Mr. Dixon disappears: a mobile library mystery

by Ian Sansom

'There's nothing I can do about it, Mr Armstrong, I'm afraid.'

  'But I haven't done anything wrong. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

  'Well, I believe you obviously. I hardly think you'd be capable of pulling off a daring and audacious robbery.'

  'Thank you.'

  'You're welcome. But, I doubt the Mobile Library Steering Committee will be of the same opinion I'm afraid. So…'

  Linda made for the door.

  'Hang on,' said Israel. 'That's it?'

  'Yes,' said Linda. 'That's it. Thank you, goodbye.'

  'Hang on! Who's going to be doing the mobile?'

  'Ted. He'll be doing it on his own for the moment, when he can, although we'll have to be operating a reduced service, obviously.'

  'But…'

  'Ah, yes!' said Linda. 'Which brings me to the third thing. Point three. Before you leave, please.' She walked back behind her desk and sat down. 'Sit down. Please,' she said. 'Sit down! Thank you. Yes. About your lovely assistant on the library.'

  'Ted?'

  'No. Not Ted! Rosie.'

  'Rosie?'

  'Rosie Hart has been helping you out, I believe, in the fulfilment of your duties.'

  'Yes. That's right. She's very good with the readers.'

  'Yes.' Linda sipped at her tea. 'I'm sure that's not the only thing she's good with.'

  'What?'

  'With your reputation, Mr Armstrong, you need to be very careful.'

  'My reputation?'

  'Yes. We've not forgotten your dealings with the gutter press, Mr Armstrong—'

  'If you mean by that my…friendship with Veronica Byrd of the Impartial Recorder—'

  'Not something we wish to go into, Mr Armstrong. Has Ms Hart been offering her services to you for free?'

  'Her services?'

  'On the mobile library? Has she been working for you for free?'

  'Not exactly.'

  'So you've been paying her yourself?'

  'Well…I've been…'

  'Yes?' Linda peered over the top of her glasses.

  'Erm. Yes, using the petty cash to…'

  'Yes?'

  'Give her a few pounds. Just to help her out, you know.'

  'I see. This is what we'd heard. So you have been using the monies of the Department of Entertainment, Leisure and Community Services to pay for an extra member of staff. Do you deny it?'

  'No, not exactly.'

  'With no authorisation.'

  'Erm…'

  'Or agreement. With no advertisement. No Equal Opportunities monitoring.'

  'Well—'

  'Which is in itself an extremely grave matter, Mr Armstrong, as I'm sure you can appreciate, never mind your unfortunate position vis-à-vis the robbery and kidnapping.'

  'I don't have an unfortunate position vis-à-vis the robbery and kidnapping!'

  'We want her off the bus, Mr Armstrong.'

  'But—'

  'Thank you. And I'm afraid during your suspension you will have to attend a disciplinary hearing of the Mobile Library Steering Committee.'

  'But—'

  'You are going to have to learn, Mr Armstrong, that you can't just come over here and start playing fast and loose: there are rules here, you know, same as anywhere else. It's not a free-for-all.'

  Linda once more made for the door, but then paused.

  'Keys, please.' She held out her hand. 'For the van.'

  'I can't give you the keys,' said Israel.

  'Keys.'

  'But I'll be stranded without the van.'

  'Well, you should have thought of that before—'

  'Linda, it's still at Dixon and—'

  'We'll collect it. Thank you. Goodbye.' She was holding open the door.

  'This is ridiculous, Linda,' said Israel. 'I have been unjustly accused of a crime I did not commit. This is a civil liberties issue.'

  Linda laughed–and a wave of hot peppermint tea fumes came over Israel.

  'You're hardly Nelson Mandela, Mr Armstrong.'

  'I didn't say I was Nelson bloody Mandela, did I.'

  'Racist remarks of any kind, Mr Armstrong, are a serious disciplinary offence, and I have already had to warn you about this today.'

  'I wasn't making a—'

  'Nelson Mandela was the father of a nation.'

  'Yes. I know.'

  'Which is not a category you find yourself in, unless I'm much mistaken.'

  'No. I didn't—'

  'Unless you do have anything of any substance to add, I think that'll be all. Keys. Please.'

