The Deadly Game(37)
‘You was lucky we was here,’ said the girl.
‘I know,’ agreed Jake.
‘They’re cops, right?’ said the boy.
‘Sort of,’ said Jake.
‘So what you do?’ asked the girl.
‘Nothing!’ protested Jake.
‘Yeah, like the cops is gonna chase you for nothing!’ sneered the boy. ‘And you wearin’ proper good clothes ’an all, not a hoodie or nuthin.’
‘Yeah, you ain’t street, and they plain clothes, so it’s gotta be somethin’ heavy.’ The girl nodded in agreement. She frowned at Jake suspiciously. ‘You a murderer?’
‘No I am not!’ said Jake vehemently.
‘So who are they?’ asked the boy. ‘Them people chasin’ you?’
Jake hesitated. He was about to brush the kids off by saying he didn’t know, or it was mistaken identity, but one look at them told him they were too smart for that. And they had saved him, so he owed them.
‘They’re government agents,’ he said.
The kids looked at him, momentarily awed, then the impressed expressions on their faces were replaced with sneering disbelief.
‘Yeah!’ said the boy, his lip curling, and he spat on the ground. ‘Expect me to believe that!’
‘It’s true!’ insisted Jake. ‘They tracked me through my mobile phone. I had to take it apart.’
And he reached into his pocket and pulled out the remains of his mobile phone, the battery and SIM card.
The boy and girl exchanged questioning looks. Then they turned back to Jake and the girl demanded: ‘So why they chasing you?’
‘They think I’ve got something they want,’ said Jake.
‘And have you?’ asked the girl.
Jake hesitated, then he shook his head.
‘No,’ he told them, and reflected that it wasn’t a lie, the book was still at Euston Left Luggage office. At least, he hoped it was.
‘So why you run?’ asked the boy. ‘Why don’t you stop and tell them you ain’t got this thing, whatever it is?’
‘Because they won’t believe me,’ said Jake.
The two kids looked at him quizzically. Finally, the girl asked: ‘You a spy?’
‘Yeah,’ the boy nodded, ‘that’s who he is. He’s James Bond.’ He grinned. ‘Even if he look a wimp.’
‘I’m not a wimp!’ responded Jake, put out.
‘Well, you sure look one,’ said the boy.
The girl nodded in agreement.
‘Anyway, you owe us,’ she said.
‘I do,’ said Jake humbly. ‘And I thank you.’
The girl looked at Jake challengingly.
‘You thank us?’ she echoed. ‘You think your thanks is gonna get us a bed for the night, or put food in our bellies?’
Of course, they wanted paying, Jake realised.
‘Look, I haven’t got much cash on me,’ began Jake.
‘That’s OK, we don’t want your money,’ cut in the boy.
The girl glared at the boy.
‘What you tellin’ him that for, fool!’ she said angrily. ‘Of course we do! You got any money?’
The boy looked uncomfortable.
‘That ain’t the point,’ he said. ‘He was on the run from the man. We’ve all been on the run like that, and we got help when we needed it. People was there for us. That’s what this is about. What goes around comes around. You gotta pass it on.’
The girl shook her head and looked at the boy disdainfully.
‘You’re full of bullshit,’ she snapped. ‘You bin hanging around them Hare Krishna people too much!’
‘I’m just sayin’ . . . !’ the boy snapped back at her defensively.
‘Look, please . . . !’ cut in Jake, eager to stop an argument developing between the two.
‘You’re right, I do owe you. And I want to give you money for helping me.’ He took out his wallet and looked inside. He had thirty pounds in ten-pound notes. He took two of them and held them out. ‘This is all I’ve got, except for ten pounds left for me,’ he said, and he showed them the inside of his wallet to prove he wasn’t lying.
‘I don’t know . . .’ began the boy thoughtfully, but the girl snatched the two ten-pound notes from Jake’s fingers.
‘I do,’ she said firmly.
The boy looked Jake up and down, curious.
‘So, what you gonna do now?’ he asked.
‘Do?’ repeated Jake.
‘Yeah. Those agent dudes still after you.’
‘Easy.’ The girl shrugged. ‘He’s gonna go home and come up with some other story to explain why he’s all smelly from being in that dumpster.’
‘I can’t go home,’ said Jake. The girl and the boy looked at him, the boy puzzled, the girl suspicious.