The Case of the Missing Books

'Aye, but. Just because he trades in books doesn't mean he trades in stolen books.'

'No. True. But last night he tried to run me down in his car.'

'What?'

'I'm serious.'

'Aye.'

'I am. He was trying to kill me.'

'Ach, Israel, wise up…'

'He was! He's running a scam to get Pearce Pyper to part with all his books. When I was there yesterday, he was there, under-pricing all these priceless books of Pearce's-James Joyce, and Eliot and-'

'Aye, right, I get the picture.'

'And then when I pointed this out to him, he left, and then he tried to run me down, and I jumped into a tree…'

'You what?'

'I fell into a tree, down the lane by the big red barn. And broke my nose.' Israel pointed at his nose. 'See?'

'Aye, I see your nose all right-wee bit wonky but. But I'm not sure I see how all the rest fits together.'

'It does, it does! It's a dead cert, Ted. Bullimore's our man. Trust me.'

Ted considered this last appeal with huge and intense wrinkling of his forehead.

'Aye. Well, if you're right-and I'm not saying you're right, mind-what are you going to do? Just go in there and say hello, you've stolen the library books, and I wonder if you couldn't hand them over please, thank you very much.'

'No. Of course not.'

'So. You're going to the police then?'

'No. We can't go to the police.'

'Because?'

'Because this is my case.'

'Oh, right. Jim Rockford you are now then, are ye?'

'We're going to break in.'

'Hold on. You said "we"?'

'Yes. We. Me and you, we'll break in and find the books.'

'No way, José.'

'Come on, Ted.'

'No.'

'Oh, come on, this is it. We get the books back, and then I'm out of here. I'm a free man again. I'm gone.'

'Aye, to prison.'

'No. I'm serious.'

'I'm serious. No can do.'

'Why?'

'Because you're talking about breaking in somewhere. It's wrong.'

'It's not wrong. It's the lesser of two evils.'

'Aye, it's wrong.'

'It's not wrong. We're breaking in for the greater good. Like you hid the mobile library.'

'That was different.'

'Why?'

'Because.'

'What?'

'We were protecting the mobile. It's not the same at all. And anyway, what if it's not him?'

'Well…Then we would have made a mistake.'

'Quite a mistake.'

'Yes, but.'

'No, I'm sorry, you're on your own, Israel.'

'Oh no, Ted. Not again, Ted. Please.'

'No.'

'Please.'

'No. I said no, and I mean no. There is nothing on God's green earth that is going to persuade me to become engaged in any ne…'

'Ne?' said Israel.

'Ne…' Ted was struggling.

'Negative?' offered Israel.

'No!' said Ted. 'Ne…'

'Farious?'

'Exactly. Nefarious business. I've kept my nose clean these past few years, I'm hardly going to start getting in trouble now.'

'Ted!'

'No!'

'Well, what am I supposed to do?'

'I don't know. That's up to you. I've got my pies here.'

'Ted.'

'No! I mean no! Muhammad'll see you out. Muhammad!'

The Jack Russell led Israel to the door.

'And you want to get a doctor to look at your nose,' shouted Ted from the kitchen. 'Get it straightened out proper.'

'Right,' said Israel. 'Thanks a lot.'

'Or yous'll end up like me,' said Ted, with a sigh.

19

P. J. Bullimore's was an old red-brick building on the edge of town which called itself the Antiques and Collectables Treasure Trove and which was surrounded by a high corrugated-iron fence and which did not look anything at all like an antiques and collectables treasure trove; it looked more like a high-security prison.

Now Israel would have been the first to admit that he didn't have that much experience in breaking and entering-he'd sometimes had trouble getting into a vacuum-sealed pack of Fair Trade coffee back home with Gloria, or splitting open a gaffer-taped box of books back at the discount bookshop at the Lakeside Shopping Centre off the M25 in Thurrock in Essex. But fortunately he just happened to have with him now, at his own personal disposal, a bit of kit that even the most hardened and experienced of professional house-breakers would have been happy to get their hands on: a red and cream liveried rust-bucket of a mobile library which seen in a certain light and under certain desperate circumstances made a pretty effective Trojan-horse-cum-battering-ram-cum-elevating platform. He pulled up this lethal public-service vehicle alongside the corrugated-iron fence around midnight, turned off the engine, took one of the Devines' kitchen chairs which he had wisely thought to bring along earlier and hoisted himself up through the skylight and onto the roof. He was level with the top of the security fence. Sometimes it felt good to be a librarian.

It was about a fifteen-foot drop the other side though; he hadn't got quite that far in his planning.

He prodded his glasses and looked down. The ground looked like dirt rather than concrete, but he couldn't be sure. And was that a mangle and an enamel bath and a few bits of old fireplace and tiles and cast-iron radiators and other architectural salvage-type items lying around down there?

He thought he could hear a car approaching in the distance. The car was coming closer. He looked down again. That was definitely a roll-top bath down there. He could see the headlights now. He didn't want to jump. But nor did he want anyone seeing him standing on the roof of a mobile library at midnight: it would take some explaining.

So he took a deep breath and he leapt.

Aaggh.

Bright security lights came on all around him. He lay still, face down in the dirt. No one came. Nothing happened.

So he picked himself up and dusted himself down-duffle coat, brown corduroy jacket, combats and brogues and all. He'd just missed being impaled on an ornate cast-iron balustrade (£500) and dashing his brains out on a pile of handmade bricks (£2 each, 25 for £40). He'd made it.

And then the dog came out of nowhere.

It was an Alsatian.

Oh, Jesus.

Fortunately though, Israel was prepared even for this, though he didn't know it: the dog leapt up towards him across a pile of mossy coping-stones and Israel may have been a vegetarian and everything but he had no intention of being bitten and he instinctively thrust his hand into his duffle coat pocket and pulled out the first thing he found there and thrust it forwards into the dog's slavering maw-a fine use for a copy of Yann Martel's Life of Pi if Israel said so himself.

The dog was whimpering and thrashing about to try and dislodge the Booker Prize-winning fable about the relationship between man and beasts from his mouth, so Israel didn't have much time.

He ran across the yard to the front of the shop, dodging the mill-stones, and old slate hearths, and nymph-type statuettes and antique garden furniture as he went.

Unfortunately he had no idea how to break into a building, but he did have a couple of other books stuffed into his pocket, including a pre-remaindered copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which they'd given to him as a leaving gift back at the discount bookshop in Thurrock in Essex-because he hated J. K. Rowling, obviously-and he hadn't read it, but right now, at this moment, a work of thick, dense, self-indulgent children's fantasy seemed to him just about the best book published this century; perfect in form, fit to purpose and just what he needed. He took the book firmly in his hand, thrust his arm forward and smashed it through the glass in the top half of the shop's stable door, reached in, fiddled with a few bolts, lifted the top of the door off its hinges, and walked inside. This was probably not what Matthew Arnold had meant when he argued that literature can save you, but it did the trick.

The security lights illuminated the scene inside like something from film noir: dark furniture looming up from the shadows, an armoire here, a little pie-crust-edged table there, studded wooden doors to the right of him, bureaux to the left of him. Some quite nice clocks.