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  The frown deepened. “Work for you?”

  “Why not? I like your style, Eyrie Brown. I know next to nothing about you, but what does that matter? I’m all about first impressions. Come work for me. Whatever you’re good at, we’ll find somewhere for you to slot in.”

  I thought it over for a minute, to be polite. Then I shook my head. “Thanks for the offer but I like being a cabbie. Spent too long doing the Knowledge to just turn my back on it.”

  “That’s a pity. I could do with more men like you. Left at the next lights.”

  I drove in silence again. He took out a cigarette and lit up. Normally I wouldn’t let anyone smoke in the taxi – regardless of the fact that it’s illegal, Dave hates the smell of smoke – but this one time I made an exception.

  Lewis looked at his hand, which was still trembling a little, and snorted. “Want to know a funny thing? I was scared back there.”

  “That’s understandable,” I said.

  “I mean really scared. When they started shooting, and I saw how many I was up against, I thought, This is it, I’m a goner, they’re gonna kill me. My stomach went funny. I almost didn’t get my gun out in time to return fire. I was never scared like that before. When I was younger, I got off on violence. Better than sex, in its own way. But tonight I only knew fear. I imagined my kids at my funeral, tears in their eyes, and… Am I boring you again?”

  “A little.”

  He flipped me the finger, but he was chuckling. “You ever know fear like that, my friend?” he asked softly.

  My thoughts snapped back to the desert. Zahra. Dancing James. The photos I stuck on the wall above the foot of my bed when I got my flat in London. Taking them down and burning them a few weeks later, not needing them, the faces always there in my head whenever I closed my eyes.

  I didn’t answer the question, just let it linger and worry us both.

  Lewis Brue flexed the fingers of his injured arm and studied me some more in the mirror. The question about fear had come from a genuine place, but now he was looking crafty, probing for secrets of my own. “You ever kill anyone, Eyrie Brown?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Not my place to ask?” he murmured.

  I flashed him a look. He nodded, sat back and gazed out into the dark, leaving me to focus on the road and drive.

  We pulled up outside a two-storey house close to Deptford station. Completely dark downstairs, but a light was on in one of the rooms up top.

  Brue leant forward and chewed a thumb, making no move to get out.

  “Not sure this is safe?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he breathed. “I trust this guy, but something like this puts questions in your mind. I remember him talking about wanting to get a new place last summer, somewhere with a pool. Couldn’t afford it. Maybe someone offered him the money he needed. Maybe they threw in enough for a diving board and all.”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Still he didn’t move. “Maybe you could –”

  “No,” I said.

  “What?” he snapped. “You don’t know what I was gonna say.”

  “You were about to ask me to ring the bell and check if everything’s OK.”

  “Fuck. You can read minds.” He chewed the thumb some more. “I could make it worth your while.”

  “I’m sure you could,” I told him. “And if you had a suitcase full of cash on you, I’d be tempted. But from what I’ve gathered, your long-term prospects don’t look so hot, therefore your IOU doesn’t interest me.”

  “Then you can be bought?” Lewis asked with a smile.

  “To press a bell?” I echoed the smile. “Yes, if things were different, you could pay me to do that. I won’t give up the day job, but only a fool turns down a nice little earner on the side.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” he grinned, then sighed and stared at the house. “Think I should risk it?”

  I shrugged. “If you’re lucky, he joined a gym with a members pool.”

  Brue snorted on a laugh.

  “I’ll take you somewhere else if you prefer,” I said.

  “But where?” he asked himself, then cocked an eyebrow at me. “I could come back to your place. No one knows about you. I’d surely be safe there.”

  I shook my head. “I’d rather not take my work home with me.”

  He choked back another laugh and picked up the bag with his jacket in it. “I know we only just met, but I like you a lot, Eyrie Brown. If you ever change your mind about the job…”

  “I’ll come looking for you,” I promised, and I meant it, experienced enough to know that nobody can predict what the future might hold. “I don’t think you’ll be a hard man to find.”

