by Steve Voake
Kier picked up the Harrods bag and peered inside. He pulled out a dark blue, box-pleated skirt, a pair of white knee-length socks and a short-sleeved summer blouse complete with light blue stripes. At the bottom was a box containing a pair of flat, sensible court shoes. Beneath that was a blonde wig.
‘Oh, no way,’ said Kier, shaking his head. ‘You have got to be kidding.’
Saskia unbolted the door and walked towards the washbasins. Then she turned back, smiled and held up a small container of eyeshadow.
‘Whenever you’re ready, sweetie,’ she said.
SEVENTEEN
Kier stared at himself in the mirror. He shut his eyes and opened them again. But she was still there, the blonde schoolgirl with the blue eyeshadow, staring right back at him.
Saskia grinned.
‘Look who’s here,’ she said. ‘It’s the lovely Kiera.’
Kier gave her a sarcastic smile.
‘Ha ha. Very funny.’
The door swung open and a woman police officer walked in.
‘Hello, girls,’ she said, turning to look at the row of cubicles. ‘Have you been in here long?’
‘Not long. About five minutes, I guess.’
The policewoman peered into the cubicles.
‘Any idea who this bag belongs to?’
The bag. Damn.
‘It’s mine,’ said Kier, doing his best to sound soft and husky.
Saskia gave him a look which suggested he wasn’t really pulling it off, so he walked quickly back to the cubicle and squeezed past the WPC.
‘Thanks, officer,’ he said, retrieving the bag with what he hoped was a suitably girlish giggle.
Saskia raised her eyes skywards, but Kier was relieved to see that the shoebox was the last thing he had put back in the bag, hiding the clothes underneath.
‘Have you seen anything strange at all, since you’ve been here?’ asked the WPC.
A hijacked crashed police car, thought Kier. Four police officers lying on the floor of the audio-visual department. Myself dressed as a schoolgirl.
‘Not really, no.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Come to think of it,’ said Saskia, ‘I did see a boy running through the toy department. He seemed to be in quite a hurry.’
The WPC perked up at this.
‘When?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. A few minutes ago. Just before we came in.’
Saskia followed this up with an innocent, Why, do you think that might be useful? kind of look, but the woman was already gabbling into her radio and heading out of the door.
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Saskia as the door swung shut. ‘I’m just happy to help.’
She looked at her watch and turned to Kier.
‘What’s going on, Kier?’
‘I sort of got arrested.’
‘Yeah, well, I guessed that much. What happened?’
‘I, erm … got involved in the bank robbery.’
‘You went in there?’
‘I couldn’t help it. There was this waitress and she—’
‘Oh, I get it.’ Saskia narrowed her eyes. ‘Pretty, was she?’
‘No. Yes. Kind of … Look, it doesn’t matter. I just thought I could get her out, that’s all. But then it got complicated. They had guns, Saskia. Someone could have been killed.’
‘Including you.’
Kier gave her a smug look.
‘No chance. Those guys were amateurs.’
‘No, Kier.’ Saskia grabbed his shoulder and spun him around angrily. ‘You’re the amateur. Your problem is that you’re fresh out of training and suddenly you think you know it all and no one can tell you anything. But see what happens when you don’t listen?’
‘Yeah,’ said Kier. ‘I stop a bank robbery.’
‘Oh, right. Well done.’ Saskia folded her arms. ‘You stopped a bank robbery which probably would have been stopped anyway and now you’ve got half the Metropolitan Police force out looking for you. That’s brilliant, Kier. Give out the pencils.’
Kier caught sight of himself in the mirror and saw that, beneath the blonde wig, he was wearing a rather shamefaced expression. It was irritating. Saskia suddenly seemed to have developed a knack of making him feel like a five-year-old.
‘Did you manage to take some pictures?’
‘Yeah, but I shot the phone up.’
‘Great.’
‘OK, I admit it. I messed up. But there was no sign of the guy in the photograph. And there was something else I noticed.’
‘Go on.’
