Mr. Dixon disappears: a mobile library mystery Page 9

  The reverend was reading from the tiny brown leather pocket Bible in his hand.

  '"Early on the Sunday morning,"' he boomed, the church's loudspeakers rattling its vast accompaniment of hums and whistles, '"while it was still dark, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb."' The deep 'oo' of the reverend's 'tomb' here rang high and low, reverberating around the church, setting off a high-pitched feedback to follow it, which came bouncing off the walls like some small demented creature hurtling in pursuit of a big bass-baritone bear. As the reverend took a breath and paused between intonations, a man wearing a canary-yellow tie and an ill-fitting brown polyester suit that crackled as he moved darted forward from the front row of seats, and started fiddling with the cable of the microphone. The Reverend Roberts paused until the man in the suit gave a thumbs up, nodded apologetically and retreated back, statically, from whence he had come.

  'OK. Thank you. Is that better?' asked England, booming clearly now without feedback or echo. The congregation nodded silent assent. 'OK. Good. Good. Now'–the reverend waved a hand towards heaven but addressed the congregation–'Brothers and sisters'–and Israel felt a little shudder go through the congregation at that; he guessed they weren't accustomed to being addressed as such–'Brothers and sisters,' repeated the reverend, unrepentant, 'I want you to imagine that you were there on that morning. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that you were Mary, going to the tomb? Can you imagine what that might have been like for a young woman going to see her Lord? The man she had seen crucified and died, just days–not even days, just hours–earlier. And now there she is in the dark we are told–which is a wonderful image. In the dark, both literally and metaphorically.'

  Israel glanced around him nervously. The congregation was rapt. He was sitting towards the back: he bent down and removed his bicycle clips.

  Israel had not been able to persuade George to let him have the use of the car in order to conduct his investigation into the theft of the money from Dixon and Pickering's and Mr Dixon's mysterious disappearance, but George had very generously allowed him to use Brownie's old bike, a Raleigh Elswick Hopper with Sturmey Archer three-speed gears, and a wicker basket up front. So at least he had a means of transport to be able to set about clearing his name, though he had no idea, frankly, exactly how a man might set out to do that; not usually by bike, he guessed.

  His first decision was to go to church. He'd promised the Reverend Roberts months ago that he'd be there for the Easter morning service, and he felt he couldn't let him down, even under his current peculiar circumstances; also, to be honest, he was half hoping that in church he might receive some kind of divine guidance; it certainly couldn't be worse than stewing in his own considerable juices at the Devines', looking for an insight into how to solve a complex criminal investigation through the pages of Sue Grafton, Ian Rankin and George P. Pelecanos.

  Israel hadn't ridden a bike since he was about ten years old and when he got on, he fell right off; there was either something wrong with the bicycle, or riding a bicycle is not like riding a bicycle: you do forget. He could remember his very first bike as a child: it was a candy-floss pink with multicoloured streamers attached to the handlebars and it had a squidgy purple seat; it had been handed down from one of his sisters. Israel had had to put up with a lot of hand-me-downs when he was young, which meant he'd become accustomed to girls' tastes in most things, including bicycles, and books, toys and music; Gloria thought that too many Bunty annuals and Madonna albums had maybe held Israel back in his career development and in his self-image and that he should perhaps go and get some counselling. According to Gloria, any man with a too developed fondness for Anne Tyler and Barbara Trapido should really be trying to beef himself up in other areas; Gloria was very feminine herself, but she also did kung-fu. Israel had never really been the macho type: there was a little park near their house when they were growing up and his sisters would race round, doing laps on their bikes, and he was always happy in his given role as timekeeper; indeed, sometimes, looking back, he felt as if he was merely the observer of his own childhood rather than a full participant, like having off-peak membership at the gym.

  'What about the brakes?' he'd said to George, pulling at the brakes on the bike that she'd grudgingly wheeled out of an outbuilding.

  'Wee turn, she'll be right,' said George.

  'I can't ride this,' he said.

  'She's in need of some attention,' agreed George.

  'Some attention? This bike doesn't need attention. This bike needs—'

  'A wee bit of TLC.'