  'I haven't got the keys, the police have got the keys.'

  'Very good,' said Linda. 'Thank you, Mr Armstrong. You'll be hearing from me about the disciplinary committee. Goodbye!'

  And with that she was gone.

  Ted was waiting for Israel outside the council offices, smoking.

  'Well?'

  'I'm suspended,' said Israel, hurrying after him.

  'Aye,' said Ted. 'That'd be about right. On full pay though?'

  'I don't know. I didn't ask.'

  'Ach, are you soft in the head, man? Ye didnae ask?'

  'I didn't think.'

  'No. Did it go all right though?'

  'No,' said Israel. 'It didn't go all right. And Linda seemed a bit…'

  'Aye. Ye not heard? Her husband's away.'

  'What, gone?'

  'Aye. Left her. And they've five weans.'

  'That's terrible.'

  'Mind,' said Ted, lowering his voice. 'People say she's a Libyan.'

  'What? I thought she was Northern Irish Chinese,' said Israel.

  'No, a Libyan, you know,' said Ted, winking.

  'A Libyan? You've lost me, Ted, I'm afraid.'

  'She's not as other women are,' said Ted.

  'A lesbian?' said Israel.

  'Sshh,' said Ted. 'We'll not have that sort of language round here, thank ye.'

  They got back in Ted's cab.

  'So now what?' said Ted.

  'I don't know,' said Israel.

  'We're just going to have to clear yer name, aren't we?' said Ted.

  'We?' said Israel.

  'Aye,' said Ted. 'You're going to need some help with this, aren't ye?'

  'Well, it's very nice of you and everything, but—'

  'What?'

  'I think I'm going to have to handle this one on my own, Ted.'

  'Handle it on your own?' Ted laughed.

  'What's funny?'

  'You're a geg, you know that?'

  'Am I?'

  'How ye going to handle it then?'

  'Well, I just need to work it out and demonstrate to the police that—'

  'This is the PSNI we're talking about here, ye know?'

  'Yes.'

  'And what, ye think you're going to prove your innocence to them by using your powers of superior intelligence? Present them with a wee dossier setting out what a good little boy ye are?'

  'Well…'

  'Ach, you're better value than watching the telly, d'you know that?'

  'Thank you.'

  'Priceless, honestly. So, what, ye'll get back to me when you need me then, eh?' Ted was chuckling.

  'Sure.'

  Ted checked his watch. 'That'll be tomorrow teatime then, I would have thought.'

  'Ha, ha.'

  'No. Afternoon. At the latest.'

  'Fine, Ted. If you could just take me home, please. I'm really—'

  'Midday, we'll say. Half twelve max,' said Ted.

  'Fine. Ted—'

  'You've got my mobile number?'

  'Yes.'

  'If You Want To Get There, Call the Bear.'

  'Sure. I'll keep you informed.'

  'You'll keep me informed?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Brilliant. Priceless. I'm looking forward to this.'

  7

  Ted dropped Israel back at the Devines' in his cab.

  When he walked into the farmyard Israel noticed a big pile of things outside the door of the chicken coop–whic
h was his home, howsoever so humble. The bird has its nest, and the fox its hole, and Israel had…well, he'd got used to it.

  As he approached closer he saw that the pile of things outside the door of the coop was in fact a pile of his own things from inside the coop, which didn't look good.

  Indeed, as he approached closer still he saw that the pile was a pile of all his things from inside the coop: his suitcase, his clothes, his books, everything, cast out and dumped, a big spew of stuff, like damp kindling for a bonfire.

  The door of the coop was open. He stepped inside.

  There was nothing there. It was empty–his home, stripped bare. The bed had gone. The old rag rugs had gone. The little Baby Belling had gone. Only the old sink with its single cold tap, nailed to the wall with battens, indicated that the chicken coop might ever have been fit for human habitation.

  Israel took a deep breath. He told himself that this was only to be expected, frankly, on a day like today, and he could take it, no problem; one more thing was not going to tip him over the edge–because he'd been way over the edge already, several times–and he walked calmly across to the farmhouse, into the kitchen, looking for someone to grab a hold of and to throttle, George ideally, but really anyone would do. And of course it was old Mr Devine who was there because he was always there, like the Rayburn and the smell of stewed tea.