  “Shouldn’t be,” he muttered. “I just hope you don’t find me resting in a pine box six feet under.”

  He opened the door and stepped out into the rain. He put a hand into a pocket and pulled out his wallet. Ignoring the meter, he counted off a lot of twenties and held them out. “That enough for your troubles?”

  “That’ll do nicely,” I said, taking the money.

  “Thanks, Brown. You did me a good turn tonight. I won’t forget it.”

  I half-nodded, pocketing the cash. “I hope it goes OK for you in there.”

  “Me too,” he said drily, then shut the door and waded through the rain, shoulders hunched.

  I didn’t stay to watch him ring the bell. Reversing back the way I’d come, I took a left and headed west, looking for another fare, but it was almost an hour until the next one, and that was only a short ride, like the two at the start of my shift. Some nights you just can’t catch a break, I mused as I clocked off and turned for home.

  I touched the wad of twenties in my pocket and smiled.

  But some nights you can.

  TWO — THE GANG

  “You’re pathetic, the lot of you! Boxers? You couldn’t punch your way out of a coronation chicken wrap! For this I get out of bed in the morning?”

  Fervent Eld spat by his feet and mumbled some curses that the boys in the gym couldn’t hear. None of the kids took any notice. Fervent was always ripping into them, so they knew he didn’t mean it. They were his world, no matter their flaws, and he’d have stood up for every single one of them. Often had, taking the fight outside the gym to drunken, abusive fathers, or drug dealers looking to sink their claws into Eld’s youthful charges. Sometimes he won those battles, more often he lost, but he always stood up for the boys.

  Fervent flopped down beside me and rubbed his knees. He’d been complaining of aches ever since I’d met him, when I’d been a kid like those in the gym today. He’d been to every doctor and physio he could afford, acupuncturists and more, but none could do anything for him. The only relief came when one of his boys won a fight — then he was prancing around, delighted, pain temporarily forgotten. Sadly for Fervent, that didn’t happen too often. He had all the enthusiasm and dedication of a puppy, but he was no mastermind of the ring. Not that he saw it that way. Fervent believed (most fervently, it must be said, to get the pun out of the way nice and early) with all his heart that the failures on fight night lay with the kids, not their coach.

  “They’re piss-poor, Eyrie,” he said softly, close to tears, holding his hand in front of his face so the teenagers who were sparring and training couldn’t see. “I swear, all my years, I’ve never seen a shower as bad as this lot.”

  “There must be a few who have what it takes,” I protested, politely refraining from pointing out the number of times he’d spun this line before. Every generation seemed to throw up the worst shower of boxers that Fervent had ever seen.

  “Yeah?” he snorted. “Name one. You’ve seen them all in action. Go on.”

  I was silent.

  “There!” His eyes gleamed triumphantly, but the gleam swiftly faded as he realised how hollow his victory was. “I should retire,” he groaned. “I’m too old, been here too long. I can’t teach these guys. They need someone young
er, with new ideas, fire in his belly. I’m an old warhorse.”

  Fervent had been threatening to quit for almost as long as he’d been trotting out clichés, but it had been getting worse these past four or five years, since his last young pretender had waltzed off in chase of fame and glory. Despite his protests to the contrary, Fervent had trained several good fighters over the years, when they were young and (to utilise a cliché as Fervent would) learning the ropes, but not one of the ungrateful little shits had ever taken him along for the ride when they progressed to bigger, better things. He was viewed by those in the know as a kids’ trainer, reasonably useful at spotting talent and lining boys up for their first steps to relative glory, but not the man you needed to take a winner forward.

  The sad truth was, those in the know were right. Still, they should have allowed him to tag along as a passenger at least once, so he could have experienced big nights as a member of a winning team. But boxing was a cruel world and none of the ring sharks who flourished in its bloodied waters cared about the ghosts of dedicated, inspirational but plodding Fervent Elds. They used these anonymous old men and discarded them, and the kids did the same when they were told to choose, because they knew where the money lay, and it didn’t lie in sentimental loyalty.

