Eventually, having successfully evaded the police, and down towards the bottom of the hill, safely hidden in among some trees, they were close enough to observe.

'Travellers in their natural environment,' whispered Israel, putting on his best David-Attenborough-observing-the-gorillas voice.

'Sshh!' said Ted.

Men and women, stripped to the waist, were leaping over fires. Someone was playing bongos, and people were dancing barefoot, and there were jugglers, and fire-eaters, and people were being tattooed, and there was a child dancing around in a luminous skeleton suit, while other people lay around on the ground, wrapped in rugs, passing bottles and joints. And there, among them, sprawled out, were Stones and Bree, locked in-'Sweet Jesus!' said Ted-an intimate embrace. And behind them, parked at the top of the hill, among the camper vans, old coaches, horseboxes and ambulances, was the mobile library, resplendent, glowing in the firelight, in all its repainted glory, its Eye of Horus keeping watch over the proceedings.

'Got 'em!' said Ted.

'Keep your voice down!' said Israel.

'The dirty lying thieving bastards!' continued Ted. 'Look at 'em. Totally scunnered, the lot of them. Bloody bunch of scoots.'

'So what do we do now?' said Israel.

'We're going to wait here until they're all well away from the van,' said Ted.

'And then what?'

'We're going to steal her back.'

'Steal her?' whispered Israel. 'That's-'

'How else d'ye think we're going to get her?'

'Well, couldn't we just go and talk to them first?' said Israel. 'And then we could maybe talk to the police, and explain what's happened and-'

'It'll all be happy ever after?' said Ted.

'I'm sure the police would help us.'

'Aye, well, I've never met a policeman before who wanted to help me, and I very much doubt I'm going to meet one now.'

'Well, I don't know about that,' said Israel, 'the police can be'-and then he recalled a number of recent incidents in Tumdrum, including his being accused of robbery and the kidnap of Mr Dixon, of Dixon and Pickering's department store, for example-'a little unpredictable,' he admitted. 'But stealing the van back is quite a risky strategy, isn't it?'

'A risky strategy?' said Ted. 'It's justice, ye eejit. What is it you people say?'

'Which people?'

'You.'

'Vegetarian Jewish librarians from north London?'

'Ach, no! "An eye for an eye."'

'"A tooth for a tooth"?'

'Aye.'

'"A hand for a hand"?'

'Exactly.'

'"A foot for a foot"?'

'There you are.'

'Exodus, you mean?'

'Rebritution,' said Ted.

'Retribution,' corrected Israel.

'That's right,' said Ted. 'That's what you lot believe, isn't it?'

'Your use of the term "you lot" is not entirely helpful, I must say,' whispered Israel. 'And I think you'll find that in Jewish law, in fact-'

'Ach, well, all I mean is, they stole the van from us, and so we're perfectly entitled to steal her back.'

'Well, that may sound perfectly reasonable,' said Israel, mouthing the words rather than speaking them, 'but I hardly think it would stand up as an argument in a court of law.'

'We're not in a court of law, you eejit! In case you hadn't noticed, we're in a bloody field in the middle of bloody nowhere!'

'Yes, that's right,' whispered Israel, 'and how would you suggest we go about getting the van back, seeing as the obvious obstacles in our way in this bloody field in the middle of bloody nowhere include several hundred travellers, and at least the same number of riot police? Huh?'

'I don't rightly know at the moment,' said Ted. 'I'm thinking. First thing we need to do is lure them away from the van.'

'Well, that's not difficult, is it?' said Israel. 'Four fifty-eight a.m.'

'What?'

'Is the time of sunrise, didn't the steward say? They'll all be up and worshipping the sun then, or something. That'll certainly distract them.'

'Brilliant,' said Ted, patting Israel hard on the back-too hard. Israel almost fell over. 'Brilliant! Ye know what, that's the only sensible thing you've said all day.'

'Thank you,' gasped Israel.

'That'll do us rightly. So all we need to do is keep watch, wait for them to start the auld slaughtering of the sheep and the goats-'

'I don't think they slaughter sheep and goats on the solstice, Ted.'

'Or whatever it is they do, and then we slip in and take the van. We'll take it in turns to keep watch. Right. You bed down there. I'll take the first shift.'

'Bed down where?'

'There.' Ted pointed at the ground.

'On the ground?'

'Aye.'

'I'm not sleeping there.'

'Well, unless you brought a wee blow-up feather bed with you, that'll be exactly where you're sleeping.'

'Couldn't I go back to the car?'

'Of course you can't go back to the car,' said Ted.

'Why not?'

'Because we're on reconnaissance. We've got to keep a lookout.'

'Well met by moonlight!' came a voice then, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, Israel's mother was squatting down among the trees with them. She was wearing a highly visible bright red Gore-Tex jacket-which matched, worryingly, the colour of her lipstick-and a pair of long brown boots, with heels, with velvet trousers tucked into the top.

'Jesus Christ, woman!' gasped Ted. 'You scared the crap out of me there!'

'Sorry, boys,' she whispered.

'Mother! What are you doing here?'

'I could hardly let you two handle it yourselves, could I?'

'How did you get here?'

'Ari gave me a lift down. In his Mercedes,' she added significantly.

'But how did you find us?'

'You said Stonehenge. Travellers. It's not that difficult, is it? We used to do an annual treasure hunt for the PTA when you were at school. Do you remember? That was much more difficult. People used to get lost on Hampstead Heath. They're not exactly hidden away here, are they? So, what's the crack?'

'You're an abstrakerous old so-and-so when you want to be, aren't ye, Mrs Armstrong?' said Ted admiringly.

'Am I?'

'Ye are.'

'Is that a bad thing?'

'I didn't say that.'

'Good.'

'All right, you two,' said Israel. 'Enough already. They're up to something else there now.'

The travellers seemed to be preparing for some kind of ritual involving poles and sticks.

'It's quite a nice little setup they've got there, actually, isn't it?' whispered Israel's mother.

'Bloody headers,' said Ted.

'What are they doing?' asked Israel. 'Is it some sort of pagan ritual?'

'It looks to me like they're preparing to do limbo dancing,' said Israel's mother.

'Ah!' said Israel. 'You're right.'

'They're all on drugs, sure,' said Ted.

'How can you tell?' said Israel's mother. 'I've often wondered.'

'Aye, well…I have spent a bit of time smoking dope meself, like.'

'Really?' said Israel's mother.

'Aye.'

'What?' said Israel.

'I am surprised to hear that,' said Israel's mother. 'Man like yourself, Ted.'

'Well.'

'And when you say a bit of time, you mean what? Days? Weeks?'

'Years, actually.'

'Years?'

'Aye. In Australia.'

'What the hell were you doing smoking dope in Australia for years?' said Israel.

'Better than painkillers,' said Ted, gazing off into the distance. 'Sometimes a man needs to forget.'

'Right.'

'I'd lost the run of meself entirely,' said Ted.

'I did smoke a funny cigarette once,' said Israel's mother. 'At a party, it was. In Crouch End, I think. Somewhere like that.'

'All right, let's not get into a game of truth or dare here, Mother, shall we, please.'

'You are a dark horse, Ted,' said Israel's mother, snuggling up close to him in the dark.