Page 53 of The Secret Christmas Library
Everybody stared at him, then Jamie counted up the digits. ‘There are only ten of them,’ he said.
Theo shook his head. ‘It can still be an ISBN. Before 2007 they were only ten digits.’
‘I have to say,’ Jamie said, slowly, ‘that this is kind of the thing you were hired to know before.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Theo. ‘Sorry. But we need to check. We need to check.’ He looked around at the piles of phone directories, leading on to another bookshelf crammed with road maps, atlases and travel writing. ‘I don’t think we could possibly find it by hand.’
‘If we had any internet, couldn’t we look it up?’
‘Yes, although even then,’ said Theo, ‘you’d still have to find it.’
‘But we’d have a title,’ said Mirren. They looked at each other, both full of excitement. She jumped up. ‘We have to find some internet!’
Theo laughed. ‘To the Internet Well!’
Jamie and Esme exchanged glances.
‘I suppose . . . there is occasionally a signal . . . ’ said Jamie. ‘Out in the far woods.’
‘But nobody’s got any battery,’ said Theo.
‘Haven’t they?’ said Jamie, looking at Esme. She looked shifty and they all stared at her. ‘Only a tiny wee bit?’ said Jamie in an imploring voice. ‘Please? We’re stuck.’
‘Even my spare is nearly out,’ said Esme eventually, pulling out her phone, and a spare battery pack. ‘You had better be cutting me in to this bloody thing, if it even exists.’
29
Jamie led them to the boot room, a large space with a stone floor, lined with Wellingtons in all sizes, and jackets on the wall – hunting, tweed and old Barbours. There were boxes of gloves and riding boots too.
‘Just pile everything on, I should say,’ said Jamie. ‘There are some waterproof trousers too.’
Esme, it turned out, had about six per cent left on her phone. There was a corner of the grounds nearest the village where there was occasional signal. Naturally it was absolutely miles away, at the very edge. It might not be possible to get there, depending on how thick the snow was . . .
Jamie disappeared suddenly while Mirren shrugged herself into even more layers of very old clothes. They smelled of the house itself; not a bad smell, not really. Just old. She added another jumper and a padded jacket and a huge overcoat, and Theo gave her something which appeared to be waders. She shook her head.
‘Oh, my God, I’m going to look like Coco the Clown,’ she said, laughing.
‘Even more than you do already?’ said Theo. ‘Anyway, I like it.’
‘You do not!’
‘I do’ he said. ‘It’s very cute, plus it’s completely impossible to tell what you actually look like underneath it all. Thrilling.’
‘Stop it,’ she said. He had found an enormous waterproof cape and swathed it around himself, and a huge soft hat. ‘You look like Doctor Who,’ she said.
‘Which one?’
‘All of them put together.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I shall stride out for adventure.’
Eventually, Jamie returned. He was covered in dust and had a spider’s web in his hair.
‘SPIDER!’ hollered Mirren.
He frowned at her. ‘What?’
‘You have a . . . ’
