The driver watched me dig out my pennies and he rattled the money in the tray by his seat to make sure it was real before he gave me a ticket. I climbed up to the top and got a window seat.
‘Travelling in style today?’ It was an old man with very black skin and pale grey hair in the seat behind me. He grinned at me and I grinned back. ‘Wicked!’ he said, and he winked. ‘What did you find, the Crown Jewels?’
‘Pair of shoes – real leather,’ I told him. I was nervous. I had thirty pounds stuffed in my shoe for medicines and bandages and so on, and that money wanted to draw attention to me. The old man nodded and smiled. ‘I got twenty for ’em,’ I lied.
‘That’s a good price,’ said the old man. He had a big brown paper packet in his arms and he squeezed it, so it crackled gently.
‘You got ripped off,’ said a woman across the passage. ‘You can’t get decent leather shoes for under a hundred quid, not even second-hand.’
‘Don’t spoil his day for him,’ scolded the old man. ‘He’s made a killing – he’s riding the bus!’
I smiled again and pressed my nose against the window. I could see right down along the Coulsdon Road, into the dirty brown air ahead.
Now I had time to think. I had time to think how stupid I’d been! Lining up there for my chunk of raw cabbage and a mouldy black carrot! Sham wouldn’t have done that, he’d have been in and out of there like a ghost and no one would have known. And telling that stupid lie to Mother! My mouth had just gone blabbing on. Mother could have done things with the information I had, she could have made some real money for herself and then she’d have given me to Luke for sure. Now someone else would get the credit for telling her and I was just another lying kid who didn’t know what was good for him.
I could still make it right. The bus went right past Luke’s shop. All I had to do was jump off and run round the back and tell him everything. He’d be making up the dough to stand overnight. Maybe he’d come round with me and help me tell Mother Shelly.
‘The boy was frightened – it’s big business!’ he’d say. ‘There was a gun!’ he’d say. I could hear him saying it, with his hand on my shoulder, looking after me and doing what was best.
I felt even sicker when I thought that, because I knew I wasn’t going to do it. Isn’t that strange? But that’s treasure for you. Treasure is dreams and even when you know you should, you can’t let dreams go. That’s how life goes on from day to day.
I felt sick on the way, with the bus coughing its way up the road like an old man. I felt sick while it stopped in a traffic jam for five whole minutes right opposite Luke’s road. I stared down at the little alley where his shop was tucked away and I knew I could get there in less than a minute if I ran. But the bus started up again and I felt it disappearing into the traffic behind me and I felt sicker than ever.
I thought about that gunman, too. He wasn’t rich. He was wearing good clothes, but you can always tell a poor man even if he makes money because he’s small and his skin and his teeth are bad and he has a sort of pinched look about him. He’d been breathing the bad city air all his life. Like me, I don’t suppose he’d ever seen the sea. In London you’re lucky to see the sky.
Maybe he’d been a Mother’s boy. Maybe he’d been bought up by some gang and ended up running errands and getting nowhere. Now he was trying for himself, trying to make good. He’d found his treasure and he’d kept it and now he was bleeding to death amongst the rubbish with no one to help him but a pair of kids.
We went sailing down the Coulsdon Road, past the cars growling and honking, past the shops and the people crowding and running and working and stealing and fighting – past the street kids tugging at people’s coats asking for money, the rich people in their big cars with dark glass, the shopkeepers, the men lounging about.
I thought of all the things you could do with seventeen million pounds …
I heard the fair before I saw it. Everyone started peering out of the windows and smiling. That’s how a fair makes you feel. Then the music went loud and there it was down a side road – a solid wodge of people and smoke and stalls and sound. I jumped off the bus and ran down into the hot crowd.
It was so noisy! I was spinning round and round, trying to see all the good things for sale, and if I could pinch anything, and where my friends were and where my sister was all at the same time. A boy I knew came up to me and pushed a bright mass of candyfloss in my face.
‘Sticky Fly Pie!’ he shouted gleefully. I just gobbled away and he watched me for a second before he took it back.
