Mr. Dixon disappears: a mobile library mystery

by Ian Sansom

  'LO,' he'd text.

  No reply.

  'LO?'

  No reply.

  'RUOK?'

  No reply.

  'RUF2T?'

  No reply.

  'PCM.'

  No reply.

  'PLS.'

  No reply.

  The most she'd ever text back would be: 'SPK.'

  But they rarely did.

  But that was OK. They were going to sort everything out. Gloria was coming over next weekend and Israel was planning to take her round and show her the sights, and he was going to get Ted to help him work out an itinerary. And of course he'd have sorted out all this nonsense with the police and everything would be fine, fine, fine. Things would get back to normal. They were going to have a great time.

  His mum picked up.

  'Hi, Mum,' he said.

  'Hello?'

  'It's me.'

  'Who's me?'

  'Your son, Israel.'

  'Ah,' said his mum.

  She hadn't won the National Lottery. She'd rung Israel at the farm to tell him that his grandmother–Granny G they called her–had gone into hospital.

  Granny G had been ill for a long time. She was Israel's last surviving grandparent. The others had died when he was much younger–one cancer, one heart attack, one stroke, the usual dull, limited range of diseases. Israel had always wished they could have died of something more interesting and exotic. Gloria's grandfather had died of a tropical disease he'd picked up in Africa, but then Gloria's family were exactly that sort of family; Israel's family were more the sort that died of complications arising from a fall in the bathroom, or a hospital infection from a wound after surgery.

  Israel's granny had been ill almost as long as Israel remembered her. It was her hips when he was in his teens and then there was the angina, and recently she'd been getting out of breath. He hadn't been able to keep up with her illnesses when he was living at home–they'd all started to merge into one–and there was no way he'd been able to keep up with them now, from a distance. Listening to someone describing someone else's sicknesses on the phone acted like a sedative on Israel.

  But this was different. His mother really sounded worried. She'd been coughing a lot, apparently, Granny G, had lost a lot of weight and now she was in for tests. Bronchoscopy, was it his mother said? Israel told his mother not to worry, he was sure she'd be fine. She'd always recovered before; she'd recover this time too.

  'And what's this about the police?' said his mother.

  'What?'

  'The police? The old man on the phone there said something about—'

  'Sorry, Mum, it's a bad line. I can't hear you properly…'

  'The police!' said his mother. 'You're in trouble?'

  'Mum, sorry. I'll have to call you back sometime. OK. Thanks, bye.'

  When he returned to the kitchen George was there. She was wearing her faded blue boiler suit and her hair was pinned up; she looked as though she might have been out fixing up Formula 1 racing cars.

  'Armstrong,' she said.

  'Ah, yes, George,' said Israel. 'My belongings…'

  'Yes?'

  'They were out in the yard.'

  'Yes.'

  'And that's because?'

  'The police were here, Armstrong.'

  'Yes. I'm sorry about that. I seem to have got mixed up in this—'

  'They told us,' said George. 'They wanted your passport.'

  'Right.'

  'Did you do it?' she asked.

  George had folded her arms; she often folded her arms when speaking to him, purposefully and resentfully, as though Israel had made her do it, as though he himself had imposed the burden upon her, as if he'd said, 'Fold your arms, woman!' It was a gesture that suggested scepticism and annoyance and boredom and above all contempt; with a mere movement of hand to elbow George knew how to blow a chill wind into a room and through a conversation.

  'Did you do it?' she repeated, arms firmly in place.

  'Well!' said Israel indignantly. He'd have done an 'Oy ve!' if he thought he could've got away with it, but what was the point of an exclamation if no one knew what it meant? Since moving to Northern Ireland he'd had to give up about half his repertoire of verbal and non-verbal exclamations; he'd had to adapt; his hands, his mouth, his entire body had had to accommodate themselves to the landscape and to the people.

  'Well!' he said again, folding his arms in imitation of George. 'Did I do it? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Silly me.' He slapped his forehead. 'I almost forgot! Of course I did it! I stole all the money from the department store, kidnapped Mr Dixon, and now I'm hiding him until I get paid the ransom. You caught me fair and square. I'm your man. It's a fair cop.'

