The Stranger

me. Why social services never got involved. But they didn't. We stayed together."
He was looking at the condiments again. Abbie reached over and took a packet of sugar, began to work it between her fingers. This gave him the permission he needed to take one himself, to do the same. As though the sugar packet was a tiny stress ball. Abbie had to confess it felt nice.
"I'm pretty sure it's only in the last couple of years she started doing drugs," Michael went on. "Weed at first, but more recently harder stuff. I've tried to make her stop, but she won't listen. We don't have any friends. No one we can turn to for help.”
Michael paused, which allowed Abbie to say, "What about your father? I know he was never helpful before, but—"
A shake of the head. "Doesn't want to know. I've never met him. We’ve spoken on the phone, and he’s always made it clear he would send money but didn't want to see me. Didn't want to get involved. He said he was sorry, and you know how much that means?"
"Not a thing," said Abbie.
Michael nodded. "Right. So, there was no help to be had, and things were getting worse and worse. All four of my grandparents died young, and mum’s mum and dad left us their house. That means there's no mortgage, which should make things easier, but it doesn't. There was still the bills, and I knew mum was taking out loans—bad loans from bad people, and not to help us out. Not to do what she should be doing. It's all going into her addiction. I've got a Saturday job, so that helps a little. I keep the money away from mum. Use it to pay the bills. That keeps the lights on, but what use will lights be when the loan sharks come calling? We'd be better in the dark. When I finish my GCSEs, I'll drop out of school, but by then, it’ll be too late. I needed something that would make a dent in our debts now."
What Michael needed, Abbie reckoned, was for his mother to get proper help. As it stood, Michael might find a hundred grand down the back of the sofa, and that would keep them going a while, but not long enough. With her habit, his mother would eat up the funds. If she was taking out loans from dodgy people, unpaid bills would be the least of their worries. Michael's only escape might be forcing his mother into rehab or having her die from an overdose. Abbie doubted he could achieve the former and thought suggesting the latter might seem insensitive.
"So you're desperate for cash," she said, trying to distract herself from the boy's plight, which she could do nothing to alleviate, "and what, Travis brings you a potential solution?"
"Five grand," said Michael. "He comes to my house one night, about a week ago, and tells Clarissa and me if we do a job with him, we'll earn five grand each. He found the job so he'd take ten grand."
Abbie released a low whistle. "Twenty grand is a fair chunk of change. What would one have to do to earn such cash, I wonder?"
Michael stared at the sugar packet in his hand, then glanced left and right, surveying the room. Neither of the other two women in the cafe was within earshot if he kept quiet. Neither was paying Abbie and Michael any attention.
"It weren't nothing too bad," said Michael. "We just had to steal some woman's bag when she was walking home one night. Simple as that. We didn't have to hurt her. I never would have, but our instructions were specifically to not hurt her."
Abbie considered. Steal a bag, earn twenty grand. It was apparent the bag didn't contain money unless it was a considerable sum. Maybe diamonds. More likely something that wasn’t worth much, except to the one willing to pay such a sum for its acquisition.
"This job," said Abbie. "It came from Francis?"
Michael glanced around again, then nodded.
"Direct?"
Another nod. Abbie considered.
"He worked with Travis before?"
A shake of the head. "Travis has done a bit of dealing, but he worked for people who work for Francis. They'd never met before Francis asked to see him."
So it was an off the books job involving something embarrassing. Something Francis didn't want his lieutenants to know. Except it hadn't gone to plan. In Travis, Francis had picked the wrong man.
"How did the job go?" Abbie asked.
"Good," said Michael. "We rushed her as one. Travis knocked her down, and I grabbed the bag. Then we ran. We had our hoods up. That was it. Easy."
Abbie nodded. That told her what problem had forced Francis to involve those closest to him, like Ronson.
"Let me guess," she said. "The job took place the night before last. Yesterday, Travis was supposed to take the bag to Francis. Make the delivery. Francis would pay up, and the three of you would go out that evening, last night, to celebrate. That about right?"
A nod.
"And you did celebrate. Though you had no reason to. Because Travis hasn't given the bag to Francis, has he?"
Michael blushed and looked back to his sugar packet as though this was his fault. Of course, you could say he was stupid to trust Travis, and he was undoubtedly stupid to do the job in the first place. But he was desperate, and while the woman would lose her bag, no one would get properly hurt, so far as Michael could see. Except now they might. Unless Travis got wise real quick.
"What did he tell you yesterday?" she said. "Travis, I mean."
"He said the fact Francis had asked us, rather than his people, to steal the bag showed it was worth more than twenty grand. Said we had to ask for at least a hundred."
They say a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. True. So is a little bit of intelligence. Travis was smart enough to discern that