'Sorry?' Honestly, he couldn't understand half of what people said round here.

'Down, Packy!' the man told the dog. 'Will you stop yer yappin'? Stop! Down!' And with that he ferociously cuffed the dog, which cowered and whimpered and finally settled down. 'D'you know Abbey Street?' the man asked, smiling, turning back to Israel.

'Er…' Israel was more than a little put off and disconcerted by the sight of the now beaten and chastised dog-he was a vegetarian, after all-and he was not inclined to disagree or to contradict the man, but he couldn't work out the logic here: if he wasn't from round here, how was he supposed to know Abbey Street, unless for some reason Abbey Street carried its name and notoriety before it, like Fifth Avenue, or Oxford Street? And as far as Israel was aware, it did not: Abbey Street might be famous locally, but word of it had not yet reached Israel back home in north London. He looked down at the cuffed dog, though, and decided not to point out the logical error.

'No. Sorry,' he said, 'I don't know Abbey Street,' and then he started to speak more slowly, in that speaking-to-foreigners-and-those-with-possible-mental-impairments kind of a voice that he'd found himself resorting to increasingly since arriving in Tumdrum.

'It's-Ballymuckery-Yes?' and he nodded his head at this point, encouraging assent, 'That's-What-I'm-Looking-For.'

'Aye, aye. Right you are,' said the man, amused. 'And you reckon it's just past Ballygullable?'

'So I've been told.'

'Aye, well.' The man coughed again, and spat on the pavement. 'They're blaggarding you, you know.'

'Oh. I see,' said Israel, though he didn't.

'Never worry. It's just the way of us,' chuckled the man.

'Right. Yes. Ho, ho.'

'I'll see you right though-just let me think.'

This took some time-time that Israel used profitably in feeling sorry for himself, because now he saw: Ballygullable! Oh, honestly. They could have had their own Friday night sitcom, the people round here. Absolute side-splitters, the lot of them.

'Aye,' said the man eventually. He pointed down the road. 'I know. D'you see yon park?'

'Yes,' said Israel, although to be honest the patch of football-studded grass in the distance didn't look like much of a park to him. Hyde Park, that was a park.

'Up to the park there, and past the memorial.'

'Right.'

'You'll see the wine team.'

'Sorry?'

'The wine team, by the memorial. Old Shuey and them. They're harmless.'

'Right. OK,' said Israel, still with absolutely no idea what on earth the man was talking about.

'If you're wanting Ballymuckery you'd be turning left.'

'Right.'

'No, left.'

'Yes. Sorry, I meant left.'

'Aye, right. Just follow the road, son.'

The man now seemed to have finished giving his directions.

'OK. Great. Thanks,' said Israel, who went to wind up the window.

But the man hadn't finished. He pushed the window down, rather menacingly, thought Israel.

'So, you follow the road, right? Past the Spar. But that's not there any more. That's gone. It's one of them hair places now.'

'OK.'

'Then there's a roundabout.'

And here he paused again, for what seemed like a long time.

Israel assumed that this concluded proceedings.

'OK. Great, thanks,' he said, going to wind up the window again.

But no, there was more-the man was just thinking.

'Steady,' he said. 'I'm just thinking.'

There was a pathetic bark from the dog.

'And it's definitely Ballymuckery you're for?'

'I think so.'

'Aye, well. That's all right. Then there's another roundabout.'

'Right.'

'Straight on,' corrected the man.

'OK,' said Israel, through gritted teeth.

'And then there's the mini-roundabout.'

'OK. And then?'

'No, that's it. And Ballymuckery's up there on the left, by the old railway bridge.'

'Right. Good. How long do you think that should take?'

'Well, it's a brave wee walk, if you're walking.'

'Right. Er. I'm in the van, though.'

'Aye.'

'OK. Well, thanks for that. So: left, roundabout, roundabout, roundabout, left.'

'Right,' said the man.

'Right?'

'Left.'

'Left?'

'That'd be it.'

'Thanks. Good. Thank you very much.'

'I'll maybe take a wee ride with you,' said the man.

'No!' said Israel hurriedly. 'No. Really. Thanks. I'm not…erm. Insured. To carry the public.'

'No?'

'No, sorry. But thanks. Goodbye!'

'Good luck!'

'Thanks. Bye. Bye!'

Israel finally wound up the window, and set off.

They were the wrong directions.

He did find it eventually though, Ballymuckery, and the home of Norman Canning, Tumdrum's former librarian.

Norman, it turned out, lived in a maisonette, a part of a group of twenty or thirty two-storey pebble-dashed buildings clustered around a patch of grass which forbade ball games and which had long ago turned to mud. It was a place too small to count as an actual estate but too big to be simply a cul-de-sac: it was as if the houses had been cut adrift from the rest of civilisation and left floating in a dark sea of ploughed fields. All the kerbstones had been painted red, white and blue-some time ago, by the look of it, and by people using very broad brushstrokes-and there was matching, tattered, red, white and blue bunting hung from lampposts, giving the place the feeling of a sinister floating pleasure-boat. There was no one around. The whole place had the air of a loyalist Marie Celeste.

Israel walked up the concrete steps to the front door of Norman's maisonette, which looked down over a small garden where there were rose bushes dug into a deep triangle of dirt, hacked and grown into standards, like blackened skeletal fingers, like the buried body of the countryside had been crushed by the buildings and was grasping up towards the winter sky. There was no other greenery or attempts at pleasantness: just pebble-dash and concrete and red, white and blue bleeding into the dark black earth.

A net curtain hung at Norman's window. There was no bell.

Israel took a deep breath and tried to think like Miss Marple.

He tapped on the white UPVC and presently a man in late middle age answered the door; he had pinched, bitter features, as if someone had gripped a hold of his face with their hand and had not let go for many years, until the lines had deepened, and he wore small round glasses not dissimilar to Israel's own, and his grey, thinning hair hung down over the collar of his worn but neat and ironed white shirt: he looked every inch the ex-librarian.

'Hello,' said Israel. 'Norman Canning?'

'Hmm,' said the man non-committally.

'Erm. My name's Israel Armstrong. I'm…the new librarian, in Tumdrum. Well, the new librarian with the mobile library. If you see what I mean.'

He pointed back towards the road, at the mobile library.

'I see,' said the man, his eyes narrowing.

'And it is Norman, is it? Pleased to meet you.' Israel went to shake hands.

The man ignored Israel's hand and looked over his shoulder, towards the street.

Israel had parked the mobile library outside the maisonette, managing to get it surprisingly close to the kerb.

A group of young children had appeared out of nowhere and had gathered around the van, and were banging on the sides.

'Hey! Get away from there!' shouted the man, shaking his fist at the children, who ran off, shouting abuse. 'Go on! Go!'

'Thanks,' said Israel.

'They'll be back,' said the man. 'Your hubcaps'll be away.'

'I'm sure it'll be fine,' said Israel blithely.

'Aye. You'd know?'

'Well…'

'You'd better be quick.'

'Right. I was just wondering if I could ask you a few quick questions,' said Israel. 'About the library.'

'It's shut.'

'Yes. I know. I'm…' Israel began, but the man had already turned his back on him and walked away. 'Norman?' called Israel. 'Norman?'