-Chapter One -

Two Things

I did two things on my sixteenth birthday. I hid under a table. Then I murdered a corpse.

Hiding under the table was less dramatic but just as messy. The table was at Nolan’s Rare Books where I worked and not more than half a mile from where I was born and raised. It hadn’t been easy getting the job, apparently some people still think that being blond and a girl means that you simply can’t know about old books. Luckily my dad, who happens to be the mayor, cracked a few heads and got me the job. Being the daughter of the Mayor has its advantages.

So, the shop. Tall and ramshackle, with books on every floor even up the narrow stairs. As a contrast, it has a bank on one side done up to look like a temple and on the other side a Jewellers. A respectable place of business but it is definitely the poor relation on the street. The sign read ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS. I remember looking at those two words each time I went in, admittedly the first time I had to look up antiquarian but ever afterwards I thought, how can two words go so perfectly together and yet give so little away. Unlike the other shops that declared, in large black letters and coloured signs every, little thing they sold.
My friends said that I would get all dusty and old working in a shop like that. I hate that they think I’ve become one of those people that prefer the dusty and old to the shiny and new. They don’t understand that a dusty book is still a good read.

I was at work early; I always am. Mr Nolan was getting ready to open up the shutters when the ground started to shake. I hid under a table, as shelves toppled each triggering its own papery tsunami. It had taken me such a long time to get it all catalogued, it really was vexing. We get these tremors every now and then; I think I was six last time one this bad hit though I don’t really remember it all that well. Still I ended up taking Mr Nolan to Dr Harris. He had a scalp wound and bled so much that I thought he was going to die.

After all that, killing a corpse wasn’t really all that dramatic.

My town was too small for its own police station. It was rare that there was any real mystery in this town. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, only too well.
So I was surprised when Mr Dickson our town constable came up to me wearing an expression quite unlike the one he wore when he came to speak to Dad at the Mayor’s office. “Miss Tayor I need you to come with me”, he said in an even tone intended not to carry.

“What is the problem?” I was still dusty and horrible, plus I was going home, so I didn’t see a reason to be polite if he wasn’t going to be.

“Miss Tayor” he repeated. “I need you to come with me” He then relented and added “I can’t say why, everyone is shaken up enough already”

“Earthquakes will do that”, I said. My attempt at marginally sarcastic humour went ignored and judging by his expression unappreciated.

That was pretty much how most of my jokes were received; good to see that I had not lost my touch.

So, I followed Mr Dickson not speaking again till we were both sitting in his tiny office once the fitting room of a dressmakers the police house replaced.

“When did you start working for Mr Nolan?” he asked.

“Since July, is it important?”
This finally got him to slow down

“You did know him before you started working at his shop?”

“Well I know most people in this town and I’ve always liked books. So, yes, I did know him”

“I talked to Dr Harris who informs me that Mr Nolan was admitted earlier today, covered in blood”

“Yes, he hit his head in the quake” I said “It was an accident”

“Are you certain that he was injured in the quake?”
I was beginning to think that Mr Nolan might not have been the only one to have hit his head. “Yes, he hit his head on a bookshelf,” I said.

“Did Mr Nolan have any family a brother perhaps?”

“Oh, he wasn’t that badly injured.” I said “there was just a lot of blood” Feeling relived at knowing what this was all about. Strangely he didn’t seem pleased at this news.

“Miss Tayor, I have a man who appears to be Mr Nolan’s twin dead in the overnight cell,” he said. “Now is there anything you would like to tell me?”

Eventually Mr Dickson seemed convinced that I was not a witness or perhaps an accomplice to murder. So, I found myself looking at my first corpse. I never knew Mr Nolan had a twin. What a way to find out.

The overnight cell was really the empty cellar of the dressmakers the police house replaced. It was dim and dusty but smelled better than I expected. I was a little disappointed. Less a dungeon and more a root cellar with a strong door.

The corpse really did look like Mr Nolan, he was still dressed in worn and stained travelling clothes. I could tell them apart only by the crescent moon tattoo Mr Nolan said was a relic of his misspent youth. At least that meant the two could be told apart; perhaps that was why Mr Nolan got it in the first place, if I had a twin I wouldn’t like to be taken for the other one. “He just looks like Mr Nolan but without the tattoo” I said hoping Mr Dickson would take the hint and let me go.

“I would like you to be certain.” He said as he pulled open the old coal chute hatch to let some light in.

While Mr Dickson tried to get the rusted hinges open I looked down at the corpse. There was something round its neck, like a thin bit of string. I reached out and touched it just as light spilled into the cellar. There was crack like an axle breaking and the corpse jerked half sitting up.

Jumping back I still gripping the bit of string tied round its neck. It snapped. In the same moment the ‘corpse’ flopped back to the flagstones like a day old fish.

Mr Dickson talked about escaping gases making a corpse seem to breathe and not to make any more of it. I had either to believe him or believe that I had just murdered a corpse.

-Chapter Two -

Rumours

“Mr Nolan killed his brother, so they say.” Mavis confided as she bustled around my room setting my night things out. “Drove him mad they say.”
I had the strong urge to fling open the shutters and hurl Mavis out. Alas, the house lacked sufficient height for the convenient disposal of servants; high towers it seemed were the exclusive preserve of princesses and evil wizards.

So, Mavis would not find herself making the closer acquaintance of the flower bed outside my window. More’s the pity. Mavis had been attached to the mayor’s household for so long that she seemed to me like some fat, ambulatory tapestry. I was amazed that someone so obviously ancient could still work dawn to dusk, chivvy the younger servants into exhaustion and still find time to gossip. I had spent half my life listening to her expound darkly on her suspicions of this person or that. I had never been so glad of the excuse of tiredness to turf her out of my room.