After three weeks of intense practice, Oyster arrived on the bridge one day to find Deano waiting for him. The man stood and pressed Oyster into his place on the blue palette.

  “You’ve got your cards. Got your chat. You’re ready,” he murmured.

  Oyster tried to get up, but a glance from Deano rocked him back onto the palette. Before he could object, Deano was off, blending into the crowd to play outside man.

  Oyster took a deep breath. I got this. The early morning sunlight streamed through the cut-outs in the bridge’s low parapets. He unzipped the pocket in his coat and took out his cards. His tongue was fat and his mouth dry. He became aware of the buses as they throbbed over the road, hissing, rumbling and shaking the palette.

  The cards were slippery. As he threw them onto the table a gust of wind caught the queen and flipped her over its edge. He swore and grabbed her. Swallowing, he put the other two cards down on their backs and they rocked in the breeze. He traced around the edge of the queen with his fingertips, praying to her for the words to come.

  “Come on, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a lovely day to play,” he said, scooping up the other cards and laying them face down. His voice cracked and was carried away by the wind.

  He ran a practice hand and the cards moving in his hands loosened him up. The rehearsed movements getting him out of his head and into his body. He cleared his throat and started again. This time he upped the volume and moved backwards and forwards as he ran the shuffle, doing what he’d seen Deano do a thousand times before.

  As he relaxed into his role, the cards flew from his hands in a hypnotic parade.

  “Let’s go! Go! Go!” he shouted, surprising himself at how loud he sounded.

  A couple turned towards him. Their neat hotel-ironed pastel outfits marked them as tourists. Probably here to look at Big Ben, peer at the Houses of Parliament – and here they were now at his own talking shop. He breathed deeply and licked the edge of his mouth.

  “You look like the lucky type,” he said.

  The man turned to him and Oyster ran a few more straight shuffles.

  Deano’s hovering presence receded as Oyster reeled in his mark, snagging sixty quid from him before his girlfriend talked him into walking away. Even so, Oyster had passed the test.

  More punters followed and he rolled and rolled for three hours solid, racking up a good six hundred quid. He felt the rhythm of the cards and the flow of his patter weaving together, netting the punters around him. He sensed Deano’s distant pride in him as he worked. Hell, he was pretty proud of himself, too.

  He took a break at noon and hoofed it over the bridge to get a burger for himself and a smoothie for Deano. On the way, he noticed Broadsides had found an unlocked service ladder and climbed down to the embankment. Remembering what Big Mickey had said about someone on the game being bent, Oyster bought an extra cheeseburger, wrapped it in paper napkins and shoved it into his jacket pocket.

  After delivering the smoothie to Deano, he headed for the embankment. The tide was low and stones protruded from the river like black knuckles. Broadsides was skimming pebbles across the chocolate foam of the Thames as it slid by.

  Oyster was mildly surprised to see him doing anything so normal. Perhaps it was part of maintaining a hard man image, but Oyster had never seen Broadsides eat anything, take a piss break, or even nip off for a cheeky smoke as he and all the other members of the crew did from time to time.

  “S’up, geez,” said Oyster as he picked his way across the carpet of stones and mud, doing his best to keep his trainers on fleek, while simutaneously ignoring the amount of grease the cheeseburger must be oozing into his jacket.

  Broadsides turned and nodded. Up close, he was an imposing figure. Tattooed arms as thick as Oyster’s thighs ballooned from his T-shirt. On his left arm, the name “Ida” was woven into a thicket of faux Celtic motifs that many of the Urbans favoured. His right arm was covered in a group of geometric shapes that orbited a central red eye. A cheap sliver link bracelet hung from his wrist, the words “brute force” engraved on it twinkled in the weak sun.

  “Ida your woman?” asked Oyster, standing next to him.

  Broadsides rocked back on his feet, laughing. It was a noise that Oyster felt rather than heard.

  “What’s so funny?” said Oyster, suppressing his annoyance at being the butt of some private joke.

