The Case of the Missing Books

3

He was not fitting right in. In fact, on the contrary. In fact, to be honest, to be absolutely, perfectly honest-and he wouldn't have wanted to have offended anyone by saying this, particularly his long-dead father, but still, the truth hurts and sometimes it's important to speak one's mind, if only to oneself and to the familiar dead, who can take it-to be absolutely frankly, brutally honest, Israel had taken an immediate, huge and intense dislike both to the people and to the place of Ireland in general, to Northern Ireland in particular, and to Tumdrum, County Antrim in very particular. And he was getting to dislike it more and more all the time.

Back at the council offices Linda Wei had got him to sign several forms on the dotted line, and had issued him with papers and instructions as to his exact role and responsibilities, and details of bank accounts had been confirmed, and then it had taken him an hour-a whole hour-to find Ted's Cabs following Linda's directions, wandering up and down the endless grey-black streets of Tumdrum, which meant that in total he'd been on his vast trek now from London to here for nearly two days-two whole days-and when he finally made it to the so-called offices of Ted's Cabs, it turned out to be nothing more than a large shiplap and corrugated-iron shed on a patch of weedy waste ground next to a barbed-wired electricity sub-station on the edge of Tumdrum. There was a red neon sign attached to the roof of the shed, flashing TED'S CABS into the cold Northern Irish sky, and as he got closer Israel could see a faded motto painted on hardboard in a wobbly hand which hung on chains down and across the front of the shed, and which was banging forcefully in the high winter winds: IF YOU WANT TO GET THERE, announced the flapping sign, CALL THE BEAR.

He could feel another of his headaches coming on. He could have done with a chunky KitKat.

He swallowed his absolutely last Nurofen and stepped up to the shed, to a window that had an orange number-plate with the word TAXIS spelt out on it and a large arrow pointing down, and he tapped on the glass-which wasn't glass, in fact, but a thick, scarred plastic, and which slid back instantly, which made Israel gasp, not something he was much given to do; his life up until now had never given him much cause for gasping, which was pretty much how he liked it, and he nearly choked on his headache tablet.

The opening revealed a metal grille, and a man sitting up close to the window, his huge meaty face filling the space.

'Aye?' said the man, not looking at Israel.

'Hello,' said Israel, as cheerily as possibly, after his near death by Nurofen. 'I'm looking for Ted Carson.'

'Aye?' said the man again. He was busy watching a television mounted high on a wall bracket in the opposite corner of the shed.

'My name's Israel Armstrong. I'm the new librarian. Linda Wei up at the council offices said I could call in here and Ted would be able to-'

'Aye. Well,' said the man inside, turning an eye from the TV for a moment and looking at Israel. 'It's you, is it?'

'Yes-' began Israel.

The man got up from his seat and gestured for Israel to move over to the door of the shed, which Israel dutifully did, and there was the sound of the sliding of bolts and the unlocking of locks and then the door opened and the man beckoned Israel inside.

'Come on!' he commanded. 'If you're coming.' Israel stepped inside and the man locked the door behind him. 'You can't be too careful these days.'

'No. Quite,' said Israel, putting down his old brown case, turning down the hood on his duffle coat, and taking off his glasses to wipe the mist and condensation from them.

'Blinkin' head-bangers, they'd have the paint off the walls.'

Israel glanced around, but there didn't actually seem to be that much in the shed for blinkin' head-bangers to steal: a table, the chair, a Calor Gas heater, and the TV. There was no paint on the walls.

'We've been burnt out twice,' said the man.

'Oh dear,' said Israel. 'That's terrible.'

'You're right,' said Ted, looking Israel up and down, sceptically. 'So, they got one in the end, then.'

'Sorry?'

'A librarian. You're supposed to be the new librarian?'

