthpiece of the phone is clammy with a lingering trace of his breath. "Yes?" he says, sharp as a knife with a hiss for a point.

"Is that the bookshop?"

"It is, ma'am." He softens his voice and his smile, because she sounds like an eager customer. "Woody speaking. How may I be of assistance?"

"Is our daughter there? Is she all right?"

"Everybody here is all right. Who did you want to talk to?"

"She likes to be called Anyes."

"It wasn't your idea, then. Kind of rebellious, huh." Why is he not surprised that the latest unnecessary intrusion has to do with Agnes? "Anyway, yes, she's here and as okay as ever."

"She wasn't involved in the dreadful accident on the motorway, then. We've only just heard about it. We thought she might have rung to say she was safe."

"That wouldn't be possible, sorry."

"Why not?"

The woman's voice is exposing its nerves while Agnes frowns at him as though she hears her mother. He does his best not to use words Agnes can fasten on. "Store policy. Nothing out unless it's for business."

"Don't you think that's a little too inflexible? It's like shutting everybody up in there."

He sees where Agnes has learned her attitude. "Not my rule, ma'am," he restricts himself to saying. "Applies to me just as much."

"Then you're agreeing with me, aren't you? You ought to be able to do something as the manager. I'll have a word with Agnes if I may."

"Can't do, I'm afraid."

"What have you got against that? You just said—"

"Busy. Will be all night. The whole store to prepare for an occasion, and people that ought to be helping aren't. Don't worry, you can trust me. Everyone's safe while I'm in charge."

Neither this nor his smile seems to reach the woman, who says "I'd still like to speak to my daughter."

"As I said, not possible. Please don't try again. I'll be taking all the calls."

He feels more overheard than ever. He feels as if by lowering his voice he has drawn an audience closer, one he can't even see. Agnes scowls sidelong at him as she stoops as little as she has to for a book. When her mother emits a gasp of outrage or incredulity he dispenses with the phone. "I want to see you in my office now, Angus," he shouts as the exit to the staffroom gives way to his badge.

He can see Agnes from the office too. As he watches sluggish downcast stunted Angus cross the floor he observes her resting a hand on the phone at the counter. He sends his voice down to her and the rest of the staff. "Let's keep our minds on why we're here tonight, shall we? Talk to me if you have to talk to someone. Right now we don't need anyone except who's here."

He's gratified to see Agnes snatch her hand away as if the phone itself has accused her. When she glares about the ceiling he feels the corners of his mouth lift, inverting the expression she takes to her shelves. He would invite her to find a smile if he hadn't to deal with Angus, who ventures into the office with a very tentative grin. It wavers between lessening and turning puzzled as Woody says "You don't believe in sharing your encounters with the store, then."

"Encounters with the store." If possible even more dully Angus says "What kind?"

"Not with the store." Woody finds it difficult to credit that anyone working for Texts could be so stupid. "With the man you met," he says through his smiling teeth, "while you were supposed to be publicising us."

"You mean the, what would you call it." Angus devotes altogether too many seconds to coming up with "The historian."

"I wouldn't call him that, no. More like an interfering son of a bitch, and maybe you can tell me why he was hanging round here."

"I got the feeling it was because of Lorraine."

"Sick as well as interfering, it sounds like. Looking for material he can use in his next book, or maybe in the one with Fenny Meadows in it if he ever sells enough to reprint it."

"He wasn't just talking about Lorraine. He wanted to tell someone about Fenny Meadows."

"Yeah, I heard that stuff from him. Some of it I wouldn't be surprised if he made up. You know what's a whole lot more important? The one thing he said that was any use, you didn't post our advertising on the cars like you were told to."

"I did some. I thought most of the leaflets were for the shops."

"You thought you knew more about how to push the store than me, did you? There's too much thinking getting in the way around here." The comment makes Woody feel asinine, especially since he isn't sure what he means by it. "In future," he tells Angus, "I guess you'll know just do what you're told."

"I ran out."

By God, now even he's arguing. Woody thought he was one of the people who could be relied upon to commit themselves to the team. "Okay, why don't you do that," Woody rather more than suggests, but Angus only blinks a dumb question at him. "Run out of here. Run down to your shelving."

Having to explain his point seems to rob it of wit. He turns his back on Angus so as to be ready to catch him on the monitor. He has a good idea of what will follow, and it does. Angus has scarcely returned to the sales floor when Agnes swoops to question him about the interview. As Woody spies on their unsmiling conversation he mouths the words he thinks they're using, and then he realises they're wasting not just their time but his and, worse, the store's. "Can we keep chat for our breaks tonight," he directs through all the speakers. When Angus retreats guiltily to his shelves while Agnes gazes in frustration after him, Woody adds "Connie, join me in my office."

Perhaps it's apparent from his tone that he isn't inviting her out of friendliness, but he doesn't understand why Jill should observe her departure with more of a smile than she has displayed since arriving for work. He watches Connie sink out of sight beyond the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. When he hears footsteps on the stairs he can't help being confused by their upward progress; he's close to imagining that someone unidentifiable is being drawn towards the room. He jumps up, leaving his chair in a spin, and hurries into the staffroom as the door reveals Connie after all. She looks taken aback by his appearance—surely by finding him so near. "I'm shelving," she says somewhat defensively. "Do you want me to carry on?"

"You don't think that would take too much readin."

She looks ready to smile at this; in fact, she begins to. "How's that again?"

"It just came to me that I don't know how much readin you do."

