Lost River. Stephen Booth

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      ‘Right. And that would be a bad thing.’

      ‘Of course. You’ve got to be in a tribe.’

      ‘Absolutely.’

      ‘Anyway, I’m not online as much as the big players. Some of the guys play on their mobiles,’ said Alex.

      ‘Oh, okay. But not you?’

      ‘My phone is too old. It’s rubbish.’

      ‘Maybe your dad will buy you a new one.’

      ‘Yeah, right.’

      ‘So what’s your log-in name?’

      Alex narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re not going to ask me for my password, are you? That’s wrong. Besides, it’s illegal.’

      ‘Illegal?’

      ‘In the game. You can get banned for sharing your password.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘People try to bend the rules all the time. They try anything to get an advantage. Even blackmail.’

      ‘You’re joking.’

      ‘Oh, yeah. Big players threaten to catapult your cities unless you give them resources.’

      ‘A protection racket.’

      ‘That’s illegal too, though.’

      ‘Well, I don’t want to know your password. I only wondered what you call yourself.’

      ‘I’m Smoke Lord.’

      ‘Really? But you don’t smoke, do you?’

      ‘What, cigarettes? Of course not. It means your cities will be smoking ruins after I’ve attacked them.’

       ‘With your catapults?’

      A lock of dark hair fell over his face as he turned to stare at the screen again.

      ‘I’m a Gaul,’ he said. ‘I have fire catapults.’

      ‘And attacking people and setting fire to their cities isn’t illegal?’

      ‘Don’t be stupid. It’s the whole point of the game. It’s called War Tribe. It’s a war game.’

      ‘Yes, that was a stupid question,’ admitted Cooper. ‘I think I must be out of my depth.’

      ‘I guess so.’

      Cooper stood up. ‘Do your parents not mind you playing on the computer all the time?’

      Alex snorted. ‘They keep a check on me, if that’s what you mean. They’ve got a lock on it. Parental controls. And while I’m at school, Mum comes into my room and checks my browser history, to see what sites I’ve been looking at. Can you believe that?’

      ‘Mum likes to be the one in control, does she?’

      ‘Too true. You ought to see her at meal times.’

      Cooper could sense the boy starting to close up. He decided it wasn’t the best time to ask Alex about the photographs he’d taken in Dovedale. He left the teenager to his game and went back downstairs.

      ‘Thank you, Mr and Mrs Nield. I think I’ve bothered you enough. I’m sorry to have intruded.’

      ‘It’s all right,’ said Dawn. ‘It helps to talk, to have things to do. You’ve got to keep busy at a time like this. There’s no point in turning inwards.’

      Cooper could see that she was the sort of woman who would put her energies into organizing things, into organizing anyone who came within her orbit. But the danger was that the grief would hit her later – perhaps at the funeral, or in the long, dreadful weeks to come. He searched for something to say that wouldn’t sound too trite.

       ‘Well, be thankful that you still have your oldest child.’

      ‘What?’ she said.

      ‘Alex.’

      ‘Oh. Yes.’

      There was an awkward moment when they looked at each other in embarrassed silence, neither having any idea what to say.

      Cooper knew that he’d been taking advantage of his position with the Nields. They would probably have reacted quite differently to a police officer who didn’t happen to be the man who’d tried to save their daughter’s life. They wouldn’t have talked so readily, been willing to answer those questions all over again without suspicion. But he’d pushed their gratitude as far as he could. It was time for him to leave.

      But Mrs Nield touched his arm as he paused on the door step.

      ‘Ben – you’ll come to the funeral, won’t you?’ she said.

      Cooper said goodbye to the Nields, and found his way out of Ashbourne. He thought back to the few minutes he’d spent with Alex. The boy was clearly absorbed in some other universe that his parents probably knew nothing about, and wouldn’t understand if they did. Interesting that so many things were illegal, or against the rules in the War Tribe universe. But he supposed there must be plenty of people who set out to be bullies, cheats and liars. Just like real life, in fact.

      On the way out of town, Ashbourne’s confusing one-way system took him past the fire station. The alarm was sounding at the station. Two retained firemen jogged up the road, and a third arrived on a bicycle.

      He wondered if Alex Nield’s online world had an imaginary fire brigade that would rush to put out the conflagrations caused by imaginary fire catapults. He supposed not. It was far too exciting to watch your enemies burn. As any teenage boy knew, destruction was so much fun.

       6

      Nearly two hours after leaving Edendale, Fry turned off the M6 at the Gravelly Hill interchange, the vast tangle of flyovers and slip roads known everywhere as Spaghetti Junction. In a couple of minutes she was on the Aston Expressway, eating up the tarmac on those two final miles of motorway that led right into the heart of the city.

      It was morning rush hour. That was something she’d forgotten. She was sitting in a sea of carbon monoxide all the way from Sutton Coldfield to the Bull Ring. Tasting those fumes made Fry conscious of how she’d begun to acclimatize to her new home in Derbyshire. Up there in the hills, you could actually smell the air. You knew you were breathing oxygen.

      In a way, the Expressway was a perfect introduction to Birmingham. It seemed to sum up all the city’s quirks and contradictions. This was the only stretch of motorway in the country with no central reservation. Instead, it had a seventh lane in the middle, which worked in opposite СКАЧАТЬ