  'Therapy,' said Israel. 'This bike has had a total nervous breakdown.'

  It had ordinary raised handlebars with once white, now grey moulded hand grips, slide-pull calliper brakes with brake blocks as thin as cigarette paper, and black and white Raleigh Record 26 x 13/8 tyres bald as an old man in a cap in a park in winter. The old three-speed Sturmey Archer gears were encased in grease with a dodgy trigger control and the full-cover mudguards must once have been chrome but now were rust. The saddle was worn almost to the point of extinction.

  'Does it go?' said George.

  'Well, the wheels turn,' said Israel.

  'That'll do you then,' said George, who promptly disappeared back into the farmhouse.

  After a few tentative turns around the yard, Israel had left himself a good hour to make it into Tumdrum for the Easter service; the roads had been deserted and everything had gone smoothly until he'd come round the corner near the Four Road Ends, down there by Maureen Minty's kennels, cattery and pet cemetery, Animal Magic ('Caring For Pets From Cradle to Grave'). As he turned the corner another cyclist, who was coming at some speed in the other direction, and who'd clipped off the corner and was way over on the wrong side of the road, came hurtling towards him. Israel jammed on his brakes, which worked only under considerable pressure, and skidded to a halt, successfully avoiding the other cyclist, just as a little Peugeot driven by an old lady wearing a hat came cruising round from behind him at around 50 miles an hour and narrowly avoided killing them all.

  The old lady sped on, keen to get to church, presumably, rather than get involved in any kind of road rage incident or insurance claim. Israel righted himself on the bike and prepared to start screaming at the other cyclist, who was wearing skin-tight leggings, a shiny silver helmet, wrap-around shades, and a bright blue cycling shirt with a zip front and back pockets.

  'Armstrong!' called the cyclist, dismounting.

  'Hello?' said Israel.

  The cyclist flipped up his shades. It was Pearce Pyper.

  'Good grief!' said Israel. 'It's you.'

  'It is indeed!' said Pearce. 'Didn't know you cycled.'

  'No. I didn't either,' said Israel. 'Not until this morning. I didn't know you cycled.'

  'Ah. Hardly at all these days,' said Pearce, who was eighty if he was a day. 'Given it up. Do the odd one at the weekend, just to keep my hand in, you know.'

  'Nice bike,' said Israel, admiring the black steel-framed cycle with its white lettering.

  'Ah, yes. A De Selby. Italian. With Campag kit. Armstrong uses Shimano, you know.'

  'Right.'

  'But I prefer the Campag. More elegant.'

  Another car came round the corner, from Pearce's direction this time, again driven by an old lady in a hat, and again narrowly missing them. Pearce raised his fist in anger as the car sped away.

  'Shall we move?' said Israel, indicating the grass verge.

  'Roadhogs,' said Pearce, hauling his bike to the side of the road. 'Do you shave your legs?' he asked.

  'No, I don't,' said Israel.

  'You'll have to shave your legs,' said Pearce.

  'Right.'

  'Aerodynamics. Not against your religion, is it?'

  'No, I don't think so,' said Israel.

  'My first wife, she wouldn't shave her legs. She was Jewish, did I say?' said Pearce.

  'Yes. Yes, I think you did.'

  'Strange woman. I'm all for the Mosaic laws, mind, when it
comes to food. Perfectly sensible. You keep kosher?'

  'No, I don't.'

  'She was a great one for the pickles, my wife. Used to ship them over.'

  'Good.'

  'Anyway. Well done you!' said Pearce nonsensically. 'Good to see a young man out getting fit. The old transfer of atoms twixt man and machine.'

  'Quite,' said Israel.

  'More of it!' said Pearce, as he saddled up again and sped away.

  It was always nice to bump into Pearce Pyper.

  Israel cycled slowly and carefully the rest of the way and was delighted when he finally made it safely into Tumdrum and parked his bike outside the Baptist church.

