15.4

 

Steve shifted uncomfortably. “People,” he said, avoiding either of their eyes. “I can’t say more than that, you know? Client confidentiality and all that.”

“You still haven’t said exactly what you sell.” Roisin spoke through a mouthful of the toast she’d dipped into her ramen broth. It was like tasting her student days all over again. You’d find anything to give your ramen broth a bit of flavour. Swiped packets of mustard and ketchup from fast food café’s, salvaged food from the skip at the back of Mark’s and Spencer’s, and (but only once) a chunk of salmon that had been dropped, raw, on the supermarket floor. To give Paul all due credit, however, this was the most tasteless she’d ever had. She didn’t care. It was food.

“Artifacts. Items. You know the sort of thing better than anyone.”

“But who would buy a chunk of old house brick? Even if it was from Richard the third’s grave?”

“I didn’t say it was from the grave,” Steve’s expression was so shifty it was clear he’d never played poker. Not against a real person, anyway. “I said it was from the car park.”

“That’s playing with semantics, mate.” Paul picked up Roisin’s discarded toast side-plate and picked up the remaining crumbs on a licked fingertip, which he then wagged solemnly at Steve. “I’ve told you before about playing with semantics. Remember that Final Cup football games you sold behind-goal tickets for.”

“They were behind the goal. I don’t know what the buyers were on about, wanting their money back. All sales are final, anyway, They needn’t have gone on about it like that.”

“You sold them tickets for seats that were thirty rows behind the goal.”

“I din’t say they was directly behind, did I?”

“You didn’t mention what rows they were on, either. They were mates of mine.” Paul glanced at Roisin. “Please note the past tense.”

“So you’re a shady dealer of goods of dubious legal ownership to people you won’t name.” She shook her head. “Tell me why I should trust you, again?”

“I never said you should a first time.“ Steve puffed his chest like he’d won an important case in the Crown Court. “Trusting someone is a mug’s game. The only thing you can rely on in this world is when two people work together for a mutually beneficial outcome.”

“What about what happened downstairs?” Roisin smiled at him. “You helped me out of the goodness of your heart.”

“And a keen sense of business acumen,” Steve replied. “I’ve never met anyone with the Sight as strong as you have it. People like you are rarer than hen’s teeth. I’d have been a fool to let something like that hoover you up like a thrush with a garden snail.”

“I wasn’t even aware of it until you pointed it out.”

“I think you were. You just didn’t think it could come into the house. If it had got in it would have scoffed my whole collection faster than you could count the angels on a pinhead.”

Paul shook his head. “I thought the whole point of that phrase was that it was an impossible number.”

“Not when you’ve got a gift like hers, it isn’t. Do you remember that film where Dustin Hoffman counts all the matches when a box of them falls on the floor? She’s like that, she is, only with soul particles.”

“Who’s Dustin Hoffman?” Roisin glances at Paul, who shrugged. “So souls are particles now? I thought they were discrete beings?”

“No, I never said that. If fact, I remember telling you they were more like currency.”

“No, you said some game used karma as a currency.”

“I did say that, and I also implied it was an accurate representation of what you see.”

“Hang on.” Tom held up one hand like a child interrupting a teacher. “I’m still not clear on all the soul-spirit-angel stuff.” He looked at Roisin. “What is it you actually see? I thought it was the angels when they escape the dead?”

Steve gave a whistle of surprise. “I didn’t realise you could see that well. That puts you almost on an angelic level.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“Look, I’m really just at the bottom rung of the hierarchy of people who can see the soul-spirit suff. I can barely see it at all, I can just sense it. That’s how I find my interesting antiquities.”

“But you saw that thing in the hall. The soul collector, you called it?”

“Yes, but only because I had my glasses on. Special lenses, see? Enchanted with Sight.”

“Aren’t all glasses?”

Steve laughed. “Not this kind of sight. These let you see the supernatural.”

“The supernatural?” Paul shook his head again. “Pull the other one. It’s got a rubber rain hat.”