‘Seen my sister?’ I shouted. He shrugged. Then his friends swept him along and he disappeared – gone in a second into the crowd. I could see his candyfloss jogging about in the air over people’s heads so it wouldn’t get crushed.
That floss brought my hunger back. I was slavering. I bought myself a hot dog and pushed my way through scoffing it – past a stall selling jewellery, past a man standing in a puddle shouting about God – he was drunk, or mad, or both, or something. My eyes were popping out of my head. It was impossible to find anything in that pack!
Finally someone told me they’d seen Jane by a reggae band. I was getting really cross with her. She hated all that! She was so stubborn it was impossible to get her to do what she didn’t want to – and here she was in the worst place to find someone, just where she never went.
I soon found the band – you couldn’t miss it. They have these enormous speakers, big as front doors, all piled on top of one another going boom, boom, boom so loud it knocks the breath out of you. I kept missing her because she was dressed up. She had a floppy hat on and a new dress. It wasn’t her sort of dress at all, all short and thin and I saw her a few times before I realised who it was. I went running after her but she was right up by the speakers where the music was loudest and the crowd thickest, and I had to fight to get to her. She couldn’t even dance in that pack and the music was deafening. Jane used to say it’s only so loud so you can’t make out the mistakes. When I caught up she was staring hard at the band as if nothing else mattered.
I tugged her shoulder. ‘Jane!’ I shouted, but she couldn’t hear. She just ignored me and tried to edge away. I had to pull and tug before she turned round and glared at me.
‘Oh,’ went her mouth when she saw who it was. ‘It’s you …’ she mouthed.
I tried to pull her off, but she didn’t want to come. I almost had to drag her. She was looking up and about as if someone was after her. I dragged her round behind the band.
‘Davey,’ she said, straightening her hat. She never calls me Fly Pie. ‘Oh, Davey, my poor ears! I think I’m going deaf – everything’s humming!’ She pulled her hat down over her ears and made a face.
‘What were you doing up there?’ I demanded. But she shrugged and shook her head.
‘Wanted to see what I was missing?’ she suggested, and she laughed again, crookedly, shaking her head as if she could shake out the ringing in her ears.
‘Listen,’ I said.
It was the right place to tell a secret, behind the stage in among all the electrics. There was so much noise I could hardly hear myself. She looked curiously at me as I told.
When I’d finished she grabbed my arm and pulled me out, away from the fair. That was the wrong way and I tried to pull back but she wasn’t having it, so we had to double back afterwards. I thought she’d had enough of all those people. She was running, she dragged me all the way. Once we’d left the noise she started asking me questions – how ill was the man? Was the baby okay? How much money did he have? And she kept asking me about what he’d said – about there being enough for everyone, about sticking together and paying properly because, for once, there was enough money for everyone.
‘Davey,’ she said. ‘Davey …’ She grabbed hold of my arm. She looked at me as if she could fill me up with something – I don’t know what. She was about to say something but she changed her mind and shook her head.
‘We’ll need bandages,’ she
said.
‘I’ve got money – lots of it – it’s in my shoe,’ I told her proudly.
We found a chemist on the High Street. Jane came out with a big bag and we caught the bus back to Farthing Down.
On the bus, sitting side by side on the top, Jane took my hand and smiled at me. She had a bag of little coloured lollipops she’d bought at the chemist. ‘Remember?’ she said.
I remembered. She used to take me on a bus ride for my birthday. We didn’t go anywhere. The ride was enough for us. As we rode we’d eat our way through a bag of those bright little lollipops. We were very proud to have birthdays because most of the other kids didn’t have them. They didn’t have a family, either, but we did. Actually, both the family and the birthdays weren’t real ones. Jane just picked a couple of days for us and we celebrated them every year, and that’s why we went on those bus rides years ago and felt special – somehow made for better things than the rest of them. We used to ride along like rich kids and Jane would tell me stories about when we still lived at home and had everything.
