‘I can’t,’ the greengrocer writhed. ‘It’s embarrassing.’
Peach almost rubbed his hands together at the prospect. ‘Joel,’ he wheedled, ‘we’re all men here.’
Joel threw a desperate glance at the ceiling, but it rebounded from the severe grey plasterwork and landed awkwardly on the floor. His resistance crumpled.
‘Well — ’ he began.
Dolphin pounced. ‘Well?’
A touch over-eager, perhaps. Peach motioned to his subordinate behind the greengrocer’s back. Not so fast.
‘— in bed,’ the greengrocer muttered.
‘In bed?’ Peach’s voice was dispassionate then, almost medical. ‘How do you mean?’
‘With the wife.’
‘Ah,’ Peach breathed. ‘I see.’
And he persisted, because degradation was part of the process. The greengrocer admitted, under duress, that he had worked on his stomach muscles in bed at night, startling his wife with a revival of sexual passion that put anything they had got up to on their honeymoon completely in the shade.
‘Is that so?’ Peach murmured. Dolphin took copious notes, the leer on his face making him look more than ever like a schoolboy.
And so, muscles toned, homemade ploughed field strapped in position, the greengrocer began to crawl. Unfortunately, he had only covered a hundred yards when a policeman trod on him — entirely by accident. Unfortunately, too, it was Sergeant Dolphin who weighed eighteen stone on an empty stomach. One yelp of surprise as the breath was crushed out of him was enough to give the greengrocer away. He was immediately apprehended and taken down to the police station. In Peach’s presence Dolphin had confirmed the basic details of the greengrocer’s story. A statement was written and signed. The greengrocer was then led away to a cell to reflect on his failure before being allowed to return home. Peach celebrated by throwing a cocktail party in his library.
‘So what are we going to do with it?’ Dolphin asked, bringing Peach back to the present.
Peach folded his hands over his stomach. ‘Put it in the museum,’ he said.
‘Of course. Good idea, sir.’
‘Yes,’ Peach said, ‘I think it will look rather splendid hanging in the museum.’
He stood up, and walked over to the section of ploughed field so lovingly, so painstakingly, constructed by the greengrocer.
‘Remarkable piece of work,’ he said. ‘Really remarkable.’ Then, touching on a pet subject of his, ‘You know, if we could only harness their determination, their creativity, somehow, if we could only persuade them to do something for the community — ’ He sighed. It would never happen. Not in his lifetime, anyway.
‘I say, Dolphin,’ and Peach became enthusiastic, ‘what about taking it over to the museum now?’
‘It’s raining, sir. Might ruin it.’
‘Nonsense. It’s only a few yards. Come on, give me a hand.’
Taking one corner each, they began to ease the unwieldy structure out of the office and down the corridor. They passed an open doorway. PC Hazard — cheekbones like knee-caps, chin the shape of a soap-dish — looked up from the report he was typing.
‘Need any help, Chief?’
Peach shook his head. ‘We can manage. If anyone calls, I’ll be in the museum.’
‘Right you are, Chief.’ Hazard turned back to the typewriter, began to stab at the keys, one finger at a time. A good man, Hazard. A bit primitive, but a good man.
Peach held the ploughed field upright while Dolphin wedged open the door to the courtyard. The rain had slackened off. The wind, a vast physical presence, threw its weight against the trees, and the trees swirled, their leaves roaring like stones dragged by the sea. The two men stood there for a while, admiring the power of the night.
‘By the way, Dolphin,’ Peach said, placing a hand on the sergeant’s arm, ‘you did well to apprehend the greengrocer. Extremely well.’
Dolphin’s face became foolish with modesty. ‘It was nothing, really. A bit of luck, that’s all.’
‘No, not luck,’ Peach said. ‘Planning. Timing.’
‘Planning?’
‘Why do you think we have night patrols, Dolphin?’
Dolphin considered this. ‘Perhaps I should be congratulating you, sir,’ he said, ‘rather than the other way round.’
Peach smiled into the wind. In exchanges like this, it could be seen that the two men shared a similar brand of natural cunning. At times Dolphin’s instincts led him, almost blind, towards perceptions and discoveries that astonished him. Like treading on the greengrocer, for example. In time, Peach thought, Dolphin would learn to be less astonished, he would learn to see these perceptions and discoveries as his reward for years of apprenticeship, as his right, as valid and innate parts of himself. Exchanges like this explained why Dolphin was, to all intents and purposes (though it had never been formalised), Peach’s deputy and, consequently, Peach’s most likely successor.
As they chuckled together over Dolphin’s remark, the wind hurled itself against the cardboard construction, threatening to whirl it away across the courtyard. Dolphin reacted with the speed of his relative youth and held it down.
‘I think we’d better get it inside,’ he yelled.
Peach nodded.
The two men struggled across the asphalt, round a tree, past a rack of rattling police bicycles. They stopped in front of a long low building with a curving corrugated-iron roof and no windows. It looked like an aircraft hangar. The New Egypt Police Museum.
Peach produced a bunch of keys, selected one, and unlocked the metal door. Once inside, he reached for the panel of light switches. Neon strips began to pop and fizzle overhead.
The museum had been founded circa 1899 by Chief Inspector Magnolia. It was a private museum, intended for the edification and amusement of the police alone. During the past fifteen years there had been moves on the part of several villagers to have the museum thrown open to all New Egyptians; it’s history, they had argued, our history, and in that sense they were right, of course, since the museum was, in fact, a comprehensive record of all the escape attempts that had ever occurred (in living memory, at least). But, naturally, Peach had quashed every request, every petition. The idea was intolerable. The museum acted as a library of information, he said, the equivalent of police archives, and, as such, must remain confidential.
He moved among the rows of exhibits. Rain tapped on the metal roof like a thousand men working with delicate hammers. He liked the fact that there were no windows. The building felt hollow, secretive. A drum, a womb, a submarine.
He paused before a lifesize reconstruction of the accident that Tommy Dane had staged on the main road outside the village in 1945. There was the actual hayrick Tommy had used (generously donated by Farmer Hallam). There, too, was Mr Dane’s bicycle, its mudguards dented, its wheel-rims sprinkled with rust. A dummy Tommy Dane, dressed in clothes that had been appropriated from his wardrobe following his death, lay on the ground in the position he had described during his confession, the head resting in a pool of simulated blood. An account of the escape attempt (written by Peach himself) hung from the roof, accompanied by detailed explanatory maps. Peach nodded as he skimmed through his own terse paragraphs.
He moved on, stopped again. Now he was looking down into a grave, a grave that contained a spotless gleaming coffin. Fashioned out of the finest cedar, the handles plated in silver and carved to resemble a family crest, the interior upholstered in a magenta silk quilt, it must have cost a small fortune. Likewise the tombstone. The tall slab of Italian marble supported an angel with outspread wings and uplifted hands. The names and dates had already been engraved: