‘I’m looking for Martin Hobbes.’

Not one of them replied. They kept on staring at him. He moved on and approached a couple of girls on their own. They were standing near a brazier, warming their hands at the flames. He repeated his question.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Never mind that. Where is he? His flat number?’

The girl who had spoken just smiled at him. Her friend started to laugh. He could see their hands in the flickering light, each finger and thumb stained dark at the tip. The sign. He turned to look elsewhere, and saw a group of young men coming forward, three of them. They wore their best threatening faces, two of them unconvincingly, the other finding it easy. Hobbes concentrated on that guy to begin with. ‘I’m a police officer. I’m here for one reason only: to find my son, Martin.’

‘Hobbes?’

‘That’s right. I don’t care—’

Pig.

It was more a hiss than a word, but Hobbes ignored the insult. He turned his attention to the weakest-looking of the trio, a boy more than a man. A runaway from a different, more comfortable world.

‘I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing here. I just need to find my son. That’s it!’

The lad wavered slightly. The leader of the trio stepped nearer, but Hobbes held him back with a look and a raised hand. His face was set in a fierce mask.

‘Kid, if you don’t tell me what I need to know, then God help me …’

The boy turned and ran. The two remaining just stared at Hobbes, one laughing, the other grinning.

‘There’s nothing for you here, old man.’

Hobbes moved on. He felt the eyes of the residents on him, and their hatred, and he felt their fear as well, in little pockets here and there, and he felt something else, a tribal nature, a bond between them, whether strong or weak, white or black, male, female, kids out of school, or hardliners in their twenties. An entire world, self-contained, solid in the middle, one-voiced, one-bodied, but brittle at the edges. He had to find a weakness, a way in.

The flames flickered in the brazier, and smoke drifted across the scene.

Music pounded from a nearby flat. He felt engulfed by it, as the volume increased. He didn’t feel in any physical danger, not yet anyway, but he was the outsider, completely so, alone against the crowd. And the darkness of the stairwell entrances might hold all kinds of threats. He walked past wire-covered windows, one doorway after another, wondering if he should start knocking on them at random, hoping for answers, or whether he should take one of the stairways up to the first floor, then the second, searching, searching as he may.

Over here!

It was a whisper from the dark near by, a girl calling to him.

He stepped closer to the stairwell and entered the shadows.

She waited for him, her face slowly appearing.