The Mobile Library

Mr Dixon Disappears
Ian Sansom

For Sean

2005–2006

R.I.P.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

The Mobile Library

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Ian Sansom

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

He was sick of the excuses and the lies. He was tired of the evasions and the untruths, of people refusing to stand up and speak the truth and take responsibility for their own actions. It seemed to him like yet another symptom of the decline of Western civilisation; of chaos; and climate change; and environmental disaster; and war; disease; famine; oppression; the eternal slow slide down and down and down. It was entropy, nemesis, apotheosis, imminent apocalypse and sheer bad manners all rolled into one.

People were not returning their library books on time.

‘I’m sorry, I forgot,’ people would say.

And, ‘I’ve been in hospital.’

Or, ‘I liked it so much I lent it to my sister.’ (Or my brother, or my mother, or my father, or my cousin, or my friend, who lives up country, or in Derry, or over there in England, actually, and isn’t that where you’re from?)

Or, ‘Sure, I brought it back already.’

Or, ‘No. I don’t think so. I never had that one out.’

Or, ‘I put it back on the shelves myself. Some other one must have it out now.’

Or, ‘Someone stole it.’

Or, ‘I left it on the bus.’ Or in the bath, or on holiday, or in the car and it’s in for servicing.

And, even, once, ‘It was a bad book, full of bad language and bad people doing bad things, so I threw it away.’ (Well, what the hell did Mrs Onions expect, borrowing Last Exit to Brooklyn? Israel had asked her, after he’d got her to pay the replacement cost of the book, and a fine, and had steered her safely back towards her usual large-print romantic fiction, and it turned out she had a cousin who’d emigrated to New York back in the sixties and she’d never visited and she was toying with the idea of a trip over for her seventieth birthday and she’d wanted to find out what it was like over there, and frankly, there was no chance of her visiting now after reading that filth, they were going to go to Donegal for a few days instead, to see her sister, down in Gweedore, which was quite far enough, and did Israel know if Frank McCourt had written any others?)

But mostly when they were challenged about their overdue or unreturned books, the good people of Tumdrum would just narrow their eyes and look at you with a blank expression and purse their lips and say, ‘Book? What book?’

It wasn’t funny. It was cracking him up.

He patted his face with cold water and stared at himself, freshly shaved, in the mirror hung on a nail above the makeshift sink.

He squinted at himself.

In his teens and even into his early twenties Israel had spent a lot of time looking into mirrors, trying to work out whether he was good-looking or not, which was quite a project, a hobby almost; he could have spent hours at it. Was his nose perhaps a little too large, his eyes a little too narrow, his lips too full, his ears not quite right? Pressing, important and immense as those questions had once appeared to be, they no longer seemed to bother him, he didn’t know why – he supposed that maybe there comes a time in every man’s life when he makes up his mind and decides one way or another about the cut of his own jib and has to learn to live with it, and maybe he’d reached that point, or maybe Tumdrum had just cured him of himself. Either way, it didn’t seem to bother him any more, the question of whether he was good-looking or not. What bothered him now was: am I there at all? Or, where am I? He often found himself glancing at himself in the wing-mirror of the van, trying to catch himself out, trying to locate himself, checking for signs of life.

He tried to think who it was he reminded himself of: his father? No. Not his father. Israel was too wide and too plush, too messy: the glasses; the nose; the unruly hair. His dad had always been well turned-out; he was more sports-casual, his dad. Israel reminded himself more of the father of one of his best friends from school, a man who was an art lecturer at a sixth-form college, a tense, fragile, bitter man who wore cords during the week and who had books in the house and who sometimes listened to jazz and blues, and who drank wine to excess, and because Israel’s own dad was just a boring old accountant and a moderate man and pretty much happy with his lot in life and with his pastel pullovers and his slacks, it was this stubbly, corduroy-wearing, French-film-watching saddo who had come to represent what Israel thought of as the fully-formed adult male: a copy of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and empty wine bottles and the smell of freshly ground coffee; his friend’s dad had made north London seem like the Left Bank, which was where Israel had always assumed he would end up himself, sitting at a café table eating croissants and writing meditative works of philosophy.

But instead he was here, in Tumdrum, in his lodgings, in the converted chicken coop on the Devines’ farm, and he looked down at the ground, down past his big white buttery belly and his cords – an old pair of Mr Devine’s, phosphorescent cords, cords with a nap and shine like the glint of green on mouldy ham – and there were empty wine bottles stacked everywhere in the room, under the bed and on the dresser – Tumdrum not having yet caught up with recycling – and he had to admit, as he was getting older he was becoming partial to a bit of Miles Davis himself, and he liked his coffee in the mornings just so, if he could have got hold of fresh coffee in the mornings. He wasn’t even thirty and he’d become his best friend’s dad.

He prodded his little round glasses up onto his forehead and rubbed his chin: it felt horrible, like touching a slightly damp shrink-wrapped skinless chicken breast from Marks and Spencer; not that he had touched a shrink-wrapped skinless chicken breast from Marks and Spencer for a long time, what with being a vegetarian and also being stuck in the middle of the middle of nowhere in the north of the north of Northern Ireland and having to drive around in a mobile library which by rights should have been scrapped and made into a novelty public sculpture years ago.

So, god.

He was still here, Israel Armstrong, BA (Hons), and just about the only thing that was keeping him sane was lovely Rosie, Rosie Hart from the First and Last, who’d been helping him out on the mobile in an unofficial capacity. It was a casual sort of arrangement, but it seemed to work. On the days when Ted was busy with his taxi firm (‘Ted’s Cabs: If You Want To Get There, Call the Bear’), Rosie would come in and give Israel a hand, and help him get loaded up, and sort out the tickets and clear out the van, and help him find the service points and issue the books, and she was in many ways the ideal helpmeet and librarian: she was young and presentable, and she didn’t eat garlic, or shake, or suffer from dyspepsia, or rage, or otherwise exhibit any eccentric or anti-social behaviours, and her bartending experience meant that she was fair but firm and she had an instinctive way with people, while Israel, on the other hand, could sometimes come across as a little…brusque. He knew it himself. He wasn’t proud of it.

If someone came in to the mobile, for instance, a borrower – or a ‘customer’ as Linda Wei, Deputy Head of Entertainment, Leisure and Community Services at Tumdrum and District Council insisted on calling them – and they asked for a book, Israel would always start out with good intentions. He’d say, ‘Hello! Welcome!’ and try to be as cheery as a mobile librarian might reasonably be expected to be, and he might even ask the person if they knew the title of the book they were after, but invariably the person – let’s call them Mrs Onions, for the sake of example – would say ‘No,’ and Israel might manage to remain patient for a moment or two and he might say, ‘OK, fine, do you know the name of the author?’ but then of course the person – let’s say still they’re Mrs Onions – would say, ‘Och, no,’ and Israel would start to struggle a little bit then and the person, Mrs Onions would usually add, ‘But you’d know it when you saw it, because it’s got a blue sort of a cover, and my cousin had it out last year I think it was, and it’s about this big…’, at which point Israel would lose interest completely, would be incapable of offering anything but his ill-disguised north London university-educated liberal scorn for someone who didn’t know what they wanted and didn’t know how to get it. But Rosie, Rosie would take it all in her stride and she’d try to find every blue-coloured book in the van and if they didn’t have it in, sure they could get a few blue-coloured books on inter-library loan, it was no problem at all. Israel just couldn’t be bothered with all that; Israel liked the idea of public service, but he struggled with being an actual public servant.

Rosie, though, she was a saviour. She was really something special, Rosie. Israel liked Rosie a lot; he couldn’t deny it. She reminded him of someone. She reminded him of his girlfriend, in fact, Gloria, back home in England.

There were of course things about Rosie that Israel didn’t like; you couldn’t spend much time with someone on a mobile library and not get annoyed and irritated by their little tics and habits. The mobile library after all was really no more than a giant rabbit hutch, or a book-lined prison cell, a place of strictly limited human dimensions; you couldn’t wave your hands around too much in the mobile without knocking something over. In the mobile library you lived life, but in miniature, and you minded any hot liquids.

