Dreams of Leaving by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online Page A

Pelican psychology ranged behind his head. Nasty little blue spines. Titles like
The Hothouse Society
and
Alienation and Charisma.
Something of an expert on the subject, Peach.
    â€˜Just in case you haven’t noticed, Chief Inspector, my wife’s in a terrible state,’ George said, calmer now, ‘and the way you’re conducting this interview isn’t exactly helping matters.’
    â€˜I know your wife’s in a terrible state.’ Peach’s tone of voice implied that, in his opinion, this ‘terrible state’ had nothing whatsoever to do with the disappearance of the baby. Implied, therefore, that he was privy to the secrets of their marriage. Implied, in fact, omniscience. Such a very cheap yet complex remark. Vintage Peach.
    George said nothing.
    The Chief Inspector shrugged. He stood up. Walked to the window and back, twisting one palm against the other. ‘Believe me when I say this,’ he said. ‘If there is anything irregular going on here, I shall discover it. Believe me.’
    â€˜I believe you.’
    â€˜Good.’
    â€˜We’ve been here over an hour,’ George said, ‘and my wife’s exhausted. May we go now?’
    Peach spread his hands. They were empty of questions.
    As George guided Alice towards the door (grief had made an invalid of her), Peach appeared to relent. ‘We’ll do everything in our power,’ he assured the couple, ‘to find your son.’
    â€˜I’m sure you will,’ George muttered.
    Whichever way you looked at it, it was true.
    *
    Nobody could have predicted the effect that the news of the baby’s disappearance would have on New Egypt. During the last two weeks of June the apathy lifted. Rumours flew the length and breadth of thecommunity on giant wings. At first people talked of a kidnapping, a ransom – even a child molester. But then talk of an escape crept in. Stealthily, very stealthily. The few who still harboured dreams of escape themselves gathered in obscure corners of the village – under the disused railway bridge, behind the cricket pavilion, at the back of the greengrocer’s shop – to discuss whether it was possible and, if so, how it could have been done. Dinwoodie held the floor, his bony hands marshalling facts, attacking the air, his extravagant grey hair tumbling on to his high shoulders, into his eyes. The greengrocer also advanced several interesting theories. The two men could often be seen returning through the summer dusk to the privacy of Dinwoodie’s garage. In the light of a single naked bulb, surrounded by tools and grease and the dismembered limbs of motorbikes, they would squat on fruit crates, they would whisper and gesticulate, they would rail and connive. ‘It is time,’ Dinwoodie had been heard to say, ‘to make a stand.’
    Towards the end of the month things began to escalate. Dinwoodie founded a secret revolutionary organisation. He called it the New Egypt Liberation Front. It was dedicated, he said, to one simple political goal: freedom from oppression. He was just hours away from distributing the first copies of his manifesto when Peach led a dawn raid on his house. Hazard broke Dinwoodie’s arm in a scuffle by the garage door. The greengrocer, who had stayed overnight to assist with the printing, escaped unseen over the garden wall. The police confiscated (and subsequently burned) all the political material they could find and Dinwoodie, clutching his useless arm below the elbow, was arrested and hauled off to the station for questioning. The NELF was officially disbanded. It had lasted slightly less than twenty-four hours.
    But the unrest spread. Several crimes were committed. A police officer was attacked by an unknown assailant in the dark alley that ran behind the post office. Dinwoodie’s repeated cries of
Fascists
carried from his cell in the police station to the road outside where his mother and his sister waited