Word search: The master of crime writing spins a chilling tale of a world in which books are obsolete,almost,in an Index short story exclusive

Bookfinder General

BY IAN RANKIN

THE BOOKS WERE slow to die, but they did die.

It’s hard now to remember what came first. People’s homes got smaller. They had less space. Technology had told them it didn’t matter. They could store all their music in an object the size of a half-deck of playing-cards. Their entire library could be kept on a phone or tablet. If they had a pressing need for a physical book, there were libraries or they could click a couple of times on their notebook screen and order print-on-demand with next-day delivery.

Books were dwindling in popularity anyway. Charity shops couldn’t cope with the amount being discarded. Rather than sell them on, pulping became the thing. The waning attention span of the general populace was maybe to blame. But hey, pretty much every book ever written was still up there somewhere, in ‘servers’ and ‘clouds’, accessible and immortal.

Until the Great Crash.

The Great Crash was only the first of the slew of viruses that led to screens going blank across the world. Some said a rogue programmer had introduced it into various systems over a period of years. Others explained it as a glitch, a self-generating malignancy, like a digital tumour. People were so focused on fixing banking and commerce that books got forgotten; repairs and reboots never quite happened. There were still some libraries and bookshops, of course, but climate chaos wasn’t exactly helping. Rising sea levels; regular floods, interspersed with brutal heatwaves that caused wildfires... Everything was conspiring against the good old-fashioned book. Even the few who wanted them were finding them hard to track down. Which is where I come in. Bookfinder General some call me. The people I work for tend to be wealthy collectors, or the descendants of authors long-forgotten who want to reclaim a little bit of their heritage. You’ll find me scouring rubbish dumps, damp cellars and flea-markets, or seated in gloomy back offices where deals are done.

All this has to be clandestine, of course, because prosecution is an ever-present danger. The political spasm of a few decades back led to polarisation. Turns out far left and far right are bedfellows when it comes to the written word – they want it checked, censored, or burned. Of the three, burning is simpler. If history can’t be rewritten, then it gets erased. A good bookfinder can make a killing from the more seditious titles – but they can get you killed, too. I’d had some narrow escapes. I’d broken the law in multiple ways. To give you an example, rumours sometimes arrived of a private collection, kept hidden. I had honed my skills and could beat the majority of security systems. I’d found myself in plenty of inner sanctums, surrounded by groaning shelves, choosing only the very best titles. Signed first editions; illuminated manuscripts; private pressings of rare poems... Well, a man has to make a living.

As a kid, there’d been a few books in my home. I’d read them until the pages had come loose. When we visited friends or family, I’d be looking for bookshelves, comics, magazines. ‘Voracious’, my dad would explain, making it sound like an apology. He never really ‘got’ reading, preferred a screen he could sit in front of with glazed eyes. My mum was the same, but she indulged me. Still, when I left home I probably only took a dozen treasured tomes with me. They were eventually lost in a fire.

So many of the books I find are in poor condition – good-quality reprints fetch a higher premium than dilapidated firsts. Time was, when councils started closing libraries, skips were filled with all manner of books. You could find treasure, right up until the moment the lorry arrived to haul them away. Flooded bookshops sold their damaged stock cheaply, finding few enough buyers. And when the crackdown came, woe betide any institution not complying with orders and offering up titles on the Appendix of Aberrant Artefacts. Families gathered around the pyres, enjoying picnics and taking photos as their children were handed items to be added to the flames.

No one seemed particularly unhappy.

They had grown up in a world where images trumped ideas, where intellectual thought was mistrusted or scorned. They thought of themselves as well-enough informed, and so they were – but not always by the truth. Debate became a thing of the past, as did reason. You accepted what you were told; you read only what was green-lit by authority. Your ignorance was also your bliss.

Not that you would ever hear me saying any of this, not even to fellow travellers. Well, maybe to a select few, ones I’ve known for years. Trust is difficult in my game at the best of times. People I’ve considered friends have been known to hand over dissidents. They do it for the reward, or because it puts a tick beside their name in some great unseen ledger.