Israel didn’t like the way Rosie ate chocolate, for one thing: the way she’d just pop a piece of chocolate in her mouth, and cheap chocolate too, and munch on it like a chipmunk, unapologetic, and so fast. Back home in London Gloria never really ate chocolate—’ A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips,’ she’d say patting her little wasp-like waist – and if she ever did eat chocolate, she only ever ate Green and Black’s, a tiny little square. Rosie also had the habit of applying her make-up in the library, even when there were borrowers in, as if she were in the privacy of her own home; Gloria would never have done anything like that. Israel had lived with Gloria for – what? – four years before coming here and he had never seen her apply her make-up in public. He wondered, now, thinking about it, if she had some kind of magic make-up that never needed reapplying. Or maybe he just wasn’t paying attention.

Rosie also smoked and chewed her fingernails, and these were bad habits by any standards, but Israel didn’t mind; his were only mild dislikes, after all, in the grand scheme of things, and they were consistently outweighed by the many things he did like about Rosie. He liked the fact that she had a slightly bloodshot right eye, for example, which she claimed was from having suppressed a sneeze and burst a blood-vessel, and which made her look…interesting. He liked the fact that she never finished a novel, that she would jump around from book to book, and would fold down the corners and cram the books into her shoulder-bag, wrinkling and wrecking the covers – Memoirs of a Geisha covered in lipstick and crushed to a pulp – because he would never have done anything like that himself; he’d always been a completionist; he had to finish a book once he’d started it; it seemed like bad manners not to, like not finishing the food on your plate.

Rosie was a breath of fresh air.

‘Why do people read all this rubbish?’ he’d complain when they were issuing books.

‘Relax, Is,’ she would say. She always called him Is – and he liked that too. ‘Who cares?’

‘Do people not want to improve themselves though?’ he’d say.

‘Not necessarily. People don’t just read books to improve themselves.’

‘Well, they should do. They should be reading Emerson or Thoreau or something.’

‘Why?’ she’d say. ‘What did they write?’

‘Books!’ he’d say. ‘Important books!’

‘And are they dead?’

‘Yes, of course!’

‘Well, there you are then. No one wants to read books by dead people.’

‘What?’

‘It’s depressing.’

‘It’s not depressing. It’s…that’s…Two thousand years of human civilisation.’

‘Live and let live,’ Rosie would say. ‘You can read Everton and Throw if you want.’

‘Emerson and Thoreau.’

‘Yeah. Right. Tea?’ she’d say.

And, ‘OK, yeah,’ he’d say, defeated, and that would be that.

He liked the way Rosie drank her tea and coffee. He liked her broad swimmer’s shoulders, and her hippyish kind of dresses. He liked the way she tucked her thick dark hair behind her ears, and the way sometimes when he arrived for her in the van she still had the towel around her head where she’d washed her hair, and she’d come anyway, drying her hair as they went. He liked the way they’d be sitting in the van and waiting for a borrower, and they’d just talk and time would pass. And he liked…Well, he liked her a lot.

Not that there was anything between them. There was absolutely nothing between Israel and Rosie. It was important to make that clear. Rosie had an ex, the father of her son, Conor, and Israel had Gloria – who was coming over to stay next weekend, coming all the way over, finally, finding time in her busy schedule.

Israel and Rosie were just good friends.

He glanced at his watch, pulled on a T-shirt and his old tank-top, which he noticed was becoming a little ruched around the waist – it needed a wash – and as he shrugged on his duffle coat and did up his old brown brogues he had to admit maybe it wasn’t such a bad life.

He was paid to drive around beautiful, rural, coastal Irish countryside, with a van full of books and pleasant female company. Maybe life as an English, Jewish vegetarian, corduroy-wearing mobile librarian on the north coast of the north of Northern Ireland wasn’t so bad after all.

Look at yourself, Armstrong, he told himself, with a last glance in the mirror: you have nothing to complain about. Really, you don’t.

And he didn’t.

Until, that is, the disappearance of Mr Dixon from the Department Store at the End of the World.

2

It started with an argument. It was too early for an argument, far, far too early.

‘What d’ye think yer doin’?’

‘Sorry?’ It caught Israel off-guard.

‘Ye deaf, or what?’

‘No,’ said Israel. ‘No. I am not deaf.’

‘Well then.’

‘Sorry?’

Israel had the window wound down, and was staring the man full in the face, and the man did not look happy. Indeed, Israel guessed the man might never look happy; he had a profoundly unhappy kind of a look about him: it was the shaven head and the pierced eyebrow and the nicotine lips and the cigarette tucked behind his ear, and the Manchester United football shirt pulled tight over a hard-looking, family-haggis-sized pot-belly, and the dark, cynical look in his eyes. He looked like a man who woke up angry and went to bed incandescent.

‘Look, you’ve totally lost me I’m afraid,’ said Israel.

‘What. Do. You. Think. You. Are. Doing?’

‘I’m parking, which is not that easy, actually, without power steering and—’

‘Aye, all right, well, you can’t park there.’

Israel had pulled up the mobile library next to a large silver Mercedes.

‘Sorry, I—’

‘Ye blind?’

‘No. I am not blind. And I am not deaf, I—’

‘Can ye not raid then?’

‘Sorry. I didn’t catch that. Can I…’

‘Can ye raid?’

‘Raid?’

‘Aye, raid.’

‘Read?’

‘Aye.’

‘Read? Ah, read. Yes. Thank you. I can read, actually. In fact, as you’ll see, I’m driving the—’

‘Aye, right. So you’ll see that’s a reserved space. See, says here “RESERVED”.’

‘I just thought—’

‘Aye, well, you thought wrong.’

‘Couldn’t I just park here until—’

‘No.’

‘But—’

‘These spaces are reserved.’

‘Yes, but it’s only—’

‘I just said no. What’s the matter with ye? D’ye think I’m joking?’

The man had little flecks of spit – the real thing, real threat-phlegm, the stuff of demented dogs and monkeys – around his mouth, Israel noticed.

‘No. No. I don’t, actually. I don’t think you’re—’

‘Aye, right. Well. Move yerself on in this piece of crap.’ He pronounced crap as though with a double k.

‘But—’

‘Move. Her. On.’

‘OK. Fine. Sorry. Look.’ Israel stuck his hand out of the window in a rather feeble, placatory, let’s-shake-hands-and-make-up kind of a gesture. ‘I feel we’ve maybe got off on the wrong foot here. I’m Israel Armstrong.’

The man ignored his hand. ‘I know who you are. You were meant to be here half an hour ago.’

‘Ah, yes, few problems with the mobile on the way over. You must be the caretaker—’

‘Round the back.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Round. The. Back. You. Can. Parkee. Upee. Round. The. Back. Do. You. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Aye, right. Good. I’ll go open her up for you.’

Oh, God.

Israel was getting a headache. He didn’t always have a headache these days – just every other day. Because, honestly, he was getting used to life around Tumdrum, he really was. Like a prisoner eventually becomes accustomed to his captors, and adults as they get older eventually have to learn to live with some slight stiffness and joint pain in the morning and a sense of perhaps having lost their way a little on the road towards manifest destiny.

‘Move!’

‘Yes. Just going,’ said Israel, grinding the gears.

And he was certainly getting used to the colourful locals and their charming and eccentric ways.

He hadn’t had any breakfast, that was Israel’s problem, a cup of tea before he left the Devines’ farm, which was hardly enough to sustain a growing young man like himself. Israel had lost a little weight since arriving in Tumdrum, due to the lack of readily available non-meat protein, but he still clocked in at a solid 36-inch waist and 16 stone, not hideously fat by any means, but big enough for people to refer to him as ‘big lad’ and to mean it. He’d worked up a sweat already this morning and could have done with a nice fried egg soda or maybe a big bowl of porridge with the cream off the milk. Or some Tayto cheese and onion crisps. Or maybe a nice croissant. No, don’t get him started on croissants, or pains au chocolat, or muffins: Israel fantasised about breakfast pastries. Fresh breakfast pastries were not readily available in and around Tumdrum, although the baker’s, the Trusty Crusty, did do a nice cinnamon scone; scones were about the closest thing Tumdrum had to fresh patisserie items.