'I am the new librarian,' said Israel, with some force and certainty, although to be honest he was no longer entirely convinced himself. He no longer felt much like a librarian: he felt more like someone having reached the edge of the world and himself, a bit like Scott on his last expedition to the Antarctic, perhaps, or Robinson Crusoe on his desert island.

As the man stared at Israel, sizing him up, so Israel did his weary best to stare back.

The man saw Israel-the duffle coat, the glasses, the case, the podge, the suit, the messy mop of hair-and Israel saw a man in hearty good health, maybe early sixties, with a shaven head and wearing so many different layers of clothing that it was difficult to tell where his natural thick-settedness ended and mere padding began. His bulk and his distinctly lived-in, or rather, punched-in appearance-he looked as though someone had at some time secured his fat head in a vice and hit him hard with a flat-iron-suggested that he wouldn't stand any nonsense. You wouldn't mind him driving your cab, but you wouldn't want to have to argue over the fare. Israel strongly suspected tattoos.

'You were supposed to be here earlier,' said the man.

'Yes. Sorry. I got held up.'

'Aye. Right. But you're here now and you're wanting the van and dropped off?'

'Er. Yes,' said Israel. 'Linda Wei said someone here would be so kind as to-'

'Aye. Linda…'

'Is that OK?'

'Well,' said the man, turning away and beginning to flick delicately through a large black ledger on the desk by the grille. 'I suppose it'd better be.'

'Right. Erm. Well, if not, I'm sure I can always find someone else to take me.'

'Aye.' The man laughed-just once. 'You could try. And you might know different, but to my knowledge I'm the only minicab company between here and Rathkeltair.'

'Uh-huh,' said Israel, suitably chastened. 'So you're actually Ted Carson himself?'

'That I am.'

'Pleased to meet you,' said Israel, extending his hand.

'Aye,' said Ted, shaking Israel's hand absentmindedly, and almost crushing it, and continuing to examine the ledger. 'Fortunately for you, as it happens I do have a car and a driver free.'

'Good.' Israel waved his hand to restore his circulation; it was a hell of a handshake. 'Good. Is it…Er. The mobile library. And where I'm staying. Are they-is it-far?'

'Within an ass's roar,' said Ted, 'and at the back of God speed.'

'Right,' said Israel.

Oh, God.

The driver that Ted had free was in fact Ted himself, and the car was an old Austin Allegro with a large illuminated orange plastic bear stuck on the roof-'Ted, bear, d'you see?' said Ted. 'It's advertising,' and 'Yes,' said Israel, trying to sound enthusiastic, 'very good'-and Ted drove Israel far out of Tumdrum, out along the coast, along narrow country roads between high hawthorn hedges, with grey and white farms dotting the landscape, and hills and mountains looming, and the sea shimmering in the distance, but Israel was too tired and too fed up to be bothered about the view.

'Mind if I smoke?' said Ted.

'Not at all,' said Israel, although he did mind actually, but he couldn't say he did because he was a liberal and so instead he just slumped further down in his seat, huddled in his duffle coat and his corduroy trousers, looking at all the green and the grey outside, and feeling profoundly sorry for himself. Ted turned the heating up to full. The car felt like a pressure cooker.

'You know you've come on one of the busiest days of the year?' said Ted.

'Really? I'm sorry,' said Israel.

'No one's blaming you. First Friday in December. Beginning of the auld Christmas season. Bunged, the whole place.' There didn't seem to be that much traffic on the roads.

'Of course. Sorry. I forgot.'

'Forgot Christmas?'

'I'm Jewish,' mumbled Israel in mitigation. 'And a lot on my mind. You know, packing up, moving over here.'

'Oh,' said Ted, giving Israel a sidelong glance. 'Muhammad Ali, he was a Muslim, you know.'

'Erm…'

'Ted Kid Lewis: he was Jewish. Ruby Goldstein. Probably before your time.'

'Erm…'

'Welterweights,' said Ted, adding, 'Birth of Our Saviour and all that, Christmas.'

'Yes.'

