The case of the missing books

by Ian Sansom

'Where d'you think you're going?' said Ted.

  'I thought I was staying with George,' said Israel.

  'You are staying with George, you eejit.'

  'But…'

  'That's Tony, sure,' said Ted, nodding towards the retreating figure of the man, as if everyone in the western world knew Tony.

  'Tony Shaw?'

  'Ach, what? No. Tony Thompson.'

  'Right.'

  'I'm George,' said the woman from the back seat.

  'Right. I'm sorry,' said Israel. 'I assumed…' His words faded as Ted started up the car again.

  Ted was silent. George was silent. Israel was silent. Everything was silence. And they drove again for what seemed a long time and eventually pulled onto a dirt track, and up a lane, past some big dark looming metal gates and some big dark looming farm machinery, and into a farmyard.

  George got out of the car, and so did Israel, with his headache, and he went to get his old suitcase from the boot and then he tapped on Ted's window to say thanks.

  'Hold on,' shouted Ted, having wound down his window as Israel started walking away, calling him back to the car. 'Hey! Buck Alec!'

  'Me?' said Israel.

  'Yes, you,' said Ted. 'Muhammad Ali. Of course you. Here. Come here.'

  Israel trudged back to the car then, assuming he'd lost something, or left something behind.

  'That's twenty-five pounds,' said Ted, leaning out of the window.

  'What?'

  'Twenty-five of your English pounds, sir. For the taxi. What, blow to the head affect your memory?'

  'But,' said Israel, 'I thought, you know, what's-her-name at the council had arranged it?'

  'Linda?'

  'That's it.'

  'Aye, she arranged for me to take you to the van, but. This is a private arrangement, between us.'

  'I'm sure Linda'll square it with you.'

  'Aye. Well, you may be, but I've had enough dealings with Linda Wei and the so-called council to know better. Expect nothin' off a pig but a grunt.'

  'What?'

  'I'll have my money now, thank you.'

  'Well, I'll…' began Israel. 'I'll have to owe you then, I'm afraid. Can we sort it out tomorrow?'

  'No, no,' laughed Ted. 'Don't you be getting cute with me.' He extended a huge open hand out of the window into the cold night air: he really had tremendous fists. 'I'm not as green as I'm cabbage-lookin'. Let's see the colour of your money, and I'll be on my way. They'll be paying you good wages at the council, unless I'm mistaken. You're not working for free, are ye?'

  'No.'

  'Aye, well, you want to watch 'em and make sure you're not.'

  'OK.'

  'So, the money?'

  Israel dug into his suit and duffle coat pockets and handed over all his remaining cash: £22.76. Now he was skint.

  'That'll do rightly,' said Ted, counting the money, before starting up his engine and heading out of the farmyard.

  'Arsehole,' shouted Israel, in a last-minute mustering of rage and defiance as the car pulled off.

  The car stopped immediately and started to reverse. Israel froze. Ted reversed neatly alongside Israel's craven, apologetic form. His window was wound down.

  'Come again?'

  'What?'

  'Did you just say something?'

  'Me? No, no.'

  'I thought I heard you say something.'

  'No.'

  'You sure?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, you forgot these,' said Ted, going to hand Israel his glasses out of the window.

  'Right, thanks,' said Israel, relieved he wasn't going to be bundled into the boot of the car and his body dumped in a river. 'Great. Cheers.'

  And as he leant down towards the window to take the glasses Ted grabbed him by the toggles on his duffle coat and pulled him close up to him.

  'If you don't want your other eye to match the one you've got, you want to watch your mouth, eh.'

  'Yes,' gasped Israel.

  'I don't like auld dirty talk.'

  'Right. Sorry.'

  'This is a Christian country.'

  'Right.'

  'And you'd do well to remember that.'

  'Right.'

  And he let Israel go. 'There you are,' he said, handing him his glasses.

  'Thanks,' mumbled Israel.

  'See you tomorrow morning!' called Ted cheerily as he pulled off in the car, orange plastic bear illuminated. 'Nine o'clock. At the library.'

  'Right,' said Israel. 'Great.'

  The farmyard was deserted and dark.

  George had disappeared.