"Quite a lot whenever I've the time. I don't talk like that, do I?"

"Working for the store has to need readin, right? Or maybe you'd call it workin."

"To be honest with you, Woody, if there's a joke I'm not getting it."

"Not gettin it either, I guess. Hey, that makes the both of us. Why don't we take a look at your leaflet together."

She holds her hands and her pink lips slightly open in a fashion he suspects she has meant to seem appealing ever since she was a child. "They're all out there. Shall I go down and get one?"

"No need. It's here waitin to be seen." When she responds with a frown like a twitch of a nerve in her forehead Woody wrenches his smile wider. "You can bring it up on your computer. Go ahead, cough it up on the screen."

She moves to her section of the office desk barely fast enough to keep him from telling her not to waste time. A greyish surface patched with symbols so vague as to be meaningless swells into view on her monitor and forms into the desktop screen. She snaps at it with the mouse, on which she has inked whiskers, then employs the pallid smooth limbless object to dig into her files. As the publicity text quivers into sight and steadies itself she murmurs "What did you want to look at?"

"Take a good look."

She takes at least that before releasing a gasp that sounds like the reverse of the breath she just sucked in. "Oh Lord. Oh no. You're joking."

"I'm not, no. Were you?"

"What could have stopped me seeing that?"

"Do you know, I'd have asked the same question."

"I'm serious. What could have? I've never been that careless. I don't believe anyone could have had a reason before to say I was at all. Scatty maybe, but that's how I like to be with people." With the briefest pause for agreement or encouragement, not that Woody is minded to provide either, she adds "There's something about this place I'm starting not to care for much."

"You know what, I feel the same way about staff that aren't loyal to the store."

"Loyal how? Doesn't it include saying if you see things are wrong?" It isn't conscientiousness Woody hears but nervous triumph as she demands "What's that?"

Her gaze appears to be trying to sidle behind the computer. "Try a shadow," he says impatiently enough to tug his smile awry.

She pushes the keyboard aside and drags the monitor away from the wall. Woody is reminded of someone turning over a rock to reveal what's underneath. Is she trying to distract him from the incomplete word on the screen? He wishes he'd conducted the interview downstairs, however embarrassing that might have been for Connie; she's wasting time he could have filled with shelving. She has indeed exposed a mark on the wall, but he's far less than impressed. "So somebody needed to wash their hands."

"It's here as well."

The back of the monitor bears the imprint of another hand, or perhaps the same one. In both cases the lengths and sizes of the fingers are a good deal more various than the digits of any hand should be. Woody's on his way to frowning when the explanation becomes clear. "The guy who brought the computers up must have been wearing gloves."

"Was he? Did you see him?" Before Woody can assure her without remembering that he did, she makes to lift the monitor back into position, only for her hand to flinch away. "It's still damp," she protests.

Woody plants his hand on the mark to feel nothing except plastic and perhaps a hint of grit. "It isn't now," he says and shoves the monitor close to the wall.

"Did we decide you wanted me to shelve?" Connie seems to hope.

"Sure, once you've fixed your mistake, and why don't you print out a few copies I can show to our visitors tomorrow."

She looks afraid that something may squeeze up from behind her desk and fumble at the computer. "Jesus, I'll do it," Woody says so harshly his teeth ache.

He types the extra g and, having saved the document, sets the printer to emit fifty copies while he watches grey figures genuflect and rise up on the security monitor. He's heading for the stairs at a rate that's intended to make Connie follow when she picks up a leaflet instead. "Are we sure this is how it should be? I don't seem to be able to tell any more."

"Who are you saying is responsible for that?"

She shakes her head and waves her hands on either side of it to signify her brain or the surroundings. Woody grabs the topmost of the leaflets the printer has churned out. By the time he has finished scanning the clammy page it has grown chill, though surely not moist, in his hand. "I don't see a problem." he informs her.

"Shall we ask someone else?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"In case there's anything neither of us is seeing."

"I'm seeing plenty. Mainly how the night is going to be wasted if I don't stay on top of some people."

Her lips part, either to object or because she realises she's included, only to press themselves an even paler pink. "Okay, let's get back to shelving," Woody says and holds the door open so that she obeys. He hurries downstairs behind her to speed her up and sprints back to Wild Life, where he sorts the books and unloads the trolley so fast that a book falls open at a photograph of chimpanzees in the jungle beating one of their number to death. He scoots the trolley to the elevator and is slamming books into place when Agnes approaches him. "Isn't it time we started taking our breaks?"

"Has anyone been here that long?" When he glances at his watch he's by no means entirely pleased to find that the store will be closing in less than half an hour. "I take it by we you mean you," he says.

"Someone has to be first."

"Someone has to set an example, sure enough. Hey, I hope there's a smile in there somewhere. Okay, the sooner you break the sooner you can be back at work. Let's make certain we keep it to ten minutes."

She ought to realise that starts now, especially since she was so impatient for it, but she lingers to demand "Have you called someone about Gavin?"

"I've done everything that's necessary."

"And?"

"I expect we'll hear more in due course."

Even she can't quite bring herself to accuse him of lying. In any case it's presumably the truth. She contents, if that's the word, herself with a challenging look, no match for his smile. When she makes for the staffroom he doubts she has time for the coffee he assumed she would use to liven herself up. Perhaps he can allow her the extra minute or two if it helps her work harder—but then her voice erupts beneath the ceiling. "Has anybody got a mobile I can borrow? I'll pay for the call."