  The Baptist was one of the four churches in Tumdrum's main square. The churches sat one on each side of the square, like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse come to round up stragglers and put them in a pen: as well as the Baptist and the Reverend Roberts Presbyterian there were the Methodist and the Church of Ireland, and each of them were big, square, flat-fronted buildings, places that suggested that their original architects and builders, and possibly their current ministers and congregations too, might have erred theologically on the side of judgement rather than mercy. The churches of Tumdrum did not look like the churches Israel knew in England: there was no fancy brickwork, no stained glass, and no steeples; no hint of the Papish, or of the foolish temptations of this world. The architecture seemed to embody the ideas it expressed: if Protestantism was made of blocks and rendered concrete then this was probably what it would look like; architecturally you might describe the style as Armageddon Lite. The Presbyterians had a flagpole on the top of their building, which flew no flags, and the Methodists had nothing at all, except a poster advertising coffee mornings, and the traditional reminder that If God Seems Far Away, Then Guess Who's Moved? The Church of Ireland had a big stone stylised representation of some saint or other over the doorway, with a halo around his head, and as Israel was not good on saints he had no idea who this was supposed to be: he had the usual beard and receding hairline, and what appeared to be a set of butter knives in his left hand and looked like a man who'd been ambushed, and was about to be shot by firing squad. Of all the churches in the centre of Tumdrum, if he had to pick, Israel would probably have gone for the Baptist; the Baptists had hanging baskets. Also, they were hosting the Reverend Roberts Easter Sunday ecumenical service.

  'When I was growing up in South Africa,' continued the Reverend Roberts inside the church, 'back in Duduza, it was really possible at night to be in the dark, completely, for there to be no lights, none at all for as far as the eye could see, no light except for the light of the moon itself. And on a moonlit night my brothers and I would play outside with our friends, lit by the stars and by the constellations and the planets, more than any human eye can count, illuminated by the glories of the universe. But on a night when the clouds covered the moon, in that deep darkness we would stay together indoors, staying together for warmth, and also for comfort, to keep us from the dark and the threat of the dark. For the darkness of the night, that darkness is a profound darkness, a darkness that many of us know in our hearts. We know that darkness as the darkness of doubt, perhaps, or as the darkness of depression, of unforgiveness, of shame, and of grief.'

  Israel shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was thinking about Heart of Darkness. He'd done a post-colonial theory module in the last year of his degree and had never quite got to grips with it. It had let him down in his final mark; it had taken him most of the term just to read Culture and Imperialism.

  'There are, I'm sure, many among us who will have had that exact same experience of Mary's,' continued the Reverend Roberts, 'of visiting the grave of a loved one, in desolation and in despair. We know–do we not?–we know what it is like to grieve. We know what it is like to have that heaviness in our hearts, to wish to be close to those whom we have loved, and who have loved us.'

  Israel coughed and pushed his glasses up high onto his forehead. He had the beginnings of a headache. He wasn't accustomed to Christian services–the language, the clothes were completely alien to him. He'd been to a few Christian weddings, of course, but they'd all been sedate Church of England affairs, attended mostly by other people of his own age who didn't seem to have a clue what was going on either–including, sometimes, the bride and groom. At his friend John's wedding a few years back he'd been best man, but his only actual responsibility in the church had been to look smart and keep out of the way. So this was really a first for him, to be in the thick of it, in among the Protestant natives. The Reverend Roberts had invited him because it was ecumenical, he said, though Israel was unsure exactly how far Tumdrum's ecumenism extended: there were no Sikhs, for example, in the church, as far as he could tell, and no Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Baha'i, or Zoroastrians either, if it's possible to tell a Zoroastrian from a distance, which it may not be; Israel's grasp of comparative religions was almost as shaky as his grasp on his own. Tumdrum's ecumenism seemed merely to extend to all elderly men, no matter which shade of brown, grey or black machine-washable suit they chose to wear, and to all elderly women, regardless of their style or colour of hat.

