Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [260]
The priest said, “Mags, ninety minutes. Really,” and sighed. “Well, William and I have examined Abraham and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Ruth and Naomi and the alien corn, and the brothers of Joseph from every angle, and it’s been most illuminating and— I think that William will agree— entertaining as well. But, alas, you are too late now. We’ll have to rearrange. William’s got something on, and I’ve an appointment as well.”
Murmurs of apology, profuse, from the wife. Children hanging upon the priest’s either hand. A rescheduling of the family’s annual Christmas picture to be sent to all the relatives and off they went.
Tim was hanging back, lurking in a corner of the shop with the pretence of examining the digital cameras all locked to their display shelves and rather in need of dusting. When the priest and his family made their noisy, happy exit, Tim came forward. William Concord was on Toy4You’s name tag. Tim wondered what it meant that the bloke kept it on as he approached. He reckoned it had nothing to do with having forgotten to remove it. Toy4You wasn’t a forgetful kind of man.
He came round the counter and locked the door of the shop. He reversed the Open sign to Closed. He turned off the overhead lights and jerked his head to indicate that Tim was to follow him into the back.
Tim saw that the back of the shop had been altered, and it was little wonder that Toy4You wasn’t able to accommodate the priest and his family for their yearly photo. A man and a woman were in the process of setting up an entirely different design from what had been in the studio, and now a rough replica of a Victorian children’s nursery stood in place of the dramatic columns and background sky. As Tim watched them at work, they brought in three narrow beds, one of them occupied by a child-size department store mannequin wearing Shrek pyjamas and, oddly, a schoolboy cap. The other two were empty and at the foot of one the woman laid an enormous stuffed dog, a St. Bernard by the look of it. The man rolled into position a faux background window that opened onto a starry night sky, and in the distance, a crude representation of Big Ben shone with the hour midnight.
Tim didn’t know what to make of all this until another individual materialised from the storage area. Like Tim, he was a young adolescent. Unlike Tim, he was very sure of himself and moved with purpose onto the set, where he leaned against the mock window and lit a cigarette. He was outfitted head to foot in green, with slippers that curled up at the toes and a cocked hat set at a jaunty angle on his head. He jerked his chin in a hello to Toy4You as the other two individuals faded through the storage area, from which Tim could hear the murmur of conversation and the sound of shoes and clothes dropping to the floor. As Toy4You did some business with a rolling tripod and a rather impressive video camera, the man and the woman returned to the set. She was now in a white nightdress with a high ruffled neck. He was outfitted as a pirate captain. Unlike the other two, he was the only one wearing a mask, although the hook that emerged from his right sleeve was enough of a clue to the permanently clueless as to the bloke’s supposed identity. Of course, the permanently clueless would never wonder what he was meant to be doing in Victorian London instead of where he should have been which was, naturally, on a sailing ship in Never Never Land.
Tim looked from these characters to Toy4You. He felt momentarily queasy as he wondered what his part was supposed to entail. Then he spied a nightshirt lying at the foot of one of the beds with a pair of round-framed spectacles folded on top, and from this he understood that he was the older of the two brothers and at some point meant to put on the costume provided.
It all seemed the height of stupid to Tim, but there was a modicum of relief in the setup. When he’d seen the Last Supper film and the Jesus-in-the-garden