Robert moved slowly past the design stores and clothes shops on Long Acre. Listening, then talking. Laughing every now and then.
He felt all right now, despite everything. It was shitty and he got ill with his guts, and with leg ulcers sometimes, but he was on the air. Radio Bob was as happy as he’d been at any time since he’d first seen that small circle of light, liquid and winking in the belly of a waste pipe.
“There are three basic types of begging,” Spike said. “There’s a couple of other odd ones, there’s the specialized varieties, like, but at the end of the day you’ve got your three main types. I’m not talking about getting cash-there’s loads of ways to do that. I’m talking about just asking people for it, right?
“There’s your simple hungry-and-homeless style, which is what I do most often, which is what we’re doing now. It’s the best if you’re a bit out of it ’cause you can just nod off sat there, and people will still chuck a few coins down if you look pathetic enough. That’s the pity approach, like.
“Then there’s the hassle approach, which involves a bit more spiel. You can chase after people on the street, which they’re trying to clamp down on ’cause it’s antisocial or what have you. Or you can do what Caroline does sometimes, which is to blag a tube ticket and wander through the carriages making a bit of a speech and holding a cup out. You’re appealing to the punters’ better nature with that one, or else they might just give you the cash to make you fuck off, but either way that can be a good earner.
“Or you can just go for the straight-up, in-yourface way of doing things. None of this ‘I need some money to get into a shelter’ or ‘Please help me get a hot meal’ or shit like that. You just look someone in the eye and ask them for a bit of change because the truth is that you’re fucking gagging for a can of Special Brew. Some people prefer that…”
Thorne thought about it and decided that, as the person being asked to hand over the cash, it was definitely his favorite approach. Like most people, though, his normal reaction, however he was being asked for money, was to look away and mutter nonsense, or pretend that he hadn’t heard. He’d certainly ignored his fair share of beggars in the tube.
“Right, thanks,” Thorne said. “I’ll bear all that in mind.”
They were sitting against the wall just inside the entrance to Tottenham Court Road tube station. The sign scrawled on a strip of cardboard in front of them said please help and the small plastic bowl in front of that contained a handful of coins. One-, two- and five-pence pieces.
“Tell me about some of these other ways,” Thorne said. “Loads of ways to get cash, you said…”
Spike leaned his head back. A poster for a new Brad Pitt movie was backlit behind him. “Yeah, well, there’s a few. Busking, Big Issue, whatever…”
Busking was out of the question, but Thorne had wondered about selling the Big Issue. He wasn’t sure how many of those who made money selling the magazine slept rough.
“Don’t you have to register or something to do that? Get a badge?”
Spike shook his head and leaned forward. He straightened the cardboard sign that was already sodden around the edges. It was chucking it down outside and the floor around them was becoming increasingly wet as rush-hour travelers brought the rain in on their way down from the street to the ticket hall.
“Look, there’s selling the Big Issue and selling the Big Issue, like. Some people just get hold of one copy and sell it over and over again. You tell people it’s your last one and most punters won’t have the heart to take it. It’s a good scam.”
“I might give that a go.” Thorne looked up at a young black woman coming down the steps toward them. She looked quickly away and stayed close to the far wall as she moved past them and on down the next set of stairs.
“Or there’s poncing used travel cards and selling them on. I used to do a fair bit of that. That’s a good one an’ all, but they’re starting to clamp down a bit.”
“Right…”
“Oh, shit.”
Thorne followed Spike’s gaze and watched a dumpy, dark-haired man walking down the steps in their direction. He was dressed in a gray hooded top and black combats, but it was the way he wore the clothes more than anything that identified him as a copper quicker than any warrant card could have done.
“All right, Spike?” the man asked.
“I was.”
“Be fair.” The police officer held out his hands. “There’s two of you, so you’re actually causing an obstruction. Someone could get hurt.”
“Whatever,” Spike said.
“Where’s your girlfriend today?”
Spike ignored the question. He pointed down the corridor toward the platforms, from where the lessthan-melodic sound of voice and guitar had been echoing for the previous hour or more. “Why don’t you do something useful and go hassle the arsehole who’s murdering Wonderwall at the bottom of the escalators?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He turned, looked down, squatted on his haunches next to Thorne. “I’m Sergeant Dan Britton from the Homeless Unit at Charing Cross. You’re new, yeah?”
There was no sign of any ID being produced. Maybe this was one of those coppers who didn’t think that everyone merited an official introduction. This and the counselor-meets-children’s-TV-presenter voice were not facets of a winning personality, but it didn’t really matter. In that utterly irrational yet completely straightforward way that Thorne had-that he was convinced most people had if they were honest-he’d marked Britton down as a tosser before he’d so much as opened his mouth.
“New-ish,” Thorne said.
“Well, if you have any problems, just come down to the station and ask for someone from the Homeless Unit.”
Thorne remembered what Lawrence Healey had said to him. There seemed to be no shortage of people offering their help.
“Can you do anything about the price of heroin?” Spike said. “It’s fucking extortionate…”
Britton ignored him, carried on talking to Thorne. “Any problems, yeah?”
“Right,” Thorne said.
Staring at the floor in front of him, Spike raised a hand, slowly, like a sullen schoolboy with a question. “Actually, there is something that’s a bit of a bloody nuisance…”
Thorne could hear the mischief in Spike’s drawl, but Britton took the bait.
“What?”
“It’s this bloke. He appears to be going round killing people like me, and I was wondering, you know, if you might be able to help with that. Sorry to be a bother, like…”
Britton made a poor job of hiding what, to Thorne, looked a lot like embarrassment. He stood up and gave Spike’s outstretched leg a nudge with his scuffed training shoe. “Come on then, off you go. It’s getting busy down here and people’ll be tripping over you.”
Spike climbed slowly to his feet and Thorne did the same.
“Don’t worry,” Thorne said. “For some reason, people are careful to keep as far away from us as they can.”
They’d taken half an hour or so, wandering slowly along a darkening Oxford Street, saying very little. They’d seen a couple of familiar faces, waved at Radio Bob talking animatedly to himself outside a sandwich bar. They were loitering just inside the entrance to Borders when Spike suddenly began talking as if the earlier conversation had never ended. As if no time had passed at all.
“Begging’s getting bloody tricky now…”
Thorne had seen the same thing with his father when the Alzheimer’s had begun to take hold. He knew that naturally occurring chemicals could be every bit as potent as the ones that people stole, and killed, and sold themselves for.