Ged kept his head low as he walked down the busy Rochdale Road. It was cold tonight and the wind was biting at his ears. He felt a bit anxious. Maybe he should have put his big coat on, it was freezing. His mam had bought him the coat last year; she’d treated him with her work bonus money. Two hundred quid she paid for it, nearly the whole bonus. He never really wore it, kept it for special occasions and there weren’t many of those. Ged carried on walking, constantly looking around him, jumpy. He hated the dark; even now in his teens he always kept a small light switched on in his bedroom at night – not that he’d ever have admitted it to anyone. He didn’t really go out much; bit of a home bird. Friendships were much easier online, anyway. He liked his own company, didn’t mind that most evenings were spent in front of a screen. He could entertain himself – being an only child had probably helped with that, no siblings to wrestle with, to play hide and seek, to sit and talk with. He’d got so used to being a loner he’d forgotten how to do anything else.

He picked up speed. He didn’t feel safe – maybe he should just turn round and go home. He could make an excuse to Frankie, tell him something had come up that he needed to deal with. He swallowed hard as he spotted Eastford Square in the distance. It had six shops and some landmark thing set in the middle – God knows what it was, some big grey concrete slab just plonked there. All around there were noises, people talking, cars flashing by. A motorbike screeched past too close, his heart was in his mouth, racing, he was shitting himself. What the hell had he said yes for? And then he heard a voice shouting his name in the distance. Ged turned his head quickly and could see Frankie waving over at him. Too late to bottle it. He walked towards him slowly, eyes down.

Frankie was sat with three other lads, all about the same age, shady-looking, all in black with baseball caps pulled right down so you could barely see their eyes. Dodgy for sure. Ged watched cautiously as Frankie dug into his jacket pocket and passed something to one of the others. He couldn’t see what it was. The guy just walked away, never said a word. Frankie rubbed his hands together, blew on them to try and warm them up a bit. ‘I thought you was going to ring me when you was on your way here, Ged?’

‘I forgot, soz. But I can find my way OK.’