Page 48 of The Vampire and the Case of the Cursed Canine

‘Hold on,’ the man said. ‘Jeff isn’t here, I don’t have that particular grimoire, but if you tell me what you’re looking for, lady, I’ll give you a discount. Just keep your voice down,’ he pleaded again with Mum.

‘So you do know Jeff?’ I asked quietly.

He nodded. ‘Of course. We all know each other here and most of us live together. Sometimes we’re joined by local sellers, but Jeff is one of us.’

‘What happened to him? He was here the other day.’

He lowered his voice further. ‘Rumour is that he was cursed.’

‘Cursed?’ I grasped at my non-existent pearls like I’d seen my mum do many times. ‘Is he all right? Who did that to him?’

The guy looked around again. ‘I heard that he pissed off a local. Didn’t pay the protection fee.’

‘Protection?’ I asked dumbly. Portlock didn’t have gangs or mafia that I knew of.

He shrugged. ‘That’s what I heard.’

‘Gosh,’ I said, wide eyed.

Mum had been looking at the books while we spoke. When it was clear he had no more information to offer me, she thrust an old and dusty tome at him. ‘We’ll take this one.’

The man blanched. ‘This is over a thousand years old. I didn’t intend for it to be out on the table…’ He frowned. ‘How did it get there?’

‘How much?’ Mum insisted. ‘Or I can talk louder about that fake grimoire.’

He gulped and looked shifty. He was going to quote something outrageous. ‘Ten thousand.’

‘And with discount?’ She was ruthless.

‘Uh, $9,800.’ Now he was sweating.

‘Do you take Visa?’

He blinked. ‘It’s cash only.’

‘Well, I have cash, but pounds rather than dollars.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said faintly.

‘Nine thousand eight hundred dollars is about £7700 pounds sterling, yes?’ Mum said briskly. The man nodded again. She pulled out a thick wad of notes and I gaped. Who knew her ugly bag held that much moolah?

The dealer took the money, placed the ancient book in a bag and handed it to her. Mum gave him a curt nod and power-walked away. Once we were out of earshot, she let out an excited squeal that was definitely unbecoming in a lady of her station. ‘There are only two known copies of this book in the world. I can’t believe I bought it for $9800 dollars – it’s worth several hundred thousand pounds, maybe even a million. And it was just mouldering away at the bottom of the pile! Unbelievable! I am so glad I came with you.’

‘I think I got a lead, too. I need to ask a few more vendors to verify it.’

‘Go ahead, dear. I’m having so much fun. This has been eye-opening. Perhaps I should visit some black markets in the UK.’ I grimaced. I didn’t want to have accidentally started my mother on a life of crime.

As we wandered around, I whispered conspiratorially with a few vendors about Jeff not paying protection money. Their reactions verified the story, but no one would say who they’d paid money to.

We didn’t spot Liv or the other three elemental witches, but by the time we left Mum was laden with packages. I had no names but at least I had something: the curser was almost certainly the one running a protection racket. No one knew anything about Stan or Sigrid, and they all thought the racketeer was a local.

I’d narrowed it down to the magic users. Liv would be furious that I was ‘picking’ on her precious magic users again but it wasn’t my fault that they were all dodgier than two-day-old raw chicken left in the sun. I followed where the evidence took me – and the evidence was pointing me towards some naughty shamans or witches.

Chapter 30

I dropped Mum off at home and went back to the office to return Sidnee’s car. She looked up expectantly as I walked in. ‘What happened?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Did you find the black market?’

‘I did.’ I sat down heavily on one of Gunnar’s visitor chairs. ‘It’s at one of the warehouses on South Harbour, just up from AML.’ From the outside the warehouse had looked like a wreck but inside it hadn’t been so bad. I wondered whether the Grimes brothers had been up to their illusion magic again to make the place look ramshackle.

---