4

Three weeks later

Baz stood inside the concrete skate-park on the south side of the River Thames next to Waterloo Bridge. Outside, sleeting rain lashed a sea of umbrellas bobbing along the Embankment. The weather had turned the skate-park into a temporary shelter for the homeless, displacing them from the various pavements and benches that dotted the South Bank.

The atmosphere in the concrete park was fetid, with steam rising from the sleeping figures crowded into each other. There was a sense of menace too, the inevitable by-product of too many homeless gathered into one place. Each had their worldly possessions on them, and in confined spaces like this, the weakest became vulnerable to the powerful and unscrupulous.

Standing on the periphery of the group, he was aware of the tension in the space but didn’t care. Most of those here knew he’d been a trained soldier, and those that didn’t couldn’t miss his size. Nor the constant tics and twitches that racked his body. Everyone gave him a wide berth.

His focus now was on the rumbling of his belly, and he cast a professional eye over the commuters and tourists that rushed along the Embankment. He was not by nature a violent man, so feeding himself through brute force wasn’t an option. Nor was begging. He had seen one of the older homeless men take out a sign that morning with the words, ‘I AM TOO ASHAMED TO LOOK AT YOU’ and take up a position on the Embankment, kneeling, his eyes cast down on the ground. That servitude, the humiliation that was offered up as a trade for pennies, was not for Baz. And since no employer would hire him, that left only one other option.

Ahead of him, a couple in raincoats and tartan scarves wrestled with their umbrella. He dismissed them as unlikely targets.

Baz had lifted two wallets today. The first one was a gift; it had hung out so far from the tourist’s back pocket that it resembled a dog’s lolling tongue. The wallets nestled reassuringly in Baz’s front pocket now. Twenty pounds more, and he could get into a shelter for the week.

And then he saw her.

A little girl with elfin features weaving through the throng. Baz could tell she was neither trailing someone nor being trailed. In other words: alone.

On her back was a leather backpack. Even discounting the contents, the bag itself would be worth forty quid. With studied nonchalance, Baz stepped out from the mouth of the concrete overhang and began to follow her.

It turned out to be more difficult than he had anticipated. She was fast and took a circuitous route that left him at times scanning the crowd to see where she had gone. In and out she zipped, until he found the effort of keeping up had covered his forehead with a film of sweat. It was not easy to be inconspicuous either, he was a head and shoulders taller than most of those around him, and the twitches made those on either side of him look over with concern.

Baz was beginning to consider giving up when she stopped dead in her tracks and he almost collided into her. Seizing the opportunity, he grabbed the pack with one hand and one of her arms with the other, lifting the item clear from her.

As some onlookers began to notice what was happening, he turned and headed quickly down a side alley. But the girl would not let go. She clung to the bag, her heels digging into the pavement with a determination that surprised Baz. He turned around and lifted the backpack clean off the ground, only to find that the girl came with it, swinging up and colliding into his chest like a human wrecking ball.

‘Drop it, or I’ll drop you,’ he hissed.

The girl hesitated for a second and then dropped the strap, tumbling back to the ground. Her hands were clad in long-sleeved gloves, and she crossed her arms as she considered Baz, not with hatred but with something else. It was almost as if she was sizing him up.

A few of the passers-by had stopped and were looking at the strange sight: a brute of a man squaring off against an eleven-year-old. Baz could see that their fear would soon give way to righteousness. He turned on his heels and ran in the opposite direction.

He found an overhang in the concrete ceiling of the bunker-façade of the National Theatre and inspected his prize.

He unzipped the top and rifled inside.

But it was empty.

He frowned in confusion. A bad feeling had begun to gather in the centre of his chest. He turned the bag upside down and checked the manufacturer’s label.

It wasn’t even leather. It was a cheap knock-off. Not worth two quid.

It made no sense. Why put up such a fight over a worthless item?

And then it dawned on Baz. The realization was so far-fetched it couldn’t be true. But just the possibility began to make him feel physically sick.

His muttering increased in volume and took on a desperate edge. He reached into his pocket with a trembling hand and checked for the wallets there.

They were gone.

He looked everywhere for her. It was fruitless, he knew. No one ever stayed in the same territory after taking down a mark. He was furious at himself, and his tics became more pronounced, his shoulders bouncing as if in syncopation to some silent tune.

He was almost back to the skate-park when a sight made him stop dead.

There she was.

In the exact spot he was in when he first laid eyes on her. She sat on a low wall, her legs kicking nonchalantly into the air as she watched him approach.

‘You can have them back,’ she said. ‘I just want to talk.’