Mr Dixon Disappears

There was absolutely no doubt about it: Dixon and Pickering’s was unique. Dixon and Pickering’s was undoubtedly – as one of the titles on the helpful A3-size laminated sheets of Israel’s five-panel touring exhibition pointed out – A Landmark and A Legend.

Israel parked up.

It was raining, of course. It was always raining in Tumdrum. Even if it wasn’t raining, not at that actual moment, then it was getting ready to rain, biding its time, waiting until you’d left the house without your coat and umbrella and you were more than halfway to wherever it was you were going so it was too late to turn back, and then whoosh!, suddenly you were wet right through.

It rained here all the time, but still it somehow caught you unawares, creeping up on you. If it was possible for weather to be duplicitous and undermining, then Tumdrum’s weather was: it was bad weather, morally bad weather; it was rain that left no visible trace, no puddles, only a deep-down damp, a remorseless damp that at first you couldn’t get out of your clothes and then you couldn’t scrub out of your skin and then you couldn’t dig out of your soul; the kind of damp that if you could have smoked it, you wouldn’t have known but already you’d be addicted.

And what was worse even than the soul-destroying rain was that around Tumdrum the sky always seemed to be the colour of the road and the road was always the colour of the sky, a grey, grey, grey, one of a million shades of grey that Israel knew by heart by now, and today, this morning, it still being early, the sky was a kind of beige grey, like the trim in the interior of a particularly nasty 1970s sports car, the shade of a soulless future.

The caretaker emerged from the back of the store and into the rain and waved Israel over.

‘Come on ahead then. I’ll show you where you’re setting up.’

‘Would you mind, just…’ Israel turned up the hood on his duffle coat and half-heartedly indicated back towards the van, to the bags of poles and panels for the display, but the caretaker had gone already. So Israel followed him up the stone steps and inside the famous big pink building.

The back entrance took you in through kitchenware and hardware, Panasonic bread-makers to the left of you, pop-up gazebos and battery display stands to the right. A worn but clean red carpet led through the store, up past linen and beds, skirting contemporary furniture and on through greetings cards, stationery, board games and leather goods until finally you reached the front entrance to the store, where, as is traditional, you could purchase gifts, watches, jewellery and crystal at the foot of a wide staircase which took you up to ladies’ fashions and accessories.

‘Here’s you,’ said the caretaker, indicating a tiny space between the sweeping staircase and a jumble of glass display cases featuring vases, decanters and earrings.

‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to squeeze everything…’

But the caretaker had gone.

Right, thanks.

Israel trudged back through the store – he was trudging because his old brown brogues were slowly breaking down, widening and splitting, the leather uppers and the smooth leather soles unable to contend with the fast pace, the pounding, and the never-ending dung of country living – and he prepared to unload the exhibition through the disabled access door at the back of the mobile library. Which was easier said than done.

The disabled access door was actually more likely to render you disabled than to ease your access: it was pretty stiff to open, where someone had rear-ended the van at some time, and when you did get it open you had to tie it back with a piece of string because the catch had gone, and the roll-a-ramp itself weighed a ton and was a bugger to fold up and down.

But then the whole van was just like that, and you got used to her eventually, and as long as you watched the oil, and the tyre pressure and the water, and kept her doors lubricated with petroleum jelly, and remembered not to use the full trigger on the petrol pump when you were filling her up, and had a couple of spare alternator belts on board at all times, and as long as you had a dedicated full-time mechanic on hand, then really she was no trouble at all. She took a little more care and maintenance than Israel’s mum’s old Honda Civic back home in London, but then you couldn’t get two thousand books and fully adjustable shelving in a Honda Civic – in fact, as far as Israel remembered, you’d be lucky to be able to get the weekly supermarket shop, a bag of sucky chocolate limes and a handful of CDs in a Honda Civic. To his surprise, Israel seemed to have outgrown little city runabouts. He’d grown accustomed to the van and to her big old-fashioned country ways; he’d got used to grinding the gears, and the uncomfortable, elevated driving position, and he’d grown accustomed to listening out for the little rattles and shakes that meant he needed to get Ted to take a look at the engine before the whole thing blew. As long as Israel didn’t have to touch anything mechanical, as long as everything was going smoothly, he was absolutely fine.

