Mind the Gap

chapter Six

old news

Jazz had been down beneath for over a month, but still she searched for news of her mother's death.

Harry made it his duty to keep tabs on what was going on aboveground, and every day one of the lost kids

would return from an excur-sion with a newspaper, bought or nicked. Harry read them, then left them

stacked beside one of the storage cupboards, ready to be used to light the occasional fire they had when the

tunnels grew cold. Jazz had been looking through these papers, and nobody had interrupted her. They all

knew what she was searching for.

So far, nothing.

No mention of the Uncles in their black BMWs. No re-ports of the bloody death scene in their house,



no stories about the dead mother and the missing daughter who was yet to be found. Nothing. A blank, as

though what had happened was so far below the normal surface of things that no-body knew.

"Someone has to know," Jazz said. Cadge was sitting be-side her, as usual, watching as she scanned

the discarded copy of the Times she'd picked up from the station platform. "Someone has to know

something."

"From what you said, lots of people know stuff," he said. "Just that the ones that know don't wanna

tell the papers."

She turned another page and read some more old news. Everything here described events happening

in another world, and she could not find it in herself to care about an-other rise in inflation, a minor royal's

indiscretion with a pop star, or the latest record-breaking celebrity divorce set-dement. None of that

mattered. None of it ever had. Her mother had told her that, and it was her mother who mat-tered, and

between these pages of cold dark print there was nothing concerning her mother.

Up there, her mother's murderers still walked free.

She had burned with the injustice of things since spying that initial smear of blood on her mother's

bedroom door handle. But now, for the first time, Jazz's thoughts were clouded with revenge.

They celebrated that evening with hot dogs cooked over an open fire, while Harry Fowler relayed a

tale of his time as a gentleman. Exaggerated and ridiculous —travels in Africa, hunting tigers in India, and

carrying out expeditions to find the Yeti in the Himalayas—but the kids were all entertained, and Jazz found

herself caught up in the banter and enjoy-ment.

But that night she dreamed of her mother, as an idea rather than a real person. In her dream, Harry

sat her down one day and broke a terrible truth. Jazz girl, pet, you've been down here with us forever,

he said. You were born down here and you'll die down here. The upside is just where we go to hunt

tigers.

She woke up with a start and cried in the dark, vowing to never let the memory of her mother fade

away.



****

Three days after her first nick, Jazz went back up with Cadge, Stevie, and Hattie.

"Money's all good and nice, pets," Harry said, "but our United Kingdom needs plenty more besides.

There's stuff money can't buy, but luckily it's not just pockets our hands can worm their way into."

Everyone listened, but he was speaking to only Jazz.

They caught the Tube to Covent Garden and parted company before the station exit. Stevie and

Hattie went their separate ways, and Jazz watched Stevie disappear quickly into the crowds. For someone

so striking, he hid well. She wanted to say good-bye, wish him luck, touch his hand, and try to catch a smile

from him. But during the en-tire Tube journey, he had sat opposite her and stared over her head through the

dark window. Never once had his eyes flickered down to meet her own. And in his feigned disinter-est, she

wondered whether there was something to find.

Time will tell. Her mother had said that, using it as a full stop after telling her stories about the

Uncles, and other people, and what the future might hold for her. Time will tell. And it certainly had.

Cadge went with Jazz, and the two of them browsed shop windows, chatted, and laughed, keeping

one eye on the time. There was a place to be and a time to be there, and everything was leading up to that.

Cadge seemed even more ebullient than ever. Once or twice he touched Jazz's hand, blushing and

looking away as he laughed at something she said. He carried an outwardly cheeky confidence, all bluster

and defiance, but it was obvi-ous that there was a deeper side to him that was both vulner-able and

delicate. In the beginning, his attentions had made her feel awkward, but now she was flattered. Still, she

did her best to temper her response. She liked Cadge —he had a good heart, and she believed he could be a

very good friend—but there was an age difference that she could not shake from her mind. She was still all

but innocent of the opposite sex, but she knew enough to realize that Cadge was just a boy. So while he

touched her hand and exuded an im-age of togetherness, she thought of them more as brother and sister.

