The case of the missing books Read Online Free PDF Page A

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