Moist went to a nearby cafe and leafed through the magazine. One of the skills of his previous life had been an ability to pick up just enough about anything to sound like an expert, at least to nonexperts. Then he returned to the shop.
Everyone had their levers. Often it was greed. Greed was a reliable old standby. Sometimes it was pride. That was Groat’s lever. He desperately wanted promotion; you could see it in his eyes. Find the lever, and then it was plain sailing.
Stanley, now, Stanley… would be easy.
Big Dave was examining a pin under a microscope when Moist returned to the shop. The rush hour for pin buying must have been nearly over, because there were only a few laggards ogling the pins under glass, or thumbing through the racks.
Moist sidled over to the counter and coughed.
‘Yes, sir?’ said Big Dave, looking up from his work. ‘Back again, eh? They get to you, don’t they? Seen anything you like?’
‘A packet of pre-perforated pin papers and a tenpenny lucky dip bag, please,’ said Moist loudly. The other customers looked up for a moment as Dave pulled the packets off their rack, and then looked down again.
Moist leaned over the counter. ‘I was wondering,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘if you’d got anything a bit… you know… sharper?’
The big man gave him a carefully blank look. ‘How d’you mean, sharper?’ he said.
‘You know,’ said Moist. He cleared his throat. ‘More… pointed.’
The doorbell jangled as the last of the customers, sated on pins for one day, stepped out. Dave watched them go and then turned his attention back to Moist.
‘A bit of a connoisseur, are we, sir?’ he said, winking.
‘A serious student,’ said Moist. ‘Most of the stuff here, well… ’
‘I don’t touch nails,’ said Dave sharply. ‘Won’t have ‘em in the shop! I’ve got a reputation to think about! Little kids come in here, you know!’
‘Oh no! Strictly pins, that’s me!’ said Moist hastily.
‘Good,’ said Dave, relaxing. ‘As it happens, I might have one or two items for the genuine collector.’ He nodded towards a beaded curtain at the back of the shop. ‘Can’t put everything on display, not with youngsters around, you know how it is… ’
Moist followed him through the clashing curtain and into the crowded little room behind, where Dave, after looking around con-spiratorially, pulled a small black box off a shelf and flipped it open under Moist’s nose.
‘Not something you find every day, eh?’ said Dave.
Gosh, it’s a pin, thought Moist, but said ‘Wow!’ in a tone of well-crafted genuine surprise.
A few minutes later he stepped out of the shop, fighting an impulse to turn his collar up. That was the problem with certain kinds of insanity. They could strike at any time. After all, he’d just spent AM$70 on a damn
He stared at the little packets in his hand and sighed. As he carefully put them in his jacket pocket, his hand touched something papery.
Oh, yes. The S.W.A.L.K. letter. He was about to shove it back when his eye caught sight of the ancient street sign opposite: Lobbin Clout. And as his gaze moved down it also saw, over the first shop in the narrow street:
NO.1 A. PARKER & SON’S
GREENGROCER’S
HIGH CLAS’S FRUIT AND VEGETABLE’S
Well, why not deliver it? Hah! He
He slipped into the shop. A middle-aged man was introducing fresh carrots, or possibly carrot’s, into the life of a bulky woman with a big shopping bag and hairy warts.
‘Mr Antimony Parker?’ said Moist urgently.
‘Be with you in ju’st one moment, s’ir, I’m ju’st—’ the man began.
‘I just need to know if you
‘Thats’ father,’ said the greengrocer. ‘He’s out the back, tackling a difficult cabbage—’
‘This is his,’ said Moist. ‘Postal delivery’ He put the envelope on the counter and walked quickly out of the shop.
Shopkeeper and customer stared down at the pink envelope.
‘S’.W.A.L.K?’ said Mr Parker.
‘Ooh, that takes me back, Mr Parker,’ said the woman. ‘In my day we used to put that on our letters when we were courting. Didn’t you? Sealed With A Loving Kiss. There was S.W.A.L.K., and L.A.N.C.R.E. and… ’ she lowered her voice and giggled, ‘K.L.A.T.C.H., of course. Remember?’
‘All that pas’sed me by, Mrs Goodbody,’ said the greengrocer stiffly. ‘And if it mean’s young men are s’ending our dad pink envelope’s with ‘swalk on them, I’m thankful for that. Modern time’s, eh?’ He turned and raised his voice. ‘Father!’
Well, that was a good deed for the day, Moist thought. Or a deed, in any case.
It looked as though Mr Parker had managed to acquire some sons, one way or another. Still, it was… odd to think of all those letters heaped in that old building. You could imagine them as little packets of history. Deliver them, and history went one way. But if you dropped them in the gap between the floorboards, it went the other.
