Making a Good Recovery
The offender’s name was Robert MacMillan, and he lived on the far side of town. His file listed 15 books outstanding, mostly about ways to make money. Also included were two snapshots of paintings; they hurt my eyes, but what do I know about modern art? In all, the loaned items totalled well over £700, and that didn’t include the fines. The Library certainly hadn’t made any money out of MacMillan.
Anything the Library lends can go missing—not just books, but CDs, tapes, even paintings… You’ll always get some people who think ‘borrow’ means ‘keep’. I track down the persistent offenders, recover the Library’s property, and collect the outstanding fines. They call me a ‘Book Recovery Officer’.
It was raining hard and already dark when I left the Library and ran to my car. I put the file on the passenger seat, and set off for MacMillan’s last known address. The road I wanted was near the University. I pulled in to the kerb.
Between 6 o’clock and 7 at night is the best time to catch offenders. But there are always exceptions, and it looked like this might be one of them. There was no ‘Flat 12′, and no ‘MacMillan’ on the scraps of paper pasted beside each doorbell.
I rang what I hoped was the ground floor flat—the building looked unlikely to have a lift. Seconds later, the front door clicked open. I went in.
A young woman was standing in the hallway. “Yes?” From the doorway behind her came light, warmth, and an appetising smell of spaghetti bolognaise.
“I’m looking for Robert MacMillan.”
She frowned. “Never heard of him.”
“Three years ago, he gave this address.”
“Sorry. No one called MacMillan here now.”
I handed her the photographs of the paintings. She glanced at the coloured squiggles. Then her expression changed, and my hopes began to rise.
“You recognise them?”
She nodded slowly. “I remember noticing these on his wall once. I wondered how he could afford them. But his name wasn’t Robert. It was Justin…no, Julian. Julian Wilkinson. He used to live in the top flat.”
I sighed. A false name too? “Used to live?”
“He moved out over a year ago.”
“Any idea where he went?”
She shook her head. “Maybe he gave the current occupant a forwarding address.”
I thanked her and began the long trek up the stairs.
The Regency style building was much more upmarket than Wilkinson’s previous address; his moneymaking schemes must be paying off. And this time my luck was in—embossed on a red plastic label beside the button for Flat 2 was the name ‘Wilkinson’. I pressed his bell.
“Yes?” came a man’s wary voice from the intercom grill.
“Julian Wilkinson?”
“Who wants to know?” He had an Oxbridge accent.
“I’m from the Library. You have some items we’d like returned.”
“Get lost.” The intercom went dead.
I shrugged and pressed his button several more times. He ended up telling me what I could do with myself; it sounded physically impossible, but I like a challenge.
Plan B, then. I roused one of Wilkinson’s neighbours, a lonely old biddy wanting a chat. She invited me in for a cup of tea. Over the next half-hour, I learned a lot about the old dear, but little about Wilkinson. Except for one thing: he was studying at the local University.
Why are Universities called ‘red-brick’? Ours is actually grey and beige—breeze blocks and concrete.
A woman in Administration grudgingly admitted that a Julian Wilkinson was studying Economics there. His tutor was a Dr Vaughan. She gave me a map and marked on it a large red arrow. “You can’t miss Dr Vaughan’s office,” she said. Even so, I got lost twice in the maze of corridors and lecture theatres.
I knocked on Vaughan’s door and went in. The bearded man behind the desk hastily put down a paperback, but not before I’d noticed the dragon on its cover. His brows drew together. “The tutorial isn’t for another hour.”
“I’m not a student, Dr Vaughan. My name’s Liz Charles. Call me Liz.” I slid my ID across his desk, and he gazed at the card carefully before sliding it back.
“I’m trying to retrieve some property from one of your students—a Julian Wilkinson.”
Vaughan gestured to one of the six easy chairs that lined his office. It was lower than expected and I lurched the last few inches, spilling the contents of my file onto the floor. He suppressed a grin. He had a nice smile, it took off the ten years the beard had added to his appearance.
“Sorry,” he said. “Standard issue furniture.”
Mollified, I picked up my papers. “Wilkinson has borrowed 15 books and two oil paintings, and failed to return them to the Library. Some have been overdue for nearly 2 years.”
He raised one eyebrow. “I’m sure if you just explain the situation to him, Ms Charles, er…Liz. He’s probably forgotten.” Academics often have a touching faith in human nature.
“I did, and he told me what to do with myself.”
The grey eyes became sombre. “A student’s behaviour reflects on the University. If Julian has really borrowed—”
“Stolen, more like,” I interrupted.
“—the Library’s property, it’s a very serious matter.”
“So?”
“I could threaten to suspend him from his degree course until he returns the items. Will that do?”
I nodded. It would do very nicely indeed.
When I tried to stand up, the chair was reluctant to let go of me. Vaughan laughed and moved round his desk to help. His touch sent a tingle up my arm.
“I’ve never met a Book Recovery Officer before,” he said.
“You ought to get out more.”
He gave me startled look.
Blown it already, I thought. Damn! I closed the door behind me on my way out.
It was a week later, and my boss had left me a note: ‘Wilkinson returned all property and paid outstanding fines. Case closed.’
It wouldn’t have hurt him to congratulate me on a job well done, I thought sourly. But then, why break the habit of a lifetime? For some reason I thought of the smiling Dr Vaughan. Perhaps this would be a good excuse to call him…
He picked up the phone on the first ring. “I was just thinking about you,” he said. I couldn’t decipher his tone.
“Really?”
“You know you said I ought to get out more?”
I wanted to curl up and die. “I’m sorry if I was rude, Dr Vaughan—”
“Please call me Owen,” he said. “Are you free for a drink later?”
Eventually I managed, “I’d like that very much, Owen,” and we made arrangements to meet.
As I set off on my latest case, even the torrential rain couldn’t dampen my spirits. They say crime doesn’t pay, but sometimes it works out nicely for Book Recovery Officers.