Book of Stolen Tales (10 page)

All of them looked to date back a century or more ago, reprinted in modern formats. Leafing through them, I shivered a little at the illustrations. They reminded me of José de Ribera's frightening images. Most of the ideas contained within them reflected sheer superstition, but if people actually believed that stuff, I supposed they could do harm.

“One day I found him, just over there”—Norris nodded toward a corner of the shop—”curled up in a ball, shaking as if he'd had the fright of his life. Claimed a monster was hunting him. A demon, he called it. He lost weight after that, and rapidly, at least two stone.” He dropped his voice, though we were alone. “Very alarming, it was. You can imagine, I began to fear for his sanity. And then just when he seemed to be tipping into a permanent breakdown, his mood reversed. He learned you'd agreed to bid on the book for him. Suddenly, everything was rosy again.”

Norris shook his head ruefully. “It's almost as if the tales he revered all his life began to take over his mind. Had he been a more well-rounded person, had a life outside of work, things might have been different.”

“How do you mean? He didn't have any family? No wife or children?”

“I'm afraid not. Excessively shy, he was. Felt he'd be rejected because of how he looked. ‘No woman wants a crooked man,' he'd say. My own dear wife, bless her heart, tried to introduce him to several ladies. Lovely women. But to no avail.

“In third form Charles developed an infatuation with a sister of one of the other boys. A beautiful girl, although he couldn't hope to attract her. To his amazement she invited him out to tea one day but she stood him up. One of the boys put her up to it. They ribbed him mercilessly about it.”

A moment later Norris added, “Speaking of women, one particular lady appears to have caught his eye. I mention it only because it seemed strange. Again, out of character for Charles.”

“Oh?”

Norris pulled out the Cinderella book and took a photo from between the back leaves. “Here she is.” He handed it to me.

The photo must have been taken on a cheap camera, perhaps even a Polaroid, because the color had faded to sepia tones. The woman had been caught off guard and was clearly not posing for the picture. She was young, around twenty, and had an enchanting face, although you would not call her classically beautiful. Rosy lips and alabaster skin, enhanced by expressive dark eyes. A wariness in her look and in the way she held her body suggested tension or strain.

An older man stood behind her, his hand possessively planted on her shoulder. Her father perhaps? He too seemed unaware of the camera trained upon him. He had the air of someone always in command and his thin lips were turned down in a slight frown, as if whatever situation they'd been captured in tested his patience.

It may have been due to the faded color of the poor-quality photo, but his skin, although wrinkle free, looked artificially bronzed, as if he'd applied cheap tanning lotion. It contrasted oddly with his thick helmet of snow-white hair. The background was out of focus so gave me no clues as to where the photo had been shot. I turned it over and saw on the back a note scrawled so hastily it was difficult to make out. I thought it said
Talia, Aug. 18/2000
.

“Do you know who she is?”

“Afraid not. Goodness, I haven't been much help, have I?” “On the contrary.”

I smiled, genuinely appreciative of the time he'd spent with me. “You've given me a lot to think about.”

I handed the photo back. “Is there any chance he had an English translation of Basile's entire book?”

Norris thought for a moment. “Offhand I'm not certain, but Charles may have done. Let me see.”

He ran his fingers along the books lining the shelves above the table and then said, “Ah, here they are.” He pulled out two heavy tomes and flipped to the copyright page of one of them. “This looks quite complete. Editor is Norman Mosley Penzer. It's based on a translation from the Neapolitan to Italian by Benedetto Croce. Not terribly recent though—published in 1932, and I believe that might well be the most comprehensive English version.”

“Is there any chance I could borrow them for a few days?” Seeing a frown begin to grow on his face, I quickly added, “It would help a lot to get to the bottom of the theft.”

Norris hesitated for a moment as he wrestled with my request. “I don't know. Charles was quite possessive about his belongings. But the circumstances are extraordinary, aren't they? I'll have to ask you for a note acknowledging that you have them.”

