Under Cover (Agent 21) (12 page)

‘Spare some change?’

Ricky started. The voice came from just a couple of metres away. He looked to his right to see a man curled up in a doorway, blowing into his hands to keep them warm. He had a grizzled face, cracked, bleeding lips and dark rings under his eyes. Ricky gave himself a silent telling-off for having missed him, but then shoved his hand into his pocket and brought out some change. He dropped the money in the snow on the edge of the pavement, and watched for a moment as the homeless man scrabbled around in the powder to find it. Once the man had collected all the coins, Ricky bent down to look him straight in the eye. ‘You should get a hot drink,’ he said.

The man looked at the change in his trembling hand. ‘With fifty p?’

Ricky fished another handful of change from his pocket, but he didn’t hand it over just yet. Instead, he removed the photograph of Izzy, unfolded it and waved it under the homeless man’s nose. ‘I’m looking for this girl. Have you see her?’

The homeless man stared at the picture for a few seconds. Then he shook his head. Ricky handed over his fistful of change, gave him a nod of thanks and continued walking a few metres up the street.

Suddenly he stopped. He turned round and tramped back to the man in the doorway.

‘There’s this kid I met round here, a couple of days ago. Dark hair, thin, big Adam’s apple. You know him?’

‘Maybe,’ the homeless man wheezed.

‘What’s his name?’

The man made a suggestive shrug. Ricky took more money from his pocket – a ten-pound note this time. He held it out, but just as the man made to grab the money, he whipped it back. ‘His name?’ he said.

‘Tommy. He works this area for . . .’ The man hesitated.

‘For who?’

‘No one.’

Ricky pulled yet another note from his pocket and waved it in front of the man. ‘For who?’ he insisted.

The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Hunter,’ he breathed.

– You’ve heard that name before. One of the Thrownaways used it on Christmas Eve. And the guy you met was definitely called Tommy.

– Maybe all that Kim’s game stuff wasn’t just a party trick.

‘Who’s Hunter?’

The man licked his cracked lips. ‘Give me the money.’

Ricky handed over the two notes. The man grabbed them greedily.

‘
Who’s Hunter?
’

‘Someone you should stay clear of, kid.’

‘Where do I find him?’

‘He moves around, doesn’t he? Never stays in one place.’ The homeless man hesitated. ‘Do you know Keeper’s House?’

Ricky shook his head.

‘It’s a derelict building off Berwick Street in Soho. Hunter’s running his kids from there, last I heard.’

‘What do you mean, running his kids?’

‘They steal for him. Pickpocketing, break-ins, sometimes worse. Do yourself a favour, lad. Stay away from Hunter and his crowd. You don’t want to get involved.’

– A Fagin, then
, Ricky thought.

– Like in the musical. But this is real life. I’m guessing there’s no singing and dancing . . .

He nodded and thanked the man, then walked back through the snow to Euston Road with the man’s warning ringing in his head:
You don’t want to get involved
.

Too late, he reminded himself. He already was.

Ricky stood on the corner of Berwick Street and D’Arblay Street, and shivered. He felt like the cold winter air had seeped into his very bones.

He pulled the phone from his pocket and Googled Keeper’s House. It looked just as the homeless man had described it: derelict. The picture he’d found on the internet showed a boarded-up, graffitied house. And according to the map on his phone, it was just fifty metres from where Ricky was standing. He walked along Berwick Street for about thirty seconds, then took a right into a small side street, followed by another left turn ten metres along.

The street that led to Keeper’s House was little more than an alleyway in which the snow was piled thickly. The house itself was at the end of the street. It looked forbidding and disused. Had there been no snow, Ricky would never have imagined it was occupied. But his eyes instantly picked out several trails of footprints in the snow along the street.

He heard Felix’s voice in his mind.
You need to see everything
.

He zoned in on the footprints. They were all pointing away from Keeper’s House and he reckoned he could make out five separate sets – that meant five people had left the house in the past few hours, and they’d not yet come back.

Decision time. Should Ricky break into Keeper’s House and try to find the young homeless guy who’d called himself Tommy? Should he risk coming face to face with this Hunter character, whoever he was? Or should he wait here for the return of whoever had left Keeper’s House that day?

He decided to wait.

