He spun on his heels and began to retrace his steps but one of them noticed him. He heard a yell, a ripple of sounds, the threat in the air like electricity, pricking his skin and pressing inside his skull.
He picked up speed but heard the air move behind him, the whirr of wheels, the clatter of gears.
‘Oy, dosser.’
‘Eh, tramp.’
Then the thud of something on his back. The rattle of a can hitting the road. A gale of laughter.
He turned now, pulling Bess in front of him, his hand in her collar.
‘You got a light?’ The lad had a shaved head, skin the colour of porridge, his neck was a mix of fuzzy tattoos and angry pimples. Zak stared. Stupid question, he knew it wasn’t a light they wanted.
‘Yeah.’
Zak pulled out his lighter, tossed it to the guy who caught it, dropped it, drove his heel down on to it and mashed it into the ground. ‘Whoops!’ He grinned. There were brown lines on his teeth. ‘What else you got?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Empty your pockets.’ A ginger lad, freckly. They’d no fear of Bess, barely cast her a glance. How could they tell she was soft? If he had a pit bull would they have left him alone?
Zak brought out his tobacco in one hand, a twist of draw, all he had left, in the other.
‘Wacky backy,’ the Asian guy said. He let his bike drop, stepped up to Zak. He had a scar by his eye, the line paler, puckered. He took the tobacco and the draw. ‘And the rest,’ he said.
‘That’s it.’ Zak could smell the guy’s aftershave, the sweat beneath it.
‘Phone,’ the first guy commanded.
‘I need my phone.’ Zak tried to keep calm, like it was a fact not an argument. ‘My mam, she needs it to keep in touch with me.’
‘His mam,’ jeered the Asian lad.
‘Mummy’s boy, is he,’ the ginger lad said. Then spat on the floor.
‘She’s in hospital. A big operation.’
‘Give it here.’ The Asian lad moved closer. Zak pulled his phone out. That raised a laugh. Old and scratched, chunky too, the sort you couldn’t give away.
The Asian lad threw it to Ginger who rode off down the road with it before coming back and chucking it to the one with the tattoos. He peered at it, pressed some buttons. ‘Let’s have a chat to Mummy, then.’
Zak felt his bowels loosen with fear and a sullen rage burn his gullet. ‘She’s on the ward,’ he said. ‘Her phone’ll be off. Give it here.’
‘No can do,’ the guy said. Then he lost interest. Dropped the phone and positioned the front wheel of his bike on top of it, then lifted and slammed the bike down. The phone skittered off across the tarmac. One of the others, the one who hadn’t done much, put his bike down and got the phone. Dropped it down the drain. ‘You should upgrade.’