Live. Not lived. Luke didn’t like the present-tense inference. ‘You know, kid? Po? If you’re even half serious about making a fresh start, going back to Bugis Street won’t help.’
Po just looked at him. Dark eyes in a pinched face and a body that was decades too small for the soul that resided within.
Luke didn’t want to get involved—he was only in Singapore for the week. But, ‘You need some company?’ was what he said.
‘Do you?’ said the boy, and fell into step beside him.
A couple of blocks went by in silence. Po clearly didn’t see the need for conversation. ‘How did you meet Madeline?’ Luke finally asked the kid.
‘She looked rich,’ said Po. ‘Her handbag was Prada and her shoes were Chanel—the real deal. So I marked her.’
‘You stole from her?’
‘Tried to,’ said Po. ‘But she knew all the moves. It was like she could see inside me. She asked me if I was hungry. When I said yes, she took me to a street stall and she knew the owner. She gave him five hundred Sing and told him to feed me for a month. He did.’
‘Did you stop picking pockets after that?’
‘I stopped trying to pick her pocket after that,’ said Po piously. ‘She’d come to the street stall every Monday. I used to sit with her sometimes.’
‘And after your month of free meals was up?’
‘It was never up. Grandfather Cheung said she’d paid for another month and that I could hang around in the shop overnight so long as I helped him get the shopfront ready for business the next morning. He has three grandsons but they don’t move fast. I do.’
‘Sounds like a sweet deal,’ said Luke. For a homeless child thief. ‘What went sour?’
‘Old man Cheung got sick and sold the shop. A couple of weeks later a street boss offered me a job I didn’t want to take. Maddy said it was time for me to move on and that she knew of a place.’
‘You trusted her?’
‘She said there was this sensei who took students and he was like this warrior monk or something. She said we could walk there and that I could leave any time.’
A monk, eh? Luke shook his head. Maybe there were some similarities between Jake’s dedication to martial arts and the celestial path a spiritual man might walk, but Jake a monk? Hardly. ‘So Jake takes you in on Madeline’s say-so, gives you food and a room and you steal his wallet? Where’s the sense in that?’
‘I wasn’t going to steal anything from his wallet. I just wanted to know what was in it.’
‘Why?’
‘So I could find out more about the sensei.’
‘How?’
‘From his cards and his receipts. From driver’s licence and the picture he keeps behind it.’
‘Jake keeps a picture behind his driver’s licence?’
‘Of a woman,’ said Po. ‘Could be Singlish. Chinese hair, western eyes.’
‘Ji,’ said Luke curtly. ‘Jake’s ex.’
‘Ex what?’
‘Wife.’
‘Monks have wives?’ said Po.
‘No.’ Jake didn’t deserve the responsibility that went with having a curious child thrust upon him, thought Luke grimly. He really didn’t.
It took them twenty minutes to get to where Po wanted to go, a set of garbage bins in an alleyway beside an all-night noodle bar. There was a drainage grate set into the wall behind the bins, big enough for a hand and elbow, but not a boy. Hell of a moneybox.
‘Can you keep watch?’ asked Po as he slipped behind the bins.
Curiosity over what might lie behind the grate warred with Luke’s need to protect the boy and his doings from the eyes of others. Every kid had a cupboard, he tried to reassure himself. This was Po’s. No need to know what else was in it apart from clothes and the money the boy wanted to retrieve. Trust was a two-way street and had to start somewhere, right?
Madeline had seen something in the boy worth rescuing.
Jake had trusted Madeline’s judgement enough to take Po in.
Judgement.
Madeline.
Po and his cupboard.
Cursing himself for a fool, Luke strode back to where the alleyway met the street and leaned against the wall, a bystander or a player, it didn’t matter. Just another tourist watching the show.
Ahead of him lay five more days in the vicinity of Madeline Delacourte.
Behind him lay a tiny thief with his hand up a drain.
Madeline didn’t linger long in Jacob’s presence after Luke and Po had disappeared. Long enough for a question or two from Jacob that she hadn’t wanted to answer, that was all.
‘You want to talk about what you’re doing to my brother, Maddy?’
‘No.’ Talk was overrated.
‘Do you need me to tell you that if you play him, and hurt him, we may not be able to remain friends?’
‘No.’ She already had that bit figured. She’d had a younger brother too. Once. She picked up her handbag. Jacob stood aside to let her pass. ‘I know the thickness of blood,’ she said quietly. And the fragility of friendship. ‘I wasn’t playing your brother for sport, Jacob. I wasn’t playing him at all.’
She didn’t know why she’d done what she’d done with Luke Bennett.
‘Maddy …’ Jacob’s gruff voice stopped her in the doorway. ‘Even if you’re not playing with him … don’t hurt him.’
Madeline smiled faintly. ‘You care about him a lot, don’t you?’
‘He’s my brother.’ Jacob ran his hand through already untidy hair. ‘I care for you too. As a friend, you understand. Not as a …’ Jacob appeared to be at a loss for words. ‘You know.’
‘I understand.’
‘Good,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Because I don’t want you getting hurt either.’
‘I understand.’
‘Good,’ he said again. ‘So that’s settled, then?’
‘Definitely.’
‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Can’t wait.’
Madeline
