'How many?' said Linda.

'Er…'

'How many are still missing?'

'I reckon…probably around about fourteen and a half thousand.'

'So you've hardly got any in fact?'

'Well…'

'I strongly suggest then, sir, that you rapidly revise your so-called hypotheses, in the light of the evidence that you're making a sad hash of the whole thing. Or you're going to find yourself with us here forever.'

Israel's headache had now arrived, scooped him up on its back and was thundering away at full gallop.

'Look,' he said, trying a different tack. 'I can't do this on my own, Linda. I need help.' Even Sherlock Holmes had help. Everybody needs help.

'Well, we would of course love to help you, Mr Armstrong,' said Linda, flapping her canary arms, 'but actually, in case you hadn't noticed, you are the person who is supposed to be helping us find the missing library books.'

'But can't we just go to the police now it's all out in the open?'

'I think you'd agree, Mr Armstrong, that would only make matters worse at this stage. And also I have issued a statement to the paper this morning denying that the books are missing-'

'What?'

'And guaranteeing that the mobile library will be up and running by the end of the year.'

'But Linda that's only, what, a couple of weeks away?'

'Indeed.'

'I can't find the books by then.'

'You have to find the books by then, if you want to be going home any time soon. And you're going to look pretty foolish, aren't you, driving around with no books in the back of the van?'

'I can't. No. Sorry. I can't do that. I can't do it on my own, Linda.'

'Well, you could ask Ted to come back and help you out, unless he's still on your Most Wanted list.'

'No, I've eliminated Ted from my…my, er, enquiries.'

'Good, well,' said Linda, 'maybe you should ask Ted then. He's not an unreasonable man.'

'Ted is a very unreasonable man, Linda.'

'Well, given that you probably don't have that many friends around Tumdrum, I suggest you try and cultivate what few contacts you do have.'

'Right, thanks a lot.'

Linda glanced at the clock and got up to leave.

'That'll be all then, Mr Armstrong. Unless you have anything else useful to add to our conversation?'

'No,' said Israel, defeated. 'Fine. OK. Right. Where does Ted live?'

'Ted? Up on the coast, isn't it? You'd be best looking for him at the First and Last, I would have thought, though he's off the drink but, these days.'

'Right,' sighed Israel. 'And where is it, the First and Last?'

'On the main Ballymuckery road as you're coming into town.'

'Right. I don't suppose you have a map, do you?'

'A map?'

'Of the town.'

'Och no, of course I don't. What would I want a map for?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'Is that all?'

'Yes.'

'Well, I do have to say,' concluded Linda, making for the door, 'I'm really very disappointed in you, Mr Armstrong. I had expected much better of someone of your obvious talents.'

'Right.'

'It'll no doubt be better news the next time we speak though,' said Linda, leaving her office.

'No doubt,' said Israel, full of doubt, giving her a two-fingered salute behind her back.

'I saw that,' shouted Linda, retreating down the corridor. 'I'm watching you.'

15

The First and Last was so called because depending on whether you were entering or leaving Tumdrum, it was either the first pub you came to, or the last, a distinction which one would have thought was hardly worth the boast since there were at least another dozen pubs to choose from in town, most of which had more to recommend them than merely their convenient location for thirsty or fleeing travellers. But the First and Last had acquired its name not merely because it lay on the edge of town, but also because Elder Agnew, who had established the business back in the 1950s, was a member of the Plymouth Brethren and a strict teetotaller who believed strongly in the Bible, and in the Lord which is, which was, and which is to come, and who felt that just as Christ had consorted with thieves and prostitutes, so too it was his calling to offer comfort and consolation to the destitute and the wretched of the earth and in particular to the many heavy drinkers of Tumdrum and district, and to all those who sought refuge from the trials and tribulations of this world, and from their wives, at the bottom of a pint glass. Elder's calling and ministry had eventually led to his expulsion from the Brethren, and to his joining the Church of Ireland, which had a rather more relaxed attitude towards evangelism and to the various natural products of fermentation. Elder served up strong drink to his customers on Scripture beer-mats and surrounded them with posters and samplers and big etched mirrors which bore warnings and exhortations about the vanities and miseries and disappointments of this life, which most of his customers were more than fully aware of already and who probably wouldn't have been in the First and Last if they weren't, and which certainly did not dissuade them from their evening's drinking.

Times had changed, though, of course, and under the guidance of Elder's son, the confusingly named Elder, the First and Last had in recent years begun to relax its unwritten men-only and only men in caps rules, and to serve women, and to offer live televised sports on a giant screen, but it still remained a pub like no other in Tumdrum: it still had its huge Greek letters painted above the door, for example, which gave it the look of a masonic temple; and it still had the words, 'I Am Alpha And Omega, The Beginning And The End', painted around its doorposts and on the lintel, which made it look like the homes of the children of Israel as the angel of death passed over; and its corrugated-aluminium walls and the cantilevered roof meant that it still looked like a cattle-shed. In addition, the crudely painted mural on the building's gable end showing a bearded man in robes treading the bodies of sinners in a huge wine press meant that the pub remained unmistakable to passers-by, and to all those entering or leaving the town. The First and Last was a north coast landmark.

Israel had finally caught the attention of the barman-Elder the Younger himself, no less, a man who was fully bearded, and who wore a novelty waistcoat featuring rambling red roses, and a permanent neck-brace, after an accident in which he had fallen into a vat of his own home-made liqueur, brewed out back, an accident which he had been lucky to survive but which some people claimed had affected his mind more than his body, a few minutes in a wooden vat of base spirit and herbs seeming to have done irreparable damage to his nervous system and to have irrevocably coloured his outlook on life. Like his father, Elder was a born-again, teetotal, evangelical Christian, but unlike his father he regarded his customers not so much as a gathered congregation as some unspeakable herd of the damned, and he was renowned for the rudeliest welcome in the whole of Tumdrum, if not in Christendom.

'Yes, son?'

'Erm. Just a mineral water, please.'

'And what do you want with that?'

'Just the mineral water, please.'

'No.'

'What?'

'I'll not be serving you just with th'water.'

'What?' said Israel. Elder started to move away. 'Hang on. This is a pub, isn't it?'

'Aye.'

'So, can I have a mineral water. Please?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'D'you think I can make money out of people who come in here to drink on water?'

'Well…'

'Aye, well, you might as well be takin' money out of my till. You're nothin' better than a common thief. You're barred!' said Elder, moving on to another customer. 'Pint, Tommy?'

Israel suddenly remembered he had a headache, and had done since arriving in this bloody place.