Mortuus Virgo (2 page)
Authors: Kevin Ashman
‘Goodnight, Mrs Thomas,’ she said looking up, ‘Find anything interesting?’
‘I did, actually,’ came the reply from the portly woman as she paused by the door, ‘This internet thing is quite good once you get going. I’ve just found out my great, great grandfather was a jewel thief.’
‘A jewel thief, how exciting,’ laughed India, ‘I wonder if he left any of his ill gotten gains hidden under your patio.’
‘No such luck,’ said the woman, ‘Anyway, I’ve turned the computer off, save you the trouble.’
‘Thanks for that,’ said India, ‘See you next week?’
‘You will, goodnight.’ The woman left the library and India checked the clock on the wall. Quarter to seven! Thirty more minutes and she could go home. She looked around the room. The last of the ancestry group had gone home and there were only three users left, two teenage boys sat giggling at a corner PC and a lone man who was browsing the history section between the aisles. She returned to the bar code reader but was interrupted once more when the man coughed gently to attract her attention.
‘Oh!’ she said, standing up suddenly, ‘You startled me.’
The man had approached without her noticing and stood in front of the counter.
‘Sorry,’ he smiled, ‘You seemed to be somewhere else there for a while.’
‘I wish,’ she laughed, ‘Bahamas would be nice, I could do with a holiday.’
‘Me too,’ said the man, ‘Weather’s been awful.’
‘That’s Britain for you, how can I help?’
‘I was wondering if you could help me identify a coin,’ he asked.
‘What sort of coin?’ responded India, her interest suddenly rising.
‘Well, it’s a necklace really but the pendant is definitely a coin. I’ve searched the internet but can’t find anything quite like it.’
‘Do you have it with you?’ she asked.
He looked around the library but the only two other users were too engrossed in whatever illicit site they had managed to access past the council’s fire wall. He reached into his inner jacket pocket to retrieve a neatly folded paper towel and placed it on the counter.
‘May I?’ she asked and, after unwrapping the package, lifted the necklace up to the light, her experienced eyes taking in the detail as it revolved slowly.
The first thing she noticed was the chain and the coin were of two different eras. The chain was fairly contemporary, probably Silver and no more than ten or twenty years old. The coin itself, however, was of a completely different age altogether, and, if she wasn’t mistaken, bore the image of Phillip the Second of Macedonia.
‘Interesting,’ she said, ‘Is it yours?’
‘Well, I found it, but I’m not sure what the legal position is with treasure trove. What do you think?’
India didn’t know how to let him down gently. She was known within numismatic circles as a bit of an expert and was often approached by amateur collectors hoping she would make their dreams come true and confirm the rusty farthing they had found in some farmer’s field was one off Roman coin worth a fortune.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Jones,’ he said a bit too quickly, ‘Mr Jones.’
‘Well, Mr Jones,’ said India, ‘I recognise the image but it doesn’t seem to be any coinage I recognise so I can’t really put a value on it.’
‘I’m not worried about value,’ he answered, ‘More the history, if you know what I mean. Is there anything you can tell me about its provenance?’
She glanced at the clock on the wall. Five to seven.
‘Well, we are about to close,’ she said, ‘But I am a bit of an enthusiast when it comes to coins and I have a whole bookshelf full of reference books at home. I’ll bring them in tomorrow and see what I can find out. Why don’t you leave it with me and come back then? I should be able to tell you more about it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ she said, ‘I’ll put it in the safe.’ She paused. ‘Oh I am
so
sorry, how presumptuous of me, I don’t even know you and I’m asking you to part with something.’
‘It’s okay, Miss Sommers,’ he laughed, ‘If I can’t trust the local librarian who can I trust?’
‘How do you know my name?’ she asked, a slight frown forming on her brow.
‘Oh, didn’t I say?’ he asked, ‘I posted a picture of the coin on the web page of the local numismatic society asking for any information.’
‘And were they any help?’
‘No, not really, though several recommended I came to you. Sorry, I should have said.’
‘No problem. I suppose I should be flattered really, anyway, I promise I won’t run away with your necklace.’
‘I trust you,’ he said, ‘I’ll come back tomorrow night about six’. He pointed at the two lads nudging each other at the PC. ‘Do you need any help?’
‘No, they’re harmless enough,’ she said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight,’ he said and left the library. A few minutes later, the doors opened again and the two lads were ushered out into the night, disappointed that their first foray into murky websites had just been cut abruptly short by the librarian.
‘Banned for a week!’ shouted India as they ran laughing into the darkness. She smiled as she locked the library doors behind them and turned the PC’s off before finishing off tidying the shelves. She placed the necklace in the safe and set the burglar alarm before running quickly through the drizzle with a magazine held over her head.
India was looking forward to getting home. A quick stop at the local supermarket for a bottle of red and a microwave lasagne and she would be set for the night. She rounded the car to access the driver’s door, her concentration focussed on finding her keys somewhere at the bottom of her bag and almost went flying when she tripped over something on the car park floor.
‘Oh my god!’ she gasped staring at the body at her feet. Within a few seconds she came to her senses and dropped to her knees to try to help.
‘Hello,’ she said, ‘Are you okay?’
The man groaned and turned slightly, forcing himself onto his side. Despite the state of his severely smashed face which had been the subject of a terrible beating, she recognised him as the man she had been talking to only half an hour or so earlier, Mr Jones. Her hand frantically searched for the phone she knew was in her coat pocket and she dialled 999, her eyes never leaving the injured man.
‘Hello, yes, ambulance please, there’s a man who needs help, I think he has been stabbed!’
