A Vampire at the Sunday Car Boot

How it begins

The mirror was priced at three pounds because it did not work.

Celia turned it toward the sky. It reflected clouds, a passing gull, and the man selling it. Or rather, it reflected his coat around a neatly empty space.

“Silver's worn,” he said.

“Not where it should be.”

Rain began tapping on the car-boot sale's collection of unwanted lamps. The seller pulled his collar up. He had arranged his possessions on a red blanket: the mirror, two books, and a spoon engraved with initials.

“Two pounds?” Celia asked.

“Three.”

“You've said it doesn't work.”

“I said why it was cheap.”

She paid him three.

Back at her shop, she placed the mirror beneath a lamp. Around its edge, tiny flowers had been chased into the silver. One petal moved when she pressed it. A narrow compartment opened in the handle.

Inside was a letter, folded so often it had become soft as cloth.

The bell above the shop door rang.

The seller stood beneath it holding the spoon.

“I have made an error.”

Celia left the letter folded.

“With the price?”

“With what I thought I could part with.”

The shop's rent reminder lay beside her till. She could already imagine the specialist auction listing: unusual silver, concealed correspondence, excellent provenance if the owner could explain why his photograph appeared in an 1896 newspaper.

“Viktor Saye,” he said, as if offering the first item on an inventory.

“Celia Marsh.”

“I'd like to buy it back.”

“You haven't asked how much.”

“I don't have much.”

She looked at the spoon in his hand. Its initials matched the letter's.

Outside, the rain thickened. Celia turned the shop sign to CLOSED and put the kettle on.

“Then tell me why you sold everything else first.”

He remained in the doorway for a moment before stepping carefully inside.