Free Remaindered by Peter Lovesey Page A

certificate and tax returns, but nothing resembling a will. She checked with his bank and they didn’t have it.
    Meanwhile one of the richest customers offered to pay for the funeral and the regulars clubbed together to arrange a wake at Precious Finds. The feeling was that Robert would have wished for a spirited send-off.
    The back room had long been the venue for meetings. The books in there were not considered valuable. Every second-hand bookshop has to cope with items that are never likely to sell: thrillers that no longer thrill, sci-fi that has been overtaken by real science and romance too coy for modern tastes. The obvious solution is to refuse such books, but sometimes they come in a job lot with things of more potential such as nineteenth century magazines containing engravings that can be cut out, mounted and sold as prints.Robert’s remedy had been to keep the dross in the back room. The heaviest volumes were at floor level, outdated encyclopedias, dictionaries and art books. Higher up were the condensed novels and book club editions of long-forgotten authors. Above them, privately published fiction and poetry. On the top, fat paperbacks turning brown and curling at the edges, whole sets of Michener, Hailey, and Clavell.
    The saving grace of the back room was that the shelves in the center were mounted on wheels and could be rolled aside to create a useful space for meetings. A stack of chairs stood in one corner. Robert made no charge, pleased to have people coming right through the shop and possibly pausing to look at the desirable items shelved in the front rooms. So on Tuesdays the bookshop hosted the Poketown history society, Wednesdays the art club, Thursdays, the chess players. Something each afternoon and every night except Sundays and Mondays.
    And now the back room was to be used for the wake.
    The music appreciation group knew of an Irish fiddler who brought along four friends, and they set about restoring everyone’s spirits after the funeral. The place was crowded out. The event spilled over into the other parts of the shop.
    It was a bitter-sweet occasion. The music was lively and there was plenty of cheap wine, but there was still anxiety about what would happen after. For the time being the shop had stayed open under Tanya’s management. There was no confidence that this could continue.
    â€œIt has to be sold,” Tanya said in a break between jigs. “There’s no heir.”
    â€œWho’s going to buy a bookstore in these difficult times?” George Digby-Smith asked. He was one of the Friends of England, who met here on occasional Friday nights, allegedly to talk about cricket and cream teas and other English indulgences. Actually, George was more than just a friend of England. He’d been born there sixty years ago. “Someone will want to throw out all the books and turn the building into apartments.”
    â€œOver my dead body,” Myrtle Rafferty, another of the Friends of England, piped up.
    â€œWe don’t need another fatality, thank you,” George said.
    â€œWe can’t sit back and do nothing. We all depend on this place.”
    â€œGet real, people,” one of the Wednesday morning coffee group said. “None of us could take the business on, even if we had the funds.”
    â€œTanya knows about books,” George said at once. “She’ll be out of a job if the store closes. What do you say, Tanya?”
    The young woman looked startled. It was only a few months since she had walked in one morning and asked if Robert would take her on as his assistant. In truth, he’d badly needed some help and she’d earned every cent he paid. Softly spoken, almost certainly under thirty, she had been a quiet presence in the shop, putting more order into the displays, but leaving Robert to deal with the customers.
    â€œI couldn’t possibly buy it.”
    â€œI’m not suggesting you do. But you could manage it. In