CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next day the raid on the Lost and Found boxes of New York City began.

‘We need to move fast,’ said Vita. She told them, as briefly as she could, about the papers; about the fresh jolt of urgency running through their plan.

‘But what is he actually doing?’ said Arkady.

‘I think he cons people – threatens them, cheats them, I don’t know – into selling old buildings – beautiful ones, in beautiful places – very cheap. Places it would be illegal to knock down, because they’re protected. And then gives orders for them to be burned down, so he can build something new.’

‘So did your grandpa sell his house?’ said Silk.

‘No, no, no! But it’s the same thing: Sorrotore’s going to set it on fire. And there’s no time.’ The panic rose in her, and she forced it back down, away from her heart. ‘Let’s split up. We’ll meet back here tonight.’

They walked and ran, between them, almost the length and breadth of New York. Silk, who knew the city best, split it into sections on Vita’s map. She did not glance at Vita’s foot, but gave her the places nearest to Carnegie Hall.

Silk uncovered one small adult’s grey jacket in Chumley’s speakeasy in Greenwich Village, which almost fitted Arkady, and Vita found an ankle-length blue velvet dress at the terrifyingly marble-and-gold Waldorf Hotel. The dress was hideous and too tight, but it radiated sweetness and nursery rhymes. It also came down to the floor, hiding her left calf and ankle. Samuel found an entire suit of boy’s clothes, in a thick brown material, recovered from the Algonquin Hotel.

He looked victorious, and angry. ‘They wouldn’t give it to me at first, so I told them I was a houseboy for the family. Then they handed it over without blinking.’

Arkady looked at his friend: at his fury, and the hurt in his eyes. ‘Chyort,’ he said. ‘I hope you spat on them.’

Samuel tried to smile. ‘That wouldn’t have helped much,’ he said.

Finally, just as Silk was beginning to despair, it occurred to her to ask at the Lyceum Theatre if anyone had left behind a coat in the cloakroom in the last month. She was rewarded with a white hooded cloak trimmed with swan feathers, which reached almost to the ground. It was a little greying at the sleeve and neck, and the swan feathers were possibly a bit much, but it was undeniably smart.

‘Let’s meet somewhere posh!’ Vita had said. ‘As a test! If people don’t stare, we’ll know we look right.’

‘The Plaza Hotel. It’s just on the edge of Central Park – it’s the smartest place in New York,’ Silk said. She was using Vita’s penknife to trim back the swan feathers from her cuffs. ‘The old women who go there for tea can guess how rich you are by the way you sneeze. If nobody stares at us there, nobody ever will.’

Samuel hesitated. Then: ‘People will still stare,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’ said Vita.

‘People will still stare. At me. If we try to go somewhere rich. Even if I’m dressed up, they’ll still stare.’

Vita felt herself colour, a flood of red rising up her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I should have thought of that. Let’s—’

‘No,’ said Samuel. He fingered the brown cloth of the suit jacket. There was doubt in his face, but something else, too: the same determination that had once allowed a four-year-old boy to do secret backflips across a pitch-black bedroom. His jaw worked as he set his teeth. ‘We’ll go anyway. I want to. If they stare at me, I’ll stare back.’

The Plaza Hotel was the kind of place you expect to find people clad in velvet and swan’s feathers, who pitch their voices low and their eyebrows high. It was for people who did not walk but swept.

Vita did her best to sweep as she made her way up to the vast door. She nodded to the doorman and went in, keeping her chin as high as it would go.

A man followed behind her. His eyes, had she turned to see them, were unsure: they studied not her face but her feet, covered by the floor-length dress. His hand was tattooed with a spitting cat.

‘Over here!’ called Arkady. The three stood inside the Palm Court, by the central bar, on which stood a vast golden statue of the Greek god Hermes. Across the ceiling, hanging from sturdy ropes, were autumnal wreaths and bowers, so that the room appeared to be half dining room, half exquisite forest. Vita stared. Money shone from the faces of every person there.

A family group, dining on pressed chicken and savoury jellies, glanced over at Samuel, then looked away. Samuel lifted his chin and glared back. It was, Vita thought, the kind of glare that could boil ice.

‘Trees and leaves indoors,’ said Arkady. He wrinkled his nose at the potted palm trees that filled the room. ‘But no birds. Ridiculous.’ Then he held out his jacket to Vita. ‘What do you think?’