  And Israel's eye was swelling like a marrow in shit, and he stepped forward with his case and trod in something soft. He bent over to sniff it.

  Oh, God.

  It made no difference. He no longer cared.

  And then he saw a light go on in a window on the dark far side of the farmyard, and he slipped and slid his way over.

  A stable door opened into a whitewashed room and George was in there, wearing wellies, her high heels in one hand, a frozen choc-ice in the other; she held out the choc-ice towards Israel as he entered.

  'No, thanks,' said Israel. 'I couldn't—'

  'It's for your eye, you idiot. It's all we have.'

  'Right. Thanks,' said Israel, pressing the choc-ice up to his face. 'Aaggh.'

  'You bring the yard in with you?' said George, pointing at Israel's manured shoes and trousers.

  'Yes. Sorry.'

  George tutted and then went to leave the room.

  'Look,' said Israel to her retreating self. 'I'm sorry we got off to a bad start. I mean, I'm from London. I've met lots of people with funny names–not that George is a funny name, of course. I mean, for a woman, it's—'

  'It's late, Mr Armstrong.'

  'Call me Ishmael–no–Israel,' he said, correcting himself.

  She looked at him then with pity and stepped momentarily closer towards the light and Israel enjoyed his first proper one-eyed look at her. She was red-haired and bare-shouldered in her velvet evening dress, a dark green shawl slung over to keep her warm.

  'I'll stick with Armstrong, thank you,' she said. 'This is you, then.'

  'This is where I'm staying?'

  'That's correct,' she said crisply. 'Goodnight.' And with that she shut the door, and was gone.

  Israel stood and looked around him. At last he was home. His new start in Ireland. He sniffed. He thought he could smell something funny: fungus; straw; longstanding neglect; fresh paint; damp; and–what was that? He sniffed again.

  It was chicken shit.

  5

  Israel had never before been woken by the sound of a cock. And certainly not by the sound of a cock in the same room, perched like the Owl of Minerva on the end of his bed.

  His eye hurt. His head hurt. His back hurt. It'd be easier in fact to say what didn't hurt: his toes, they seemed fine, but that was because they were so cold he couldn't even feel his toes. He was just assuming his toes were fine. His nose, also. He felt for his nose–it was fine. But where were his glasses? He needed his glasses.

  He was feeling around frantically for his glasses when the cock crowed again and started strutting boldly up the bed towards him. Any chickens he'd ever met before had tended to be already either safely roasted with their cavities loosely stuffed and their juices running clear, or well boiled in soups with carrot and onions, so this living, breathing, full-throated, fully feathered chicken was something of a shock to his already shell-shocked system. It looked bigger than the chickens he was familiar with: you certainly couldn't have fitted it comfortably into the average-sized roasting tin or casserole. Maybe it was the feathers that did it.

  He tried shooing the fat clucking chicken by flapping his hands, but it wasn't until he wobbled his tired, cold, beaten body up out of bed and turned nasty, throwing stuff from his suitcase–books, mostly, including his hardback Brick Lane, which he'd lugged around for years, trying to wade through–that he managed to chase the damned thin
g to the door and escort it outside. In the end it was his paperback edition of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time that did the trick. He knew that'd come in useful one day.

  Outside it was drizzling rain and whipping winds again, and there were lights on in some of the outbuildings around the farmyard, and the sound of unoiled machinery, and thrumping motors, and animal noises, and Israel peered at his watch and it was six o'clock in the morning: 6 a.m.

  Oh, bloody hell.

  Israel had never exactly been renowned as an early riser–it was always Gloria who'd been quickest off the starting block, showered and hair-washed and away to work by the time Israel had surfaced usually–and by his own calculation he had enjoyed only four hours' uninterrupted sleep during the past forty-eight hours, which was not good. Which was torture, in fact, probably, under the UN Convention of Human Rights–he could check that with Gloria.

  He needed a lot of things right now: something good to eat, a bath, more Nurofen, a new job, a plane ticket out. But above all he needed more sleep. Lots more. Lashings of sleep.

