The Case of the Missing Books

‘Really? I’m sorry,’ said Israel.

‘No one’s blaming you. First Friday in December. Beginning of the auld Christmas season. Bunged, the whole place.’ There didn’t seem to be that much traffic on the roads.

‘Of course. Sorry. I forgot.’

‘Forgot Christmas?’

‘I’m Jewish,’ mumbled Israel in mitigation. ‘And a lot on my mind. You know, packing up, moving over here.’

‘Oh,’ said Ted, giving Israel a sidelong glance. ‘Muhammad Ali, he was a Muslim, you know.’

‘Erm…’

‘Ted Kid Lewis: he was Jewish. Ruby Goldstein. Probably before your time.’

‘Erm…’

‘Welterweights,’ said Ted, adding, ‘Birth of Our Saviour and all that, Christmas.’

‘Yes.’

‘So the young ones are all out getting bladdered.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Israel, who could feel things beginning to rise within his gullet. ‘I wonder. Erm. Would it be OK to have a window open?’

‘Aye,’ said Ted, winding down his window. ‘No problem.’

‘It’s Hanukkah too,’ said Israel vaguely, momentarily revived by the breeze.

‘Bless you,’ said Ted, turning off the main road onto a narrow road and then onto a rutted lane and pulling up outside an old corrugated-iron barn. ‘Here we are now.’

‘What?’

‘The van.’

‘Where?’

‘Here.’

Here was a ploughed field, with far views off to dark green mountains one way and the dark grey sea the other, and the old metal barn set in mud and concrete between them. Ted parked, got out of the car, fiddled with some padlocks on a door, and ushered Israel inside.

‘There she is,’ said Ted, pointing to a massive dark shape in the centre of the dark shed. ‘That’s my girl.’

It was a large bus-shaped girl.

Ted stepped closer to the big bulky mass and Israel followed and tentatively held out his hand, brushing the dark, heavy, patchy fabric, which felt like a giant damp towel left on a single radiator for many years.

‘This is the mobile library?’ asked Israel.

‘Aye.’

‘This?’

‘Aye.’

‘Right,’ said Israel. ‘What’s with the…sheet?’

‘The tarp?’ Ted touched the tarpaulin and sniffed his fingers. Israel imitated, trying to pick up the scent.

‘What’s that sm—’

‘Chickens,’ said Ted.

‘Ah!’ said Israel, wiping his hands on his trousers. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Well, we couldn’t have let her just stood.’

‘Ugh!’ said Israel, still wiping his hands. ‘How long’s she been here?’

‘Long enough,’ said Ted, gazing round.

Israel looked around too. A barn more in the middle of the middle of nowhere and dirtier and damper and dustier Israel could not have imagined: the cobwebs had cobwebs; the dust had dust; and the dirt was so dirty you’d have had to clean the dirt off it first to get at it.

‘The mobile library’s been kept in this…place?’

‘Nowhere else for her. We had to keep her safe, when they stopped the service a few years back. The council wanted to sell her as scrap,’ said Ted, screwing up his face in disgust, which was effective: he had a face that was more than capable of expressing disgust; his broken nose was pre-wrinkled. ‘They were after breaking her up and selling her off.’

‘I see.’

‘Same as they did with me.’

‘Right.’

‘I drove her nearly twenty-five years, man and boy. And then they did away with the pair of us.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Ach, sure but, you knock your pan in for half a lifetime, that’s what you get. They’re a bunch of hoods, the lot of them.’

‘Hoods?’

‘Aye.’

‘Right. But the council didn’t break her up and sell her for scrap?’

‘No. Because we hid her.’

‘You hid her?’