‘Splendid,’ Mary said. ‘I’ve never met a real Chief Inspector.’
The policeman smiled modestly as if the Chief Inspector had been an invention of his. ‘That’s settled then.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘If you’ll just follow me.’
‘What are you trying to do?’ Moses hissed at Mary as the policeman moved away across the graveyard. ‘Get me arrested?’
‘What for? Coming back to life? Not being dead?’
Mary’s voice was calm, but the calmness hid currents of excitement. He knew this mood of hers.
‘Besides,’ she added, ‘don’t you want to meet this famous Peach? Aren’t you curious?’
‘No.’
The policeman turned round. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Nothing,’ Mary said.
‘I’m sorry. I thought you were talking to me.’
‘No,’ Moses said. ‘We weren’t.’
The policeman dropped back to join them. ‘It’s my hearing, you see,’ he explained. ‘It’s very acute. Take music, for instance. When I listen to music I always have the volume on zero. That’s quite loud enough for me. But my wife,’ and he chuckled nasally and shook his head, ‘she can’t understand it. She says what’s the point of listening to music you can’t hear.’
Moses and Mary exchanged a look behind his back.
They were climbing a steep flight of stone steps now. The police station, a red-brick building with tall narrow windows, seemed to be positioned high above the rest of the village. Only the church tower came close. A chill wind rose. The trees shifted and dipped, hiding the scattered lights below. For a few seconds the village no longer existed.
When they reached the front door, the policeman stood to one side, his face polite and blue in the light of the frosted-glass POLICE lamp. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘After you.’
They walked into a spacious draughty hallway paved with green linoleum. It smelt of bleach, polish, disinfectant. The antiseptic stench of power.
‘As you can see,’ the policeman said, indicating several of his colleagues who were gathered at the far end, under the clock, ‘this is a twenty-four-hour operation.’
I bet it is, Moses thought.
‘I beg your pardon?’ the policeman said.
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Moses said.
‘Forgive me,’ the policeman said. Using the heel of his hand, he banged first one ear then the other, let out a brief but violent guffaw and, excusing himself, marched over to the duty desk where he exchanged a few words with a police officer whose face looked as if it had been hit several times by a hammer.
‘The Chief Inspector will see you immediately,’ he called out. ‘Won’t you come this way?’
He led them down a green corridor which, despite being lit by rows of white fluorescent tubes, gave the impression of dimness. Pipes bulged on the ceiling like veins. Moses heard a long drawn-out groan come from somewhere. It hung on the air, then silence and their footsteps took over, seemed to collaborate, pretend the groan had never been uttered.
‘I don’t like this place,’ he whispered in Mary’s ear. ‘I don’t like this place at all.’
They stopped in front of a door that looked like the door to a strongroom. Grey metal plates. Rivets. The words CHIEF INSPECTOR PEACH stencilled in black. The policeman knocked in a way that suggested both firmness and awe. A deep voice told them to enter.
Peach was seated behind a monumental bureau desk. His hands lay loosely clenched on its polished surface, flanked by piles of paper and trays of pens.
‘This is the gentleman who assisted PC Marlpit in the Dinwoodie case,’ the policeman announced. ‘He just happened to be passing through, sir.’
Did I say that? Moses wondered.
‘Thank you, Grape.’
Peach rose majestically and eased round his desk, but when he saw Moses standing there something curious happened. His entire body stiffened. His eyes seemed to freeze over. Ice and menace in his gaze. Moses steeled himself for some kind of impact. But then the moment passed, the chill lifted, and Peach was extending a plump hand.
‘Delighted to meet you, er – ’
‘Shirley,’ Moses said.
‘Unusual name for a gentleman,’ Peach observed.
‘Mr Shirley.’
‘Ah, Mr Shirley.’
They both laughed quickly.
‘And this,’ Moses said, ushering Mary forwards, not a trace of hesitation now, ‘is Mrs Shirley.’
Peach took Mary’s hand in both of his. ‘Of course. Delighted, Mrs Shirley.’
