The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [138]
I laid my prepared tale before him: aged uncle with an interesting life; upcoming birthday; big family; multiple copies needed of his round-the-world journal. Many colour pages: Could Mr Tolliver help?
Mr Tolliver could help.
I then drew out the copy of Testimony and placed it on the counter. “I rather liked what you did with the sketches in this, and the paper—what's wrong?”
He had taken an almost imperceptible step away from the book; his smile had disappeared. “Is this your book?” he asked.
“No, I borrowed it from a friend.” His expression remained closed, so I changed my answer. “Well, not so much a friend, just someone I know.” Still no response. “And not so much borrowed. I sort of took it.”
“You stole this?”
An effective witness interview is dependent on tiny hints and clues, reading from words, gestures, and the shift of muscles beneath skin, just what the person is thinking, and what he wants to hear. It happens so swiftly it seems intuitive, although in fact it is simply fast. Here, Tolliver was disapproving of the theft, but also, faintly, reassured.
“No no, I didn't steal anything, I borrowed it. But I didn't give my friend too much of a choice in the matter, short of snatching it out of my hands. I will return it, honest, I merely wanted to look at it more closely. Apart from the words, it is very beautiful.”
I hoped he might relent a shade at the compliment, but if anything, he appeared less forthcoming than before.
And sometimes, an effective witness interview is dependent on techniques one finds distasteful. Such as telling the truth.
I sighed. “I am not actually in need of a printer. A friend's wife was murdered. I believe the police are looking in the wrong direction. I think the man who had this made knows something that might help. I need to find him.”
He studied me for a long time, until I began to feel nervous: He had no reason to know that I was avoiding the police—my image was not yet posted across the news—but it was possible he knew of Damian Adler's connexion with this book. At last, he reached out to caress one leather edge with his thick finger. He looked regretful, like a father whose son had committed a shameful crime.
“Twice in my career I have turned down commissions for reasons other than practical ones,” he said. “The first was early, just my second year, when I was asked to bind a photograph collection of young girls that I found—well, intrusive. The second was to be a privately issued novel built around a series of police photographs of murder victims. Again, the salacious overtones were repugnant.
“In neither case, you understand, was it the display of flesh that made me say no. Why, just this past autumn, I bound a collection of, shall we say, personal drawings and poems as a gift from a wife to her husband. It turned out very pretty indeed.
“Those other two projects I rejected because I didn't like the thought of my work around that content. Do you understand?”
“I believe so.”
“This book,” he said, laying his hand flat on the cover, “made me wonder if I shouldn't regretfully decline it as well.”
“But you did not.”
“I did not. I read it, before I started on the plates, which I do not always do. I found it odd, but not overtly offensive.”
“So why were you tempted to reject it?”
He tapped the cover thoughtfully with his fingertips: one, two, three, four. “It might have been the attitude of the man himself. Somehow he reminded me of the two men who brought me their little prizes to beautify. A trace of defiance, as if daring me to find fault with requests they knew to be unsavoury.”
“But in this case, you could not.”
“The sketches alone justified the project. In fact, I suggested to him that he might like to do a second version with just the artwork.”
“What did he say to that?”
Tolliver's eyes twinkled. “He wasn't entirely pleased—the words, I understood, were his. He did say that he was working on a simpler version of the text, to be used with those same illustrations, a book intended for higher numbers.