Rowan and Snowdrop follow him into the gloom of the barn. There are colossal holes in the roof and evidence of fallen slates and brick and timber mounded up in one far corner. A trio of plastic school chairs has been drawn up around a large metal brazier full of timber and coal. The grill from a commercial oven has been removed and placed across the mouth of the brazier and fat sausages are blackening, greasily, in the heat from the scorching flames. At the rear of the barn is a battered Land Rover and a quad bike, covered in enough mud to disguise the colour of the paint. The rest of the space is somewhere between a modern art museum and a junkyard. Arabic rugs are turning to mulch on the soaking ground, pressed into the earth by the mound upon mound of stacked oddities. Towers of mismatched wooden chairs sway precariously in the shifting light. Cracked tiffany lamps are bundled up in a haphazard pile of multi-coloured glass. He spots stage lights; a sign warning about the nearness of sharks; a mannequin sawed in half at the thighs. There’s a glass cabinet filled entirely with first-edition Troll toys – their big eyes and stoned smiles making them the perfect witnesses to Pickle’s daily leisure pursuits.
“I saw you on the drone,” says Pickle, plonking himself down in the chair and gesturing for his guests to join him. From under his seat he removes a small assemblage of metal and plastic and paint. It has two propellers on top and a state-of-the-art camera underneath.
“New toy?” asks Rowan, sitting down.
“New venture,” he confirms, putting the drone down reverentially and removing a baccy tin from his pocket. He glances at Snowdrop. “You fancy taking a walk to see the horses in the top field?”
Snowdrop sits down beside her uncle. “We’re working,” she says, firmly. “You go ahead and smoke, I’ll try not to breathe it in.”
“She’s a good one,” says Pickle, approvingly. “Maybe we’ll get your mum up here for a smoke someday, eh?”
Snowdrop glances at her uncle. He gives a tiny shake of the head. Both are aware that for Serendipity, one smoke would be too many.
“It’s about your friend,” says Snowdrop, pulling a notebook from her pocket and looking at Pickle accusingly. “A friend from Facebook. We want to talk to her. I’m trying to be a reporter and we’re trying to find out what happened to three missing girls thirty years ago, okay?
Pickle glances at Rowan. “Half-term, is it?”
Rowan shrugs. “People play Doctors and Nurses. Why not Reporters?”
“Okay boss. Ask away. You’ll mean Violet, yeah?”
“Yes,” says Snowdrop, jutting her chin out and looking deeply suspicious. “What’s the nature of your relationship?”
“Wow,” says Pickle, eyes wide, playing along. “You must be ‘bad cop’.”
“Sorry mate,” says Rowan, sitting forward. “Youthful exuberance. You know the young ones, they’ve no time for the niceties.” He shakes his head at Snowdrop. “There’s a dance to this, Snow. We’re English. We chat. We small-talk and gossip and slag off the politicians and eventually we get round to asking each other the thing we met up to talk about. It’s not dynamic, but it’s authentic.”
Snowdrop looks confused. Shakes her head at the pair of them. Pointedly, she takes the phone, opens the microphone function, and presses record. “I’m waiting,” she says, eyebrows angled in sharp peaks.
Pickle reaches down and picks up a miniature snooker table. On the green baize is a bag of weed almost large enough to pass for a head of broccoli. Pickle looks at them both, picks up a Rizla, and sticks it to his forehead.
“White flag,” he says, by way of explanation. He starts to skin up a joint, fingers moving on muscle memory. Grins, and two gold teeth wink in the firelight. “I surrender.”
“She good company?” asks Rowan, casually. “Violet, I mean. When she came for a smoke?”
Pickle nods his head. “Aye, great lass. Used to be more of a giggler but she’s a chilled-out kind of stoner now. Likes to just lay back and float on the breeze for a while. Had to change the rota so she didn’t bring down the room, y’know.”
Rowan laughs, delighting in Pickle’s very existence. He runs the barn like a drop-in centre for those seeking temporary disassociation from the misery of their reality. Over the course of any 24 hour period, he provides narcotics, succour and a listening ear for half the social stoners in West Cumbria. On any given day, bankers, teachers, farmers and any number of neglected spouses might find themselves sitting on a plastic chair in Pickle’s barn, sharing tales of self-pitying woe or giggle-till-you-piss tales, eating Haribo and dipping Pringles in Nutella, wafting smoke and staring into the glowing embers of their own personal stairways to Heaven. He’s a valuable public service. The locals call such sessions ‘a decompression’. There’s a kind of community spirit to it. Marriages have been saved, rampages avoided and partnerships repaired thanks entirely to a couple of communal hours sharing the pipe of peace in Pickle’s guru-like presence.
“She’s a talker too,” he continues, lighting the joint and inhaling until his eyes cross. “You know those stories we tell when we’re drifting on the wave? The way that after a little while you’re not telling anybody else but just straight talking to yourself. Dreaming aloud, I suppose. Yeah, she was one of those. Good company, like you say.”
“Teacher, isn’t she?” asks Rowan, casually.
“Did a bit of that, aye,” nods Pickle. “Of course she’d say she was an interior designer first, teacher second.”
Rowan nods. He’s starting to get the picture. “She a seasoned smoker or a newbie?”
“She’s the ‘old lag’,” smiles Pickle, inspecting the end of a rotting fingernail and deciding that whatever organism is burrowed in beneath the cuticle has earned the right to stay there unmolested. “The type who pops in for a stretch and pops out again. You know the sort. Every few years they’ll enjoy six months of hitting it hard while whatever problem they’re having goes away, then off it and back to reality. It’s like medicine, really. She told me about the first time she smoked, I remember that.”
“Yeah? Go on.”
Pickle sits forward as if imparting a confidence. “That’s a good conversation starter, actually. Gets people talking. Her’s was a belter. She said the first time she smoked she was still at school and some busker gave her a blowback from this massive great hard-on of a joint.”
“Is that rude?” enquires Snowdrop, pencil pausing on the pad.
“No,” says Rowan, shaking his head. “It’s when you bloke the smoke from your joint into somebody else’s mouth, like a kiss. It’s very sensual.”
“What’s sensual? asks Snowdrop, frowning.
“We’re drifting away from the point, I think,” says Rowan, swiftly. “At school? That might have been around the time….,”
“Aye, I suppose.” He nods, seemingly in agreement with a voice in his head. “She said it was pretty damned sensual, actually. ‘Gave us all a go’, she said. Some pretty-boy who thought he was so fucking cool because who used pages from the Bible for his joints.”
“He did what, mate?” asks Rowan, sitting a little straighter in his seat.
Pickle sniffs, momentarily transformed into a Victorian grand duchess passing judgement on a country cousin’s lack of sophistication. “Bit bourgeoisie for my taste. Very tacky. That was one of her darker smokes, for definite. She was here chatting with Helicopter Heather and Dan The Man With The Van.”
“Is that his full name?” asks Snowdrop.
“It is to me,” says Pickle, slapping his legs. Clouds of dust and assorted organic samples rise into the air. He gives Rowan the closest thing he ever gets to an accusatory look. “There’s something to this, I can tell. You know something you aren’t saying. Don’t do her any harm, Rowan. She’s had her problems. Been through a lot.”