The Devil You Know

“I think I fainted for a few seconds. The next thing I remember, I was sitting down again and Peele—Jeffrey—was in the room. Bit of a rarity in itself, that—like a visit from royalty. Everyone was shouting, arguing about what to do. Alice said she was going to call for an ambulance, but I said I was okay and I was going home. I’d deal with the cut myself. Jeffrey wasn’t happy about that because he thought there might be some sort of insurance angle to all this shit, but I more or less said bollocks to that and got out of there. I was shaking like a leaf and I felt sick—like I might really throw up. I just had to get out.

“I almost didn’t come back in on the Monday. The whole thing really shook me up. But this is my job, for fuck’s sake. What am I going to do, pull a sickie because I’m scared of ghosts?”

Rich took another belt of Lucozade, grimaced.

“Warm,” he explained, without much conviction, putting the bottle down on the table and shoving it away from him.

I didn’t say anything for a moment or two. What he’d said made some things easier to get a handle on, but it made others even murkier than they’d been before.

“You’re right-handed?” I asked him at last. It wasn’t a question, really. He’d been holding the phone in his right hand when I’d walked past the workroom earlier.

“Yeah. So?”

“But you were holding the scissors in your left hand, because it was your left cheek that got slashed.”

He looked at me, obviously impressed.

“You’re good at this, aren’t you? Yeah, that was what pissed me off more than anything, to be honest. I was using my left hand because my right one already had a big thick dressing on it from where I’d trapped it in the desk drawer a few weeks earlier. It was just starting to get better, and then I got my face opened up. Someone’s really got it in for me.”

“The desk drawer. Was that the ghost, again, or—”

Rich laughed sardonically.

“No, that was just me. It’s not like I need any help to mutilate myself. I’ve got a name for accidental self-immolation. It’s a good job I’m the bloody first-aid man.” He hesitated, nonplussed. “Mind you—it would have been around about the right time. Maybe it was her. I thought it was just me being cack-handed.”

I turned my attention back to the boxes on the table.

“Have you been working on these ever since August?” I asked.

He followed my gaze and blew out his cheeks. “On and off, yeah,” he answered, sounding a little defensive. “I’ve got other stuff going on as well, obviously. There’s a huge amount of material there, and it’s never been sorted. It was in a private collection somewhere over in Bishopsgate. Well, that’s what Jeffrey likes to say, anyway. But I was in on the whole deal, so I can translate that into English for you—he means it was stuck under someone’s bed next to the pisspot.”

“You were in on the deal?”

“Yeah, I found the stuff, and I acted as broker. I wasn’t allowed to claim a finder’s fee because I’m on salary here—you can only pay a fee when someone from outside has brought something to you. But I acted as a go-between and a translator, anyway. It made a change from routine. And as a reward I get to catalog the whole damn collection myself because I’m the only one here who can speak Russian.”

“Was that why the Bonnington hired you?” I asked him. “As a language expert?”

“I suppose it made a difference—but it was the classical education that was my unique selling point, not the Russian and Czech. The archive has got a load of old deeds and certificates written in medieval Latin.” Rich picked up one of the birthday cards, opened it, and read the message inside. “To be honest, I don’t mind doing this stuff, because I like to give myself a linguistic booster shot every now and then to make sure I don’t get too rusty. Normally I do it with a foreign holiday, but this is cheaper.”

“Is there a story attached to this collection?” I hazarded. “Or to how you got your hands on it?”

He looked blank and shrugged. “No, we just put in a bid for it and got it. But there’s no scandal or murder or anything, if that’s what you mean. Not that I heard about.”

“And you haven’t come across anything sensational or unusual in the documents themselves?”

By way of answer, Rich read aloud from the card he was still holding. “‘To Auntie Khaicha, from Peter and Sonia. With all our love and thanks. We hope to see you again before the baby arrives, God willing, and to hear news from our dear cousin.’”

He let it fall back into the box.

“That’s one of the racier ones,” he said resignedly.

Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. It was after midday when Rich and I got back up to the workroom. The archivists had all clocked off for lunch, leaving a note for Rich that they’d be at the Costella Café on Euston Road. He invited me along, but I wasn’t going to lose this opportunity to have the place to myself.

“Could you leave me your keys?” I asked him, thinking of the locked fire door.