Ricky took up a position in a doorway just opposite the entrance to the side street. He was mostly protected from the snow here, but not from the cold. He crouched down, huddled into a ball, his head bowed but his eyes fixed on the entrance to the side street.

And he waited.

He was numb with cold within half an hour. After an hour, he could barely think straight. It occurred to him that the Ricky who had never met Felix would
never
have put himself through this. He was too cold even for his teeth to chatter.

– Remind me again why we’re doing this.

– Shut up, Ziggy.

He kept watching.

They arrived after two hours. Ricky’s feet had gone beyond feeling like blocks of ice. Now he couldn’t feel them at all.

There were three of them. They had a dejected air as they tramped through the snow, their hands buried deep in their pockets for warmth. None of them noticed Ricky, huddled in his doorway. Ricky watched them carefully. He examined their clothes: old, threadbare. Glimpses of the side of their faces: wary, aggressive. Their gait: tired. He compared them to his memory of Tommy from Christmas Eve. None of them resembled him.

– What do we do now, Sherlock? Approach them? Ask if any of them know—

– Wait! Who’s that?

Approaching from the opposite direction was a figure Ricky recognized. Lanky. Thin. A protruding Adam’s apple and a scowl on his face.

Tommy.

He looked almost as cold as Ricky, with snow settling on his hunched shoulders. His lips had a faintly blue cast, and Ricky thought he could see a blood stain under his nose and over his upper lip. Last time Ricky had seen him, when they had faced up to each other in the side street by King’s Cross two nights ago, he’d worn a mask of aggression. But now, when he didn’t know he was being watched, Tommy looked like any other lost kid. Before meeting Felix, Ricky had felt slightly scared in the presence of one of these Thrownaways, but right now he just felt a bit sorry for him.

Even so, he remembered Felix’s words:
You always want an escape route
. He glanced to both ends of the street. If it came to it, he could sprint in either direction . . .

‘Tommy!’

The Thrownaway stopped in his tracks. At first it looked like he hadn’t even seen Ricky. Then Ricky stood up slowly, Tommy peered at him, and a look of recognition slowly dawned on his face. Followed by a look of confusion.

‘What do
you
want?’ he said.

‘I need your help.’

‘Get out of here, if you know what’s good for you.’

‘I hope you enjoyed that food I gave you,’ Ricky said. ‘There’s more where that came from.’

Tommy scowled. ‘What do you think I am, some sort of charity case?’

– That was the wrong thing to say. You need to backtrack quickly.

‘Course not. Look, the other night, I was looking for a girl. She’s lost. I’ve got a picture here . . .’ He held it out, the good picture, the one where Izzy looked blonde and pretty and not beaten up.

A missed beat. Tommy glanced down at the picture, then looked away momentarily.

– He’s seen her. You can tell by looking at him. He doesn’t want you to know.

‘What’s that got to do with me?’

– Flatter him. Use his ego.

‘She was on your turf. I bet you know
everything
that goes on there.’ Tommy shrugged modestly as Ricky added: ‘You and Hunter.’

Tommy seemed to catch his breath. He looked at Ricky even more warily. ‘How do you know Hunter?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘If you’re with the police . . .’

‘I’m fourteen, Tommy. Bit young for a copper, don’t you think?’

Tommy narrowed his eyes. ‘Yeah,’ he mumbled. ‘Maybe.’

Ricky walked up to him and smiled his most reasonable smile. ‘Where is she, mate?’

Tommy looked left and right – rather nervously, Ricky thought. ‘You’d better speak to Hunter,’ he said. He pointed towards Keeper’s House. ‘It’s this way.’

They trudged through the snow. Ricky sensed that Tommy wanted to say something, but was holding back. He tried to draw him into conversation.

‘What happened to your nose? Looks like you’ve been bleeding.’

Tommy seemed embarrassed. ‘Tried to snatch a bag,’ he said. ‘The woman chased me. I slipped in the snow and hurt myself.’

‘Blow out,’ Ricky said, and they tramped on in silence.

Only when they were at the front entrance to Keeper’s House – a big arched door covered with graffiti tags – did Tommy speak again.

‘If you want something from Hunter,’ he said, ‘you have to give
him
something in return. And don’t try to mess with him, because then he’ll mess with you, twice as hard.’

Ricky nodded. ‘Got it,’ he said.

– But what have you got to give him?

– We’ll think of something.

