‘I used to go to Rudolphy’s as a boy,’ Proust said. ‘In those days, it occupied three different buildings on Guggle Lane, Silsford’s only remaining cobbled street. Two were side by side, with a door connecting them that was sometimes locked and sometimes not. The third was across the street. Two of the three buildings were unmanned – no till, no staff presence at all. Just rooms full of books, new and second-hand, piles of them everywhere. There was a noisy till in the corner of one room that looked and sounded like an old typewriter. Someone would always be behind it to sell books, but if you wanted something from Rudolphy’s mark two or three, you had to take it next door or over the road to buy it. Imagine that these days!’

Sam waited. This was the most personal thing Proust had ever said to him and it made him feel uneasy.

‘The third shop, the one across the road, didn’t last. It closed, then reopened as a record shop. Later still, the two adjacent buildings were joined properly and became one big Rudolphy’s, though the ceilings were as low as they’d always been and the thick beams didn’t help. My brother Edward nearly knocked himself out more than once. There was a girl we’d see in there sometimes, the owners’ daughter. Elise, her name was. Elise Rudolphy. About my age, maybe a couple of years older. Once I was in there on my own flicking through a second-hand book and she came up behind me and said, “You want that, don’t you?” It was Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. There were three volumes – faded red hardbacks – and I was holding the first in my hands. “If you want it, take it,” Elise told me. She had a terrible voice: a drawly half-English, half-American hybrid. The family was from America originally. Both parents had American accents. I said I couldn’t take the book, that it would be stealing, and Elise said, “I dare you. I won’t tell my parents.” Do you know what I did, Sergeant? I took it.’

‘Wow.’ Sam laughed appreciatively.

‘It wasn’t funny, it was a crime. I’d expect you of all people to know the difference, or else what are you doing here?’

‘Well, I … I just thought—’

‘I was sickened by what I’d done, as soon as I got home. Couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. The next day I took the book back to the shop and gave it to Mr Rudolphy. I confessed all, and told him that his daughter had encouraged me to defraud him.’

‘Right.’ Sam was struggling. What was the point of this story? What was he, the audience, supposed to be thinking, and what was he actually thinking? He ought to know the answer at least to the last question, but he didn’t.