'So the young ones are all out getting bladdered.'

'Yes,' agreed Israel, who could feel things beginning to rise within his gullet. 'I wonder. Erm. Would it be OK to have a window open?'

'Aye,' said Ted, winding down his window. 'No problem.'

'It's Hanukkah too,' said Israel vaguely, momentarily revived by the breeze.

'Bless you,' said Ted, turning off the main road onto a narrow road and then onto a rutted lane and pulling up outside an old corrugated-iron barn. 'Here we are now.'

'What?'

'The van.'

'Where?'

'Here.'

Here was a ploughed field, with far views off to dark green mountains one way and the dark grey sea the other, and the old metal barn set in mud and concrete between them. Ted parked, got out of the car, fiddled with some padlocks on a door, and ushered Israel inside.

'There she is,' said Ted, pointing to a massive dark shape in the centre of the dark shed. 'That's my girl.'

It was a large bus-shaped girl.

Ted stepped closer to the big bulky mass and Israel followed and tentatively held out his hand, brushing the dark, heavy, patchy fabric, which felt like a giant damp towel left on a single radiator for many years.

'This is the mobile library?' asked Israel.

'Aye.'

'This?'

'Aye.'

'Right,' said Israel. 'What's with the…sheet?'

'The tarp?' Ted touched the tarpaulin and sniffed his fingers. Israel imitated, trying to pick up the scent.

'What's that sm-'

'Chickens,' said Ted.

'Ah!' said Israel, wiping his hands on his trousers. 'That's disgusting.'

'Well, we couldn't have let her just stood.'

'Ugh!' said Israel, still wiping his hands. 'How long's she been here?'

'Long enough,' said Ted, gazing round.

Israel looked around too. A barn more in the middle of the middle of nowhere and dirtier and damper and dustier Israel could not have imagined: the cobwebs had cobwebs; the dust had dust; and the dirt was so dirty you'd have had to clean the dirt off it first to get at it.

'The mobile library's been kept in this…place?'

'Nowhere else for her. We had to keep her safe, when they stopped the service a few years back. The council wanted to sell her as scrap,' said Ted, screwing up his face in disgust, which was effective: he had a face that was more than capable of expressing disgust; his broken nose was pre-wrinkled. 'They were after breaking her up and selling her off.'

'I see.'

'Same as they did with me.'

'Right.'

'I drove her nearly twenty-five years, man and boy. And then they did away with the pair of us.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Ach, sure but, you knock your pan in for half a lifetime, that's what you get. They're a bunch of hoods, the lot of them.'

'Hoods?'

'Aye.'

'Right. But the council didn't break her up and sell her for scrap?'

'No. Because we hid her.'

'You hid her?'

'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?'

Israel started fiddling with the ropes. 'These are tight knots. I'm not sure if I can-'

'Quit your gurnin' and get on with it,' advised Ted.

So Israel did.

'Now. Pull,' commanded Ted eventually, and he started pulling, and Israel started pulling, and 'Pull!' commanded Ted again, and Israel did again, and 'You're as weak as water,' shouted Ted, and 'Pull!' again and suddenly the whole big damp dirty tarpaulin came off in a storm of dust and bird and chicken shit, right on top of Israel, who lost his balance and fell back onto the filthy dust and bird- and chicken-shit floor.

'Aaggh!'

'What?' said Ted. There was a muffled sound from under the tarpaulin. 'You there, you big galoot?' More muffled sounds. Ted lifted up the heavy tarpaulin and helped Israel out and onto his feet: he was covered, head to foot, in grey dust and black and white and bright green bird and chicken shit.

'Aaggh,' said Israel.

'There she is,' said Ted.

'Aaggh,' said Israel, rubbing his eyes.

The van came into focus. He could just make out what looked like the remains of a bus in a faded, rusting cream and red livery: there were rust patches as big as your fist, and what looked like mushrooms growing around the windscreen.