While Peach was shaking hands with Mary, Moses stared at him. Peach was an amazingly pear-shaped man. His cheeks were wider than his forehead and his hips were wider than his shoulders. He had a bully’s crewcut, and his drooping lower lip made him look as though he wouldn’t believe a word you said. Moses knew he would have to watch himself. It wasn’t only Peach either. There was that constable standing by the door. He could hear what you were saying even when you weren’t saying anything.
Peach waved the couple to a matching pair of seats and returned to his leather chair behind the desk. ‘PC Marlpit informed me of the part you played in the apprehension of Dinwoodie, and I must say that I’m very glad to have the opportunity of thanking you in person.’
‘Not at all,’ Moses said. ‘It was nothing.’
‘If only all the members of the general public were so co-operative,’ Peach crooned.
Peach was a sort of oral masseur. It was a sensual pleasure to listen to his genial rumbling voice and he knew it. He used its soothing modulations to soften you up. He lulled you into a false sense of security. And then he pounced. Framed portraits of his predecessors hung on the wall behind his head like warnings. One of those stern men would be Birdforth, Moses was thinking. The sly and lyrical Birdforth. 1902-1916. He glanced across at Mary. She seemed to be ignoring the danger. Or, if not ignoring it, flirting with it.
‘I’m only sorry I missed out on all the excitement,’ she was saying in a breathy version of her voice.
Peach smiled at her indulgently. ‘And where were you at the time, Mrs Shirley?’
The way he posed this question – so benign, so interested – you would never have guessed that it had been used a million times before, and nearly always during police grillings. So casual, this Peach. So dangerous.
‘Oh, I was at home,’ Mary laughed, ‘with the children.’
She was good at this, Moses saw. She was better than he would ever be.
‘A mother’s work,’ Peach mused. ‘More difficult even than a policeman’s, wouldn’t you say?’ He swung a few degrees on his chair to include Moses. ‘You’re fortunate, Mr Shirley, to have such a charming and conscientious wife.’
Moses smiled graciously. ‘Just as a matter of interest,’ he said, ‘how is PC Marlpit?’
Peach picked up a paperweight (a cluster of houses trapped in clear acrylic) and revolved it in his fingers. ‘PC Marlpit’s a fine officer,’ he said, ‘but he does tend to get a little excitable at times – ’
‘I noticed,’ Moses said.
‘– so I have to ground him occasionally, take him off active duty and give him some quieter employment here in the station. You may laugh at this, Mr Shirley, coming from the city as you do, but life in a village breeds its own peculiar tensions and stresses. Most of my officers are rested from time to time.’
‘No, I understand that.’ Moses smiled. ‘Well, please give him my regards when you next see him.’
‘You can do that yourself.’ Peach rose smoothly to his feet. ‘After the way you helped us, I thought the least we could do would be to give you a brief tour of our police station. In the course of the tour we should come across PC Marlpit. I believe he’s on duty today.’
‘How wonderful,’ Mary said (overdoing it a bit, Moses thought). ‘I’ve always wanted to see the inside of a police station.’
‘Most people do their best to avoid it.’ Peach tucked the corners of his mouth in so that tiny hum
orous dimples appeared in his cheeks.
Mary put a hand on Peach’s arm. ‘Very witty, Chief Inspector. I’ve never thought of it like that.’
Smiling, Peach ushered them out of the office.
He showed them round at a leisurely pace. He pointed out features and facilities with graceful movements of his hands. He seemed particularly proud of what he called the residential quarters. They comprised a large bedroom with four single beds, a common-room which boasted a colour TV and several leather armchairs, and a kitchenette complete with a breakfast bar and the biggest toaster Moses had ever seen – with its curved stainless steel top and its spindly splayed legs, it looked like a spaceship and toasted twelve slices at once.
‘Hungry policemen,’ Moses said.
‘Yes,’ Peach said. ‘They like their toast and marmalade.’
He combined these bland remarks with glances of chilling power, taking place at the edge of Moses’s vision, sensed rather than seen.
Moses was beginning to feel uneasy. He tried to distract Peach with questions. He pointed to a corrugated-iron building on the far side of the courtyard. ‘What’s that building over there?’ he asked, though he knew perfectly well.
