Cover

Homeless, frightened and alone, Link finds himself down-and-out in London after fleeing from his brutish stepfather. He only survives because he’s befriended by streetwise Ginger. When Ginger suddenly disappears, Link is in despair.

Then he meets Gail, and even the cold doorways and hard pavements don’t seem so bad. He even stops thinking about Ginger. But other kids are vanishing now. Intent on his grisly mission, the man who calls himself Shelter stalks his next victim.

Will it be Link?

Robert Swindells

Stone Cold

ePub r1.0

Titivillus 01-01-2020

Original title: Stone Cold

Robert Swindells, 1993

Digital editor: Titivillus

ePub base r2.1

In memory of Bob Cryer, M.P. There was room in his world for all of us.

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me

You can call me Link. It’s not my name, but it’s what I say when anybody asks, which isn’t often. I’m invisible, see? One of the invisible people. Right now I’m sitting in a doorway watching the passers-by. They avoid looking at me. They’re afraid I want something they’ve got, and they’re right. Also, they don’t want to think about me. They don’t like reminding I exist. Me, and those like me. We’re living proof that everything’s not all right and we make the place untidy.

Hang about and I’ll tell you the story of my fascinating life.

Daily Routine Orders 1

Shelter. Yes. I like it. It’s got a ring to it as I’m sure you’ll agree. Shelter, as in shelter from the stormy blast. It’s what they’re all seeking. The street people. What they crave. If they can only find shelter everything will be fine. Well – get fell in, my lucky lads. I’m ready for you.

My fascinating life. Yes.

Born March 20th, 1977, in Bradford, Yorkshire to Mr & Mrs X. We were a family, you know – as happy as most, till Dad ran off with a receptionist in 1991, when I was fourteen and at the local comp. This mucked up my school work for quite a while, but that’s not why I ended up like this. No. Vincent’s to blame for that. Good old Vince. Mum’s boyfriend. You should see him. I mean, Mum’s no Kylie Minogue – but Vincent. He’s about fifty for a start, and he’s one of these old dudes that wear cool gear and try to act young and it doesn’t work because they’ve got grey hair and fat bellies and they just make themselves pathetic. And as if that’s not enough, Vince likes his ale. I suppose Dad must’ve been a bit of a bastard in his way, but at least he wasn’t a boozer. You should see the state Vincent’s in when he and Mum come home from the club. He’s got this very loud laugh – laughing at nothing, if you know what I mean – and he stands there with his arm round Mum, slurring his words as he tells me to call him Dad. Dad. I wouldn’t call that fat pillock Dad if he was the last guy on earth. And the one thing that really bugs me is the way he leers at Mum and comes out with this very suggestive stuff about going to bed and rounding off a decent night. In all the years Dad was with us, I never once knew him to mention sex in my hearing, or even hint at it. This slob leers and winks and nudges with one eye on me to see how I’m taking it, and Mum just laughs and shoves him and says ooh, you are a one. It makes me puke.

He’s changed her. That’s one of the things I hate him for. She used to be one of those quiet people who are satisfied with the daily routine of their lives. She hardly ever went out at night – she didn’t seem to want to. She was wrapped up in her family, I guess. She was always there when you needed her and I think she loved us. Me and Carole, I mean.

Oh, I know how it sounds, me going on like this about Mum as though she wasn’t entitled to a life of her own. Of course she’s entitled, but what I’m saying is, why Vince?

Carole’s my sister, by the way. She’s four years older than me and she always spoiled me, and when good old Vince moved in and Mum starting changing it was Carole who made life bearable for me. It was bad, but I could stand it with her there to support me. Then one night when Mum was working late, something happened between Carole and Vince. I didn’t understand it then and she never told me anything, but I’ve a fair idea now what it must’ve been. Anyway, she said something to Mum and they had this flaming row and it ended with Carole walking out of the house. She moved in with her boyfriend and I was on my own. I stuck it out till I finished school, but that was it. I’d got five GCSEs, which was a miracle when you remember what was going on at home, but I couldn’t get a job and there’s no government money for school-leavers. You’re supposed to be on a training scheme, but there aren’t enough places and I didn’t get one. I’m sure Mum would’ve supported me till I found something, but it wasn’t long before Vince started on at me about living on his money. I wasn’t living on his money – I’d have topped myself first. It was Mum’s money, but he went on and on, getting nastier and nastier, and one night when I’d been with my mates he locked me out of the house. It wasn’t even his house but he locked the door and wouldn’t let Mum open it. I went round to Carole’s and she let me spend the night, and when I got home next morning Vince started slapping me around the head for going off and worrying Mum. If you happen to know anybody who’s looking for a one hundred per cent out-and-out bastard, I can let him have Vince’s address.

Anyway, that’s how he was with me and I guess Mum’s scared of him because she didn’t stick up for me, so I left. You’d have left too, in my place. Anybody would. It’s called making yourself homeless. And so here I am sitting in this doorway which is now my bedroom, hoping some kind punter will give me a bit of small change so I can eat.

Good, eh?

