The Bookshop Detectives 1: Dead Girl Gone

When we opened Sherlock Tomes people warned us that we’d made a terrible mistake. People warned us that e-readers were taking over. People warned us that we’d never compete with Amazon. The one thing they didn’t warn us about was the murders.

Eloise: Tuesday

There’s a dry, paper-dust and furniture-polish scent in the air. I breathe it in as I make my way through the biographies and history, past the dumpbin of the frothy new political scandal, Jokers to My Right. I pop a copy of the new Fiona Kidman on an empty stand and retrieve an abandoned copy of A Summery Saturday Morning from a shelf at about a three-year-old’s height. A cursory check of front and back covers reveals no sticky finger marks.

Stevie’s shadowing me around the shop, sniffing suspiciously at the bottom of the New Zealand fiction; I dread to think what a toddler has done there to make it smell so appealing. We traverse the centre aisle. All appears to be in order.

The murmur of conversation that has been on the edge of my hearing becomes clearer. Garth and Rose, one of the book reps we entertain monthly, are in the event space near the counter, deep in conversation.

Stevie slips past, a slinky silver shadow heading for the safety of the stock room.

‘Steve!’ says Garth, but he’s too late. The pupper’s white-tipped tail disappears around the corner.

Garth looks disappointed but shifts his focus to smile a welcome as I find a chair at the small wooden table crafted in the shape of a book. Some people notice the genius of Garth’s handiwork, some don’t, which is a shame as it really is very clever.

‘Ah good, you’re here,’ says Rose, all impatience, looking me straight in the eye with a glare worthy of Medusa.

I try not to, but I squirm just a little bit.

‘We have a very important title to discuss first up.’ Rose lowers her voice. ‘It’s top secret.’

‘Cool!’ Garth sits forward, sensing drama and a story. I’m faffing about, getting my laptop out of my bag, fishing around for my glasses.

‘Do I have your full attention, Eloise?’

‘Err . . . yes?’ I do dislike being treated like a scatty five-year-old. Besides, we’ve been here before. Every publisher has an occasional top-secret, not-to-be-discussed-before-release-date title. It’ll be another political exposé or somesuch — Clowns to the Left of Me perhaps.

We settle in, calm down and look at Rose expectantly.

‘The reason I’m back so quickly after my last visit,’ she says, ‘is that I have momentous news for you.’ She looks at each of us, her eyes wide, her gob firmly shut. After at least twenty seconds I cave.

‘Well, go on then,’ I say. ‘Okay, so. Isabella Garrante.’

‘Brilliant. New novel? Why the big deal?’

‘It’s set in Havelock North and she wants to launch it here at Sherlock Tomes.’

‘Fucking hell!’

‘Language, Eloise, there are children in the shop.’ Garth’s very much a right swear, right place person.

‘Well, you can’t get much more of a big deal than this, can you?’ I counter, looking around. ‘And it’s only the one child way down by the comics.’ I stretch my neck further to see who it is. ‘And it’s that kid that hangs outside the dairy all the time, vaping. He’s a right foul-mouthed little bugger.’

‘Can you try and stay on task, Eloise? This could make or break you,’ says Rose.

As soon as she says it, my stomach lurches.

So little is known of Isabella Garrante, it’s not even certain she’s a woman. But she’s bloody famous. Her Tuatara Trilogy chronicling the lives of a New Zealand crime family has had the world in thrall for the past eight years, and a new instalment — never mind a launch in our shop — would be epic. Still, I can’t quite identify the feeling spreading through my gut: it might be the excitement of opportunity but could just as easily be terror.

‘She wants to launch it in our shop? We can’t fit that kind of crowd. It’d actually be dangerous.’

‘That’s right!’ Garth comes to my rescue. ‘We’ll have to hire a venue. We can’t possibly . . .’

‘Not an option,’ says Rose. ‘She has specifically stated that it should be here, at this shop. And it is so super-top-secret that it has to happen early October. We have stock in Auckland already, highly guarded, of course.’

‘Do you mean to say she’s actually going to make an appearance?

And we’ve only got a month and a bit to prepare?’

‘Yes. In person. And, yes, because it’s a drop-in title and we want to get it on the shelves as soon as possible. Now you need to sign this non-disclosure agreement and—’

‘An NDA? Cool!’ says Garth.

Rose glares, I giggle, she frowns more. She’s starting to piss me off a bit, if I’m honest.

