“Just appears? Is there somewhere you haven’t poked around you’d like to? Up my—” This wouldn’t help the situation, and rather than say it I said “So someone else took it. Did they go out?”

“Nobody has left this room since you did.”

“Then they’ve got it somewhere in here.”

“Nobody else has been to your table.”

“How can you know that if you didn’t even see me leave the book?”

“Because it’s my job to be aware what people do in this room.”

“It’s in here somewhere,” I insisted and began to search, peering at every book and less directly at their readers, not to mention under all the tables and at the librarian’s desk. Before I’d finished I heard Julia and Lister murmuring together. “I’m afraid we’ve called security, Mr Semple,” Lister said.

“A joint effort, was it? You can tell them not to stir themselves. I’m gone.”

Just the same, I stared around the room. Nobody was looking at me, and I could have imagined everyone was determined to render me unseen and unheard. I had an absurd impulse to slam the door on my way out, but it wasn’t playing. As it gave its faint chime behind me I heard Julia say “I’m sorry about all that. We were together years ago.” She was apologising to everybody in the room, but that wasn’t why I stared hard through the glass. I half expected the book to have reappeared on the cushion, but there was no sign. As I tramped through a maze of computer terminals and emerged into St Peter’s Square, across which a segmented tram was worming with a metallic moan, I was close to storming back into the search room. I had a nagging sense that the book was hidden in plain sight, having been made invisible – that magic had invaded the sunlit room.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Second Call

When my phone rang I wondered dully who it would announce, and the only name that came to mind was Bella’s. I couldn’t imagine why Roy would be calling after our last confrontation, and that would equally apply to Julia. Then I realised my phone didn’t know Bella’s name or number, and as I fumbled it out of my pocket it said “Roy” with a hint of electronic enthusiasm.

“Roy.”

“Dad.”

We might have been competing to sound less expressive than the voice of the phone. I was confused by feeling that a thought I’d just had was mistaken – that I needed to realise what I’d overlooked. I stared out at the bay as if the bony twirling of the windmills could enliven my brain, and Roy said “What were you doing?”

“I’ve just about finished getting ready for next term.”