A grim prospect greeted Troy and Bonham. Eight small boys ranged across the pavement, all looking expectantly towards Bonham. No one spoke, the expectant looks seemed fixed somewhere between joy and tears. Sgt Bonham held power over the greatest, the most mysterious event in their short lives. Troy looked down at a motley of gabardine mackintoshes, outsized jackets tied up with string, brown boots, pudding basin haircuts, bruised and scabrous kneecaps. Such an amazing array of ill-fitting hand-me-downs that only the peach-fresh faces challenged the image of them as eight assorted dwarves. Out on the end of the line, a grubby redhead, doubtless called Carrots, juggled a smouldering cocoa tin from hand to hand, an improvised portable furnace. Troy wished he had one of his own.
Troy glanced at the boys, wondering how much they heard and how much they understood. Eight cherubic faces, and sixteen hard, ruthless eyes looked back at him. Preserving innocence seemed a fruitless ideal.
‘How would you like to make some money?’ he said.
‘How much?’ said the biggest.
‘A shilling,’ said Troy.
‘Half a crown,’ said the boy.
‘You don’t know what it’s for yet!’
‘It’ll still cost you half a dollar,’ the boy replied.
‘OK, OK,’ said Troy, ‘half a crown to the boy who finds the rest.’
‘Freddie, for God’s sake,’ Bonham cut in. ‘You can’t!’
He gripped Troy by the shoulder and swung him round into a huddled attempt at privacy.
‘Are you off yer chump?’
‘George, can you think of any other way?’
‘For Christ’s sake they’re kids. They should be in school!’
‘Well they clearly have no intention of going. And they don’t exactly look like Freddie Bartholomew do they?’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Bonham said again.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Troy.
‘On your own head be it.’
Troy turned back to the boys, ranged in front of him in a wide semicircle.
‘I want you to look for . . .’ he hesitated, uncertain what to call a corpse. ‘For anything to do with what Tub found. OK?’
They nodded as one.
‘And if you find it don’t touch it. You come straight back and tell Mr Bonham, and nobody, I mean nobody, goes near it till he’s seen what you’ve found. Understood?’
‘You know, Freddie,’ Bonham said softly, ‘There are times when I think there’s nothing like a long spell at the Yard for putting iron in the soul.’