‘The police were there very quickly.’
‘Wow. Amazing. Well, at least someone’s doing their job properly.’
‘No, I mean incredibly quickly. Like one minute after the cashier pressed the alarm.’
‘So?’
‘So they turned up fully armed and ready for action, Saskia. It wasn’t a surprise to them. No way. They knew this robbery was going down.’
‘Hmmm.’ Saskia nodded thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that is interesting. Have you told Jackson yet?’
Kier gave her a look. ‘I’ve been a bit busy, to be honest.’
*
Kier counted at least eleven police officers as they made their way back through the store.
‘Saskia,’ he whispered when they reached the toy department. ‘Those guys by the giant panda. They saw me before. They know what I look like.’
The men – who had been on the receiving end of Kier’s shoe trick – were moving carefully through the store, checking every customer. Kier noticed one of them had a swelling under his left eye.
‘Saskia?’
‘Relax, Kier. Just keep talking to me, OK? Remember, you’re a schoolgirl. And schoolgirls are not what those guys are looking for.’
‘OK,’ said Kier under his breath. ‘I’m a schoolgirl, I’m a schoolgirl …’
‘So tell me,’ said Saskia, ‘what do you think of Gabriella’s new hair extensions? I mean, hello? What is up with that?’
Kier pointed to his wig. ‘Don’t talk hair,’ he said.
‘Oh, OK. Are you going to Jennifer’s party tonight?’
‘Oh, shut up!’ said Kier, trying to make his voice high and soft. ‘Of course I’m going. I wouldn’t miss it. All those hot guys and stuff!’
‘OK,’ said Saskia. ‘Don’t overdo it.’
‘Hello, ladies,’ said the officer with the swollen eye. ‘We’re looking for a boy of about thirteen, maybe fourteen.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ said Kier, fluttering his eyelashes. ‘Join the club.’
‘Take no notice of her, Officer,’ said Saskia hurriedly. ‘I think the heat must be getting to her.’
‘Yeah, well,’ said the man, tugging at his shirt collar. ‘I know how she feels.’
He looked at Kier and studied his face for a moment or two.
‘You look kind of familiar,’ he said. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’
Kier mentally measured out the distance. He could sweep the guy’s legs out from underneath him no problem; they’d be gone before the man even hit the floor. But Saskia was glaring at him, sending out signals, and he decided against it.
‘Oh, I don’t think so. I must just have one of those faces.’
The man kept staring, so Kier turned to Saskia and said, ‘Marie, what time did you say you have to be at the dentist?’
Saskia’s hand flew up to her mouth and she said, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s a quarter past two and I’m supposed to be there at half past! Will you excuse us, Officer?’
The officer smiled and said, ‘Sure, no problem,’ because the girl was pretty and nice and of course she needed to get to the dentist on time. In fact, he was still smiling seven seconds later when it suddenly occurred to him why her friend looked so familiar.
‘Wait!’ he shouted, spinning round on his heel.
But there was no sign of them. The two girls had completely disappeared and, in spite of the tight security cordon around the store, not a single perso
n could recall seeing them go.
EIGHTEEN
Locking himself into a toilet cubicle in Euston station, Kier quickly changed into the clothes Saskia had picked out for him in a charity shop: a pair of jeans two sizes too big, a plastic belt to hold them up, a T-shirt with the words Allied Carpets written on the front, a baggy jumper with patches on the elbows and a pair of cheap trainers with torn insoles and frayed laces.
‘Get yourself a clean phone,’ she’d told him, ‘and call Jackson when you’ve changed.’ Then she was gone again, melting away into the crowd before he’d had a chance to reply.
He unwrapped the cheap Pay As You Go phone and stuffed the packaging into a carrier bag, along with the wig and school uniform. Anyone trying to trace his calls now would only find the name of Jack Smith on the paperwork. Not very original perhaps, but it would have to do.