Daily Routine Orders 2

I’m getting used to my name. Breaking it in like a pair of new boots. Good morning. Shelter, I say to the bathroom mirror. Smiling. Good morning. Shelter. You’re a handsome devil but you’re idle, lad. You need a shave. I’ve been writing it, too, on the backs of old envelopes. Shelter. Shelter. Shelter. It’s starting to look like an authentic signature already. I realize of course that all this has precious little to do with recruiting, and perhaps you think I’m stalling. Putting it off.

Not so. I’m merely indulging myself. After all there’s plenty of time. The street people aren’t going to go away, and anticipation is the best part of a treat, as my old grannie never used to say. So it’s a case of wait for it, you ’orrible little man.

I didn’t come to London straightaway. I may be homeless and unemployed but I’m not stupid. I’d read about London. I knew the streets down here weren’t paved with gold. I knew there were hundreds of people – thousands, in fact – sleeping rough and begging for coppers. But that’s just the point, see? In Bradford I stuck out like a sore thumb because there weren’t many of us. The police down here have got used to seeing kids kipping in doorways, and mostly they leave you alone. In Bradford I was getting moved on every hour or so. I was getting no sleep at all, and practically no money. People up there haven’t got used to beggars yet. They’re embarrassed. They’ll make large detours to avoid passing close to you, and if somebody does come within earshot and you ask for change, they look startled and hurry on by.

Also, I kept seeing people I knew. Neighbours. Guys I’d been at school with. I even saw one of my teachers once. And if you’ve never been caught begging by someone who knew you before, you can’t possibly know how low it makes you feel.

I wasn’t out every night, back then. That was the one good thing about it. Once or twice a week I’d show up at my sister’s for a bath, a meal and a decent night’s sleep. Trouble was, I was getting scruffier and scruffier, which happens if you sleep in your clothes, and Chris, Carole’s feller, got resentful of my visits. He didn’t actually say anything to me, but I could see it in his eyes and hear it in his tone of voice, and I knew Carole must be catching hell from him every time I’d been there. So, what with one thing and another, I decided it was time to move on.

Sounds good, right? Time to move on. Reminds you of all those old songs about the restless character who hates to stay too long in one place. He meets a girl who falls in love with him, but after a while he hears the old highway calling and so he slings his bed-roll over his shoulder and moves on, leaving the girl to grieve. Dead romantic, eh?

Forget it. Sad, is what it is. Sad and scary. You’re leaving a place you know and heading into the unknown with nothing to protect you. No money. No prospect of work. No address where folks will make you welcome. You’re going to find yourself living among hard, violent people, some of whom are deranged. You’re going to be at risk every minute, day and night. Especially night. There are guys so desperate or so crazy, they’ll knife you or batter your head in for your sleeping bag and the coppers you’ve got in your pocket. There are some who’ll try to get in your sleeping-bag with you, because you’re a nice-looking lad with soft skin and no stubble. And there’s nowhere you can run to, because nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn. You’re just another dosser, and one dosser more or less makes no difference.

Daily Routine Orders 3

I’ve been out tonight. I took the tube down to Charing Cross and walked about a bit. Tour of inspection, you might say. And I found them, as I’d known I would. Hundreds of the scruffy blighters, lying around making the place look manky. I marched along the Strand and there they were, dossing in ail the doorways – even Lloyds Bank and the Law Courts. One cheeky little bugger – couldn’t have been more than seventeen – actually asked me for money. Have you got any change, he says. I looked him up and down and I said, ‘Change? I’d change you, my lad, if I had you in khaki for six weeks.’ It didn’t go in, though. He just smiled and said have a nice night. Cracker up his arse, that’s what he wants. That’d wake him up. That, or six weeks at Strensall.

National Service. That was the thing. It brought ’em all in – the teds, the rockers, the Mammy’s boys. And it changed ’em, by golly it did. In six weeks. There were no teddy boys on that passing-out parade I can tell you, and no rockers, either. Soldiers, that’s what it made of ’em. There were no exceptions.

And that was my mission in life – to turn dirty, scruffy, pimply youths into soldiers. Into men. And I did it, too. Year after year.

Yes, and what thanks do I get? I’ll tell you. They chuck me out. Twenty-nine years’ service and they turn round and chuck me out. Medical grounds, it says on the chit. Discharged on medical grounds. And there’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing. I’m forty-seven and fit as a butcher’s dog.

Medical grounds is just an excuse, of course. I know why they really chucked me out. They chucked me out because their mission in life is exactly the opposite of mine. They think I don’t know that, but I do. They’re all part of the plot, see? There’s a plot – it’s been hatching a long time now – to undermine the country by clogging it up with dossers and junkies and drunks. Some of the top politicians are in it, and civil servants and social workers and even the church. They want to flood the country with winos and crims and down-and-outs and drag it down till it’s no better than some of the filthy holes I’ve served in all these years. They’re powerful, and they’ll stop at nothing. What’s the career of one Sergeant-Major to them? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing.