  He pulled the cheeseburger out of his pocket and passed it to Broadsides, who took the offering wordlessly, before dispatching most of it in two bites. He swallowed, but still didn’t answer.

  Oyster shrugged, turning to return up the strip of beach to the service ladder.

  “Hope not,” came Broadsides’ reply.

  “What?” Oyster called.

  “Said, I sure hope not,” replied Broadsides. “Ida’s my aunt.”

  Oyster took a few steps back to him.

  “She raised me, didn’t she,” said Broadsides, swallowing the last of his burger and whipping the balled paper out into the Thames.

  It bobbed up and down on the murky water.

  Oyster nodded slowly. He pointed at Broadsides’ arm.

  “That’s some serious ink you got, bruv-bruv, you been on the inside?”

  “Ain’t a prison tat,” said Broadsides, raising his right arm and displaying its black and red spirals. “Traditional, innit. Protection against the evil eye. Or something. From the old country.”

  “Where’s that then?”

  Oyster picked up a stone and skipped it out at the white ball of paper as it floated away from them.

  Broadsides tapped his nose. “You might be on the way up, but you’ve got a big hooter.”

  “Just into my ink is all,” Oyster replied, embarrassed at having been called on his curiosity, and as if in explanation, he flipped up layers of clothing to expose his latest tattoo: the pattern that he’d found amongst Lucas’s books It had only been finished the week before and its intricacies were still traced in pink scabs. It covered half of Oyster’s midriff, wrapping around the sides of his torso, clutching him in inky tendrils.

  The tattooist had charged Oyster double and then some, but he had to admit the dude had done a bang-up job. The design wrapped around him in an uncanny way, giving the viewer the impression that it extended into Oyster’s body. It had taken weeks and a fair amount of his disposables to complete the job, with long gaps between each session while he healed. He had gritted his teeth against the discomfort as the design became part of him, but the pain had been something real, something he could hold on to.

  Broadsides whistled and nodded in approval as he took the tattoo in.

  “Very nice. Well fucking trippy. Might have one of those myself next time I get marked up, know what I’m saying.”

  Broadsides offered Oyster a high five that he had to stand on tiptoes to return.

  “And thanks for the feed, cuz, I needed that,” he said.

  He turned and offered Oyster his hand. Oyster shook it.

  “There’s some bad blood around here about you, but you’re alright, mostly,” he said.

  “Mighty big of you,” Oyster replied sarcastically.

  Broadsides laughed and launched a stone the size of a baked potato into the river. It missed the balled-up burger wrapper, but kerplunked into the water with such energy it washed its target beneath the surface.

  “Brutalist!” said Broadsides with a cackle.

  TOOTING BEC

  Oyster took the Tube home. It was stuffed with suits, tourists, students. Peak time. All people who had a direction, a sense of purpose in their lives. He counted the stations, feeling himself pass through them as though they were organs in a sprawling, subterranean body. He suspended himself from a yellow plastic handgrip, arse jutting outwards. He was like this train, he thought, chugging underground in the dark. Unsure of where he was headed.

  An elbow pressed into his back and he twisted around, ready to cuss out whoever was behind him, but there stood Broadsides. Oyster clocked he was toting the vinyl sports bag they used to transport the day’s takings over to Mickey.

  “Where you steppin’ off, bro?” Broadsides asked.

  “Tooting,” replied Oyster.

  “I’ll come with.”

  Oyster tried to make conversation, but all he got in return was grunts and grimaces.

  They rode the escalator, Oyster scurrying to keep up with his taller companion.

  “Don’t want to talk down there. Can’t trust it,” said Broadsides, over his shoulder.

  “Whatever,” said Oyster. “It’s your trip.”

  Broadsides stooped as he walked, but it wasn’t the stoop of a tall man fitting into a world too small for him. Rather, it was the stoop of a man who didn’t want to be noticed. Broadsides’ gaze flicked from side to side, sizing up travellers descending on the other side of the escalator, expectant and wary.

  When they hit the street, they crossed at the lights outside the station and headed up Garrat Lane. There was a series of beeps and chirps as Oyster’s phone lit up with messages from Cécile.

