When Thorne had been here a few days before, the morning he'd met Holland at Speakers' Corner, an old woman had been sitting on a bench outside Exit 6, feeding pigeons. It had taken Thorne a few moments to notice her, to make her out clearly behind the curtain of wings, the shifting ma.s.s of grays and browns and slick-wet blues that surrounded her. The birds had engulfed the tiny figure, walking across her lap and sitting on her head and shoulders. They swarmed in a grubby ma.s.s around her feet and perched on every spare inch of the bench and on the handle of the shopping cart by her side. It had been a disturbing image, as though she might be consumed, but as Thorne had walked past he could see that the woman looked perfectly content. She'd sat there smiling, a cigarette dangling from her lips, talking happily to the pigeons as they flocked to devour only the crumbs from her hand. Thorne had slowed to listen, but whatever the old woman had been saying was lost beneath the noise of the feeding frenzy.

Now, as he walked toward the subway entrance, there was only a mottled carpet of pigeon s.h.i.t around the bench as evidence of the woman's presence. If she were ever to disappear, the council's cleaning department would have to be considered prime suspects . . .

Even halfway down the stairs, the sound changed. The noise of the traffic above had became a hum; a low drone broken only by the bleat of a car horn or the distorted wail of an emergency siren. By the time Thorne was in the subway itself, though the noises from the street had receded, those from closer around him had become amplified. The ordinary sound of a cough, of an empty can blown or kicked along, of his own footsteps, was suddenly spookier; a full second pa.s.sing between the sound itself and its echo, carried back on the wind that didn't so much whistle as growl along the concrete corridors.

The tunnels were about eight feet wide and more or less the same high. Once they might have seemed futuristic, these straight tubes with lights mounted every few feet along the walls, but now they were simply unnerving. Stinking of urine, and danger, and something sickly sweet that Thorne couldn't quite place.

The tiles that ran along some walls, and the complex mosaics that were crumbling from others, contrasted with the graffiti-covered metal doors. Thorne guessed they concealed pipework. Small metal speakers were mounted along the ceiling. They were presumably there to carry underground announcements, but something about the place made it easy to imagine a robotic voice conveying information to the survivors of a nuclear blast.

As Thorne walked deeper into the maze of tunnels, one or two people began to move past him. They all wore rucksacks or carried sleeping bags, and some had large sheets of cardboard folded under their arms. In each corridor there were already a number of people sleeping. At least, Thorne presumed there were; it was difficult to tell, as some of the boxes-the cardboard coffins, eight or ten feet long-could have been empty, but Thorne was fairly sure that most were inhabited. He wondered if the pigeon woman was down here somewhere. He briefly imagined her, boxed up beneath a blanket of dirty feathers, waiting for daylight; for the sound of claw skitter and wing beat.

When she might feel what it was to be needed again . . .

Thorne came to a T-junction and looked both ways. At the far end of the right-hand tunnel he saw two figures sitting against a wall. Spike and Caroline. He watched as Spike stood and whistled to him. He waved and began walking toward them.

Halfway along the tunnel, Thorne walked past a complex arrangement of boxes: two fastened together, one on top of the other, with a third coming off them at a right angle. A middle-aged black man sat nearby, proprietorial outside his unique sleeping quarters. He wore a baggy gray hat that perfectly matched his beard, and the color of his skin. He looked up from a paperback as Thorne pa.s.sed and gave him a hard stare. Thorne held the look just long enough to make it clear he knew what he was doing and kept on going.

When he reached Spike and Caroline, Thorne sat down. He pointed back over his shoulder toward the man who, he guessed, was still staring at him. "Neighborhood watch?"

"Ollie's a cool bloke," Spike said. "He keeps an eye out, you know?"

Caroline moistened a Rizla and completed a skinny roll-up. "He's also got the only two-story bedroom down here. It's like one of those hamster houses."

Thorne looked at the two huge cardboard boxes end to end against the wall next to them. "Where do you get these things?"

"Round the back of Dixon's," Spike said. "They're for fridge freezers, you know? Those big, f.u.c.k-off American ones, right, Caz?"

