The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery by Ian Sansom

The Postman Always Rings Twice . She had so many clothes and shoes, Gloria, he wondered sometimes if she was maybea shopaholic. When they’d first been together and they were students, she’d been fine, but then she’d got the big legal job with the firm and she’d had to upgrade. And as she’d been promoted she’d upgraded again and again, until the only thing she hadn’t upgraded was Israel. And so eventually she’d upgraded him. In the good old days they’d go shopping together to secondhand shops and Camden Market, but then she’d moved on to Next and Monsoon and then it was Ghost, and finally little places that she knew in Kensington and Chelsea that friends had recommended, with Israel sloping along after her while she bought clothes and shoes, although somehow she would never have the right shoes to go with the clothes or the right clothes to go with the shoes, and if Israel liked it, it was wrong, and if he didn’t, it was wrong, so he felt like he couldn’t win, and of course in the end, he hadn’t. He’d lost.
    “Question one,” said the reverend. “How many books are there in the Bible? And for our Jewish brothers and sisters in tonight,” he added—
    “Hooray!” said Israel, pathetically, alone. He felt one hundred pairs of Christian eyes bore into him.
    “—I am referring to the Christian Bible. That’s question one, brothers and sisters: how many books are there in the Bible?”
    “God, I have no idea,” said Israel, turning to his companions.
    “Do not use the Lord’s name in vain,” said old Mr. Devine.
    “Shit, sorry!” said Israel.
    “Sssh,” said George, nudging him, but not unpleasantly,thought Israel, not in the way she might usually nudge him. She’d been very kind to him since he’d been holed up in bed for two weeks. Maybe it was the beard.
    “Sixty-six,” whispered old Mr. Devine.
    “Really?” said Israel. “Are you sure?”
    “As sure as there’s an eye in a goat,” said Mr. Devine, narrowing his already narrow eyes under his cap.
    “Right. And of course there is an eye in a goat,” said Israel.
    “Aye,” said Mr. Devine.
    “Unless it’s a blind goat!” said Israel, who had already finished his second pint of Guinness and started, unwisely, on his third. “Boom boom!”
    “Sixty-six,” repeated Mr. Devine.
    “Isn’t that like the number of the beast?” said Israel.
    “That’s six-six-six,” said George, who was drinking sparkling mineral water.
    “Oh. Right. I don’t know if I’m going to get many of these.”
    “No,” agreed old Mr. Devine, who wasn’t drinking anything at all. He’d had a lemonade on his arrival and was saving himself for the fish and chips. The Fish and Chip Biblical Quiz Nights cost five pounds: fish and chip supper, plus one free drink, all profits going to a literal and proverbial orphanage in Romania.
    “I’ll tell you what, shall I write?” said Israel, reaching out for George’s pencil.
    “I’ll write,” said George, patting away his hand. “Thank you.”
    It was the first time anyone had touched Israel in a long time—except for Ted, which didn’t count, because Ted was usually walloping him round the back of the head. Israel suddenly remembered being on the Underground with Gloria one night, traveling back home in an empty carriage, and his pulling Gloria onto his lap, and—
    “Question two,” said the Reverend Roberts. “What is the longest book in the Bible?”
    “I know what the longest book outside of the Bible is,” said Israel.
    “Tssh,” said old Mr. Devine.
    “ À la recherche du temps perdu ,” said Israel, in his best French.
    “You mean À la recherche du temps perdu ,” said George, in her better French.
    “Thank you,” said Israel.
    “Pleasure,” said George. “But what about War and Peace ?”
    “No,” said Israel. “That’s nowhere near.”
    “I always preferred Dostoyevsky,” said George, pushing hair back behind her ear.
    “Me too!” said Israel,