Ted was down on his knees, examining the wheel arches and the paintwork.

'Aye,' he said to himself, lost in rapture. 'Aye, aye.' Having eventually circled the bus and patted it fondly, as though calming a beast, he stood back. 'Well?'

'Well,' agreed Israel.

'Well?' said Ted. 'What do you think?'

'Erm. It looks like a bit like a…bus,' said Israel. 'Except without windows.'

'You're not wrong, Sherlock Holmes,' said Ted. 'It's a Bedford. Built on a VAM bus chassis. Beautiful, isn't she?'

'Beautiful' was not quite the word that Israel had in mind: the words he had in mind were more like 'write-off', 'wreck', 'filthy dirty', 'yuck', and 'I want to get out of here and go home.'

'You are joking me, are you?' he said.

'Joking?' said Ted.

'This is not the mobile library,' said Israel.

'That she is.'

'But we can't possibly drive that…thing. It's a wreck.'

'Lick of paint, be as good as new,' said Ted.

Israel put his hand into a rust hole.

'Come on,' he said.

'And a bit of bodywork,' admitted Ted.

And then there was the soft sound of something heavy and metal falling onto the ground and Ted got down on his hands and knees and looked underneath the vehicle.

'And some spot-welding,' he admitted. 'But she's no jum.'

'I see,' said Israel, who had absolutely no idea what a jum was. He was up on tiptoe trying to peer into the bus's dark interior.

Ted produced some keys from his pocket and weighed them heavily in his hand, as if they were precious jewels. He then placed them ceremonially in Israel's hands.

'Over to you, then,' said Ted.

'No, really,' said Israel.

'She's all yours,' said Ted.

'No. I-'

'Take. The keys,' said Ted insistently.

'Right,' said Israel.

'So,' said Ted.

'Well,' said Israel, hesitating and trying to think of something appropriately moving to say. He couldn't. 'It's an-'

'Get on with it.'

'Right.'

He went to open the door on the driver's side of the mobile library, but there was no door on the driver's side.

'Oh,' said Israel.

'Other side,' said Ted.

Israel went round to the right side and placed the key in the lock, turned, and nothing happened. He looked helplessly at Ted.

'Jiggle her,' said Ted.

Israel jiggled as best he could, but he was getting nowhere. He let Ted have a jiggle. That was no good either.

'Ach,' said Ted, examining the keys. 'Rust.'

'Oh well. Another time maybe.'

'Not at all,' said Ted, pointing up at the top of the van. 'Skylight.'

'What about it?'

'Way in,' said Ted. 'Catches wore away years ago. Should have got them fixed. Lucky I didn't. Come on.' He bent down slightly and clasped his hands together ready for Israel to climb up.

'Hang on now,' said Israel. 'Wait a minute. You want me to-'

'Come on,' said Ted, 'none of your old nonsense now,' and nodded to him to put his foot on his hands.

Israel hesitated. 'This is ridiculous.'

'Set yourself to it. Come on. Quickly. We're not on holiday, are we?'

'No.'

'So then. Come on, you big glunter.'

So against his better judgement-and partly because no one had ever called him a big glunter before-Israel did what he was told and placed a foot on Ted's big joint-of-meat hands and Ted grunted and puffed and straightened up and Israel scrambled for handholds and footholds up the side of the van, and by grappling and struggling he made it up onto the roof of the van, where there was only a few feet clearance from the roof of the barn, and he knelt down, puffing and scraping dust and rust and chicken shit out of the way.

'Eerrgh.'

'Good man you are!' shouted Ted. 'Go on then!'

'All right. Give me a minute,' said Israel, catching his breath and crawling on his belly towards the skylight. 'It's filthy!'

'Get on with it.'

'But-'

'Just pop it.'

'What?'

'The skylight. Pop it.'

Israel had a hold of the skylight and was wiggling and wobbling the Perspex from side to side.

'Got it?'

'Not yet.'

