The case of the missing books by Ian Sansom Page A

know it's a farm.'
    'Well, you'll remember the chicken who was sharing your bed last night?' said George.
    'What?'
    'And you said you wanted rid of it?'
    'Yes. But.' Israel stared at the pile of freshly cooked and quartered flesh. 'You don't mean…I didn't mean…'
    'Lovely big bird,' said Mr Devine.
    'I'll take a thigh, Granda,' said Brownie.
    'And breast for me,' said George.
    'I…' began Israel, who suddenly had an image of the poor, sick, injured chicken tucked up tight in bed with him, wearing stripey pyjamas, sipping chicken soup. 'Er. Actually. No. I'm not that hungry, thanks.'
    Mr Devine said grace and then they started in on the champ and chicken.
    'Mmm,' said Israel, politely tucking in to the champ.
    'Hmm,' he then said, as the scalding hot white mush hit the roof of his mouth.
    Then, 'Ah!' he said, and 'Ergh!' and 'Ah, yes, I almost forgot,' and he got up, fanning his mouth, and hurried over to his duffle coat, which was hanging by the door.
    'Are you all right, Armstrong? Not leaving us already?'
    'No. Yes. I'm fine. I…Ah. I bought us some…ho, ho, ho, some…wine. To…thank you for your…hospitality.'
    George and Brownie and Mr Devine looked at Israel in deep congregational silence.
    'So,' he said, smiling, returning to the table, turning the bottle reverently in his hand. 'Merlot just, I'm afraid. Not a lot of choice in town.' He'd found a £10 note tucked in the corner of the pocket of his old brown corduroy jacket and had decided to invest it all in wine and Nurofen.
    George and Brownie and Mr Devine continued to gaze in hush.
    'Ah, yes, right. I know what you're thinking.'
    He quickly darted back over to his duffle coat and with a flourish reached into his other pocket and produced a bottle of white.
    'Ta-daa! A white for those who prefer.'
    The gathered Devines remained silent. Israel looked at the label.
    'Mmm. Chardonnay was all they had, I'm afraid.' He now had exactly seven pence to his name. 'Still. I think we have a sufficiency. Do you have a corkscrew?
    'Corkscrew?'
    'Erm. No. 'Fraid not,' said Brownie, breaking the solemn silence.
    'You don't have a corkscrew? Well, OK. That's, erm…What about a Swiss army knife or something?'
    'No.'
    'We don't drink, Armstrong.'
    'You don't drink?'
    'No.'
    'Not at all? But what about…'
    Israel was about to point out that the other evening George seemed to have been more than happy to drink, if her exploits with Tony Thompson on the back seat of Ted Carson's cab were anything to go by, unless it was perhaps just the spare ribs at the Pork Producers' Annual Dinner that had done it, in which case Israel wished he'd known about that growing up in north London. But George was looking at Israel at that moment much in the same way she might look at a chicken she was about to pick up by the legs and swing at with an axe.
    'I see. So.'
    The Devines remained silent.
    'Not even half a glass?'
    'We've all signed the pledge,' said Mr Devine proudly.
    George and Brownie were staring down at their plates.
    The irony was, of course, that he didn't really drink as such himself. He and Gloria would sometimes share a bottle of wine in the evenings, if they were together, and Gloria was partial to the various liqueurs that she brought back with her from business trips, and Israel, who liked to keep a few boiled sweets about his person and whose already sweet tooth had been getting a whole lot sweeter over the years, was not averse to trying the odd liqueur with her: a nice flaming sambucca, perhaps, now and again, or an insanely sweet amaretto. And he'd occasionally go drinking with old college friends in London–a few beers–but he was a lightweight by any normal standards. Compared to the Devines, though, Israel was virtually an alcoholic.
    Certainly, at this moment he needed a drink.
    'Well,' he said, gingerly setting the bottles of wine down on the floor at his feet. 'I'll save them for my own…er…personal use, then.'
    The wine went unmentioned for the rest of the