Ian Sansom - The Case of the Missing Books

'Oh, I am glad you like it. It's a labour of love, I'm afraid, but there are worse ways to spend one's old age.'

'I like the sculptures and the…' Israel couldn't think of word to describe the totem poles, and the moulded concrete flowerpot heads. '…And the other things.'

'Good! Some people are rather sniffy about them, I'm afraid.'

'Really?'

'Oh yes.'

'Do you make them yourself?'

'Absolutely. My means of self-expression I suppose you might say. You must come back for a proper tour one day.'

'That'd be lovely, thank you.'

'Sherry?'

'No. Thanks. I should really be going.'

'Yes, of course.'

Israel could see the red barn on the Devines' farm in the distance, beyond Pearce Pyper's gardens.

'Shall I go out this way?' he asked, indicating the French doors leading onto the rear terrace.

'No, no. You must go out the way you came in. Bad luck otherwise.'

'Is it?'

'Of course!'

Pearce Pyper led Israel back through the house.

'So, where are you for now?' asked Pearce Pyper.

'I'm staying with the Devines,' said Israel, pointing. 'Just past the big red barn there.'

'Ah, the Devines? Lovely family.'

'Yes.'

'Terrible business with the parents.'

'Yes.'

'Lovely girl, though, Georgina. Done them proud. Make some lucky man a wife one day, eh?'

'Yes, I'm sure.'

'Anyway, good luck to you.'

'Yes, thanks,' said Israel.

Pearce Pyper pointed down the driveway, and Israel set off, library books tucked under his arm.

It was getting dark. The lane was narrow. Overhead it was threatening rain. And as Israel walked he went back to trying to work out where the missing books had gone. Ted honestly seemed to believe that if they just kept rounding up overdue books they'd gather them all in eventually. But Israel knew this wasn't the case: the books had been stolen. He just still couldn't quite work out who might have had a motive for stealing fifteen thousand library books from Tumdrum and District Library-or fourteen thousand, or however many it was. Maybe they wanted to inflict harm upon the council, or upon the library, or upon librarians, so maybe it was someone with a grievance: thus, Norman Canning. Or it might be the council themselves, trying to cover up their plans to withdraw all library services. Then again, it was possible that someone simply wanted to sell the books and make some money. He therefore still had several lines of enquiry, none of which was so far working out.

He thought he heard something behind him: it sounded far off, at first, like a faint crunching. But the sound suddenly grew louder, and Israel turned around.

There was a vehicle approaching down the narrow grassy lane at high speed-in the dark he couldn't make out what it was. He dropped the library books and dived into the hedge, moments before the vehicle sped past him.

It was his head that hit the tree first.

His nose. He'd broken his bloody nose: in the impact of leaping out of the way of the oncoming vehicle and into the tree his nose had gone; it had popped. Israel had always been very attached to his nose.

When he finally made it back to the Devines', covered in blood, Mr Devine had fiddled around trying to straighten his nose up a bit and instead he seemed to have increased the spread, like too much jam on toast. When he looked in the mirror now Israel no longer saw a proud young north London librarian with all the future ahead of him: what he saw instead were the bruises, and the bumps and the nose of a bloated and washed-up old boxer.

The next morning Brownie had given him a lift into town and Israel gave a statement to the police, who said they'd look into the incident, although unfortunately Israel didn't have the registration number of the vehicle, nor could he identify it precisely-he said it was a long sort of car, at which the police officer, a Sergeant Friel, a man with the kind of moustache once touted by RAF pilots and a smart-arse attitude to match, had smiled and said, 'How long exactly?' and spread out his arms, 'This long?' and 'No,' Israel had said, 'Longer,' and 'Oh,' said Sergeant Friel, 'Well, well, well,' and he was sorry but in that case he was afraid there wasn't that much the police could do to help, there were an awful lot of long cars out there these days.

Israel spent the rest of his Saturday feeling profoundly sorry for himself and wishing he was back home in London, where of course all policemen are gentlemen and hit-and-run drivers leave their particulars at the scene of the crime. He was sitting in the kitchen by the Rayburn with his swelling nose, reading the paper, or trying to read the paper: the Impartial Recorder was not the Guardian, to be honest, and there were just only so many reports on the possible go-ahead of plans for new local renal units and photographs of Mayor Maureen Minty planting trees in the grounds of old people's homes that he could take. On Saturdays he and Gloria liked to get up late, read the papers, go and see an interesting independent film in an interesting independent cinema, and have something nice to eat in a young and happening person's kind of a restaurant. He rang Gloria to see what she was up to. She wasn't answering her mobile: she was too busy being young and happening, probably. Israel poured himself more tea from the never-ending teapot on the stove: he was slowly moving towards tea, actually, and away from coffee; and he couldn't help thinking that this was a very bad sign.

There were the usual comings and goings in the farmhouse: Mr Devine hauling coal and food around; Brownie up and down with books; George in and out in her dungarees. Israel remained in the kitchen, dreaming fondly of his old life.

'Aye, right, you're there,' said Mr Devine, bringing in a bundle of small sticks, which he'd spent most of the afternoon chopping out in the yard: the distant echoing sound of axe on wood had given Israel a terrible headache. 'Parcel for you.'

'For me, really? Thanks.'

Mr Devine handed over the package.

The only post Israel had received since arriving in Tumdrum had been a few circulars that his mother had forwarded to him-credit card offers and requests for charity donations.

He prodded his glasses and looked at the package. It was a Jiffy bag. He recognised Gloria's writing on the package. He ripped it open.

There was no note from Gloria. Her PA had probably sent it.

Inside the Jiffy bag was another Jiffy bag: the inner Jiffy had been posted to their London address.

Israel tore it open.

Inside the inner Jiffy was the map of Tumdrum and District that he'd been waiting for from Amazon.co.uk, which he'd ordered what now seemed like a lifetime ago in Zelda's.

Well, frankly, it wasn't the most exciting item he'd ever been sent in the post-his GCSE results, they'd been pretty good, and there was that time Gloria had ordered something on the Internet from Agent Provocateur, which was pretty good also, but still, this was something, it was a package, it was better than nothing, and he glanced absentmindedly at the seller's invoice.

And then he checked the postmark.

And then he looked again at the map.

And he couldn't believe it: the invoice was from someone calling themselves North Coast Books. And the postmark was Tumdrum. And the map had the tell-tale purple sticker on it: it was the old Tumdrum Library copy. It took him a moment, but then it all fell into place, there was a clunk and a click and the Eagle had landed, and it was all he could do to stop himself from shouting Eureka!

Receiving the map in the post was as good as receiving a written statement or a letter containing a confession; it wrapped it all up and gave it all away. The mystery was as good as solved.

All he needed to do now was to explain to someone this amazing breakthrough in his admittedly rather ad-hoc investigation. Brownie had gone out, otherwise he'd have been good to talk to, and Israel knew better by now than to try to talk about anything to George or Mr Devine and there weren't that many other people he could talk to; it was getting on for teatime, after which time traditionally in Tumdrum everyone battened down the hatches and prepared to repel boarders, but because of the import of his discovery, because he believed that finally he'd cracked it, and because he had absolutely no one else he could share the news with, he decided to take the liberty of going to see Ted, not something he would usually have considered under any circumstances. Israel had not been in the habit of making social calls since he'd arrived in Tumdrum-he had no one to make social calls upon-and Ted would not have been his choice of confidant, but he didn't have time now for mere niceties and pussyfooting around: he was hot on the trail of his man, and his ticket out of here and home. All he needed was a little support and back-up.