'Pop it!' shouted Ted, like a boxer's corner man.

'I can't pop it!'

'Go on!'

'I am going on!'

'Put some effort in.'

'I am putting some effort in. It's stuck.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes!'

'Might be rusty,' granted Ted.

'Might be? It's all rust.'

'Just yank her then,' said Ted.

Israel got a hold of the two sides of the skylight and braced himself, half kneeling and half standing, and put all his weight into pulling up and back and he took a deep breath and then he pulled up and back, and the skylight gave a sound of cracking, and the ancient Perspex came away in his hands.

And Israel straightened upwards and backwards…smashing the back of his head on the roof of the barn.

'Aaggh!' he screamed.

'You done it?' said Ted.

'Aaggh!'

'What?' said Ted.

'Aggghh!'

'What's the matter?'

'Aaggh, shit!'

'Will you mind your bloody language!' shouted Ted.

'Aaggh!' shouted Israel back. 'I nearly brained myself.'

'Aye. Knock some sense into you.'

'Ow,' said Israel, rubbing his head. 'I'm injured. My head.'

'Only part of you safe from injury.'

'I'm in agony here!'

'Aye, but you've not lost the powers of speech.'

'It hurts.'

'All right. You got a bump. Now just get on with it.'

'Get on with what?'

'What do you think? Your eyes in your arse or what?'

'What?'

'Climb in, you fool.'

'What do you mean climb in? There's no ladder.'

'Of course there's no ladder. Jump!' said Ted.

'I'm not jumping in there,' said Israel. 'It's dark.'

'Of course it's bloody dark. Just jump,' said Ted. 'What's wrong with ye, boy? Just mind your bap, eh.'

'My bap?'

'Your head, you eejit.'

'It's quite a drop,' said Israel, peering down into the dark interior of the van.

'Get on with it now,' said Ted. 'Christmas is coming, and it'll be here before we are if you keep carrying on.'

'I don't like the look of it.'

'Well, you're not going to like the look of it when I come up there and throw you down. Now, jump.'

'I don't know if I'll fit.'

'Of course you'll fit. What do you want us to do, grease you like a pig? Get in there and stop your yabbering, will ye. Come on.'

'Ah, God. All right,' said Israel. 'But I'm blaming you if I get hurt.'

'Fine. Just jump.'

'My head hurts.'

'It'll hurt even more if you don't shut up and get on with it,' said Ted reasonably. 'Jump!'

And lowering himself over the gap, supporting himself by his arms, Israel did.

And 'Aaah!' he cried, as he landed awkwardly on his ankle inside the mobile library.

'Ach, God alive, Laurence Olivier, that's enough of your dramatics now,' said Ted. 'Open the door.'

'I've hurt myself,' called Israel from inside the van.

'Ah'm sure,' said Ted. 'But come and open the door first.'

'I've hurt my ankle,' shouted Israel. 'I don't think I can walk.'

'Well, crawl.'

'I think I might have broken it!'

'If you've broken your ankle then I'm the Virgin Mary,' said Ted.

Israel stood up. 'I can't walk!' he cried.

'I tell you, if you was a horse I'd shoot you. Now stop your blethering and open this door before I lose the head and batter the thing in on top of you.'

Israel hopped down the bus and, after some fiddling with catches and locks, managed to open up the side door.

Ted entered.

'Ah,' he said. 'At last. Smell that.' It was not the smell of a library-books, sweat, frustrated desire, cheap but hard-wearing carpets. It was more the smell of a back-alley garage-the smell of warm corroding metal and oil. 'That's beautiful, sure,' said Ted, sweeping his arm in an expansive, welcoming kind of gesture. 'Welcome home.'

Maybe in her day the mobile library had been beautiful: maybe in her day she'd have been like home. These days, however, she was no longer a vehicle any sane person could possibly be proud of, unless you were Ted, or a dedicated mobile library fancier, or a scrap-metal merchant, and she wouldn't have been a home unless you were someone with absolutely no alternative living arrangements; also, crucially, and possibly fatally for a mobile library, there were no shelves.

