'And how much has she put back?'

Harry nodded sagely. 'They always put it back.'

Bel didn't even look at us. 'Who's "they"?' she said.

'Women in general, or the women you know in general? I mean, there's bound to be a difference.'

Harry wrinkled his nose. 'You see,' he said in a stage whisper, 'things haven't been the same since women's lib.

When my Carlotta burnt her bra, I knew that was the end.

Cheers.'

'Cheers.' I sipped my beer and managed to catch Bel's eye.

She gave me a wink. 'Harry,' I said, 'we need something.'

'We?'

'Bel and me.'

'What do you need? A wedding licence?'

'No, something that'll get us through a few doors, something with authority stamped on it.'

'Such as?'

'I was hoping you'd have a few ideas.'

He rubbed his unshaved jaw. 'Yes, I could maybe do you something. When would you need it?'

'Tonight.'

His eyes widened. 'Jesus, Mark, you've given me tough ones before, but this ...'

'Could you do it though?'

'I wasn't expecting to work tonight ...' From which I knew two things: one, that he could do it; and two, that he was wondering how much he could charge.

'It would be cash?' he said. I nodded. 'It's cash I like, you know that.'

'I know that.'

'Jesus, tonight. I don't know ...'

'How much, Harry?'

He took off his cap and scratched his head, forgetting for a moment his psoriasis. Huge flakes of skin floated on to his shoulders. 'Well now, Mark, you know my prices are never unreasonable.'

'The difference is, Harry, this time I'm not getting paid.'

'Well, that may make a difference to you, Mark, it doesn't make a difference to me. I charge what's fair.'

'So tell me what's fair.'

'Five hundred.'

'What do I get for five hundred?'

'Two ident.i.ty cards.'

'That's not much to show.'

He shrugged. 'At short notice, it's the best I can offer.'

'How long would it take?'

'A couple of hours.'

'All right.'

'You've the money on you?' I nodded, and he shook his head. 'Running around Tottenham with five hundred on him, and I bet he's not even carrying a knife.'

Behind us, the bandit began coughing up another win for Bel.

'This is definitely your lucky night,' said Harry the Cap.

'Make yourselves at home.'

It wasn't easy in Harry the Cap's first-floor flat. For one thing, what chairs there were were piled high with old newspapers and magazines. For another, half the already cramped living room was taken up with a rough approximation of a photographer's studio. A white bedsheet had been 85.pinned to the wall to provide a backdrop, and there was a solitary bruised flash-lamp hanging from a tripod. Harry gave the back of the lamp a thump.

'Hope the bulb's not gone, bleeding things cost a packet.'

The bulb flashed once, then came on and stayed on. 'Lovely,'

said Harry. There was a plain wooden dining-chair which seemed to be the tomcat's regular perch, but Harry tipped the reluctant beast on to the floor and placed the chair in front of the bedsheet, angling the lamp so that it hit an imaginary spot just above the back of the chair. 'Lovely,' he said again.

Then he started tinkering with his pride and joy. It was a special camera which in the one unit could take a photo (slightly smaller than pa.s.sport size), develop it on to an ID card, and then laminate the card. Harry patted the machine.

'Bought it from a firm that went bust. They used to do ident.i.ty cards for students.'

Bel was standing in front of a mirror, combing her hair into place. The mirror was large and old and hexagonal, and in its centre was a posed photograph of a bride and groom with their best man and bridesmaid.

'Your parents?' Bel asked.

'Nah, picked it up down Brick Lane. A lot of people make your mistake. Sometimes I don't own up.'

'Where's that music coming from?'

'Upstairs, some black kids.'

The constant ba.s.s was like a queasy heartbeat. It seemed to envelop the flat.

'Can't you complain?' said Bel. Harry laughed and shook his head.

'Right,' he said, 'I'll just get the cards typed up.'

He had an old manual typewriter, the sort they'd thrown from offices on to the street in the 70s. It was solidly built, but the keys needed realigning. Or maybe they just needed a clean.

'You'll never notice once the machine's reduced it.'

86.This, I knew from previous experience, was true. Once the card had been filled in, it was placed inside the unit, a suitcase-sized object attached to the camera, and a reduced- size copy was made, only now with photograph in place.

