Lost River. Stephen Booth

it. He’s very creative, you know.’

      ‘So what was he taking photos of in Dovedale?’

      ‘I don’t really know. Rocks, water, trees.’

      ‘Not people?’

      ‘No. He isn’t really interested in that. He likes to look for patterns. You know – the bark on a tree, moss on a stone, sunlight through the leaves. He makes images from them, and uses them as background on his computer screen.’

      Nield smiled at Cooper.

      ‘There are a lot worse things that a boy of his age could be doing, aren’t there?’

      ‘Yes.’ Cooper smiled back. ‘I was thinking, Alex might have caught a few people in the background. If he was taking photographs of the river, for example. There were so many people around that day, it would be hard to avoid them altogether.’

      Nield frowned. ‘Well, I suppose so. But he would edit them out. Why are you so interested?’

      How to explain to him? How to tell the father that he would like to track down some more witnesses to what had happened? Independent witnesses, whose memories might not yet have been distorted. Well, he couldn’t. Cooper hesitated for a few moments, then backed off.

      ‘Oh, no reason. Just in case there were any loose ends.’

      Nield was still frowning, but before he could ask whatever question was on the tip of his tongue, his wife came back into the room. She looked better, as if she’d splashed cold water on her facer and combed her hair. It always helped, somehow.

      ‘How is Alex?’ asked Cooper.

      ‘A bit quiet,’ she said. ‘Do you want to talk to him?’

      ‘Well…’

      ‘He’d be glad to see you. He quite took to you yesterday.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘He said he thinks your job must be interesting.’

      Cooper suspected that Alex Nield was probably just another teenager who’d watched too many episodes of CSI and The Wire to have an accurate picture of what police work was all about in Derbyshire.

      ‘Go on up,’ said Nield. ‘He’s in his room. Second door on the left. He’ll only be playing on his computer.’

      ‘You’re sure you don’t mind? He’s a minor. Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t talk to him without one of you being present.’

      Nield laughed. ‘You’re not going to interrogate him, are you? It’ll do him good to talk to someone outside the family. And it might get him away from that computer screen for a few minutes.’

      Cooper looked at Mrs Nield, who nodded. Well, it was against procedure, but he was doing it at the request of the family. It would be a private conversation, not an interview with a witness. As long as he kept it that way, he’d be fine.

      On the first floor of the Nields’ house, he found a galleried landing, and counted the doors to five bedrooms. One door stood open, and when he glanced in he saw a desk, laptop, bookshelves, a small filing cabinet. Two of the others had small ceramic name plaques on them. He knocked on the door bearing Alex’s name in Gothic lettering, and got a muffled ‘yeah’. He took that as an invitation to enter.

      The boy was sitting at a desk in front of a PC screen, his legs curled round the seat of his chair. On the screen, Cooper saw a graphic representation of a medieval castle with individual buildings inside its walls – a barracks, a stable, a granary and warehouse.

      ‘What is it you’re playing?’

      ‘War Tribe. It’s a morpeg.’

      ‘Oh, okay.’

      Alex snorted, as if he was used to adults just pretending they understood what he was saying. But Cooper thought he might have a bit of an advantage.

      ‘An MMORPG,’ he said. ‘A Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game.’

      ‘Mm. Yeah.’

      ‘They’re usually programmed in PHP, aren’t they? What browser are you using?’

      ‘Safari.’

      ‘That’s good.’

      Alex gave him a sly sidelong look. Cooper decided it was the moment to shut up. It was best not to push his luck too far. The boy would open up, if he wanted to.

      Cooper noticed he was using a War Tribe mouse mat with a screen shot from the game.

      Hanging on the side of the wardrobe was a white T-shirt with the slogan Cranny Up, Noob!

      ‘Where did you get the mouse mat?’

      ‘Uh, they have a Café Press website. You can get all kinds of stuff there.’

      ‘Right.’

      He felt like adding ‘cool’. But it might, or might not, be the wrong expression this month.

      Down one side of the screen was an inventory of resources – iron, wood, wheat – and a list of the troops available. He saw that this particular castle contained three thousand axemen and a thousand mounted knights.

      ‘Are you online a lot?’

      ‘You have to be, to build up your cities and watch out for attacks. Anyway, if you’re offline too long you go yellow, and you get kicked from your tribe.’

      ‘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.