if anyone else was there to witness the circumstance of such a person being in such a place where that person patently didn't belong. But there was no one nearby, for the gym's entrance was on the side of the building, not the front on the main route more used by pedestrians.
The boy jerked his head in that age-old male adolescent form of hello. His short dreadlocks bounced round his dark face. "Hey. What're you doing round here?"
Fu offered the excuse He'd planned. "Trying to make peace with my dad and getting nowhere, as usual." It meant nothing at all in the general scheme of life, but Fu knew it would mean everything to the boy. It told a tale of brotherhood in twelve brief words, obvious enough to be understood by a thirteen-year-old, subtle enough to suggest that a bond of the unspoken might actually exist between them. "Heading back to the banger. What about you? D'you live round here?"
"Up past the station. Finchley Road and Frognal."
"I'm parked in that direction. I'll give you a lift if you like."
He moved along, keeping His pace somewhere between a stroll and a brisk, wintertime walk. Like a regular mate, He lit a cigarette, offered one to the boy, and confided that He'd parked a bit of a distance from where He'd met His dad because He'd known He'd want to clear His head afterwards with a walk. "Never works out with the two of us talking," Fu said. "Mum says she only wants us to relate to each other but I keep telling her you can't relate to a bloke who walked out before you were born." He felt the boy's eyes on Him, but they suggested interest and not suspicion.
"I met my dad once. Works on German cars over in North Kensington, he does. I went to see him."
"Waste of time?"
"Bloody waste." The boy kicked a squashed Fanta can that lay in their path.
"Loser?"
"Bugger."
"Wanker?"
"Yeah. No one else'll prob'ly touch it."
Fu gave a bark of laughter. "Motor's just over that way," He said. "Come on." He crossed over the road, careful not to watch to see if the boy was following. He took His keys from His pocket and jangled them in His hand, the better to telegraph the nearness of the van should his companion begin to feel uneasy. He said, "Heard you've been doing well, by the way."
The boy shrugged. Fu could tell he was pleased by the compliment, though.
"What're you on to now?"
"Doing a design."
"What sort?"
There was no reply. Fu glanced the boy's way, thinking He might have pushed too far, invading what was delicate territory for some reason. And the boy did look embarrassed and reluctant to speak, but when he finally replied, Fu understood his hesitation: the discomfiture of a teenager afraid of being labelled uncool. He said, "For a church thing meets in a shop down Finchley Road."
"That sounds good." But it didn't, really. The idea of the boy's being attached to a church group gave Fu pause because the disenfranchised were what He wanted. A moment later, however, the boy clarified the level-or lack thereof-of both his virtue and his connection with others. "Rev Savidge's got me in care at his house."
"The...vicar is it?...of the church group?"
"Him and his wife. Oni. She's from Ghana."
"From Ghana? Recently?"
The boy shrugged. It seemed a habit with him. "Don' know. It's where his own people're from. Rev Savidge's people. It's where they came from before they got sent to Jamaica on a slave ship. Oni, she's called. Rev Savidge's wife. Oni."
Ah. The second and third time he'd said her name. Here, then, was a real something to be mined, several nuggets at once. Fu said, "Oni. That's a brilliant name."
"Yeah. She's a star."
"Like to live with them, then? Reverend Savidge and Oni?"
The shoulders again, that casual lift of them that hid what the boy no doubt was feeling, not to mention what he was wanting. "All right," he said. "Better than with my mum anyway." And before Fu could press, asking the boy questions that would reveal his mum's imprisonment, thereby allowing Fu to forge yet another false bond with him, the boy said, "So where's your car, then?" in a restless manner, which could be interpreted as a very bad sign.
Thankfully, though, they were nearly upon it, parked in the shadows of an enormous plane tree. "Right there," Fu said, and He gave a look round to make sure the street was as deserted as it had