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bags the Teddy, double tops will get you Nelly, lions and tigers by the score, you only got to hit the board!”
    Dale could feel his cheeks flush as she stopped in front of the stall, not even looking at him, just running her gaze over theracks of bears, elephants, lions, tigers and the rest of the glass-eyed menagerie, with a bored expression, the twitch of a sneer on her upper lip.
    Dale’s palms went sweaty around the clean pair of arrows in his right hand.
    “Yes please, young lady?” Uncle Ted squawked, flipping a toy parrot round in his hand, making out that it was doing the speaking. “See something you like?”
    Dale could have killed him. The Princess’s visible eye fluttered down and her top lip arched even higher, revealing a wonky tooth that only seemed to make her sexier, only made Dale shift his weight from foot to foot more uncomfortably.
    “Nah,” she said. “It’s all kids’ stuff, ain’t it?” She tossed her head, ducking under her fringe again and moved off, not having given Dale a first glance, let alone a second.
    “Sweatin’?” asked Uncle Ted.
    * * *
    Due west as the seagull flies, on the opposite side of town, was an Ernemouth built on a different kind of commerce, the docks of the River Erne. Though the heyday of the herring fleet was long gone, the stock fished out some thirty years since, the port was still full of ships; container boats, tankers and ferries replaced the old smacks and wherries.
    It was less likely to find a tourist around here, but along the South Quay were the remains of the Town Wall built on the orders of Henry III, elegant eighteenth-century merchants’ houses and the ruins of a Franciscan monastery. South Quay turned into Hall Quay as it passed the ornate Victorian town hall.
    Making for the bus stop next to it, Debbie could hardly believe her luck. She hadn’t even minded that Corrine hadborrowed her crimpers and half her make-up either – it had got her this far.
    She didn’t have to hold her breath for the boys to turn up either. As they rounded the corner she could see that they were already waiting, sitting on the bench sharing a wrapper of chips, swinging their long, skinny legs.
    “Cor, let’s have some!” Corrine dived into their meal before they could even say hello.
    “All right?” Darren looked amused. He also looked as if he had gone home and done his hair again since they’d met at the café. Debbie had attempted a little backcombing of her own and was pleased with the results – it added a couple of inches to her height, at least.
    Debbie nodded, noticing how blue his eyes looked in the golden glow of the last daylight hour. For a moment they stared at each other.
    Then Corrine’s squeals filled the air. “Oh my God!” She was clutching a cassette in fingers sticky with salt and vinegar. “He give me the tape, Debs, he did! I’ve got Madonna, I don’t believe it.”
    Julian winced as she slapped him heartily across the shoulders.
    “So where we now going?” she asked.
    “You’ll see,” said Darren, inclining his head to the right.
    He made sure he was walking next to Debbie as they crossed the road in front of The Ship Hotel, made their way down the narrow passage beside the Midland Bank. He knew Julian wasn’t really interested in Corrine, but he was too good a mate not to play along.
    “What, we goin’ back up town?” Corrine’s bewildered voice came from behind them.
    “No,” said Darren, smiling at Debbie as they reached the side of an old, white-painted pub, where a sign hung over the alleyway above the door – a man in a tricorn hat and a velvet cloak, hanging from the scaffold, flames rising up around him, the silhouettes of people holding pitchforks aloft. In medieval-style lettering, the words
Captain Swing’s
.
    Darren pushed the door open and they followed him in.

5
Eastworld
March 2003
    By the time he had pulled into the parking bay in front of The Ship Hotel, Sean had almost lost the feeling in his legs.