Sims How Can I Help You

A Razor-sharp Suspense about Two Librarians Whose Lives Have Become Dangerously Intertwined
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-0-85730-876-4
Verlag: Verve Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

** 'A MARVELLOUSLY INTENSE, READ-IN-ONE-SITTING GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE AMONG THE BOOK STACKS' - GUARDIAN **

From the author of Looker comes this razor-sharp suspense about two librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined.

No one knows Margo's real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.

That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo's subtly sinister edge and watches her carefully. When a patron's death in the library bathroom offers a hint of Margo's mysterious past, Patricia can't resist digging deeper - even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.

Taut and compelling, How Can I Help You explores the dark side of human nature and the dangerous pull of artistic obsession.

PRAISE FOR HOW CAN I HELP YOU

'A dark and spellbinding descent into jolly madness' - MONA AWAD

'A gripping and dark psychological thriller... Delicious... I read it one sitting' - HARLAN COBEN

'A sly meditation on art and identity and the depths we'll go to protect our constructs. I couldn't have loved this book more' - PAUL TREMBLAY

'With transfixing dual female narrators and an artful, innovative structure, How Can I Help You is both a riveting commentary on false pretenses and an utterly beguiling cat and mouse thriller' - KIMBERLY McCREIGHT

'Openly indebted to Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith, this is a terrific two-hander... This makes for fine cat-and-mouse (or cat-and-cat?) suspense, but also an unsettling moral tale' - SUNDAY TIMES

'A fun and entertaining cat-and-mouse novel... a perfect book for when you just want to sit back, relax, and read about women behaving badly... you'll fly through the pages' - GLAMOUR

'A delicious mystery begging to be enjoyed beachside... Sure to satisfy just about any thriller craving' - ROLLING STONE

'Unnerving... reads like a homage to Shirley Jackson's work' - NEW YORK TIMES

'Sims plumbs the depths of obsession and madness... deftly building the tension until the explosive ending' - WASHINGTON POST

'Fresh and funny... A quick read that is reminiscent of Laura Lippman's Sunburn and Christine Mangan's Tangerine' - BOOKLIST

** A Publishers Weekly Book of the Week **
** A CrimeReads Book of the Month **
** A Town & Country Must-Read Book of the Summer **

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sims, Laura

Leseproben

MARGO

The moment I walked through the front door, I knew. That deep, abiding quiet, and the sense that the outside world couldn’t reach me here. I was like someone chased by demons across the threshold of a church, stepping into the library that first time. I could have turned around, right there at the door, and stuck my tongue out at the world.

Can’t catch me.

I didn’t do it, and besides, the world wasn’t watching. Couldn’t find me anyway, could it? I’d already changed my hair and makeup, my clothes, my voice, and even the way I walked. I’d changed my name, too. I’d been Jane but I was Margo now. I liked Margo. Jane would have turned and stuck her tongue out, but Margo never would. No, Margo simply stood in the vestibule, shoulders back and head held high like a queen.

I hadn’t spent much time in libraries before then. It was quiet as a nighttime ICU ward – maybe quieter, without all the noise that goes with slow dying: the whoosh of respirators, the mechanical beeps of infusion pumps. I stared up at the high, vaulted ceiling and around at the egg-white walls, then sat down at one of the public computers. I checked the want ads and saw one for circulation clerk right there at the Carlyle Public Library. I toiled over a cover letter and résumé for an hour or so, then handed them in at the desk. ‘I was so happy to see this job come up,’ I said to the stout, red-haired woman there. She seemed managerial, but I learned later that Liz was just a regular staff member. ‘I can’t imagine a more peaceful work environment,’ I went on, waving my arm around. She chuckled a bit, as if I’d said something funny. But from what I could tell, the library was just that: quiet, anonymous, orderly, and sane. From the grandness of the old building to the way the light slanted through the high windows that afternoon, I knew I’d landed in a cozy, carpeted, outdated vault, and I loved it on sight. The job was what I wanted, too: helping people. Not the way I’d helped them before, at the hospital, but still. I would be serving others. When I’d glanced around at the careworn souls sitting at the monitors that day, I’d known there would be plenty of work for me here, plenty of helping to do.

Liz and I struck up a conversation. I told her how long I’d been in town, how much I was enjoying the weekend farmers’ market – though I hadn’t even been – and the birdsong outside my window every morning. She seemed like the bird-watching type. I told her I’d seen cardinals, wrens, and woodpeckers, though the only birds I’d really seen were the pigeons in the parking lot of my Soviet-era apartment complex, pecking at the ground. I told her a tale about moving from Indianapolis, where all I could hear was the roaring river of cars. I told her I’d hated it, hated the overrated canal walk and the seedy downtown, and had moved for a much-needed change. Liz and I were laughing like old friends before long, and she said she’d put in a good word for me.

And now here I am, two years later, checking out patrons’ books, DVDs, and audiobooks, answering their questions about overdue fees with patient grace, policing the computers where I myself sat that first day, making sure the guy in the baseball hat who comes in on Fridays doesn’t watch porn while he’s pretending to job-search. I understand now why Liz chuckled that first day; the library is peaceful, on the whole, but disturbances happen. Patrons shout into their cell phones, throw tantrums over lost books, or hide, half-naked, in hidden corners of the stacks. I’m never bored here – the way I thought I might be when I first arrived.