  I stood to watch some of the boys going through their paces. I came to Fervent’s a lot. It wasn’t actually called that. GINO’S was the name on the sign outside. But Fervent had been running the place as long as anyone could remember and everyone always referred to it as his.

  The gym didn’t distract me the way driving did, but it gave me interaction with people who weren’t paying for the pleasure, and that was important. I needed to be a loner to survive, but I was aware that, if I didn’t take care, I could be too much of a loner for my own good. As antisocial as I was, I did need a few friends to spend time with. Otherwise what was I surviving for?

  I’d always loved the ring. Dreams of being a pro when I was younger. Fervent still maintained that I could have made the grade, a scrappy southpaw who had a knack for getting in behind the defences of better, stronger fighters. I’d trained here until the age of fifteen, when I went off the rails a bit, nothing too crazy, just normal teenage rebellion. Fervent used to chew me out. He thought I could be a winner and he always went tough on those he believed in. He tried everything to get me to train hard and push myself, but I saw him as a crazy old man and didn’t listen. That still caused me to blush with shame sometimes.

  I picked up the gloves again in the Army, but I’d been away from the ring too long by that stage. A handy amateur, nothing more. I still occasionally dreamt about fighting in Vegas, Caesar’s Palace, the main attraction. I hope I never grow out of those childish dreams entirely. Even old men on their deathbed should have dreams. Zahra used to say that.

  A hard lump formed in my throat, the way it still did whenever I thought of her name, even all these years later. Trying to push her from my thoughts – I preferred to think about her late at night, when I was alone and unable to sleep – I focused on the young boxers and tried to select a potential champion.

  “What about Cat?” I asked, nodding at a lean welterweight.

  “A cut above most,” Fervent grudgingly admitted, “but he’s been missing training, hanging with the wrong crowd. Chasing girls, but the ones he’s chasing are the ones he should run from. He has potential but he’s wasting it.”

  “Barney?” I tried. A sturdy middleweight, a southpaw like me.

  “Can’t take a punch. Strong as Samson. Be a good arm-wrestler, but won’t make it in the ring. I tell you, not one of them will amount to anything. It tears me up to say it, but it’s the truth. We’re a laughing stock. Everyone wants to take us on, to score a few easy wins and boost morale. We’re a fucking joke.”

  I sat and took a slug of water. I’d have preferred a beer but Fervent had long ago outlawed alcohol in the gym. “So there’s no point me putting any money in?” I asked.

  “Be a waste of time,” he sighed, and I knew the honesty hurt. Fervent always needed a bit of extra cash to keep afloat. He wouldn’t have turned me down unless he genuinely felt it would be wrong to take my money.

  I’d been looking to invest in a boxer for a while. I didn’t have a huge amount put aside, but I was working long hours and banking a nice chunk every week (when the city wasn’t flooding), and I had few overheads or leisure buys. When someone from my bank had phoned and asked me if I wanted to move my savings out of my current account and do something more with the money, I’d figured it was time to look for a way to spend it. I knew and cared nothing about the stock market, and property didn’t interest me either. Having thought about it for a few weeks, I decided to find a young boxer with skill and stamina, sink my earnings into his training, go along with him as far as I could, make a tidy profit, maybe do it again a few times, until I had enough to buy a place like Fervent’s and go into business if I ever tired of the cab.

  Fervent coughed and pointed to a tall black guy, one of the oldest trainees. “Berry. Twenty-two. Should have quit two or three years ago, but still thinks he can be a star, begging me to help him push on.” He paused and tugged at his lower lip. “I’m thinking of putting him into bare-knuckle fights. What do you reckon?”

  I shrugged. “He’s tough. A brawler. He’d do OK.”

  “I hate having to tell them,” Fervent said. “Nothing worse than hearing you’re finished with the gloves. But it suits some guys, if they want to make money and still feel the hunger to fight.”

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “I know.”

  I’d come out of the Army directionless and penniless. To earn some cash, I’d gone back to Fervent’s, started training again, thinking I might make enough in the ring to get by. He’d given me a month, then told me I was too old, my chance had passed, and there was more money to be made if I went bare.

