Read Online Unearthing the Bones by Alex Connor - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alex Connor
Ads: Link
crumbs down his throat. Then he put
down the empty bag, smoothed it out, and passed it – with the bar code uppermost – back
to the checkout girl.
Red-faced, she ran the scanner over the bag. Shaw picked up his shopping and walked back to his car. Bitch, he thought, sliding into the driver’s seat. He could see the checkout girl through the window of the supermarket and waved, smirking as she gave him the finger.
But then Shaw’s attention was diverted by a note stuck under one
of his windscreen wipers. The writing was facing towards him, so he could read the words
through the window:
Art relic up for grabs.
Historian has it in Madrid.
Interested?
Getting out of the car, Shaw looked around. But whoever had left the message had long gone. Irritated, he reread the note and then screwed it up in his fist.
For once Jimmy Shaw wasn’t the only person to hear of a find – a notorious, infamous, priceless find. He had thought he was ahead of the pack and would secure the relic before anyone else. He had even made a discreet – anonymous – call to an unscrupulous dealer in Paris and a connoisseur in Turin. With pleasure he had sensed their longing and his hands itched with the whisper of coming money.
But now he had a rival
. Someone who was taunting him. Asking if Jimmy Shaw was
interested …
Shaw wiped his fleshy mouth with his handkerchief and wondered at the daring of the note. Who was fool enough to challenge him? Obviously someone who didn’t know his reputation. Someone who didn’t know that among Shaw’s runners and thieves were men who would do anything for enough money.
Irritated by what he took as a show of false bravado, Shaw drove out into the London traffic. Preoccupied, he never saw the van following him three vehicles behind, and his instincts – usually so nimble – cheated him.
It was a fatal miscalculation. One that would lead to humiliation,
failure, and enough suffering to turn him mad.
Three
On the sofa in the room above the shop, Emile Dwappa dozed. In the chair
beside him a woman was reading a magazine, a child at her feet. And in a small space
beyond, hardly big enough to be a room, an ancient woman divided herbs and potions into
equal measures. Her hands were thin, her fingers like twigs, brown as sugar cane, long
years of practice making an alchemist of her. She never spoke – hadn’t done so for many
years – just made up the potions for Mama Gala to sell in the shop below. Potions
desperate women bought to make their men fall in love with them. Potions to help them
fall pregnant or get rid of a baby. Potions and remedies and spells for the vulnerable
who believed the
daytime
Mama Gala, who wanted to help. Because she was old
school, with tricks from the Old Country.
This was the Mama Gala who had wheedled her way into the community; the woman who had proved herself a good friend, a gentle neighbour; a woman so loved it took a while for people to begin to whisper against her and longer for the rumours to start. Even more time for people to hurry past the shop to escape her gaze following them from the window.
Because she
did
have tricks from the Old Country. Mama Gala had tricks from hell. Some she inherited, some she stole, some worked like worms in the pus of her mind. Potions from the night-time
Mama Gala, the ones she sold under the counter when the shop was closed. When the neighbourhood children no longer needed babysitting, and the health-food customers had all gone home. When the iron shutters came down on the windows, the doors were barred and the shop alarm went on. As though there were something in a health shop other than the meagre takings worth
stealing.
But there had been no rumours fifteen years ago. Not when Mama Gala first opened the shop and Emile Dwappa was a teenage boy. She rolled down the street smiling, rocking her girth through the market and joking like a jester. She collected friends like fresh eggs, drawing them out of
down the empty bag, smoothed it out, and passed it – with the bar code uppermost – back
to the checkout girl.
Red-faced, she ran the scanner over the bag. Shaw picked up his shopping and walked back to his car. Bitch, he thought, sliding into the driver’s seat. He could see the checkout girl through the window of the supermarket and waved, smirking as she gave him the finger.
But then Shaw’s attention was diverted by a note stuck under one
of his windscreen wipers. The writing was facing towards him, so he could read the words
through the window:
Art relic up for grabs.
Historian has it in Madrid.
Interested?
Getting out of the car, Shaw looked around. But whoever had left the message had long gone. Irritated, he reread the note and then screwed it up in his fist.
For once Jimmy Shaw wasn’t the only person to hear of a find – a notorious, infamous, priceless find. He had thought he was ahead of the pack and would secure the relic before anyone else. He had even made a discreet – anonymous – call to an unscrupulous dealer in Paris and a connoisseur in Turin. With pleasure he had sensed their longing and his hands itched with the whisper of coming money.
But now he had a rival
. Someone who was taunting him. Asking if Jimmy Shaw was
interested …
Shaw wiped his fleshy mouth with his handkerchief and wondered at the daring of the note. Who was fool enough to challenge him? Obviously someone who didn’t know his reputation. Someone who didn’t know that among Shaw’s runners and thieves were men who would do anything for enough money.
Irritated by what he took as a show of false bravado, Shaw drove out into the London traffic. Preoccupied, he never saw the van following him three vehicles behind, and his instincts – usually so nimble – cheated him.
It was a fatal miscalculation. One that would lead to humiliation,
failure, and enough suffering to turn him mad.
Three
On the sofa in the room above the shop, Emile Dwappa dozed. In the chair
beside him a woman was reading a magazine, a child at her feet. And in a small space
beyond, hardly big enough to be a room, an ancient woman divided herbs and potions into
equal measures. Her hands were thin, her fingers like twigs, brown as sugar cane, long
years of practice making an alchemist of her. She never spoke – hadn’t done so for many
years – just made up the potions for Mama Gala to sell in the shop below. Potions
desperate women bought to make their men fall in love with them. Potions to help them
fall pregnant or get rid of a baby. Potions and remedies and spells for the vulnerable
who believed the
daytime
Mama Gala, who wanted to help. Because she was old
school, with tricks from the Old Country.
This was the Mama Gala who had wheedled her way into the community; the woman who had proved herself a good friend, a gentle neighbour; a woman so loved it took a while for people to begin to whisper against her and longer for the rumours to start. Even more time for people to hurry past the shop to escape her gaze following them from the window.
Because she
did
have tricks from the Old Country. Mama Gala had tricks from hell. Some she inherited, some she stole, some worked like worms in the pus of her mind. Potions from the night-time
Mama Gala, the ones she sold under the counter when the shop was closed. When the neighbourhood children no longer needed babysitting, and the health-food customers had all gone home. When the iron shutters came down on the windows, the doors were barred and the shop alarm went on. As though there were something in a health shop other than the meagre takings worth
stealing.
But there had been no rumours fifteen years ago. Not when Mama Gala first opened the shop and Emile Dwappa was a teenage boy. She rolled down the street smiling, rocking her girth through the market and joking like a jester. She collected friends like fresh eggs, drawing them out of
Similar Books