Vita looked them up and down. Both boys wore ties; all four of them were scrubbed clean. ‘If we looked any more innocent,’ she said, ‘we’d be arrested for it.’ She felt the excitement rise in her. ‘We’re ready. We go tomorrow! It’s going to happen!’ And she spun around, so her dress flared out around her shins, showing her bright red boots.

Across the room, the man with the cat tattoo nodded to himself, and quietly stepped outside.

‘Guys,’ said Samuel. He spoke without moving his lips. ‘I think we should go.’

‘Why?’ said Silk. ‘Are people staring? Show me, and I’ll—’

‘No. I think someone’s recognised us.’

‘Us?’

‘Recognised Vita. Let’s go.’

But as they moved for the vast glass doors out to the street, the man came back in, with two others following behind, both clad in grey suits. Their eyes were fixed on Vita. She felt her body seize up.

Samuel looked from Vita’s face, to the men, and back.

‘Run!’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got an idea. Ark, I need your help.’

‘But—’ began Silk.

‘Just run!’ Samuel had that same sharp, unswerving look that Vita had seen on his face as he jumped out of the midnight window. ‘Go!’ he said. He pushed past the other three, rubbing the inside of his elbow, rolling his shoulders, as if about to mount the trapeze and fly. Arkady ran after him.

‘Come on,’ hissed Silk. ‘I know a way out.’ And she darted to the left, towards the kitchen entrance. Vita ran, trying to keep her weight on her right foot, but three men were coming after them, moving as unobtrusively as they could through the tables.

Arkady turned to Samuel. They had three seconds in which to whisper, their eyes on the men.

‘Listo, Sam?’

‘Ready,’ said Samuel.

‘Hep!’ said Arkady, and held out his two hands, fingers intertwined. Samuel bit his lips together, set his foot in the stirrup of Arkady’s hands, and leaped like a ballet dancer into the air.

He landed sitting astride the shoulders of the statue of Hermes, scrambled up into a crouch, leaped again, and seized hold of one of the ropes that bore the autumnal wreaths. Leaves showered down across the room. A woman in a pearl-dotted beret choked on her tea. A small child cheered. A fluffy white poodle barked.

Samuel swung on the rope, casting his weight back and forth, then let go and flew across the room. He pointed his feet, stretched out both arms, and landed in the uppermost leaves of one of the palm trees, which fell with a crash. It overturned two tables and a visiting Russian Ambassador, striking one of the grey-suited men on the shoulder.

Several waiters yelled and swore, and staff came running out of the kitchen to find out the cause of the chaos. People were crowding round, but Samuel was up, disentangling himself from palms, dodging hands, running towards the kitchens.

The tattooed man pushed aside a shouting waiter and reached out his hand to grab at Samuel’s back. Arkady whistled, and the miniature poodle barked. He pointed, and the man found a small ball of toothy fluff flying at his upper thigh.

The two boys sprinted to the kitchen, dodging past staff coming in the other direction, then hurled themselves out of the back door into an alley.

Silk and Vita had just reached the end of the alley. Now they turned and waited for the boys.

‘I guess –’ Samuel gasped for breath, and his eyes were alight – ‘we gave them a reason to stare.’

Across the road stretched the black expanse of Central Park.

‘That way!’ said Vita.

‘Can we have a pact, next time,’ said Samuel as they ran, ‘that when one of us says run, you have to run?’

It had begun to rain, and the ground was slippery. They were halfway across the road when the door of the kitchen swung open again, and the men came out.

‘Hey! Slow down! We ain’t gonna hurt you!’ called one.

Silk swerved, and Vita tripped over her own foot in the middle of the road and cursed. Cars rushed by, inches from her. She hauled herself up and darted over the road, weaving in and out of traffic. The others were waiting, and they threw themselves into the darkness of Central Park.

It was very different from the autumn-bright place she and Grandpa had walked through. He would be furious if he saw her now – he would think she had broken her promise – but Vita shoved the thought away. It was pitch black and she led the way at a run, down the empty tree-lined avenue, past the spot where Dillinger had grabbed her arm. The footsteps behind them were closing in – Vita dodged behind a dripping wet bush and the others followed, panting.

Footsteps neared them, then passed them, heading further into the Park.

‘Come out, kid! This isn’t a game.’

Vita crouched, utterly still, rain dripping off her face. She was aware it was not a game.

The voice came again; it was impossible to tell from exactly where. ‘Just give us that ring, and everyone gets to go home.’