  As far as Israel could recall he'd never seen Mr Devine anywhere else but in the kitchen at the farm; it was possible he even slept there, on the big rush-seated chair by the range, pot of tea just a reach away, and the milk jug covered by the little net with beads hanging from it, just like Israel's grandmother used to have. He was a permanent fixture.

  He couldn't throttle Mr Devine, alas: that'd be bad luck. Mr Devine was like a household god, a little toothless talisman, always to be relied upon, bundled up in his chair reading the paper or a magazine, or standing ironing furiously, as if by ironing he could be rid of all the wrinkles in the world. Today he was sitting, reading a magazine, squinting at it right up close. He didn't much approve of books, Mr Devine, apart from the Bible, but magazines were OK, it seemed; magazines had less in them, so were less likely to lead us into temptation and he always had two or three on the go at the same time. The People's Friend he liked very much, and Ireland's Own. Today he was reading Fancy Fowl, his favourite chicken magazine.

  Israel took another deep breath to calm himself: he could cope with this.

  There was a strong smell in the kitchen, as there always was, the smell of tea and stewed meat, a dense thicket of smell, as if something were coming up out of the ground, a smell so strong, so primeval it was enough to make you dizzy just walking in there; it was like inhaling earth, or ingesting a big bowl of mutton-and beef-rich stew. Israel hadn't yet got round to telling the Devines he was a vegetarian and he could think of no easy way to explain it now; as so often for Israel the moment seemed to have passed, and he'd missed the boat, and that was it, he was stuck. He ate mostly by himself in his coop, but sometimes he ended up eating with George and Mr Devine, if Brownie was home from university, and he'd always just pretend he wasn't hungry, although of course he was hungry; he was hungry all the time; he was hungry now, for example, and the smell of the meat seemed to call out deeply to him. He swallowed hard.

  'Mr Devine?' said Israel.

  'Hmm,' said Mr Devine, without looking up from Fancy Fowl. 'The fish vomited out Jonah upon dry land.'

  'Sorry?'

  'We thought you was in the hands of the law.'

  'Erm. Yes. I was, but I'm out now. And my…Erm. All my things seem to be out in the yard.'

  'Aye. That's right.'

  'Well, I was, you know, wondering why?'

  'The PSNI was in here, asking after you.'

  'Oh.'

  'Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.'

  'Yes. Right. What did they want, the police?'

  'You'll have us scandalled all the way to the border.'

  'Sorry. Yes. Erm. What did they want?'

  'You'd have to be speaking to George about that.'

  'OK. It's the bed as well, you see, my bed in the coop, it's gone.'

  'Gideon lay down a fleece to see if it was God's will that he were to save Israel.'

  'Right. OK. The bed and the furniture, though?'

  'Book of Judges.'

  'Right. The bed–it's not there any more.'

  'Aye, well. Like I say, you'd have to be speaking to George about it.'

  'OK. Fine. And George is?'

  Mr Devine glanced at the greasy-faced clock on the mantelpiece above the Rayburn. 'She'd be up in Toagher.'

  'What, sorry? Where?'

  'Toagher,' said Mr Devine.

  'Right,' said Israel.

  Toagher was of course Two Acre in Israel's standard north London English. It was a field. They had all these names for the fields round the farm and Israel could never remember what they were, or where they were, or how you were supposed to tell the difference between them–a field looked like a field to him, plus or minus hedges, and minus mostly. I mean, how the hell were you supposed to tell the difference between, say, the Well Field and the Stile Field, neither of which had an actual well or a stile in them any more, but which had done, apparently, forty or fifty years previously, when old Mr Devine was a young man and the names had been handed down from whiskery old men who had survived into their nineties on nothing more than floury potatoes, strong pipe tobacco, a few whelks and some seaweed? A lot of the fields were named after people, the fathers and grandfathers of the old whiskery ones, not because they looked like the people, which might have been a clue because frankly round here most people had pre-industrial topographic features, but because there was some ancient obscure kinship tie. And then there were the Four Wee Fields, which was in fact only one field; and the Wee Back Field, which was only at the back if you could remember that the back of the farm used to be the front and the front the back, which wasn't entirely clear to the newcomer.

