Mobile Library (27 page)

While she spoke the detective reevaluated the risks. The clifftop had induced vertigo in him, a spinning sickness he'd not experienced before, which made the grass around his feet seem farther away every time he glanced down at it. He wanted this to be over, but he wasn't willing to let Val know as much. “We drove to some woods. We were going to camp there, just for a night.”

“And . . .”

“That's where we found a man hiding. That man was Joseph Sebastian Wiles.”

“What was Wiles doing there?”

“Hiding. From you. He said that he had been put in prison for beating up another soldier.”

“That's correct. He is a very violent, dangerous man.”

“He said that he escaped.”

“He did.”

“I hope that he didn't harm anybody doing it. You hear terrible stories in the news all the time, of riots and prison guards being taken as hostages.”

The detective scratched behind his ear with a pen and considered an uncomfortable truth. “Actually, his escape was quite the opposite of that. Joseph Sebastian Wiles got out of military prison because of a clerical error. A case of mistaken identity. He was served with somebody else's documents by accident and they opened the doors for him to walk straight out of there. So he did. By the time anybody realized their mistake, he'd disappeared, as quickly and simply as that.” Val fought to suppress a smile, imagining this giant walking free, tipping a nod to the warden.

“He took us,” she said, “he made us act as though we were his family, so that he might hide from you more easily.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“He scared us.”

“But did he hurt you?”

“He took us to Scotland, to his father's. He made us parade like man and wife, as if to prove a point. The old man abandoned him, you see.”

His father? This was news to the detective, a fact he was far too ashamed to admit. He made a mental note to have Baron arrested for lying to a police officer.

“And you did?”

“Yes. But I had no choice. I'm not a kidnapper, Detective. I am frightened. I am frightened that he will harm me. I am frightened that he will harm the children.”

“You don't need to be frightened anymore.”

“And I am frightened of what you'll do to me, Detective. You think I'm bad, don't you?”

“Ms. Reed, it is not for me to judge you.”

“I'm not bad, Detective. I'm not bad at all. I'm a mother. All I want is for you to assure me that Bobby Nusku will not have to go back to his father.”

“I understand, and of course, if what you claim is true, then it won't happen. We'll need to speak to Bobby about that.”

“Good. I want him, in time, to be able to stay with me.”

“This is a conversation for the future.”

“It's why I locked Wiles in the back of the mobile library for you.”

“I appreciate that. With the help you've given us bringing him to justice, I'm sure what you've done can be looked upon favorably.” The detective could feel the negotiation coming to a natural end. He handed Val a tissue from his pocket.

“Thank you,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. The words were pleasant on her tongue, lingering like the taste of fine wine.

“I must ask you . . .”

“Yes?”

“Is the mobile library locked?”

“Oh yes.”

“So he can't get out.”

“Not without the keys.”

“And where are the keys?”

“Right here, in my handbag.”

“Then if you'd step down from the cab, we can take it from here.”

“Of course, Detective . . .”

“Jimmy,” he said.

“Just let me gather my things.”

The detective turned away to light up a celebratory smoke. Negotiations by their very nature were complex, each exponentially different from the last. This one, the conclusion to a hunt that had been reported all over Europe and North America, had ended about as well as it could have.

This was his second and biggest mistake in the entire investigation. The negotiation was not finished, the investigation not complete. It wasn't up to him to decide when the story ends, something he'd been taught on his very first day in the job—far longer ago than the smoothness of his skin suggested.

•  •  •

Val stroked the cab's leatherette, closed her eyes and rested her head against the dashboard. This was her unseen goodbye to the mobile library. She picked up her handbag from the footwell. Adjusting the buckles to maximum length, she tied a loop in the strap and hooked it over the handbrake, which she pressed the small red button to unlock.

“I'm coming, Jimmy,” she said. “The mobile library is all yours.”

The detective turned in time to see Val jump from the cab, and behind her the strap of her bag snapping taut, releasing the handbrake. She shrieked, let go of the bag and scrambled toward the detective, who pulled her to a safe distance and watched in disbelief as gravity conspired with the incline of the clifftop and the slippery gloss left by morning dew on the grass. The mobile library was moving, sliding, rolling, the weight of a whale, toward the drop.

