‘A serious student,’ said Moist. ‘Most of the stuff here, well . . .’
‘I don’t touch nails,’ said Dave sharply. ‘Won’t have ‘em in the shop! I’ve got a reputation to think about! Little kids come in here, you know!’
‘Oh no! Strictly pins, that’s me!’ said Moist hastily.
‘Good,’ said Dave, relaxing. ‘As it happens, I might have one or two items for the genuine collector.’ He nodded towards a beaded curtain at the back of the shop. ‘Can’t put everything on display, not with youngsters around, you know how it is . . .’
Moist followed him through the clashing curtain and into the crowded little room behind, where Dave, after looking around con-spiratorially, pulled a small black box off a shelf and flipped it open under Moist’s nose.
‘Not something you find every day, eh?’ said Dave.
Gosh, it’s a pin, thought Moist, but said ‘Wow!’ in a tone of well-crafted genuine surprise.
A few minutes later he stepped out of the shop, fighting an impulse to turn his collar up. That was the problem with certain kinds of insanity. They could strike at any time. After all, he’d just spent AM$70 on a damn pin!
He stared at the little packets in his hand and sighed. As he carefully put them in his jacket pocket, his hand touched something papery.
Oh, yes. The S.W.A.L.K. letter. He was about to shove it back when his eye caught sight of the ancient street sign opposite: Lobbin Clout. And as his gaze moved down it also saw, over the first shop in the narrow street:
NO.1 A. PARKER & SON’S
GREENGROCER’S
HIGH CLAS’S FRUIT AND VEGETABLE’S
Well, why not deliver it? Hah! He was the postmaster, wasn’t he? What harm could it do?
He slipped into the shop. A middle-aged man was introducing fresh carrots, or possibly carrot’s, into the life of a bulky woman with a big shopping bag and hairy warts.
‘Mr Antimony Parker?’ said Moist urgently.
‘Be with you in ju’st one moment, s’ir, I’m ju’st—’ the man began.
‘I just need to know if you are Mr Antimony Parker, that’s all,’ said Moist. The woman turned to glare at the intruder, and Moist gave her a smile so winning that she blushed and wished just for a moment she’d worn make-up today.
‘Thats’ father,’ said the greengrocer. ‘He’s out the back, tackling a difficult cabbage—’
‘This is his,’ said Moist. ‘Postal delivery’ He put the envelope on the counter and walked quickly out of the shop.
Shopkeeper and customer stared down at the pink envelope.
‘S’.W.A.L.K?’ said Mr Parker.
‘Ooh, that takes me back, Mr Parker,’ said the woman. ‘In my day we used to put that on our letters when we were courting. Didn’t you? Sealed With A Loving Kiss. There was S.W.A.L.K., and L.A.N.C.R.E. and . . .’ she lowered her voice and giggled, ‘K.L.A.T.C.H., of course. Remember?’
‘All that pas’sed me by, Mrs Goodbody,’ said the greengrocer stiffly. ‘And if it mean’s young men are s’ending our dad pink envelope’s with ‘swalk on them, I’m thankful for that. Modern time’s, eh?’ He turned and raised his voice. ‘Father!’
Well, that was a good deed for the day, Moist thought. Or a deed, in any case.
It looked as though Mr Parker had managed to acquire some sons, one way or another. Still, it was . . . odd to think of all those letters heaped in that old building. You could imagine them as little packets of history. Deliver them, and history went one way. But if you dropped them in the gap between the floorboards, it went the other.
Ha. He shook his head. As if one tiny choice by someone unimportant could make that much difference! History had to be a bit tougher than that. It all sprang back eventually, didn’t it? He was sure he’d read something, somewhere. If it wasn’t like that, no one would ever dare do anything.
He stood in the little square where eight roads met, and chose to go home via Market Street. It was as good a way as any other.
When he was sure that both Stanley and the golem were busy on the mail mountains, Mr Groat crept away through the labyrinth of corridors. Bundles of letters were stacked so high and tightly that it was all he could do to squeeze through, but at last he reached the shaft of the old hydraulic elevator, long disused. The shaft had been filled up with letters.