He’d been working hard, up until midnight and up again since six, getting the van loaded. Today was the big day. Easter Saturday. Today was the first day of Israel’s first ever mobile library touring exhibition, his debut as keeper and curator of Tumdrum’s heritage and history. Today was the day when Israel got to unveil Tumdrum and District’s mobile-library-sponsored five-panel display showing the history of the famous Dixon and Pickering’s department store, which was celebrating one hundred years of serving Tumdrum and District, and indeed the whole of the north coast of the north of Ireland and beyond, keeping the local farmers and their wives supplied with polyester-cotton sheets, Royal Doulton figurines, and Early Bird Light Suppers in the Cosy Nook, the award-winning cafeteria on the first floor, where on a clear day it was possible to see Scotland while you ate your jumbo gammon panini (served with chips and a light salad garnish).

It might not seem like it to you or me, and it certainly wouldn’t have seemed like it to Israel six months ago, but today was the real deal, a genuine event, a happening around Tumdrum. Dixon and Pickering’s was about as famous locally as the Giant’s Causeway a little further up round the coast: it was the Harrods, the Selfridges, the Fortnum and Mason, the Macy’s, the Tiffany’s, the Woolworths and the Wal-Mart of North Antrim all under one roof, and it had survived and thrived where other family-owned department stores had failed; it had made it to one hundred. And now it was none other than Israel Armstrong, mobile librarian, who had been tasked and commissioned to help the store to commemorate the occasion in style.

Israel couldn’t deny it: he was honoured. And he also couldn’t deny it: he was maybe going soft in the head.

He drove round the side of the building to the back.

It was undoubtedly a lovely spot, right by the sea. Actually, it wasn’t by the sea, that didn’t do it justice: you couldn’t really say that Dixon and Pickering’s was by the sea; Dixon and Pickering’s was on the sea.

Dixon and Pickering’s official motto – which was printed boldly on all the shop’s plastic carrier bags, just below the company crest, an image of a lamb lying down with a lion in a bucolic scene also featuring fauns and nymphs frolicking beneath mountains by the sea – was ‘The Customer Is Always Right’, which was wrong, actually, in Israel’s experience round about Tumdrum and in Northern Ireland generally. In his experience around here the customer was almost always wrong, unless you wanted to make a big deal about it, in which case the motto should really be amended to ‘The Customer Is Always Right…Eventually’, or ‘…After Threat of Legal Action’.

Dixon and Pickering’s was known locally as the Department Store at the End of the World, which was an accurate description, in several senses: you could have picked up Dixon and Pickering’s and plonked it down off a dirt-track near an old gold-prospecting town in the middle of Alaska or in some as-yet-undeveloped remote province in China, and people wouldn’t have blinked an eye; put moose or fried rice on the menu in the Cosy Nook and it would have fitted in just fine; because for all its airs and graces Dixon and Pickering’s remained an outback kind of shopping experience.

Built in 1906, Dixon and Pickering’s still stocked items that other department stores had stopped selling quite some time back, around about the Second World War in fact – his and hers thermal underwear, and two-colour sock wool, and a full range of hearth-sets, and extending toast forks, and wind-up repeater alarm clocks, and paraffin lamps – and it looked as though, with a slight push, you might be able to topple this whole teetering mound of old stucco and kitsch and knick-knacks and watch it disappear under the Irish Sea’s big white waves. On a rough day the salt spray came right up over the stone walls of the car park and lashed at the store’s stone steps and the new disabled access ramp. People said that if you were to shop in Dixon and Pickering’s just once a week and parked down at the sea wall then your car would be gone in a year, eaten alive by salt and rust, like the proverbial cow in a bottle of Coke.

The building itself was three storeys high, wide and spreading, and painted a lurid carnation pink, with palm trees planted all round it: it reminded Israel of a giant plate of salmon blini with chives, and it certainly looked as though it belonged somewhere else, in Miami maybe, or on a fully loaded side table at a north London bar mitzvah party, and definitely not on the lonely north coast of Ireland.

There was absolutely no doubt about it: Dixon and Pickering’s was unique. Dixon and Pickering’s was undoubtedly – as one of the titles on the helpful A3-size laminated sheets of Israel’s five-panel touring exhibition pointed out – A Landmark and A Legend.

Israel parked up.

It was raining, of course. It was always raining in Tumdrum. Even if it wasn’t raining, not at that actual moment, then it was getting ready to rain, biding its time, waiting until you’d left the house without your coat and umbrella and you were more than halfway to wherever it was you were going so it was too late to turn back, and then whoosh!, suddenly you were wet right through.

It rained here all the time, but still it somehow caught you unawares, creeping up on you. If it was possible for weather to be duplicitous and undermining, then Tumdrum’s weather was: it was bad weather, morally bad weather; it was rain that left no visible trace, no puddles, only a deep-down damp, a remorseless damp that at first you couldn’t get out of your clothes and then you couldn’t scrub out of your skin and then you couldn’t dig out of your soul; the kind of damp that if you could have smoked it, you wouldn’t have known but already you’d be addicted.

And what was worse even than the soul-destroying rain was that around Tumdrum the sky always seemed to be the colour of the road and the road was always the colour of the sky, a grey, grey, grey, one of a million shades of grey that Israel knew by heart by now, and today, this morning, it still being early, the sky was a kind of beige grey, like the trim in the interior of a particularly nasty 1970s sports car, the shade of a soulless future.

The caretaker emerged from the back of the store and into the rain and waved Israel over.

‘Come on ahead then. I’ll show you where you’re setting up.’

‘Would you mind, just…’ Israel turned up the hood on his duffle coat and half-heartedly indicated back towards the van, to the bags of poles and panels for the display, but the caretaker had gone already. So Israel followed him up the stone steps and inside the famous big pink building.

The back entrance took you in through kitchenware and hardware, Panasonic bread-makers to the left of you, pop-up gazebos and battery display stands to the right. A worn but clean red carpet led through the store, up past linen and beds, skirting contemporary furniture and on through greetings cards, stationery, board games and leather goods until finally you reached the front entrance to the store, where, as is traditional, you could purchase gifts, watches, jewellery and crystal at the foot of a wide staircase which took you up to ladies’ fashions and accessories.

‘Here’s you,’ said the caretaker, indicating a tiny space between the sweeping staircase and a jumble of glass display cases featuring vases, decanters and earrings.

‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to squeeze everything…’

But the caretaker had gone.

Right, thanks.

Israel trudged back through the store – he was trudging because his old brown brogues were slowly breaking down, widening and splitting, the leather uppers and the smooth leather soles unable to contend with the fast pace, the pounding, and the never-ending dung of country living – and he prepared to unload the exhibition through the disabled access door at the back of the mobile library. Which was easier said than done.

The disabled access door was actually more likely to render you disabled than to ease your access: it was pretty stiff to open, where someone had rear-ended the van at some time, and when you did get it open you had to tie it back with a piece of string because the catch had gone, and the roll-a-ramp itself weighed a ton and was a bugger to fold up and down.

But then the whole van was just like that, and you got used to her eventually, and as long as you watched the oil, and the tyre pressure and the water, and kept her doors lubricated with petroleum jelly, and remembered not to use the full trigger on the petrol pump when you were filling her up, and had a couple of spare alternator belts on board at all times, and as long as you had a dedicated full-time mechanic on hand, then really she was no trouble at all. She took a little more care and maintenance than Israel’s mum’s old Honda Civic back home in London, but then you couldn’t get two thousand books and fully adjustable shelving in a Honda Civic – in fact, as far as Israel remembered, you’d be lucky to be able to get the weekly supermarket shop, a bag of sucky chocolate limes and a handful of CDs in a Honda Civic. To his surprise, Israel seemed to have outgrown little city runabouts. He’d grown accustomed to the van and to her big old-fashioned country ways; he’d got used to grinding the gears, and the uncomfortable, elevated driving position, and he’d grown accustomed to listening out for the little rattles and shakes that meant he needed to get Ted to take a look at the engine before the whole thing blew. As long as Israel didn’t have to touch anything mechanical, as long as everything was going smoothly, he was absolutely fine.

He checked his watch. Ted was supposed to be meeting him, but there was no sign of him. He was going to have to do it all by himself.

He eventually dragged all the display poles and panels out of the van and through the store and started setting up.