Peach peered through the window as if he wasn’t quite sure which building Moses was referring to.
Moses nudged him with the words, ‘That corrugated-iron building.’
‘That,’ Peach said eventually, ‘is the police museum, Mr Highness.’
Too shocked to speak, Moses stared at the Chief Inspector’s back. He knew Peach could hear the fear in his silence. His heart was banging against his chest like a fist. Peach could probably hear that too.
‘Mr Shirley,’ he said, and knew he had hesitated too long. ‘My name is Mr Shirley.’
Peach swivelled, his eyes close-range, the colour of guns. ‘I do apologise. I don’t know what I was thinking of.’
Moses stepped past him to the window. Say something.
‘Would it be possible to see the museum, Chief Inspector?’
‘I’m afraid not. The museum’s closed at present. For renovation work.’ Peach’s lies were even smoother than the truth.
‘Pity,’ Moses said. ‘Some other time, perhaps.’
Peach turned away, tugging on an earlobe.
He took them through a sort of operations room next and there, on a converted ping-pong table, stood a detailed scale model of New Egypt. Moses hovered above the village, looking down. He could see everything that the old man, his father, had described: the house where the mad lady lived, the stretch of field the greengrocer had tried to cross, the rushes growing beside the river – even the elm outside his father’s bedroom window. And how many more stories there must be, he thought, unknown or still untold.
‘We had it specially built by the people at Hornby,’ Peach breathed over his shoulder. ‘What do you think?’
‘All you need now,’ Moses said, ‘are a few little flags to show where the enemy are.’ He snickered at his own joke.
Peach withdrew. ‘And this,’ he called out, moving towards a door that had the word ACCOUNTS stencilled across its one glass pane in black capital letters, ‘is where we keep Police Constable Marlpit.’
The door rattled open in his hand. Marlpit was bent over, neck exposed as if for a guillotine, face two inches from the top of his desk. Either dozing, Moses thought, or subjecting his figures to the closest possible scrutiny.
‘Marlpit,’ Peach boomed, ‘I have somebody to see you.’
Dozing, Moses decided, as Marlpit jerked upright, his eyes unnaturally wide, a caricature of alertness.
‘Oh – yes – ’ the constable stammered. Saliva welled behind his teeth. ‘Most certainly. What a surprise. What a pleasant surprise. How are you, sir?’
‘Very well, thank you,’ Moses said.
They shook hands.
‘And your young ladyfriend?’ Marlpit grew brighter by the second like a bulb that’s about to burn out. ‘How’s your young ladyfriend? Delightful girl, I thought.’
Peach stepped in diplomatically. ‘This, Marlpit, is Mrs Shirley. Mr Shirley’s wife.’
Marlpit blushed from the neck upwards. He removed his helmet. The colour rose past his eyebrows, beyond his hairline. ‘Oh – I – very pleased to meet you, madam.’ He bowed two or three times in a way that made him look, for those few seconds, peculiarly oriental.
‘You’ll have to forgive him,’ Peach whispered as he pulled the door shut. ‘He’s still in a state of some confusion, the poor fellow.’
You’re a sadist, Moses thought, and I don’t like you. But he smiled as if to say he quite understood.
‘Well, that just about wraps it up.’ Peach’s chest swelled as he breathed in. ‘Except for the cells, of course.’
‘Oh, we have to see the cells,’ Mary said.
Peach led them into a short passage with grey walls and a concrete floor. ‘Now, as you might imagine, there isn’t a great deal of crime in New Egypt so we only have two cells.’ He spread his plump hands. ‘One for you, Mr Shirley, and one for your wife.’
Moses stayed well back from the doors. You never know.
Mary had already peered inside. ‘Why are there tables instead of beds?’ she asked.
‘That’s a good question. We used to give our prisoners beds. Used to, that is, until one man tore his mattress-cover into strips, fashioned a primitive rope out of them and – ’ Peach jerked one clenched fist away from his neck in an unmistakable gesture. He turned to face Moses. ‘The man’s name,’ he said, ‘was Dinwoodie.’
