Mr. Dixon disappears: a mobile library mystery Read online

  Sergeant Friel wrote this down.

  They were driving out of Tumdrum on the coast road, the dark sea up high and fretting beside them. Israel was straining to see in the rear-view mirror, to see if Ted was following in his cab; he didn't seem to be.

  'Now, why don't you just tell us what happened, Israel?' said Sergeant Friel, once they'd cleared the last of the housing estates and were out on the open road.

  'What do you mean, what happened?' said Israel. He didn't like the way things were developing. 'Where are we going?'

  'You just tell us what happened.'

  'Nothing happened. I—'

  'We're here to help you, you know.' Sergeant Friel had adopted a horrible, oily, emollient tone, cut through sharply with sarcasm.

  'Right,' said Israel, who disliked a tone of sarcastic emollience as much as the next man. 'You're here to help me, and I've been accused of something I didn't do, and handcuffed, and bundled into the back of an unmarked police car—'

  'Are you not comfortable, Mr Armstrong?' oozed Sergeant Friel.

  'No, I'm not comfortable! I'm squidged up here between you and…whatever his name is here, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to have done.'

  'Do you want us to speak to anybody?'

  'Yes.' Israel wanted to speak to his mother, but he guessed she might not be the best person to help him in these circumstances. He had no idea what his mother would say. And his father–God–his father would be turning in his grave.

  'Would you like me to open a window?'

  'No.' It was freezing cold.

  'Would you like a cigarette?'

  'What? No. I don't smoke. Why would I want a cigarette?'

  Sergeant Friel wrote all this down. The sea passed silently to their left. Israel was still straining to see if anyone was following the car. They weren't.

  Sergeant Friel cleared his throat, a sure sign of his being about to deliver some more of his rehearsed lines.

  'What is it now?' said Israel.

  'Mr Armstrong. You may have seen me making notes. This is a contemporaneous record of our conversation.'

  'Yes,' said Israel, 'I know. You told me already.'

  Sergeant Friel held the small black notebook open towards Israel. 'I would like you to read them and tell me if you agree with them.'

  It was light outside but it was too dark to read anything clearly in the back of the car.

  'I can't read them. It's too dark,' said Israel. 'I can't read anything in this dark.'

  'I'll read them to you then, and you can tell me if you agree with them.'

  Sergeant Friel began to read.

  This really was not good. This was way beyond anything Israel had ever experienced before: being in the back of a car, early in the morning, listening to someone reading out an account of what had happened to you over the past half an hour, but from an entirely different perspective to your own; it was like being on some kind of extreme creative writing course. Sergeant Friel talked about the police officers present. About handcuffing Israel. About giving Israel a caution. And what made it even more sinister was that the whole story was narrated verbatim, so it was all, 'I said', 'He said', 'I said'. If Israel had been a young American novelist, he could really have made something of this material.

  By the time Sergeant Friel had finished reading the notebook to Israel and Israel had refused to agree with it, they had arrived at Rathkeltair central police station, a heavily fortified building which looked like it might have been a workhouse in another life, a big grey stone building with menacing chimney stacks, barbed-wire fencing and CCTV cameras strung up all around. Huge metal doors opened as they arrived and they drove round the building to the back entrance, past parked police cars and vast industrial bins.

  Israel was getting pretty close to hysterical now as he was led through a long grey corridor to a small grey windowless office, where Sergeant Friel spoke to a uniformed officer behind a desk. It was another bizarre, mind-bogglingly rehearsed scene, like a play within a play.

  'As a result of forensic evidence linking him to the scene,' said Sergeant Friel, 'I have arrested this person on suspicion of a robbery and kidnapping.'

  'What?' said Israel. 'Forensic evidence? I—'

  'You'll get your chance,' said the uniformed officer to Israel. 'Now just listen.'

  Sergeant Friel then proceeded to read out the contents of his notebook again and at the end he said, 'Offered, read over, refused to sign.'

  'This is totally Kafkaesque, do you know that?' said Israel. Sergeant Friel and the other policeman ignored him. 'Hello? Can you hear me?'

  Sergeant Friel added this comment to his notebook and then leant across the desk to a small grey box mounted on the wall, which had a slot; he opened up the notebook to the last page and ceremoniously placed it in the slot, and the machine stamped the book. With bright red ink.