"We fold 'em up, stash 'em during the day, and then put 'em back together last thing."

"It's flat pack, like." Spike had taken the tobacco and papers, was busily rolling a f.a.g of his own. "Same as you get from IKEA, only cheaper . . ."

Caroline lit her cigarette, inhaled deeply, then pointed to the smaller of the two boxes, letting the smoke go as she spoke. "That one's yours . . ."

Thorne looked, and realized that Spike and Caroline would be sharing the bigger box. That they'd made the other one up for him.

"We got you some scoff an' all," Spike said. "We've already had ours . . . sorry." He produced a brown KFC bag and handed it to Thorne.

Thorne felt oddly touched. As he reached across for the bag he was thinking that, in relative terms, there weren't many people he could think of who'd have done as much for him. There were plenty, with far more to their names than these two, who'd have balked at equivalent acts of generosity.

"Be stone cold by now, like," Spike said.

Thorne opened the beer he'd brought with him. While he tucked hungrily into the food, the three of them talked. And they laughed a lot. Spike was a natural storyteller and Caroline was the perfect foil; she happily fed him cues and helped him recount tales of life on the street, some of them horrific, despite the humor that Spike was able to wring from their telling. It was no different, Thorne thought, from a copper's war stories; from the gags that flew thick and fast across a room where the walls were smeared with blood and in which one occupant would fail to laugh only because they were dead.

There hadn't been a single night since Thorne had come onto the street when he hadn't sat or lain, desperate for sleep to take away the ache of cold or hunger, and thought that he would give nearly anything for the comfort of his own bed. That he'd have plumbed the depths of depravity for a curry from the Bengal Lancer and a Cash alb.u.m on the stereo. But, sitting in a stinking subway with two junkies, watching water run down the wall behind them, and with cold KFC settling heavy in his gut, Thorne felt as good as he had in a long while.

"I want to get the stuff for our flat from IKEA," Caroline said suddenly. "And I want a big American fridge."

Such was the nature of their conversation: tangential; fragmented; comments that referred to conversations long since dead-ended . . .

"Got to get the flat first, like," Spike said. He pushed his legs out straight, then raised his knees, then repeated the action. "Yeah? See what I'm saying? Got to get the f.u.c.king flat."

"It'll happen," Thorne said.

Caroline sniffed once, twice, and let her head drop back. She banged it against the wall, over and over again, though never quite hard enough to hurt. She spoke like a child, desperate to cling onto a fantasy; to be convinced that it isn't really the lie she knows it to be. "When . . . when . . . when . . . ?"

"I'm not a fortune-teller," Spike said.

"Tell me."

"When we get enough money. You'll have to start nicking stuff from a better cla.s.s of shop . . ."

"I know how to get the money."

"f.u.c.k that!" Spike was clenching and unclenching his fists; quickly, like he was shaking away a cramp; like he was warming up for something. "f.u.c.k that!"

Thorne could see that, all in a rush, things were starting to unravel. Their words were not overtly aggressive, but an agitation, an impatience, a pain, was coloring everything they said.

"You talked once about just needing a bit of luck," Thorne said. "Remember? You never know when that's going to happen."

"Right, he's right," Spike said.

Caroline snapped her head up and stared at Thorne. "I know it's going to happen, because it always happens, and it's always bad."

Spike shook his head, kept on shaking it. "No . . . no way, no way . . ."

"I don't know anyone who has the good sort," she said. "We only have the s.h.i.t kind. We get luck that's fatal . . ."

They were starting to talk over each other. "When it comes, we'll have enough money to get everything we want. Everything." Spike was grinning from ear to ear, jabbering, high and fast. "We'll get a place with room for loads of f.u.c.king fridges and the best sound system and all great stuff in the kitchen and whatever . . ."

"You're dreaming . . ."

"We can have ma.s.sive parties, and when we feel like it we can check into one of them posh places in the country and get straight, and then when we're well and truly sorted we can get Robbie back . . ."

