There’d been a message. And then another one. Asking if he was there, telling him to reply.

He could say he was sorry, say he hadn’t known how to work it, say he’d lost it for a day, say his brothers had found out and then his dad and he’d said Brookie wasn’t to use it, he had to give it back, so he wanted to do that, when could he and where?

Only he hadn’t said all of that. He’d said nothing.

The phone worried him – no, it actually scared him. He’d slipped it into his bag on the hall floor with the pile of other things, bags and jackets and boots and some stuff Connor really had got off a skip, a golf club, an old garden badminton net, and a couple of cans of paint, half full. They were doing up some houses at the back of the primary school and there was always a full skip, usually of stuff they couldn’t do much with, old kitchen worktops and cracked washbasins, wall tiles, wood with nails sticking out. But then on another day there’d be treasure.

‘Tommy, you got any money?’

‘Nope.’

‘Alfie . . .’

‘What for?’

‘Get some chips.’

‘I’ll have chips!’

‘And me . . .’

The truth was there hadn’t been that much for tea, Dad had been to the food bank late and all the best stuff was gone. He only went once a week, he said he could manage the rest, but that meant tonight was tinned spaghetti hoops on one slice of toast each. Alfie looked at his brothers. He’d had a good school dinner and his mate had shared two KitKats and a bag of Hula Hoops with him. He had £2.43 in his jeans pocket in tens and coppers, picked up over a couple of weeks from the street. Alfie walked with his eyes down everywhere. He was patient and it worked, he found money all over the place.

‘OK, Brookie, go and get chips with that, and don’t start eating them yourself.’

He grabbed his anorak and the phone, went out. It was very cold and quiet but the fish and chip shop was a beacon and he plunged into the sizzling warmth and the golden smell, fourth in line, looking at the battered fish, sausages, breaded roes, and his stomach groaned and ached in response. Two people came in behind him, a bucket of chips splashed into the hot fat, his mouth could feel them, his tongue was already licking them round, just a bit too hot, greasy and beautifully satisfying. He turned Alfie’s money over in his pocket.

‘Well, well, well.’

Fats was one of the two behind him, the other was a man who looked seven foot tall and wore sunglasses, which made no sense.

‘Our Brookie. You getting for yourself?’

‘Not just me.’

‘Your dad in?’

‘Why?’