LITMIR.BIZ

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kiss between the ink and the paper.

      “They’re not second-hand,” Jezza said. “Not one of them has ever been owned, not a single one has ever had eager eyes scan its pages. The moment they were printed and bound, they were packed away. They haven’t seen daylight or felt a human touch for seventy-five years. They’ve never been read. They’re fresh as virgins and just as ripe and anxious to be treasured and explored.”

      “First editions then,” Howie said. “How much are they worth?”

      “Everything,” came the cryptic answer.

      “Who’s this Austerly Fellows?” Howie asked, reading out the author’s name. “Never heard of him.”

      “Not many have… yet,” Jezza replied with the hint of a smile. “But they will. His name will ring out at last. We promise.”

      “Is this all that’s in them boxes?” Tommo grumbled in disbelief – hugely disappointed. “Is this what I’ve broke my back for all afternoon? The way you was talking, I thought it was the family silver or something. I thought we was going to be minted.”

      Jezza took out a book for himself and opened it at the first page. “This is worth far more than silver,” he guaranteed, the cream-coloured paper reflecting up into his eyes and making them unusually bright. “All things will be as dross beside this. We’ve waited a long time, but now our words are ready to be heard, to seep into the mind and smite the heart.”

      “Riiiiiiight,” Tommo said. “So aren’t we going back to gut that house?”

      “Not to gut it, no. Besides, we don’t need to now.”

      “I was never one for reading,” Miller said dismissively. He put the book down and took out his mobile to order a curry.

      “Beyond the Silvering Sea,” Jezza began, “within thirteen green, girdling hills, lies the wondrous Kingdom of the Dawn Prince…”

      The others exchanged embarrassed glances as he read aloud. What was he doing? They each felt uncomfortable. It was a peculiar situation and Tommo almost giggled. It was so bizarre and silly – and so totally out of character for Jezza.

      “And the Dawn Prince went into exile,” he continued, “vowing to return to the Castle of Mooncaster only when he deemed his subjects worthy of his golden majesty.”

      Tommo found the matching page in his copy. Almost without realising, he began to follow the words as they were read out, his lips moving with Jezza’s as he spoke them.

      “But who would rule in the Lord’s stead?” Jezza uttered. “Who would keep the knights and nobles, the Jacks and jostling Under Kings in order?”

      Howie lowered his eyes to the book in his hands. Jezza’s voice seemed to be spinning slowly around him and the words were beating to the rhythm of his heart. There was reassurance here – a cosiness he had not felt since… he could not remember. It was an inviting, nostalgic sensation: back to when large hands scooped him up and held him close, when sweet lips kissed his grazed knee, when perfect comfort was a favourite blanket with a silken edge and a sucked corner. He felt warm and loved and safe. Within his rusty beard, his own lips began to move like Tommo’s.

      “So forward stepped the Holy Enchanter,” Jezza read, his face alive and alight, “the one thereafter named the Ismus. Only he could command the quarrelling Court and bring order to the squabbling subjects whilst the Dawn Prince remained in exile. Yet first he must endure the Great Ordeal to prove himself…”

      Shiela stared in mute disbelief at Howie and Tommo. Then she saw that Miller had retrieved his copy and was nodding in time to the tempo of the words.

      “Stop it!” she cried suddenly, snapping her book shut.

      “Stop it!” Jezza’s reading ceased and he lifted his gaze to her. His eyes narrowed and a gleam went out in them.

      “Call Dave,” he instructed Miller, without releasing Shiela from his glance. “Say I want him here by eight tonight, no excuses. And get Tesco Charlie as well – tell him to bring his lorry. Don’t fail me.”

      Miller and the others were blinking and rubbing their foreheads as if rousing from sleep. They closed their books reluctantly.

      “Er… sure,” Miller said, pulling out his Nokia once more. “How about Manda and Queenie?”

      “Why not,” Jezza replied. “Let’s make a party of it. You can do that on the way, Big Man. We’ve got one more thing to collect from that house this evening.”

      “I’m not going back there,” Shiela stated. “It’ll be dark.”

      Jezza turned back to her, his face impassive. “I don’t need you,” he said. “I’m taking Howie and Miller this time.”

      “I’m not doing any heavy work,” Howie refused.

      “Don’t worry, Leonardo, your lily-white handies won’t come to any harm.”

      “What about me?” Tommo asked.

      “You make yourself useful,” Jezza told him. “Get some cans and anything else you can lift. Those girls are too tight to bring anything.”

      “But I’m skint!”

      “Howie, give him cash.”

      “Why me?” the tattooist cried.

      Jezza grinned at him. “Cos we’re in your emporium,” he said. “And you’ll have had a busy day, raking in the readies from the witless drones who come in here wanting to copy whatever mass-market pap idol has been hyped to them this week, only to have them regret it once that particular scrap of ephemera has stopped flashing in the pan. Then there’s the tribal squiggles or bands of barbed wire smothering their pimply skin because they think it makes them look hard and macho or mysterious and more interesting than they really are. Why don’t you simply scribe ‘I’m a mindless sheep’ on their foreheads while you’re at it?”

      “Pack that in,” Howie warned. He didn’t mind when Jezza pontificated, but not when he slagged off his clientele and, by extension, himself. Although… he suddenly recalled the nineteen-year-old upon whose back he had once inked, in the early days of his shop, a group portrait of the members of Hear’Say, only for her to return eight months later to ask if there was any chance he could go over it and make them look like the boys of Blue instead. At the time Howie had somehow managed to control himself and politely told her that, as Blue consisted of one person less than Hear’Say, it would be impossible. As soon as she had left in a dissatisfied strop, however, he had almost made himself sick with laughter.

      The tattooist grudgingly opened his well-padded wallet. “Here’s forty,” he said, handing the notes over to Tommo. “But I want change!”

      “Give him more,” Jezza told him.

      “That’s plenty for beers and a cheap bottle of voddy!” Howie protested.

      “It’s not for the booze.”

      “Takeaways?” Miller suggested hopefully.

      Jezza took Howie’s wallet off him and handed it to Tommo. “I want about thirty big bags of charcoal,” he said.

      “Barbecue stuff?” Tommo asked.

      “That’s right, we’re having a great big luau.”

      “On the beach? Cool.”

      “No, not on the beach, and it’ll be anything but cool.”

      Howie grabbed the wallet back and removed all his plastic, except the Clubcard, then returned it. “Make sure you use that,” he informed Tommo. “I want the points.”

      “Points?” Jezza scoffed. “You really think they’re doing you some sort of favour and actually rewarding you for being loyal? Were you born half an hour ago? Wake up, brother. What they’re doing is building up a detailed profile of everything you buy,

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