  “You use that thing too much,” said Broadsides. “They’re keeping an eye on you, wherever you are.”

  He extended his index and middle finger, pointed them at his own eyes then turned them towards Oyster in a gesture of surveillance.

  “And who would ‘they’ be?” Oyster replied.

  “Alexa? Siri? They’re all the feds. You forgetting the business we’re in, brother?”

  Oyster nodded and stowed his phone in his pocket. Broadsides had a point. And Deano was always ragging on him for using it too much.

  It was early evening. Pairs of yellow headlights ran past them, whipping up the acrid smell of exhaust. Oyster and Broadsides ambled through rows of terraced houses, takeaway joints and lurid newsagents that advertised phone unlocking services. Shabby as it was compared to Westminster, Oyster was at home here. Everything torn up, tossed up, and he kind of liked the lack of greenery.

  After five minutes of walking in silence, Broadsides visibly relaxed and drew himself up to his full height. He reached into his pocket, took out a bent roll-up and clamped it between his lips. He lit the cigarette and puffed.

  “Some weird shit going down in this crew, man,” he said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” replied Oyster.

  They crossed over the road again and Oyster led them past the low stone walls of Streatham Cemetery. The first patch of green they’d seen since emerging from the Tube. Broadsides sniffed and cracked his knuckles.

  “Lot of men down, women too.”

  Oyster didn’t want to invoke the spirit of Lucas. He remembered half-caught conversations that his dad had had with other crew families. We’re soldiers. It’s a war, he would say. But Oyster couldn’t repeat the words. They stuck in his throat. Broadsides rolled on anyway.

  “We’re a short-con outfit. Ginals all. How come so many been fingered, done runners or worse?” He twitched his head from side to side and looked around. “No dis.”

  “None taken,” Oyster replied.

  He thought of the games of hide and seek that he, Cécile and Lucas would play around the flat when he was home from the crew. Lucas was too big and tall to hide anywhere really, and his trainered feet would always stick out from under the curtains, or his shoulders would bulge from behind a door. It had become a joke in itself after a while.

  Oyster pursed his lips, his throat was tight. There were a lot of car fumes around here.

  Broadsides snapped a twig from an overhanging tree, suddenly uncomfortable. He stripped the leaves from it one by one and discarded them.

  “What you still doing here, then?” said Oyster, scratching his nose.

  Broadsides cracked a wide smile. He took a leaf between thumb and forefinger and mimed rubbing money.

  “Need the papes, don’t I?” he said.

  Oyster nodded.

  “Don’t we all? If you need money there are better ways of making it.”

  “Ain’t into shifting.” Broadsides shrugged. “Know my limitations. I’m good muscle for a game. But once you go narc you have to step it up, mate, know what I’m saying? Ain’t ready to rain that sort of shit down on everyone I know.”

  Oyster nodded. It was true. He’d made much the same calculation himself. You could make a lot of money selling drugs, but your life expectancy decreased proportionately. He bit his lip. Big Mickey had told him to play this close, but he felt Broadsides was being straight with him.

  “You in the know about this new mystery crew causing so much grief?”

  Broadsides cast him a sideways glance.

  “Why you asking?” he said.

  Oyster shrugged.

  “Big Mickey asked me to keep an eye out.”

  Broadsides nodded and the two of them walked for a hundred yards in silence as the sky purpled like a bruise.

  “Don’t know nothing about them. And that wouldn’t be all that odd. ’Cepting no one does. From what I hear, they just show up out of nowhere and knock shit right over.”

  “Games?” said Oyster.

  “Everything. They’re sticking their fingers deep into deals. Pop out of nowhere and then ghost afterwards. They know shit, too. Almost like they got sources. Like they’re hooked up with the feds. Or got peepage on the inside.”

  On the opposite side of the road, a car pulled out of the traffic and drew up to the kerb. There was the echo of a backfire and Broadsides’ expression made it clear he thought he’d said too much.

  “Fuck this, man, I’m creeping myself out.” He looked around, hugging the football bag closer to his chest. “What you reckon. Through the Stretch?”

