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.’
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