The four faced one another amid the leaves.

‘What are we going to do?’ breathed Silk. There was a crackle of panic in her voice. ‘We can’t outrun them.’

‘Yes you can,’ whispered Vita, for the men were unfit, built for muscle not speed. ‘Only I can’t. You should go! They’re only interested in me.’

Arkady snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Vita cast a desperate look into the Park. The path forked ahead, leading to one wide footpath and one narrow one. The autumn leaves had fallen so thickly they almost hid the manhole cover in the middle of the narrow path.

The same manhole cover down which Dillinger had disappeared.

‘If you come out now,’ came a voice through the dark, beyond the trees, ‘we’ll be in a much better mood than if you come out later.’

‘Someone should scalp the little brat.’

The footsteps began to return towards them.

Vita looked again at the manhole cover. Then she crept, her left foot dragging through the wet puddles, water soaking into the red silk of her boot, and bent to grab the metal edge of it. She heaved. It lifted a quarter of an inch.

‘In here!’ she hissed.

Arkady stared at her. ‘Vita!’ he whispered. ‘That’s the sewer!’

‘It’s not!’ She struggled with the disc of metal. It weighed as much as a grown man. ‘It’s OK. Come on!’ she said to the manhole cover, and heaved again.

‘How do you know?’

‘I saw someone else do it. That man, Dillinger.’ Their faces were loose with astonishment. ‘Here, help me, one of you! – I can’t lift it.’

All three scrambled to her side and together they lifted the cover clear.

‘Quick!’ said Vita, looking back over her shoulder. They were out in the open, vulnerable.

Silk looked down, disgusted, at the cold blackness beneath their feet, but the burr of voices was coming closer. She set her foot on the ladder and disappeared into the dark. Arkady followed at a swift scrabble. Samuel gave Vita a push.

‘Go.’

Vita went as fast as she could, which was not fast, her left foot twisting and slipping against the metal rungs of the ladder set into the brick wall. An agonising pain shot up towards her knee.

She was only halfway down when above her Samuel gasped, and the cover clanged shut, encasing them all in darkness. He did not follow her down the ladder, but leaped outwards, dropping past her into the black and landing in a practised crouch on the floor. Then he came shinning back up the ladder beneath her.

‘Do you need a hand?’ he asked, his voice low.

‘I’m OK,’ she said, but his presence on the rung below – the knowledge that if she slipped she would be caught – helped, and she moved more swiftly, gritting her teeth.

They stood, the four of them, at the foot of the ladder. Vita could not see the walls; could not see her own hand in front of her.

‘Does anyone have a torch?’ asked Silk.

Samuel felt in his pockets. ‘I’ve got matches,’ he said.

He lit one, and in its flickering light they could see they were standing at the opening of a tunnel – to the left, there was a black, wet wall.

‘Shh,’ said Silk. ‘Listen!’

There was only the drip of water; and then voices came from above them.

‘This is ridiculous. Let’s get out of here.’

There was a snort: cruel, and frightened. ‘I’m not going back to him without that ring: you can if you want. They can’t have gone far – she’s a cripple!’

Vita’s eyes widened, and, voicelessly, she pointed down the dark tunnel. If the men thought to lift the manhole cover, they must see only darkness.

‘How do we get out?’ whispered Arkady as they walked.

‘There are hundreds of manholes all over New York,’ said Vita.

Samuel nodded in the match-light. ‘We’ll keep going until we see a ladder.’

‘Some of them will be bolted down,’ said Silk.

‘But not all. We’ll just go on until we find one that isn’t.’

Samuel led the way, holding his matches up high until they burned down to the very tips of his fingers.

‘I’ve only got five matches left,’ said Samuel after a few minutes. ‘I should probably save them.’

So they went on, Samuel and Vita with their hands on the left wall, Silk and Arkady on the right, feeling for a ladder to the sky above.

Absolute darkness does strange things to time. Every step Vita took was the same as the previous one; it became like a dream, a nightmare, edging in silence through the dark. Had she not heard Arkady’s breath beside her, the sound of Silk’s feet, the brushing of Samuel’s coat sleeve against the wall, she would have doubted she was moving forward at all. The only other sounds were the dripping of water, and an echoing scratching sound from the tunnel ahead of them. Vita clenched her fists and prayed it was not a rat; and then, on second thought, prayed that it was.

