Bob had just kissed his wife goodbye and was about to walk out of the White Swan when he was hailed by an old friend—the chief inspector of the town’s police force—who, he saw, was frowning grimly.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked casually.
‘You could say that,’ he was told. ‘We’ve just been put on alert. It seems we’ve got a convoy of travellers heading out this way.’
‘Travellers?’ Bob questioned slightly bemused.
‘Yes. You know—hippies. New Agers...’ the chief inspector explained briefly. ‘They pitch up and make camp with their caravans and their lorries and cause the devil’s own kind of problems. If they do decide to make camp locally I’ll have every farmer for miles around on my back wanting me to get rid of them, not to mention the calls we’ll be getting from anxious parents worrying about the possibility of them selling drugs and generally causing problems.
‘I’ve been trying to track Alex down,’ he added.
‘It’s more than likely to be his land they settle on if they do settle locally, so it will be up to him to seek what legal remedies he can to move them on.’
‘What makes them do it, I wonder...?’ Bob mused. ‘I mean why...why decide to live outside society instead of within it?’
‘You’re the journalist, not me. Although most of them would tell you that they have chosen to create their own society...’
‘Mmm...’
Having refused his offer of a drink, Bob made his way back to the Gazette’s offices. If the travellers did decide to settle locally his readers would want to know exactly what was going on. Not, from what he had just heard about them, that any of these young people were likely to confide to him what their plans were. A thought suddenly struck him.
‘She needs something she can get her teeth into,’ his wife had told him about his new employee... ‘She needs a crusade...’
After a sandwich and an enjoyable chat with Lucy, which had included an invitation for Mollie to join Lucy and some of her friends on a ramble the following weekend, followed by a meal at a local pub, Mollie returned to the Gazette’s offices feeling much more cheerful. But her heart sank a little bit as, before she could reach her desk, Bob appeared and asked her to step into his office.
‘New Age travellers are coming here and you want me to interview them?’ Mollie asked him excitedly when he had explained what was going to happen. This was more like it. This was the kind of human interest story she could really get her teeth into.
‘The Gazette’s readers are going to want to know what these people are about, why they can’t stay in their own homes. Don’t they realise the havoc they cause, the damage they do to local crops and livestock?’ Bob was demanding critically, pursing his lips.
Mollie could tell exactly what kind of article he wanted her to write, but there were always two sides to every story.
‘We don’t know yet if these people do intend to pitch camp locally,’ Bob was reminding her. ‘With any luck they won’t, but—’
‘Where are they now? Does anyone know?’ Mollie interrupted him excitedly.
‘Well, they’re travelling this way, from the north. The police are keeping an eye on them, but apparently there’s not an awful lot they can do.’
Mollie quickly drew a brief mental map of the town’s infrastructure. That meant they must be travelling on what had once been the London road. Even if they decided not to pitch camp locally, it would still be worthwhile interviewing them, finding out how they lived, what had made them take to the road in the first place.
‘I could drive out to meet them and see if I can do some interviews,’ she suggested, holding her breath until Bob had given a brief grunt of assent.
Alex received the news of the travellers’ imminent arrival with far less enthusiasm.
He was not antagonistic towards their way of life, nor to them, and in many ways felt extremely sympathetic towards them, but... But he was also a land-owner and a landlord. He knew the havoc their arrival could cause, and the friction which could develop between them and their unwilling hosts. What he couldn’t quite understand, though, was why on earth they should have picked on Fordcaster. They were a small, quiet backwater of a town, well off any of the main arterial routes.
The police had already advised him to get in touch with his solicitor and set in motion what legal remedies he could to evict them, should they decide to settle. Unwillingly he reached for the phone. He didn’t like having to turn away anyone who was in need—it went against his whole ethos and nature—but he also owed a duty to his tenants.
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