'Right,' said Israel, taking the book from his hands and opening it up. 'But it's signed by James Joyce. It's a copy of Ulysses.'

'Yes, well, obviously, once I've gathered all the worthwhile items together I was going to put the higher value items aside and price them separately.'

Israel doubted that very much.

'Anyway, Mr Pearce,' said Bullimore. 'I'm just about done for the day here. I'll leave you and your young friend and perhaps call back later next week to finish off?'

'Yes, of course. Finish things off. That'd be marvellous. Let me-'

'No. It's OK. I can see myself out.'

And he left, rather quickly.

'Mr Pyper?' said Israel, once Bullimore had left the library and closed the door behind him.

'Do call me Pearce.'

'Sorry. Pearce. I don't mean to speak out of turn or anything, but if I was you I think I'd be careful of him.'

'Who?' said Pearce Pyper, finishing his sherry.

'Bullimore, Mr Pyper.'

'Do call me Pearce. Sorry, what did you say?'

'Mr Bullimore. I think you should be very careful.'

'Really?'

'Yes. Really.'

'I've been dealing with him for years now. Furniture and what have you.'

'He was offering you a pittance for those books.'

'Well, they're no good to me now.'

'Some of those books are worth thousands.'

'Well, I'll talk to Bullimore about it. I'm sure we'll come to some agreement that is amenable to all parties. But now, we mustn't forget what you came for.'

They went to a small console table beside a velvet-upholstered chaise-longue, which had a tartan rug folded upon it, beneath one of the big windows.

'Very important to support your local library,' said Pearce.

'Yes.'

'Here we are then,' he said, grandly presenting Israel with half a dozen plastic dust-jacketed paperbacks, as out of place in Pearce's library as they belonged in the mobile. 'I always keep them separate.'

Israel glanced at the titles.

'Damon Runyon?'

'Oh yes. Dashiell Hammett. Raymond Chandler. I do like the American hard-boiled. Chandler was at school with one of my cousins. Lunatic, apparently.'

'Right,' said Israel, 'well, it's good to have them back. Thank you.'

'Not at all.'

'It's a wonderful garden you have there,' said Israel, nodding towards the view of sculptures and trees outside.

'Oh, I am glad you like it. It's a labour of love, I'm afraid, but there are worse ways to spend one's old age.'

'I like the sculptures and the…' Israel couldn't think of word to describe the totem poles, and the moulded concrete flowerpot heads. '…And the other things.'

'Good! Some people are rather sniffy about them, I'm afraid.'

'Really?'

'Oh yes.'

'Do you make them yourself?'

'Absolutely. My means of self-expression I suppose you might say. You must come back for a proper tour one day.'

'That'd be lovely, thank you.'

'Sherry?'

'No. Thanks. I should really be going.'

'Yes, of course.'

Israel could see the red barn on the Devines' farm in the distance, beyond Pearce Pyper's gardens.

'Shall I go out this way?' he asked, indicating the French doors leading onto the rear terrace.

'No, no. You must go out the way you came in. Bad luck otherwise.'

'Is it?'

'Of course!'

Pearce Pyper led Israel back through the house.

'So, where are you for now?' asked Pearce Pyper.

'I'm staying with the Devines,' said Israel, pointing. 'Just past the big red barn there.'

'Ah, the Devines? Lovely family.'

'Yes.'

'Terrible business with the parents.'

'Yes.'

'Lovely girl, though, Georgina. Done them proud. Make some lucky man a wife one day, eh?'

'Yes, I'm sure.'

'Anyway, good luck to you.'

'Yes, thanks,' said Israel.

Pearce Pyper pointed down the driveway, and Israel set off, library books tucked under his arm.

It was getting dark. The lane was narrow. Overhead it was threatening rain. And as Israel walked he went back to trying to work out where the missing books had gone. Ted honestly seemed to believe that if they just kept rounding up overdue books they'd gather them all in eventually. But Israel knew this wasn't the case: the books had been stolen. He just still couldn't quite work out who might have had a motive for stealing fifteen thousand library books from Tumdrum and District Library-or fourteen thousand, or however many it was. Maybe they wanted to inflict harm upon the council, or upon the library, or upon librarians, so maybe it was someone with a grievance: thus, Norman Canning. Or it might be the council themselves, trying to cover up their plans to withdraw all library services. Then again, it was possible that someone simply wanted to sell the books and make some money. He therefore still had several lines of enquiry, none of which was so far working out.

He thought he heard something behind him: it sounded far off, at first, like a faint crunching. But the sound suddenly grew louder, and Israel turned around.

There was a vehicle approaching down the narrow grassy lane at high speed-in the dark he couldn't make out what it was. He dropped the library books and dived into the hedge, moments before the vehicle sped past him.

It was his head that hit the tree first.

18

His nose. He'd broken his bloody nose: in the impact of leaping out of the way of the oncoming vehicle and into the tree his nose had gone; it had popped. Israel had always been very attached to his nose.

When he finally made it back to the Devines', covered in blood, Mr Devine had fiddled around trying to straighten his nose up a bit and instead he seemed to have increased the spread, like too much jam on toast. When he looked in the mirror now Israel no longer saw a proud young north London librarian with all the future ahead of him: what he saw instead were the bruises, and the bumps and the nose of a bloated and washed-up old boxer.

The next morning Brownie had given him a lift into town and Israel gave a statement to the police, who said they'd look into the incident, although unfortunately Israel didn't have the registration number of the vehicle, nor could he identify it precisely-he said it was a long sort of car, at which the police officer, a Sergeant Friel, a man with the kind of moustache once touted by RAF pilots and a smart-arse attitude to match, had smiled and said, 'How long exactly?' and spread out his arms, 'This long?' and 'No,' Israel had said, 'Longer,' and 'Oh,' said Sergeant Friel, 'Well, well, well,' and he was sorry but in that case he was afraid there wasn't that much the police could do to help, there were an awful lot of long cars out there these days.

Israel spent the rest of his Saturday feeling profoundly sorry for himself and wishing he was back home in London, where of course all policemen are gentlemen and hit-and-run drivers leave their particulars at the scene of the crime. He was sitting in the kitchen by the Rayburn with his swelling nose, reading the paper, or trying to read the paper: the Impartial Recorder was not the Guardian, to be honest, and there were just only so many reports on the possible go-ahead of plans for new local renal units and photographs of Mayor Maureen Minty planting trees in the grounds of old people's homes that he could take. On Saturdays he and Gloria liked to get up late, read the papers, go and see an interesting independent film in an interesting independent cinema, and have something nice to eat in a young and happening person's kind of a restaurant. He rang Gloria to see what she was up to. She wasn't answering her mobile: she was too busy being young and happening, probably. Israel poured himself more tea from the never-ending teapot on the stove: he was slowly moving towards tea, actually, and away from coffee; and he couldn't help thinking that this was a very bad sign.