He checked his watch. Ted was supposed to be meeting him, but there was no sign of him. He was going to have to do it all by himself.

He eventually dragged all the display poles and panels out of the van and through the store and started setting up.

The caretaker had turned some music on, which was now flooding the huge empty spaces of the store, filling up every little crack, like grains of sand in a picnic or long white worms of Polyfilla from a tube. There was ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA, and Chris De Burgh’s ‘Lady in Red’, and Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind’, all played just below tempo, legato, and with humming low chords, each song bleeding into the other, with a generous use of alto sax and what sounded like a flugelhorn, or a muted flugelhorn, or maybe a nose-flute to carry the melody, a sound so mucousy and clotted it made you feel all bunged-up and fluey just hearing it. TV theme-tunes from the 1970s merged seamlessly with pop hits of the 1980s and the Beatles, the slow songs played too fast, and the fast songs played too slow. He had a headache before: now he was actually beginning to feel sick. His hands were sweaty.

When Linda Wei had shown him in her office how to set up the panel display – or the ‘Velcro-Compatible Exhibition and Display System’, as she insisted on calling it – she’d had it done in minutes, with a cherry scone in hand, and it had looked perfectly simple, but, like most things in life, it turned out only to be simple once you knew how to do it. It took Israel two hands and goodness knows how long of pressing and clicking poles and lifting panels into position to the accompaniment of Boney M, Stevie Wonder, Kris Kristofferson, Celine Dion and the theme from Miami Vice, but when he finally got it up it was pretty solid, and if he said so himself his full-colour five-panel display on the history of Dixon and Pickering’s looked pretty good. He couldn’t deny it, he was proud of his work: on this day, at this moment in time, to his own surprise and doubtless to the amazement of others, if they’d been in the slightest bit interested, Israel Armstrong probably knew more about the history of Dixon and Pickering’s than anyone else alive.

He knew all about how the original Mr Dixon, the haberdasher, the man with the vision, had inherited money from a distant relative sent out to seek his fortune in New South Wales, and how he had joined forces with the original Mr Pickering, the milliner, the man with the eye for detail, and how the two of them had dreamt of a department store to rival those of London and Dublin, selling fancy goods and fine china, and wallpaper and animal feed. He knew how they had raised the money for the building from financiers; and how the revolutionary steel-frame building had been constructed partly on site and partly in Glasgow and then shipped over. And he knew all about the original layout of the store, with the little mahogany booths on the ground floor, with William Patterson the Watch Doctor tucked up in one, King’s Barber Shop in another, and Mr E. Taylor the Tailor alongside them; and how the booths were replaced in the 1940s with stained-pine counters, and how eventually the whole store had gone open-plan in the sixties, when the oak-panelled entrance hall was remodelled and the revolving door removed and replaced with something state-of-the-art in shiny metal and plastic; and now all that remained inside of the original building was the old staircase. Israel had read and carefully noted down all this information from the archives of the Impartial Recorder, and from the old Dixon and Pickering business ledgers now kept in Rathkeltair library, and he had rendered it all lovingly in laminated text and photos, and had pinned it up with his own hand with drawing-pins to the Velcro-Compatible Exhibition and Display System.

And when he stepped back to admire this thing, his handiwork, this Bayeux Tapestry of North Antrim’s greatest department store – to the tune of Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ arranged for flute and classical guitar – he saw that it was good.

Unfortunately, though, when he stepped back he also stepped straight into one of the freestanding glass display cases.

Which, to his horror, began to fall, taking with it its display of miniature crystal teddies, china meerkats, porcelain kittens, carved owls and collectable Scottie dogs, elephants and pigs.

And as it fell, it hit another display case.

And then another.

‘Oh…’ began Israel, but didn’t have time to finish his sentence as he did his best to prevent a fancy goods domino effect, trying to hold on to toppling cases, but he was too late and by the time the toppling had ceased, five cases were down: broken bowls and jugs and decanters, carriage clocks, charm bracelets, lockets and little glass candleholders were everywhere.

It was giftware apocalypse. Israel was speechless.