Once the front wheels went over the edge its momentum was set. The cabin tipped over the side and the gunshot snap of the axle echoed along the cliff face. The rear of the mobile library vaulted into the air. Its metal walls crumpled under their own weight. Now completely upright, this doomed structure saluted the waves, and from a distance, a mile away up on the hill from where it could still be seen, it seemed to collapse, to concertina, as it dove over the edge toward the ocean, splitting in half and releasing its cargo. Hundreds, then thousands, of books took flight, flapped and swooped, fluttered and fell, like a flock of birds dive-bombing into the sea.

The cab hit the rocks below, thundering into the ground, and the tiniest spark lit a trickle of fuel. With a deafening bang, the mobile library became a tower of fire, burning its shadow into the chalk.

Somewhere in there, thought the detective as the heat crawled through his skin and clothes, is Joseph Sebastian Wiles, an inferno claiming his remains. Somewhere in there is an ending.

•  •  •

Bobby and Rosa watched the flames burn, letting ice cream melt over their fingers. Charred book pages twirled through the smoke, an endless snowfall of cinders fluttering around them. And there, in the sky, a blue and yellow macaw, in free and glorious flight out to sea. They walked through the police line toward Val on the clifftop. Brother, sister, mother.

The Robot saw the dragon on television. It had breathed fire for the first and last time, said the newsreader, who appeared just as shocked as everyone else. They showed footage of the smoke left behind, filling the sky above the ocean for miles and miles. The Robot was so surprised by the news that his eyes flashed just like they were supposed to.

The first thing he did was tighten the bolts on his arms and legs. The second thing he did was rush all the way to the workshop he had recently built, which was full of maps and chairs and human things.

The third thing he did was tell the Caveman, who had been sleeping in his workshop. The Caveman was delighted to hear the news. Now that the dragon had breathed fire, it meant that no one would care about a humble Caveman anymore. In fact, it meant they would think he no longer existed, and you can't search for something that doesn't exist. He sat back and waited for his family to arrive. The Boy, the Princess, the Queen. He would wait for as long as it took them to come.

No Paul Whitlatch, no book. A massive thank-you for talking me down off the ledge, and a hundred or more other things. Thank you to everyone at Scribner—Nan Graham, Colin Harrison, Roz Lippel, Kara Watson, Mia Crowley-Hald, Tom Spain, Charlotte Gill, Karen Fink, David Lamb, Alexsis Johnson and Lauren Hughes. Thanks to Gray318 for the cover, and David Goodwillie for the party.

Gigantic thanks to Francesca Main for doing a perfect job. I see a happy future. Thank you to everyone at Picador—Paul Baggaley, Nicholas Blake, Sandra Taylor, Lucie Cuthbertson-Twiggs, Jodie Mullish and Katie Tooke.

Thank you to Cathryn Summerhayes, my agent, and her rapidly expanding family of beauties, for everything, as ever.

Thank you to everyone at WME, especially Claudia Ballard, Laura Bonner and Siobhan O'Neill, as well as those from back in the day, Becky Thomas and Eugenie Furniss.

Thanks to Francis Bickmore, Jamie Byng and Canongate for adventures past.

Love to Mum, Dad, Alison, Glenn, Darren, Alex, William, Oliver, Anna, Thomas and Jonathan, to the rest of my family and to the Jakemans.

To TC, a boy's best friend.

Love to my friends, and all three of their jokes.

© JAMES LEIGHTON-BURNS

DAVID WHITEHOUSE
is an award-winning novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. His first novel,
Bed
, winner of the 2012 Betty Trask Prize, has been published in fourteen countries. He writes regularly for
The Guardian
and
The Times
, and is currently the editor-at-large of
ShortList
magazine. He lives in London.

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ALSO BY DAVID WHITEHOUSE

Bed

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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First Scribner hardcover edition January 2015

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4767-4943-3

ISBN 978-1-4767-4946-4 (ebook)