  'Have you ever read any Kafka though, honestly?' Israel asked. '"In the Penal Colony"?'

  The uniformed officer behind the desk said to Israel, 'Do you understand why you've been arrested?'

  'No, I do not. I have absolutely no idea why—'

  'You do not understand why you've been arrested?'

  'Look. I understand it all right, I'm not an idiot, but I don't agree with it—'

  'You have the right to have someone informed,' interrupted the officer. 'You have the right to free legal advice. And a right to read a copy of our code of practice.'

  'Your code of practice? Code of practice! What are you, a firm of independent financial advisers?'

  If Israel's sense of humour went largely unappreciated on a daily basis around Tumdrum–and it certainly did–then here in Rathkeltair police station it seemed that he was just about the unfunniest person alive.

  'We run a duty solicitor scheme, or I can call a solicitor of your choice. You need to tell me.'

  Israel asked them to ring Gloria in London. She'd know what to do: admittedly, she specialised in company law, but it was still the law. She'd sort it out.

  'Right, good, am I free to go now?'

  He was not free to go now.

  He was taken into another small grey windowless room with Sergeant Friel and the armed officers. First they fingerprinted him. Then Sergeant Friel asked Israel to remove his clothes.

  'What? Remove my clothes? Oh, come on, you're joking now, are you?'

  'No. Can you remove your clothes, please, Mr Armstrong.'

  'In here? With all of you standing there?'

  'That's correct.'

  'And with handcuffs on?' said Israel. 'What am I, Harry fucking Houdini?'

  'We'll not have the language, thank you,' said Sergeant Friel. 'We'll take the handcuffs off. But you have to take off your clothes. I'm not taking off your clothes.'

  'I don't want you taking off my clothes! No, look. This is getting silly now. I mean…Look…' Israel did his best to calm himself. 'You've brought me in, that's fine. It's wrong, of course, it's just a big mistake, but…But the clothes. That's just—'

  'Can you take off your clothes please, Mr Armstrong? I'll remove your handcuffs.'

  'But…I'm a librarian! I check out your books! You can't just…'

  He recognised another of the policemen present as a borrower of Hayes car manuals from the library, and he appealed directly to him, as a library user.

  'It's me! Look! Me. Israel Armstrong. The librarian!'

  The policeman stared back emotionless at Israel. Being a librarian was maybe not going to swing it. Israel could see no easy way out of this.

  'Do you know Stanley Milgram?' He was babbling now.

  'Clothes, Mr Armstrong.'

  'Or the Stanford prison experiment?'

  'Clothes, Mr Armstrong.'

  'In the Stanford prison experiment, they divided up the volunteers into guards and inmates to see how they behaved.'

  'Clothes, please.'

  'And the guards behaved like guards. And the inmates behaved like inmates. Have you ever read about that? Have you?' />
  'Clothes,' said Sergeant Friel.

  'And if I do? If I do take them off?'

  'Then we'll be able to move on.'

  'Really?'

  'Yes.'

  'Fine. OK.' He was desperate. 'I'll take my clothes off. You all have to turn around though, OK?'

  'You turn around,' said Sergeant Friel.

  'Oh, all right, I see. Fine. OK. I'll turn around. This is ridiculous, you know.'

  'Thank you, Mr Armstrong. The quicker you get on with it, the quicker it'll be sorted out. This is for you.' Sergeant Friel handed Israel a one-piece paper suit, with a zip up the front.

  'I see. It's like Guantánamo Bay.'

  'Och aye. Just like it.'

  Once he'd been unhandcuffed and taken off his clothes–the duffle coat, the tank-top, his cords, one of Brownie's T-shirts–'You Could Have It So Much Better'–Israel put on the paper suit and a pair of plimsolls. His clothes were sealed in see-through plastic bags.

  'It chafes.'

  'Sorry?' said Sergeant Friel.

  'The paper suit. It chafes.'

  'Right.'

  'So we're done now, are we?'

  'No,' said Sergeant Friel. 'Now we need to take a blood sample.'

  'What?' said Israel. 'A blood sample? You are joking? No, no, no. Definitely not. You said we were done.'

  'I did not say we were done, Mr Armstrong.'

  'Oh, yes, you did! You said!'

  'We're not done, Mr Armstrong.'