They walked on, and the tunnel grew tighter, close enough to touch both walls at once. It may have been only minutes, or far longer, when Samuel, turning a bend in the underground space, stopped suddenly, and Vita walked into his back.

‘Why have you stopped?’ she spoke in a whisper; the dark impelled silence.

‘There’s something up ahead.’

‘What?’ said Arkady.

‘Light.’

‘Thank God,’ breathed Silk – but Vita’s already cold hands grew colder.

‘It’s can’t be sunlight,’ she said. ‘It’s dark outside, remember?’

She could not see the faces of the others, but she could hear Arkady’s groan. Trying not to shake, she stepped around the corner, keeping her left side pressed against the wall.

The passage continued for thirty paces, then twisted again, and from beyond the bend in the tunnel came a yellow glow.

‘What now?’ asked Arkady.

‘We could go back,’ said Vita. ‘And hope they’ve gone.’

‘This isn’t supposed to happen!’ said Silk. Her voice had tears in it, but she swallowed them. ‘I would never have come down here if I was working by myself! This is why you can’t trust people! You end up buried underground.’

‘Shh,’ said Arkady. ‘They’ll hear you!’

‘I don’t care!’ But she lowered her voice.

‘I say we go on,’ said Vita. And although her whole body felt heavy enough to crack through the floor, she led the way.

She went as silently as possible, lifting her left foot with agonising care, laying it down without a sound. Samuel, with the feather-light toe-heel walk of an acrobat, followed, and after him an animal tamer and a pickpocket: people accustomed to silence. So it was that the men did not hear their coming.

Vita looked around the corner, and choked back her gasp of fear. The tunnel was wider, enough to allow six men to pass abreast. Hurricane lamps stood on the floor, and electric torches had been hung, swinging, from the ceiling.

A row of tables stood pushed against one wall, and ten men stood over them, pouring clear liquid into glass bottles. Others pasted labels on the bottles: Muscovite Vodka. More men, dressed in dark colours, stacked the bottles into crates. Some smoked while they worked, cigarettes hanging limply from their mouths. The air was dank, and cold.

But that was not what made Vita gasp. A briefcase had been slung on to a large wooden box in the corner, and next to it lay two rifles and a handgun, wet with the grit of the tunnel floor. And, leaning over the briefcase, counting stacks of bills into it, was Dillinger.

Vita stared at the guns; at their cold, matter-of-fact presence, large as the room itself. Dillinger closed the case, straightened up, and lurched backwards to lean against the wall, his face contorting, the crown of his sandy hair pressed against the dripping wall.

‘He’s still drunk,’ breathed Silk behind her.

Vita ducked back round the corner.

‘We’re trapped,’ she whispered.

Samuel shook his head. ‘There’s a ladder out,’ he said. ‘Did you see?’

Vita had seen; beyond the busy workspace, where the tunnel narrowed again, lit by torchlight, there was a ladder leading upwards.

‘We could just wait,’ said Samuel. ‘They have to leave sometime.’ But as he spoke, his voice caught, and he jerked backwards a few steps.

‘Someone’s coming down it,’ he breathed.

Vita put one eye around the corner, trusting the dark to envelop them. A shining pair of leather shoes appeared on the ladder, followed by a calf-length black cashmere coat.

Sorrotore landed with a thump on the floor of the tunnel. Vita’s heart twisted in her chest as he glanced around at the men loading bottles. They did not meet his eye, but the speed of their work suddenly increased.

‘Dillinger!’ said Sorrotore. ‘What’s the hold-up? You were due up four minutes ago. The lorries can’t wait. We can’t have any more mistakes!’ His eyes were wilder than they had been at the party; there was stress written in the pasty colour of his skin.

Dillinger still leaned against the tunnel wall. Now he opened his eyes, his mouth turned down so the edges almost reached his neck.

‘I couldn’t make them work faster.’ His words came out thick and slow. ‘Why don’t you threaten to kill them? That usually works.’

And he closed his eyes again.

Sorrotore strode up to him. Vita thought he was going to attack him, but he only picked up the suitcase. He called out a name – ‘Kelly!’ – and a man, large as a doorway, came to his side.

‘What the hell’s going on with Dillinger?’ said Sorrotore.

‘He’s drunk,’ said Kelly.

‘I can see that, thank you. Why? Since when?’

Kelly shrugged. ‘He was talking about that Hudson Castle – said he didn’t like being set on a kid, and especially not a cripple.’