“Of course. I'd be glad to.” Norris got a receipt book from his desk and I decided to press my luck. “Given how long Renwick sought the book, I imagine he did a fair amount of research. Are there any records?”

“That's likely. Nevertheless his personal papers must remain private. I wouldn't even dare to go through them unless authorized by his executor.”

“Understood,” I said. “That would be Arthur Newhouse, I imagine.”

Norris nodded. He'd been very obliging. I thanked him and promised to let him know of my progress. He showed me the door and I stepped out into the damp London evening.

My mind spun with all these new revelations. Renwick believed one of the tales in Basile's book contained a clue to the origins of a deadly sickness he'd contracted as a boy in the Middle East. His obsession with the book therefore likely had little to do with its monetary value.

My cell buzzed. A text came from Amy confirming that Ewan Fraser would be at the library tomorrow. The first direct flight I could get to Naples was at one in the afternoon the following day. I'd scheduled the police interview for the morning, so I'd have to bunk in another hotel for the night. I booked a room at a bed and breakfast in Wapping and hopped on the tube at Southwark station.

Much as I loved my home city, I'd exchange the New York subway for the London underground any day. On my first trip to London as a kid I'd savored the rush through that dark, round cylinder. With my nose pressed against the glass, the tunnel walls seemed to fly past only inches away. I'd pretend to be in a rocket, barreling toward the center of the earth. Samuel told me the term
padded cell
came from the early trains that had no windows and buttoned upholstery. London rush-hour commuters probably felt not much had changed since then.

I liked the way each station had its own unique character. Baker Street with the silhouette of Sherlock Holmes printed on a wall; Waterloo with the wonderful spiral of four hundred steps down into the bowels of the city. I'd heard somewhere a ghost station, now closed to the public, underneath the British Museum still had crumbling posters on its walls from its use as a shelter during the Second World War.

I found a seat between a guy with his nose between the pages of the
Guardian
and a woman wearing a full-tilt burka. When I glanced at her she averted her gaze and clutched the shopping bag on her lap a little tighter.

I noticed an old man at the end of the car staring at me. He wore a fifties-style fedora and sat bent over as if he were unable to straighten his spine. Norris's description of Charles Renwick flashed through my mind. Would Renwick suddenly show up like this, knowing the police must be combing the streets for him?

My stop came next. The man got ready to disembark. When he left the train and began to climb the stairs I followed him. At the top of the stairs he turned and raised his hat and then held out his hand, palm up. He gave me a ghastly grin and pointed his forefinger at his empty palm. Not Renwick, but a beggar. I slipped him a quid and hastened away.

London real estate prices had grown so astronomically high, even professionals earning salaries on the lower end couldn't afford to live there anymore. Wapping too had succumbed. A ramshackle collection of maritime warehouses and sailors' shacks had been converted to prestigious condominiums and trendy public houses, its seafaring past now a ripe tourist trap.

The cold drizzle, somewhere between a wet mist and a light rain, hadn't let up. Lamps cast pools of light on cobblestone squares, interspersed with long stretches of gloom. In the distance I heard the forlorn toll of a church bell. The Thames was just ahead; already I could smell the dank water. I followed the road near the river's edge in search of a place to get a meal.

Slanting amber light from the front windows of a pub beckoned me inside. The Prospect of Whitby had an old flagstone floor, blackened wood beams in the Tudor spirit, and a low stone hearth with a merry fire. I felt as if I'd just stepped back into history. At the rear, tall leaded-glass windows opened onto a balcony overlooking the Thames.

The bar woman was in a chatty mood, and she volunteered that a man called Hanging Judge Jeffries used to like sitting on the balcony to watch convicts he'd just sentenced swing on a noose. She pointed out that a noose still hung outside. More benignly, Samuel Pepys and Charles Dickens were fond of taking a pint here. Learning that Turner may have drawn inspiration for his sublime paintings from his view in the pub impressed me. The bar woman told me that the place used to be called the Devil's Tavern in a nod to its nefarious patrons. It even had a smugglers' room upstairs.

