When he’d finished, Thorne tucked himself in and turned from the wall to find himself being studied.
“You want to be careful, mate. There’s one or two coppers round here’ll do you for that. Take great delight in doing it, an’ all.. .”
He stood directly opposite Thorne on the other side of the road, with a gray blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Early twenties was Thorne’s best estimate. He had delicate features set below spikes of blond hair and his cheeks hollowed dramatically as he dragged hard on a cigarette.
“I can show you a place thirty seconds from here which is a bit more private, like, and a lot bloody safer. Of course, there’s always McDonald’s if you want to go before midnight, though there is one down toward Trafalgar Square that sometimes stays open a bit longer. With a piss, like, there’s always somewhere, but there’s nothing quite like seeing them golden arches when you’re bursting for a shit.” He reached up a hand from beneath the blanket to take the cigarette from his mouth.
Thorne said nothing for a few seconds. The boy seemed friendly enough, but still, Thorne sensed that caution would be best. It would certainly look best. “Right,” he said. His voice was flat, with just a hint of aggression in the delivery.
The boy looked to his right. “You’re in the theater doorway, yeah? Just round the corner there?”
Thorne nodded, began to walk slowly toward it.
“Just so as you know, that’s Terry T’s spot.” He began to move in the same direction as Thorne, walking parallel to him on the other side of the narrow street.
“So, where is he?”
“He’s gone visiting, so you’ll be all right for the time being. He’ll be back at some point, though, so just as long as you know, yeah? As long as you know that’s Terry T’s spot.”
“Well, I know now. Thanks.”
The boy crossed the road, moving over to Thorne in a couple of strides and walking alongside him. “It’s a good spot, like. Sheltered
…”
“That’s why I took it,” Thorne said. “I think I’ll move around a bit anyway, see how it pans out.”
“Only Terry can be a right psycho, like. Goes a bit mental sometimes and, you know, with him being so enormous and that-”
“Mental how exactly?”
The boy chucked his cigarette into the road and hissed out a laugh. “I’m winding you up. I’m kidding, like. Terry’s all right, plus he’s my mate, so I’ll square things if he does get a bit funny with you.”
Thorne had seen the joke coming, but had let the boy have his moment. “Thanks,” he said.
They rounded the corner and Thorne was relieved to see that his sleeping bag and rucksack were still there. He’d decided to risk leaving them for a minute or two while he’d gone to answer the call of nature. The relief must have been clear to see on his face.
“Don’t worry, mate, people only tend to nick what they can sell. Nothing valuable in your bag, is there?” Thorne shook his head. “Don’t worry about your sleeping bag, though, you can pick one of them up anywhere. Salvation Army’s got thousands of the bloody things, or you’ll just see ’em lying around, so you can help yourself. You want to watch out for scabies, though, that is not fucking pleasant.”
“Cheers…”
“Best not to cart that much around at all if you can help it. Leave your stuff somewhere else, you know, one of the day centers or whatever. Trust me, even a plastic bag with some old papers and a pair of socks in it gets dead heavy if you’re carrying it around all the time, like.”
Thorne climbed the marble steps and sat down in the doorway. “How come you’re such a font of all fucking knowledge? You’re only twelve.”
The boy laughed again, nodding and spitting out the laugh between his teeth. “Right, mate, you’re right, but it’s like dog years on the streets, so I’m a lot older than you where it counts, you know?”
“If you say so.”
“How long you been around, then? I’ve not seen you…”
“First night,” Thorne said.
“Fuck.” The boy pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He repeated himself, drawing out the word, respectfully.
“So, what? You’re the welcoming committee, are you?”
“Nearest thing to it, yeah, if you like.”
Thorne watched the boy rummage beneath the blanket and emerge with another cigarette. He could see that the boy was actually much taller than he’d first appeared. He’d walked with hunched shoulders, eyes down, as though he could tell exactly which way he was going by looking at the cracks in the slabs, by studying the pattern of discarded chewing gum on the pavement.
“You look like the Man with No Name,” Thorne said.
The boy finished lighting up, blew out a thin stream of smoke. “You what?”
Thorne pointed toward the blanket around the boy’s shoulders. “With that. Like Clint Eastwood in the movie, you know? The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
The boy shrugged and thought for a minute. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, rocking from side to side. “He the one did those films with the monkey?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Thorne shoved his feet down inside the sleeping bag. “Good time for your mate Terry to go visiting.”
“Why’s that, then?”
“One less for this nutter to go after. This loony that’s killing rough sleepers.”
The boy’s cheeks sank into shadow again as he took a deep drag. He held in the smoke until he needed to take a breath. “I suppose. He’s still got plenty to choose from.” His mood had changed suddenly: fear, suspicion, or perhaps a bit of both. It was hard for Thorne to work out which.
“Did you know any of them?” Thorne asked the question casually, through a yawn. “Any of the blokes who were…?”
“I knew Paddy a bit, yeah. Mad as a snake, like, but totally harmless. Paddy was happy with God and a bottle.”
“So you don’t reckon he could have fallen out with somebody? Nobody had a reason to give him a kicking?”
The boy looked straight at Thorne, but it was as though he’d heard a totally different question. He nodded once, twice, quickly. Repeated what he’d just said: “God and a bottle…”
“Right.”
“What’s your name?” Another, equally sudden change of mood and tone.
“Tom.”
“I’ll see you around, Tom…”
“What about you? You might look like the Man With No Name, but you must have one.”
“Spike. Because of the hair, you know? Like the vampire in Buffy .”
Now it was Thorne’s turn to be the one on whom a reference was lost. “Okay, but what’s your real name?”
The boy cocked his head, looked at Thorne as though he, too, were a harmless old nutcase. “Just Spike.”
Then he turned, hoiked up his blanket, and began walking north toward Soho.
SEVEN
The mobile phone Thorne had been issued with was permanently set to vibrate, and had been shoved deep inside the pocket of his overcoat. It had been agreed that Thorne and Holland would talk twice every day, morning and evening. Contact either way could, of course, be made at other times if necessary, and a face-to-face meeting, with either Holland or Brigstocke, would take place, all being well, once a week.
Thorne had already spoken to Holland by the time he walked into the London Lift day center, just after the place opened at nine o’clock. He found himself in a small holding area between the front entrance and a larger glass door. The young Asian man on duty at the reception desk eyed him through the glass for ten, maybe fifteen seconds, before pressing the button that allowed him through the second set of doors.
“All right?” Thorne stepped up and leaned against the counter.
“I’m good, mate. You?”
Thorne shrugged and scribbled his name in the register that had been passed across to him. The receptionist, who wore an ID badge that said raj, tapped a couple of keys on his computer and Thorne was buzzed through the steel door into the cafe area.
A fair number of the gray or orange plastic chairs-scattered around tables or lined against the walls-were already taken. Most people sat alone, nursing hot drinks and rolls, and though a few had gathered in groups, the sound of a knife scraping across a plate rose easily above the muted level of conversation. Considering how busy it was, the place was oddly still and quiet. Thorne knew that half as many people would be making twice as much noise in the Starbucks across the road.