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and the two little ones …’
    Her eyes were all full of tears, glittering wet – and I got scared because she was scared, and I know Raphael was most scared of all, though he won’t ever say so. ‘I don’t want us getting caught up with the police,’ she said, gripping us hard. ‘Everyone knows what things they do.’
    I couldn’t meet her eye.
    For one thing, I was mad she’d spoken up – it was still the dumbest thing she could have done. For another, I had a feeling things were going to get bad. Sure, I wanted to besmart, like she said I was, and I knew I had to lead this, because Raphael needs to be led. I needed to keep a hold of him.
    I was planning it fast, and that’s why I said nothing.
    We just had to get to the railway station – that’s what I thought. We had to find out what was in the locker, and do it fast. Then, maybe, in a few days’ time, we could give up the wallet with the key inside it and get everyone off our backs.
    If that was too suspicious, I could get Rat to give it up – nobody would suspect him, because he worked alone, he didn’t talk to people. So I thought,
Let Rat be the little hero and bring them what they wanted in a few days’ time
.
    But if even that was too dangerous, I was thinking – then we could just throw the wallet and key up into the trash, and wait till somebody – anybody – found it, if they ever did.
    There was nothing in the house, that was true – and nobody could prove anything, and we were
not
in danger, and we could still make money – that is what I told myself, and Raphael was thinking just the same kind of thing, and we talked it through all night, thinking we were being smart and so not knowing what we were getting into. Not dealing with the fact that if the police think you’ve got something, they won’t stop till they’ve got it from you.

6
    Raphael again.
    The next day Gardo let us go to the station. I told him me and Rat would go alone if he didn’t.
    He said, what if we were being watched? I couldn’t see how they could watch us with us not seeing them, and I said we’d be moving so fast they’d never know.
    He said, what if they come back to the dumpsite, looking for us? I said, what if they don’t?
    He said, what if they’ve got the station staked out? And I said, what if we just do nothing for ever and forget the whole thing? Is that what he wanted? He kind of snarled at me then, but I’d got my way.
    So, early morning we went down to the tracks. The trains cut through the south side of Behala, very close to the docks. If you want to get to Central, you can pick one up ten minutes from my house.
    People have built their homes right up to the line, because the ground is flat and clear. Every now and again the homes get torn down and the people get shipped out. Over time, they come back, and the game starts again. It’s not as dangerous as you might think, because the trains are only four a day just there, and they go slow. They’re long and heavy, and you can hear them coming a mile away. The only person I ever heard of getting run over by a train was a woman about two years ago, and she did it on purpose, walking up as the train came and laying her head right on the rail.
    Gardo, me and Rat waited for the six o’clock. It came by pretty much on time, and we ran alongside the last coach. It’s a passenger train, and it goes for nine hours, way down to a town called Diamond Harbour. It starts at the docks, but not many people get on there. Then it goes to Central, where it gets so full you can’t breathe. We swung up and in through the windows – there’s no glass and no bars – and the only people were an old couple at one end, so we spread ourselves over the benches, and looked out and waved like we were on holiday.
    ‘What if they’re watching?’ said Gardo again. When he gets something on his mind, you can’t ever get it off again.
    ‘How can they be?’ said Rat.
    ‘They’d be looking for people doing anything