He smiled. ‘You don’t have to feed me, y’know, just ’cause we shared a doorway. Folks like us, we’ve got to look after number one. And don’t tell anybody else you’ve got nine quid or you won’t have it long.’

We went to an all-night kebab house he knew about. It was warm and glaringly bright inside and smelled so good I practically drooled. The clock on the wall said 06.20. We were the only customers.

We bolted doner and slurped coffee and talked. Ginger asked me what I planned to do. I told him I was looking for work while waiting for the DSS to come to a decision about my case. When I told him what I’d told them about my circumstances he shook his head.

‘Waste of time, mate. Foregone conclusion. They’ll say you made yourself homeless ’cause you left your mum’s place voluntarily.’

‘You mean I’ll get no benefit – nothing?’

‘Not a sausage, mate, you can take it from me. I’ve seen it too many times.’

‘But – if I don’t find work – if it takes a while – how’m I supposed to live?’

He laughed. ‘Any way you can, Link old son. Nobody cares, see? Nobody gives a toss. That’s the first thing you’ve gotta learn.’ He smiled. ‘Why d’you think so many kids beg the punters for change? ’Cause they like it?’

I shook my head. ‘Is that what you do – beg?’

‘Yep. All day, every day. And sometimes I don’t make the price of a sandwich.’

‘Do – do most people refuse, then?’

‘Oh, aye.’ He smiled again. ‘Do you know what a solcredulist is?’

‘No.’

‘A solcredulist is someone who believes what he reads in the Sun. And do you know what the Sun says – the Sun and three or four other tabloids?’

I shook my head.

‘Well, I’ll tell you. They say us kids aren’t homeless at all. They say we trick the punters out of their change all day and go home to our mums at night with forty, fifty quid in our pockets, and it all goes on drink and drugs.’

‘They don’t?’ ’

‘They bloody do, you know. And the solcredu-lists believe ’em, and all. That’s why they refuse.’

‘But it’s a lie,’ I cried. ‘There ought to be a law against it.’

‘True.’ He laughed. ‘There won’t be, though. It’s what they call the freedom of the press.’

I looked at him. ‘So when my dosh runs out, I’ll be begging too, huh?’

‘I wouldn’t wait till it runs out, mate. Like I said, some days you’ll make sod-all. I’d start today if I was you.’

We lingered in the warmth till breakfast-time customers began drifting in and the proprietor started giving us dirty looks.