Under Cover (Agent 21) (3 page)

‘How much?’ Baxter asked.

Chuckle 1 flicked through the wad of notes. ‘Hundred and five . . . no, ten . . .’ He sounded like he was having trouble with the adding up.

Ricky’s winded lungs were still gasping for air, but in the quiet of his mind, Ziggy was feeding him instructions.

– Run now, while he’s got his hands full of money. The front door’s open – you can feel the air coming in. If you get out of this with just a punch in the stomach, you’ll have done well. You’ve seen what they’ve done to other people . . .

True enough. These guys thought nothing of breaking a few bones. Ricky gripped the handle of his bag, gulped once more for air and sprinted towards the front door.

Baxter shouted: ‘Get him!’ But Ricky had found his legs. Seconds later he had burst out of the front door and was sprinting down the road.

– I seem to have done a lot of running today.

– Well, don’t stop now, unless you want another fist in your face.

Ricky’s lungs burned. He looked over his shoulder. Twenty metres behind him, Baxter and his men were at the door of the house. Baxter was gesticulating at them, clearly telling them where to run in order to cut Ricky off.

– Remember what that weird man said: ‘When you know you’re faster than someone, run in a straight line. Otherwise they might out-think you, like I just did.’

Good advice. Ricky kept running to the end of the street, across the main road that ran at right angles to it and straight down another street that continued in the same direction. When he looked back over his shoulder five minutes later, Baxter and his heavies were nowhere to be seen.

He stopped at a children’s playground in an area of open parkland alongside the road. It was empty, which was hardly surprising, since the swings were padlocked and out of order, there were graffiti on the play panels and a heap of litter on the ground. Ricky sat at the bottom of the slide and took a moment to catch his breath.

With sweaty hands he opened up the bag and rooted around inside it for the precious photograph and the letter. They were still there at the bottom. The glass of the photo frame had cracked, but that didn’t matter. He could still see the photo of him, his mum and his dad sitting on a park bench, his older sister Madeleine between them. They were all laughing at a long-forgotten joke. And the letter was still snugly tucked inside its envelope.

He carefully put his treasures back into the bag. Then he looked around to check nobody was watching him, before removing his right trainer. Inside, carefully folded up, was the twenty-pound note.

For the second time in the last few minutes, he felt a moment of gratitude for the advice he had received from that odd-bod with the bald head and bad teeth. This was now the only money he had in the world.

– And you don’t even have a place to live.

– Shut up. I’ll think of something.

But right now, he couldn’t think what that something would be.

Even a B & B was out of the question. Too expensive, even if he could nick more money first, and a kid Ricky’s age could never book a room without somebody asking questions.

He quickly rejected the idea of approaching the Thrownaways. He didn’t need any more fights, or any more scars.

Ricky bitterly resented the loss of his room. Baxter might have been loathsome, but at least he didn’t care that Ricky was only fourteen years old.

He needed
somewhere
to sleep. The thought of being alone on the streets, all night, frightened him. Anything could happen there.

At first, he felt like he was wandering aimlessly. But as dusk arrived, he found himself walking footsore along the Euston Road. He realized that he had been heading for central London all along. He felt slightly more comfortable there, at least during the day. The bustle and the noise were the closest he ever got to having company. In any case, all the vagrants seemed to congregate there. And he was one of them now.

– We have to eat
, Ziggy said.

True. Ricky was weak with hunger. Certainly too weak to pick someone’s pocket. You needed your wits about you when you did that, and all he could think about now was his hunger pangs. His stomach groaned as he walked past pizza restaurants and steak houses. As he looked in through the windows, his reflection stared back – his right eye was so swollen it was almost closed up. He touched it gently, then winced. He could forget about pickpocketing for several days. To do that, you needed to be invisible. With a face like this, he was anything but.

He wondered how little of his twenty pounds he could spend in return for a full belly. Eventually he decided chocolate bars were his best bet – cheap and filling – so he bought two Snickers from a Tesco Metro, then started looking for somewhere to settle down and eat them.

He chose Bloomsbury Square. He liked it there among the old university buildings. It had a patch of garden in the middle, with several little thickets of trees dotted around. The garden was surrounded by high railings, and there were benches that he could sit on – and, perhaps later, sleep on. He chose a bench on the north side of the garden, where he sat down to eat. He had to stop himself from wolfing down the chocolate bars, savouring each mouthful slowly. Experience told him that food would be in short supply in the days and weeks to come, so he should enjoy it while he had it.

As he ate, he looked around the gardens. He wasn’t alone. On the far side, two women and one man were sipping from cans of lager. They looked to Ricky like they were homeless. You started to recognize the signs after a while – the old clothes, the long hair, the look of hopelessness. A couple of teenage girls were sitting on another bench, chatting and playing music from their phones. A middle-aged man was walking his dog. Ricky kept his head down and concentrated on his food.

– They’re watching you.

– I know. I saw them.

The homeless trio with the lager were staring at him. No doubt they too recognized a fellow vagrant. But Ricky noticed something else in their stare.

– They’ve seen you’ve got food. Food means money. They’re thinking, you’re just a kid. You should get out of here before they go for you.

But Ricky was too exhausted to move. He finished his chocolate, but kept half an eye on the trio who were taking so much interest in him.

Five minutes passed. It was fully dark now. Another man entered the gardens. He looked official – blazer, peaked cap. He walked up to the two girls listening to music. Ricky couldn’t hear their conversation but he could tell what was happening. They were being asked to leave. He glanced at the big iron gate through which he’d entered the gardens, and realized that it must be locked at night. Clearly nobody wanted homeless people loitering here after dark.

