The Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling Page A

holding him still with one hand and ripping her bag from his grip with the other.
    “Bleedin’ ‘eck’!” The boy whimpered, looking back towards the roof’s edge. “Where in ‘ell d’you learn to climb like that?”
    Rémy put the bag behind her out of his reach, but didn’t let him go. “A good lesson to learn, rat. ‘Never judge a book by its cover’, I believe you say here. Strangers might be out of place, but that does not make them helpless.”
    They were both breathing hard and the boy didn’t attempt to struggle from Rémy’s grip. He seemed to have accepted that he’d been beaten, and his eyes closed as he caught his breath. Rémy thought he was probably about ten years old, but he was so thin and malnourished he looked younger. His face, lined with dirt, looked gaunt, his eyes dark hollows.
    “Sorry,” he said eventually. “Just ‘ungry, y’see. ‘Aven’t ‘ad a bite today. Not likely to, neither. Didn’t ‘ave one yesterday, come to think of it. And you looked like you could spare a bit.”
    “Well, you are wrong,” Rémy told him, and then relented. After all, she knew no one here, or even where she was. Perhaps this was an opportunity to make a friend – or at least buy one for a while. She let him go and opened the bag, searching for the small purse that contained the money Claudette had given her.
    “I have not eaten either,” she told the boy. “I bet you know somewhere we can get a meal for little money, yes?”
    The boy blinked at her. “Eh?”
    “I won’t ask twice. I do not make a habit of buying meals for my enemies, so you’d better make yourself my friend before I change my mind.”
    He scrambled up with a quick grin. “We can go to The Grapes. It ain’t far.”
    As Rémy stood up, she asked, “What is your name?”
    “J,” he said. “Friends call me J.”
    She nodded. “ D’accord , J. Lead the way.”
    * * *

    “Where’d you learn to speak English so proper, anyway?” J asked, an hour or so later, his mouth stuffed full of greasy bacon. They were sitting in the narrow, wood-panelled dining room of The Grapes. It was so close to the Thames that Rémy could smell the sewage stench of the river even though they had opted to sit inside, rather than on the shabby balcony that hung over the water.
    She rested her chin on one hand and shrugged. “Claudette – a friend – taught me.”
    “Oh yeah? Frenchie too, is she?”
    “Yes.”
    “So where’d she learn it, then?”
    Rémy frowned. It was a question that had never occurred to her before. Claudette always seemed to know something about everything. It was just the way she was. “I don’t know.”
    J nodded, then carried on shoving food into his mouth, losing interest in his question in favour of the first proper meal he’d had in weeks.
    “Where are your parents?” Rémy asked.
    J shrugged. “Dunno. Never really ‘ad any. There was me mum, once, but… she went.”
    “Where do you live, then?”
    “Here an’ there. Why?” he asked, suspiciously. “There ain’t no more room for no one else, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”
    Rémy shook her head. “I’m just passing through. Looking for someone.”
    “Oh? Oo’s that, then?”
    “His name is Abernathy.”
    J’s fork froze on its way to his mouth. He even stopped chewing for a moment. He didn’t lift his chin, but looked up at her from beneath his brow. “What d’you want to find ‘im for?”
    Rémy shifted in her seat. “You know him? Is he really a lord?”
    The boy snorted. “Yeah. Yeah, ‘e’s a lord, alright. Listen to the Sally Ann and you’d think ‘e was a bleedin’ saint.”
    Rémy frowned. “Sally Ann?”
    J shook his head. “Don’t you have ‘em in France? The Salvation Army. They’re the only ones’ll feed you down ‘ere if you ain’t got nuffin. Give you a bed for the night too, if you read a bit of the good book wiv ‘em. Won’t give you booze, though. Don’t hold with it.” J sniggered through