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little pile on the pavement and you never noticed. Give me a break.'

'You reckon it's all notes, do you? That means it's got to be a round figure, not like eighty pounds forty-two or something. And it's more than a hundred or else she wouldn't have put the whatyou- call-it, the high number right up there – I mean like a hundred and sixty. Maybe it's halfway, like –' Lance had to work it out '– like a hundred and forty.' That wasn't right. He tried again. 'A hundred and twenty. Or it could be a hundred and twenty-five.' He looked helplessly at Uncle Gib.

The Voltaire lookalike said, 'You're doing fine. Keep at it. Only don't you forget all the time you're diving deeper and deeper into sin.'

'Why d'you reckon she's doing this? Why not just keep the money?' Lance found it hard to imagine anyone who wasn't in need of a hundred pounds. 'I mean, she's playing some game, isn't she?'

'Suppose she's just an honest woman? Didn't think of that, did you? No, you wouldn't.'

'Why don't you fuck off?' Lance said, making a quick exit, though not so quick as to avoid hearing Uncle Gib's bitter reprimands for his language and threats of unquenchable fire coming down from heaven.

His latest mobile had ceased to work after its owner had had a bar put on it. This hadn't happened until five days had passed after Lance stole it from the back seat of a car. No doubt its owner hadn't noticed its absence. People had too much money for their own good. Anyone who left a mobile inside an unlocked car deserved all he got. Lance threw the mobile away before someone told him all it needed was a new Sim card and now he was obliged to use Uncle Gib's phone. It was a wonder the old man had one at all. No doubt it had been Auntie Ivy's decision and she had the phone installed during one of his long periods as a guest of Her Majesty's government.

Lance dialled the code, which was shared by his ex-girlfriend, though, as is the way with exchange codes, in a considerably less upmarket neighbourhood. The first time he tried he got the engaged signal, the second time, much later, a woman answered. Just as he thought.

'It's about the paper you put up in the street.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Up on the pole. The one about the money you found.'

'I'm afraid you've lost me. Gene! It must be for you, Gene.'

Another woman, thought Lance. Probably a couple of lesbians. But it was a man's voice. 'Eugene Wren. What can I do for you?'

Lance repeated what he'd said.

'Ah. You lost some money, did you?'

'Yeah. That's right.'

'I'm not going to ask you how much it was. Not now. Perhaps you'll do me the courtesy of coming here and we'll have a chat about it. When would suit you? Tomorrow evening about 6.30?'

Lance agreed. The rest of the empty day stretched before him. He would have liked to go out somewhere for the evening, pub first, then maybe a club up West. He'd never been to a club, he couldn't afford it, he couldn't afford anything. His benefit was basic. He was a 'Jobseeker' but he didn't know what to say at interviews, he just sat there in hopeless silence. No one wanted to employ him and now he had given up trying, though poverty was a perpetual trial to him. Everything he received went on food to supplement the very small amounts Uncle Gib made available to him. If you were rationed to an egg a day, two slices of black pudding or luncheon meat, four slices of bread, a bun and a small wedge of processed cheese, you needed a good deal extra. When he complained, Uncle Gib said that was all he had and people ate too much. God would have vengeance on them for not thinking of the starving millions in Africa. Lance bought tins of baked beans and tins of sliced peaches, pork pies and sausages, king-size bags of crisps and chocolate bars, and the biggest loaves of sliced white bread he could find. He also bought quite a lot of booze, Bacardi breezers, bottles of cider and the cheapest gin as well as wine from Kurdistan and Bulgaria. All his benefit was gone and he remained stick-thin.

He had no faith in securing this 'found' sum of money for himself but he'd get a look at the place where this Eugene Wren lived,