‘How awful,’ Mary said.
‘Most unfortunate,’ Peach agreed, still staring at Moses. ‘One of those things.’
Moses said nothing.
‘So now the prisoners sleep on tables,’ Peach said. ‘It’s better to be on the safe side, don’t you think?’
‘Quite,’ Mary said.
Peach escorted his two visitors to the front door of the police station. ‘Once again,’ he said, ‘thank you for your help.’
‘Thank you,’ Mary said, ‘for the wonderful tour.’
They all shook hands again.
Then Peach suddenly took a step backwards and looked Moses up and down in an extremely cunning way. ‘Have you ever seriously considered a career in the police force yourself, Mr Shirley?’
Moses was flabbergasted. ‘Well, no – ’
‘A man of your imposing size and initiative,’ Peach continued seductively, ‘would be a credit to any branch of our organisation. You would make a magnificent policeman, I’m sure. What do you think, Mrs Shirley?’
Mary took Moses by the arm. ‘I don’t think it’s ever crossed his mind – has it, darling?’
A sickly smile spread over Moses’s face.
‘Well, if you should ever consider it, feel free to get in touch with me.’
Peach was rubbing his hands together, radiating good nature. ‘I don’t have any great influence, of course, but I would be happy to go through the details with you. Think about it, anyway.’ He raised a hand, turned on his heel, and was gone, all in one fluid, smoothly executed manoeuvre.
Still arm in arm, Moses and Mary walked back down the steps.
‘Going to join the force then, are you, Mr Shirley?’ Mary teased him.
But Moses didn’t even smile. ‘He knew,’ he said.
‘He knew what?’
‘He knew who I was.’
‘Peach?’
Moses nodded.
‘How could he know that?’
‘I don’t know. But he did. I felt it right away. Something, anyway. And then he called me Mr Highness, sort of by mistake. He was testing me, I suppose.’
Mary pulled away from him. ‘When did he call you Mr Highness?’
‘Oh, he was clever. He waited till you were on the other side of the room. He chose his moment perfectly. He’s a real cunning bastard.’
Mary stood among the tombstones, hands on her hips now, two lines engraved between her eyebrows. ‘I don’t unde
rstand this, Moses. How could he possibly know?’
‘I’ve no idea. But he did. He definitely did.’ He looked round, his right eye twitching, then he whispered, ‘That’s why he came out with all that stuff about joining the police. It was like he was saying, you belong here, your place is in the village.’ He stepped backwards, almost tripped over his own gravestone. ‘It was like a threat. But in code.’
The wind lifted. Leaves scuttled across the path.
He looked at Mary, but Mary seemed at a loss for words. Here was something that even she couldn’t explain.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get out of here.’
*
He opened the window an inch, let the slipstream take his cigarette. The air had cooled, sharpened. They were driving through remote countryside, a landscape of hollows and copses, secrets and ambiguities. Not a house for miles. The headlights soaked up endless twisting road.
Mary had insisted on taking the scenic route back, one of her oldest rules being never to do the same thing twice.
‘But it’s so dark,’ he had pointed out.
‘So what? It’s the principle of the thing.’ Mary had been at her most dogmatic.
‘But you can’t see anything when it’s dark. What’s the point of taking the scenic route when you can’t see anything?’
She had dismissed his arguments with the words, ‘Don’t be so pedantic, Moses.’
And he had sighed and given up.
He had wanted to put distance between himself and New Egypt, he had wanted the comfort of other cars, larger towns, crowds, but Mary drove north then east, the loneliest road she could find. Through the rear window he watched the village sink into its dip in the land, a few weak lights extinguished by the rising ground. They had got away. And London lay ahead, beyond those trees. Soon the headlights, so ostentatious now, would dissolve in the city’s orange glare. In retrospect, his fear seemed melodramatic, absurd, almost hilarious.
They had been driving for about fifteen minutes when the car suddenly swerved, bumped against the lip of a ditch and stalled.
‘Fuck,’ Mary said.
She banged the steering-wheel with the heel of her hand.
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