  'Joy shall there be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,' said Mr Devine, scratching his grizzly chin.

  'So,' said George, arms still folded.

  'Of course I didn't do it!' said Israel. 'What do you think I am? I'm a librarian. I'm not a bloody criminal!'

  'Aye, well. We don't actually know anything about you, Mr Armstrong. You could well be a librarian and a bloody criminal for all we're to know.'

  'We'll not have language in the house,' said Mr Devine.

  'All right, Grandad,' said George. 'Sorry.'

  'Parcel of bad meat,' muttered Mr Devine.

  'What?' said Israel.

  'You are an unknown quantity,' said George.

  'Right. Yes. Of course. Well, there you are. Sorry. You've found me out. Truth is, I'm not the mild-mannered fellow I seem. I'm a dangerous criminal on the run from Interpol. Wanted across Europe for a string of department store crimes.'

  'There's no need for your sarcasm, Mr Armstrong,' said George.

  'Well, honestly. Who do you think I am?'

  George looked at him sternly and Israel decided to try a subtler, more sympathetic approach to George's wall of discontent.

  'Look. OK. Listen. This…thing will all be sorted out in a couple of days. OK? And you'll see I have nothing whatsoever to do with it, and that'll be us, back to the way we were. All right?' Israel looked pleadingly from George to Mr Devine. 'So can I put my stuff back in the coop?'

  'No, Armstrong,' said George. 'We need the chicken coop.'

  'What do you mean you need the chicken coop? What for?'

  'For chickens.'

  'But you didn't need it this morning!'

  'Things have changed since this morning, Mr Armstrong.'

  'But you can't have the coop for chickens.'

  'Chickens need to be inside,' said George.

  'But that's where I live!' said Israel.

  'Was,' said George. 'And just to remind you, you've been complaining and threatening—'

  'Threatening?' said Israel.

  'Complaining and promising,' said George. 'Promising to find somewhere else to live since you first arrived here.'

  'Yes. Well, I haven't managed to sort it out yet. I've had a lot to…And you can't just throw me out on the street.'

  'No.'

  'No, you can't! I'm paying you good money to put me up.'

  'Yes. You are.'

  'Well then.'

  'We're not throwing you out,' said George.

  'But you just said…'

  'We've decided you can stay in Brownie's room while he's away at university.'

  'Oh, right.'

  That came as a surprise. That sounded quite good. It was actually in the house.

  'Actually in the house?' said Israel.

  'We can keep a closer eye on you there.'

  'Ah, right. Well. That's…Well. That's very good. So where's Gloria going to stay?'

  'Who?'

  'My girlfriend, Gloria? She's coming over next weekend. I told you. You know all about that. Don't pretend you don't know.'

  'She certainly can't stay here, Armstrong.'

  'Why not?'

  'You're not married, are you?'

  'No.'

  'Well, you're not cohabiting here then.'

  Mr Devine shook
his head in agreement.

  'But—'

  'We'll be charging you extra, mind,' said George.

  'What?'

  'For the inside of the house.'

  'Oh, good grief.'

  'Is that a problem, Armstrong?'

  'No, no, not at all. In fact, I'll tell you what, how about I give you all my wages at the end of every month and you just pay me a small allowance and keep the rest?'

  'Have you seen the price of pig feed recently?' asked George.

  'Erm. No,' said Israel.

  'And the permits and th'pig passports,' added Mr Devine.

  'Pig passports?'

  'Aye.'

  'Bird flu. All we need now is swine fever, and that'd be us,' said Mr Devine.

  'Don't talk like that, Granda,' said George.

  'Sorry?' said Israel.

  'You remember the fire at Lovell and Christmas a few years back?' said Mr Devine.

  'No.'

  'All them Large Whites.'

  'Are they potatoes?' said Israel.

  'They're pigs, for goodness sake,' said George.

  'Oh, right. Sorry.'

  'Anyway,' said George.

  'We're losing money on every one,' said Mr Devine.

  'If you're in Brownie's room you're responsible for the fish,' said George.

  'What? This is a fish farm as well? What is it, salmon or trout?'

