Circle of fight

CHAPTER 11

Although the stir-crazy feelings I got in this narrow little building were nothing compared to the feelings I’d had in the hay bales, they were still pretty bad. Toddy had gone out nearly four hours earlier, saying not to move till he came back, but at the same time, if a kid with a Fremantle Dockers shirt could walk around this town, surely I could? If I’d brought my Bulldogs top I’d have worn that, cos that’s got to be better than a Dockers top any day, but I didn’t know how aware these people were of the subtleties of football. To be honest I don’t care much about it myself but it had given me a warm and fuzzy feeling to see that purple and green and red, and the white anchor.

I decided to give Toddy the full four hours but when he still hadn’t turned up after four hours and five minutes, I wrote him a note saying 2.05 pm. I figured I’d better not put any details about who I was, or where I was going, in case the wrong person found the note. Then I took a deep breath and went downstairs and through the back door into the courtyard.

A narrow alley got me into the street and as soon as I came into the bright sunlight I did my best to look relaxed and at home, like I walked down this street every second day of my life. Oh yeah, this was Wirrawee, this was Stratton, this is just me everyone, don’t take any notice, it’s just little old Ellie, I mean Paula, off for a stroll.

It worked for about a millisecond.

I turned right, walked about three steps, looked up and around, and nearly panicked. There wasn’t a single other foreigner on the street but there sure were a lot of people who looked right at home. Once upon a time I would have been right at home in this town too, and not so long ago either, but it didn’t seem to count any more.

I forced myself to keep walking, but at the same time wished I were back in the middle of the haystack. My senses felt overwhelmed. The eyes were copping it, through the sight of hundreds of people, all obviously different to me. When we’d arrived the street had been quite calm and peaceful, but things had warmed up now, and the crowds were out and about. My ears copped it from the voices all around me, which sounded harsh and high-pitched, and which talked so fast that I felt like I was in a washing machine of sound. The conversations were punctuated every twenty seconds by a long blast or a series of bips from a car horn, as taxis and cars and motorbikes argued for priority. My nose copped it from a strange, slightly mouldy smell, which could have been a sewerage pipe gone wrong, or could have been just the typical lunch fragrances drifting from the restaurants.

I didn’t know, and in my narrow life I didn’t have enough to compare it with.

At least my sense of taste and my sense of touch were getting off pretty lightly, although people bumped into each other much more than I was used to. The first few times it happened to me I apologised, but no-one else seemed to bother, so I gave up.

People certainly looked at me, but not with the piercing stare of the girl on the motorbike. They glanced, looked away, and then often looked back, not suspiciously I thought, or hoped, but more like they were asking themselves, ‘Hmm, who’s she? Haven’t seen her before.’

Of course that was not the kind of look I wanted to attract. I felt myself going red every time it happened, which meant that I stayed red most of the time, as it happened so often.

My mind was in too much turmoil for me to think. Instead I ploughed on, not yet ready to form opinions as to whether I should keep going or cross the road or go back or jump up on one of the cafe tables on the footpath and dance an Irish jig.

I made myself walk to the end of the block, and cross over at the intersection, then come back on the other side. It took all that time for my heart to beat a little slower, and for my breathing to get a bit steadier. I still felt as though I were the centre of attention, and I wasn’t wrong about that. But so far nothing horrible had happened, and the attention still seemed to be curious, not threatening.

Then something horrible did happen. I was coming towards the open doors of what looked like a supermarket, and I was slowing down, thinking I’d have a look in there, and maybe even try to find the nerve to go in and buy something. Jeremy had said everyone loved American dollars, and I could use them at street stalls even. I thought it would be good for my confidence to go in and get some chewing gum or Pepsi or bananas, anything that was universal and uncomplicated and noncontroversial. Asking what size bottles Absolut vodka came in, for example, wasn’t on my agenda.

As I came to a stop, feeling the money in my pockets with one hand, wondering if I should take the plunge, a couple of young guys in uniform suddenly appeared at my right elbow. I think they had been leaning against the wall of the building, but they had been blocked from my view by a woman selling cigarettes and matches from a little trolley. One of the men clicked his fingers at me and held out his hand. I’d been warned by Jeremy that this might happen, and it was the signal to produce my ID. I let go of the money and fumbled in my other pocket, dragged out my mother’s wallet and showed him the cards that Toddy had already inspected.

