Let’s drop through winter clouds one night in the Year of the Snake, until London takes shape on the ground. From here, it’s just a million points of light like the stars above. The River Thames divides the city. She may look like a glistening black serpent, but appearances can be deceptive at this hour. Pleasure cruisers are moored along the banks, while tourists from every country on this earth are tucked up in hotels for miles both north and south.
Sail in closer and the streets emerge, with terraced rows and high-rise blocks providing order to the tangle. Monuments and landmarks are bathed in floodlight – from Buckingham Palace to Nelson’s Column – and form a pattern of their own. The London Eye may not turn until day cracks over the eastern skyline, but the big wheel makes the British capital look like an urban fairground.
Here, in these upper reaches, the chill is enough to freeze the blood. So, despite the attractions and distractions, it’s time to plunge on towards a quarter at the heart of this metropolis. Within it lies a warren of side streets marked out from the rest by strings of paper lanterns and blinking neon dragons. A low fog may have crept out from the river, but swoop in quickly and we’ll catch up with a small boy, careering over the cobblestones.
For this is London’s Chinatown, and the kid is running for his life.
His name is Yoshi. He’s thirteen years old, oriental on one side or the other, and soon that’s about all he’ll be able to say about himself. This boy may have a bright future ahead of him, but his past is set to become a mystery.
Behind him, an unseen force is closing in swiftly. Yoshi sprints through the deserted market now, upturning pushcarts and poultry cages. Must. Get. Away. He urges himself between breaths. Can’t. Go. Back. He dares to glance over his shoulder. There’s nothing to see but a soupy fog, which quickly begins to stir and draw in on itself. The boy doesn’t need to hang around to know what’s about to push through it. He snaps his attention ahead once more, only to barrel right into a stack of empty packing boxes . . . Ooomph! The stack collapses around him, but he’s up on his feet and into a side alley before the last box hits the ground.
Now what’s this? His first impression is of a cut-throat kind of cut-through, but at least from here Yoshi can catch his breath and let his eyes adjust. He presses against one wall, head up high as he gulps the air. Seconds later, a shadow stretches across the street he’s just left behind. Struggling not to squeak, Yoshi turns to make his escape – and finds himself face to face with a very dead end.
On one side he makes out a laundry, shuttered for the night, and further up a backroom kitchen with bins outside too full for Yoshi to climb into and hide. The door to the kitchen is ajar, however. The boy creeps towards it, on tiptoes now. Hot steam billows through the gap, with a light shining brightly inside. There’s a chef at work in there, but the chop knife in his hand persuades our boy not to trespass in a bid to save his own skin. Instead, he creeps on by with his breath well bated. There’s nothing beyond but darkness, but at least he can be sure that he’s hidden from sight. Until, that is, Yoshi takes one step too far into the gloom, and causes several pigeons to flock into the air.
“There you are, child!”
With his heart in his throat, Yoshi spins to see a figure take shape at the mouth of the alley: a bull of a man in a long white mink coat. Beneath his furrowed brow both eyes are tight on the boy. His nostrils flare, and he takes a slow step forward. Yoshi backs away. A cry dies in his throat as he connects with the far wall, only to gasp when his heel finds a drop just in front. Crouching among weeds now, he uncovers a grille of some sort: old iron bars buckled apart at the centre. If he breathes in deeply, he thinks to himself, the gap might just be wide enough for someone his size to squeeze through. Lowering himself out of sight, the boy hears the man’s idle chuckling turn into a mystified growl, followed by thunderous footfalls.
The space he’s in down here feels no bigger than a coffin, and that’s precisely what the poor boy believes it’ll become when two baleful eyes appear above the bars.
“Show yourself, little worm! Let’s make this easy for us both.”
“Get away from me!” In desperation Yoshi wriggles from a meaty paw. The litter that has gathered down here is damp and stinky, but the boy is prepared to bury himself in it to avoid being hauled out. “Do you hear me?” he cries out again. “You can go to hell!”