Jazz did not like facing out into the street. She felt ex-posed. There were eyes upon her, and she

expected an Uncle to emerge from the crowd at any moment and bury a knife in her gut. They'd go for

Cadge too, of course, and drag him into some shop doorway, and the last thing she'd see would be the

Uncle's face pressed up close to hers, the last thing she'd smell would be his garlic breath, and he'd pant in

excitement as her blood pulsed over his hand.

Her murder would be quick and quiet, a brief distur-bance in a street filled with everyone minding

their own business. London was like that. So many people pressed so closely together, and the more people

there were, the more alone she felt. Nobody seemed to pay attention to anyone out here. If the street was

virtually deserted, passersby would nod a brief hello, maybe give a smile, and if there was only her and



someone else, they'd pause for a chat. But in crowds like this, everyone kept to themselves. The more

people there were, the less human they seemed to be.

So she looked in shop windows and studied the reflec-tions of the street behind her. Cadge nattered

on, pointing out things in the window displays —CDs here, clothes there, books and shoes and sexy

lingerie—but Jazz's eyes were al-ways searching beyond these things. Was that a man in a black suit

staring at her back from across the road? She shifted sideways, and no, it was just the shadow thrown by a

slowly closing coffee-shop door. They walked to another shop, and Jazz looked past the display of hats and

handbags at the reflection of a man standing motionless behind her. Cadge made some quip about Hattie

not being here, and Jazz lowered her head and looked at the reflection. Still not moving, still staring across

the road, his immobility in such a bustling street marked him.

Like picking a scab, the urge to turn was impossible to resist. But the man was only a mannequin

placed on the pavement outside a clothes shop. Its arm was raised, finger pointing at her accusingly. In its

blank pink face she saw a hundred expressions she did not like.

Someone nudged into her and passed by without apolo-gizing.

Windows lined the buildings above her, any one of them home to an enemy.

"Cadge, let's get a drink," she said. "Got half an hour yet."

"Sure!" He grabbed her hand and headed for a newsagent's stall, but she held back and nodded

across the street.

"Coffee," she said. "Somewhere inside."

"Oh." He looked grave for a second, then smiled and nodded. As they dodged traffic across the

street, he held her around the waist and leaned in close. "It was like this for me the first few times back up,"

he said.

"Like what?" Jazz asked. They reached the pavement and negotiated the equally busy streams of

human traffic.

Cadge looked up at the ribbon of gray sky between rooftops. "Too exposed."

She felt a rush of affection for Cadge then, and she opened the coffee-shop door and motioned him

in first.

Harry always sent them up with some money. Jazz had a cappuccino and Cadge a milk shake, and

they drank them quickly.

"So what's your story, Cadge?" she asked. "I feel so self-ish. Things are bad for me, but I've never

asked about you or any of the others, and that's bad too."

"Don't feel guilty," he said over the top of his glass, and she sensed a maturity in him then, something

that belied his outward image. He suddenly reminded her of herself at that age. "My story ain't too much

fun to tell either."

Jazz sipped her coffee and glanced around the busy cof-fee shop. Everyone in their own world,

nobody looking at them, and she no longer felt so out of place. She glanced at her watch. "We've got time."

"Well..." He sucked up more milk shake through his straw, then licked his lips. "To be honest, it

sounds like a really bad soap. 'Cept it ain't. It was real lives ruined, and no one to watch but me. See... I

came home from school one day and found my dad and auntie...you know. Doing it." Thought they hadn't

heard me, but as I was creeping out, Dad ran downstairs an' caught me. Gave me the beatin' of me life.

Never was one to hold back with his fists, my dad. So he beat me, and my auntie came downstairs without

clothes on, tried to stop 'im, and he hit her too. Just smacked her one in the eye and she fell down, all naked

and that. Mum came home later —she'd already heard what had 'ap-pened from her sister—and she and

Dad had a row. Real screaming, shouting match right in front of me, while I held a cold flannel against my

mouth and cheek where he'd hit me. I thought he'd hit her too, but he didn't, and then she ran away.

Just...left." He shook his head, looking down at the scarred timber table, as though searching for clues to his

mother's whereabouts in the scratched names.

"What about your dad?"

"Kicked me out. Said he'd never wanted me, I'd ruined his life, and told me to piss off an' ruin

someone else's."