There’s something about people in uniform. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t just apply to cops and soldiers. With me, it applies to anyone umpiring a game or behind the counter of a shop or driving a bus. I guess it’s one of the reasons companies issue uniforms to their employees. It immediately gives them authority, and makes people like me nervous. I didn’t actually need a lot more to be nervous about. I had enough stuff on my list already. So even though I’d practised in my mind many times, before I left home and during the truck ride and while I was upstairs at Toddy’s place, how I’d handle a situation like this, I couldn’t stay cool and calm and casual while these guys looked me over. I know I went red again; I found it impossible to look at either of them, and my head dropped a little, like I knew I was guilty and was willing to come along quietly to whatever cell they had reserved for me.

They didn’t say a word. One of them, the one who snapped his fingers, just seemed to be reading the data, and very slowly at that. The other one read it as well, over his friend’s shoulder. Around us the pedestrian traffic continued to move, parting like a river does around a rock, but if I was getting curious glances before, I was getting a hundred times more of them now. I suppose when people see someone being stopped or questioned, they immediately assume the person’s committed a couple of murders at least. A lot of time passed. Seemed like years. Another five minutes and I would have reached menopause. The first soldier said something, but I couldn’t understand it. I croaked, ‘What?’ and glanced up at him, our eyes meeting for the first time. I went even redder. He didn’t look much older than me, but he looked very smart, although that could have just been his dark glasses.

‘Where you live, Paula?’ he said.

I understood then why some people confess everything so easily when they get arrested. In answer to his question, I was almost ready to sob, ‘I’m not Paula, you know I’m not, I’m Ellie, and I’m probably on your ten-most-wanted list for all the damage I did during the war and all the soldiers I killed.’

Instead, I found enough sense to croak again, giving him Paula’s address.

The only thought I could summon to my brain was the word ‘Gavin’ and I kept trying to say that to myself to remember why I was here and that I was on the side of good things, positive things, nice things like saving someone who deserved a break for once in his young life. The soldier looked so sceptical when I said my address that I wondered if he knew something I didn’t, like that the house had been pulled down or my street had been wiped out in an earthquake. I had an insane impulse to run, and would have, if I’d been able to think of anywhere to go. As it was I had to push my feet into the ground to make myself stay, and squeeze my fingernails hard into the palm of my hand.

He didn’t say anything for a long time, just stood there tapping my card against his fist and looking at me. Finally, when I was about to burst, he gave me back the pass and said, ‘OK, you go.’

I’d lost interest in shopping. I walked away, trying to keep my head high, hoping I looked calm, from behind at least. I knew I didn’t look calm from in front. Heading towards the next corner I passed Toddy’s place on the other side of the street. There was no way I could go there right now, not with the possibility that two pairs of eyes were boring holes into my back. I came to the corner and randomly turned right. This road was a lot clearer. With a burst of hope I saw the two boys I’d noticed earlier about thirty metres ahead, just hanging out it seemed like. I accelerated and caught them as they rambled along.

‘Hey guys!’ I called.

They turned around. They looked friendly. I hoped I wasn’t going to get them into trouble. ‘Can you do me a huge favour?’

‘Depends,’ the black-haired one said, but he was still being friendly. I had the feeling they were those very cool kind of kids who can be friendly with girls who are older than them and girls who are younger than them and boys who are older and boys who are younger… and old ladies and grandpas and people working in shops and migrants who can’t speak English and teachers and babies… God I love those sorts of kids, who just don’t feel threatened the way someone like Gavin does. Gavin approaches everyone like they’re holding a samurai sword behind their back and they’re about to pull it out and use it on him. Trouble is, in his life, that’s more or less exactly what’s happened.

‘I’m getting hassled by a couple of soldiers back there and I’m worried they might be following me.’ I paused. They looked at each other. ‘I just wondered if you might go and have a look around the corner. See if they’re coming.’

They looked at each other again and the red-haired one shrugged and said, ‘OK.’

It was as easy as that for them. They headed back there with no great fuss, quite quickly. Just as they got to the corner the two soldiers came around it and nearly ran into them.

Were they following me? I think so. I thought so. There was a moment when all five of us were frozen in surprise. The soldiers had to step out onto the road if they were going to get around the boys. The boys had nowhere to go except backwards. I could have gone in any direction but I was meant to be an innocent Paula on a walk through the streets, not a fugitive from justice.

