In her three years of university, Sandra Walker had no recollection of ever setting foot in the library. It seemed ridiculous, but she wasn’t even sure how the place worked. If she knew the book she was looking for she knew she could type the title into the computer, it would give her a number and then be told that some studious prick had already checked it out. But what if she didn’t know what book? What if she was after information? What if, and this was what scared her about libraries, what if google failed her and a library was all she had left?
She was surprised to find Liz still there. She was surprised to find the library still open. She was surprised to find the library still open and doing a roaring trade in temporary student accommodation. No doubt they made the place comfortable to keep the students there, using the facilities, before they dragged their sorry arses back to whatever dilapidated accommodation they drank themselves to sleep in, a place devoid of proper heating or insulation, a place that felt cursed is it was simply lying in wait for the time when it cost too much to save and the landlord would knock it down to build some shiny new townhouses, to be sold at triple the purchase price to the newly wed, who no doubt once rented a shit hole as students similar to the shit hole that now haunted their shiny new house.
The reason she never went to the library was because she couldn’t concentrate in a place that was designed to stimulate concentration. Her mind would, as it did now, wander down a rabbit of hole of meaningless passageways that rarely led to a productive locale. Although, she considered further, it was a little bit like being stoned. She was totally disinterested in her surroundings, living inside her own head, occasionally giggling at where those thoughts took her and discovering a desperate need for nachos. Perhaps if she’d discovered libraries as a student she could have saved money and a few black spots in her lungs. That thought, out of context, freaked her out a little bit.
“Are you even listening to me”, Liz asked, poking her in the side. Sandra snapped back to reality. Library sounds returned. A muffled collection of mumbling, keyboard clacking and muted footsteps.
“No. Sorry. It was trying but this place weirds me out.”
“It’s a library. How can a library weird you out?”
“Oh. You know. All mumbley and book smelly and ghost basementy. It’s weird.”
“How did you get even pass University?”
“Liz it was an Arts Degree. I majored in Cinema Studies. You don’t pass or fail, you just turn up.”
“You didn’t do the readings?”
“Yeah, you know, you read the introduction, you fall asleep, wake up, read the conclusion, google the title of the article, skim for a quote, then write your essay around it.”
“You never went to the library.”
“There was a bar on campus. What the hell was I supposed to do?”
Liz didn’t say anything. Just smiled. Sandra continued.
“It’s a total scam. They take your money for a degree, and then they take your money for beer, and because you spend all your time drinking you fail a subject or two and they take more of your money for the subject again and more beer money to encourage you to fail the subject again.”
“That your great conspiracy theory is it?”
“That’s my claim and I’m sticking to it. How did you manage to do it? You were always at the bar. How did you get such good grades?”
“Time management Sandra. I tried to show once you but you got bored.”
“It’s not my thing Liz. I’ve tried, God knows I’ve tried, but my head doesn’t work that way.”
“Which way does your head work?”
“Uh. Sort of round and round. And round. And round.”
“Are you at all interested in what I have to show you?” Liz took her computer off sleep again to reveal a multitude of widows open. “Ok, so you wanna know what’s scary about the Pohler family?”
“Their money? Their ego? Their money?”
“But also”, and here she flicked through the windows for emphasis, “the lack of information around for them. For a family that powerful, you’d think there’d be loads of stuff, but there’s not.”
“How is that?”
“Well, I don’t really know. They seem to operate through so many different companies that it’s difficult to tell what they’re actually doing.”
Sandra sighed, and looked at the windows on the computer.
“Richard Pohler pretty much said that to me now that I think about it. Or at least inferred it.”
“What did he say?”
“I’m all rich and have all these subsidiaries and nobody knows what I do but I am all powerful.”
“He said that did he?”
“You could consider it a summation. Interpretation. So what have you go then?”
“I’ve got this”, she said, and passed her a photocopy of a newspaper article. Sandra tried to read it, but Liz kept talking. “I started with their names, got a few hits here and there. Sebastian wrote a piece for some business rag about merges and acquisitions, but it’s all pretty bog standard stuff. Clearly they played all of their cards close to their chest. I can tell you Richard Pohler is not a self-made man – he’s the son of wealthy Polish Immigrants, who arrived here in the 30s. They set up a successful chain of stores, none of which exist in their own right anymore, but they bought and merged and did all sorts of stuff until they died sometime in the 60s and Richard took over.”
“That’s pretty vague.”
“That’s all I could find! A bit here, a bit there, you can find some immigration records and the like, but once you hit business records BAM – it all gets messy.”
“But you’ve got all these windows open.”
“Most of them are dead ends”
Sandra leant in to have a look at the screen:
“Facebook. Twitter. Etsy, Regretsy, ebay, Birds With Arms?”
Liz stopped her.
“Look, even I have my boredome threshold okay?
Sandra waved the photocopy.
“So what’s this then?”
