‘Say thank you,’ said Jane.
‘How do you know I didn’t steal it?’ asked the old man, twinkling at her.
We both laughed and the old man allowed himself a little smile for a second before he went wide-eyed and serious again.
‘What’s that?’ he asked in disgust, prodding our tent with his stick.
Jane shrugged. ‘It’ll do for now,’ she said apologetically.
‘You mean you’re going to live in it?’ he asked incredulously. He sucked his beard and shook his head. ‘You don’t know you’re born, that’s your trouble,’ he complained. ‘My name’s Scousie.’ He lifted his stick again and pointed around at the camp. ‘Everyone knows me. Just ask for Scousie, they’ll know who you mean.’
‘Have you lived here a long time?’ asked Jane.
‘I don’t need to live somewhere a long time for people to know who I am,’ he said, shuffling his feet in amusement. ‘I’m Scousie – that’s why!’
He pointed his stick at me. ‘You look after her, she’s got no sense.’
‘She’s my sister,’ I said proudly, because even though it was true that she had no sense, there was no one like my sister Jane.
Jane laughed. The old man saluted her with his stick and shuffled away. He’d gone about three metres when he turned and threw the newspaper at us. He shook his stick at us as if he was angry. His pale eyes wrinkled up and his great big yellow-stained, toothless mouth gaped open and he laughed at us, banging his stick and shuffling in amusement.
‘You’ve got no bloody sense!’ he shouted. ‘No more than I have!’
‘Thanks!’ shouted Jane. She was triumphant. It was like she said. We’d done it right and now he was our friend. ‘Thanks!’
‘Oh, aye,’ said Scousie. ‘Everyone knows me. You ask.’ And he limped away, leaning on his stick and shuffling in the mud with his bare feet.
Sham came back a little while later in a terrible temper. He had a brick with him – all he’d found in all that time. He chucked the brick down and lay on a blanket.
‘Where did you get it?’ I asked.
‘Nicked it,’ said Sham. I looked at Jane but even she couldn’t get cross about a brick. She fitted it in among the other stones holding the polythene down. Sham was staring at the baby angrily.
‘We’re wasting our time,’ he said bitterly.
‘Her name’s Sylvie,’ I told him. ‘Jane read it in the paper.’
‘But I couldn’t make out any more,’ she admitted.
Sham pulled a face. ‘We don’t know anything about her or anything. I bet it’s the wrong baby, anyway,’ he whined. ‘Look at her …’
We looked. She was covered in mud. She didn’t look like seventeen million pounds. She didn’t look like tuppence.
Jane got the newspaper and showed him the photograph, but Sham wasn’t impressed.
‘That’s not her,’ he insisted.
Jane and I stared from Sylvie to the photograph. Suddenly, Sham was right. They looked the same but so did all babies. One was pink and rich. Ours was a filthy brat. How could she be worth all that money … How could she be on TV and in the newspapers? She was just a kid, like us.
‘Sylvie … Sylvie …’ said Jane. But the baby was busy and didn’t look up.
‘See,’ whined Sham. ‘See …’ His voice was high and he sounded as if he might start crying. He went to lie inside the tent. Jane sat there staring for a second, then she got up suddenly and walked off.
‘Where are you going?’ I called. But she didn’t reply.
The baby began to cry. I picked up a dummy and stuck it in her mouth.
Jane came back ten minutes later with a radio.
‘The news – we can listen any time we want,’ she said. ‘Now we’ll see. Now we’ll get going.’
When she turned the little thing on it crackled and hissed. She ran the dial round and the different stations rattled past. We didn’t know which ones had the news; none of us had ever bothered with the news before. We only listened to music stations on old radios we found on the Tip.
Finally she found a station with a lot of talk and we decided to leave it on that and wait. Sham had a watch – you can pick up cheap watches on the Tip any time. We waited for the half hour to come round but there was no news. Sham fiddled with the dial again and when he went back to the talk station there it was.
