But the boy was already a few yards past him and heading down the hill towards the Quiet Shepherd. He showed no intention of stopping.
Cooper began to walk behind him in the same direction. He noticed the limp in his left leg, and felt sure this was Jake Oxley.
‘Where are you going with those sticks?’
‘To the pub/ said the boy.
‘What for?’
‘You’re a copper, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. What are you doing with those sticks?’
‘That’s my business. It’s not copper’s business.’
‘It might be. Tell me, and we’ll see. Where did you get the sticks from?’
The boy began to speed up as he approached the pub car park. The sticks bumped together and clattered as the trolley went over a kerb. Cooper lengthened his pace, aware of the ranger watching him.
‘Stop a minute, son. I want to ask you something else.’
‘You can’t talk to me,’ said the boy. ‘I’m only nine.’
‘So?’ ‘It means you have to talk to my dad.’
‘And who’s your dad?’
‘I don’t have to tell you that. I don’t have to tell you anything. I’m only nine.’
Cooper noticed that the boy’s limp didn’t seem to hinder him.
‘Is your name Oxley, by any chance?’ he said.
Till report you to the Social Services. Then you’ll get in trouble. You’re not allowed to talk to me, because I’m vulnerable.’
‘And you’re only nine,’ said Cooper.
‘Yeah.’
The boy broke into a run across the car park and vanished into a side door of the pub. Cooper wasn’t going to run. He didn’t want to appear to be pursuing a nine-year-old child. It never looked good.
‘With any luck, you won’t make it to ten,’ he said to the closed door.
268
Then he looked at the hill he would have to walk back up. With a sigh, Cooper sat down on the low wall around the pub car park. The parking area consisted of a wide patch of crushed stone, and large boulders had been left in position near the entrance and exit. There was even an outcrop of rock right in the middle. He couldn’t figure out whether the rocks had been too big to bother moving when the car park had been created, or had been left there for picturesque effect.
Cooper noticed a building at the back of the pub. It was some kind of storage shed or garage, with wide doors that stood open at the moment. The interior looked intriguing.
He got up and strolled over towards the door, hoping no one was watching him from the windows of the pub. Inside the doors, trestles had been set up. At the moment, they supported wooden boards, much like the ones he had seen being fished out of the river a few days ago. If these were the same ones, they had been washed clean of slime and duckweed. They’d also had hundreds of nails hammered through them, so that the points protruded above the surface of the wood by a centimetre or so. Each board might have been a bed of nails for an Indian fakir, except that a layer of clay had been spread over the nails and smoothed out. A skin was starting to form on the clay.
Cooper shrugged, imagining some garden feature. Perhaps the landlord of the pub had been watching one of those gardening makeover programmes on TV.
He looked at the pub again. There was no sign of the boy with the sticks. But Cooper was sure he had been speaking to the Tiny Terror.
‘Well, we all need a moment’s rest from our labours.’
Cooper turned to find the Reverend Derek Alton watching him.
Either he had moved very quietly, or Cooper hadn’t been paying
attention.
‘I wasn’t actually thinking of going into the pub. Not when I’m
on duty.’
‘Well, I’m off duty. Besides, I have a special dispensation.’ ‘Mr Alton, there was a young boy here a minute ago. Nine
years old, with a slight limp.’
Alton nodded. That would be little Jake Oxley. Lucas’s youngest
boy.’
‘I thought so. What happened to him? Did he have an accident?’
269
‘You mean his leg? Yes, he was knocked down in the road, right in front of Waterloo Terrace there.’
‘He was? By somebody passing through? No. I don’t suppose so …’
‘It would perhaps have been better that way/ said Alton. ‘But not many people pass through here. Only those going to Shepley Head Lodge/
