A bell tinkled as the boys stepped inside, squeezing past racks and boxes that were usually set out on the pavement.

‘We weren’t expecting to walk far, but we got kicked off our bus,’ Julius explained. ‘I want something cheap to cover our feet.’

The man was elderly, with a kind smile, but smelled like he hadn’t washed in a while. ‘Too much broken glass for barefoot boys,’ he said sympathetically. He reached towards the bottom of a rack and pulled off a pair of Gabe-sized shoes in a bright design with pineapples on.

‘Can I get plain ones?’ Gabe asked.

‘That design is not selling,’ the man explained as he looked at Julius’s giant feet. ‘Your brother can have those for nothing. You are more difficult. What size are you?’

‘Forty-nine,’ Julius said, making the man chuckle.

‘I only have sandals that big,’ the shopkeeper said, forgetting his shotgun as he walked behind the counter to grab a reaching pole.

‘I’ll try Mum again,’ Gabe said, but Julius batted his hand away from his pocket.

‘What?’ Gabe mouthed silently, failing to grasp that pulling a 300,000 iPhone wasn’t the best idea when a shopkeeper was giving away shoes.

‘I don’t mind paying,’ Julius said as the man hooked one of the mesh nets hanging from the ceiling and lowered it carefully to the counter.

The net was filled with cheap foam thongs in cellophane packs and the elderly shopkeeper rummaged until he found a set big enough for Julius.

‘I must give you something,’ Julius insisted, as he slipped the thongs between his toes.

‘Good deeds bring me closer to God,’ the man said. Then he smiled. ‘And the way things go in this town, I’ll meet him soon enough.’

As if to prove this, there was a crash of metal outside. Gabe looked out, seeing a woman with a bloody nose who’d just clattered the metal frame of a market stall. Clouds of birds launched as she limped towards the centre of the precinct.

As the shopkeeper hurriedly slid bolts back on his door, three women in their late teens sprinted past the window. The one in the lead caught the bloodied woman easily, grabbing her hair and sprawling her with a kick in the back.

The woman screamed as the teens set about her. After a frenzy of kicks and stamps, the burliest of the trio picked their victim off the ground and dragged her back the way they’d come, barely conscious and trailing blood across the precinct.

‘The woman collected protection money for the Transport Union,’ the shopkeeper explained.

Gabe looked rattled. ‘Will they kill her?’

Julius put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and avoided the question. ‘We haven’t got far to go,’ he reassured.

The shopkeeper refused Julius’s money again before they left.