The caretaker had turned some music on, which was now flooding the huge empty spaces of the store, filling up every little crack, like grains of sand in a picnic or long white worms of Polyfilla from a tube. There was ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA, and Chris De Burgh’s ‘Lady in Red’, and Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind’, all played just below tempo, legato, and with humming low chords, each song bleeding into the other, with a generous use of alto sax and what sounded like a flugelhorn, or a muted flugelhorn, or maybe a nose-flute to carry the melody, a sound so mucousy and clotted it made you feel all bunged-up and fluey just hearing it. TV theme-tunes from the 1970s merged seamlessly with pop hits of the 1980s and the Beatles, the slow songs played too fast, and the fast songs played too slow. He had a headache before: now he was actually beginning to feel sick. His hands were sweaty.

When Linda Wei had shown him in her office how to set up the panel display – or the ‘Velcro-Compatible Exhibition and Display System’, as she insisted on calling it – she’d had it done in minutes, with a cherry scone in hand, and it had looked perfectly simple, but, like most things in life, it turned out only to be simple once you knew how to do it. It took Israel two hands and goodness knows how long of pressing and clicking poles and lifting panels into position to the accompaniment of Boney M, Stevie Wonder, Kris Kristofferson, Celine Dion and the theme from Miami Vice, but when he finally got it up it was pretty solid, and if he said so himself his full-colour five-panel display on the history of Dixon and Pickering’s looked pretty good. He couldn’t deny it, he was proud of his work: on this day, at this moment in time, to his own surprise and doubtless to the amazement of others, if they’d been in the slightest bit interested, Israel Armstrong probably knew more about the history of Dixon and Pickering’s than anyone else alive.

He knew all about how the original Mr Dixon, the haberdasher, the man with the vision, had inherited money from a distant relative sent out to seek his fortune in New South Wales, and how he had joined forces with the original Mr Pickering, the milliner, the man with the eye for detail, and how the two of them had dreamt of a department store to rival those of London and Dublin, selling fancy goods and fine china, and wallpaper and animal feed. He knew how they had raised the money for the building from financiers; and how the revolutionary steel-frame building had been constructed partly on site and partly in Glasgow and then shipped over. And he knew all about the original layout of the store, with the little mahogany booths on the ground floor, with William Patterson the Watch Doctor tucked up in one, King’s Barber Shop in another, and Mr E. Taylor the Tailor alongside them; and how the booths were replaced in the 1940s with stained-pine counters, and how eventually the whole store had gone open-plan in the sixties, when the oak-panelled entrance hall was remodelled and the revolving door removed and replaced with something state-of-the-art in shiny metal and plastic; and now all that remained inside of the original building was the old staircase. Israel had read and carefully noted down all this information from the archives of the Impartial Recorder, and from the old Dixon and Pickering business ledgers now kept in Rathkeltair library, and he had rendered it all lovingly in laminated text and photos, and had pinned it up with his own hand with drawing-pins to the Velcro-Compatible Exhibition and Display System.

And when he stepped back to admire this thing, his handiwork, this Bayeux Tapestry of North Antrim’s greatest department store – to the tune of Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ arranged for flute and classical guitar – he saw that it was good.

Unfortunately, though, when he stepped back he also stepped straight into one of the freestanding glass display cases.

Which, to his horror, began to fall, taking with it its display of miniature crystal teddies, china meerkats, porcelain kittens, carved owls and collectable Scottie dogs, elephants and pigs.

And as it fell, it hit another display case.

And then another.

‘Oh…’ began Israel, but didn’t have time to finish his sentence as he did his best to prevent a fancy goods domino effect, trying to hold on to toppling cases, but he was too late and by the time the toppling had ceased, five cases were down: broken bowls and jugs and decanters, carriage clocks, charm bracelets, lockets and little glass candleholders were everywhere.

It was giftware apocalypse. Israel was speechless.

‘Beat It’ had morphed into John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

The caretaker appeared.

‘What the—’

‘Sorry,’ said Israel.

‘Sorry?’

‘For the—’

‘Forget it.’

‘Really?’

Something was wrong here. The caretaker’s already ghastly pale and freckled features had turned a ghostly, paler white.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Israel. ‘Are you OK?’

‘It’s all gone.’

‘What’s all gone?’

‘Everything,’ said the caretaker. ‘The money. We’ve been robbed.’

3

Israel and the caretaker hurried up the big mahogany stairs to the first floor – hurrying past Ladies Fashions, which were mostly XL and pastel, past Accessories, which were mostly scarves and super size handbags, and past the Cosy Nook cafeteria, which was dark and empty and smelt of yesterday’s scones and lasagne and milky coffee, and further still, through double doors marked ‘Private: Staff Only’ – and then up another staircase onto the second floor.

They were in the eaves of the building. It was warm. Downstairs on the ground floor there were high ceilings and chandeliers, but up here, tucked away, it was all fluorescent lights and polystyrene tiling, and there was that eloquent whiff of bleach from the toilets. There were Health and Safety notices on the walls, and whiteboards and pin boards, and water coolers, and computers and reams of paper, and gonks and cards and piles of paper on desks – all the usual paraphernalia of office life.

Israel followed the caretaker through the open-plan area into a smaller private office.

‘Oh dear,’ said Israel. Chairs were tipped over, paperwork strewn all over the floor. ‘This doesn’t look good. Signs of a—’

‘Struggle,’ said the caretaker, his breathing shallow. ‘And look here.’

‘Where?’ said Israel.

‘There.’

The caretaker was pointing to a wall safe.

Israel had never seen an actual wall safe before – had never had use for one himself, barely required a wallet in fact – and he was shocked to find that a wall safe in reality looks much like it does in films and in the imagination: a wall safe looks like a little square metal belly-button, small, neat and perfect in the flat expanse of wall.

‘Huh,’ said Israel.

‘Look,’ said the caretaker.

Israel went over to the safe, pushed the little door shut, opened it again.

‘Double-locking system,’ said the caretaker.

‘Right. Er…’

‘Key and combination.’

‘Uh-huh. And this is where the money was stolen?’

‘Some of it.’

‘How much was in there?’

‘Few thousand.’

‘Ah well,’ said Israel breezily, ‘big business like this, be able to absorb that, won’t it?’

‘Come here till I show ye,’ said the caretaker, who really did seem to be taking things very badly, who looked like a beaten man, in fact, his whole body and his stomach sagging, and he walked through with Israel into another room off the office.

This room was warmer, and smaller still. There were no windows. And lined up against the back wall were two large metal boxes, like huge American fridges, though without the cold water and ice-dispenser facility – Gloria’s family had a big fridge, back home in London, and Israel could never work it properly; he always got ice-cubes all over the floor.

The doors of the safes stood open.

‘Wow.’

‘These are the deposit safes,’ said the caretaker.

‘Right.’ Israel went over to them. ‘Can I?’

‘Go ahead.’

Israel peeked inside. He stroked the smooth steel shelves.

‘They’re empty too then.’

‘Aye.’

‘But they should be full?’

‘Aye.’

‘Gosh,’ said Israel. He always sounded more English in a crisis. ‘So how much money would have been in there?’

The caretaker did not reply.

‘How much in these?’ repeated Israel, remembering not to add ‘my good man’ and sound too Lord Peter Wimsey.

‘A lot.’ The caretaker was ashen-faced.

‘OK. And how much exactly is a lot?’

‘Ach…’ The caretaker huffed. ‘Difficult to say. You know, Bank Holiday. There might have been farmers in yesterday, might ha’ sold a heifer, and that’d be the money for a new dining suite, so.’

‘Right. I see. So…how much, do you think? Thousands?’

‘Tens of thousands.’

‘Good grief. That much?’

‘Could have been. Busy time of year. These uns take about £100,000 apiece I think.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Aye.’

‘Gosh. Well…’

Israel looked around the room.

‘I just cannae understand it,’ said the caretaker. ‘All the security. CCTV and alarms and all.’

‘The doors look fine,’ said Israel. ‘It doesn’t look as if anyone broke in.’

‘I can’t find Mr Dixon anywhere,’ said the caretaker.

‘Well, maybe he’s just—’

‘He’s always in his office by now. He arrives half six, parks up down below.’

‘Is that his car out front?’ said Israel.