‘Beat It’ had morphed into John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

The caretaker appeared.

‘What the—’

‘Sorry,’ said Israel.

‘Sorry?’

‘For the—’

‘Forget it.’

‘Really?’

Something was wrong here. The caretaker’s already ghastly pale and freckled features had turned a ghostly, paler white.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Israel. ‘Are you OK?’

‘It’s all gone.’

‘What’s all gone?’

‘Everything,’ said the caretaker. ‘The money. We’ve been robbed.’

3

Israel and the caretaker hurried up the big mahogany stairs to the first floor – hurrying past Ladies Fashions, which were mostly XL and pastel, past Accessories, which were mostly scarves and super size handbags, and past the Cosy Nook cafeteria, which was dark and empty and smelt of yesterday’s scones and lasagne and milky coffee, and further still, through double doors marked ‘Private: Staff Only’ – and then up another staircase onto the second floor.

They were in the eaves of the building. It was warm. Downstairs on the ground floor there were high ceilings and chandeliers, but up here, tucked away, it was all fluorescent lights and polystyrene tiling, and there was that eloquent whiff of bleach from the toilets. There were Health and Safety notices on the walls, and whiteboards and pin boards, and water coolers, and computers and reams of paper, and gonks and cards and piles of paper on desks – all the usual paraphernalia of office life.

Israel followed the caretaker through the open-plan area into a smaller private office.

‘Oh dear,’ said Israel. Chairs were tipped over, paperwork strewn all over the floor. ‘This doesn’t look good. Signs of a—’

‘Struggle,’ said the caretaker, his breathing shallow. ‘And look here.’

‘Where?’ said Israel.

‘There.’

The caretaker was pointing to a wall safe.

Israel had never seen an actual wall safe before – had never had use for one himself, barely required a wallet in fact – and he was shocked to find that a wall safe in reality looks much like it does in films and in the imagination: a wall safe looks like a little square metal belly-button, small, neat and perfect in the flat expanse of wall.

‘Huh,’ said Israel.

‘Look,’ said the caretaker.

Israel went over to the safe, pushed the little door shut, opened it again.

‘Double-locking system,’ said the caretaker.

‘Right. Er…’

‘Key and combination.’

‘Uh-huh. And this is where the money was stolen?’

‘Some of it.’

‘How much was in there?’

‘Few thousand.’

‘Ah well,’ said Israel breezily, ‘big business like this, be able to absorb that, won’t it?’

‘Come here till I show ye,’ said the caretaker, who really did seem to be taking things very badly, who looked like a beaten man, in fact, his whole body and his stomach sagging, and he walked through with Israel into another room off the office.

This room was warmer, and smaller still. There were no windows. And lined up against the back wall were two large metal boxes, like huge American fridges, though without the cold water and ice-dispenser facility – Gloria’s family had a big fridge, back home in London, and Israel could never work it properly; he always got ice-cubes all over the floor.

The doors of the safes stood open.

‘Wow.’

‘These are the deposit safes,’ said the caretaker.

‘Right.’ Israel went over to them. ‘Can I?’

‘Go ahead.’

Israel peeked inside. He stroked the smooth steel shelves.

‘They’re empty too then.’

‘Aye.’

‘But they should be full?’

‘Aye.’

‘Gosh,’ said Israel. He always sounded more English in a crisis. ‘So how much money would have been in there?’

The caretaker did not reply.

‘How much in these?’ repeated Israel, remembering not to add ‘my good man’ and sound too Lord Peter Wimsey.

‘A lot.’ The caretaker was ashen-faced.

‘OK. And how much exactly is a lot?’

‘Ach…’ The caretaker huffed. ‘Difficult to say. You know, Bank Holiday. There might have been farmers in yesterday, might ha’ sold a heifer, and that’d be the money for a new dining suite, so.’

‘Right. I see. So…how much, do you think? Thousands?’

‘Tens of thousands.’

‘Good grief. That much?’

‘Could have been. Busy time of year. These uns take about £100,000 apiece I think.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Aye.’

‘Gosh. Well…’

Israel looked around the room.

‘I just cannae understand it,’ said the caretaker. ‘All the security. CCTV and alarms and all.’