  It was certainly quite a service: Israel had never experienced anything quite like it; it was difficult to tell whether it was a show, or a stand-up comedy routine, or a guided meditation; it seemed to be all of them at once, which was good value, if nothing else; and the ecumenical aspect meant that you got four vicars for the price of one. The service had begun with notices read out by one man in a dog collar–a nice old man with yellow teeth and a neatly trimmed beard–and then they'd sung a hymn, 'Amazing Grace', introduced by another man in a dog collar, though without a beard, and Israel was surprised to find that he knew both the tune and the words of the hymn: 'Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come'. Then some teenagers had done a little sketch about a man and a camel getting through the eye of a needle, which Israel couldn't follow at all; it was like something you'd expect from a troupe of French surrealists. And then there was another hymn, some soupy kind of a thing that he'd never heard of, followed by what was billed as a time of praise and worship, led by yet another man in a dog collar, a little fat man with a shiny face, during which segment of the show the congregation simply repeated the words 'Alleluia', 'How I love Him', 'Blessed Jesus', 'My Redeemer' and 'Jesus is Lord' dozens and dozens of times. At which point Israel had begun to speculate whether the Reverend Roberts was involved in some sort of weird cult.

  '"She saw that the stone had been moved away from the entrance,"' continued the reverend, who'd been awarded the honour of the actual address; Israel wondered if all the vicars had drawn lots. The reverend was now roaming with the microphone at the front of the church, wandering up and down, holding the Bible lightly in his huge hands, like you might hold half of a limp sandwich, and he gestured dramatically behind him, to the front of the church, where there was a vast…thing. It was scenery: like something from an amateur dramatic production of The Flintstones. Someone had obviously spent a lot of time with a lot of cardboard, struts and supports and a lot of grey paint. The reverend was pointing to a vast cardboard/papier-mâché stone kind of a thing that was propped against a vast cardboard/papier-mâché tomb kind of a thing, which was at least ten foot wide by ten foot tall; just getting it into the church was nothing short of a miracle.

  '"She saw that the stone had been moved away from the entrance, and ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved." Note that,' said the reverend, '"The one whom Jesus loved". What was Jesus's meaning? What was His message? That was it. What did He show us? Love. Why did He go through this for us? For love.'

  Israel was doing his best to concentrate on the reverend's story-telling and drama but he kept drifting off. He was thinking about Gloria. Did he love her? He did. He definitely did. They'd met in their last year at college; Gloria was an English student, just like him, and she was funny and smart, she drank pints and didn't mind just a bag of chips for dinner, and
she'd read every book by Margaret Atwood, and so had he. They'd gone out together for years and eventually it had just seemed simpler and easier to move in together, so they did, and it was only then that their lives had started to go in different directions: Gloria's towards Sebastian Faulks, and a law conversion course and weekends in Paris and fancy restaurants, and Israel's towards the Discount Book Shop in the Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock in Essex. They'd changed. But they'd learned to compromise. Gloria's favourite film, for example–by far–was Four Weddings and a Funeral; his was Fellini's La Strada. So they'd learned to compromise on American mid-market drama and adventure at the cinema, and eventually Israel had found himself enjoying this junk, becoming addicted to it almost, savouring every last morsel of sugar-puffed dialogue and absurd plot twist and special effect. You can't always eat caviar; you couldn't watch Fellini every day.

  '"They have taken the Lord out of his tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him,'" recited the Reverend Roberts. 'This is Mary, still lost in ignorance. Mary, who does not yet know God's secret wisdom, which is hidden from mankind, but which He had already chosen for our glory even before the world was made.'

  Israel was now thinking about Pesach: they'd never really bothered with a seder meal at home; his mother had made half-hearted attempts to keep it going over the years, but none of them was really interested, and so they'd lost it, the four questions and the roasted egg dipped in salt water; all the rituals had been abandoned, and along with them about four thousand years of Jewish history; they exchanged Easter eggs instead. He remembered having an argument with his mother when he was in his early teens, a blazing row, and saying that he was happy to participate in her stupid meal as long as they didn't have to mention God, the Jewish people, or Israel, because he couldn't care less about any of them. His mother had gone as red as a beet borscht and sworn at him and raised her fists at him and called him a self-hating Jew. At the time he had no idea what that was; he'd had to ask his father, who was an atheist Catholic Irishman but an honorary Jew, just by virtue of having married Israel's mother, and his father had said that, as far as he understood it, the entire Bible was the unfolding story of self-hating Jews, and so Israel should take it as a compliment: 'Moses, St Paul, Sigmund Freud, Woody Allen,' said his dad. 'Relax! You're in good company!'