Page 20 of The Cornish Cream Tea Bookshop
‘Cheers to that.’ Ollie tapped her cup against his. ‘You’ll have to come and see them.’
‘I would love to, but right now I need to know about this ghost battle. I’ve lived in the area my whole life, I go walking round here, but it’s news to me.’
‘You obviously haven’t seen the book.’ She waved it in the air. ‘An oracle on all the mythical corners of Port Karadow.’
‘Is that so?’ Max raised an eyebrow. ‘Come on then, tell me.’
‘We need to get Thea a coffee machine.’
‘We can do that afterwards. You can’t dangle something like this in front of me and then change the subject.’
‘OK then,’ Ollie said, unable to draw it out any longer because she was, in fact, desperate to tell him. ‘Here it is.’
She put her cup down and turned to the right page: ‘The St Ethel’s Church Haunting’.She sat on the wall again, cleared her throat, and started reading out loud. After a moment, Max perched on the wall alongside her, his gaze fixed on her while she read. She was glad it was a cold morning, because his attention was like a heater, fanning warmth in her direction.
When she got to the end, he was shaking his head, an awed expression on his face.
‘So? What do you think?’ she asked.
‘I think it sounds completely terrifying, and we should come back on the first of December to hear the phantom hooves for ourselves.’
Ollie laughed. ‘You’re serious?’
Max paused, considering. ‘Partly. I mean, why wouldn’t we, when it’s hardly an effort to get here, and we could end up hearing something extraordinary? How have I never heard this before? Where did you get this book?’
‘Liam gave it to me.’ She held it out for him to take. ‘He had it in his study.’
Max inspected it, his long fingers turning the pages, his movements reverential in the face of the book’s age. ‘I’ve heard that his study’s incredible. You must be like a kid in a sweet shop.’
‘I am a bit,’ Ollie admitted. ‘He’s been so kind to me. And, hey, I found a series of Cornish-set mysteries in a charity shop just after I moved here, and the characters go around investigating crimes connected to local legends like this one. They’re by an author called Bryan Mailer. Have you heard of him?’
Max shook his head. ‘Should I have?’
‘I don’t know. The stories in these mystery novels, and these legends, correspond. The author must know the area well.’
‘Or he had a copy of this book. Are they recent?’
‘They were published in the Seventies. I looked him up online, and the series is all he wrote. It looks like he was popular at the time, so I wondered if you’d heard of him. I love that he took his inspiration from the landscape round here.’
Max looked up from the book. ‘Like you were saying on Friday, loads of writers set their stories in Cornwall.’
‘It’s a rich source of inspiration, that’s for sure. I’ve been thinking about the events at the bookshop.’
‘High on your success of the other evening?’
She grinned. ‘Thank you for helping me keep that on track; I was worried Sylvia was going to interrogate me all night. Next, I want to do a ghost walk: a tour of Port Karadow, dictated by the legends in here.’ She tapped the cover. ‘Bring everyone back to A New Chapter at the end, and they’ll load up their tote bags with mysteries and ghost stories. I’m going to see if I can get some of Bryan Mailer’s books in, too.’
‘You’re not resting on your laurels, are you? Is your mind always this busy?’
‘I want to make A New Chapter the most successful bookshop in Cornwall,’ she admitted. ‘No time to rest on anything – not laurels, and definitely not my bum.’
Max laughed. ‘Fair enough. I suppose part of that success includes getting a coffee machine installed?’
‘Exactly.’
He stood up and gave the book back to her. ‘We should probably get going, then. I thought we could look online, I can show you what I think would work, and then, if you take those ideas to Thea, we can go to the wholesalers later in the week so you can see them in all their chrome and plastic glory.’
‘Sounds ideal. Thank you.’