However, the engineer’s ladder was still clear, and that at least went up to the roof. Of course, there was the fire escape outside, but that was outside, and Groat was not over-keen on going outside at the best of times. He inhabited the Post Office like a very small snail in a very large shell. He was used to gloom.
Now, slowly and painfully, his legs shaking, he climbed up through the floors of mail and forced open the trapdoor at the top.
He blinked and shuddered in the unfamiliar sunlight, and hauled himself out on to the flat roof.
He’d never really liked doing this, but what else could he have done? Stanley ate like a bird and Groat mostly got by on tea and biscuits, but it all cost money, even if you went round the markets just as they closed up, and somewhere in the past, decades ago, the pay had stopped arriving. Groat had been too frightened to go up to the palace to find out why. He was afraid that if he asked for money he’d be sacked. So he’d taken to renting out the old pigeon loft. Where was the harm in that? All the pigeons had joined their feral brethren years ago, and a decent shed was not to be sneezed at in this city, even if it did whiff a bit. There was an outside fire escape and everything. It was a little palace compared to most lodgings.
Besides, these lads didn’t mind the smell, they said. They were pigeon fanciers. Groat wasn’t sure what that entailed, except that they had to use a little clacks tower to fancy them properly. But they paid up, that was the important thing.
He skirted the big rainwater tank for the defunct lift and sidled around the rooftops to the shed, where he knocked politely.
‘It’s me, lads. Just come about the rent,’ he said.
The door was opened and he heard a snatch of conversation: ‘. . . the linkages won’t stand it for more than thirty seconds . . .’
‘Oh, Mr Groat, come on in,’ said the man who had opened the door. This was Mr Carlton, the one with the beard a dwarf would be proud of, no, two dwarfs would be proud of. He seemed more sensible than the other two, although this was not hard.
Groat removed his hat. ‘Come about the rent, sir,’ he repeated, peering around the man. ‘Got a bit o’ news, too. Just thought I’d better mention, lads, we’ve got a new postmaster. If you could be a bit careful for a while? A nod’s as good as a wink, eh?’
‘How long’s this one going to last, then?’ said a man who was sitting on the floor, working on a big metal drum full of what, to Mr Groat, appeared to be very complicated clockwork. ‘You’ll push him off the roof by Saturday, right?’
‘Now, now, Mr Winton, there’s no call to make fun of me like that,’ said Groat nervously. ‘Once he’s been here a few weeks and got settled in I’ll kind of . . . hint that you’re here, all right? Pigeons getting on okay, are they?’ He peered around the loft. Only one pigeon was visible, hunched up high in a corner.
‘They’re out for exercise right now,’ said Winton.
‘Ah, right, that’d be it, then,’ said Groat.
‘Anyway, we’re a bit more interested in woodpeckers at the moment,’ said Winton, pulling a bent metal bar out of the drum. ‘See, Alex? I told you, it’s bent. And two gears are stripped bare . . .’
“Woodpeckers?’ said Groat.
There was a certain lowering of the temperature, as if he’d said the wrong thing.
‘That’s right, woodpeckers,’ said a third voice.
‘Woodpeckers, Mr Emery?’ The third pigeon fancier always made Groat nervous. It was the way his eyes were always on the move, as if he was trying to see everything at once. And he was always holding a tube with smoke coming out of it, or another piece of machinery. They all seemed very interested in tubes and cogwheels, if it came to that. Oddly enough, Groat had never seen them holding a pigeon. He didn’t know how pigeons were fancied, but he’d assumed that it had to be close up.
‘Yes, woodpeckers,’ said the man, while the tube in his hand changed colour from red to blue. ‘Because . . .’ and here he appeared to stop and think for a moment, ‘we’re seeing if they can be taught to . . . oh, yes, tap out the message when they get there, see? Much better than messenger pigeons.’