The girls turned off their music and the park-keeper headed over to the dog-walker.

The three down-and-outs, however, still had their eyes on Ricky. They stood up, so Ricky did the same. He didn’t really want to leave this square – it would be a good place to stay the night, he had decided, because if he was locked inside he would be protected from the street. But it looked like he needed to get ready to run again.

The dog-walker was making his way towards the gate. Now the park-keeper was approaching the vagrants. He stood in front of them, blocking their view of Ricky.

– Hide. Now, while nobody’s watching. You’ll be safe locked inside the square for the night, where nobody can get at you . . .

The nearest thicket was about five metres away. Ricky grabbed his bag and stealthily headed towards it. Seconds later, he was hidden among the leaves and low branches. Something scratched his bruised face and he winced, but kept quiet.

A tiny gap in the foliage gave him a view onto the square. The vagrants were walking towards the exit while the park-keeper looked around to check there was nobody else to kick out. He seemed satisfied, but the same couldn’t be said of the woman holding her can of lager. She had a scary, raddled, pockmarked face. In his time on the streets, Ricky had learned to recognize the features of a drug addict, and he was looking at them now.

And unlike the park-keeper she seemed to look straight through the foliage at Ricky’s exact position.

– She knows you’re here.

– Too right.

‘Get a move on!’ the park-keeper shouted. The woman swayed slightly, but then she obediently followed the others to – and through – the gate, which the park-keeper locked behind him with a big iron key.

Ricky didn’t move. From his hiding place he kept his eyes on the scary woman. Silhouetted in the darkness, she reminded him of a witch in a story book his mum had once read him. The witch was talking to her companions. Ricky held his breath, hoping that they would disappear. But they didn’t. They started to circle the garden.

He watched, breathlessly, as the scary woman prowled round the railings. ‘I know you’re in there, kid,’ she hissed when she was just a few metres from Ricky’s position. ‘You’d better pass us any money you’ve got, if you don’t want us to be waiting for you in the morning.’

– Stay still!

The witch gave a harsh laugh and retreated.

The darkness deepened. The only light came from the vehicles circling Bloomsbury Square. Ricky started to shiver.

– Put some more clothes on.

He pulled a threadbare jumper out of his bag. It helped a bit. He peered towards the railings again. They were about two metres high, with sharp points on the top. Nobody was getting in here tonight. He was safe, until morning.

Ricky lay on the cold ground and used his bag as a pillow. The earth leached the warmth from his body and he started to shiver and ache. His swollen, painful face felt twice its usual size. He tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. He soon grew hungry again, and wished he’d saved one of his chocolate bars.

He sat up and removed the letter from his sister from his rucksack. His hands always trembled slightly when he removed the single piece of paper from the envelope. Before he unfolded it, he sniffed the paper. He sometimes thought he could smell Madeleine’s perfume, but maybe that was his mind playing tricks. He opened it up and started to read, only just able to pick out the letters in the gloom:

Ricky closed his eyes and folded the paper again. He couldn’t bear to read on tonight. He tucked the letter carefully back into his rucksack, and tried to sleep again.

The hours passed slowly. In the small hours of the morning he sat up and once more peered through the foliage towards the railings. The traffic had died down now and there were only a few late-night passers-by. He tried to pick out their faces, to see if any of them was the witch. But it was too dark to tell.

– Maybe she’s wandered off to find someone else to steal from.

– Yeah. Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Thoughts rebounded in his head as he tried to plan his next move. He couldn’t pick pockets with a face like this. Could the remains of his twenty pounds last until his bruises healed? It would have to . . .

Ricky had once heard someone say that the darkest hour came just before dawn. He didn’t know if that was true, but it was certainly the coldest. His body had given up shivering, like it didn’t have the energy. He was numb and could barely feel his own limbs. He forced himself to stand up in an attempt to get his blood moving.

And that was when he saw them. Three silhouettes.

Like dangerous animals in a zoo, they prowled along the railings on either side of the gate. Occasionally they stopped, held the railings and looked in. From a distance, Ricky recognized the witch’s face. It was drawn and lean, and there was a nasty hunger in her eyes – like a predator that knew there was an easy meal within reach. He looked at the other silhouettes in turn. One of them was female, the other male. All thin. All with the same desperate look in their eyes.

– They’ve probably got knives. You should hand over your money now. Save yourself getting cut.

– No way. That’ll leave me with nothing. I’ll starve . . .

– Maybe I should stash what I’ve got left in my shoe again . . .

But he only had coins now, and if he stuffed those in his shoe they would hinder him if he had to run. Not that he thought he’d be able to run, he was so cold. This was going to end ugly.

The grey light of dawn arrived. As the traffic started to build up again, the vultures continued to loiter around the square. And when, an hour after first light, the park-keeper returned to open up the gate, they thronged around it. Feeding time.

The witch was the first to enter, along with one of her companions, a man with tombstone teeth and tattoos over his neck. The others loitered by the gate, obviously ready to catch Ricky if he made a run for it.

– She’s coming your way.

– Thanks. I noticed.

– What are you going to do?

Ricky picked up his bag, then stepped out from behind the foliage where he had spent the night. When she saw him, the witch’s lip curled. ‘Looks like we got ourselves a score,’ she rasped nastily to her companion. ‘Empty your pockets out, cutie pie. Let’s see your money,’ she snarled. ‘And your shoes. I’ll have those trainers too . . .’