‘He’s been whining to the men?’ Sorrotore’s voice was ugly.

Kelly looked alarmed at the effect his words had had. ‘I didn’t say that! I just meant, he’s been drinking hard for months now, and it’s gotten worse in the last few days. He hasn’t been sober for maybe … seventy-two hours.’

‘He can be drunk on his own time, but not on mine. I spent fifteen years building all this up from nothing! I didn’t do it by employing losers. He screwed up the Louie Zwerback job, too. I’ve got people sniffing round. Get rid of him.’

Kelly hesitated, his face lurid and uncertain.

‘What do you mean?’

Sorrotore shrugged. ‘You know exactly what I mean.’ He turned to the rest of the men. ‘All right,’ he called. ‘Move this stuff out. You’ve got two minutes.’

The small space became chaotic and unbearably loud as the rattle of bottle racks being stacked quickened, and the men began to ferry the boxes up the ladder to the street.

The four children waited, crouched in the darkness around the corner, barely daring to breathe.

In an astonishingly short time, the room was clear; only the tables remained, a few puddles of spilt vodka, and the large wooden box under a single light.

Sorrotore strode to the wooden box and lifted the lid. He reached inside, fished out a small tortoise, and dropped it on the floor. Then, with some grunting and scrabbling, he lifted out the larger one.

‘Kelly.’ Sorrotore clicked his fingers, and the man came. ‘I’m running low on cash – just a temporary thing.’ But Kelly’s eyes showed, just for a second, his scepticism before he masked it. ‘So I need the jewels off the tortoises. Chuck the bodies down the tunnel somewhere when you’re done.’

‘And what about Dillinger?’

Dillinger was still slumped against the wall; Sorrotore turned to him while Kelly hovered uneasily, his vast arms uncertain by his sides. Sorrotore picked up the smallest of the guns and cocked it.

Vita could not help it; she retched – a small, desperate sound that rang through the silent air.

Sorrotore’s eyes narrowed. He took three steps towards the bend in the tunnel, his nostrils flaring, sniffing. Beside her, Arkady stiffened, and got ready to spring.

A voice called from the open space above the ladder. ‘Trucks are leaving now, boss.’

Sorrotore grunted, sighed, and strode back to the ladder. Kelly made to follow him, and Sorrotore turned to him with a look of disgust.

‘Where do you think you’re going? I said, do the tortoises – and take care of Dillinger.’

‘What, now?’ said Kelly.

‘Now,’ said Sorrotore, and disappeared up the ladder. The clang of the manhole cover closing rang through the tunnel.

Kelly crossed to Dillinger, his face miserable. On the first punch, Dillinger crumpled to the ground. On the third, he ceased to moan. Kelly sighed. He lifted the gun, and checked that it was loaded.

Vita, a planner to her very bones, acted without a plan. She reached into her coat pocket and clenched her penknife. She left it closed, and threw it through the dark. But fear made her stiff and off-balance, and instead of hitting Kelly on the temple, it struck him on the side of the nose. He staggered and dropped to his knees, a child’s wail coming from his mouth. He turned in their direction.

Samuel stepped forward, but Silk had already gone. She made a noise somewhere between a moan and a roar and came out of the darkness like a bullet. Her mouth remained open in a noiseless gape as she dodged round Kelly’s kneeling form, snatched up the gun from where it lay, hesitated for a split second, and then swung it at the back of Kelly’s head. The man slumped, face forwards, on the ground.

Silk looked down, chest heaving, eyes wide, at what she had done. ‘Is selfastonishment a word?’ she asked. ‘Because if not, I need it to be now.’

Five minutes later, Dillinger opened an eye and saw four faces clustered over his.

‘What’s goin’ on?’ He muttered. ‘Who are you? Get lost.’ And then, looking up at Samuel, he spoke a single, unrepeatable word. Arkady’s head whipped backwards and Silk swore. Vita let out a hiss, and her eyes sought Samuel’s. Only Samuel remained motionless, staring, hot with anger. Dillinger groaned, and his eyes closed again.

‘Let’s go,’ said Arkady, and he ran to pick up the largest tortoise, which had retreated entirely into its shell.

Vita picked up the smaller tortoise; its head waved frantically, staring around the dark space. ‘What about him?’ she said, jerking her head at Dillinger.

‘Leave him,’ said Silk.

‘No!’ said Samuel. ‘That makes us as bad as them.’

‘It doesn’t!’ Silk’s voice was shrill, still jittery with adrenaline.