  'Come on, that's not fair! You keep moving the goalposts.'

  'We are not moving the goalposts, Mr Armstrong. We need to take a blood sample,' said Sergeant Friel.

  'No. First I agreed to come here. Then I agreed to take my clothes off. And now you want to take a blood sample? It's like being…Brian Keenan, or somebody.'

  'Aye?'

  'Yes. Or…You know, the Birmingham Six.'

  'Right enough.'

  'This is outrageous! This is Abu Ghraib!'

  'No, Mr Armstrong. This is Rathkeltair police station.'

  'I'm being illegally detained.'

  'No, you're being legally detained, Mr Armstrong, in full accordance with the law, and in full accordance with the law we need to take a blood sample.'

  'You don't need to take a blood sample!' protested Israel. 'I was only in Dixon and Pickering's setting up my display.'

  'Aye, well, you've already said that. But we still need to take a blood sample, so we can eliminate you from our inquiries. And I have to tell you, if you refuse to give it, we have to tell the court you refused. And we ask the court to draw an inference.'

  'What? The court?' Israel felt like crying. 'The court! No one mentioned a court before. I'm not going to court!'

  'At your current rate, Mr Armstrong, you will be going to a court.'

  'I can't go to court!' He didn't just feel like crying now. He was about to cry. 'I haven't done anything wrong.'

  'The blood sample please, Mr Armstrong.'

  'How much blood do you need?'

  'It's just a pin-prick, Mr Armstrong.'

  'But, but…I don't like needles!'

  'Your hair then,' said Sergeant Friel. 'We can take a hair if you'd prefer.'

  There was no way Israel was going to agree to give a blood sample, but it didn't look like Sergeant Friel was going to back down, so he agreed to the hair. Sergeant Friel left the room and then reappeared a few moments later with some tweezers.

  'What are they?' said Israel.

  'Tweezers,' said Sergeant Friel.

  'They're bloody big tweezers!' said Israel.

  'Hair?' said Sergeant Friel.

  'All right.' Israel nodded.

  'We need twelve.'

  'Twelve!' said Israel, who thought he might pass out at any moment. 'Twelve! You said a hair. A hair. One. See! You're doing it again! Moving the goalposts! There's a big difference between a hair and twelve hairs, you know! I'll be speaking to my lawyer about this.'

  'They're only hairs, Mr Armstrong.'

  'Ah, well! Tell that to a…bald man!'

  'You're not bald, Mr Armstrong.'

  'No, no! But I will be at this rate. Twelve hairs!'

  'The hairs, please, Mr Armstrong.'

  Israel remained silent as they plucked hairs from his head.

  The hairs were placed into another self-seal bag.

  So by half past ten on Easter Saturday, just three and a half hours after arriving at Dixon and Pickering's to set up his historic five-panel touring display, Israel Armstrong BA (Hons) was sitting plucked, exhausted, confused, and wearing his new white paper suit and plimsolls, in a cell in Rathkeltair police station.

  The cell was even smaller than the chicken coop he was staying in at George's farm. There was a concrete plinth with a mattress; a toilet bowl with a push-button flush, no toilet roll; a grey blanket. Grey walls. The grey metal door was scratched with graffiti.

  And Israel wasn't feeling at all well. He lay on the mattress on the plinth. It was cold. He drew the blanket up around him.

  This was not what was supposed to happen. This was not it at all.

  5

  He woke in the dawning light to the merry sound of chickens and machinery outside and he stepped quickly to the door of the chicken coop and took a deep welcome breath of the rich country air: the smell of grass; the smell of silage; the thick, complex smell of several sorts of manure; the smell, it seemed to him, in some strange way, of freedom; the smell of very heaven itself. He was getting used to the country and to country ways. He was also getting fewer headaches these days, he found, and he felt lighter, more alert than he had for years: he could feel himself thriving and growing stronger, feeding on all that good corn and milk and fresh air. He threw back his head, filled his lungs with another blast of the world's sweet morning goodness, then put on his duffle coat and slipped on his shoes and quickly went across the yard to the kitchen, greeting the animals as he went: 'Hello, pigs! Hello, chickens! Hello, world!'

  In the kitchen Mr Devine was sitting by the Rayburn, wrapped in his blanket.

  'Good morning, Frank!' said Israel.

