She spotted a bus shelter and started to walk over towards it. ‘I’ll be here waiting, don’t be long.’ But Ged wasn’t listening – all he wanted to do now was get rid of the gear. He headed up to the end of the street and crossed the road, his head low and his hands deep in his pockets. He’d only been walking a couple of minutes when he heard a car engine roaring behind him. His heart was in his mouth. Now what? He wished he’d never come. The car slowed down alongside him.

‘Oi, Ged, right?’

Ged nodded and walked over to the driver’s side window. ‘Yeah, Frankie said you’d be waiting for me. Mathew, yeah?’

Mathew was a big strapping lad, around eighteen years old. He looked hard as nails. He checked Ged out from top to toe. Ged could smell weed coming from inside the car – the guy in the passenger seat was blazing a zoot as he looked over at him.

‘Get in then, I’ll take you to the gaff where you’ll be staying tonight.’

Ged looked puzzled.

‘No, I’m just delivering this and taking some money back. No one has mentioned me staying over.’

‘Change of plan. The money won’t be in until late, so you’re not travelling back tonight. Frankie knows the score.’

Ged swallowed hard. His mam would go sick if she knew he wasn’t at home. What on earth could he tell her? And then there was Nancy. He just couldn’t leave her, he had to come clean.

‘I’ll have to go back up the street, my girlfriend has come down here with me so I don’t look suspicious, so she’ll have to stay with me too. I can’t just leave her, can I?’

Mathew shook his head and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.

‘For fuck’s sake are you some kind of baby or what? I’m not running a fucking nursery here,’ he let out a laboured breath. ‘In future leave her at home. This is no place for any girl, surely you know that?’

Ged acted cool; he chewed slightly on the side of his lip. ‘Yeah, it’s a one-off. And, like I said, nobody told me the plan was to get my head down up here.’ He opened the car door and climbed in. The smoke was thick in here, stinging his eyes. He coughed and pulled his coat up over his nose, then sat forward in his seat and pointed in the direction he wanted them to go. The tunes were turned up, bass pumping as they drove along the road. Surely these idiots should have been keeping a low profile, not bringing attention to themselves? Knobs, he thought. Acting the big men, but they were just jumped up kids.