After completing the soundcheck, PC Gherkin switched on his guitar and let rip. The stadium was full, the fans were cheering and the concert got underway. Sgt Plockton walked heavily onto centre stage, picked up the mike and growled into it, “Yeh- get on your bike and move!” Drums were supplied by a pile of suitcases at the back, flapping open and shut in rhythm. The modern equivalent of bass was supplied by a colony of slugs. The Victorian policemen, from a time when rock music had yet to be invented, wore heavy blue overcoats and helmets on Midsummer’s Day.

Plockton’s face got very red as he sweated his way through the first number, and sat down in a stripey deckchair as Gherkin let himself go with an ear-piercing solo. He danced around the deckchair with his eyes shut to see if the Sgt was well enough to stand up yet. He was, and the suitcases cut out to rapturous applause.

Plockton surveyed the arena thoughtfully. He pulled out his handcuffs and started to blow soapy bubbles through them. This had the effect of changing his voice to a modulated mezzo-soprano, which suited the renewed frenzy of PC Gherkin’s guitar quite beautifully. The Sgt opened his purse-like mouth and sang of sandcastles, of starfish, of soft sandbars beside the sea. He sang of hope for metal screws that would never be rusty again. His voice rose out of all mundanity, swooped like a kestrel from a cottage pie and rested on a pinnacle high above the Sea of Nectar. Wordlessly, he reached into his pocket for a remote control, and retrieved his voice from the moon.

The Sgt thought hard about cat burglars to make him angry enough to perform the next number. The suitcases waited in suspense. The slugs were poised. Gherkin waited, his fingers on the accordion. Plockton launched into the comforting and traditional strains of The Clash’s “Police and Thieves”. “Police, police, police and thie-eves,” he snarled into the mike. “From genesis…ses…ses…” Gherkin stood, his eyes closed in the soothing melody. The suitcases had turned into a swaying pyramid behind them. The slugs, complete with lederhosen, had gone to a licensed Munich beer festival. Plockton finished by making the ultimate punk statement and taking his helmet off. The audience were shocked. He had been wearing a sandcastle underneath. The barnacles’ stately home melted like ice-cream around his ears, and he licked it off. “Cinammon with a touch of spruce,” he said approvingly.

For the closing song, the Sgt caught a bumblebee and tuned its wings to the same pitch as his helmet, now back in its rightful place. Their combined drone created a background to Gherkin’s final opening riff as they performed “The Greengrocer’s Waltz”. Plockton put all his soul into singing of marrows with more stripes than he was ever likely to have, cauliflowers in need of a walk, and most of all peas, peas, shiny new peas in a pod when they land from Jupiter. The audience, consisting entirely of a field of mushrooms, threw their caps in the air at the policemen’s final bow and stalked off. The cases packed up and left.

The police were preparing to leave when a highly-strung harp shuffled up behind them and begged to be let loose. Gherkin bent down and talked to it gently until it felt better. It thanked him with a soft rippling note and glided off across the fields. They stood and watched it go. Gherkin said softly, “You don’t see a miracle like that every day, do we Sarge?”

“Nay, lad,” said the Sgt huskily. “That’s a wonderful sight.” He was about to start singing “If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free”, but thought better of it. They went over to an oak tree with a poster of The Police from 1981 on it saying “Sold Out” and rearranged the date to 1891 so they could go home. Long after they had gone, the harp glided on into the sunset, over strawberry fields forever.