Or because they think it the right and proper thing to do.

I’ve never been arrested, though I’ve been questioned often enough. A matter of luck or a matter of skill? Does it really matter which? Right now, the only thing that concerns me is the slim volume nestled within the lining of my padded jacket. I have practised walking with heavier books hidden in my clothing. I know I look natural, no bumps or jutting edges, no sense that I’m carrying anything at all that could get me arrested if someone patted me down. Why would they pat me down? I look like a nobody and I walk like a nobody. The boots are scuffed, the trousers faded at the knees. It’s chilly, so I’m wearing a charcoal-coloured scarf and a nondescript hat. There are no exotic creatures out here on the streets. We all dress and act the same. We’re not car owners, and public transport is near-as-damnit fossilised. There are bikes, yes, but the movement of the knees might give away the fact of the package.

I’m carrying a bag, of course, but there’s not much in it. Certainly no reading matter. It’s for show; a few groceries. I’m visiting a friend. He’s been poorly. Two tins of soup and a couple of bananas. It’s not much but it’s the thought that counts. He’ll be pleased of the company – I’m hoping so anyway. He’s not far off, just a few more streets...

Yes, of course I could have used some mode of transport, but there would be the looks – either from other passengers or from the taxi driver or pedestrians whenever we stopped at lights or roadworks. Fewer people studied you when you were on foot. You obviously didn’t warrant their curiosity. The building was within sight now. I managed to check up and down the street without looking obvious. There could always be someone at an upper window, hidden behind a net curtain or mirrored glass. Like everyone else, I had lived my whole life with that feeling gnawing away at me. Bathing, peeing, making love, sleeping – you never knew if you were being spied on. Those who really wanted to show their loyalty had been chipped, the microdot beneath the skin monitoring everything from heart-rate to whispered confidences.

If you’ve nothing to hide... if you’ve done nothing wrong...

I’d heard that line so often. Those who hadn’t been chipped lied that they had, so they wouldn’t fall under suspicion. You’ve been chipped? Me, too – let’s sync.

And then the bluster, the excuses, the blushing. Jesus, who needed a microscopic computer when your own face gave you away with such ease?

I’d not been chipped. My clients knew this, of course. Not that they took me at my word, but they all had their own little devices that would scan and report in the negative, just as I had mine. Trust had to be earned.

I was outside the thick lacquered door now. I pressed the bell and waited, aware that the camera was watching. The voice was old, frail, familiar.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me. I brought you some soup.’

Eight words, just enough for the voice recognition check. A buzzing sound as the door was unlocked. Inside was a communal hallway as grand as in some hotels. I took the stairs; too much tech in the lifts. The door was ajar, having been unlocked from inside. I knew the way. A high narrow passageway, past a series of closed doors. Did a library sit behind one of them? I very much doubted it. The client was too careful. He was waiting for me in the living-room. It was austere but the furnishings looked expensive. A few original paintings on the walls but nothing to trouble the Appendix. His face was like parchment, so many stories scratched into its lines.

‘What kind of soup?’ he asked.

I placed the bag on a coffee-table, unzipped my jacket and began to work away at the lining. The book slipped out, glistening in its glassine wrapper.

‘Broth,’ I said, handing it over. He seemed almost afraid to take it, but when he did his eyes looked famished.

‘Delicious,’ he said.

I nodded my agreement, having read the book in bed the previous night. Cover to cover, at it, relishing each quietly-turned page.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, first UK edition, Secker and Warburg, 1949.

He was smiling now as he opened the book. When our eyes met, I knew what he was thinking. What were they afraid of, these people who ruled over us – the stories themselves or the people touched by them?

‘Broth,’ he said, easing himself on to his favourite chair. I sat down opposite him, as was my wont. While he was reading his work of fiction, I’d be content to read his face.