A few minutes later having given all the details to the emergency services, she knelt in the rain trying to reassure the injured man lying in the growing pool of his own diluted blood. Her coat was now over him in a feeble attempt to keep him warm.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Jones,’ she said gently, her voice quivering in fright, ‘There’s an ambulance on the way.’
His hand crawled forward through the blood to touch her leg her leg and she heard him mumble something unintelligible.
‘Shhh!’ she said, ‘Try to keep your strength, they wont be long.’
‘
Coin
,’ he said again through his smashed teeth.
She looked down at the face with the terrible injuries.
‘Coin?’ she asked, ‘Oh, your coin, don’t you worry about that, I’ll keep it safe until you get better.’
‘
Listen!’
he hissed suddenly, using the last of his strength,
‘Too late…….. Important…… the coin…… be careful……’
‘Careful,’ she said
‘
What do you mean careful? Who did this to you?’
----
It was three hours later when the policewoman left India’s flat. The librarian was wrapped in her dressing gown and lay on the sofa, her eyes red and swollen after all the crying. She had scrubbed the blood from her body and put her clothes in the bin. No matter how much she washed them, she knew she could never wear them again, not after they had been soaked with the blood of a dead man.
India sipped on her coffee, regretting not having any wine in the flat. After they had taken the body away, the questions had started, first in the back of the police car and then back at her place. There was not much to tell really, she had simply found the body and called the police. She had told them about his visit to the library and the request to research the mysterious necklace but as the policewoman said, it was probably a coincidence and he was most likely the victim of a particularly vicious mugging. Nevertheless, they would call around the library tomorrow to pick it up just in case it was valuable and may be the motive for the mugging. After they had left, she had stood for almost ten minutes under a scalding shower, desperate to wash away the remains of the night.
At last it was quiet and as she sipped her coffee she contemplated the last few hours. The strange Mr Jones, the necklace, the murder, it all seemed so surreal, like something from a cheap gangster film, but what made it even more strange was the fact that he had used the last of his strength to warn her of some unknown danger, and that danger seemed linked to the coin he had left at the library. She crossed the room to her bookshelf and drew out a book on ancient coins to see if there was anything about it in one of her many reference books, but, before settling down, went to the kitchen to see if there was anything stronger to drink. It was going to be a long night.
----
The ringing was incessant. Over and over again it screeched, reaching deep into her mind forcing her up from the depths of sleep her body desperately craved. For a few seconds she struggled to remember why she was on the sofa, covered with nothing more than her dressing gown. The discovery channel was droning some obscure programme in the corner, the telly left on from last night and the whole of the flat was lit up like Blackpool promenade. Her memories came flooding back as she sat up, holding her head in her hands. The half bottle of vodka she had found at the back of the fridge had seemed like a good idea at the time, but boy did she regret it now. She searched for her phone between the cushions before finally finding it under the sofa and looked at the screen.
Jenny Work
, it said. India groaned. Why on Earth would the library manager be ringing at six thirty in the morning? She focussed on the green button and cleared her throat in an attempt to sound half human.
‘Hello, Jen,’ she said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘India,’ called the voice, ‘Thank God, where are you?’
‘At home,’ she answered, ‘Why, where did you think I was?’
‘Oh, India, You took so long to answer I thought…’
‘
Jen!
’ interrupted India, ‘Get to the point. It’s stupid o’clock, I’ve had a shit night and I need to go to bed, now what’s the matter?’
‘India, I need you to come in to work, right now.’
‘Now, but why, what’s the problem?’
‘It’s the Library,’ said Jen, ‘It’s on fire!’
----
Despite the urgency of Jen’s call, there was no way she could meet people in the state she was in so she showered quickly and put a bit of slap on. She stared at the gaunt face in the mirror.
‘It’ll have to do,’ she groaned at herself, shocked at the image and picked up her car keys from the hall table. After a moments pause, she replaced the keys and picked up her mobile to call a taxi. The last thing she needed now was to lose her license.
An hour after she had received Jenny’s call, India stood in the drizzling rain surrounded by police officers. Two fire engines were packing up while the crew of a third were throwing out still smouldering books out of one of the library’s windows to the roadway below. The whole scene was shimmering in blue flashing lights and occasional early bird joggers were being moved on by the police. She spotted Jenny standing under an umbrella talking to a female police officer and walked over to join them.
‘Jen, what’s happened?’ she asked, interrupting the conversation.
‘India,’ said Jenny spinning around, ‘I’m so glad you’re safe. For a while there we thought you may be still in there.’ She indicated the smouldering shell of the library.
‘No, I’ve been home all night,’ she said, ‘Had quite an evening of my own, as constable Deeley can testify.’ She smiled at the police woman. ‘Hello again.’
‘Hello, Miss Sommers,’ she said, ‘We meet again.’
‘We do, how come you’re still working?’
‘Oh you know, short staffed, government cuts, that sort of thing.
‘You know each other?’ interrupted Jenny.
‘Constable Deeley was the one who interviewed me last night,’ said India.
‘Last night! Why, what happened last night?’
‘Sorry Jenny, you haven’t heard have you, there was a man stabbed in the car park. I was the one who found him.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Jenny, ‘Is he…?’
India nodded, confirming the unfinished question.
‘How awful,’ she gasped, ‘Are you Okay?’
‘Been better, but anyway, what happened here?’
‘Don’t know much, but the firemen are making the building safe as we speak. Apparently they managed to contain the worst, but there is still a lot of damage.
‘How did you find out?’
‘On call,’ said Jenny, ‘Emergency key holder, though why they asked me to come out, I don’t know. By the time I got here they had broken the doors down anyway. I feel like a bit of a spare part to be honest, been here for bloody hours.’