"F*cking hell, Cadge."

He grinned. "Told you. Not much fun." He noisily sucked up the dregs of his drink, and a few eyes

turned their way.

"Just f*cked-up adults, Cadge, that's all. They didn't mean it, I'm sure."

"Maybe not Mum," he said. "Maybe not her." He seemed to drift away for a time. Jazz let him. She

finished her drink and scanned the street outside. Tourists, office workers —she could tell them apart with

ease—and she spent a couple of minutes picking out people who'd have fat wallets. She seemed to be a



natural at this thieving lark. Her mum had always told her to be observant, cautious, secre-tive.

She gasped and closed her eyes, catching a whiff of perfume that reminded her of so much. Waking

from nightmares and she's there for me, ready to calm and soothe... Arriving home from school and

she gives me a kiss, and I can always sense her re-lief that I'm okay... Passing her bedroom in the

morning, seeing her staring into the mirror, smelling that perfume she always used and feeling both

contented and sad...

"What is it?" Cadge asked. His hand closed around her upper arm, warm and protective.

Jazz opened her eyes. "Beautiful," she said. "Perfume my mum always wore." She glanced around

and saw a tall, smart woman just sitting down at a table. Perhaps she had a daughter too, and perhaps her

daughter would not appreci-ate her fully until she was gone.

"Beautiful," Cadge said. "That's something to hold on to, Jazz."

She nodded. "It is. Come on, let's go."

"Yeah." He slipped from the stool and grabbed her hand, and Jazz gave him a brief squeeze. He

beamed. "Yeah! This'll be fun."

They exited the shop and turned left, and the crush of pedestrians forced Cadge to let go of her hand.

Jazz weaved through the people, head down but eyes always looking for-ward.

The chemist was on a corner at the T-junction of two streets. A pub took up the opposite corner, one

of those old London boozers with leaded stained-glass windows and his-tory oozing from every glazed

brick. There was not quite so much bustle here, and a woman smiled thinly at Jazz as she walked by. What

does she see? Jazz thought. She'd come topside that morning wearing nondescript jeans, a baggy T-shirt,

and a denim jacket, the clothes worn but not tatty. Why did she smile? Jazz turned and watched the

woman walking away, and Cadge frowned a question.

"Nothing," Jazz said.

"Calm down," Cadge said. "You know how it'll go. Take it easy. This is what I'm good at. Just follow

my lead." With those few words, Cadge took charge. He glanced at his watch, listened for the sound he

was waiting for —raised voices—and then walked past Jazz and approached the shop.

Timing was crucial, and Jazz marveled at how perfectly it flowed.

Hattie ran from the shop, screeching and scattering packets and bags behind her: toothpaste, throat

lozenges, corn plasters, and sun cream. She darted straight across the road and pelted down the street,

waving a bag over her head.

A man shouted in the shop, a deep, angry roar, and then Stevie Sharpe leaped from the door. He

stood there looking around for a few seconds, eyes skimming past Cadge, paus-ing briefly on Jazz, and

passing on. His long hair swung as he spun around and saw Hattie disappearing along the street.

A man appeared beside Stevie wearing the white coat of a pharmacist, and Jazz froze. He's caught!

she thought. He should have run faster, shouldn't have looked around for us, shouldn't have looked

at me!

But then she saw what was happening.

"I'll get her, mister!" Stevie said. And he took off after Hattie.

Cadge did not break pace at all. He slipped into the shop behind the man, casual but quiet, and Jazz

followed him in a few seconds later. The man's attention was focused wholly on the fleeing girl and the boy

who had given chase, and he was thumbing a number into his mobile phone as he watched.

The law, Jazz thought. And they'll not take long to get here.

Cadge was moving smoothly and confidently, and Jazz took a second to scope out the shop. Gob had

already been here three days before and so they knew the layout: two is-land units, three aisles, one main

counter. Jazz was pleased to see just one woman behind the counter and no other cus-tomers. The man

remained outside.

Cadge walked right up to the counter and looked the flustered woman in the eye. "I'd like some

condoms, please," he said. "Ribbed."

"Oh, well... er..." The woman lowered her eyes and moved along to the other end of the counter,

pointing along the side aisle to Jazz's right.