  'They're tropical fish,' said George.

  'Ah,' said Israel.

  'In Brownie's aquarium.'

  Israel spent the rest of the afternoon shifting his things from the yard into Brownie's room, which was pretty much what you'd expect of a young man's room: the obligatory Kurt Cobain poster; some wrestling posters, featuring men who looked like they'd been dipped in body-building plastic; and piles of books on the obligatory wobbly shelves, full of textbooks, a copy of The Dice Man, and J.K. Rowlings. There was also an accordion, which Israel picked up and gave a good squeeze–he'd got up to Grade 5 piano, after all, and he managed to get a couple of chords out of it–and then there was the pièce de résistance, the aquarium. Brownie had gone for the traditional treasure chests, divers and mermaids; and fish, of course. George had given him the guided tour.

  'That's a Veiltail Betta.'

  'Right.'

  'And that's an African Jewel Fish.'

  'OK.'

  'Paradise Fish.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'Dwarf Gourami.'

  'Hello, Mr Gourami!' said Israel, waving at the fish.

  'They're fish, Armstrong.'

  'Yes, right, just sort of—'

  'And that's a Red-breasted Cichlid.'

  'Good.'

  'Brownie loves his fish,' said George.

  'Well, perfect pet,' said Israel. 'Much better than dogs or cats.'

  George looked at him askance.

  'Not that I don't like cats and dogs,' he added quickly; there were several cats on the farm, and a black Labrador that padded here and there that the Devines referred to simply as the Gundog. Israel had never liked dogs, or cats. Gloria wanted a cat. But cats scratched.

  'Hemingway kept cats,' he said, catching sight of Brownie's copy of A Farewell to Arms.

  'I'm sure. Whatever you do, don't forget to feed the fish,' said George.

  'I won't,' said Israel. 'I shall treat them as my own.'

  The aquarium was tucked up under the window, from where you got to see the farm in all its squalor and glory. Framed in the distance, right in the centre of the window–rotten wooden sash windows, the cords frayed–there was the old oak, up past the New Field, with some sort of an overgrown shrubbery around it; and then off to the left, closer to the house, the long low buildings where they kept the pigs, with the yard and the barns, covered with Virginia creeper and ivy; and then the disused well off to the right with its old wooden cover, like some passageway down to the centre of the earth; and Mr Devine's vegetable patch, with its rows and rows of leeks and onions. Smooth, hazy hills curved downwards to meet this view, the farm a mere foreground to vast, unrolling, magnificent nature.

  You couldn't deny that kind of view; there was no getting round it, no going under it: it was idyllic. Sometimes–and it had happened more than once now, though he didn't like to admit it–Israel thought this might be a good place to live.

  But then he'd remember he was actually living here.

  By the time he'd finished unpacking his things it was after dark and Israel lay down on Brownie's bed to read.

  Brownie had a shelf of crime paperbacks next to the aquarium–slightly damp crime paperbacks–and Israel had started flicking through them, in the hope that the books might help him in some way, that they might have the answer to all his problems. He'd never read a lot of crime fiction before; it was the covers, mostly, that put him off. He was very anti-embossing.

  He lay on the bed for hours, entranced, flicking through tales of absurd and horrific murders solved in the most improbable fashion. He'd pick up a book and start reading it, and he'd get to where the hero, the detective, or the forensic pathologist, or the maverick investigator, was hot on the trail of the mobsters, or the serial killer, or the corrupt businessman who nobody suspected, and they were also having to face up to some demons of their own–drink, usually, or a troublesome ex-husband or wife–and then he'd realise that the whole thing was just ridiculous and getting him nowhere, and he'd toss the book aside and take up another. It was like eating a family pack of Tayto cheese and onion crisps (which he'd done, actually, several times, so he knew).

  By about midnight he was satiated and utterly, utterly depressed; his eyes ached and his head hurt, and also he was starving. Judging by the books he was reading he was going to need a car, and probably a gun in order to get anywhere in his investigation; it would also help if he had a complex inner life and a troubled childhood. But first he needed something to eat.

  So he crept downstairs to the kitchen.

