Not far from the phonograph table, a young gentleman in a fitted suit leaned casually against one of the lion statues and seemed to be watching Thomas. A newsboy cap sat at a jaunty angle atop his head, and he wore a smug smile that made Thomas’s palms sweat. It was as if he already knew the lie that Thomas was getting ready to tell.

Thomas had first noticed the gentleman two hours earlier and wondered at the time if he was waiting for the line to shorten before joining it. But as the minutes slogged by, the man made no move from his reclined position against the statue except to light his next cigarette from the dimming stub of his last.

The line moved forward again, and Thomas’s view of the man sharpened. What he’d believed to be a fitted suit was on closer inspection a tattered pair of trousers and a discolored coat, two sizes too small. And the cap nesting in his mop of unruly ginger curls was dull with age and frayed with wear. This was no gentleman overseeing recruitment to root out the charlatans hoping to join Kitchener’s Army. At best, he was a beggar loitering in Trafalgar Square in search of handouts. At worst, he was a con man sniffing out his next mark.

Eight years earlier, when Thomas’s dad moved their family from Ballingarry, Ireland, to Britain in search of mining work, his mum had cautioned him and his brother to steer clear of what she called “street urchins” as they’d made their way across London from one train station to another.

Even at age five, Thomas had sensed something unsettling behind their overly friendly smiles and piercing gazes and he’d pressed closer to his mum. He felt a warning twist in the pit of his stomach now as it occurred to him that his small size made him the perfect mark for such a predator. His hand wandered again to the necklace tucked beneath his shirt, but remembering he was being watched, Thomas shoved his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers protectively around the potato. The man might take his food, but he’d never get his Saint Joseph medal. There was only one person worthy of that medal, and it wasn’t some London pickpocket.

His concerns about the man lessened as the line moved forward again and he saw that what he’d thought was a thick beard darkening the man’s face was not hair, but soot and grime. The beggar was merely a scruffy boy, and though he was taller and undoubtedly older than Thomas, he no more belonged in that line than Thomas did, which was perhaps why he refused to join it.

Between long drags on his cigarette, the street urchin whistled loudly to the music, drowning out the Irish tenor’s stirring voice with his shrill, off-key accompaniment. When he noticed Thomas glaring at him, the lanky boy blew out several quick, piercing notes, each carried on a puff of smoke, and winked at Thomas.