  'Good morning, Israel,' Mr Devine replied. 'A wee drop tay?'

  'Aye,' said Israel. 'That'd be grand.'

  He poured himself a nice fresh mug of tea from the never-ending pot on the Rayburn, then went back across the courtyard to his room where he lay and read for an hour, a fabulous new novel by a brilliant young author he'd only just discovered and whose work he adored and who seemed to be producing novels almost as quickly as he could read them–varied, strange and beguiling, full of stories. Then finally he got back up out of bed, washed his face in a cool calm bowl of water, got dressed, and went over to the farmhouse again to have breakfast and on entering the kitchen he kissed George warmly on the mouth, and she embraced him, and it seemed to him that he could think of no life pleasanter or more preferable than…

  Oh, God.

  He was dreaming.

  Or rather no, not dreaming–it was a nightmare. He wasn't in the chicken coop. He wasn't at the farm at all. He was still in the cell. He must have dropped off to sleep. He'd fallen from one nightmare into another.

  He glanced round himself, panicking. Oh, good grief. This was terrible. He was trapped.

  He could feel his stomach churning, contracting. He could feel himself beginning to hyperventilate. He needed something to read, to calm his nerves. There was nothing to read. He felt frantic.

  He tried reading the graffiti on the walls and on the back of the door. But there wasn't enough, and it was too small, and anyway it was all acronyms defying one another and performing sexual acts on one another, the IRA doing this or that to the UVF, who were doing this or that to the UDA, and the PUP versus the SF, and up the INLA, and down the UFF, and RUC this and PSNI that: where were the great wits and aphorists of County Antrim, for goodness sake? Where were the imprisoned scribes? Where was the Chester Himes and the Malcolm X of the jail cells of Northern Ireland? Where were the Gramscis of Tumdru
m and District?

  Israel felt half crazed with nothing to read and no prospect of anything to read.

  He always had something to read; he always had to have something to read: reading calmed him; it did for him what music and television and cigarettes and alcohol seemed to do for other people; it soothed the savage breast, and gave him something to do with his hands and between dinnertime and bed. As a child he'd been a precocious reader, hoovering up books like the pigs on the Devines' farm snuffled up their feed; and as a teenager he had read in a frenzy, reading the one solitary delight and pleasure not only sanctioned but actively encouraged by society and by his parents, an absolute one-off, an exception to the rule, a granting of public esteem not for achievement and worldly gain but for inwardness and the nurturing of whatever it was that constituted a soul.

  Everyone loved a great reader. And he'd always loved being a great reader–until recently. Maybe it was just part of getting older, or maybe it was being a librarian, or just being here, but lately he'd found he was becoming suspicious of his own love of books. All that reading–it had started to seem wrong, worthless almost, without purpose.

  It seemed abominable, thinking it: thinking about it he felt himself quivering inside.

  When he was reading these days it seemed to form only a background hum to what was really going on in his mind, like static or a scratch, like the sound of traffic in a city, or insects in the country. And he'd started to wonder, is literature ever any more than this? Just the faint sound of the flutter of the cockchafer and moth beneath the deafening daily grind? Just the popcorn and Coke accompanying the main feature presentation, MY EGO, MY LIFE, in IMAX, in full Technicolor rolling loop and six-channel digital multi-speaker surround-sound, projected onto a domed screen, and with every seat the best seat in the house, and all of them occupied by little old me? Was there anything more to it than that?

  He considered the people who were the heaviest borrowers from the mobile library, the people he saw the most of, week in, week out: all the children and their parents, checking out books indiscriminately, picture books and easy-readers, the good and the bad, no discernible difference between them; and the teenagers–the local MP's daughter and some of her friends, some gothy-looking boys–who seemed to be working their way through every Ian McEwan and William Burroughs in the county and who possibly as a consequence seemed more miserable even than the average teen; and the adults, women in and out for romantic fiction and men for military history. And when he considered them all he couldn't honestly say that these people were any more equipped socially or intellectually or emotionally than anyone else; they might possibly have known whether or not Cromwell's troops massacred civilians at Drogheda in the seventeenth century, or about life under the Nazis in the Channel Islands, or exactly which Harry Potter they preferred, on balance, but they were no more polite when challenged about their overdue books than the average borrower, and no more or less keen to pass the time of day with a lowly public servant.