‘Oh, give over, you twats,’ he said, pushing his feet up on the pedals of his bike and surging away towards the end of the alley. ‘It’s only a fucking phone. Get mummy to claim it on the insurance.’

Half an hour later Larry arrived at his next destination, the piss-stinking echoey grey concrete Kennedy Estate in Whitton. He had cycled hard all the way there, to try and quash the nerves – bordering on terror – that he always felt whenever he came to visit Jerome. But, as he’d said to the schoolboys, needs must. He needed the money that Jerome would give him for the four purloined mobiles currently swinging together in the inside pocket of his jacket as he stood on his pedals and rode as hard as he could. That way, he could blame his pounding heart on the exertion from the exercise and not on the sight of Jerome’s mean, yellowish face as Jerome opened the steel door to his flat and narrowed his eyes at him, as he always did.

Larry carried his bike up to the eighth floor – no lock, and he knew it would be nicked in a nanosecond if he left it downstairs. Plus, it gave him another reason to be panting acceptably.

‘What you got for me, Lawrence?’ said Jerome with no preamble, through a crack in the door.

‘Awright Jerome?’ Larry patted his jacket pocket, and Jerome jerked his head to indicate he could come in.

‘Leave the fucking bike, mate. Don’t want no mud and shit on me carpets.’

Larry reluctantly propped it outside the flat, figuring that at least it was less likely to be stolen this far up. He followed Jerome inside, surprised and unnerved as always at how tidy and minimalist the place was. It was like bachelor pads he’d seen in movies set circa 1985, all chrome and smoked glass, grey and black patterned wallpaper on one wall, pale grey paint on the others, and a framed monochrome print of all those 1920s construction workers in New York eating their lunch on a girder thousands of feet up on a half-built skyscraper. The only thing currently out of place was the chunky black girl in a crop top and Day-Glo orange leggings sprawled on the sofa smoking a big spliff. She didn’t acknowledge Larry at all, and Jerome didn’t introduce her.

‘Let’s ’ave ’em then,’ he said impatiently.