  He'd been so cold in the night that he'd got up and unpacked all his clothes from his old brown case and piled them in layers on top of himself, a kind of clothes sandwich, but that hadn't worked: the clothes had all just slid off, leaving him cold again, so in the end he'd got dressed again; shirt and jumper and his best brown corduroy suit, including the trousers ankle-deep in shit which he'd had to roll up past his knees, two pairs of socks, and the duffle coat to weigh him down. He'd used his pyjamas rolled up as a pillow–the pillow had got soaked through with melted choc-ice.

  So now he was lying there again, fully dressed, warm and comfortably immobilised, and just beginning to drop off when he heard what sounded like an explosion outside.

  And there was then what sounded like licking flames–that pffung! and whoosh! of flames–and so he had to raise himself again–bloody hell!–and quickly put on his shoes and…

  Bloody hell! That's where his glasses were; he'd tucked his glasses inside his shoes last night before he fell asleep, he remembered it now, as he felt a snap underfoot.

  'Aaggh!' he yelled, and, 'Oh shit!'

  And then he remembered that the building he was unfortunate enough to be staying in was now possibly on fire, so he wrenched open the door and hobbled outside, half-crippled, into the darkness.

  There was no fire.

  The lashing sound of the flames was in fact coming from a man with his back to him, dressed in yellow all-weather jacket and trousers, who was using a big humming power hose to clean the farmyard, not taking care to miss wooden doors, metal milk urns and other unsecured items, hence the clatter and the whoosh.

  'Aaggh!' said Israel, hopping slightly on his foot. 'Hello?'

  And 'Uh?' said the man, surprised, turning round suddenly with the hose, and completely soaking Israel from the waist down.

  'Aaggh! No!' screamed Israel. 'I'm! You've! Aaggh! I'm soaking!'

  'Sorry,' laughed the man, who wasn't in fact a man. It was George, scrubbed clean, looking quite unlike she had done the previous night–she was smiling now, for example.

  'I'm soaking!'

  'All right, Armstrong,' she said. 'Dry your eyes.'

  'What do you mean, dry my eyes? Dry my eyes? I am soaking wet. And…Ooowww!'

  'What's the matter with you?'

  'My glasses! They were in my shoes!'

  'In your shoes?'

  'Yes! My! Shoes!'

  He bent over and carefully took his left shoe off–his thin-soled, one and only best left brogue–and shook two separate pieces of what had been his glasses onto the concrete yard.

  'Look! My glasses! You've broken my glasses!'

  'I haven't broken your glasses.'

  'You have broken my glasses! If you hadn't been doing your…spraying thing, I wouldn't have had to rush outside and…' Israel was hopping and shaking his head in rage. 'For Christ's sake! What is this bloody place?'

  'What do you think it is? It's a farm.'

  'Right. Yes. I noticed. And are you all totally stark raving mad?'

  'No.'

  'Right! Well, if you think I'm going to settle for this, this, chicken shed—'

  'Coop,' corrected George.

  'Whatever! This coop as accommodation, you have got another think coming. I'll be complaining to the council about this.'

  'Right you are.'

  'Fine.'

  'Good.'

  'And now, if you'll excuse me, I had a rather long journey yesterday and I am sick and tired of you…people, and I would like to go back to sleep for an hour or two. If you wouldn't mind'–he gestured towards the machines–'keeping the noise down a little…'

  Israel turned away and began walking back to his room and immediately George turned the power hose back on again. Israel strode over to her and attempted to wrest the power hose from her hands. They struggled for a moment, cheek to cheek, hands clasped, staring at each other, like ancient warriors engaged in combat, except with a hose rather than broadswords, and in a farmyard, at six o'clock in the morning.

  And in the end Israel simply let go and followed the power hose to where it met the wall, and turned off the tap.

  And George marched over and switched the tap back on again. And now she was brandishing the nozzle of the hose like a gun at Israel.

  'This, Mr Armstrong,' she said, 'is the sound of work–not a sound you're familiar with, clearly, although I dare say even librarians have to do something with their time to justify their wages. And if you don't like it here, I suggest by all means that you start looking for somewhere else to stay.'

  'Well. Yes. I shall.'

  'Good.'

  'Today.'

  'Fine.'

  'Immediately.'

  'Good.'

  'Goodnight!'

  'Goodnight to you. And when you're done with your carrying on,' shouted George after his retreating figure, 'if you go on into the house Brownie'll help get your clothes dried off.'