  'Just remind me, where's Two Acre?'

  'Yon by the Black Field.'

  'OK, great. Super.'

  The Black Field. The Black Field was so called because there was something obscurely bad about it, but unless you'd lived round about for two or three centuries the libel left you cold; how the hell were you supposed to know which was the Black bloody Field?

  'Thank you. I'll go and…'

  'When Gideon died the children of Israel forsook God and worshipped Baal.'

  'Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I have to…' Israel made for the door.

  'And your mother rang,' called Mr Devine.

  'Sorry?'

  'Your mother.'

  'Really?' Israel's mother never rang. 'Here?'

  'Aye.'

  'You didn't mention to her that the police were here, did you?'

  'Aye.'

  'Right. Is that an "Aye, yes", or an "Aye, no"?'

  'Aye.'

  'Right.' Two ayes, in Israel's experience in and around Tumdrum, usually meant a yes. 'Oh, God.'

  'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.'

  'Yes. Sorry. Forgot. Did she say what she wanted at all?'

  'Who?'

  'My mother?'

  'Aye.'

  'Right…'

  'She said can you ring her.'

  'OK. Did it sound urgent?'

  'Aye.'

  'I'll take that as a yes, then, shall I?'

  Israel's mother had pretty much given up ringing him now that he was here; in fact since he'd moved to Northern Ireland his mother seemed to have given up on him entirely. She'd never approved of him becoming a librarian in the first place. She was a snob, his mother, that was her trouble; in her mind, a librarian was somewhere on the social scale just below social worker and just above bus driver; indeed, she could barely utter the word 'librarian'. When people asked, she used to tell them that Israel worked in 'info
rmation services'. She thought it sounded better, which, to be honest, it did. She'd hoped of course that he'd have turned out as a doctor, with maybe a law degree up his sleeve in case of emergencies, so for him to have turned out as a librarian–an 'information manager'–a mere purveyor of books, that was bad enough, but to be a librarian on a mobile library in Northern Ireland…'Oy ve!' she might have cried, throwing her hands up in the air, because she often did exactly that, just like the people of Northern Ireland, in Israel's experience, often said 'Ach' and 'Aye' and 'But' at the end of their sentences, and viewed you with narrowed eyes and hunched shoulders. But if you were to write that down and describe it thus no one would believe you; they'd think you were exaggerating, or making things up. People thought they were unique, and that they lived lives of utter complexity and singularity, that they were free and unfettered to be and do and act however and whatever they willed, but in Israel's experience it was otherwise: in his experience, people lived lives entirely bound by their limited background and circumstances. Librarians were just so much like librarians, and his mother was Jewish, and the problem with people in Northern Ireland was that they were so Northern Irish. And his problem? Israel's problem was that he was a Jewish librarian living in Northern Ireland.

  If his mother was ringing then it must be important. Israel wondered if maybe she'd won the National Lottery; she'd been doing the same numbers now for years. She seemed to believe that the Lottery was like a queue for a fairground attraction, that it was only a matter of time before it was her turn to step up and get a go and claim her prize, and preferably in a Euro rollover week.

  Israel used the phone in the front room, down beneath the photos of the Loyal Orange Lodge; the police had his mobile, and his London Review of Books, and his lint.

  Israel had never exactly been good on the phone, and he was getting worse. His calls to Gloria these days were an absolute disaster. They used to have good phone days and bad phone days, but now they'd pretty much given up on actually talking to each other. When he first arrived Israel used to leave messages on the home phone, back at the flat they'd shared together, but it was always on answerphone, and the sound of Gloria's voice–that low, direct tone she'd use whenever she wanted something done, or when she wanted to sound in charge: 'I'm not here right now, but if you leave a message I'll get back to you'–that was too much for him. So they'd turned instead to texting. Or at least Israel had turned to texting. Gloria had bought him The Lt Bk of Txt last Christmas–as well as a nice Thomas Pink tie, he should add, and some CDs–and he'd really taken to it. It was a bit like writing, only easier. The problem was, the texting had turned into a one-way correspondence.