The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

thought. Although Sanchez struck her as being completely inept with
women, he didn’t strike her as a homosexual either. On the contrary, she’d
caught him staring at her cleavage on several occasions, and his dress sense
was shit.
    She rushed back to her desk to
check the computer logs to see if anyone else had been in around the time Josh
left. If no one had, then Sanchez might just be the prime suspect in the
disappearance of the important book.
    As she sat down at her desk the
telephone rang. She answered it with an impressive level of politeness
considering how irritated she was.
    ‘Hello, City Library.’
    ‘Ulrika?’
    She recognised the voice. It was
Rameses Gaius. A shiver ran down her spine.
    ‘Hello Rameses,’ she said, her
voice betraying her anxiety.
    ‘Did you write those names in
The Book of Death yesterday as I asked?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Read them back to me please. I
need to clarify what names you wrote.’
    ‘Um, oh,’ Ulrika tried to cast
her mind back to the names she had written in the book the previous day.
    ‘Get on with it,’ Gaius snapped.
‘Have you not seen the news? They’re saying the Bourbon Kid is still alive.
This is important. What names did you write down?’
    Ulrika cringed. She couldn’t
remember the names, certainly not under this kind of pressure. ‘One of them was
John Doe,’ she said.
    ‘That’s correct.’
    ‘I can’t remember the other
two,’ she said.
    ‘Well look them up in the book
for goodness sake!’
    Ulrika swallowed hard. ‘I can’t
find it at the moment,’ she said softly.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I think it’s been borrowed by
someone.’
    ‘Borrowed by someone? Since when
the fuck did you start allowing people to borrow The Book of Death?’
    ‘I don’t. My assistant messed
up. But I think I know who has it. I’m just going to track him down. I’ll have
it back within the hour.’
    She could tell by the sound of
his breathing that Rameses Gaius was furious. ‘If you don’t get that book back
by lunchtime, I’ll send my daughter Jessica to come help you look for it. And I
gotta tell you, Jessica really doesn’t like you.’
    ‘Yes sir.’
    Gaius hung up the phone. Ulrika
sat still for a few moments, taking deep breaths to calm her nerves. The book
was missing and she had less than two hours to find it.
    ‘Morning Ulrika,’ said a man’s
voice. She looked up and saw Rick from the Ole Au Lait walk past her desk on
his way out. She hadn’t even seen him come in because she had been so engrossed
in her conversation with Rameses Gaius. She didn’t like Rick any more than she
liked anyone else in town, so she ignored him until he was halfway down the
stairs and heading out of the library before she responded with a veiled “Fuck
off” under her breath.
    Her top priority was to get The
Book of Death back urgently. And her prime suspect was Sanchez Garcia.

 
    Nine

 
    Beth had received an early phone
call from the museum’s new manager, Elijah Simmonds. Although he was only in
temporary charge, he now had the authority to fire her. He had insisted she
drop by the museum even though she had been given the day off by Bertram
Cromwell. Chances were high he was calling her in to relieve her of her
position as a cleaner.
    She and JD arrived at the museum
to find a medical crew outside lifting a stretcher up onto the back of an
ambulance. The face of the person on the stretcher was concealed beneath a
green blanket. Beth could tell it was Bertram Cromwell. She didn’t need to see
the gory details. The sight of the blanket pulled over the face of the body was
enough to set her mind racing with all kinds of unpleasant images.
    JD put his arm around her
shoulder and squeezed her in tight as they walked up the steps to the front
entrance of the museum. In doing so he shielded her from the sight of the body.
Having his arm around her shoulder made her feel safe, and warm too. She had a
blue cardigan on over her white T-shirt but with the sudden arrival of snow in
Santa Mondega the cardigan wasn’t offering as much warmth as usual. She could
feel the cold around her legs too because her black jeans had a few tears in
them and not for fashion reasons either. They were just bloody old and
knackered and she couldn’t afford a new pair. With her hair down and the wind
blowing it all over the place she actually had a rather cool grungy look going
on. She was quite pleased about that because it seemed to be a look that JD
liked.   He was