  'Thank. You!' said Israel. And he slammed the door of his room–his coop–behind him.

  He hated losing his temper. He never usually lost his temper. He never usually had anything to lose his temper about. But this, this place was different: it made you lose your temper.

  He surveyed his surroundings: a small broken-down chest of drawers, an old sink plumbed into one corner, attached to the brick wall with wooden battens. The rug on the concrete floor. The big rusty cast-iron bed…

  And on the centre of the bed, four chickens, looking at him accusingly.

  He slammed back out of the door, past George, who simply pointed at a door in a building on the other side of the farmyard.

  Israel walked in.

  'Right!' he called furiously. 'Hello! Hello!! Good morning? Anyone about here? Anyone up in this nuthouse?'

  He walked through to the kitchen, where there was a young man reading a newspaper, sitting at a scrubbed-pine table next to a dirty white Rayburn solid-fuel stove.

  'Hi,' the young man said, in a disarmingly friendly manner, as Israel stormed in. 'You must be Mr Armstrong.'

  'Yes. That's right.'

  'Pleased to meet you,' said the young man, holding out his hand towards the sopping wet, brown-corduroy mess of Israel. 'Nice suit. I'm Brian. But everyone calls me Brownie. Hey, Granda?' he continued, apparently shouting to a heap of filthy rags piled on a ratty old armchair on the other side of the Rayburn, and which turned out to be a stubbly old man wrapped up in pyjamas and jumpers. 'This is Mr Armstrong. This is my granda, Israel. Granda, this is the fella who's going to be staying with us…'

  Israel was now regretting his rudeness–old people and polite people can do that to you, if you're not careful.

  'It's really very kind of you—' he began.

  The stubbly old man stared at Israel with beady, watery blue eyes for a moment before speaking.

  'Surely, doesn't the Good Lord tell us that if you entertain a stranger you entertain Me.'

  'Right,'
said Israel. Oh, God.

  'And we're being paid for it, Granda.'

  'Aye, well.'

  'He's the librarian, Granda. Do you remember?'

  'He doesn't look like a librarian. He looks as if he's the blavers.'

  'Blavers?' said Israel.

  'Ach, Granda,' said Brownie scoldingly. 'Can I get you some coffee, Israel?'

  'Erm, yes, thanks,' said Israel, disarmed by the boy's easy-going manner. 'A cup of coffee would be great.'

  'Espresso? Cappuccino?'

  'Young people today,' mumbled the old man, to no one in particular.

  'I'll take an espresso if you have one—' began Israel.

  'No, I'm joking,' said Brownie. 'It's instant.'

  'Right. Well, whatever.' He became conscious of his dripping onto the floor. 'And I…erm. If you don't mind, while you're…The lady–erm–George?'

  'Yes.'

  'Right. Yes. George said you'd be able to dry off these clothes for me? They got a bit wet. Out in the farmyard there?'

  'Spot of rain?'

  'Yes,' said Israel, abashed. 'You could say that.'

  'No problem. We'll just put them on the Rayburn here. That'll do it. And what happened to your eye?'

  'It was just an…accident,' said Israel, remembering now why his whole head hurt, and why he couldn't see properly.

  'You've a rare 'un there,' said Brownie. 'Should have seen the other fella though, eh?'

  'Yes.'

  'It's an absolute beauty.'

  'Right.'

  'Like a big ripe plum so it is.'

  'Yes.'

  'Does it hurt?'

  'Yes. Thanks. Well. I'll just pop and get some spare trousers and what have you.'

  'It's all right,' said Brownie. 'I'll lend you some of mine, sure. You'll starve of the cold out there. You warm yourself by the stove. I'll only be a wee minute.'

  Brownie left the room, leaving Israel alone with the old man.

  'So,' Israel ventured, struggling to think of some useful conversational gambit to get things going. 'Is it your farm, then, Mr…?'

  'My farm?' said the old man, fixing Israel with a suspicious stare.

  'Yes.'

  'Of course it's my farm.'

  'Right.' That was the end of that conversation then.

  'It was my farm,' continued the old man, as if Israel was in some way to blame for this apparently sudden and parlous state of affairs.