Mr. Dixon disappears: a mobile library mystery by Ian Sansom Read Free Book Online

to a…bald man!'
    'You're not bald, Mr Armstrong.'
    'No, no! But I will be at this rate. Twelve hairs!'
    'The hairs, please, Mr Armstrong.'
    Israel remained silent as they plucked hairs from his head.
    The hairs were placed into another self-seal bag.
    So by half past ten on Easter Saturday, just three and a half hours after arriving at Dixon and Pickering's to set up his historic five-panel touring display, Israel Armstrong BA (Hons) was sitting plucked, exhausted, confused, and wearing his new white paper suit and plimsolls, in a cell in Rathkeltair police station.
    The cell was even smaller than the chicken coop he was staying in at George's farm. There was a concrete plinth with a mattress; a toilet bowl with a push-button flush, no toilet roll; a grey blanket. Grey walls. The grey metal door was scratched with graffiti.
    And Israel wasn't feeling at all well. He lay on the mattress on the plinth. It was cold. He drew the blanket up around him.
    This was not what was supposed to happen. This was not it at all.

5
    He woke in the dawning light to the merry sound of chickens and machinery outside and he stepped quickly to the door of the chicken coop and took a deep welcome breath of the rich country air: the smell of grass; the smell of silage; the thick, complex smell of several sorts of manure; the smell, it seemed to him, in some strange way, of freedom; the smell of very heaven itself. He was getting used to the country and to country ways. He was also getting fewer headaches these days, he found, and he felt lighter, more alert than he had for years: he could feel himself thriving and growing stronger, feeding on all that good corn and milk and fresh air. He threw back his head, filled his lungs with another blast of the world's sweet morning goodness, then put on his duffle coat and slipped on his shoes and quickly went across the yard to the kitchen, greeting the animals as he went: 'Hello, pigs! Hello, chickens! Hello, world!'
    In the kitchen Mr Devine was sitting by the Rayburn, wrapped in his blanket.
    'Good morning, Frank!' said Israel.
    'Good morning, Israel,' Mr Devine replied. 'A wee drop tay?'
    'Aye,' said Israel. 'That'd be grand.'
    He poured himself a nice fresh mug of tea from the never-ending pot on the Rayburn, then went back across the courtyard to his room where he lay and read for an hour, a fabulous new novel by a brilliant young author he'd only just discovered and whose work he adored and who seemed to be producing novels almost as quickly as he could read them–varied, strange and beguiling, full of stories. Then finally he got back up out of bed, washed his face in a cool calm bowl of water, got dressed, and went over to the farmhouse again to have breakfast and on entering the kitchen he kissed George warmly on the mouth, and she embraced him, and it seemed to him that he could think of no life pleasanter or more preferable than…
    Oh, God.
    He was dreaming.
    Or rather no, not dreaming–it was a nightmare. He wasn't in the chicken coop. He wasn't at the farm at all. He was still in the cell. He must have dropped off to sleep. He'd fallen from one nightmare into another.
    He glanced round himself, panicking. Oh, good grief. This was terrible. He was trapped.
    He could feel his stomach churning, contracting. He could feel himself beginning to hyperventilate. He needed something to read, to calm his nerves. There was nothing to read. He felt frantic.
    He tried reading the graffiti on the walls and on the back of the door. But there wasn't enough, and it was too small, and anyway it was all acronyms defying one another and performing sexual acts on one another, the IRA doing this or that to the UVF, who were doing this or that to the UDA, and the PUP versus the SF, and up the INLA, and down the UFF, and RUC this and PSNI that: where were the great wits and aphorists of County Antrim, for goodness sake? Where were the imprisoned scribes? Where was the Chester Himes and the Malcolm X of the jail