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said.
    â€˜Where do you hide an elephant?’ Angel replied.
    â€˜Huh?’
    â€˜In a jungle,’ she said, answering her own riddle. ‘So, how did I infiltrate the hood? Dress like them.’
    Monkey smiled to himself. ‘But Alex is here.’ He looked back to where the rest of the hood had congregated.
    Angel shook her head. ‘Even my brother has a change of clothes, you know.’ Then her voice turned serious. ‘Follow me. I’ve got some information for you. I think I’ve cracked the code.’
    Monkey followed her at a discreet distance to the disused loco bridge. They went to the far end and climbed up the embankment so that they were in a blind spot, obscured from both the road and the security cameras.
    â€˜Go on,’ Monkey said, wanting to find out how much she’d discovered before he disclosed his hand.
    â€˜Well,’ Angel began, ‘it’s a code that uses base ten but starts at number five...’
    â€˜I know what the code says,’ Monkey interrupted; irritated that she should have cracked it so easily. ‘What else do you know?’
    Angel seemed disappointed that he wasn’t more grateful, but went on, ‘I’m pretty sure that the last line, ombe mag, is a reference to a small hamlet about fifteen K out of town called Combe Magna.’
    â€˜And?’ Monkey asked.
    â€˜Well, before the fossil fuels ran out, it was a satellite village for commuters. Prior to that, at the beginning of the last century, it was a rural community of smallholders and arable farmers.’
    Angel gave Monkey a potted history of rural life before the revolution. When farming was no longer viable, the farmers moved out and the commuters moved in, travelling into town daily in their motor vehicles to go to work. With the abolition of private ownership of cars after the Oil Wars, the commuters moved back into town, and the villages, including Combe Magna, fell into disrepair. With the exception of a few seniors who were too able-bodied for The Pastures and who preferred to run their own self-sufficient communes rather than move into the towns, many of the houses in the once thriving rural communities were almost derelict.
    â€˜So, why would Tragic and Jane have gone there?’ Monkey asked. ‘And how did you find out all this?’
    Angel shrugged. ‘In answer to question one: I have no idea. But I got all the other stuff from Sally’s info-web. Don’t forget, she’s a solicitor so she has a higher level clearance than the school or even the CRC. She went downstairs yesterday and I snuck into her room while she was logged on.’ Monkey raised an eyebrow. So much for Angel being a good girl! ‘Apparently, Combe Magna was one of the villages in contention for a Farm development, but The Assembly decided against it.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜It was too close to town and there was always a danger of escape. Look.’ She drew a printout of an old map from her pocket. ‘See, it’s just north of here. We could walk it in two and a half hours - or cycle in less.’
    â€˜We?’ Monkey looked at her and shook his head. ‘No way!’
    â€˜Fine!’ she said, purposefully folding up the map and putting it back in her pocket. She stood up to leave. ‘Let me know how you get on.’
    â€˜Wait!’ Monkey put out a hand and grabbed her arm to stop her leaving. ‘Why’re you doing this?’
    Angel smiled. ‘Because it’s exciting.’ She sat down again. ‘You have no idea how boring it is just studying and going to gym club and chatting about nurturing and clothes and cooking and stuff.’ She groaned and dropped her head forwards, then sat up and looked Monkey in the eye. ‘I got a real buzz the other night. OK, so I was terrified but, once my heart rate slowed down again, I’d enjoyed doing something un-nurturey. And, I agree with you: I do think there’s