The dark-haired boy swung around and waved to me. ‘Don’t forget to tell Mom,’ he called. Mom? Where were they from? Then he and his friend both moved a little, like they’d planned it, so they were blocking the soldiers. It was a beautiful piece of choreography. The red-haired one folded his arms and said something to the soldiers like he was asking a very serious question. Maybe for directions. That was the last I saw. I waved back to them and walked on quickly. Coming up on the right was a coffee shop. It had a sign in English out the front: American coffee, 20. We take cards. Relax with friend. I dived in there. It was tiny. A very funky young woman with long black hair was sitting at a computer. She stood as I came in. There was a little bar, but I swear, there was room for about four customers. She saw my confusion and pointed to the stairs, which were also very funky, but narrow. Made of stainless steel. ‘Upstairs,’ she said. ‘Coffee upstairs.’

‘Can I use your toilet?’ I asked. I was already heading for a door behind the bar. She blushed and put her hand to her throat. ‘No, is not allowed,’ she said.

‘Sorry, I’m really busting,’ I said. Seemed like Paula had pretty bad manners. I opened the door and slipped through it, closing it behind me. I was in a very narrow corridor, made even narrower by boxes and tins. There was a big stack of Lavazza coffee. They must do good business for a tiny shop. Maybe there was a chain of them and this was the headquarters. I reached the end of the corridor and opened the next door. Behind me the girl opened the first door. I heard her start to say something, but even as she drew breath for the words I was through the next door and closing it again.

Now I was in their sitting room. God this was embarrassing. Another funky-looking girl was there and a thin pale-faced guy who looked British. Who the hell was he? ‘Just looking for the toilet, sorry,’ I said, and went on by while they looked at me like I was a complete freak. This was getting seriously surreal. Down another corridor and at last out into, well, not fresh air, but as close to it as I was likely to find in Havelock.

Their yard was about the same size as their sitting room. I scuttled straight for the back gate and was through it and gone before anyone could follow me from the building. I threw a left and headed down the alley to the street and started a long circumnavigation of the suburb. I couldn’t hear any police sirens or tracker dogs but I was playing it pretty carefully, so I went half-a-dozen blocks further round than I probably needed. My confidence to walk down the main street was gone so I kept to side streets and lanes, although at one point I cut across a big park. The only way to get through this whole thing was to look confident, but I felt like I’d turned into cheese gratings and could melt at any moment.

By the time I got back to Toddy’s he was there and not very happy. When I came through the back door he practically leapt down the whole staircase in one jump and grabbed me with both arms. ‘Where have you been? Are you all right? Did anything happen?’

I told him the whole thing, not feeling very proud of myself, and he wasn’t too happy. ‘Are you sure you weren’t followed?’ he asked me three times, till I got to the point where I wasn’t sure if I had been or not.

Ignoring the fact that he’d told me I’d be safe to walk down the street — but also ignoring the fact that he’d told me not to go out unless it was necessary — I did quite a lot of grovelling. It took us a while to get to the point where we could actually move on. The whole thing was difficult and embarrassing. Toddy now thought I was unreliable, irresponsible. It would be hard to reverse that. It’s like school — so easy to get a bad name, so hard to get your good one back. Homer could testify to that. Quite a few teachers still thought he was a complete idiot, although my books had helped to improve his reputation a bit. Trouble was that he didn’t do much for his own case. Plus so many new teachers kept turning up that there weren’t many left who had actually read the books.

There were some people Toddy wanted me to go meet. He said they had information but were slow to deliver it. He thought my being there might help push them a bit, encourage them. But now he obviously wasn’t sure if I was going to be safe out there or whether I might suddenly start singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in the middle of the street.

‘I know I was an idiot to go for a walk,’ I said, feeling more and more aggrieved at having to keep apologising. Funny about that, even when you’re totally in the wrong, after a while you start to resent the person who’s in the right. ‘But what’s the damage? I feel sorry for the real Paula, if those soldiers remember her name from my ID card. They might be round there now checking on her for all I know. But her parents will just have to sort that out for themselves. The worst-case scenario for me, for us, is that if they do go talk to her parents, the cops might be alerted to look out for a teenage girl with false ID papers, and that’s not good, but it’s gotta take a while before all that happens.’

We decided to go ahead with the visit, but not till after dark. That meant fairly late, as the days were getting longer. In the meantime I had nothing to do except hang around the building. I borrowed some paper from Toddy and did some writing. Somehow it calms me down when I put stuff on paper. I got sick of that eventually though, and ended up looking at a copy of a fashion magazine in a language so different to mine that I couldn’t even work out the title.