Jazz grabbed a handful of small boxes containing pain-killers, two boxes of plasters, and some cough

medicine, slip-ping them into her pockets as she browsed slowly along the shelves.

"Where?" Cadge asked from out of sight.

"Just there... er... past the aftershave."

"Can't see 'em."

Jazz rounded the island unit, smiling in mock sympathy at the obviously embarrassed woman, and

entered the cen-tral aisle. Cadge was beyond the second island unit, rustling boxes and dropping several of



them to the floor.

"Hold on," the woman said, and Jazz heard the sound she had been waiting for: the creak and bump

of the counter hatch being opened and the woman coming to help. She heard her footsteps and Cadge

mumbling something. The woman sighed.

Jazz took three paces to the counter, sat on it and rolled over, falling behind and remaining on the

floor for a couple of terrifying seconds.

"Nah, I don't like that make," Cadge said, and Jazz grinned at the cheek in his voice. "Itchy."

"Well, please make up your... we've just had a girl take some... Oh dear."

Jazz crouched down and ducked behind the obscured glass screen that separated the pharmacy

storage area from the rest of the shop. Harry had told her what to look for: amoxicillin. She scanned the

drawer tags, looked at the bot-tles already full and half full on the stainless-steel counter, then saw the

name just as she heard the man's voice again.

"Little bitch took off like a bat out of hell," he said. "Boy went after her; wouldn't be surprised if he

was part of it. Law are on their way. Jean?"

"Over here, Terry, just trying to help this young man."

He's back inside! Jazz had hoped for at least another thirty seconds before the owner came back in.

Maybe they were used to thefts. Just another part of life as a pharmacist.

She was suddenly terrified. If I get caught and the police get me...

They're all in it together, her mother had said. All tied up, dropping money in one another's

pockets, and information, and... other stuff. Promises. So promise me, Jazz, that you'll never trust

anyone.

If the police got her, the Uncles wouldn't be too far behind.

"Johnnies!" Cadge suddenly shouted, wielding a packet of condoms, and Jazz heard rapid footsteps as

he, too, ran from the shop.

"Wait!" the woman, Jean, shouted.

"Little bastard!" The man's voice faded again as he went back outside, obviously chasing after

Cadge.

Jazz snatched up the bottle marked amoxicillin and walked to the counter again, sliding across and

heading straight down the central aisle. She pocketed the bottle just as she bumped into Jean emerging from

the side aisle with a box of condoms still clasped in each hand.

"Busy day today!" Jazz said.

The woman rolled her eyes skyward. "I sometimes won-der why I stay working here," she said.

"Last year it was a man with a knife."

"It's only stuff," Jazz said. "And I'm sure he's insured. Bye!" She exited the shop and turned right, not

walking too fast or slow, not looking around, trying to appear for all the world as though she belonged.



****

Jazz was amazed at how smoothly things had gone. Harry had told her that people were easily fooled

because they were never prepared for things to go wrong and that confusion was the United Kingdom's

best tool when working on a nick. And now Jazz had seen how right he was. A bit of chaos, a bit of

misdirection, and the man and woman in the chemist had been thrown off-kilter long enough for her to lift

what needed lifting. It was a delightful ruse: get them concerned with Hattie taking a few minor items so

that she, Jazz, could slip across the counter and take what they really wanted.

Infections were common down in the beneath, and amoxicillin was essential to ward off illness

caused by all the bacteria crawling around down there.

She walked confidently through the streets, aiming for the rendezvous she had arranged with Cadge.

Stevie and Hattie would be long gone now, heading back belowground and through the Tube and tunnels to

their home shelter. Though Jazz still felt exposed out here on the streets, she was enjoying the feeling of

sunshine on her skin.

"Jazz." The voice was low, called from the shadows of an alley, and Jazz froze in her tracks.

Someone walked into her and uttered a curse under his breath, but then the crowd parted around her. She

was as invisible to the crowds as she ever had been, but...

"Jazz, in here."

An Uncle? She should run. She looked to her left and right without turning her head, spotting at least

three escape routes, marking the side road thirty yards along the street as the most likely to lead her

somewhere safe. The road was busy here, and she would dart across without checking for traffic. It moved

slow; if something hit her, she'd just roll and keep running.

