Page 58 of The Bookshop of Forbidden Books

“Long, please.”

“Well, like I said, given my past, police stations aren’t exactly my favourite places in the world. So I took a few deep breaths before I went inside, and then I asked to speak to your arresting officer. The guy at the desk wanted to know why, and his tone was so smug that it got rid of my nerves entirely and gave me my determination back. I leaned in close to him and whispered that I had a very important secret to tell.”

“Which was?”

“That I’d spent the whole previous day and night with the man they were interrogating. I added that his superior officer surely had better things to do than waste his time questioning a suspect who couldn’t possibly have committed the murder he was trying to pin on him, and that it would be wiser to bring him up to speed before he used force to get a false confession – because if that happened, I’d have to tell the press everything. He gave me a look, but he could tell I was serious.”

Anna had rattled off the story in a single breath, and the speed with which she’d spoken made Mitch suspect that the police-station charade had been more difficult for her than she wanted to admit.

“You really want me to keep going?” Anna asked. Mitch nodded. “Okay, so the inspector had me brought into his office, and I told him the exact same thing I’d told the duty officer. He tried to catch me in a lie, said he wouldn’t let you go as easily as that. Made me give him a precise timeline – where, when, what we were doing at the time of the murder. I don’t think I’ve ever told you, but when I was a teenager, and even into my twenties, I used to play a lot of poker. Poker’s all about bluffing, and bluffing is just the art of telling little white lies.

“At the start of a round, when you have a bad hand, you make a particular move – some kind of facial expression, or a nervous tic. You get the idea. And when you have a good hand, you do the same thing. Your opponents think they’ve got you figured, so they up the ante. Then you take the pot. You following me?”

“I’m trying,” Mitch said. “I just don’t see what this has to do with me.”

“Plenty,” Anna said. “I told the inspector that if he wanted me to answer his question, he’d have to tell me what time the murder took place. He was too stupid not to go along with it. I said that if it had happened around five o’clock or later, you couldn’t have been involved, because we were together in my soon-to-open restaurant, where you were helping me line up tables in diagonal rows – which, as everyone knows, is impossible for one person to do alone – and then we’d had dinner together in the kitchen before heading back to my place.”

“And he just took your word for it?” Mitch asked, astonished.

“You didn’t understand my poker analogy” Anna sighed. “It wasn’t about him believing me. It was about finding out whether he was bluffing – and throwing him off his game before he was ready to show his cards. I mentioned that the warehouse worker from the auction house, who I’d hired that afternoon, was there when you arrived, and he’d remember it was five thirty sharp because I generously paid him for the full hour. When I started describing the worker, your inspector cut me off. He looked defeated. Told me to go and wait for you in the lobby. And you know the rest already. I decided to wait in my van instead. All those uniforms were making me very uncomfortable.”

“Didn’t he ask who you were?”

“Of course. I showed him my ID.”

Mitch was visibly shocked.

“Damn it, Anna! Given your record, you should never have taken such a risk!”

“Which one of us offered to be the other’s alibi first?” Anna countered. “You were ready to do it for me, and your past isn’t exactly a rose garden!”

“Yes… but… it’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same. It’s called being equals, and that’s the foundation of any real relationship.”

Mitch forgot all about his problems: the inspector’s face; the hour spent in the interrogation room, counting down his last moments of freedom; even the confession he’d almost signed. Warmth swelled in his chest, moved through his arms, into his shoulders, up his neck, and flushed across his cheeks. Anna had called what they had a relationship – which, for someone who knew the weight of words and what they could reveal when you paid attention to them, opened the door to another dimension.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason” Mitch grinned.

She sat there across from him, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, her complexion glowing from the sea air, fingers tapping the table among the croissant crumbs – and the warmth he had always felt around her bloomed stronger than ever. This time, he decided to act on it, leaning forward and taking Anna’s face gently in his hands. The kiss was the first of a relationship now fully, irrevocably declared.

Chapter 23

In Cold Blood

“Do you know where we can find that antique dealer?” Anna asked as they left the café.

“He lives in a building that backs onto the courtyard behind my shop. At least, that’s what he said.”

“See? You doubt the man’s sincerity already. You should trust my instincts more.”

Tossing Mitch the keys to the van, Anna climbed into the passenger seat.

“I haven’t slept a wink since yesterday.” She yawned.

They’d driven all night to reach the seaside town, and now they drove all day, returning to the city at sunset. Anna dozed only a little along the way, instead spending most of the time telling Mitch about her years in the Great White North: how she’d arrived with almost nothing, how she’d saved enough to buy the walls of a crumbling restaurant. She spoke of the excitement she’d felt when she moved into her little cabin on the high plains, of enduring winters far harsher than she’d imagined, of the bewitching blizzards and the beauty of the wild landscape.