  The thought of heading home through disputed territory made Oyster’s stomach twinge. He’d sneaked through this shortcut, which edged into the Stick Up Kidz’ turf, in the past, but those occasions had been in daylight on a weekday. And he hadn’t been carrying a bagful of cash.

  His anxiety was initially balanced by how proud he’d feel at having helped to ferry the bag to Big Mickey, and that in turn made him feel manipulated. The feelings all swirled into a kind of righteous anger directed at… life? Fuck this shit. It would give him something mildly braggable he could drop into his next chat with Big M, and if he got shanked up? Well, who would give a crap. Paris? A crow landed in one of the overhanging trees and eyed them both. A ribbon of pain flickered around his tattoo and was gone.

  “What we standing here yapping for then, geez?” said Oyster, hopping over the amputated stumps of the cemetery railings and into the wet green of the graveyard. His feet whipped through the unkempt grass, beating a counterpoint rhythm to Broadsides’ huge trainers as they did the same.

  Oyster’s spider-sense tingled. He glanced at Broadsides, whose hunched frame betrayed how he felt too. They were over halfway across the graveyard when Oyster saw them: a group of youths on the other side of cemetery keeping pace, but hanging back just enough to betray their intention of avoiding being made. A Stick Up Kidz crew.

  Oyster’s toes prickled and his mouth was dry. He’d only got into a couple of beefs since stepping up. Luckily he’d inherited Lucas’s broad frame, which meant he looked like he could handle himself. But the batterings he’d been involved in had left him feeling initially giddy and then sick to his stomach. He tried to count their pursuers. Four, maybe five: bad odds. He reached into the front pocket of his jeans where his knife pressed against his leg. His fingers curled around its grip.

  He and Broadsides were marching now, heads down, across the green, heading for a gate in the graveyard’s far corner. If they could get to it before the others, they’d be able to sprint back into Urbans territory and relative safety.

  A moment later and their silent game of chicken dissolved into them both running as fast as they could towards the gate. The Stick Ups on the other side of the wall broke into a whooping gallop.

  Oyster leaned into the run, but it was too late. The Stick Ups had already made it to the gate. They crowded around it, blocking the exit. There were two mean-faced minnows about Ed’s age, one henched-up type in a bomber jacket who was probably captain and one tubbier lad who hung back. Oyster pegged him as the brains. While all the other crew members had their aggro on, the boy’s pinprick eyes regarded Oyster and Broadsides coldly.

  There’s no shame in doing a runner if the odds are against you. Represent your ends and all that, but not at the cost of doing a dirt dive.

  Deano’s words tumbled through his head. Fear squeezed his insides.

  The cemetery wall was too high to vault over, even with a runup. Plus, it would be easy for the Stick Ups to catch them on the other side.

  “Game’s up,” said Bomber Jacket, “you batties are off base, slipping in the wrong place.”

  Oyster and Broadsides slowed to a saunter. They couldn’t show they were frightened. Broadsides sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Every bit of Oyster’s body throbbed with adrenaline. He wanted to turn around and run back, but without some sort of advantage they were stuffed.

  “Could say the same for you and Supersize here,” replied Broadsides. “Last time I checked, Stick Men turf started thataways.”

  He nodded at the road on the other side of the wall.

  “Supersize? Is that all you got, fat-shaming?” the fat kid responded. “Tell me, if I’m such a wasteman, how is that we’ve battered so many of your bros?” The boy’s delivery glittered with barely concealed malice.

  “Looky,” said Broadsides, “we ain’t looking for no mischief.”

  “Bit late for that, innit.” The fat kid nodded at Oyster. “We know all about boydem here. His daddy did a runner. Now he comes here, all shook, weeping his old man tears all over our territory.”

  Oyster closed his eyes and bit his lip. His knuckles ached as his grip became ever tighter on his knife. Everyone here would be tooled up, no doubt. That’s why he carried. That’s why they all did. It was times like this that he wondered about the value of getting strapped, just for show. But then a gun drew its own kind of trouble.