When I was little and Jane used to look after me she always used to make me behave by saying, ‘What would Mum and Dad say if they saw you do that?’ It nearly always worked. The thing was, all the other kids belonged on the Tip. They’d been dumped by their mothers because there wasn’t enough money to feed them, but me and Jane, we were just lost. Our mum and dad had lost us years ago by accident. They were very unhappy about it and they were always out looking for us. One day, they’d find us. They might just walk past us in the street and recognise us, or come into the dorm at Mother Shelly’s to find us. And everything would be all right again! Sometimes on those birthday bus rides one of us would point out of the window at some rich woman walking down the street with a servant walking after her carrying her shopping, and we’d say, ‘Do you think that’s Mum?’ And the other would look and pull a face and say, ‘Nah! Not rich enough,’ or, ‘Too ugly!’
Jane could remember Mum and Dad. They were rich! Dad worked in a big business and Mum stayed at home all day just so she could look after us. We all lived together in a big house and we went to nursery school and had proper dinners at the table, and we would have gone to school, too, if we hadn’t got lost.
It happens. Kids get lost every day in London. You can see people walking around with even quite big kids tied to their wrists so they can’t get separated. It happened to us on the Tube. It was a special surprise trip. It might have been a trip to the zoo, or to a big restaurant, or to the cinema. But we never found out because a big crowd got onto the train and we got separated, and when we tried to follow Mum and Dad off the train, we found we were following the wrong people. We got lost. It’s easy to get lost in London, because London’s the biggest place in the world.
Well, it was just a game, you understand? Real life’s not like that. In real life Jane couldn’t even remember what our last name was. She was only four when we went on the street. She remembered a big woman with a limp who used to look after us. The police came for her one day. We hid and then ran away. Maybe it would have been better if we’d hung around with the neighbours, or someone, but after we’d run for it we couldn’t find our way back and that was that. We weren’t even sure if that woman was our mother – she could have been an aunt or our grandmother or anyone, really. But those other stories made us both feel good and even though I hadn’t believed them for years, I liked to pretend every now and then that maybe it was true after all.
We sat together now on the top deck next to one another. It felt good. We held hands and sucked our lollipops and for a little while it felt just like it used to, and this was another special day for two important people. On my birthday, Jane always used to say to me, ‘What do you want for your birthday, Davey?’ And I’d invent some wonderful, impossible thing and she’d promise that I’d have it.
She didn’t ask me anything like that this time. There was a sense that everything we wanted was ours already – almost. We were on our way to make good. I was so relieved that she’d come along with me! Knowing Jane, I’d thought she might refuse to go, or insist on telling Mother or the police. We smiled at each other. Her face was bright. She looked so bright I wondered if she was all right. I thought she was going to tell me something but she didn’t.
The bus snorted and jerked on its way to the Tip. I tried not to think about what would happen next.
4
IT WASN’T EASY getting Jane into the commercial site. It’s one thing for a rubbish kid to slip by, but what’s a pretty girl in her best dress and high heels doing on the Tip? She slipped off her shoes and ran when I gave her the all clear and we hurried round to the mountain of boxes. I wasn’t sure where the hideout was. I started whispering, ‘Sham? Sham …’
He came out white and fearful.
‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he whined. He rubbed his eyes and looked at Jane sulkily. He said, ‘We don’t need her any more.’
I ducked down and pushed my way into the den. The baby was lying in her box. The tape was back on – there was a big roll of tape in the box with her and she was playing with it. Her eyes followed me. The man lay there very still. His eyelids were half shut but you could see his eyes. They were grey and still. I stared, waiting for the eyes to flicker.
‘I’ve been in there with him,’ said Sham. He sounded close to tears. I pushed a box down on top of the man. He didn’t even twitch. The gunman was dead.
Jane followed me in. She glanced at the man, then at the baby. ‘Oh, look, poor little thing,’ she whispered. ‘Who’s put that tape on its face?’ She picked it up and at once the baby began to struggle and jerk and grunt.
‘It screams when you take it off,’ warned Sham.
