I was magnificent though I say it myself. Here was a hard, streetwise kid, cagey as they come, and he followed me home like a three-year-old. And of course everything was set when we got there. I’d rigged up the settee so it looked like somebody was lying on it under a blanket. I’d even squeezed the blood from half a pound of pig’s liver on to the blanket and he fell for it, hook line and sinker. He ran straight to the settee, yelling at me to call an ambulance, and I nailed him when he went to lift the blanket.

That was Laughing Boy One. A brilliant operation, but I didn’t hang about congratulating myself. I tidied up a bit, then it was time to launch Laughing Boy Two. I’d planned to use the same trick in reverse, but when I got to the High Street Link the Stink had gone. I mooched about a bit but there was no sign of him.

Still, never mind, eh? There’s always tomorrow. Unless you’re Ginger, I mean.

Next day was a Friday, and I spent it looking for Ginger. I tapped a bit as well – had to, or I’d have starved – but all the time I was looking for him and he didn’t show. It’s happened, I told myself. He’s gone back to his real mates, like you always knew he might. I kept hoping though, deep down, and when you’re missing someone you keep seeing them. There was this woman – Mrs Chambers – lived next door when I was a kid. When she was about fifty her husband died, and for ages afterwards she kept seeing him on the street or in the supermarket. She’d jump off the bus or abandon her trolley and go chasing after him, and of course it was always somebody else. And that’s what it was like for me that Friday. I’d catch a glimpse of somebody across the road or through a shop window – somebody just like Ginger and when I got close I’d find myself gawping at a stranger. It happened half a dozen times.

Around dusk it started to rain so I went and sat in a doorway on Pratt Street, watching people go in and out of a posh chippy opposite. Normally the smell of the food would have driven me out of my tree, but I guess I was half out of it already. A little voice kept going Ginger, Ginger, like that. It was doing my head in. I thought, what if he’s lying in hospital somewhere, unconscious, and nobody knows who he is? He might have walked past the end of this street a minute ago, looking for me. Or maybe he’s lost his memory.