‘The doors look fine,’ said Israel. ‘It doesn’t look as if anyone broke in.’

‘I can’t find Mr Dixon anywhere,’ said the caretaker.

‘Well, maybe he’s just—’

‘He’s always in his office by now. He arrives half six, parks up down below.’

‘Is that his car out front?’ said Israel.

‘The Mercedes, aye,’ said the caretaker.

‘Nice car,’ said Israel. ‘Maybe he’s just gone to the toilet, or—’

‘Mr Dixon doesnae go to the toilet at this time,’ said the caretaker.

‘Right.’

‘He doesnae go till eight o’clock.’

‘Erm. OK. Gone for a stroll then maybe?’

‘He doesnae go for a stroll.’

‘Well, maybe he’s just popped out. You know, to get a paper or—’

‘He wouldnae.’

‘Well. OK. So…’

‘I think something’s happened.’

‘Well, yes, I’d say that’s certainly a—’

‘Kidnap, d’ye think?’ said the caretaker.

‘Well, I wouldn’t…I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical…There’s not a note or anything, is there?’

‘I couldnae see one.’

‘Could someone have smuggled him out, past all the security?’

‘I don’t rightly know.’

‘D’you mind if I…’ Israel indicated the office.

‘Go on ahead there.’

‘You should ring the police.’

‘I’ve rung ‘em already. They’ll be here any minute.’

Israel took the opportunity to take a quick look around Mr Dixon’s messed-up office, which looked out over the front of the department store.

The office was beige. But it went beyond the average beige: it was a profound beige; its beigeness was total and complete. The furniture in the room – pale cream store cupboards and filing cabinets – was all fitted flush to the walls, and the walls were cream, the carpet was beige, and the table and chairs were a pale, pale pine; if you squinted, it would almost have been as though everything had been erased from the room, as if everything had disappeared. It wasn’t just neat and functional – it went beyond that: it was a room that seemed to have vanished.

While the caretaker hovered nervously by the door, shifting from foot to foot in a state of profound agitation, Israel absentmindedly picked up some of the files and paperwork from the floor and put a couple of the chairs back upright; he did like things tidy.

The only real distinguishing feature in the room were the few framed photographs on one wall, showing the various Messrs Dixon and Pickering through the ages, standing outside the store, their arms folded, at first unsmiling, black and white men in bowler hats, and then, later, more recently, grinning, bare-headed men in full colour, as though the whole world and the weather had been warming up and cheering up over the past hundred years. The photograph of the current Mr Dixon showed a man of almost negligible features – a face that would not stand out in a crowd. From all his research into the history of Dixon and Pickering’s, Israel knew only this about Mr Dixon: he’d inherited the business from his father, who’d taken it on from his own father, the founder; he wore dark suits and white shirts; and he took his responsibilities seriously. Widely respected in the community, upright and upstanding, Mr Dixon was someone to whom nothing interesting had ever happened. His office was beige: his life was bland.

The phone rang. Instinctively, Israel reached across the desk and picked it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Michael? Is that you?’

‘No. I’m afraid, I’m…’

The phone went dead.

‘Who was that?’ asked the caretaker. ‘The police?’

‘I don’t know. It was a woman. What’s Mr Dixon’s first name?’

‘Mr Dixon he is to us here just.’

‘Right.’

Israel and the caretaker stood silently for a moment and there was the distinct sound of Prince’s ‘1999’ being played slowly and purposefully on classical guitar: the muzak that played throughout the store was piped in here too.

He was trying to think straight.

‘Right. Right. Erm…God. First. Right. Would you mind turning the music off?’

‘What?’

‘Can you turn the music off?’

‘What’s the point of that?’

‘Because! I can’t think. I need to…’

‘But Mr Dixon likes it on in the morning.’

‘But Mr Dixon isn’t here and I’ve got his blood all over my hands!’

The caretaker went to turn off the music.

Israel had never been at the scene of an actual crime before, unless you counted the time he’d sneaked with some friends into a screening of a Star Wars film in Whiteley’s while another friend distracted the attention of the usherette, or the time he’d taken an extra exercise book from the school supplies cupboard. But that was different. This was your actual true crime.