‘The Mercedes, aye,’ said the caretaker.

‘Nice car,’ said Israel. ‘Maybe he’s just gone to the toilet, or—’

‘Mr Dixon doesnae go to the toilet at this time,’ said the caretaker.

‘Right.’

‘He doesnae go till eight o’clock.’

‘Erm. OK. Gone for a stroll then maybe?’

‘He doesnae go for a stroll.’

‘Well, maybe he’s just popped out. You know, to get a paper or—’

‘He wouldnae.’

‘Well. OK. So…’

‘I think something’s happened.’

‘Well, yes, I’d say that’s certainly a—’

‘Kidnap, d’ye think?’ said the caretaker.

‘Well, I wouldn’t…I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical…There’s not a note or anything, is there?’

‘I couldnae see one.’

‘Could someone have smuggled him out, past all the security?’

‘I don’t rightly know.’

‘D’you mind if I…’ Israel indicated the office.

‘Go on ahead there.’

‘You should ring the police.’

‘I’ve rung ‘em already. They’ll be here any minute.’

Israel took the opportunity to take a quick look around Mr Dixon’s messed-up office, which looked out over the front of the department store.

The office was beige. But it went beyond the average beige: it was a profound beige; its beigeness was total and complete. The furniture in the room – pale cream store cupboards and filing cabinets – was all fitted flush to the walls, and the walls were cream, the carpet was beige, and the table and chairs were a pale, pale pine; if you squinted, it would almost have been as though everything had been erased from the room, as if everything had disappeared. It wasn’t just neat and functional – it went beyond that: it was a room that seemed to have vanished.

While the caretaker hovered nervously by the door, shifting from foot to foot in a state of profound agitation, Israel absentmindedly picked up some of the files and paperwork from the floor and put a couple of the chairs back upright; he did like things tidy.

The only real distinguishing feature in the room were the few framed photographs on one wall, showing the various Messrs Dixon and Pickering through the ages, standing outside the store, their arms folded, at first unsmiling, black and white men in bowler hats, and then, later, more recently, grinning, bare-headed men in full colour, as though the whole world and the weather had been warming up and cheering up over the past hundred years. The photograph of the current Mr Dixon showed a man of almost negligible features – a face that would not stand out in a crowd. From all his research into the history of Dixon and Pickering’s, Israel knew only this about Mr Dixon: he’d inherited the business from his father, who’d taken it on from his own father, the founder; he wore dark suits and white shirts; and he took his responsibilities seriously. Widely respected in the community, upright and upstanding, Mr Dixon was someone to whom nothing interesting had ever happened. His office was beige: his life was bland.

The phone rang. Instinctively, Israel reached across the desk and picked it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Michael? Is that you?’

‘No. I’m afraid, I’m…’

The phone went dead.

‘Who was that?’ asked the caretaker. ‘The police?’

‘I don’t know. It was a woman. What’s Mr Dixon’s first name?’

‘Mr Dixon he is to us here just.’

‘Right.’

Israel and the caretaker stood silently for a moment and there was the distinct sound of Prince’s ‘1999’ being played slowly and purposefully on classical guitar: the muzak that played throughout the store was piped in here too.

He was trying to think straight.

‘Right. Right. Erm…God. First. Right. Would you mind turning the music off?’

‘What?’

‘Can you turn the music off?’

‘What’s the point of that?’

‘Because! I can’t think. I need to…’

‘But Mr Dixon likes it on in the morning.’

‘But Mr Dixon isn’t here and I’ve got his blood all over my hands!’

The caretaker went to turn off the music.

Israel had never been at the scene of an actual crime before, unless you counted the time he’d sneaked with some friends into a screening of a Star Wars film in Whiteley’s while another friend distracted the attention of the usherette, or the time he’d taken an extra exercise book from the school supplies cupboard. But that was different. This was your actual true crime.

And he suddenly realised that he was in very big trouble.

‘Right, don’t move,’ said a voice behind Israel. ‘Stand where you are. Hands raised above your head.’

It was Sergeant Friel.

‘Ah, thank God, Sergeant,’ said Israel, turning around, not raising his hands.

‘Raise your hands,’ repeated Sergeant Friel. He was flanked by two police officers holding guns. And the guns were pointed at Israel. ‘Hands!’

Israel raised his hands.

‘So, Mr Armstrong,’ said Sergeant Friel, half in question, half in statement, and entirely in disbelief. He then slowly stroked his moustache and added, clearly disappointed, ‘All right, boys, lower your weapons. It’s only the librarian.’

Israel and Sergeant Friel had met on several occasions before, none of them exactly propitious: once when Israel had been mysteriously nearly run over by a speeding car when he’d first arrived in Tumdrum; again a few months later when Israel had caused an obstruction on a public highway by parking the mobile library too close to a corner; and again on a regular monthly basis, on Monday nights, when Sergeant Friel came with Mrs Friel to the mobile library to change their books. (Sergeant Friel had a taste for true crime, Israel recalled – Mrs Friel was more romantic fiction – and you might have thought he’d have liked a bit of a change, Sergeant Friel, given his line of work, though admittedly it was mostly serial killer stuff he was borrowing and in all likelihood there wasn’t too much of that in the daily life of a policeman in Tumdrum and District.) They had exchanged cross words across the issue desk on a number of occasions, Israel and the sergeant, which was shocking, really: even the PSNI were no better than anyone else at returning their books on time. Rosie was relaxed about fines, but Israel always made them pay. He was a stickler for the fines, Israel.

And now this was role reversal.

The beige office, which was empty just moments ago, was suddenly filled with men everywhere: police officers in police uniforms, police officers in plain clothes, police officers in white paper-suit uniforms.

Israel didn’t know where to look, or what to say. He looked at Sergeant Friel.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t get my head round this.’

‘OK, Mr Armstrong,’ said Sergeant Friel. ‘What did you say? You can’t get your head round it?’

‘That’s right. I can’t get my head round it.’

Sergeant Friel wrote something in a small black notebook.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘What time did you arrive here exactly, Mr Armstrong?’

‘Erm…’

Sergeant Friel again wrote in his little black book.

‘I…’

Sergeant Friel wrote something else.

‘Are you writing all this down?’ said Israel.

‘Of course.’

‘Why?’

‘Because because,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘Because of the wonderful things he does?’ said Israel.

Sergeant Friel took a note of this remark too.

‘You don’t have to write that down! That was a joke. That was—’

Sergeant Friel cleared his throat and appeared to be about to deliver a speech.

‘I am keeping a contemporaneous record of our conversation, Mr Armstrong. Because we’re going to have to take you in for questioning.’

‘What?’

‘You may have some vital information.’

‘But I was just here setting up my exhibition.’

‘Your what?’

‘My five-panel touring exhibition on the history of Dixon and Pickering’s. Downstairs…’

‘Ah, well.’ Sergeant Friel noted this down carefully. ‘This is a major crime scene now.’

‘But—’ began Israel.

Sergeant Friel cleared his throat again and began another speech. ‘You do not have to say anything, Mr Armstrong. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. And anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Israel stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘What?’

‘Do you understand that, Mr Armstrong?’

‘Yes. Of course I do. No. I mean, no. I mean…What? What are you talking about? You can’t take me in for questioning. What about my exhibition? I’ve worked for months getting all that stuff together.’

‘That’s hardly important now, is it, Mr Armstrong?’

‘It may not be important to you, Sergeant, but I spent months getting those photographs laminated!’

‘Aye, well, that’s howsoever.’ Sergeant Friel was still scribbling in his notebook. ‘And if you could speak more slowly and clearly?’ He raised a finger. ‘And just put these on.’

Another policeman stepped forward and dangled handcuffs in front of Israel.

‘What?’

‘Handcuffs, please,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘Look, if this is because of the fines,’ said Israel.

‘The what?’

‘The library fines. You know. Because you never return your true crime books on time, and now you’re persecuting me because—’

‘Ach!’ said Sergeant Friel, his face reddening around his moustache. ‘This is nothing to do with library fines! This is an extremely serious matter, Mr Armstrong, and I suggest you start taking it seriously. There has been a major robbery here, and a suspected kidnapping, and you are on the scene, so we’re taking you in. It’s really quite simple. Now put these on.’