They’re not going to stop me, though. Oh, no. They abolished National Service, and they’ve put me where I can’t turn garbage into men anymore, but I can clean up the garbage, can’t I? They can’t stop me doing that, and I will. By golly I will.

Now – where did we get to? Oh, yes – I remember. Time to move on.

I’d applied for loads of jobs in the months since I’d left school. Office work. Supermarkets. Catering. Filling stations – you name it. Most employers wanted experience, and some ads actually said unemployed persons need not apply, which is criminal, in my opinion. I’d started applying in August and I’d had a couple of interviews, but as I said before, sleeping in your clothes makes you look scruffy, and by Christmas I looked like a tramp. I knew nobody was going to take me on looking like that, and I started getting really depressed.

Christmas didn’t help. I spent it at Carole’s, which was kind of her and Chris, but it was still the worst Christmas I’d ever had. For a start, there was my present. Carole and Mum had put their money together and got me this sleeping-bag. A really posh job. Quilted, waterproof, the lot. It must have cost a bomb and I knew they only meant to be kind, but it said something to me. It said they thought of me as a dosser – as someone who might always be a dosser, so he might as well be as comfy as possible. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t let them see. And I’ve got to admit it’s come in handy ever since.

Anyway, there was that, and then there was Boxing Day. Boxing Day Mum came round, and she brought Vince with her. I can only think that Carole had never told Chris the full story about him, or surely Chris wouldn’t have had him in the house. Anyway, they came for dinner and stayed till one o’clock next morning, and of course everybody got drunk. Everybody except me. And once he got a skinful, Vince started making cracks about me. The ghost of Christmas past, he called me. Don’t ask me why. I was a disgrace, he said, stuffing myself with my sister’s grub. Sitting there with my long hair and tatty clothes, making Mum feel guilty when she’d had nothing to feel guilty about. I was a scrounger, a sponger and a layabout, and I ought to be looking for work instead of sitting with a face as long as a fiddle, spoiling everybody’s Christmas.

It didn’t feel like peace on earth, I can tell you that. There wasn’t a lot of goodwill toward men floating about. And the worst thing was, nobody stuck up for me. Not even my sister. It was then I knew I’d worn out my welcome, even here. So.

On December 28th I borrowed the price of a one-way ticket to London. Carole lent me the money. She even came to see me off at the station, and hugged me before I climbed on board with my backpack and my bed-roll. The next hug I got was from a stinky old ciderhead in Lincoln’s Inn Fields when I gave him twenty pence so he’d leave me alone.

Daily Routine Orders 4

It is 19.00 hours and this has been a most satisfactory day. Most satisfactory. The secret of victory in any campaign is planning and preparation. My planning has been meticulous, and my preparations are now complete.

I have acquired a cat. This was my finishing touch. I can’t abide the arse-licking, hair-scattering beasts myself, but you have to admit there’s something reassuring about a home with a cat in it. A cat speaks of warmth, comfort, placid domesticity. A man who keeps a cat can’t possibly mean anybody harm, can he?

I’ve christened it Sappho. A brilliant touch this, suggesting as it does a degree of scholarship in the creature’s owner. I don’t even know whether the bloody thing’s male or female and I don’t care – the point being is that a feller with a cat called Sappho is going to project a certain sort of image. Kindly and a bit academic. He might be expected to have a vague conscience about sleeping snug and warm while others live rough. He’ll be a bumbler, but he might be stirred now and then to actually do something about this – to offer grub and a bed for the night to some poor unfortunate soul, no strings attached.

So it’s Shelter and Sappho. Could be a series on the telly, couldn’t it? Shelter and Sappho, otherwise known as The Invincibles. All is ready. Recruiting can now commence.

So London it was and London it is.

I made loads of mistakes. Most people do, first time in London. Trouble is, once you’ve made them it’s practically impossible to put things right – you’re on the old downward spiral and that’s that. I know you’ve no idea what I’m on about, so listen.

I arrived in midwinter. Not a good idea. Okay, so things were bad at home. Really bad, and I had to get out. But if I’d know what I know now, I’d have hung in there a bit longer – toughed it out with Carole and Chris till March or even April. Spend one January night in a shop doorway and you’ll know why.

I had a hundred and fifty quid on me when I got off the train at King’s Cross. It was what was left of my savings, plus a twenty Carole slipped me when Chris wasn’t looking. A hundred and fifty. Doesn’t sound bad, does it? It sounded okay to me. My plan was, I’d get a room somewhere. Nothing posh. A bedsit, and then I’d look for work. Again, nothing posh. I’d take anything for a start, just till I established myself and could look round properly. I was dead green, see? A babe in arms. It isn’t like that, but I didn’t know.

I strode out of the station with my backpack and bed-roll, and it felt like a new beginning. This was London, wasn’t it? The centre, where it all happens. It’s big, it’s fast, and it’s full of opportunities. Nobody knows you. Where you’re from and what’s gone before – that’s your business. All that stuff with Vince – it never happened. It’s a clean sheet – you can invent your own past and call yourself anything you choose.

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!