still doubtful. It was because he knew he shouldn’t be there at all. This wasn’t an official visit there had been no action form issued for him to conduct another interview with Calvin Lawrence and Simon Bevington. But he needed to talk to them on his own. There were things he couldn’t concentrate on properly with Diane Fry and a bunch of uniformed officers crowding round the van. Cooper could smell cigarette smoke on Owen’s jacket. He guessed he had been to see Cal and Stride quite
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recently, and his red fleece had absorbed the scent of their roll-ups. Owen walked up to the van and stood by the cab. He gestured to Cooper to stand out of sight, and knocked on the side door. It was an unusual knock, a series of short and long raps. After half a minute, the door slid partly open. ‘Cal,’ said Owen. ‘We come in peace.’ ‘Bloody hell, it’s Red Rum. What’s up? Got no tourists to piss off ?’ ‘Yes, but pissing you off is more fun.’ Cal stuck his head out of the door and spotted Cooper. ‘What’s he want?’ ‘A bit of your friendly conversation. No hassle. He’s all right, Cal.’ The youth stared at Cooper, then back at Owen. ‘You saying he’s all right? He’s a copper. Coppers is bastards, period.’ ‘He’s all right.’ Cal nodded. ‘Give us the cans then, you mean sod.’ Owen winked at Cooper, and they clambered into the back of the VW. Cooper’s senses sprang instantly alive, awakened by the powerful mixture of scents and sensations contained in the van. Cal and Stride had been smoking roll-ups for months in the enclosed space, and their aroma had ingrained itself into the panels of the van and soaked into the blankets and cushions and sleeping bags that lay on the floor. There was the pungent smell of unwashed bodies and dirty clothes. And, overlying it, the odour of cooked food, including a lingering trace of the chicken curry they had eaten at least two days before. There was also a slightly
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‘So what are you doing here on your own?’ said Cal. ‘Where’s the heavy mob?’ ‘I just wanted to talk. I thought I might be able to help.’ Cal snorted. ‘Bullshit. Since when did the cops help the likes of us? You’re employed by middle-class, middleaged folk with their property and comfortable lives to protect.’ ‘People like your parents, you mean?’ ‘Yes, people like them.’ ‘Well, we’re here to protect everybody.’ ‘Stuff that. I don’t pay your wages. I don’t pay any taxes. So why should you bother about me?’ Cooper hesitated while he considered the answer. Everything depended on saying the right thing. ‘Hey,’ said Owen. ‘I’ve just realized - that means you don’t pay my wages either. Well, what a revelation.’ He started to get up, brushing down his jacket. ‘That’s that, then. I’ll be off. I can’t be wasting my time with a couple of dirty, idle gypsies. I’ve got nice, clean middle-class people to look after.’ ‘Yeah. Fuck off, then,’ said Cal, popping the ring-pull off a can of lager. Owen stood over him. He didn’t say anything. Cal looked at Cooper. ‘I hate this bastard in the red jacket,’ he said. ‘He thinks he’s my dad or something.’ ‘We all know you never had a father, Calvin,’ said Owen. ‘And if you call me Calvin again, I’ll set fire to your fuckin’ beard.’ ‘Get the matches out then, Calvin.’
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I worrying whiff of gas from the tworing camping stove behind the driver’s seat. Cooper hesitated when he saw Stride. He was sitting in the back corner, barely visible in the gloom. ‘Don’t worry about Stride,’ said Cal. ‘He’s just doing an auric egg.’ ‘OK. That’s fine.’ Cooper eyed Stride cautiously. He didn’t seem to be doing much of anything, really, let alone laying an egg. He was very still, sitting upright, with his eyes closed and his hands in his lap. The expression on his face was concentrated, but calm. Cooper wondered if Stride genuinely hadn’t noticed there was anyone else in the van. It seemed unlikely. It must just be a bit of acting talent, mustn’t it? ‘It’s to protect himself against negative mind energies,’ said Cal. ‘Right.’ ‘He puts a shell round his aura.’ ‘No problem.’ Owen settled himself on a pillow to one side of an old chest of drawers. Cooper followed suit on the other side. He felt something hard pressing into his hip. He looked down to find the biscuit tin packed with small mementoes that Stride had searched in for his NUS card. The boy’s entire previous life was crammed into that tin. Maybe he very rarely opened it, but at least he had brought it with him into his new life. It was useless for him to pretend that memories of his past life held no value for him. The evidence said differently.
Cal’s eyes glittered. He offered a can to Cooper, who shook his head. Then he held it up above his head, and the Ranger took it.
‘We both came for the solstice,’ said Cal. ‘That’s how we ended up in this quarry. There were loads of people parked down here then. It was like a real community. But the van broke down, and I had no dosh to get it repaired. It’s something to do with the drive shaft, they reckon. Coming down that slope knackered it.’
‘And you’ve stayed ever since.’ ‘Everybody else drifted off and left us.’ ‘Did you and Stride come together?’
‘No, we didn’t know each other until then. He’d been camping over the valley there - the place they call Robin Hood’s Stride. There’s a cave there, some kind of hermit’s place or something, where he was sheltering. He didn’t know anything about the Nine Virgins, but he wandered over to see what was happening. That’s how we met up, and that’s why we called him Stride. We just seemed to hit it off. He had nowhere else to go, you see.’
Cooper realized he was being watched. He had forgotten Stride for a moment. He had been so still and quiet he could have been camouflaged by an entire forest of trees instead of sitting there in full view a few inches away. His eyes were open now and he was looking at Cooper.
‘Nowhere else to go,’ he said.
Stride’s paleness was worrying. Cooper wondered what medical attention the two youths had access to. None, he supposed. In an earlier age, Stride would have
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been described as sickly and consumptive. Cooper would have liked to find out how he came to be camping in a hermit’s cave in the Peak District in the first place. But it seemed too big a question to ask.
‘You went to university, didn’t you?’ he said.
Stride nodded. Cal passed him the tobacco and the Rizlas, and he began to roll a cigarette.
‘What degree did you get?’
Stride smiled. ‘Did I say I got a degree?’
‘It’s usually the reason for going to university.’ ‘Only if you finish the course. Otherwise they get a bit stuffy about giving it to you.’
‘I see. You dropped out.’
Now Stride laughed. ‘You might call it that.’ ‘So what were you studying?’
Stride stared at him, a sudden gleam in his eye, his hand fluttering to his mouth in that curious gesture. Energy seemed to visibly flow through him. From an almost catatonic state he was transformed into a ball of vitality.
‘You really want to know?’ he said. ‘Come with me.’ ‘What?’
He was excited now, tugging at Cooper’s sleeve like a puppy wanting him to come out and play. Cooper looked at Owen, who just smiled and nodded affectionately at Stride.