‘No! No.’ Israel went to turn away. ‘I am not putting on any handcuffs. I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘Very well.’

Sergeant Friel nodded at the armed police officers flanking him, who promptly stepped forward and took Israel firmly by the elbows, while Sergeant Friel took the handcuffs and slipped them on Israel, palms inward.

‘Hang on!’ said Israel. ‘Hang on!’

‘Billy!’ called Sergeant Friel, and one of the white-suited policemen who were filling the room approached Israel.

‘Pockets,’ said Sergeant Friel, and the white paper-suited policeman started searching Israel’s duffle coat pockets.

‘What!’ shouted Israel. ‘What the hell are you…! Hey! Hey!’

He stepped back, and the two armed officers once again moved forward and took him firmly by the elbows. As the white-suited man removed the items from his pockets he gave them to another man in a white paper suit.

‘What the hell’s he doing?’ Israel asked of Sergeant Friel.

‘He’s Exhibits Officer,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘He’s what?’

As the Exhibits Officer was handed each item from Israel’s pockets he placed them with his surgically gloved fingers in little see-through plastic bags, labelling each with a pen. (The contents of Israel’s pockets, as revealed by this process were: two Pentel rollerball pens; some tissues (used); a dog-eared copy of the London Review of Books, folded in half and then into quarters, which Israel had been carrying around with him for over six months, and which he fully intended to get round to reading, eventually, if only for the Personal ads at the back; a copy of Carry On, Jeeves, which was his current between-service-points reading; a page torn out from last week’s Guardian, containing an advertisement for the position of senior information assistant at the British Library, a job Israel knew he’d never get but which he might apply for anyway; a Snickers bar, which he’d clearly forgotten about, because if he’d known he’d have eaten it already; and a cassette, sides three and four, from an eight-cassette set of Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which had somehow become separated from the box in the library and which he’d forgotten to reshelve; his mobile phone; and lint, a lot of lint.)

Then they swabbed his hands.

Pockets emptied, hands wiped, Israel was escorted through the offices and down the first set of stairs into the department store, which was filled with policemen, swarming like locusts, and then down the mahogany staircase and out of the front of the building, where none other than Ted Carson happened at that moment to be arriving in his cab, his old Austin Allegro with its illuminated orange bear on the roof (‘Ted’s Cabs: If You Want To Get There, Call the Bear’). Ted was supposed to have been there over an hour ago, helping Israel set up the exhibition. He was too late now.

Ted wound down his window.

‘What’s he done now then?’ said Ted, as if all he could expect from Israel was trouble, and as though the sight of him being escorted handcuffed by armed police officers was pretty much a normal turn of events.

‘Ted!’ said Israel.

‘Ted,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘Brendan. What’s the trouble?’

‘There’s been a theft, Ted. This is a crime scene now.’

‘Aye, well,’ said Ted, who made the fact of Dixon and Pickering’s having turned into a crime scene sound no more interesting than a change in the weather. ‘But what’s he to do with it?’

‘We’re to bring him in for questioning.’

‘Ach, him?’ Ted laughed. ‘Are you away in the head, Brendan? He’s the librarian, for goodness sake.’

‘Aye.’

‘And he’s English,’ added Ted, as if that were some further excuse or a disability.

‘Right enough, Ted, but I’m closing this area down.’

Ted got out of the car. His bald head glistened, in the dawn. He drew himself up to his full bearish height, and towered over Sergeant Friel.

‘Now, what would you want to be taking him away for, Brendan? We’ve the exhibition to be sorting here.’

‘Sorry, Ted. This is a serious crime.’

‘Aye, but he’s not going to have anything to do with anything, is he?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to establish, Ted.’

‘Come on, Brendan. You wouldnae send him to fetch a loaf, would you? Look at him.’

‘Sorry, Ted, we’ve to get on here.’

‘Well, let me come with him then,’ said Ted, putting out an arm to block Sergeant Friel’s way. ‘I’ll follow yous in the car.’

‘I don’t think that’d be a good idea, Ted, would it? You’re hardly going to want to be seeing the inside of the station now, are you?’

‘Ach, Brendan.’

‘This isn’t your business now, Ted. You’ll be obstructing us if I’ve to speak to you again.’

Ted dropped his arm.

‘Ach, honest to God, Brendan. The boy’ll not be able to tell you anything. I mean, look at him. He’s not a baldie notion.’

‘Hello?’ said Israel. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You keep out of this,’ said Ted.

‘This is serious, Ted,’ said Sergeant Friel. ‘We’re taking him in.’

Sergeant Friel and his accompanying officers began hurrying Israel away.

‘Ach. No. Brendan!’ shouted Ted. ‘Hold on, Brendan! Israel! D’ye have a lawyer, Israel?’ called Ted.

‘What?’ Israel was starting to panic now.

Israel was bundled into an unmarked police car.

‘It’s all right!’ called Ted. ‘I’ll get on to me cousin. Don’t panic, son. We’ll have this sorted in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

4

He was driven away in the car, Sergeant Friel to the left of him, an armed policeman to his right, another armed policeman up front, and the driver. As they pulled off, Israel saw more policemen sealing off the entrance to Dixon and Pickering’s with tape.

‘Shutting up shop?’

Sergeant Friel wrote this down.

‘Are you writing everything down?’

Sergeant Friel wrote this down.

‘You’re like my recording angel.’

Sergeant Friel wrote this down.

‘Oh, God.’

Sergeant Friel wrote this down.

‘That’s it. Look.’ Israel shut his mouth. ‘My lips are sealed. Look. Mm mmm mm mmm.’

Sergeant Friel wrote this down.

They were driving out of Tumdrum on the coast road, the dark sea up high and fretting beside them. Israel was straining to see in the rear-view mirror, to see if Ted was following in his cab; he didn’t seem to be.

‘Now, why don’t you just tell us what happened, Israel?’ said Sergeant Friel, once they’d cleared the last of the housing estates and were out on the open road.

‘What do you mean, what happened?’ said Israel. He didn’t like the way things were developing. ‘Where are we going?’

‘You just tell us what happened.’

‘Nothing happened. I—’

‘We’re here to help you, you know.’ Sergeant Friel had adopted a horrible, oily, emollient tone, cut through sharply with sarcasm.

‘Right,’ said Israel, who disliked a tone of sarcastic emollience as much as the next man. ‘You’re here to help me, and I’ve been accused of something I didn’t do, and handcuffed, and bundled into the back of an unmarked police car—’

‘Are you not comfortable, Mr Armstrong?’ oozed Sergeant Friel.

‘No, I’m not comfortable! I’m squidged up here between you and…whatever his name is here, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to have done.’

‘Do you want us to speak to anybody?’

‘Yes.’ Israel wanted to speak to his mother, but he guessed she might not be the best person to help him in these circumstances. He had no idea what his mother would say. And his father – God – his father would be turning in his grave.

‘Would you like me to open a window?’

‘No.’ It was freezing cold.

‘Would you like a cigarette?’

‘What? No. I don’t smoke. Why would I want a cigarette?’

Sergeant Friel wrote all this down. The sea passed silently to their left. Israel was still straining to see if anyone was following the car. They weren’t.

Sergeant Friel cleared his throat, a sure sign of his being about to deliver some more of his rehearsed lines.

‘What is it now?’ said Israel.

‘Mr Armstrong. You may have seen me making notes. This is a contemporaneous record of our conversation.’

‘Yes,’ said Israel, ‘I know. You told me already.’

Sergeant Friel held the small black notebook open towards Israel. ‘I would like you to read them and tell me if you agree with them.’

It was light outside but it was too dark to read anything clearly in the back of the car.

‘I can’t read them. It’s too dark,’ said Israel. ‘I can’t read anything in this dark.’

‘I’ll read them to you then, and you can tell me if you agree with them.’

Sergeant Friel began to read.

This really was not good. This was way beyond anything Israel had ever experienced before: being in the back of a car, early in the morning, listening to someone reading out an account of what had happened to you over the past half an hour, but from an entirely different perspective to your own; it was like being on some kind of extreme creative writing course. Sergeant Friel talked about the police officers present. About handcuffing Israel. About giving Israel a caution. And what made it even more sinister was that the whole story was narrated verbatim, so it was all, ‘I said’, ‘He said’, ‘I said’. If Israel had been a young American novelist, he could really have made something of this material.