Jane cuddled the baby to her and stroked its head.
‘Poor little thing,’ murmured Jane. ‘Poor little thing.’
We watched her nursing the baby for a while. She sang a lullaby. I heard Sham snort. Three kids and a dead man in a rubbish tip, and there she was singing a lullaby!
‘Rock a bye baby, on the tree top …’ she sang, just as if she was in a real bedroom putting the baby to sleep.
‘Do you want to come in on this?’ Sham interrupted.
Jane stopped singing, but she didn’t look up.
‘This is the big time,’ said Sham. ‘That man told me everything. It’s a ransom. There’s just us – us three. All the kidnappers are dead. He was the last one. I’m his partner. He gave me that baby. It’s mine.’
Jane stroked the baby’s face. She didn’t say anything.
‘You can come in if you like – both of you,’ Sham went on. ‘I’ll see you’re all right. We can make a deal.’ He glanced at me but I looked away. I was waiting for Jane.
‘We can make a deal,’ he urged, unnerved by the silence. ‘You just do what I tell you. It’s my baby.’ He leaned forward suddenly. ‘Seventeen million quid,’ he whispered.
‘You don’t know nothing,’ said Jane. She got up. ‘Here’s your baby.’ She put her into his arms, and then she got out that big bag she’d bought in the chemist. She took out a bottle of disinfectant and cotton wool, went over to the dead man and she began dabbing at his face. The smell of disinfectant filled the little den.
‘But he’s dead …’ began Sham. Jane took no notice. She dabbed away until his skin was clean. He had a handsome face. He looked as if he was deep in thought, so deep that even Jane dabbing cold disinfectant on his skin couldn’t disturb him. When his face was clean she started on his hands. Then she took the hood of his anorak down and began brushing his hair, his dead hair, with her own brush.
‘He was a good man,’ she said. ‘He needs looking after, whether he’s dead or not.’
Sham laughed out loud. He was a gangster, he’d stolen someone’s baby. He wasn’t a good man!
Jane didn’t react. Sham jerked his head at me. ‘What’s up with her?’ he demanded.
I shrugged. She was always strange. Jane took no notice. She was straightening
up his clothes and making him smart. She glanced back when the baby started making noises again, but she put it out of her mind and got back to her job. Finally she folded his arms over his chest. He looked so peaceful. I stared at him and I thought of all the good things he’d lost.
Jane stood up.
‘Come on, Davey.’ She began to push her way out.
‘Wait – wait a minute,’ said Sham in alarm. You could see him thinking: what had he done wrong? ‘Where are you going?’ he begged.
‘Home,’ said Jane flatly.
Sham looked at me. I knew what he was thinking. My sister might be too good for this but I wouldn’t throw away seventeen million pounds. But I was curious. Here was my goody-goody sister who was too stuck up to pinch a stick of liquorice, and she was making a play. She had Sham – clever, quick, Sly Sham – not knowing what she was going to do next.
I shrugged. ‘She’s my sister,’ I said.
Sham was furious. This was all wrong. He’d found the baby, he’d been there when the man had died, he was in charge. There was all that money! He looked so confused, I could have laughed. I glanced at Jane. Maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought.
‘You need us,’ said Jane.
Sham’s face went hard.
‘If you want me in on this we have to give the baby back,’ said Jane. ‘Give it. For free.’
As she said this ridiculous thing she took my arm and squeezed it tightly. I stared at her and pulled my arm away but Jane held tightly on, glancing urgently at me to make me wait. Her face was hot and excited as if she might lose her temper or break out in tears any moment.
‘Give it? Give it?’ squeaked Sham. Give up seventeen million? No one had ever given us anything. Why should we?
‘You haven’t thought this through,’ said Jane, trying hard to keep her voice steady. She eased herself down among the crushed boxes and watched him. ‘Think. How many people are out there looking for this baby? The police. The parents. The gangs. Everyone. It’s been on the TV. Everyone knows. Do you think they’ll let us get away with it?’