Caroline flinched and dragged her eyelids down. When she opened them again, though she made no sound, her eyes were wide behind a film of tears. She cast them down to the floor, her fingers spinning the thin leather bracelets around her wrist.

"He's here," Spike said suddenly.

As fast as Thorne could turn to see the man walking toward them down the tunnel, Caroline was on her feet and on her way to meet him. It didn't take very long. There were not much more than half a dozen grunted words of exchange before the more important commodities were handed over.

Thorne looked back to see Spike unrolling a bar towel on the floor, revealing three or four thin syringes, a plastic craft knife, and a black-bottomed spoon with a bent handle. He then produced a small bottle of Evian from behind one of the boxes, looked across at Caroline, who was on her way back. Thorne could see the goose pimples clearly, the sheen that he'd thought was grease from the fried chicken.

"Get a move on, Caz, I'm sick . . ."

Caroline sat back down and pa.s.sed over a matchbook-size wrap of folded white paper.

Spike s.n.a.t.c.hed up the cigarette lighter, talking ten to the dozen as he opened the wrap, smoothed it out on the floor. "Great to see Terry again, though, yeah? Told you he was a good bloke, like. He'll be f.u.c.king bladdered by now, off his f.u.c.king head somewhere with a few of Radio Bob's old cronies. Bunch of nutters, most of 'em, but Terry's not proud who he drinks with, like . . ."

Using a supermarket reward card, Spike flattened out the heroin, shaped it carefully until he was satisfied. He thrust the card at Caroline. "You cut, I'll choose."

Caroline moved away from the wall, shuffled toward Spike, and toward the heroin. Now Thorne could see that she was every bit as strung out as Spike was. Her tongue came out to take the sweat from around her lips. The translucent covers on the subway lights cast an odd glow across everything, but it wasn't this that gave her skin the color of the old newspapers that blew down the tunnels. "Don't f.u.c.k about," she said. "Cook it all . . ."

Spike funneled the wrap and carefully poured every grain of brown powder onto the spoon. "You do me first, yeah?"

"p.i.s.s off. I'll do myself, then I'll do you."

"No way. You won't be in any fit state to do f.u.c.kall then."

"Just get a move on, t.o.s.s.e.r . . ."

Spike drew water up into the syringe, then let some out until he had just the right amount. He leaned down, concentrating hard as he released the water into the bowl of the spoon, then used the end of the syringe to mix the heroin into it.

And Thorne watched . . .

He wasn't shocked, but he'd never worked on a drugs unit; he'd never been this close to it before. He sat and stared, gripped by the process. Fascinated by the ritual of it all.

"You got vinegar?"

Caroline reached into her pocket, pulled out tissues, a plastic Jif lemon, the pile of sachets she'd grabbed earlier in the cafe. She handed a sachet to Spike. He bit off the end, squeezed some vinegar into the mixture, and continued to stir.

"What's that for?" Thorne asked.

"This lot was only twenty quid," Caroline said. "It's not pure, so it don't mix very easy. The vinegar helps it dissolve a bit better . . ."

Thorne reached across for the plastic lemon on the floor. "Making pancakes later?"

Spike put down the syringe and picked up the lighter. "Taste well strange if we did, mate." He held the flame beneath the spoon, nodded toward the lemon in Thorne's hand. "It's not f.u.c.king lemon juice in there."

"Anyone tries it on, they get a face full," Caroline said.

Thorne took the cap off, sniffed, then drew his face sharply away from the pungent kick of the ammonia.

Spike laughed. "I've got my weapon, she's got her's, like . . ."

Then Thorne became aware of another smell: the syrupy kick of the heroin as it began to bubble on the spoon; the vinegar slight, but noticeably sharp, beneath. He realized that this was the smell he'd noticed earlier. He held his breath . . .

Caroline reached over for the needle. She tore it from the plastic sleeve, and after pulling off the orange cap, she attached it to the syringe.

"Come on, we're there," Spike said.

There were a number of cigarette b.u.t.ts, of varying sizes, scattered across the bar towel. Caroline took one from the bobbly, maroon material and used the knife to cut a thin slice from the filter, then dropped it into the liquid. Thorne thought it looked like those inedible slivers of something or other you got in spicy Thai soup . . .

