Ryan greeted him, and then spotted DogNut. He loped over to him, his heavy boots scraping on the tarmac, and gave him a high five.

‘You found your mates then?’

‘Yeah. Is all cool. Thanks for that – we feel well dumb not talking to you properly yesterday.’

‘Yeah. You are well dumb, Dog. So what was the smoke for? What’s going down?’

Robbie put himself between DogNut and Ryan. ‘I’m in charge here, Ryan – you know that. You talk to me. DogNut’s just a guest.’

Ryan shrugged. ‘Don’t make no odds to me who I talk to. So what’s up then?’

‘We’re going to get rid of a sicko that killed the sister of one of our boys at the museum.’

‘Just one sicko?’ Ryan looked amused. ‘You sure there’s enough of you?’

‘Apparently he’s big and hard to kill.’

‘Apparently?’ Ryan looked even more amused. ‘You mean you ain’t never even seen him.’

‘We’ve seen him,’ said DogNut. ‘Olivia was one of our party.’

‘The little girl who was with you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She never made it, no?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Harsh.’ Ryan spat on the ground. ‘So, you really need all these soldiers to take on one sicko? There must be twenty of you.’

DogNut shrugged. ‘I don’t know how well this lot fight.’

‘We can fight all right when we have to,’ said Robbie indignantly.

‘So you need our help, or not?’ asked Ryan.

‘I can’t offer to pay you,’ said DogNut, and he nodded at Robbie. ‘That’s his territory.’

‘I guess we could give you some food, or clothing, or something,’ said Robbie. ‘But not much. Quite frankly I reckon we could kill this sicko by ourselves. As you say, how bad can one grown-up be? Just cos DogNut and his gang had a hard time.’

Before DogNut could react to Robbie’s taunt, Ryan interrupted. ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘We’ll do you this one as a freebie. I’m curious to see what this giant sicko can do.’

‘Cheers,’ said Robbie.

‘No problem. Just remember you owe us two, now.’

‘Sure.’

‘Show me the way then.’

Ryan looked at Robbie, and Robbie looked at DogNut.

‘Follow me,’ said DogNut, and he led them eastwards towards Harrods.

Courtney really didn’t want to be doing this. She could have slept all day. But she forced herself forward, plodding along with heavy feet. She wished she hadn’t been such an idiot and had stayed behind with Brooke. Why did boys always have to complicate things? She loved Brooke, she really did, she just didn’t want her to end up with DogNut. DogNut was hers. Courtney had to convince him that he’d be better off with a tough street fighter like herself and not a …

Well, whatever Brooke had become.

A house nerd.

Not that Courtney felt like much of a tough street fighter at the moment. Her guts had turned to water and all she really wanted to do was bend double and throw up. The thought of the Collector in his disgusting den terrified her more than she ever could have imagined.

Why was DogNut so keen to go back there?

Only one way to find out.

She sped up and pushed her way to the head of the column. DogNut was out in front, walking by himself, and she fell into step beside him.

‘What about Brooke, eh?’ she said, trying to sound like it didn’t really mean much to her. ‘She ain’t half changed.’

‘Yeah, I guess we all changed.’

‘She even looks different, don’t you think?’ Courtney went on. ‘I reckon she looked prettier as a blonde.’

‘Maybe. Most girls do.’

‘You think I should go blonde?’

‘You?’ DogNut looked appalled. ‘No way, gyal. You couldn’t go blonde anyways. With your hair you’d end up, like, orange, or something.’

‘Don’t you like my hair then?’

‘Never thought about it much. Is just hair.’

‘DogNut?’ Courtney decided to come right out and say it. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘To help Paul.’

‘Really? It’s not because you feel guilty about Olivia?’

‘Yeah. That as well, I guess.’

‘But I know that ain’t all. You’re being devious. You got something else on your mind. I just know it.’

‘Gyaldem, eh?’ said DogNut, and he sucked his teeth. ‘Can’t get nothing past them, man.’

‘I can never tell when you’re being serious.’

‘Me either.’

‘But you are up to something, Doggs.’

DogNut leant closer to Courtney and spoke quietly, making sure that nobody else could hear them.

‘I want to be someone, Courtney.’

‘You are someone.’

‘No I ain’t. I want to be important. I want to be remembered. Back at the Tower I won’t never be nothing except one of Jordan Hordern’s captains. But I reckon the museum is ripe for the picking. I mean, how come Justin and the nerds are in charge? Who let that happen? Why ain’t Robbie running things? Ain’t he got no dignity, no self-respect?’

‘I dunno.’

DogNut glanced over at Robbie, checking he wasn’t near enough to hear what they were saying.

‘I’ll tell you why, Courtney, because he is a weak-ass dope. He don’t want to be in charge. He’s scared.’

‘What you saying then, Doggs? You gonna try to take over?’

‘Wouldn’t take much. I just need to show them all how tough I am, how I make decisions and get shit done. I wanna be top dog for a change, Courtney.’

‘What for?’

‘Power, girl. Power and respect.’

‘What for, though?’

‘Come on. I’d get all the best stuff for myself. All the best food. The best clothes. The biggest bed. All the buffest girls. And then Brooke will fall in love with me and we’ll live happily ever after.’

Courtney didn’t know what to say to this and she retreated into her own thoughts. She wasn’t always sure that she even liked DogNut, but there was nothing she could do about the way she felt about him. Maybe what he was saying made some kind of sense . Maybe she was attracted to him because he was tough, a soldier. Big man in road.

The column of kids halted, snapping Courtney out of her thoughts. She barged to the front to see what the holdup was and instantly wished she hadn’t.

Ryan and his hunters were battering a young father to death in the middle of the road, their dogs snarling and barking. The sicko was blind, his eyelids swollen and crusted with sores. Too feeble to make it back to wherever he lived, he’d been caught out in the daylight.

The hunters were laughing, and when they’d finished one of them knelt down to slice off the dead father’s ears. The boy inspected his work. He lifted up an ear that was little more than a gristly flap of skin and waved it in the face of one of his friends before lobbing it away. The other one he gave to Ryan, who hooked it onto the garland of severed ears that hung from his belt.

Ryan grinned at DogNut and gave a little waggle of his hips to make the ears dance.

‘How much further, Dog?’ he asked.

‘Nearly there,’ DogNut replied. ‘Is quite close to Harrods.’

‘You really reckon this giant sicko of yours is dangerous?’ Ryan asked, spitting on the dead specimen at his feet. ‘They don’t scare us none.’

‘Trust me,’ said DogNut, nodding his head and walking on. ‘He’s dangerous.’

Ryan fell in step with him.

‘Maybe we should just set his crib on fire?’ he said with a wicked leer. ‘Fry him up.’

Paul heard what they were saying and came over.

‘You’re not burning anything,’ he said. ‘Olivia might be in there. She might still be alive. I have to find her. That’s what this is all about.’

‘Yeah,’ said DogNut. ‘Agreed. I don’t like fire. Our last safe place was burned down when south London went up in flames. Don’t want to risk starting something we can’t control. The sicko’s den is stuffed to the roof with all crap that’ll burn. Any fire in there, the place is gonna go off like a bomb.’

‘So, what’s your plan then?’ Ryan asked, and DogNut started to tell him.

31

‘What do you mean I stay outside?’ Robbie was furious. He’d had enough of DogNut trying to run the show. The two of them were toe to toe in the middle of the street outside the Collector’s house, virtually spitting into each other’s faces.