'There are no shelves,' said Israel, astonished, still rubbing his head, and staring at the bare grey metal walls inside the van.

'No.'

'None at all.'

'Aye,' agreed Ted.

'Well, I don't want to sound all nit-picky, but shelves are pretty much essential for a library.'

'True.'

'Essential.'

'You could stack books on the floor,' said Ted.

'Yes. We could. But generally, we librarians prefer shelves. It's, you know, neater.'

'All right. Don't be getting smart with me now.'

'Right. Sorry. But there are no shelves. And no books, as far as I can see. So…the books?'

'The books?'

'The library books?'

'Ach, the books are fine, sure. You don't want to worry about the books. They'll be in the library.'

'This is the library.'

'Not this library. The old library.'

'The one that's shut?'

'Yes.'

'You're sure the books are there?'

'Of course I'm sure. There's been books there since before Adam was a baby.'

'Really.'

'We'll take a wee skite over later on, sure.'

'A what?'

'A skite. And we'll get Dennis or someone to knock us up some shelves.'

'Who's Dennis?'

'He's a plumber.'

'Right.' Then Israel thought twice. 'What?'

'He's a joiner. What do you think he is, if he builds shelves? I mean, in the name of God, man, catch yerself on. I'll give him a call later. So, do you want to try her?'

'Sorry?'

'Try her? Start her? For flip's sake, d'they not speak any English where you come from?'

'Yes. Of course they speak English. I am English!'

'Ah'm sure. And you can drive, can you? Or do they not teach you that over there on the mainland either?'

'Of course I can drive,' said Israel, grabbing the keys from Ted's hands.

Israel could drive-sort of. He had a licence. He'd passed his test. But he was a rubbish driver. And he was tired and he had a headache and what he really needed now was a lie down in a darkened room, preferably at home in lovely north London, rather than attempting to drive a clapped-out old mobile library under the scrutiny of a half-mad miserable minicab driver in the middle of the middle of nowhere. Nonetheless, he wasn't going to lose face, so he climbed into the thinly padded driver's seat, the foam coming out of the leather-effect PVC, put the key in the ignition, turned the key and…

Nothing.

Thank goodness.

'Oh well,' he said, 'we can always come back-'

Ted's heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

'It'll only be the battery,' said Ted. 'I'll take a look.'

It was the battery. And the alternator. And the air filter. And the fuel filter. And a lot of other things Israel had only ever heard rumour of-the gasket, the plug circuit, wiring looms, cylinder barrels. Ted spent a long time examining the engine.

'No. We'll have to get her into the workshop to get the guts of it done,' he concluded.

'Oh dear,' said Israel. 'That is a shame.'

'Aye,' said Ted. 'Offside coil spring,' he continued, to himself. 'Brake drums.'

'Right,' said Israel, as if he had any idea what Ted was talking about, which he didn't. 'My foot's fine, by the way, thanks for asking. And my head.'

'Aye.'

'You've not got any headache tablets, have you?'

'What for?'

'For my headache?'

'Ach.'

'That's a no, is it?'

Ted locked up the shed and walked back to the car. Israel walked back with him.

'You're wanting a lift then?' said Ted.

'Er. Yes.' Israel looked around him at the middle of the middle of nowhere: mountains; the sea; hedges; the barn. 'Yes. That would be nice. I've been on the road now for…' Israel checked his watch.

'Aye. Well. I've a couple of fares I need to pick up first.'

'Right.'

'I've to pick up George at the Strand, at the pork dinner.'

'Right. I see.' Israel had really had enough for one day. 'And what's a pork dinner, just…out of interest?'

'The pork dinner,' said Ted. 'The Pork Producers' Annual Dinner. At the Strand. Same every year. First Friday in December.'

Oh, God.