And then she realized how much she was fooling herself. This Uncle hidden down an alley wouldn't



be on his own, and soon they'd close in and —

"F*ck's sake, girl, in here!"

Jazz looked into the shadows and saw the unmistakable outline of Stevie Sharpe. As she saw him, he

stepped forward and grabbed her arm, guiding her into the alley and walking quickly away without saying

anything. She assumed she had to follow.

They passed a pile of refuse with split bags spewing rotting food and alive with flies. Jazz held her

breath and waved the flies away, but Stevie seemed unperturbed.

"What's this about?" she asked.

Stevie stopped and turned, looked over Jazz's shoulder, and then stared at her. His expression barely

changed as he gave her a frank, shameless appraisal. He examined her face, her shoulders, arms, chest,

down her body and legs, then back up again very, very slowly. It felt as though it went on forever. Her

tingle of anticipation changed to one of dis-comfort, but then he spoke at last. She even thought she saw the

ghost of a smile.

"Did good today," he said. He looked down at her pock-ets and she tapped them, assuring him she

had what they had come for. "Did good." Then he gave her a casual wave, turned, and ran along the alley.

"Wait! "Jazz called.

"See you back home!" he shouted over his shoulder, and she was sure she heard a laugh as he

disappeared around a corner.

Jazz hurried back onto the street, more ruffled than she had been since first emerging into the

sunlight a couple of hours before. She was sure her expression would give her away — Hi, I'm a thief and

I'm on the run, but not just from peo-ple I've thieved from —and she walked faster, head down as

though to deflect attention.

What had that been about? There'd been no reason for Stevie to hold back and see her. Even the

muttered Did good today was something that could have come much later, deep beneath the city. There

had only been that look, examining her, perusing her, and, much as she liked Stevie, she still felt unsettled.

She turned a corner and a police siren suddenly blasted through the air. She gasped and almost

stumbled back as the white car sped by, curious tourists staring after it, seasoned Londoners using the brief

distraction to move that much faster toward their destination.

I'm getting way too damn twitchy now, she thought. The boxes and bottle in her pockets felt

heavier than ever, beg-ging to attract attention even though they could not be seen. She was at least a mile

from the chemist and there was no chance she'd be caught, but the sky was suddenly way too wide, the

buildings too tall, and the people too likely to stop, turn to her, and say, It's her, there she is, take her!

She did not want to think about who would respond to such a call.

"Jazz?" Cadge said.

She jumped a little, then sighed. Jazz grabbed his shoul-der and pulled him close, enjoying the contact

as they hugged.

"Hey," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "Bit spooked," she said.

"You were late, so I started walking down this way." He pulled away and looked into her eyes, but

he did not spook her like Stevie. She could only find benevolence in Cadge. "I was getting worried."

I should mention Stevie, Jazz thought. There's no reason not to, is there? But she simply

shrugged and looked around, glancing up at the clear blue sky.

"Got you this." He handed her a small box, blushing, turning away as she held out her hand and

accepted what-ever the gift might be.

It was a pink box with gold lettering: Beautiful.

"Said you liked it," he said.

Jazz felt tears threatening, but she held them back. She nodded, unable to speak for a few seconds,

and the sharp re-ality of the box's weight and corners pinned her to the world. "Thanks," she said at last,

and it came out husky and gruff.

Cadge nodded, but he could not keep the smile from his face.

"Really," Jazz said. She looked at the box again and re-membered what these boxes had looked like

on her mum's dressing table, the way she'd always kept the perfume inside instead of disposing with the box

and just keeping the bottle, the way she had liked the fact that however empty the bottle might be, the box

always looked new. "Really, Cadge, thanks."

He nodded, face flushed. "Pleasure," he said. "Now it's time to go. We're not far from Oxford Circus

here. And Harry'll be waiting for us when we go down."

"Harry?"

"Told me he'd meet us. He does that sometimes, espe-cially with someone new."



"Why?"

Cadge shrugged but looked away. "Sometimes Harry likes to talk in private."

He would not be drawn out any more, so Jazz followed Cadge along the bustling streets and into

Oxford Circus Tube station. As the shadows cooled around her, she felt a calm sense of relief closing in

with them.