  I’d known about those events but always assumed they were for Gypsies and Eastern Europeans. Never thought I might end up in a dark gym, late at night, no gloves, bloodthirsty vultures crowded close as they could get, orgasmic grins, cash exchanging hands all the time, flying through the air like confetti at a wedding (before it was banned). Punching until one of you could no longer stand. Having to guard against bites, low blows, the occasional karate kick. Rules made and broken night-by-night. Fervent always in my corner, encouraging and sustaining me, telling me it was only for a short time, just to make enough money to get me out of a hole and set me on the straight and narrow.

  Depressing, despairing work, but I made more in those fights than I ever did at anything else. I’d have carried on earning if I’d kept going, but I retired early, the night I saw a Lithuanian poke a Pole’s eye out, and the poor one-eyed bastard still boxed on, because that was all there was to his life. I got out of the game the next day, roughed it for a time, before Dave asked if I’d ever thought about trying the Knowledge and becoming a cabbie.

  “If Berry wants to discuss it with someone who’s been there, I’m happy to talk with him,” I said.

  Fervent smiled guiltily. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “Hoping I’ll put him off with my tales?” I guessed.

  Fervent shrugged. “I’ll back him if he goes down that path, but I like to give my guys as many of the facts as I can before they commit. A lot of them don’t think about all the bad shit that can happen, only the good.”

  I hung around a while longer, helped out where I could, let the boys rile me, taking their baits with good humour, knowing there was nothing malicious in them. I’d been the same at that age, gobby, thinking I was smarter and funnier than I was.

  I caught up with Fervent again just before I left. “Keep looking for me,” I told him. “If you find a contender, I’ll cut you in like I promised, keep you in the game as long as I can.”

  “Consider it a deal,” Fervent chuckled as he shook my hand, his crooked fingers bent with arthritis, every bit of him bent except his eyes, which were full of hope, no matter what he
might have been saying a short while ago. Those eyes were back on his boys before I turned to leave. His gaze rarely left them for long. They might be the worst bunch he’d ever trained (since the last worst bunch) but they were still his kids and he cared for them like the fathers so many of them had never known.

  TERRY’S. One of my favourite cafés. The food was affordable, came in decent portions, and only rarely poisoned you. Fine music on the jukebox, lots of early rock greats like the Stones, the Who, the Kinks.

  I hung out at TERRY’S most evenings before clocking on. It was where I met Dave and borrowed the keys to his cab. Occasionally I picked it up from the garage where he parked it when not in use – that’s where I dropped it off at the end of my shift each night, leaving the keys with whoever was on duty – but more often than not we met in TERRY’S. Dave drove days. He’d done nights as well once, working fifteen or sixteen-hour shifts, before he fell in love and got married. Now he liked to spend his nights at home. Even took the odd day or two off, when the wife wanted to go to a show or a fancy restaurant.

  “Have a bite of my burger,” No Nose said to Mickey Goodnews.

  “Fuck off,” Goodnews bit back.

  “Go on, it’ll do you good. Just one bite. Do it for No Nose. Come on, open wide, open wide.” No Nose tried forcing the bun into Mickey’s mouth, but he was only playing and was easily turned aside by the indignant Irishman. (In fact they both had Irish backgrounds, but Goodnews played it up more.)

  “Fecking savages,” Goodnews sneered. He was vegetarian. Had been since the family dog choked to death on a chicken bone.

  “Don’t know what you’re missing, Mick.” No Nose licked his lips and bit into the burger. They didn’t do especially good burgers at TERRY’S but you wouldn’t have guessed that from No Nose’s rapturous expression.

  We’d all passed the Knowledge, but No Nose was the most street savvy cabbie I’d ever met. He knew about routes that the rest of us never even guessed existed. He loved driving and cruised the streets in his spare time, watching London go about its continual evolution, studying buildings and neighbourhoods as they rose and fell and rose again over the years.