‘There is still no further news of baby Sylvie Tallus, who was kidnapped from her home in North London earlier this week. Ransom demands have been made and negotiations are believed to be underway …’
The newscaster went on to the rest of the headlines. We stared at each other.
‘See? We’ve got the wrong one!’ cried Sham.
‘But the photo …’ insisted Jane.
‘We’ve run away from Mother and it’s the wrong one,’ said Sham, his voice beginning to whine.
The news continued.
‘… Of the many groups who have so far claimed responsibility for the kidnap, the favourites remain the Monroe Gang who have been trying lately to extend their authority north of the river. Even so, police say that as yet they have received no evidence that conclusively proves who actually holds the baby. There is speculation that the baby may be the subject of gang rivalry, or that she was herself killed in the raid, as were three of her kidnappers. It is even being suggested in some quarters that she has been abducted a second time and is being held to ransom to her original kidnappers …’
‘Monroe’s just trying it on!’ cried Jane.
‘He was a Monroe,’ said Sham, ‘… that man. He talked about Monroe … he knew him. I reckon he stole the baby from Monroe. I reckon he killed those other men …’
Then there was a policeman speaking, who said that until they had positive evidence of who was holding the baby they would be unable to hand over any ransom.
‘We’ll have to get a camera and send a photo,’ said Sham. He reached down and scooped the baby up. He was smiling, he believed again. He blew raspberries at Sylvie. She laughed and pulled at his face.
‘Earlier today, the parents of the missing child made a plea to the kidnappers …’ the newscaster said. Then a woman’s voice came on.
‘I just want to say …’ she began. We all went very quiet because she was our baby’s mother and her voice was full of tears.
‘I just want to say to whoever is holding my daughter … to look after her and take good care of her, because we love her and miss her so much …’ She started crying then, and it was a moment before she could go on. ‘And please, please get some sort of proof to us, because we have so many different people all saying they have her and no one knows who’s telling the truth …’ She was trying hard not to start crying again, but she couldn’t help it and had to stop talking. But it was certain now that we had the right baby because Sylvie grabbed for the radio. She cried. She held the radio close and she cried for her mother.
‘We want to co-operate but we have to know who we’re dealing with,’ her mother said.
Then there was a man’s voice. ‘I’d just like to add that people have to bear in mind that the very large sums of money being demanded take time to get together. We can’t just go to the bank. It will take some time …’
We all began talking at once. Sylvie was crying because her mother’s voice had gone. Sham was saying we should go for the ransom after all, what did it matter so long as they got their baby back? Jane was wailing, ‘Oh, that poor woman – she must be missing her baby so much …’ and I was arguing that we ought to tell them how much reward we wanted before we handed the baby back.
‘That wouldn’t be a reward, it’d be a ransom, dummy,’ said Jane in disgust. Then she shouted, ‘Oh, shut up, listen …!’
The newscaster was on again and we all shut up just in time to hear him say, ‘… parents of missing baby Sylvie Tallus.’
‘We missed the names!’ groaned Jane. ‘How’m I supposed to get in touch if I don’t even know their names, you stupid pair of kids …!
’
But it didn’t matter because now we were certain. I stared at that silly little baby and I was saying, ‘I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it …’ I hadn’t really believed it all up till then, even though I thought I had. I grabbed the baby and held her up in the air and I shouted, ‘You silly little thing! You silly little thing!’ and she gurgled and laughed and reached out for my nose. Then Sham took her and threw her up in the air. She was laughing! She didn’t know what had happened to her. Then Jane joined in. We all threw her to each other while she shrieked and laughed and gurgled … all seventeen million quid of her. Then we fought over her and we ended up in a heap and almost knocked the tent down.
Then we calmed down and started talking properly. We decided that the gunman had been one of the Monroe Gang who kidnapped the baby, and then he’d tried to set out on his own and shot the others who’d helped him. But he got shot himself, and that’s how we found him.
Danny Monroe would be furious.
