Mind the Gap (Hidden Cities #1)

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,"

"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."

"Fucking 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 fucked-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.