The Magus of Hay(104)

Holding up the phone displaying the soot-rimed swastika.

‘Wossisname,’ the man with the wine stain said. ‘Hitler’s Number Two. Rudolph Wossisname… I got no memory these days.’

‘Rudolph Wossisname,’ Gwenda said. ‘Parachuted down to try and wind up the war, something like that. Wasn’t he incarcerated somewhere round here for a while, or was that just a story?’

‘Rudolf Hess. Abergavenny, that was. Taken there for interrogation. It’s only half an hour away. How would that work, then, Gwennie, with the carving on the chimney?’

‘Er… no idea.’

Somebody laughed. Merrily recognized Wine-stain now: Gareth Nunne, a name that looked good over a bookshop. A dealer who somehow acquired cheap remaindered copies of books before they even went into paperback.

Betty said, ‘What are you guys not telling me?’

Robin said, ‘Bets…’

‘Die, Englisher pig!’ Betty said.

All eyes on her, including Robin’s, bagged now. His hair was still long, but less sleek than it had been. He looked like a man from whom something was slipping away. You hoped it wasn’t Betty.

‘Anybody remember Tom Armitage?’ Betty said. ‘Antiques?’

Gwenda shook her head. Gareth Nunne grunted.

‘Cocky bugger.’

‘Only I was talking to him on the phone, because I was interested in people who’d had the shop before, and he was telling me about how they used to find bits of war comics around the place. There was a guy there once who sold them, including rare German comics. Nazi stuff, I assume he meant. He said the guy OD’d on drugs.’

Gwyn Arthur was nodding.



‘But you guys,’ Betty said, ‘when I show you this, you just go rambling on about Rudolph bloody Hess.’

Gareth Nunne looked at her, mock-startled. Gwenda laughed.

‘You tell them, girlie.’

A woman said wearily, ‘Jab.’

Gwenda said, ‘What?’

‘Jerrold Adrian Brace. Gorgeous, pouting Jerry Brace. Used to sign his initials, JAB. He’s the guy sold the war books and comics.’

‘Connie…’ Gareth Nunne putting on a warning tone. ‘You remember what we…?’

‘Oh Gawd, Gary, what’s the point? It was a long time ago.’

Merrily saw she was quite elderly and sloppy, about six necklaces, and smoking what looked like a slim panatella. Betty turned her wooden chair.

‘Sorry, is it Mrs Wilby? Look, we’re not having a great day, and I know there’s something so much worse going on all around us, right, but it would be helpful to deal with this. That shop’s important to us, and it doesn’t seem to have a good history. Just helps to know these things.’

‘So, like, anything you can tell us,’ Robin said, ‘be helpful if you didn’t hold back.’

‘Yeah, go on, Con,’ Gwenda said. ‘Somebody tell them. Tell me. We’re all grown-ups here.’

‘Nobody remembers now, anyway,’ Gareth Nunne said. ‘He wasn’t yere that long. And when he was yere he wasn’t yere half the time.’

‘Gareth likes you,’ Connie said to Betty. ‘Gareth thinks we have far too many ugly old booksellers and you would help redress the balance. Gareth’s sexist, ageist and everything else ending in ist. And I’ve been charmed by your insanely dashing, disabled husband, and we knew from the papers what had happened to you, so we wanted you to be happy here. And, as we said, it’s a very long time ago.’



‘Don’t stop there,’ Betty said.

‘Well, he died, you see,’ Gareth Nunne said. ‘In the end, that was what most people remembered about Jerry Brace. The way he died.’

‘He OD’d,’ Betty said. ‘That is right, is it?’

‘Yes, but not quite so many people did in those days, my dear. Not in places like Hay. Not heroin, anyway. Bit of a nine-day wonder. Not that there weren’t many of those, mind – oh, the glamour. The lovely Marianne Faithfull here for a while. April Ashley, Britain’s first ever sex-change sailor. Not that poor bloody Jerry was famous.’

‘Except for the way he died,’ Connie said.

‘Flaming Nora!’ Gwenda threw a bag of crisps in the air. ‘Get to the point. I don’t know any of this, and I’m furious.’

‘Well, of course you don’t, dear,’ Connie Wilby said. ‘It was over thirty years ago. He was an ex public-school boy. Wealthy, titled father with strong fascist leanings. Sir Charles. His Mosleyite mate was Lord Brocket, who lived at Kinnersley Castle, end of the war. And he’d infected his son with his political views. Jerry had this awful obsession with what you might call the dark side of the last war.’