By then Toddy was like those moths you see in the mornings, the ones who come into the house the night before, while the lights are on, then realise some time after sunrise that they made a bad call, and they spend the rest of their short and tragic lives fluttering against a window trying to get out. Toddy wanted to go, he came into the room a dozen times an hour, but he knew we had to wait.

I tried to ask him questions about his life, but he didn’t like answering them. I especially wanted to know why he did this. Why would he betray his country, help the enemy? For money? I couldn’t imagine that. He seemed like someone who wasn’t too bothered about money, although his motorbike would have cost a bit. Maybe he had some philosophical belief that motivated him, but if that were so, he’d have to agree that the invasion was wrong and they had no business being in places like Havelock. Toddy gave me the impression that he was pretty happy to be in Havelock.

I think he didn’t want to tell me anything personal because he didn’t want me to know too much about him if I got caught. That was fair enough, especially as he now obviously expected me to get myself caught at the first available opportunity, but it was annoying, cos I like to know everything about everyone. Still, I did find out that he had two sisters, both older, and his mother was a tailor. There wasn’t much more than that.

When it got dark enough he came bounding down the stairs. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said.

I had thought that we’d be on the motorbike again, with the wig and the sunglasses, but he took me out into the street behind his place and told me to walk ahead of him for three blocks and then turn left, go two and a half blocks, and wait outside a fire hydrant. ‘I’ll go past you then come back then you follow me.’

It took us a while to work out what he meant by fire hydrant, cos he didn’t have the word for it, but eventually I got the message.

I set off. A couple of glances behind showed Toddy at a safe distance. At an extremely safe distance. Like, a hundred and fifty metres behind. I had no illusions. I knew that if I got caught Toddy would become about as solid as an illusion. ‘Ellie? Paula? She said that? Never heard of either of them. C’mon! Man, that’s one crazy girl you’ve got yourself there!’

He’d got me nervous, along with what had happened that afternoon, and now I walked along like I expected to be shot at any moment. Like there’d be snipers in the trees and on the roofs of buildings. He’d sent me down a quiet street, which was fine by me, and I got nearly a full block before I passed anyone. One man, in dark clothes, was walking towards me, but as he approached I became aware that there was a second person coming up behind, walking quite quickly. I risked a glance and saw another man in a dark suit. ‘This is it,’ I thought. ‘This is where the whole game ends.’ I fully expected to be arrested. I took another glance, this time across the street, and thought, ‘I’ll try to make a run for it, if one of them puts his hand on me.’

The man coming towards me seemed to veer a little as he got closer, as though he were getting ready to grab me. Then he straightened up again and went on by. A moment later the man behind overtook me and went on.

Had there been a signal between them? Since the girl on the motorbike that morning I’d felt watched, suspected, threatened.

I kept going, but with my eyes on the man in front as he continued to accelerate. Was he an agent of the police or the government? Or just an office worker making his way home after a late finish? Toddy was a long way back and I felt very alone. I could almost see myself from behind, through his eyes, a solitary figure walking in darkness, occasionally dappled by the dim light from the few street lamps that worked. Walking a little more quickly than normal, my instincts and my body wanting to go faster but my mind keeping on the brakes.

I wanted to get there, I always wanted to get there. And there was always a Toddy in the background, reining me in, and all around me the invisible watchers, saying ‘Hello, who’s she, looks like trouble, stop her, get in her way.’

I turned left, following instructions, and a block later was crossing the main road again. It was still busy. This part was very bright, very commercial. The neon signs were orange, red, blue, yellow, pink. I couldn’t read most of them but some were in English as well as their own language. Best Chinese Food. Handy Supermart. American hamburgers. National Security Bank. Top Indian Food.

It was strange crossing this river of light and cars and colour and people. It seemed a long way from a paddock filled with cattle. A group of four middle-aged women hurried past, no-one talking. They looked like they were too tired to talk. They looked sad. I wondered if one or two of them might be the mothers of the men Lee and I had driven to their deaths at the hands of the bull. At the hooves and horns of the bull. Getting from one side of the street to the other was pretty wild. Traffic rules didn’t seem to matter much. A funny little white taxi zipped around another car, happily going over the double lines to do it. Further up the street a man stood in the middle of a pedestrian crossing waiting for someone to stop or maybe even slow down a little so he could continue his brave journey. The way things looked, he might be there most of the night.