‘—and make damn sure you don’t tell a soul,’ she says. ‘Not a word. Do you understand?’

‘Well, I’m not really sure I want to be dictated to like—’

Garth cuts me off with a nudge of his foot. ‘Of course, Rose.

Where do we sign?’

Trade embargo agreements add to the hype surrounding certain titles, and I hold little truck with the fuss and faff they involve: don’t open the boxes before the correct time, keep copies of the work out of sight of customers and provide adequate security, ensure that no part of the work is visible to others. I mean, it’s not like the autobiography of Prince Harry is going to bring down the world order if someone sees it before 9am on a specific Thursday.

‘But how are we supposed to organise a launch of this size in a month?’ I ask.

‘It’s seven weeks, so more like two months. I’m sure you’ll work it out. You always pull off the spectacular with no resources, don’t you?’

I’m trying to formulate a response when Rose puts a pen in my hand, slams a piece of paper onto the table and taps it, nodding at me, then back at the paper. I sign, and hand the pen to Garth who gives an old-man grunt as he leans forward, looking around for his glasses. You’d think he was in his eighties rather than his forties.

‘They’re on your head, love.’ ‘Ah, of course.’

After a bit of mucking about and attempts to make sense of the legal jargon, Garth completes his part of the deal.

‘Not. A. Word,’ Rose says, pointing her finger at me, then Garth, then back to me.

We move on to the rest of the new titles. I pull my head together and try to focus.

The list includes some good stuff — a new Mary-anne Scott that piques Garth’s interest, an advance reading copy of something a bit different from Kate Atkinson, and one of those ‘couple renovates house in Provence’ books that has Havelock North written all over it. I stifle a sigh at yet another ‘influencer’ releasing a lifestyle book that will change our lives. I’m grateful for Rose’s advice on that one; just because I think it’s bollocks doesn’t mean that a fair few people will not follow the latest Instagram sensation and aspire to her glowing skin and sun-bleached locks. As Rose starts to pack up her stuff, I feel a surge of affection for her. She’s a pain in the arse but she’s just trying to look after us.

‘That vegan travel book you made me take is going really well, so thank you for that,’ I tell her.

‘Plant Based Meandering? She’s unstoppable, that woman. Currently in India researching edible grasses.’ She shrugs her coat on. ‘I’ll be in touch. I can’t stress how big of a deal the Garrante is. Brace yourselves.’

And with that, she’s gone.

‘Bloody hell,’ I offer. ‘Yeah,’ says Garth.

I tidy up cups and papers, and try to focus on the more manageable mundanities of the day ahead.

‘Have you finished the mags yet?’ I ask.

Garth huffs, then off he shuffies like a wounded martyr, trying to pretend he’s not just going to ask Phyllis to sort the magazines out when she arrives.

Soon there’s a bustle in the shop. A couple of women are down by the Dalek, a display case we had built for new releases that bears a slight resemblance to the bane of Doctor Who’s existence. They’re discussing the Booker longlist and speculating on who’ll make the next stage.

‘I couldn’t bloody read it. I mean, who is even talking? Is it a tree, or a spirit or what?’

‘I think it’s an old spirit. You know, omniscient or something. The writing’s exquisite, though. I reckon we keep going and just enjoy her skill with words and it’ll end up making some sort of sense. It’s supposed to be innovative, right?’

Her friend emits a non-committal ‘hmm’.

I leave them to browse and head up to the till. There’s a present to wrap and a wee girl who wants to choose the paper. Garth is poking at the magazines.

‘It’s for my friend Oriana and it’s a Very Secret Thing,’ says the girl, swooshing her sparkly pink frock.

‘Well, I think she’ll love it. Are you going to the party now? That’s a lovely dress,’ I say.

‘Yes, it’s a unicorn party and Ori will be four like me and I have unicorns on my socks, too, and that’s another secret.’ She shushes me, finger on lips.

I wrap the unicorn sticker book in unicorn paper and hand it to the little girl in the swooshy unicorn dress with secret unicorn socks. It’s a day for secrets, I muse, thinking about Rose and the secret- squirrel Garrante title.

An embargoed title is not unusual; the hype can be a lot of fun and a good opportunity for a release-day party. The threat of litigation is intriguing, though; we don’t get that so often. Jeez, this really is massive — and such a lot of work if we’re going to pull off a launch. I think I’ll have a five-minute pat with Stevie.