CROWLEY, doing 110 mph on the M40 heading toward Oxfordshire. Even the most resolutely casual observer would notice a number of strange things about him. The clenched teeth, for example, or the dull red glow coming from behind his sunglasses. And the car. The car was a definite hint.
Crowley had started the journey in his Bentley, and he was damned if he wasn’t going to finish it in the Bentley as well. Not that even the kind of car buff who owns his own pair of motoring goggles would have been able to tell it was a vintage Bentley. Not any more. They wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was a Bentley. They would only offer fifty-fifty that it had ever even been a car.
There was no paint left on it, for a start. It might still have been black, where it wasn’t a rusty, smudged reddish-brown, but this was a dull charcoal black. It traveled in its own ball of flame, like a space capsule making a particularly difficult re-entry.
There was a thin skin of crusted, melted rubber left around the metal wheel rims, but seeing that the wheel rims were still somehow riding an inch above the road surface this didn’t seem to make an awful lot of difference to the suspension.
It should have fallen apart miles back.
It was the effort of holding it together that was causing Crowley to grit his teeth, and the biospatial feedback that was causing the bright red eyes. That and the effort of having to remember not to start breathing.
He hadn’t felt like this since the fourteenth century.
THE ATMOSPHERE in the quarry was friendlier now, but still intense.
“You’ve got to help me sort it out,” said Adam. “People’ve been tryin’ to sort it out for thousands of years, but we’ve got to sort it out now.”
They nodded helpfully.
“You see, the thing is,” said Adam, “this thing is, it’s like—well, you know Greasy Johnson.”
The Them nodded. They all knew Greasy Johnson and the members of the other gang in Lower Tadfield. They were older and not very pleasant. Hardly a week went by without a skirmish.
“Well,” said Adam, “we always win, right?”
“Nearly always,” said Wensleydale.
“Nearly always,” said Adam, “an’—”
“More than half, anyway,” said Pepper. “’Cos, you remember, when there was all that fuss over the ole folks’ party in the village hall when we—”
“That doesn’t count,” said Adam. “They got told off just as much as us. Anyway, old folks are s’pposed to like listenin’ to the sound of children playin’, I read that somewhere, I don’t see why we should get told off ’cos we’ve got the wrong kind of old folks—” He paused. “Anyway … we’re better’n them.”
“Oh, we’re better’n them,” said Pepper. “You’re right about that. We’re better’n them all right. We jus’ don’t always win.”
“Just suppose,” said Adam, slowly, “that we could beat ’em properly. Get—get them sent away or somethin’. Jus’ make sure there’s no more ole gangs in Lower Tadfield apart from us. What do you think about that?”
“What, you mean he’d be … dead?” said Brian.
“No. Jus’—jus’ gone away.”
The Them thought about this. Greasy Johnson had been a fact of life ever since they’d been old enough to hit one another with a toy railway engine. They tried to get their minds around the concept of a world with a Johnson-shaped hole in it.
Brian scratched his nose. “I reckon it’d be brilliant without Greasy Johnson,” he said. “Remember what he did at my birthday party? And I got into trouble about it.”
“I dunno,” said Pepper. “I mean, it wouldn’t be so interesting without ole Greasy Johnson and his gang. When you think about it. We’ve had a lot of fun with ole Greasy Johnson and the Johnsonites. We’d probably have to find some other gang or something.”
“Seems to me,” said Wensleydale, “that if you asked people in Lower Tadfield, they’d say they’d be better off without the Johnsonites or the Them.”
Even Adam looked shocked at this. Wensleydale went on stoically: “The old folks’ club would. An’ Picky. An’—”
“But we’re the good ones … ” Brian began. He hesitated. “Well, all right,” he said, “but I bet they’d think it’d be a jolly sight less interestin’ if we all weren’t here.”
“Yes,” said Wensleydale. “That’s what I mean.
“People round here don’t want us or the Johnsonites,” he went on morosely, “the way they’re always goin’ on about us just riding our bikes or skateboarding on their pavements and making too much noise and stuff. It’s like