Tommy opened the door and led Ricky into a grubby hallway with peeling wallpaper and a damp atmosphere. It was barely any warmer in here than outside. To the left was a door, slightly ajar. Ricky followed Tommy through it and down a dark flight of stone steps. They led into a large, dimly lit basement room with items of shabby furniture dotted around. Ricky’s eyes picked out the three Thrownaways he’d seen approaching Keeper’s House, huddled on sofas and armchairs along with another six youngsters. They were all eyeing him carefully as he entered.

But none of them were eyeing him so carefully as the man who emerged from the shadows in a far corner of the room. He looked about sixty, with a nose that had been broken more than once and greedy, watery eyes that were full of suspicion.

‘Empty-handed again, Tommy?’ the old man rasped. ‘You ain’t paying your way, son.’

Tommy bowed his head.

‘But it looks like you brought old Hunter a guest. Is that right?’

Tommy didn’t reply and Ricky could tell he was frightened. Everyone in this gloomy basement was frightened. Including Ricky.

He stepped forward. ‘I need some help,’ he said.

A nasty smile spread across Hunter’s face. ‘Did you hear that?’ he announced to the room in general. ‘Our young friend here needs some help.’ He stepped up to Ricky, face to face with him, close enough for Ricky to smell his foul breath. ‘Trouble is, sunshine, that we’re not in the business of helping strangers. In fact, and here’s the funny thing . . .’ With this, he looked round to the others in the room with an even broader, more loathsome smile. ‘The funny thing is, we do exactly the opposite, don’t we, lads?’

There was a muttering of agreement around the room. Ricky glanced over at Tommy, who subtly mouthed the words: ‘
Get out!
’

Too late.

For a man in his sixties, Hunter moved fast. He thrust out his right hand and grabbed Ricky by the throat, squeezing hard as he pushed him up against the wall. Ricky felt his whole body jar with the impact as Hunter whispered: ‘You shouldn’t have come here, sunshine.’

Ricky could barely breathe, let alone speak clearly. His throat burned as he tried to talk. ‘I . . . I’ve got something for you,’ he whispered.

Hunter sneered. ‘Oh, yeah? What are you then, Father bleedin’ Christmas?’

‘S – seriously, I’ve got something . . .’

Hunter gave a barking laugh. ‘So what is it, sunshine? What’s this amazing gift of yours?’

Ricky struggled for breath as he answered: ‘Your wallet.’

Silence in the room. Hunter’s watery eyes narrowed again. Slowly he released his grip on Ricky’s throat and Ricky inhaled deeply as Hunter patted down his own pockets. When he couldn’t find what he was looking for, Ricky held up the heavy black wallet that he had taken from Hunter’s overcoat just minutes before the old man had grabbed his throat.

It was as if the whole room was holding its breath, waiting to see how Hunter would react. Ricky handed him the wallet, which Hunter snatched back. Then Ricky removed the photograph of Izzy Cole from his back pocket again and held it up. ‘I’m looking for this girl,’ he said. ‘I think you might know where she is.’ He examined Hunter’s face as he said this. There was a flicker of recognition. Hunter knew who Izzy Cole was – Ricky was sure of it.

‘What if I do?’ Hunter said, his voice dangerous.

‘Here’s what I think,’ Ricky replied. He looked around the room. All eyes were on him. ‘You send the boys and girls in this room out to rob for you. In return, you give them a place to stay and food to eat so they don’t have to live on the street.’ Ricky sniffed, then looked directly at Hunter again. ‘I’m the best pickpocket you ever met,’ he said. ‘I’ll teach Tommy how to do it. He can teach the others. In return, you let me talk to the girl.’

Hunter’s face was expressionless. He turned his back on Ricky and paced for twenty seconds, examining the wallet in his hand.

Suddenly he spun round. ‘If I find out you’re a copper—’ he started to say.

‘He’s only fourteen, Hunter!’ Tommy cut in, using Ricky’s own words. ‘Course he’s not a copper.’

Hunter stared at Ricky again, as though sizing him up. ‘All right,’ he breathed. ‘Take Tommy out now. If you come back with enough cash, maybe we can help. Tommy and the boys see things when they’re out and about – right, lads?’ There was a murmured agreement as Hunter strode up to Ricky, face to face again. ‘And if you come back with nothing, I wouldn’t bother showing your face round here again. Do you get my drift?’