While Spike held the spoon steady, Caroline placed the tip of the needle flat against the section of filter and drew the liquid through it, up into the syringe. Again, she expunged some of it back into the spoon to be sure she had exactly half.

"For f.u.c.k's sake, Caz, get a shift on . . ."

"This is for your benefit, mate, to make sure you get your share." She lifted the spoon and placed it on the floor, out of harm's way. The handle had been bent in such a way that the bowl rested flat on the concrete.

Spike had already rolled up the sleeve of his faded, red hoody. As Caroline put the needle to his skin he twisted the material that was gathered above his elbow and made a fist.

Caroline grunted as she dug around for a vein . . .

Spike moaned as she found one; as she drew blood back into the syringe; as the red billowed into the brown, like wax in a Lava lamp; as she pushed the plunger.

"Flush it . . . flush the f.u.c.ker . . ."

Twice, three times, she drew the blood back into the syringe and pressed it back into the vein. By the third time, Spike was nodding; each bounce of his head taking it lower. He raised it slowly, one last time to smile at Thorne, to beam like a baby at Caroline. " 'Time for bed,' said Zebedee . . ."

Caroline had already begun to clean out the syringe, drawing water in from the bottle and squirting it away onto the floor. She leaned across to kiss Spike, then gave him a push. "Into your box, you silly b.a.s.t.a.r.d . . ."

Spike half fell, half crawled into the cardboard box, until all Thorne could see were the soles of his trainers. After only a few seconds, they stopped moving. Then Thorne watched as Caroline flushed the syringe again. She cursed, announced that the thing was "juddery," and rooted among her collection of sachets for a pat of b.u.t.ter to smear around the plunger. Her movements were practiced and precise, and she bit off the ends of her words as she talked, like they were bitter on her lips.

"Aren't you worried about sharing needles?" Thorne asked.

She shrugged. "It's only him and me . . ."

"But they're easy enough to get." He pointed at the bar towel. "You've got new ones."

"Everyone thinks we've got AIDS anyway, don't they?"

Thorne stretched out his legs and opened his mouth, but before he could speak she was shouting at him to be careful, and moving quickly to avert any risk of the spoon being knocked over; of losing the precious liquid pooled in its bowl.

"Who's Robbie?" Thorne asked.

She dipped the syringe back into the spoon, put the needle to the filter, and drew up the remainder of the heroin. "My kid. From before I met Spike. He'll be ten now." She held the syringe up to the light. "I lost him."

Thorne watched as she pushed down a sock and flexed her foot. "I'm sorry . . ."

She looked up briefly from what she was doing. "See what I mean about luck, though?" A smile that seemed to hurt appeared for just a moment. "Mind you, my luck might have been s.h.i.t, but at least Robbie's hasn't been too bad. It was his good luck to get taken away from me, right?"

Thorne couldn't think of anything to say. He could only imagine how badly she needed what the needle she was holding could give her.

For another few seconds she tried to get the needle into the right position, but it was tricky. She was right-handed and the vein she was after was above her left ankle. She looked up at Thorne, sweat falling off her. "Could you give me a hand with this?"

"I'm a bit s.h.i.t with needles . . ."

"Please . . . ?"

Thorne had known there might be such moments; he hadn't signed on to go undercover thinking it would be easy. That he would never need to make tough choices. It took him only a second or two to realize that, as choices went, this was actually one of the easier ones.

It was the least he could do . . .

He could feel something shift-in himself as well as in Caroline-as he pushed the drug into her. He swung round when it was finished, so that he was sitting next to her against the wall. He let her head fall onto him as she began to nod. "I was thinking about this money thing," he said. "I know Spike doesn't like to ask, but couldn't his sister help? Just to get you two started, maybe?"

"Sister . . ."

"I know he's funny about it, but it sounds like she wants to help him."

Now the words dribbled from her, falling in thick, sloppy threads without emphasis or cadence. "His sister's dead; died f.u.c.king ages ago. Years. When he was still at home . . ."