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Dream, Sailing to Babylon. There’s
been a big revival since he croaked. And Snuff Fiction is the last one
he wrote before he blew his brains out. It’s never been published before. It’ll
probably go straight into the bestseller list. You’ll be able to buy it at a
discount.’
    ‘I don’t
get this,’ I said. When I asked at the bookshops a while back, they couldn’t
trace any of his books.’
    ‘That’s
because they were all private editions, printed in the States. His books were
never published in this country. People used to say they’d read him in order
to seem hip and well informed.’
    ‘Hm!’ I
said, giving my chin a scratch.
    ‘But
that’s what you blokes from the Sixties were all about, wasn’t it?’ said Paul. ‘Always
saying you’d done the Hippy Trail and been to Woodstock and watched the Stones
in the Park and gone to college with Freddie Mercury and taken every drug there
was to take and all the rest of it. A bunch of bull-shitters, the lot of you.
Did you ever read any Johnny Quinn novels, then?’
    ‘Not
me,’ I said, and paid for whatever it was I’d just bought, and sat down in a
corner and drank it.
     
    And what Paul said made a
lot of sense, really. I’d obviously heard of Johnny Quinn, but I’d never
actually read him. But I must have told people that I’d read him in order to
seem hip and well informed. And as the years had gone by, I’d come to believe
that I’d really read him. That had to be it. And it was probably it with all
the other people who’d told me they’d read Johnny Quinn. They were all just a
bunch of Sixties bull-shitters, like me. A lot of tail-story-tellers.
    Tall-story-tellers!
    That
made me think. That made me think about my dad. I swallowed hard upon my ale.
What if my dad hadn’t considered himself a tall-story-teller at all? What if he’d
actually believed all those tales he’d told to the vicar? Thought he’d really
done all those things? It was all too much to think about. I finished up
whatever it was I was drinking and went home.
     
    I went back to the Jolly
Gardeners the following Tuesday evening. I wanted Paul to lend me that copy of Snuff
Fiction. All right, it would be out in the shops the next day. But I wanted his copy. Because I wanted to be able to say to people, ‘Snuff
Fiction? Oh yes, I read that before it came out.’
    But
Paul wasn’t there.
    Andy
was behind the pump.
    Where’s
Paul?’ I asked Andy.
    ‘Not
turned in,’ Andy said. ‘I’ve telephoned, but there’s no answer. I can’t think
what’s happened. This isn’t like Paul at all.’
    ‘Damn!’
I said. ‘Do you have Paul’s address?’
    ‘No,’
said Andy. ‘Do you?’
    Wednesday
morning found me back at Water-stone’s, and there behind the counter was the
chap I’d spoken to before.
    ‘Remember
me?’ I asked him.
    ‘No,’
he said.
    ‘Come
on now, you do, you know.’
    ‘I don’t,
you know.’
    ‘Well,
never mind. I’ve come to buy a book.’
    He
looked at me. Questioningly.
    ‘It’s a
Johnny Quinn book,’ I said. ‘The new Johnny Quinn book. And it comes out
today. Although I don’t see it anywhere on your shelves.’
    ‘That’s
because there’s no such book,’ he said. ‘Oh yes there is. I’ve seen a copy. It’s
called Snuff Fi—’
    But I
didn’t get the second word out, because he lunged at me and clamped his hand
across my face. And then he shinned over the counter, forced my arm up my back
and sort of frog-marched me away to the store room.
    What
the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ I shouted, once I’d got myself free.
    ‘Keep
your voice down,’ he said, in a menacing tone. ‘Who sent you, anyway?’
    ‘Nobody
sent me. What are you talking about?’
    ‘How do
you know about that book?’
    ‘Because
I’ve seen a copy.
    ‘Nonsense.
You wouldn’t be here if you had.’
    What?’
    ‘Just
go away,’ he told me. ‘Forget all about it.’
    ‘I
certainly won’t. I’m not leaving here without a copy of Snuff