Danny Monroe was one of the biggest gangmen in the City. You don’t steal from Danny Monroe. He’d pay anything to know where the baby was and he’d kill anyone who got in his way. What was worse, we were in his territory. He controlled all the rackets in this part of Santy. Monroe had come out of the camps himself, they said. Everyone wanted to be on his side. We were in trouble now. Mother Shelly might have sold him the information Shiner brought her. He probably knew about us already.
Later we heard the news all over again and this time we caught what the newsman said at the end: ‘The media magnate John Tallus and his wife Diana, parents of the missing baby.’
None of us had heard of John Tallus even though the newsman said he was one of the richest people in the country. We had to listen for hours and it was quite late at night before we found out what he did. He owned television companies and newspapers. He owned the New Dawn newspaper which was one of the biggest. Everyone read it.
‘It’s easy!’ said Jane. ‘We ring up the New Dawn. They’ll put us in touch with him. Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘See? We’ve nearly done it. It’ll be over tomorrow!’
‘There’s no reward,’ said Sham. ‘They never said anything about a reward.’
‘There will be,’ said Jane. ‘I promise, Sham.’
‘We ought to tell them what we want – like Fly says,’ said Sham, glancing at me.
‘It’ll be all right,’ she insisted. ‘It’ll be all right, I promise it will. All right, Sham? All right?’ She was almost begging him. It was humiliating for her to beg him like that but she kept on until he said yes, just to shut her up.
He kept watching me and I knew he was waiting for me. Sham knew how these things worked, he could pull it off if anyone could. I could be in on it but I couldn’t make up my mind. I didn’t think he’d wait much longer.
Jane didn’t notice. She really believed that she could promise things like that and that he’d believe her and that it meant something when he gave his word.
The rain began again, flicking and spattering in little bursts on the polythene. We wrapped ourselves up, me and my sister together and Sham over on the other side with the baby. We went to sleep thinking about making good, about getting out, and listening to the rain cracking on the sides of our tent.
7
I WAS WOKEN up by shouting and beating wind. I was freezing wet; it was dark. I was sitting in a pond and the rain was teeming in. The tent was heaving and shuddering in the wind. As I watched, it tore free on one side and we were suddenly outside in the face of the storm howling at us and the driving rain. We were trying to catch hold of the thrashing sheet of wet polythene and to get our blankets out of the water and keep ourselves dry and the baby dry all at the same time. Sylvie was screaming, we were screaming. The wind was too strong. There was nowhere to run and hide and we were already drenched. We crouched down and tried to hold a corner over us but it was horrible with that sheet of wet polythene slapping and beating at us in the dark.
‘Come on, you lot! Out – come on …’
‘They’ve found us!’ yelled Sham. We all started to run for it. I thought we were dead. But I knew the voice. It was the big, old man with the Father Christmas beard – Scousie.
‘What a bloody mess,’ he bellowed above the wind, poking our tent with his stick. ‘Kids! Can’t even build a tent. You’re coming back to mine …’
We struggled through the wind towards him. It was vile. We’d have gone with anyone.
‘Bring your things – no point wasting ’em!’ yelled Scousie over the thrashing remains of our tent. We scooped everything up in a wet tangle and splashed and slid through the mud after him.
The old man’s house was a dark shape in the night. He made us take our food and blankets from the bundle and he dropped an enormous stone in the middle of the polythene to hold it against the wind. Then he pushed us inside.
There was a sweet, sour smell, close and damp. We could hear the rain splattering against the plastic windows, but the walls were so thick with layers and layers of turves and corrugated iron, and more turves and polythene, that the sound of the storm almost vanished when he pushed the door closed. In the middle was a stove with a kettle on it.
‘Don’t let the baby touch it, it’ll take her skin off,’ said Scousie.
Jane pushed back her wet hair. ‘Thanks,’ she said. Scousie waved his hand at her and she sat down and began undressing Sylvie, who suddenly began screaming her head off. Sham and I got close to the stove.
