The Case of the Missing Books

‘Aye.’

‘You hid her from the hoods?’

‘Aye. Exactly. We had to tuck her away, like. So they couldn’t find her,’ said Ted, who was now circling the tarpaulined shape, sizing it up, like a sculptor before a block of stone, or a wrestler eyeing up a worthy opponent.

Israel was struggling to keep up with all this.

‘So – hang on – you hid a whole mobile library?’

‘Aye.’

‘In here?’

‘Aye.’

‘Like Anne Frank?’

‘Well, I don’t know about that.’

‘But hidden.’

‘Aye. You’re the first man to be seeing her, actually, apart from myself, for nigh on three years.’

‘Was that not illegal though?’

‘What?

‘Well, when you say you hid her…’

‘Hmm?’

‘Is that not the same as stealing her?’

‘Ach, no. Not at all. Stealing’s wrong. Yous must have that in your religion, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Of course we have that in my religion—’ began Israel.

‘We were looking after her, just, that’s all. She was on loan, if you like.’

‘And now you’ve decided to give her back?’

‘No. No. We’re not giving her back.’

‘But…This is the mobile library we’re going to be using?’

‘Aye. But we’re not giving her back. We’ve sold her back.’

‘You’ve sold the council back their own mobile library?’

‘That’s right.’

‘That’s unbelievable.’

‘It’s practical.’

‘God,’ said Israel, trying to take it all in. ‘It’s quite a vindication, I suppose, for you.’

‘Vintication?’ Ted glowered. ‘It’d take more than that for a vintication.’

‘Right. So you and who sold her back?’

‘A few of us.’ Ted tapped his nose. ‘Those of us with the interests of the wider community at heart.’

Israel knew when not to ask any further questions, and anyway some small chick feather seemed to have lodged itself in the back of his throat; he began coughing and coughing, breathing in more dust and the stench of bird and chicken shit.

‘Ah.’

Ted slapped him hard on the back.

‘Eerrgh. Thanks,’ said Israel. ‘Couldn’t you have kept it, you know, somewhere a bit more hygienic?’

‘There wasn’t anywhere else. Here we go,’ said Ted, unbolting the big double doors at the far end of the chicken shed and heaving them open. Light and fresh air streamed in. ‘Freshen her up.’ Ted’s shaven head shone like a beacon in the winter’s light.

‘Where are we exactly?’

‘Where? We’re here.’

‘Yes, but where is here exactly?’

‘Well, that’d be Ballycastle across Cushleake there. What’s that? North-west?’ Ted pointed off into the cloudless distance. ‘Then round westerly you’ve got yer Giant’s Causeway, and Bushmills and—’

‘I see,’ interrupted Israel, who was still none the wiser, his grasp of Northern Irish geography being almost entirely limited to memories of the little black dot showing Belfast on the BBC news during his childhood.

He wiped his glasses on his shirt and turned back to look at the tarp – a vast, damp, mouldy sack, pocked with black and white stains. Ted was walking round and round, huffing and puffing, loosening ropes.

‘I used to do all the work on her myself. She wasn’t in bad shape, so she wasn’t.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘But the tarp, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Not good, tarps. Moisture. Rust if you do, rust if you don’t.’

‘A bit like life really then,’ said Israel feebly.

Ted ignored this comment. ‘You helping, then, or your hands painted on?’