And he suddenly realised that he was in very big trouble.

‘Right, don’t move,’ said a voice behind Israel. ‘Stand where you are. Hands raised above your head.’

It was Sergeant Friel.

‘Ah, thank God, Sergeant,’ said Israel, turning around, not raising his hands.

‘Raise your hands,’ repeated Sergeant Friel. He was flanked by two police officers holding guns. And the guns were pointed at Israel. ‘Hands!’

Israel raised his hands.

‘So, Mr Armstrong,’ said Sergeant Friel, half in question, half in statement, and entirely in disbelief. He then slowly stroked his moustache and added, clearly disappointed, ‘All right, boys, lower your weapons. It’s only the librarian.’

Israel and Sergeant Friel had met on several occasions before, none of them exactly propitious: once when Israel had been mysteriously nearly run over by a speeding car when he’d first arrived in Tumdrum; again a few months later when Israel had caused an obstruction on a public highway by parking the mobile library too close to a corner; and again on a regular monthly basis, on Monday nights, when Sergeant Friel came with Mrs Friel to the mobile library to change their books. (Sergeant Friel had a taste for true crime, Israel recalled – Mrs Friel was more romantic fiction – and you might have thought he’d have liked a bit of a change, Sergeant Friel, given his line of work, though admittedly it was mostly serial killer stuff he was borrowing and in all likelihood there wasn’t too much of that in the daily life of a policeman in Tumdrum and District.) They had exchanged cross words across the issue desk on a number of occasions, Israel and the sergeant, which was shocking, really: even the PSNI were no better than anyone else at returning their books on time. Rosie was relaxed about fines, but Israel always made them pay. He was a stickler for the fines, Israel.

And now this was role reversal.

The beige office, which was empty just moments ago, was suddenly filled with men everywhere: police officers in police uniforms, police officers in plain clothes, police officers in white paper-suit uniforms.

Israel didn’t know where to look, or what to say. He looked at Sergeant Friel.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t get my head round this.’

‘OK, Mr Armstrong,’ said Sergeant Friel. ‘What did you say? You can’t get your head round it?’

‘That’s right. I can’t get my head round it.’

Sergeant Friel wrote something in a small black notebook.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘What time did you arrive here exactly, Mr Armstrong?’

‘Erm…’

Sergeant Friel again wrote in his little black book.

‘I…’

Sergeant Friel wrote something else.

‘Are you writing all this down?’ said Israel.

‘Of course.’

‘Why?’

‘Because because,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘Because of the wonderful things he does?’ said Israel.

Sergeant Friel took a note of this remark too.

‘You don’t have to write that down! That was a joke. That was—’

Sergeant Friel cleared his throat and appeared to be about to deliver a speech.

‘I am keeping a contemporaneous record of our conversation, Mr Armstrong. Because we’re going to have to take you in for questioning.’

‘What?’

‘You may have some vital information.’

‘But I was just here setting up my exhibition.’

‘Your what?’

‘My five-panel touring exhibition on the history of Dixon and Pickering’s. Downstairs…’

‘Ah, well.’ Sergeant Friel noted this down carefully. ‘This is a major crime scene now.’

‘But—’ began Israel.

Sergeant Friel cleared his throat again and began another speech. ‘You do not have to say anything, Mr Armstrong. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. And anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Israel stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘What?’

‘Do you understand that, Mr Armstrong?’

‘Yes. Of course I do. No. I mean, no. I mean…What? What are you talking about? You can’t take me in for questioning. What about my exhibition? I’ve worked for months getting all that stuff together.’

‘That’s hardly important now, is it, Mr Armstrong?’

‘It may not be important to you, Sergeant, but I spent months getting those photographs laminated!’

‘Aye, well, that’s howsoever.’ Sergeant Friel was still scribbling in his notebook. ‘And if you could speak more slowly and clearly?’ He raised a finger. ‘And just put these on.’

Another policeman stepped forward and dangled handcuffs in front of Israel.

‘What?’

‘Handcuffs, please,’ said Sergeant Friel.

‘Look, if this is because of the fines,’ said Israel.

‘The what?’