There were shelves all around covered with jars and bottles of this and that and you had to keep ducking to miss all the things hanging from the ceiling. It was a big place but there wasn’t much room because it was so full. There were piles of wood for burning, a calor gas cooker, Scousie’s huge armchair, some wooden chairs, a table and mess and rubbish everywhere. At the back was a small room almost entirely filled with a huge double mattress covered with a tangle of grey, smelly sheets.
‘You get over there and get those wet things off,’ he ordered me and Sham, pushing us to the front door where there was a mat. He flung us a handful of towels and blankets to wrap ourselves in and got us to wring out our wet things and hang them to dry above the stove. When she’d done the baby he sent Jane into the bedroom at the back to get changed while he warmed a bottle of milk. She came back out dressed in a big, fluffy brown dressing-gown and one of his old shirts.
She looked anxiously at him. ‘Thanks,’ she said again. ‘You saved our skins.’
The old man shook his head, staring at her. ‘I knew that thing wouldn’t last the night,’ he said.
‘We’d have been frozen …’ began Jane. But he waved his hand at her dismissively.
‘I expect you’re hungry as well,’ he accused. No one said anything but he took down a big frying pan from a hook and put it on the stove, and he got to work cooking an enormous meal of fried potatoes and eggs even though it was the middle of the night. Sham fed the baby her warm milk. She curled up, drank it down, and fell straight to sleep.
I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. We’d been living off bread and biscuits. That old man lived in the poorest part of Santy but he had everything. There was even a little paraffin fridge in one corner. When we’d finished he made us all a big mug of milky cocoa with sugar in it. It was gorgeous.
‘No, no – it doesn’t cost me nothing,’ he insisted when Jane tried to offer him some money. ‘My son gets everything for me,’ he boasted. He puffed through his beard and poured a big belt of whisky into his cocoa. Then he sat down in his big armchair and watched us scraping our plates clean at the dirty wooden table.
‘Bloody kids,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t blow a candle out on a windy day.’
When I woke the next morning Jane was sitting with her legs curled underneath her on the settee sipping tea. The old man was in his huge armchair playing with Sylvie. He opened his eyes wide and winked at me, and lifted her into the air to blow bubbles on her tummy with his big, wet, beardy mouth. Sylvie gurgled and shrieked. The o
ld man laughed, but she was half terrified.
‘You’re a little horror, you are,’ he told her.
‘Scousie’s been wonderful,’ Jane told me. ‘He’s so good with Sy.’ Sham was eating cereal and cold milk from the fridge at the table. I was thinking, Who’s Sy? when he looked up at me and rolled his eyes. I got it – Scousie had wanted to know the baby’s name and Jane had said Sy, which wasn’t all that clever. I shrugged and went to join in breakfast.
Jane was delighted because it had worked out just as she thought things should. She was laughing and smiling and making a big fuss of everyone – getting us more cereal and milk, making Scousie tea and cutting bread for toast. Sham and I made the most of it while it lasted. We ate until we ached.
‘You’re so generous,’ she kept telling the old man. ‘So generous!’
‘I was sorry for you, that’s all,’ insisted Scousie. ‘It’s all yours, you help yourselves. I don’t do anything for it. That’s the way I am. That’s Scousie. But if it were someone else it might be completely different …’
He wanted to know what we’d seen of Santy and where we’d been shopping and how much we’d paid. He was scandalised when we told him. He didn’t ask any other questions but Jane began telling him a story anyway – how we’d lost our parents in London and how they’d told us to meet them somewhere in town the next day. She kept glancing at us to check that we were following her tale. Scousie listened quietly. I saw him glance at the newspaper folded up on the side of his armchair. When she’d finished, he carried on as if she’d never said a word.
‘I’m going to show you the ropes,’ he told us ‘Because you don’t know a bloody thing. First thing is to get your money back off that thief in the store. Then I’ll show you who lives here and who your friends are and who your friends aren’t, and how to build a camp and everything that you don’t know. It may take forever,’ he added, shaking his big, bearded face sorrowfully. ‘You can stay here until you get sorted out.’ He waved away our thanks and carried on blowing raspberries on the baby’s tummy.