Unlocking the door again, he went across to the basins and ran the taps, cupping his hands beneath them and dumping water on his head. He messed his hair up with his fingers, then knelt beneath the hand-drier, teasing the strands of hair between his fingers until they stuck out in all directions.
‘Oh yeah,’ he said to his scarecrow reflection. ‘You’ve got it going on.’
But it was obvious that the ladies in the charity shop took their work seriously; the clothes, although cheap and old, had still been washed and ironed. According to Saskia, the next part of his mission required him to look as if he’d been living rough on the streets for a while. If he wanted to appear convincing, there was still some work to be done.
After scouring the backstreets for ten minutes, he came across a builder’s skip and quickly threw in the bag containing the clothes and phone packaging. Checking that no one was watching, he climbed in and stretched out across the piles of chipped plasterboard and broken bricks, rolling around until his clothes were covered in a fine layer of dust. Hooking the arm of his sweater on to a nail, he ripped the sleeve in two places. Then he rubbed his hands on an old bike chain and wiped his fingers across his jeans.
‘Hey!’ said a voice. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
Kier looked up to see a builder peering over the side of the skip.
‘I’m taking a dust bath,’ he said. ‘You know. Like the birds.’
The builder stared at him.
‘Are you a nutter or something?’
Kier nodded. ‘Yeah. I think I probably am.’
‘Well, go and be a nutter somewhere else,’ said the builder, throwing a plank of wood into the end of the skip. ‘Some of us have got work to do.’
‘You and me both,’ said Kier.
He climbed out and stared at himself in a window. He now looked like someone who had slept in a skip. Like someone who’d been rolling around in one, in fact.
*
‘I know I’m an idiot,’ said Kier, when Jackson answered the phone. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’
‘I don’t think you’re an idiot,’ said Jackson. ‘Impetuous, yes. But that’s a very different thing.’
In the background Kier could hear the chirruping of cicadas and imagined Jackson sitting beneath his sunshade, cup of tea in hand.
‘So, I gather the police were rather quick to arrive?’
‘Yeah, less than five minutes.’ Kier had detected a note of concern in Jackson’s voice. ‘Why, do you think they’ve got something to do with it?’
‘It’s probably nothing. But I think it’s best not to involve them any more than we have to at this stage, hmm?’
‘OK.’ Kier reddened, knowing this was Jackson’s way of telling him not to mess up again. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘All right. I want you to head south of the river and check out an area near Putney Bridge. It’s a stretch of about a kilometre, just west of Wandsworth Park. But listen, it’s the same place your dad was working just before he was killed, so you need to be careful. Keep your head down and stay low-profile, OK?’
Kier glanced at his ripped sweater and oil-stained jeans.
‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem,’ he said.
‘When you get there, look out for any drug deals going down. If you can, buy some coke and test it with the swabs we gave you. If it’s genuine, find out where they live and then we can tag them 24/7, find out who’s supplying them and hopefully who the guy in the photo is.’
‘Is that it?’ asked Kier, who had been hoping for something a bit more interesting. ‘Is that all you want me to do?’
‘Patience is a virtue,’ said Jackson. ‘Didn’t Chiang teach you that?’
*
It was dark when Kier joined the queue outside the soup kitchen. He’d been walking up and down for several hours and the nearest he’d come to a crime was some old guy spitting on the pavement. It was hardly Crime Central.
‘Ain’t seen you round here before,’ said a voice.
Kier turned to see a man in a shabby coat and wellington boots standing behind him. He had the squashed nose and cauliflower ears of a man who has been in plenty of fights and lost most of them.
‘I’m new,’ said Kier.
The man nodded.
‘We were all new once. But you’d best not let on. There are people here who’ll take advantage.’
‘What kind of people?’
The man shrugged.
‘All kinds. Just watch your back.’
‘Thanks. I’ll do that.’
As the queue shuffled forward, Kier noticed two men step out from the shadows beneath the bridge. As he watched, a third man stopped and thrust his hand forward as if he was handing something over. It looked promising but Kier didn’t want to appear too interested, so he turned his attention back to the lights of the van.