By the time Sergeant Friel had finished reading the notebook to Israel and Israel had refused to agree with it, they had arrived at Rathkeltair central police station, a heavily fortified building which looked like it might have been a workhouse in another life, a big grey stone building with menacing chimney stacks, barbed-wire fencing and CCTV cameras strung up all around. Huge metal doors opened as they arrived and they drove round the building to the back entrance, past parked police cars and vast industrial bins.

Israel was getting pretty close to hysterical now as he was led through a long grey corridor to a small grey windowless office, where Sergeant Friel spoke to a uniformed officer behind a desk. It was another bizarre, mind-bogglingly rehearsed scene, like a play within a play.

‘As a result of forensic evidence linking him to the scene,’ said Sergeant Friel, ‘I have arrested this person on suspicion of a robbery and kidnapping.’

‘What?’ said Israel. ‘Forensic evidence? I—’

‘You’ll get your chance,’ said the uniformed officer to Israel. ‘Now just listen.’

Sergeant Friel then proceeded to read out the contents of his notebook again and at the end he said, ‘Offered, read over, refused to sign.’

‘This is totally Kafkaesque, do you know that?’ said Israel. Sergeant Friel and the other policeman ignored him. ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

Sergeant Friel added this comment to his notebook and then leant across the desk to a small grey box mounted on the wall, which had a slot; he opened up the notebook to the last page and ceremoniously placed it in the slot, and the machine stamped the book. With bright red ink.

‘Have you ever read any Kafka though, honestly?’ Israel asked. ‘“In the Penal Colony”?’

The uniformed officer behind the desk said to Israel, ‘Do you understand why you’ve been arrested?’

‘No, I do not. I have absolutely no idea why—’

‘You do not understand why you’ve been arrested?’

‘Look. I understand it all right, I’m not an idiot, but I don’t agree with it—’

‘You have the right to have someone informed,’ interrupted the officer. ‘You have the right to free legal advice. And a right to read a copy of our code of practice.’

‘Your code of practice? Code of practice! What are you, a firm of independent financial advisers?’

If Israel’s sense of humour went largely unappreciated on a daily basis around Tumdrum – and it certainly did – then here in Rathkeltair police station it seemed that he was just about the unfunniest person alive.

‘We run a duty solicitor scheme, or I can call a solicitor of your choice. You need to tell me.’

Israel asked them to ring Gloria in London. She’d know what to do: admittedly, she specialised in company law, but it was still the law. She’d sort it out.

‘Right, good, am I free to go now?’

He was not free to go now.

He was taken into another small grey windowless room with Sergeant Friel and the armed officers. First they fingerprinted him. Then Sergeant Friel asked Israel to remove his clothes.

‘What? Remove my clothes? Oh, come on, you’re joking now, are you?’

‘No. Can you remove your clothes, please, Mr Armstrong.’

‘In here? With all of you standing there?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘And with handcuffs on?’ said Israel. ‘What am I, Harry fucking Houdini?’

‘We’ll not have the language, thank you,’ said Sergeant Friel. ‘We’ll take the handcuffs off. But you have to take off your clothes. I’m not taking off your clothes.’

‘I don’t want you taking off my clothes! No, look. This is getting silly now. I mean…Look…’ Israel did his best to calm himself. ‘You’ve brought me in, that’s fine. It’s wrong, of course, it’s just a big mistake, but…But the clothes. That’s just—’

‘Can you take off your clothes please, Mr Armstrong? I’ll remove your handcuffs.’

‘But…I’m a librarian! I check out your books! You can’t just…’

He recognised another of the policemen present as a borrower of Hayes car manuals from the library, and he appealed directly to him, as a library user.

‘It’s me! Look! Me. Israel Armstrong. The librarian!’

The policeman stared back emotionless at Israel. Being a librarian was maybe not going to swing it. Israel could see no easy way out of this.

‘Do you know Stanley Milgram?’ He was babbling now.

‘Clothes, Mr Armstrong.’

‘Or the Stanford prison experiment?’

‘Clothes, Mr Armstrong.’

‘In the Stanford prison experiment, they divided up the volunteers into guards and inmates to see how they behaved.’

‘Clothes, please.’

‘And the guards behaved like guards. And the inmates behaved like inmates. Have you ever read about that? Have you?’

‘Clothes,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘And if I do? If I do take them off?’

‘Then we’ll be able to move on.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fine. OK.’ He was desperate. ‘I’ll take my clothes off. You all have to turn around though, OK?’

‘You turn around,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘Oh, all right, I see. Fine. OK. I’ll turn around. This is ridiculous, you know.’

‘Thank you, Mr Armstrong. The quicker you get on with it, the quicker it’ll be sorted out. This is for you.’ Sergeant Friel handed Israel a one-piece paper suit, with a zip up the front.

‘I see. It’s like Guantánamo Bay.’

‘Och aye. Just like it.’

Once he’d been unhandcuffed and taken off his clothes – the duffle coat, the tank-top, his cords, one of Brownie’s T-shirts – ‘You Could Have It So Much Better’ – Israel put on the paper suit and a pair of plimsolls. His clothes were sealed in see-through plastic bags.

‘It chafes.’

‘Sorry?’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘The paper suit. It chafes.’

‘Right.’

‘So we’re done now, are we?’

‘No,’ said Sergeant Friel. ‘Now we need to take a blood sample.’

‘What?’ said Israel. ‘A blood sample? You are joking? No, no, no. Definitely not. You said we were done.’

‘I did not say we were done, Mr Armstrong.’

‘Oh, yes, you did! You said!’

‘We’re not done, Mr Armstrong.’

‘Come on, that’s not fair! You keep moving the goalposts.’

‘We are not moving the goalposts, Mr Armstrong. We need to take a blood sample,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘No. First I agreed to come here. Then I agreed to take my clothes off. And now you want to take a blood sample? It’s like being…Brian Keenan, or somebody.’

‘Aye?’

‘Yes. Or…You know, the Birmingham Six.’

‘Right enough.’

‘This is outrageous! This is Abu Ghraib!’

‘No, Mr Armstrong. This is Rathkeltair police station.’

‘I’m being illegally detained.’

‘No, you’re being legally detained, Mr Armstrong, in full accordance with the law, and in full accordance with the law we need to take a blood sample.’

‘You don’t need to take a blood sample!’ protested Israel. ‘I was only in Dixon and Pickering’s setting up my display.’

‘Aye, well, you’ve already said that. But we still need to take a blood sample, so we can eliminate you from our inquiries. And I have to tell you, if you refuse to give it, we have to tell the court you refused. And we ask the court to draw an inference.’

‘What? The court?’ Israel felt like crying. ‘The court! No one mentioned a court before. I’m not going to court!’

‘At your current rate, Mr Armstrong, you will be going to a court.’

‘I can’t go to court!’ He didn’t just feel like crying now. He was about to cry. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘The blood sample please, Mr Armstrong.’

‘How much blood do you need?’

‘It’s just a pin-prick, Mr Armstrong.’

‘But, but…I don’t like needles!’

‘Your hair then,’ said Sergeant Friel. ‘We can take a hair if you’d prefer.’

There was no way Israel was going to agree to give a blood sample, but it didn’t look like Sergeant Friel was going to back down, so he agreed to the hair. Sergeant Friel left the room and then reappeared a few moments later with some tweezers.

‘What are they?’ said Israel.

‘Tweezers,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘They’re bloody big tweezers!’ said Israel.

‘Hair?’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘All right.’ Israel nodded.

‘We need twelve.’

‘Twelve!’ said Israel, who thought he might pass out at any moment. ‘Twelve! You said a hair. A hair. One. See! You’re doing it again! Moving the goalposts! There’s a big difference between a hair and twelve hairs, you know! I’ll be speaking to my lawyer about this.’

‘They’re only hairs, Mr Armstrong.’

‘Ah, well! Tell that to a…bald man!’

‘You’re not bald, Mr Armstrong.’

‘No, no! But I will be at this rate. Twelve hairs!’

‘The hairs, please, Mr Armstrong.’