‘You heard what he said, Sam,’ said Arkady. His face was tight with fury. ‘We don’t have to help him.’

‘If we leave him, they’ll kill him when they come back,’ said Samuel.

‘Why do you care? He’d kill us!’ said Silk.

Sweat beaded on Vita’s upper lip. ‘I agree with Samuel,’ she said. ‘We have to take him with us.’

‘That’s easy for you to say!’ said Silk. Her hands were shaking. ‘It won’t be you carrying him up the bloody ladder.’

Vita jerked as if stung. The space behind her eyes smarted, and she fought the feeling back. It would be terrible to cry.

Silk winced. ‘I didn’t mean it like that …’

‘Fine. I know,’ said Vita, and turned away, so Silk would not see her face.

‘Ark and I will carry him,’ said Samuel. ‘Ark, come on.’

Arkady sighed, and moved to his friend’s side. The two boys bent down; for a second they strained in the darkness, then they straightened, the man hanging between them.

‘How do we get him up the ladder?’ said Arkady.

Vita went first. Her balance was not good, and it took all her focus to get herself up to the street. She crouched by the mouth of the hole, keeping watch.

The other three children took Dillinger between them. Samuel led, climbing with one hand, his other arm clamped under Dillinger’s armpit. Arkady and Silk pushed his knees and feet. At one point they nearly dropped him, and Dillinger’s forehead scraped against the wall.

They darted back down for the tortoises, the boys carrying the largest between them, Silk holding the smaller one under her arm. On the top rung she handed it to Vita, and scrambled up into the street. Its rubies, spelling out her name, glinted in the street lights.

They half dragged, half carried Dillinger down two blocks, then dumped him in an alley.

‘If this was a storybook,’ said Arkady, ‘when he woke up, he would have to do us a good deed.’

‘He won’t,’ said Samuel, and he spoke with absolute certainty.

Dillinger was beginning to stir. Samuel bent and pulled the man’s elegant silver watch from his wrist. He stamped on it, shattering the glass face, and turned away.

‘Wait a second,’ said Vita. She brought her aching left foot down on the face of the watch, grinding as hard as she could with the heel. Silk spat on the silver links. Arkady stamped last and hardest, his eyes on his friend.

Samuel kicked the watch into the grate of the open drain. He looked a little less exhausted. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

They were halfway back to Carnegie Hall when they became aware of someone following them. Arkady and Samuel carried the large IMPERIUM tortoise; Vita carried VITA. Silk was up ahead, choosing the quietest streets, staying in the shadows, when the footsteps came.

They were not the light-footed, slyly slow footsteps of the men in grey. These were official footsteps, heavy with the confident authority of the law.

‘Just keep walking,’ murmured Vita.

‘Hey! Kids! Hey! What’s that you got there?’ A figure in dark blue, a wooden truncheon in one hand, stood at the far end of the long street. ‘We’re looking for a couple kids who busted up the Plaza – you wouldn’t know anything, would you?’

They did not turn round. They passed under a street lamp, the light glinting off the IMPERIUM diamonds. At the sight of the gems the policeman broke into a run.

‘Stop! Hey, you!’

Samuel twisted to stare, his eyes wide.

‘Run! The pact! Run!’ said Silk, and all four began to sprint, Arkady and Samuel vanishing around the corner clutching the tortoise between them.

Vita’s hair flew wild in the air, and the street was a blur. Silk was ahead of her, far ahead now, her plait thumping against her back; Vita could hear the policeman’s footsteps, closer and closer, and though she tried to fire her legs forwards she wasn’t going fast enough.

The policeman was barely ten feet away when Silk turned suddenly and came sprinting back. She wrenched the tortoise from Vita’s hands. ‘Go!’ said Silk. ‘Get out of here!’

Vita tried to tug it back, but Silk gave her a great shove, and Vita stumbled. Knowing she was beaten, she darted round the corner and out of sight. Samuel and Arkady were there, crouched behind two dustbins, waiting, their faces tight with fear.

The policeman’s voice called out, and Silk’s answered. There was a brief commotion, but the wind roared again, and Vita couldn’t hear above her thumping heart. She risked peering round the corner.

Silk, who had never been caught, who never would be, stood with the policeman’s hand on her shoulder. His other hand was reaching for handcuffs. In Silk’s hands was the small bejewelled tortoise, the word ‘VITA’ picked out on the shell.