I did me some slipping and some sliding between cars, letting this one go, taking a chance on that one, ducking between those two, and making it onto the footpath with a feeling that wasn’t much different to the feelings I’d had after some of my near-death experiences during the war. I was past the halfway point, with only two blocks and a half to go. No-one seemed to have paid me too much attention in the busy road. Now I plunged back into the quiet semi-darkness of the side street. There was a different smell along here, sweet but not pleasant. The kind of sweetness that makes you feel slightly nauseous. Something fermenting, something on the verge of being rotten. A woman squawked on my left and startled me. The sound had come from one of the houses. She was angry at someone. She rattled off a string of abuse that could have been about the way her husband drank or the way her teenage daughter answered back or the way no-one would take out the garbage and she had to do all the work around here. I hurried on. I passed a church that was closed and dark. A block of flats where a man was pressing numbers into the security pad. A place that sold huge pottery vases, all crammed in together, standing like dull people waiting to be told what to do.

And at last the fire hydrant. I slipped into the shadows, using an overhanging tree for cover. A few minutes later Toddy’s footsteps approached. In real life footsteps are never the way they’re described in books, unless someone’s on a wooden floor maybe. You hear more than the actual feet. You get the sense of a physical presence, with the noises that come from the feet, sure, but the clothing and I suppose the arms as well. There’s an array of sounds coming towards you. Toddy made light sounds considering he was a big guy, and he sounded nervous, but then I’d expect that anyway, given the dangerous place I was in. This was totally a ‘Trust Toddy’ exercise. Trust a complete stranger, someone you met for the first time that very morning. If he was betraying his own country for money, it figured that he’d betray me right back to them for even more money.

He went on by, a dark shape, not looking to right or left. I leant against the wall, waiting for him to come back. I heard a sound above my head and, looking up, saw the shape of a possum outlined against the light from a small block of flats across the road. It was stretching from one branch to another, but the distance was a little too far. ‘Great heavy thing, possum,’ I thought. I’d never seen a squirrel but I imagined they were much more nimble. The possum was in silhouette, but as I watched, it connected with the other branch and hauled itself across. ‘Good job,’ I told it.

I turned my attention back to the street. Someone was approaching from the left, the direction Toddy had gone. I hoped it was him. But the sounds were heavier. An older man walked past slowly, out for his evening walk perhaps. I stayed still, hoping he wouldn’t notice me, but he glanced at me as he went past and I thought I saw a little change in his expression, like he was startled. It was really too dark to tell and I hoped I’d been wrong. It was a bugger that he’d seen me. I must have looked awfully suspicious. Another three or four minutes passed. Where was Toddy? God he was taking his time. Then with a quick light rush of movement he was there.

‘Come on, anyone see you?’

‘Yes, an old man out for a walk. He looked a bit surprised.’

‘Oh damn, couldn’t you stop him?’

I was starting to get irritated by Toddy, the way everything was always my fault. ‘How?’ I asked. ‘Blind him? Kill him? Hypnotise him? “You’re not seeing a girl, you’re seeing a chicken”?’

We were hurrying along the street. Toddy didn’t answer. We reached a block of flats and turned left down a side alley, then hung a sharp right into a foyer. There was a lift but we didn’t take it. We went up a grimy staircase, three levels. I was struggling. Toddy moved fast.

He gave a soft knock on a door marked 31, opened it and went straight in. I just kept following, past a couple of bedrooms, past a tiny kitchen, and into a sitting room.

Three men were sitting there playing cards. They all looked to be in their early twenties. The cards looked a lot older. They were grease-stained and dog-eared. The curtains were drawn and the lighting was dim. Everyone seemed to be smoking and the place stunk of dead cigarettes.

It occurred to me that the people who had kidnapped Gavin wanted me and the Scarlet Pimple in exchange for him and now they had me, possibly. If Toddy had made a mistake here, or worse, if Liberation had been wrong about Toddy, then I was now a prisoner. Very handy for them. They hadn’t lifted a finger. I’d just arrived and handed myself over.

Toddy said a whole lot of stuff to them but they didn’t look particularly interested, just kept playing cards. Occasionally one of them would grunt a comment or an answer. They held the whip hand, that was obvious. Toddy seemed even more nervous. I wondered when my turn would come and whether I would be expected to speak.

Then Toddy turned to me. He cleared his throat. ‘These men know a bit about the group who are holding your brother. They don’t get on with them at the moment. There’s a — I think in New York they would say a “turf war”. These men don’t know who you are or who your brother is but they know there’s a little boy being held as a hostage. But they don’t trust me very much. They think I’m running an operation of my own. I brought you here as proof that I’m not involved in some double-cross or even triple-cross.’

