white American USAF technician and his West Indian mother. He led the High Fly Boys. He rode a £550 mountain bike, stolen. If there was war he had access to a pistol, hired by the twenty-four hours. If it was normal he carried a switchblade knife. He had no fear of what police or the courts could do to him. He could barely read, but knew the telephone number of a solicitor, and understood enough arithmetic to work out his cut from what he sold. He knew by heart all of the regulations governing stop-and-search by police officers, all of the custody legislation. A probation officer had once told him he was 'arrogant and in denial of your unacceptable behaviour', and he had spat in the man's face. He was eighteen years old and had no comprehension of the next week's horizon. He took a pitch, each evening, near the door of the Pensioners' Association and waited for instructions from the dealer on the night's trading.
Already there, his bike against the wall, was Leroy Gates. Leroy's tag was Younger Cisco. His ethnic mix was Italian father, whereabouts unknown, and West Indian mother. He was sixteen, could neither read nor write, and stammered when stressed. Excluded from mainstream education at fourteen, after four suspensions, he was classified in a confidential social-services report as 'effectively outside parental and institutional control and . . . locked in a culture of despair, he refuses to believe that worthwhile opportunities other than petty criminality are open to him'.
His angelic face and sad eyes were hidden by a ski mask when he thieved. He was the hard one of the gang.
Last to the corner by the Pensioners' Association doorway, shuttered and locked, was Wilbur Sansom, aged fifteen, with the tag Younger Younger Cisco in the identifying style of the gangs roaming the estate. It was probable, from the colour of his skin and the structure of his face bones, that he was of north African and Arabic origin; it was not known. At a few weeks old, he had been dumped in a telephone box in Deptford, then fostered. For the courts, and in the past for school registers, he had the family name of the proxy parents, Sansom; his first name had been allocated to him by a nurse at the hospital he had been brought to from the telephone box. He was a disappointment to teachers, foster-parents, police and social workers. Younger Younger Cisco - he would not answer to anything else - could read well and write with a strong hand. A child psychiatrist had rated him as having above average intelligence. He was slight in build, and seemingly unthreatening, so the Sansoms had given him a mobile phone for his fourteenth birthday, so that he would feel more secure when he was crossing the estate to and from school or the youth club.
The Rough Track Boys had beaten him more than was necessary to steal his phone. It had been replaced by his foster-parents, but within a week he had come home, mouth bleeding, without the second phone, courtesy of the Young Walworth Boys. He had offered himself to Cisco's gang for protection. As a visible member of the High Fly Boys he was no longer a target for violence. He never went to school, was known to the police, had collected four court cautions and was threatened next with an Antisocial Behaviour Order. He cared nothing. With his gang he was safe. His value to Cisco and Younger Cisco was simple. He could read the instructions written on cigarette paper by the dealer for pick-ups and drop-offs; he was their eyes.
Later, as the night closed down on the Amersham, they would move to a black hole in a fence behind which block eight's big rubbish containers were stored, and shadowy figures would flit towards them
- the vagrants they despised, clutching money and ready to buy. Everyone who wanted wraps and craved brown knew where to find them. For the three teenagers it was a night the same as any other, and cold rain spattered the shoulders of their leisure suits as they waited for the early buyers.
It
Already there, his bike against the wall, was Leroy Gates. Leroy's tag was Younger Cisco. His ethnic mix was Italian father, whereabouts unknown, and West Indian mother. He was sixteen, could neither read nor write, and stammered when stressed. Excluded from mainstream education at fourteen, after four suspensions, he was classified in a confidential social-services report as 'effectively outside parental and institutional control and . . . locked in a culture of despair, he refuses to believe that worthwhile opportunities other than petty criminality are open to him'.
His angelic face and sad eyes were hidden by a ski mask when he thieved. He was the hard one of the gang.
Last to the corner by the Pensioners' Association doorway, shuttered and locked, was Wilbur Sansom, aged fifteen, with the tag Younger Younger Cisco in the identifying style of the gangs roaming the estate. It was probable, from the colour of his skin and the structure of his face bones, that he was of north African and Arabic origin; it was not known. At a few weeks old, he had been dumped in a telephone box in Deptford, then fostered. For the courts, and in the past for school registers, he had the family name of the proxy parents, Sansom; his first name had been allocated to him by a nurse at the hospital he had been brought to from the telephone box. He was a disappointment to teachers, foster-parents, police and social workers. Younger Younger Cisco - he would not answer to anything else - could read well and write with a strong hand. A child psychiatrist had rated him as having above average intelligence. He was slight in build, and seemingly unthreatening, so the Sansoms had given him a mobile phone for his fourteenth birthday, so that he would feel more secure when he was crossing the estate to and from school or the youth club.
The Rough Track Boys had beaten him more than was necessary to steal his phone. It had been replaced by his foster-parents, but within a week he had come home, mouth bleeding, without the second phone, courtesy of the Young Walworth Boys. He had offered himself to Cisco's gang for protection. As a visible member of the High Fly Boys he was no longer a target for violence. He never went to school, was known to the police, had collected four court cautions and was threatened next with an Antisocial Behaviour Order. He cared nothing. With his gang he was safe. His value to Cisco and Younger Cisco was simple. He could read the instructions written on cigarette paper by the dealer for pick-ups and drop-offs; he was their eyes.
Later, as the night closed down on the Amersham, they would move to a black hole in a fence behind which block eight's big rubbish containers were stored, and shadowy figures would flit towards them
- the vagrants they despised, clutching money and ready to buy. Everyone who wanted wraps and craved brown knew where to find them. For the three teenagers it was a night the same as any other, and cold rain spattered the shoulders of their leisure suits as they waited for the early buyers.
It
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