I finished my meal and stepped outside. The street was empty, with the exception of a lone man in the distance. As he walked under a street lamp his long dark coat and hat became visible. He held his left arm perpendicular to his body in a curiously formal stance, as though he were offering his arm to a lady or carrying something fragile. And indeed he was. The golden covers of the book. This far away, the horse was a mere white flash on the cane he swung as he walked. I quickened my pace. Even with my case banging into my thigh I knew I could overtake him.

Alessio reached a cross street, stepped lightly to the other side, and ducked out of view. I rushed to the corner and saw a space between two buildings blocked off with a wrought-iron partition. I doubted he could scale it and could detect no sign of him through the fancy ironwork or beyond. I slowly scanned the street again.

Somehow he'd managed to hide because I now saw he'd doubled back and was heading in the direction of the pub I'd just come from. As I gave chase, he turned before he reached the tavern and disappeared once again.

People didn't just vanish into thin air and I soon saw where he'd gone. A narrow passageway between the pub and the building next door led to a flight of steps ending at the river. The stairs were slick with spray and I almost slipped before I reached the bottom and set my case down. The gibbet swinging from the pub's balcony loomed in front of me, its iron fastenings creaking as the noose swung slightly in the wind.

It was even darker down here. Water sloshed on the pebbles and detritus at the riverside. A rat slipped along mossy rocks. The ghostly outline of a stationary barge floating out in the Thames emerged from the gloom.

I scoured the line of the river ahead to my right, but could catch no sign of him. Startled by a noise I spun around. Alessio stood beneath the far end of the balcony, leaning on his cane, still clutching the book's gleaming gold covers in the crook of his left arm. Dim light spilled from the windows of the pub above, casting deep shadows that coalesced around him. The shape of the shadow was unnatural and bore no relationship to the outline of his body. As I ran toward him, I wasn't prepared for his next move.

He heaved the book into the river, grunting with the effort. It disappeared beneath the surface only a few feet from the bank. I kept my eye on the point where it entered and sloshed knee deep into the frigid river, groping about on the slimy bottom. My fingers brushed cold metal and I seized it triumphantly. The book would be badly damaged if water had leaked inside. As I lifted it, the clasps fell open and I cried out. It was empty. Alessio had hidden the volume and baited me with the covers.

His cane smacked my temple with a loud crack. Blood burst over my eye. In desperation, I jammed the metal corner of the covers into his chest. He let out a yell and stumbled backward on the slippery pebbles. I rushed at him in a rage. He whipped the cane against my elbow and swore at me in Italian.

I dropped the book and fell backward into the filthy water.

As he bent to give me another blow I gripped his coat with one hand and pulled him with all my strength into the river. Before I had a chance to deal with him the strange sensation I'd felt in the hotel room returned. All my muscles seized. I could no longer grasp the covers and dropped them. My other hand lost its grip on his coat. With mounting terror I fought against the tyranny of this weird paralysis but remained frozen in place, unable to move even a finger. I could still see and hear and I hadn't lost consciousness.

Alessio snatched the golden covers out of the water and waded farther out into the Thames. The river swirled around his chest—it must have been agonizingly cold—but he never took his black eyes from mine. And then he slipped, crumpling like a marionette whose strings had been severed, beneath the oily surface of the water.

The moment he disappeared from view I came out of my trance and plunged in the direction I'd seen him fall, gagging on the water and struggling against the current. I moved my hands in the water blindly, unable to find him, and after a moment or two, fought my way back to the bank grunting and cursing.

From my place on the shore, I saw his cane and hat bobbing along the surface about thirty feet downriver. The white horse's head gleamed on the wavelets, twisting and turning with the water's flow.

Nine