I felt like I was in Sleazeville. The idea of a bribe seemed to have floated in through the door. I didn’t know if this was the right time to do it so I asked Toddy, ‘Should I offer them money?’

‘You have some?’ he asked quickly. He was sure onto that fast.

‘A little,’ I said.

‘No, don’t talk about that yet. Tell them a bit about yourself and why you’re here.’

It was a weird situation. I had to make a speech in a language these guys didn’t know and the life of a child might depend on it. I wasn’t feeling too inspiring in this grotty smoke-filled room with a bunch of guys who were apparently gang members of some kind. But I had to be inspiring. I just started off slow, feeling my way, trying to put some words together. Pausing at the end of each sentence for Toddy to translate was good in one way, bad in another. The good part was that it gave me time to think about what I wanted to say next. The bad part was that I couldn’t get a flow going. It soon became obvious that I wasn’t going to have them swaying in the aisles shouting ‘Halleluiah’ while I inspired them with a sermon about giving their life to the Lord Jesus.

So I told them about Gavin mostly, how Gavin’s stepfather had murdered Gavin’s mother in the last few minutes of the peace or the first few minutes of the war, how Gavin had run off and lived as a street kid in Stratton, seeing other kids coming and going around him, seeing them dying sometimes, of neglect and injuries and in one case at least from being lost in the bush, how I’d found him and kept him with me, and how Gavin’s stepfather had only recently tried to kill the poor kid. I didn’t say much about me because I didn’t want them to guess who I was — assuming they’d heard of me in the first place — but I did say I had no family left and Gavin was now my brother and the only person I had in the whole wide world.

At the end there was a short silence and I said to Toddy, ‘I’ve got a few hundred dollars American, if they want money to tell me where he is.’

‘Just wait,’ he said.

But one of the men had heard the magic word and he looked at me directly for the first time. ‘One thousand dollars,’ he said.

‘I haven’t got that much,’ I lied.

Suddenly they all forgot their card game and everyone was talking at each other. I couldn’t work out what was going on but they were pretty agitated. I looked at Toddy and he gave a little shake of the head. When they kept going hammer and tongs at each other he said quietly to me, ‘They’re arguing about the money. The others don’t like him asking for it.’

The man nearest to me turned around in his chair and looked at me. I hadn’t seen anything much of him before, just the back of his head. Now I realised he was the youngest of them, only about nineteen, and quite goodlooking. He put his cards down on the table where they could all see them. Obviously he wasn’t going to win that hand. ‘We’ll tell you where he is,’ he said. He didn’t speak in English, and to my left Toddy was translating, but I didn’t need the translation. Somehow I knew exactly what the guy was saying. ‘We’ll tell you where he is, but that’s all we’ll do. You’re on your own after that. If you’re going to get him out of there it’s up to you.’

I nodded to thank him. The other men had all gone silent and they’d chucked their cards on the table too. They just watched the young guy like they no longer had anything to do with this. The man glanced at his watch, turned to Toddy, and started talking to him in their own language, pretty fast, Toddy nodding at the end of every sentence. Then it was over. They picked up their cards, the young guy turning back to the table, and Toddy signalled to me that it was time to leave.

‘Thanks very much,’ I said awkwardly to the young guy’s neck. He didn’t respond. I followed Toddy down the corridor, past the bedrooms and through the front door. We continued downstairs without saying a word. Out into the street, towards the bright lights again, walking very fast, this time Toddy right beside me, kind of pulling me along. A hundred metres from the main street he stopped abruptly and dragged me to the right into the grounds of the church.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘listen good. They told me the place and I take you there now. I leave you there and what you do, it’s up to you.’ His English started to collapse under pressure. ‘You live, die, I don’t know, I only Toddy, I no fight. You want little, you take little, I do nothing.’

I realised he meant ‘little boy’, but I didn’t say anything. ‘You get him, you don’t come to my house, you go to place I tell you, if I can find you I help you, OK? You don’t never come to my place, you understand? You never come my place.’

‘All right,’ I said. I resented this, but I could see it from his point of view too. It wasn’t his war. He had to survive. He didn’t want to lose his life for a couple of strangers.

‘All right,’ he echoed me. ‘All right. You stay here. I get motorbike. I bring your stuff. Then you never need my place.’

‘So you’re going to take me to Gavin right now?’

I nearly gagged with the fear of what I was about to do, the situation I was about to enter. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘These people, they move all the time. We go fast, before they move again. They move, we never find them.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘You go get the bike. I’ll wait here.’