‘That’s a separate matter, miss–’ but she cut him off.

‘Mrs.’

‘We found him on the street. He should be in school. Why wasn’t he?’

My mum looked down at his feet as he came up to us. He stopped and had to step back away from the sick, wiping his shoes on the pavement.

‘That might explain it,’ she said.

He looked up at her from under his helmet, wiping his feet, and thought about it. ‘OK, let him go,’ he said, and nodded the younger one back to the car.

I looked up over my hood and saw the red angry blotches climb up over the policeman’s jaw and I felt his fist clench the hood tighter. He gave me a shove towards my mum, but by that time some of the neighbours were leaning out the windows and doors to see what was going on.

‘Ye’re nothing but a bully!’ Mrs Keogh shouted from her window over the road. ‘Leave the poor boy alone!’ She had a booming voice, and leaned up out the window on her arms with her sleeves rolled up.

The policemen looked at her and each other as she stared down at them and more people came out on to the street. I looked up at my mum but she was shaking her head quietly and looking away from my dad who was hurrying up the street in his work clothes, carrying his night lamp. He slowed down to watch what was going on.

‘Get in the car,’ the older one said, and when the blotchy one didn’t move he said it again, ‘Get in the car.’

My mum put her arms around me and watched them.

‘I have to warn you,’ he said, ‘it could be serious next time.’

The younger one stopped to take his helmet off and look at us as he got into the car. He was remembering my face because he was gonna get me. The man in the back was looking at me too, because they’d already got him and there was nothing he could do. He looked away as they drove off. I lifted my hand out towards him but it was too late, and my mum said, ‘Put your hand down.’

I told my mum and dad I’d got ill and got lost coming home, and they nodded. My dad said I wasn’t to bring police to his door because they’d know who you were, and you’d never see the end of it. I didn’t tell them the policeman hit me, I just said they’d brought me home. My mum asked who the man was in the back of the police car, and I told her he was a tramp they found sleeping under the arches.