Israel remained silent as they plucked hairs from his head.

The hairs were placed into another self-seal bag.

So by half past ten on Easter Saturday, just three and a half hours after arriving at Dixon and Pickering’s to set up his historic five-panel touring display, Israel Armstrong BA (Hons) was sitting plucked, exhausted, confused, and wearing his new white paper suit and plimsolls, in a cell in Rathkeltair police station.

The cell was even smaller than the chicken coop he was staying in at George’s farm. There was a concrete plinth with a mattress; a toilet bowl with a push-button flush, no toilet roll; a grey blanket. Grey walls. The grey metal door was scratched with graffiti.

And Israel wasn’t feeling at all well. He lay on the mattress on the plinth. It was cold. He drew the blanket up around him.

This was not what was supposed to happen. This was not it at all.

5

He woke in the dawning light to the merry sound of chickens and machinery outside and he stepped quickly to the door of the chicken coop and took a deep welcome breath of the rich country air: the smell of grass; the smell of silage; the thick, complex smell of several sorts of manure; the smell, it seemed to him, in some strange way, of freedom; the smell of very heaven itself. He was getting used to the country and to country ways. He was also getting fewer headaches these days, he found, and he felt lighter, more alert than he had for years: he could feel himself thriving and growing stronger, feeding on all that good corn and milk and fresh air. He threw back his head, filled his lungs with another blast of the world’s sweet morning goodness, then put on his duffle coat and slipped on his shoes and quickly went across the yard to the kitchen, greeting the animals as he went: ‘Hello, pigs! Hello, chickens! Hello, world!’

In the kitchen Mr Devine was sitting by the Rayburn, wrapped in his blanket.

‘Good morning, Frank!’ said Israel.

‘Good morning, Israel,’ Mr Devine replied. ‘A wee drop tay?’

‘Aye,’ said Israel. ‘That’d be grand.’

He poured himself a nice fresh mug of tea from the never-ending pot on the Rayburn, then went back across the courtyard to his room where he lay and read for an hour, a fabulous new novel by a brilliant young author he’d only just discovered and whose work he adored and who seemed to be producing novels almost as quickly as he could read them – varied, strange and beguiling, full of stories. Then finally he got back up out of bed, washed his face in a cool calm bowl of water, got dressed, and went over to the farmhouse again to have breakfast and on entering the kitchen he kissed George warmly on the mouth, and she embraced him, and it seemed to him that he could think of no life pleasanter or more preferable than…

Oh, God.

He was dreaming.

Or rather no, not dreaming – it was a nightmare. He wasn’t in the chicken coop. He wasn’t at the farm at all. He was still in the cell. He must have dropped off to sleep. He’d fallen from one nightmare into another.

He glanced round himself, panicking. Oh, good grief. This was terrible. He was trapped.

He could feel his stomach churning, contracting. He could feel himself beginning to hyperventilate. He needed something to read, to calm his nerves. There was nothing to read. He felt frantic.

He tried reading the graffiti on the walls and on the back of the door. But there wasn’t enough, and it was too small, and anyway it was all acronyms defying one another and performing sexual acts on one another, the IRA doing this or that to the UVF, who were doing this or that to the UDA, and the PUP versus the SF, and up the INLA, and down the UFF, and RUC this and PSNI that: where were the great wits and aphorists of County Antrim, for goodness sake? Where were the imprisoned scribes? Where was the Chester Himes and the Malcolm X of the jail cells of Northern Ireland? Where were the Gramscis of Tumdrum and District?

Israel felt half crazed with nothing to read and no prospect of anything to read.

He always had something to read; he always had to have something to read: reading calmed him; it did for him what music and television and cigarettes and alcohol seemed to do for other people; it soothed the savage breast, and gave him something to do with his hands and between dinnertime and bed. As a child he’d been a precocious reader, hoovering up books like the pigs on the Devines’ farm snuffled up their feed; and as a teenager he had read in a frenzy, reading the one solitary delight and pleasure not only sanctioned but actively encouraged by society and by his parents, an absolute one-off, an exception to the rule, a granting of public esteem not for achievement and worldly gain but for inwardness and the nurturing of whatever it was that constituted a soul.

Everyone loved a great reader. And he’d always loved being a great reader – until recently. Maybe it was just part of getting older, or maybe it was being a librarian, or just being here, but lately he’d found he was becoming suspicious of his own love of books. All that reading – it had started to seem wrong, worthless almost, without purpose.

It seemed abominable, thinking it: thinking about it he felt himself quivering inside.

When he was reading these days it seemed to form only a background hum to what was really going on in his mind, like static or a scratch, like the sound of traffic in a city, or insects in the country. And he’d started to wonder, is literature ever any more than this? Just the faint sound of the flutter of the cockchafer and moth beneath the deafening daily grind? Just the popcorn and Coke accompanying the main feature presentation, MY EGO, MY LIFE, in IMAX, in full Technicolor rolling loop and six-channel digital multi-speaker surround-sound, projected onto a domed screen, and with every seat the best seat in the house, and all of them occupied by little old me? Was there anything more to it than that?

He considered the people who were the heaviest borrowers from the mobile library, the people he saw the most of, week in, week out: all the children and their parents, checking out books indiscriminately, picture books and easy-readers, the good and the bad, no discernible difference between them; and the teenagers – the local MP’s daughter and some of her friends, some gothy-looking boys – who seemed to be working their way through every Ian McEwan and William Burroughs in the county and who possibly as a consequence seemed more miserable even than the average teen; and the adults, women in and out for romantic fiction and men for military history. And when he considered them all he couldn’t honestly say that these people were any more equipped socially or intellectually or emotionally than anyone else; they might possibly have known whether or not Cromwell’s troops massacred civilians at Drogheda in the seventeenth century, or about life under the Nazis in the Channel Islands, or exactly which Harry Potter they preferred, on balance, but they were no more polite when challenged about their overdue books than the average borrower, and no more or less keen to pass the time of day with a lowly public servant.

Library users were exactly the same as everyone else, it seemed, and this came as a terrible shock to Israel. He had always believed that reading was good for you, that the more books you read somehow the better you were, the closer to some ideal of human perfection you came, yet if anything his own experience at the library suggested the exact opposite: that reading didn’t make you a better person, that it just made you short-sighted, and even less likely than your fellow man or woman to be able to hold a conversation about anything that did not centre around you and your ailments and the state of the weather.

He shivered.

Could all that really be true? Did it matter? That the striving after knowledge, the attempt to understand human minds and human nature, and stories, and narrative shapes and patterns, made you no better a person? That the whole thing was an illusion? That books were not a mirror of nature or a mark of civilisation, but a chimera? That the reading of books was in fact nothing more than a kind of mental knitting, or like the monotonous eating of biscuits, a pleasant way of passing time before you died? All those words about words, and texts about texts, and all nothing more than tiny splashes of ink…

Nothing to read: nothing to be read.

His mind was racing in the confined spaces and rotations of the cell; Israel was dizzying himself. The whole world seemed to be wobbling around him. He felt like The Scream. He felt like crying. Again. He suddenly thought of his mother looking down at him from a great height.

Oh, God.

And the next thing he knew there was a young Asian man standing over him, shaking him, looking down at him. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or if this was real. It certainly wasn’t his mother.

‘Mr Armstrong?’

He rubbed his eyes. His shoulders ached.

This was real. The man was standing with his hands behind his back. He had the beginnings of a beard.

‘Hello,’ said the man. ‘I’m Hussain. From Biggs and Short.’

‘What?’

‘Your solicitors.’

‘I don’t have a solicitor.’

‘No. Well, I’m your legal representative.’

‘No. My girlfriend’s going to be helping me out with all that.’

‘Is that Gloria Cohen?’

‘Yes, that’s her.’

‘The police were unable to contact her, I’m afraid, sir.’

He knew exactly what he meant: Gloria was always too busy to answer her phone. They might have more luck texting her, but even then they wouldn’t be guaranteed a response: ‘SPK,’ would come the reply, but she wouldn’t.

‘Well,’ continued Mr Hussain, ‘anyway, I have been appointed your legal representative. I work for Biggs and Short. Mr Billy Biggs is a cousin of Ted Carson, Mr Armstrong, who I believe you know?’