Just big enough to hold the furnishings, though there were scant furnishings for it to hold. A bed and a box. The bed was half-size, little more than a child’s cot, with three or four old grey blankets tossed over a stained mattress. The wooden box might have been chair or table or cupboard. There was a small window, broken, over which a sugar sack had been nailed. The floor was almost whole—other than where floorboards had rotted. The walls and ceiling were of corrugated iron. There was one luxury—a naked light bulb. The room was well-ventilated. Wind whistled in through the holes in the floor as well as through the broken windowpane.

Darcy Pearson stood in the doorway, his grin broader than ever. He was enjoying himself. He smoked. ‘You smoke?’ he asked Jake.

‘Yes I have…well, sometimes,’ said Jake.

‘Well don’t think you’re getting my smokes, Pom. How old are you?’

‘I’m fourteen,’ said Jake.

‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Darcy. ‘You don’t look it. How old do you reckon I am?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jake, standing by the bed and looking up into the face of the other. He shivered slightly, and not from the cold.

‘Seventeen. Well, just about,’ he leered, and did his best to blow smoke into Jake’s face. ‘Reckon I could wring your scrawny neck if I wanted. There’s not much of it.’ Darcy Pearson flexed a muscle, winked, and grinned some more. ‘There’d be no one to miss you and it might be fun to give it a try. The old lady said to get dry clothes on. Come on. Get ‘em out.’

‘I haven’t got much more with me.’ Jake struggled to open his suitcase.

‘You better bloody have or my mum’ll be whacking your skinny bum. She’s a powerful whacker, let me tell you. Not that she’d dare do it to me any more so she’s looking for a new customer.’ He sniggered. ‘Reckon you won’t be putting up much of a fight when she gets stuck in.’

The contents of Jake’s case were little drier than the clothes he wore. He found what he could and hesitated, looking up at his tormentor.

The grin became a full-bellied chuckle. ‘Get changed, Pom. I’m starving for a feed.