He moved slowly and carefully, out of the tower room, down the stairs and out across the roof. He crossed over the blue-grey expanse of tiles, loping along, stopping now and then to squint through the dirty windows, to catch sight of one of them – down there. Fresh meat.

He was a hunter. And if he didn’t kill he wouldn’t live.

Chapter 82

82

‘We are the Twisted Kids. Twisted gits, the gifted twits!

We are the screwed-up, twisted kids.

Our life’s a joke, our legs are crap,

We try to walk but slip and slap.

You wouldn’t want to ask us round for tea …’

Skinner was up on the trolley, singing at the top of his voice.

They’d sat Lettis next to him. She wouldn’t walk, wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t react to anything. She just sat there, with that hopeless stare. Since she’d climbed down from the tower they’d had no other response out of her. She hadn’t even blinked when she’d seen Skinner and his friends from the warehouse, Trinity and Fish-Face. And now Skinner was trying to cheer her up.

It didn’t seem to be helping.

Skinner was enjoying himself, though. His voice rang out and was the only thing any of them could hear as they plodded along the wide expanse of the M4.

At first Ollie had wished he would be quiet. They needed to be able to listen for any signs of danger, to know if anything, or anyone, was nearby. And Skinner’s out-of-tune singing would be heard by every living thing for miles around. But he’d got used to it, and was quite enjoying it now. At least Skinner’s singing meant they were still alive. Not beaten. Despite losing half their number.

God. What would the others say when they got back? Would they understand? It was worse for the museum crew, of course. They’d lost a lot of friends. Ollie had hardly known them really. And he hadn’t really been that close to Big Mick and Jake either, when it came down to it. They were with Blue. They’d only all linked up a couple of weeks ago. And …

Ollie grunted. Told himself not to be such a jerk. He knew what he was doing: trying to distance himself from what had happened so that it didn’t hurt so much.

He was walking along with Fish-Face and Trinity. Now and then Trinity mumbled a few words of the song and chuckled, but Fish-Face was as silent as Lettis. Ollie didn’t know what to make of her. She seemed so distant; her peculiar face was like a mask. Ollie couldn’t read her. Didn’t know if she was sad or happy, bored or what. Trinity seemed chatty enough, though.