“Ah, now that’s the one thing that gets interesting. Have a look.”
“I am. But I know you’re going to talk at me while I try and read it”
“Damn straight. This is a series of articles that never made it past the local paper but it’s all about the battle to save a pub in the mid 90s called The Scratching Post. Sound familiar?” and before Sandra could answer, “Didn’t think so. But you’d probably know it better as The Four Legs.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Neither Richard nor Sebastian get a mention – but if you go down the list of companies he owns or his company’s company owns, you get to Drysdale Ltd – now listed as the licensee for The Four Legs.”
“Why is this significant?”
“The area was being yuppified, and the new locals didn’t want to live next to a live band venue, whilst the former locals, the ones who rented there and then couldn’t afford to and got shuffled out, they all had a sentimental attachment to the joint and wanted it to stay.”
“But they lost.”
“Yeah, there weren’t enough of them left I guess. And no internet to make a noise. I’m not sure. But they lost, obviously, and the Scratching Post shut down.”
“I thought Four Legs was new?”
“That’s why this is significant. Because it is fairly new. Four Legs opened up two years ago. Before that, the place was boarded up.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But here’s the other thing – the former owner of The Scratching Post, who is quoted in this article here about how he was ‘forced to sell’, you’ll never guess what his name is.”
“Daniel Cameron?”
“Uh, no.”
“Oh. That would just be too easy.”
“It’s better than that. His name is Stephen Pohler.”
There was a dramatic pause that was absorbed by the library mumble, and became more of a dramatic uhh. Sandra sure felt it though.
“Holy. Shit. Family feud?”
“Pretty much. But that doesn’t explain why it remained shut for fifteen years.”
“We need to find Stephen.”
Liz handed her a piece of scrap paper.
“I’m 95% confident that that’s his current address.”
“Jesus, how the fuck did you find that?”
“I’ve been here for five hours Sandra. And all that took was a few rounds of google and the white pages. People ain’t that hard to find if the don’t don’t want to be found.”
“I think that makes sense.”
“Have you heard from Sebastian?”
“No he’s dead.” Sandra was surprised how flippant she was about the whole thing. She answered as she read the article, suddenly able to give it the attention she should.
“What do you mean? Dead?”
“Like, D-E-D. Dead. Beaten to a pulp actually. I found him in the apartment.”
“In the – what the fuck were you doing in there?” Liz found herself unable to focus on exactly what shocked her more – Sebastian’s death, Sandra being in the apartment, her finding the body or her being completely blasé about the whole thing.
“The door was open. Someone had ransacked it looking for something. Whatever it was it’s gone.”
“Fuck San. Fuck. Why aren’t you cut up about this? Seriously, this is a concern now.”
Sandra continued to read as she answered.
“Because I can’t be Liz, I can’t be. I nearly was, and it nearly broke me. Somebody has involved me in something awful and until it gets sorted out I don’t have time to be upset about people dying.”
“What if I died?”
Sandra didn’t pause.
“It’s a different scenario. I know you.”
“You knew Sebastian.”
“I’d met him, that’s all. There’s a difference. Look, I don’t have time to go into this.” She reached into Liz’s bag and pulled out Sebastian’s phone. “I found this in the mess of the apartment. It’s Sebastian’s phone. But the face is cracked, I can’t read any of it.”
Liz took the phone and looked it over.
“Back it up.” Sandra looked at her blankly. “Back the phone up. It should work. If we back it up on one computer, and then get a new one, same model, and then restore the backup onto that phone. Should be all there.”
“Liz. Liz that’s brilliant.”
“I know. So what’s the plan?”
“Ok, back to my place. Tomorrow I need to get my phone cancelled and make sure no one’s been using it since Monday. Then we go and visit Mr Stephen Pohler. Tonight we tidy up, eat pizza and back up the phone.”
“San, much as I don’t mind helping you tidy up, what about the police? Sebastian?”
“The police aren’t involved. Richard convinced them to drop the case for his first son. I’m pretty damn sure that they will have nothing to do with Sebastian. Besides, someone came and took the body away.”
“Did you see them?”
“I heard them. I was hiding in the fucking bath when one of them came in and pissed on the floor.”
“Jesus. What the fuck? Isn’t that a bit stupid though, what about DNA?”
“Liz, the police aren’t involved, I can promise you that. This has nothing to do with them. I need to find Richard, see if I can see him again. I want to know if, or what he knows about Sebastian, and how he reacts to that. But since everything about the Polher’s seems to be a dead end I don’t see any other way to go. Do you know how his parent’s died?”
“They just died. That’s all I know.”
“What about the two being half brothers? Anything about another mum?”
“Nothing. There is literally nothing about these people out there.”
“Well then”, Sandra said as she stood up, “I guess we’ll have to find out what nobody else seems to know.”
This seriously getting, I think I'm enjoying this as much as you are writing it.
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