  There were no lights on anywhere. Israel felt around trying to find them, but failed; he'd never been inside the house by himself at night. He felt his way to where he thought the fridge might be, and knelt down, opened the door, felt the cold and the light upon him, and began looking for what he could find: some lard, some dripping, some hard cheese, and lots of uncooked meat–sausages, mostly, and bacon. But then also, wrapped in foil, he found the remains of the Devines' dinner: a chicken carcass.

  Now this was a serious dilemma.

  Israel hadn't eaten meat since he was eighteen years old, although he'd thought about it probably every day since, and he looked at the pale stringy flesh hanging from the bones and couldn't decide–it looked so pathetic–but then he remembered those nuggety little bits of meat that you get under the chicken, those little goujons, and he turned the chicken over and there they were, white and glistening in the fridge's glow. He was just prising them off and was about to pop them in his mouth when someone kicked open the kitchen door and yelled at him, 'You move and I'll kill you!'

  He leapt up and put his hands in the air.

  George was at the doorway in a tartan dressing gown, with a shotgun.

  'Jesus Christ!' said Israel, still with his hands up.

  'Armstrong!'

  'George!'

  'What in God's name are you doing in here?'

  'I live here,' said Israel.

  'Not in the kitchen!'

  'No. I was just—'

  'You can put your hands down,' said George.

  'Right. Thanks.' Israel had the little chicken bits in the palms of his hands. 'Erm…'

  'You're lucky I didn't…'

  'Quite,' said Israel.

  'You ragin' eejit,' said George.

  'Sorry. That's the second time today someone's pointed a gun at me, actually.'

  'Aye, well, maybe third time lucky,' said George, lowering the gun.

  'Right. Thanks,' said Israel.

  George was turning to go.

  'Actually, George,' said Israel.

  'What?'

&nb
sp; 'I need to ask you a favour.'

  'No,' said George, turning back.

  'Please. You haven't heard what it is yet.'

  'No. It's midnight. You're in my kitchen stealing my food, and you're lucky you're not bleedin' like a stuck pig. So the answer to whatever you're asking is no.'

  'It's just…'

  'No! Do you understand the word?'

  'Yes. It's just, I just wondered about your…erm, your gun there? If I could maybe borrow it if I needed it?'

  'Are you out of your tiny English mind, Armstrong?'

  'No. It's just—'

  'No! No! No!'

  'What about the car then? Could I maybe borrow the car tomorrow? Just while I've not got the van to fall back on.'

  'No!'

  'But I need some transport, George, at least, if I'm going to be able to prove my innocence, and I've only got a week to—'

  'It's not my problem, Armstrong. You've got yourself into a mess, you get yourself out of it. Without my gun, and without my car–you lunatic! Goodnight,' she said, slamming the door behind her.

  'Goodnight,' said Israel feebly.

  He looked at the chicken pieces in his hand, and put them in the bin. He'd lost his appetite.

  If he'd been a detective in one of Brownie's crime novels he'd have drunk a half-bottle of whisky and gone driving off into the night listening to his favourite music while making incredible deductive leaps.

  Instead, he felt silently sorry for himself, made a cup of tea and went to bed.

  8

  The Reverend England Roberts stood at the front of the church. He was wearing his customary grey lounge suit and his far too wide, Adam's-apple-accentuating dog collar, and he was speaking–or, rather, booming–in his usual fashion into a microphone, which seemed to distort and amplify not merely his words, but also his personality. His habitual mischievous gleaming smile had been replaced with that peculiar look of the Christian ministering, that look that Israel had seen on the faces of all the old Presbyterian ministers in the photographs in the Reverend Roberts's robing room, a look way beyond smiling, a look of perfect yet somehow undefined profundity, a look of brow-furrowing tranquillity, as though contemplating some utterly obvious yet infinitely complex mathematical problem. It was a look…Israel was trying to think where he'd seen that look before. Well, to be honest, it was a post-coital kind of a look, that was what it was, Israel thought, though it seemed wrong, confusing sexual and religious emotions, particularly in a church, mixing up ultimate and penultimate truths. He had to shake his head to get the thought out of his mind; but then that was religion for you, in his opinion: it got you all confused.