Mr. Dixon disappears: a mobile library mystery by Ian Sansom

Devine who was there because he was always there, like the Rayburn and the smell of stewed tea.
    As far as Israel could recall he'd never seen Mr Devine anywhere else but in the kitchen at the farm; it was possible he even slept there, on the big rush-seated chair by the range, pot of tea just a reach away, and the milk jug covered by the little net with beads hanging from it, just like Israel's grandmother used to have. He was a permanent fixture.
    He couldn't throttle Mr Devine, alas: that'd be bad luck. Mr Devine was like a household god, a little toothless talisman, always to be relied upon, bundled up in his chair reading the paper or a magazine, or standing ironing furiously, as if by ironing he could be rid of all the wrinkles in the world. Today he was sitting, reading a magazine, squinting at it right up close. He didn't much approve of books, Mr Devine, apart from the Bible, but magazines were OK, it seemed; magazines had less in them, so were less likely to lead us into temptation and he always had two or three on the go at the same time. The People's Friend he liked very much, and Ireland's Own . Today he was reading Fancy Fowl , his favourite chicken magazine.
    Israel took another deep breath to calm himself: he could cope with this.
    There was a strong smell in the kitchen, as there always was, the smell of tea and stewed meat, a dense thicket of smell, as if something were coming up out of the ground, a smell so strong, so primeval it was enough to make you dizzy just walking in there; it was like inhaling earth, or ingesting a big bowl of mutton-and beef-rich stew. Israel hadn't yet got round to telling the Devines he was a vegetarian and he could think of no easy way to explain it now; as so often for Israel the moment seemed to have passed, and he'd missed the boat, and that was it, he was stuck. He ate mostly by himself in his coop, but sometimes he ended up eating with George and Mr Devine, if Brownie was home from university, and he'd always just pretend he wasn't hungry, although of course he was hungry; he was hungry all the time; he was hungry now, for example, and the smell of the meat seemed to call out deeply to him. He swallowed hard.
    'Mr Devine?' said Israel.
    'Hmm,' said Mr Devine, without looking up from Fancy Fowl . 'The fish vomited out Jonah upon dry land.'
    'Sorry?'
    'We thought you was in the hands of the law.'
    'Erm. Yes. I was, but I'm out now. And my…Erm. All my things seem to be out in the yard.'
    'Aye. That's right.'
    'Well, I was, you know, wondering why?'
    'The PSNI was in here, asking after you.'
    'Oh.'
    'Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.'
    'Yes. Right. What did they want, the police?'
    'You'll have us scandalled all the way to the border.'
    'Sorry. Yes. Erm. What did they want?'
    'You'd have to be speaking to George about that.'
    'OK. It's the bed as well, you see, my bed in the coop, it's gone.'
    'Gideon lay down a fleece to see if it was God's will that he were to save Israel.'
    'Right. OK. The bed and the furniture, though?'
    'Book of Judges.'
    'Right. The bed–it's not there any more.'
    'Aye, well. Like I say, you'd have to be speaking to George about it.'
    'OK. Fine. And George is?'
    Mr Devine glanced at the greasy-faced clock on the mantelpiece above the Rayburn. 'She'd be up in Toagher.'
    'What, sorry? Where?'
    'Toagher,' said Mr Devine.
    'Right,' said Israel.
    Toagher was of course Two Acre in Israel's standard north London English. It was a field. They had all these names for the fields round the farm and Israel could never remember what they were, or where they were, or how you were supposed to tell the difference between them–a field looked like a field to him, plus or minus hedges, and minus mostly. I mean, how the hell were you supposed to tell the difference between, say, the Well Field and the Stile Field, neither of which had an actual well or a stile in them any more, but which had done, apparently, forty or fifty years