‘What’s your name son?’ asked the guy with the squashed nose.
‘Jack,’ said Kier, remembering the form in the phone shop.
‘What’s yours?’
‘Nuggy.’
‘Well, Nuggy …’ Kier held out his hand. ‘It’s good to meet you, I guess.’
Nuggy gripped his hand and Kier felt the firm, angry remains of years spent going nowhere.
‘Take my advice, Jack. Stay away from those people.’
‘What people?’
‘I saw the way you were looking at ’em. They’ll make you believe heaven’s waiting right around the corner, but take my word for it, kid – hell’s the only place they’re heading. And they’ll take you with ’em, easy as blinking.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Kier.
‘Because,’ said Nuggy, ‘I’ve been there.’
And it was only then, as he looked into Nuggy’s eyes, that Kier caught a brief glimpse of the man he might have been, a man who didn’t want Kier to tread the path he had taken.
When they reached the van, Nuggy pushed Kier in front of him and pointed at a cup of soup on the counter.
‘There you go, kid. Put some meat on your bones.’
‘Thanks.’ Kier passed a cup back to Nuggy and then took one for himself.
‘You know what I dreamed last night?’ asked Nuggy. ‘I dreamed I turned up here and they were serving pizza. With extra anchovies.’
‘Dream on,’ said the thin, bearded man behind the counter. He turned to Kier. ‘This your first night?’
‘First of many, I guess,’ said Kier.
He took a sip from the cup and tasted watery vegetable soup.
‘Where are you staying?’
Kier shrugged. ‘I haven’t figured that one out yet.’
‘Under the bridge is best,’ said a pale man with dirt under his nails. ‘Reckon we can make room for a littl’un.’
‘What about them?’ asked Kier, nodding towards the figures beneath the bridge.
‘They won’t stay long,’ said Nuggy. ‘They’ll do their business and then they’ll be gone.’
‘Business?’ asked Kier. ‘What kind of business?’
The pale man chuckled. ‘Bit wet behind the ears this one, ain’t he? They’re dealers, kid. If your money’s
good, they’ll get you anything you want. So it’s kind of lucky you ain’t got no money. Cos that’s all those scumbags are interested in. If you ain’t got money, they’ll leave you alone.’
Kier thought of the roll of banknotes concealed in his sock and decided to play this one carefully.
‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘I just need the toilet. I’ll be back in a minute.’
Walking up the steps to the main street, he took two twenties from his sock and folded them into his sleeve before cutting along the top of the embankment and past the bridge. When he reached the far side, he climbed down again and approached the bridge from the opposite direction. The two men were already talking to someone else and Kier waited while they exchanged something with him. As he disappeared into the night, Kier walked beneath the bridge and stopped in the shadows. He saw that both men were wearing sweatshirts with the hoods pulled over their heads.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Nice evening.’
‘Just keep walking, street boy,’ said the larger man, ‘if you know what’s good for you.’
‘I do know what’s good for me as a matter of fact,’ said Kier, moving closer. ‘How about you sell me some?’
The second man curled his lip into a vicious sneer.
‘You think you can afford what we’re selling?’
‘Maybe,’ said Kier. ‘Maybe I got lucky.’
As he watched them move closer, Kier measured the distance between them in his mind. They were hard men, no doubt about it, although their heavy bulk meant it would be easy enough to catch them off balance if required. But, the last thing he wanted to do was blow his cover. He would definitely have to play this one carefully.
The first man grabbed Kier’s jumper and shoved him back against the brickwork.
‘Are you wasting my time?’ he hissed, his face so close that Kier could smell the stale smoke and alcohol. ‘Is that what you’re doing?’
‘No,’ said Kier, resisting the urge to break the man’s grip and show him how these things should really be done.
‘Well, that’s what it feels like,’ said the man, pulling his fist back. ‘And we hate people wasting our time, don’t we, Ryan?’
Whoever Ryan was, he nodded and grinned.
‘We sure do, Maggot.’