I sneak up behind Friday Guy, as we’ve come to call him, and lean right over his shoulder so my breath is hot on his neck. ‘Hey,’ I say. He jumps and fumbles, tries to click screens to cover up the giant tits I just saw bouncing before my eyes. Then he looks up, red-faced. Sweating, even in the cold of the main room. ‘You know the rules,’ I say, drawing up to my full height. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I feel a deep tickle when he calls me ma’am and obeys me like a scolded dog. ‘I’m watching you,’ I tell him. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He blinks up at me with his sad gray eyes. After a long pause, I walk away.

Liz and the younger clerk, Nasrin, watch me return to the desk, triumphant. ‘You’re amazing,’ Nasrin says, shaking her head in wonder. I just shrug. ‘You should have seen the double-Ds he was ogling today,’ I say, lifting my eyebrows. Nasrin covers her mouth as we all stand there, the two of them giggling like children. I don’t even bother being discreet – I’m laughing my deep laugh when Friday Guy slinks past the desk, still red-faced, carrying plastic bags full of loose papers as usual. Every time I think: He won’t come back. He’ll find some other unsuspecting branch, one without a Margo. But every Friday, he’s there, eyeing those tits, waiting for me to catch him. I guess he likes the game of it.

I like the game of it, too. My nipples, tucked inside my padded bra, get hard every time we perform our little ritual. It isn’t like my hospital days, but it’s better than nothing.

I had to earn this swagger, though. I didn’t start out swishing through the aisles, expertly managing Friday Guy and others. When I first started, I was clueless, fumbling, and forgetful. I made rushed notes on a legal pad, things like:

•DO NOT renew patrons’ computer time more than once, for more than an hour

•Password for scanner is: SCANTHIS

•Checkout forms for hotspots and tablets in drawer to my right

•Must take elderly/infirm patients patrons downstairs in elevator with smallest key on ring

•Call the non-emergency police number for someone acting out but not dangerous

•Call 911 for someone dangerous to himself or others

The last two items tickled me, but I’d held my face still as Yvonne, our director, explained what could differentiate one situation from another: realistic threats of violence, a weapon suggested or in sight, crazed appearance or language. She used the male pronoun for every scenario she described, so I wrote it down: he, he. And she was right, for the most part; the only times I’ve punched the numbers 911 into the phone, it’s been for men. Men can never keep their violence to themselves.

But incidents like those were and are rare, though even ordinary scenarios flustered me back then. When someone approached the desk without books in hand, it meant they had a question, one I wasn’t sure I could answer. I tried to draw on my nursing expertise, but a nurse isn’t much good in a library. And I wasn’t supposed to be a nurse, of course; I was supposed to be an ‘experienced library assistant,’ like my résumé said. So I bluffed my way through as best as I could, and if Liz, Nasrin, or Yvonne caught me in a slip, I’d just say that my last library had different systems for everything. They accepted my ignorance – welcomed it, even. They were endlessly forgiving and kind. Quick to swoop in and rescue me from disgruntled patrons, though most of the patrons were patient with me, too, telling me I had a beautiful smile or an infectious laugh even when I was failing to help them. They used my name when they learned it, and that made me feel seen. Well, ‘seen’ in the safest way possible; they saw me as Margo, or Ms Finch – not as Jane, of course. Some days I felt the way I had in my earliest nursing days – when my uniform was a crisp, bright blue and I’d swell with pride at the slightest praise. For those first few weeks at the library, I let myself be as ignorant and swaddled as an infant; it felt like floating in a nice, hot bath.

I’ve always believed in the restorative properties of baths – for my patients and myself. I’ve bathed many a human body in distress and seen the wonders that steam and hot water can work. Even when the file said ‘sponge bath only’ I would defy it and fully bathe the poor soul. They needed it, didn’t they? And I was strong enough to handle their bodies on my own. It was a bit of a struggle, but we all need to be immersed in water, cleansed and petted by human hands. A sponge bath just doesn’t cut it. Though I would limit myself to sponge baths if I were under close observation, as I often was in the final days at one hospital after another. I would start off cheerful, energetic, everyone’s favorite new colleague. Eventually, though, they’d start to look at me too long. Whisper when I left the room. They would ask me things like, What were you doing in Mr Hammerson’s room? Why have you checked this and that out from the medicine supply? Why haven’t you noted here and there what you’ve done in the file?

They also interfered with my patients’ baths – but they couldn’t interfere with my own. Back at home, I’d close my eyes in the tub and sweat out the rancor and suspicion they piled on me, from one place to the next. Sacred Heart. Green Grove. Union Community. Highland Medical. Spring Hill. Each one started as a paradise – like the names suggest – but ended in quiet fury and disgrace.

My fury; their disgrace, I remind myself.

But Margo tries not to linger in the past. It does her no good. She was wronged; she moved on. Movement is key, I’ve found. To always be moving, wherever I am – even in circles...