He stood behind a beautiful Spanish girl with the latest Apple laptop sticking out of her rucksack, then waited beside a Chinese man who carelessly returned his wallet to an open pocket in his raincoat. Today he had no need of such easy pickings. That kind of thing was beneath him now, small-time stuff. He was looking for a dupe, a penniless rat-boy with the loyalty of a dog for its master, someone he could use and string along, someone he could blame and dump. He did not have to look hard, because the dupe found him. Mr Fox could not believe it; the little runt was about to try to pick his pocket! He turned sharply, catching the boy with his arm poised.
‘Hey, I know you!’ said the boy, suddenly unfreezing from his guilty pose in a tumble of awkward angles. ‘Your name’s—hang on—it’ll come to me.’ He wagged his finger. His face was as pale as neon, bony and spotty with drug abuse. Mr Fox mapped out his life in an instant. An illustrious career that went from stealing on demand to hawking drugs and selling himself. The area’s old clubbers had their ugly pasts and their doomed futures etched upon their faces, the nights and fights filled with trash-talk, bravado and petty cruelties.
‘You’re local, innit, I seen you around here loads of times.’
‘I’m Mr Fox.’
‘Nah, that’s not it. Not Fox, another name, unless you changed it.’
‘I think you’re mistaken, Mr—’
‘Just call me Mac, everyone does. Nah, it’s definitely you.’ The boy gurgled and slapped at his shaved head as if trying to knock sense into himself. ‘I always seen you around, all my life. You was in Camley Street Park one time. I was with my mates havin’ a smoke an’ that. You was—Ah.’ Mac suddenly remembered, and even he knew it was better to quickly forget what he had seen.
‘What do you do, Mac?’ asked Mr Fox, walking with him, leading him from the station.
‘This an’ that. I make ends meet, shift a bit of stuff here and there. The usual, you know.’
Mr Fox knew all too well. He moved the boy aside as a pair of armed police constables in acid-yellow jackets walked past. King’s Cross had radically changed since becoming the target of terrorist attacks. He checked their epaulettes for area codes and saw that they were locals.
‘How long have you been out of Pentonville?’
‘How d’you know I was inside?’ The boy looked amazed.
Mr Fox had spotted the tattoos that edged out beyond Mac’s sleeves. The inmates at Pentonville prison were fond of inking themselves with fake Russian gang symbols, most of them poorly copied and misspelled. The one on Mac’s right forearm was actually a produce stamp for a Soviet state farm. If the boy knew he was advertising turnips instead of hanging tough, it might be the end of their association before it began.
‘Wait a minute, that’s where I seen you,’ said Mac. ‘You was my English teacher, you used to come and teach at Pentonville.’
Mr Fox studied his prey, deciding whether to let the identification stand.
‘One day you just stopped coming. What did you give it up for?’
‘The doors,’ he admitted.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The seventeen security doors I had to pass through every morning and evening. They added an hour and a half on my journey.’ He did not mention the lockdowns, those days when the alarm rang and no-one was allowed in or out. Six or seven hours at a time spent doing nothing, shut in a stale blank room like one of the inmates. He didn’t mention the smell that got into your clothes and made you dread each working day. Mr Fox was determined to stay out of prison because he had witnessed its horrors from close quarters.
‘How would you like to earn some easy money?’ he asked.
Mac’s eyes shone, then dimmed. You could see exactly what he was thinking. ‘I don’t do queer stuff no more. I mean, no offence an’ that.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s just some simple errands. To meet someone, relay some messages. Maybe deliver something back to them.’
‘It ain’t drugs, is it, ’cause I’m on probation.’
‘Nothing like that. It’s completely legitimate, I assure you. Just a local job. I need someone trustworthy.’
‘I don’t let people down.’
‘I’ll need you to be around here tomorrow evening. Give me your address and mobile number. I have to be able to get in touch with you easily. Tell me, do you drive?’
‘I got a van.’
‘Unmarked, is it?’
‘Well, it’s white.’
‘We may need to use it at some point. If you do well with this, there could be more work for you.’