Normally, I didn't bother too much. People seldom really scrutinised an ID card of any make or variety. If they saw that the photo was you, they were satisfied. But this time was different.

'Remember, Harry, some of the people I'll be dealing with might just give my ID more than a cursory glance. Don't go making any typing errors.'

'Do me a favour, I did a secretarial course at night school.

Seventy words a minute.'

'I didn't know there were seventy two-letter words.'

I left him to get on with it. Bel flicked a final hair into place and turned to me. She offered me the comb, but I shook my head. I looked in the mirror and saw a hard- looking bloke staring back. He had cropped black hair and a professional scowl. He looked just like a policeman.

'Which area do you want?' Harry asked from the typewriter.

'Better make it Central.'

'Central,' he acknowledged. 'Good, I know how to spell that.'

A good forger's art, of course, does not lie in making up the fake ID. Anyone can fake an ID. The forger's art lies in having to hand authentic or authentic-looking blank ID forms. Harry would never tell anyone where his blanks came from, or even if they were the genuine article. I reckoned he'd got his hands on a real ID form a while back, and had a friendly printer run up a few hundred. There were other things he could do, like put an official stamp on something. Those he made himself, and they were beautiful.

He'd done a US visa for me once that was incredibly lifelike.

Only, without me knowing, he'd made it a student visa. The questions at Immigration had almost given me away. Next 87.time I'd seen Harry, I'd been able to get a fake pa.s.sport at a reduced rate.

'I'll need both your signatures,' he said. He'd switched on an anglepoise lamp and put on a pair of John Lennon-style NHS gla.s.ses, the kind you hate to have to wear as a kid, but often crave as an adult. I'd never needed gla.s.ses. People said it was a sign of having lived a pure life.

I was using the name Michael West on my ID, while Bel was Bel Harris. She said she'd rather stick with her own Christian name. They say that the best lies have a nugget of truth in them, and these names were just different enough from our real names that they wouldn't help the police. I'd sometimes called myself Michael West in the USA, but never before in England. Bel was having enough trouble as it was remembering my name was now Michael and not Mark. She didn't need another name to confuse her.

'Right, sweetheart,' said Harry, 'if you'll sit on that chair...'

Bel turned to me. 'Is he talking to you?'

'I think he means you.'

'Oh dear,' said Harry, 'I forgot for a moment there.

Women's lib, eh? Don't mind me, love, just sit down anyway.'

Bel eventually sat down, and Harry stuck the ED form he'd just typed into the suitcase-machine.

'Don't smile or frown,' he told Bel, 'just look natural.

That's about as natural as a performing seal. Better, better.'

There was a flash, and Harry stood up straight. 'Lovely.

Takes about half a minute. Sit yourself down, Mark.'

We changed places.

'By the way, Harry, you'd better take a few extra shots of me. I want you to set up a whole new ident.i.ty.'

'That takes time, Mark.'

'I know. What shall we say, four days?'

'Make it five. What do you need: pa.s.sport, driving licence, National Insurance number?'

88.'They'll do for a start.'

'We're talking serious money.'

'I know. I'll give you two hundred on account.'

'Now, just think bland thoughts. Mushy peas, liquor, the Spurs midfield. Look at him, he's a natural.'

There was a flash, then Harry switched to his everyday SLR camera and plugged it into the flash-lamp. He fired off a few more shots, asking me questions while he did.

'What name?'

'How about Michael Whitney?'

'Date of birth?'

'Same as mine. No, make it a month earlier. Place of birth: London. You can make the rest of it up as you like.'

'I will then.'

When he peeled the paper from my card and handed it to me, the clear plastic laminate was still warm. Behind the plastic, I wore that same policeman's scowl. Bel wasn't happy with her card. She reckoned she looked like a frightened animal. I studied her card but had to disagree.

'Look on the bright side, Bel. At least it'll give them a laugh when they arrest us. Harry, have you got any of those'

But he was already coming back into the room, waving two small black leather wallets.

'Put them in here,' he said. 'You can fill the spare pockets with anything you like.' He crumpled one in his hand. 'Give them a bit of a seeing to first though, otherwise they look like they've just come from the sweatshop. He smiled at me.