Page 5 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘In northern Scotland.’
Mirren looked out of her window, at the long row of identical Victorian terraces, all chopped up into tiny studios and cramped apartments just like hers, small plastic Christmas trees glowing brightly, all the way up and down the extremely long road. The rain was coming down in that sullen way, as if it knows it has to rain on south London in December, obviously, but isn’t any happier about it than you are.
This was something new. Something different. Different from work rotas and mortgages and . . . oh. She still had to think about all of that stuff.
‘Is there money in it?’ said Mirren suddenly. ‘Is it a paid job? Because I’m a surveyor really. And I’m at work. Or I’m supposed to be.’
‘Um,’ said the man. ‘Well, if you find it, there is.’
‘Okay, so you’re asking me to come to a strange place in the middle of nowhere for free?’
‘Oh, I’ll get you here.’ He paused on the line. ‘You’re right. I didn’t realise how weird it sounds until you say it out loud. Do you want me to call your boss? Or . . . your dad?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said, wondering what her dad, who lived three streets away and mostly showed her he loved her by coming round and informing her that the studio’s electrics were a death trap and didn’t she know that, being a surveyor, would make of such a request.
A lot of her wanted to say yes. But she had to grow up, put away childish ideas of adventures and travel.
‘It’s a fun idea, but I just can’t get away.’
It was the right thing to do, she told herself. She had no business gallivanting off to the middle of nowhere in Scotland with a strange man without a mobile signal. Okay, so it was quite an elaborate murder scheme, particularly considering she’d approached him – twice, if you counted the phone call. But actually, that was maybe even worse. Maybe he hadn’t even considered murder until she’d kept approaching him.
But she didn’t think he was a murderer, not really. She assumed he was just some kind of eccentric book guy, and she couldn’t afford to get caught up. Not again. Not when the last time she’d gone looking for a book she’d got her heart broken.
She’d had fun, though . . .
No! Bloody evil Theo Palliser. He’d love this, be all gung-ho about it without a second thought. He’d probably have booked the job already. But she couldn’t.
She wasn’t a book finder. That wasn’t even a job. She’d been lucky once, that was all.
After they hung up, Mirren buried herself in her latest novel, getting caught up in a Christmas romance involving princes, again, and ordered a takeaway even though Takeaway Tuesday was absolutely not a thing, and it wasn’t doing her any good, something she was well aware of even as she was ordering it.
She slept badly and arrived through the filthy grey morning in a bad temper, late for work. Her boss was in an excellent mood, unusually.
‘A job came in!’ she said, triumphantly. ‘In Scotland. I don’t know why they didn’t go local, but they asked for you. They want you to go up the week before Christmas.’
Mirren’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh, yeah?’ she said, trying to sound casual.
‘You’ve to go and see if the property would be suitable for an extension, or demolition. Actually, it’s odd: he wasn’t that specific about the details.’
Mirren smiled. ‘Okay.’
‘And he sent a train ticket.’
Mirren couldn’t help perking up after that. The studio was sad, her mum was busy, she was completely skint and it wouldn’t stop raining – but at least she had a job on that looked as if it might be interesting. Which was, in the end, about books. She tried to fathom out what he might mean; perhaps it was a cataloguing and indexing job. Dull, but she could handle that. In her mind’s eye she saw a lovely house lined with immaculate bookshelves, beautiful old editions of interesting things. She hoped he wouldn’t expect her to be able to price up old editions; she couldn’t do that at all. That was much more a Theo Palliser-type job . . . She tried not to think about him, even as her finger was creeping towards the Instagram search button. Which she had told herself never to do. She didn’t follow him. But she . . . glanced at him from time to time.
Oh, yeah, there he was. His dark hair was tousling over his brow, and he was holding up an ancient Henry Fielding novel and had made a little film about it. He had a tiny following as @thatlondonbookboy where he talked about new books they had in at the shop while looking soulful. It attracted quite a lot of book-loving girls and boys, and made Mirren furiously jealous and annoyed whenever she went to see it, plus she had to use a fake profile so he didn’t know she was looking, which was even more of a pain in the arse. He looked great. She shut it down immediately. She had book stuff happening too! Cool stuff!
Mirren looked at the train ticket again. It was for a train she’d never taken before: the Caledonian Sleeper. It travelled overnight from London to the Highlands of Scotland, with sleeping compartments as well as seated carriages. The ticket, alas, did not include a sleeping berth, which was disappointing, as that meant sitting upright for ten hours overnight. It was supposed to be a lovely romantic journey, but that was probably only true if you had a nice bed to sleep in; then it would be lovely. Still, a journey.
Mirren put together a small case and grabbed an aeroplane pillow she’d borrowed from her mother. She might ask Jamie McKinnon to fly her home, she mused, if she had any luck. She still wasn’t very clear as to what on earth he wanted her to do, but she did find herself lifted out of her slump and gloom, at having something different, out of the routine in her plans.
Mirren remembered how after the pandemic she had made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t just go back to her old ways – and then she had. She was too young to be stuck in a rut. This might be terrible – although she didn’t think it would be dangerous – but it would be something. Maybe he did in fact want her for some actual quantity surveying – that had crossed her mind. Although that was even creepier. Well, it was a job, and if she felt remotely unsafe she would thwack him with her theodolite and get the hell out of there.
She shut up the studio, and headed off to the station, late at night, with excitement in her heart.
It did not last long.
5