“Come and finish the programme like a good boy!” this fearsome figure bellows. “Let’s make this easy for us both.”
“I’d sooner die than go back again!”
Yoshi twists and turns until his pursuer quits trying to grab him. Glancing up, the boy catches sight of him reaching inside his mink instead.
“So be it,” the brute sighs, sounding genuinely sorry up there. “If I can’t put the squeeze on you then maybe this can . . .” What he draws from his pocket strikes terror into the boy: a snake, tail-first, and a long one, too. Hand over hand he uncoils this scaly rope, until a diamond-shaped head clears his coat with a hiss, and a forked tongue flicks towards the boy. “It’s a vintage year for you, my pretty. And Yoshi here would like to help you celebrate it!”
Panic-stricken, the boy tucks tightly into his pit. At the same time, he senses that the floor feels unsteady. It’s a sheet of corrugated iron, he realises, which is sagging with his weight where it meets the wall. Yoshi barely has time to take in the points of light breaking out as the sheet dips further still. What he can’t ignore is the sight of the snake coiling around the bars, slowly invading his hiding space. It hisses again, so close to his face now that it might be whispering to him. All Yoshi can do is shut his eyes, praying that the embrace he can expect from it will finish him off quickly.
“You have a key to this city,” the man growls. “If I cannot unlock what is mine, then you must take it to your grave.”
“No!”
“Hey, mister!” Another voice cuts in, causing the man in the mink to stand tall and spin around. He still has the snake in his grip, however, and its eyes seem to pop out on stalks at this sudden exit from the pit.
“The restaurant is closed. What’s your business outside my kitchen?”
The chef! thinks Yoshi, but there’s nothing left in his lungs to cry out for help. He sees his pursuer slip him a murderous glance, and then turn to explain himself:
“I’m catching rats,” he offers. “Slippery ones.”
“With a snake?” says the chef, suspiciously.
“It’s a new form of fishing,” the brute replies, sounding less sure of himself now. “You just cast your snake into the drains and wait for a bite, so to speak. You should try it,” he suggests, with yet another glance at the boy watching through the bars. “In fact, you should’ve seen the one that got away just now.”
The chef considers his story silently for a beat, clearly not buying a word of it. “Mister,” he says finally, “any rats around here get their tails chopped off by me. The same applies to snakes if I find them lurking outside my kitchen, and that means human snakes, too, if you get my drift. Now scram, before I call out the boys from my backroom. They don’t like to be disturbed from their card games, especially by sneak thieves.”
“I’m not here to rob you! This is urban angling.”
“Sure it is. Now, I’m going to count to three, mister. What’s it to be?”
The man in the mink considers things for a moment, and then sighs heavily. From the pit, Yoshi sees him drape the snake around his neck, and then loop it like a scarf to keep out the cold. “Maybe I’ll wait on the street,” he grumbles, before making his reluctant retreat. “My rat’s going to have to make a break for it some time.”
“You do that,” the chef agrees, sounding more relaxed now. “And tell your robber friends that anyone caught around here after dark is likely to lose fingers!”
Yoshi doesn’t breathe out until he’s sure that his pursuer has left the alley. He draws the air in deeply, and then promptly holds it in his lungs when the chef appears above the buckled vent again. Yoshi can’t understand a word he’s muttering to himself, but the chop knife in his hand gives out an unmistakeable message. His apron is spattered with blood, as is the blade that he swipes through the shadows now. If this crazed-looking cook is hoping to connect with cornered vermin, he comes close to a big surprise. Finally, with what sounds to the boy like a curse, he gives up and returns to his kitchen.
It’s over, thinks Yoshi to himself, still shaken to the core by what he’s just been through. The man in the mink might be lurking at the alley mouth, but the boy knows he has the time and space now to find a way over the wall and up onto the safety of the rooftops. He reaches up to climb out of the pit, not knowing whether to whoop or weep at his lucky escape. Popping his head through the bars, he’s delighted to find the coast is clear. He savours the cold night air, his first taste of freedom . . . and promptly takes it down into the depths as the pit floor drops away.