The case of the missing books (6 page)

Oh, God.

It was dark now as they drove and Ted was offering a running commentary and pointing out interesting landmarks all along the way, although it was too dark for Israel actually to be able to see any of the landmarks, and anyway most of them were carpet factories, and canning factories, or buildings that no longer existed. Eventually, Ted pulled off the road and up onto yet another rutted lane, which led to the hotel, the Strand, which had clearly seen better days–even in the dark you could tell it could have done with a paint-job and some re-rendering, and maybe some work on the subsidence round where it stood on the cliff overlooking the sea.

As they drew up outside the hotel Israel could see through the vast, brightly lit ground-floor windows groups of men in dinner jackets and women in evening dresses talking, and smoking, and laughing, and clutching each other and glasses of champagne and barbecued spare ribs, and just for a moment he thought he could have been back in London: the romance of it, the people, the comfort, the warmth. He could almost smell the perfume without opening the windows.

'Only be a minute,' said Ted, once he'd parked the car. 'Just go and round them up.'

'Fine,' said Israel, happy to sit dozing in the passenger seat, glad that the longest and worst day of his life was finally coming to an end.

A man and woman approached the car and got into the back seat, laughing and joking. They didn't notice the heap of sleeping Israel in the front, and Israel, dozing, didn't notice them.

What woke him up was the sound of the kissing. It took him a minute to remember where he was: sitting in the front of a cab in the middle of nowhere waiting for Ted Carson to return, feeling sick, while a man and a woman on the back seat seemed to be getting to know each other as more than just good friends.

Oh, God.

There was a smell of alcohol and cigarettes and hot barbecued meats coming from the back seat, and that distinctive smell of passion; that pulse; that vibration; that disturbing hint of civet. Israel half opened his eyes, determined not to look round, and sank down lower and lower in his seat queasily, trying to remain as quiet as possible, hoping for some kind of cooling-off or reprieve, but the couple behind him were oblivious and activities were proceeding apace, and he realised if he didn't act now things could only get messier, and worse.

'Evening,' he said, in a slightly squeaky voice, in a convenient pause, turning round as he spoke and trying to smile.

Everything happened at once. The woman screamed and reached for the door handle, the man let out a roar and reached forward with a punch that caught Israel on the side of the head, knocking off his glasses and knocking him against the passenger-seat window, and then Ted appeared, opening the driver's door.

'Ach, there you all are now. Thought I'd lost you. You've met Israel then?'

Israel was slumped against the passenger door, holding his head.

'Aaggh.'

'Israel?' said Ted. 'Are you all right?'

'Aaggh.'

'What have you been up to?' Ted clambered into his seat. 'Can I not leave you for one minute without you getting into trouble? What's wrong?'

'He hit me,' mumbled Israel.

'He's the new librarian,' explained Ted, turning round to the man and woman on the back seat.

'I don't care if he's the fuckin' Pope, Ted,' said the man. 'He gave us the fright of our lives.'

'Oh dear,' said Ted, starting up the engine and reversing out of the parking space. 'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Not a good start is it?' He turned to Israel as he changed into first, and headed back down the dark lane.

'Uggh,' Israel continued moaning.

'All right, all right,' said Ted. 'Now tell me: how many fingers am I holding up? Come on. Eh? Hey? Come on!' He was holding up two fingers in the dark.

'Two,' said Israel.

'Good man,' said Ted. 'Must be a bruise just. No harm done. We'll find you a red flannel when you get back to George's. Now catch a hold of yourselves, lads, shake hands and let's forget all about it, eh?'

The man in the back seat leant forward to shake Israel's hand.

'Shake!' Ted instructed Israel, and Israel reached a cold hand round, without turning.

'There we are,' said Ted. 'Now let's settle down.' And they drove at high speed for what seemed a long time in complete and utter silence.

They skirted the coast, Israel staring with his one good eye out into the far, dark double-blackness of the sea, wishing he was anywhere else but here–even back at the discount bookshop at the Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock in Essex, which wasn't a bad little job when you thought about it–and eventually Ted pulled up outside a house on what appeared to be a half-completed housing development perched on the edge of the main road and overlooking the sea. Some of the houses had roofs; some had windows; some had roofs and windows; all of them had identical bright white PVC front doors. Against the backdrop of the dark black sea the development looked like a shiny plastic clearing in the jungle.

The man in the back gave the woman a quick kiss and a squeeze of the hand, and then climbed out of the car, and Israel reluctantly unbuckled his seat belt and went to get out of the car himself.

'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.

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 thing 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.