- A young boy, tired of his mother's abusive boyfriend, sets out on an adventure to London meeting a friendly man. But there is fear on the streets and people are missing. Will link be next?
- A young homeless boy, known only as Link, recounts on how he became homeless. His father left his family for his secretary. Subsequently, Link's mother got a new boyfriend named Vince. Vince was a largely abusive boyfriend who treated Link cruelly and made Link's sister (who Link was close to), Carole, move out and live with her boyfriend after he tried to do something to her. He once locked him out of his own house after he came home late one night and his mother, who lost her self-esteem after Vince moved in, doesn't stick up for him. What disgusts Link the most is the fact that Vince makes sexual references towards his mother right in front of him. Vince was also physically abusive to him sometimes. Link, disgusted and annoyed by Vince's treatment, eventually walks out on his family, which Vince calls "making yourself homeless." However, he quickly found that he could not be homeless where he lived, due to the close-knit nature of his community. Once a week he would go to Carole's flat for the night, but eventually her boyfriend, Chris, tires of it. At Christmas, his mother and Carole put their money together to buy Link a sleeping bag, this gifts hurts Link, but the sleeping bag does come in handy. After a row with his family on Christmas day, Link decides to leave for London. Carole gives him some money and sees him off with his new sleeping bag.
After arriving in London, Link finds a room, but a fortnight's rent costs him two-thirds of his money (£150). He looks for a job but nobody would employ him because of his appearance (living on the street has made him filthy), intelligence (Link only has 5 GCSE's), and because there were better options for them all. Soon the landlord kicks him out before the fortnight is over and he is again homeless. He eventually found a deep doorway, but left it too long in order to go to the toilet. When he got back to it, a more violent homeless person was there. Link foolishly tried to argue with him, but in the end loses his space, as well as his beloved watch and has to find somewhere else. Now Link cannot get a job since he has no address, and cannot get an address since he has no job. Link is very afraid and alone on the streets, but after a while he meets the streetwise Ginger, who is also homeless. Ginger teaches Link how to survive on the streets of London and points out that Link won't get any benefits because he left his old house on his own accord; he wasn't kicked out or forcefully made homeless.
Meanwhile, a man nicknamed Shelter starts a spree of murders of homeless people in London. Shelter served in the Army for twenty-nine years before recruiting homeless people from the streets and turning them into his own "army." He was discharged on medical grounds, but he claims to be "as fit as a butcher's dog" when he was actually fired because of being mentally unstable. He acts as if he is still in the army by everything he says and does, and believes the army is hatching a plan to fill up the cities with homeless people so they can undermine the city. He chooses to "clean up" the streets by killing the homeless and hiding them under his floorboards. Shelter plans very meticulously. He starts small and tries not to create a pattern in his killings so he cannot be tracked down. By buying a flat and a cat (because "owning a cat is unthreatening") he manages to lure many of the homeless to their deaths with promises of a warm shower and something to eat. By the time he encounters Link, Shelter has killed seven people.
Link and Ginger first meet Shelter when they ask him for any spare change, but he replies "Change! I'd change you, me lad, if I had you in khaki for 6 weeks!". As they walk away they laugh at a remembered joke, instead Shelter thinks they are laughing at him. They become his targets named Laughing Boy One (Ginger) and Laughing Boy Two (Link).
As Ginger is going to meet some friends, Shelter persuades Ginger to come to his flat by saying that Link is there lying on the floor after an accident. Once there, Shelter kills Ginger. After some time, Link believes Ginger has gone off with his "real friends" and that he is on his own again. Shortly after this, Link meets Gail, commenting that she is the best-looking "dosser" (homeless person) he has ever seen. Link sees himself as a possible shelter for her, as Ginger was for him and decides to take on the role. He finds himself falling hopelessly in love with her.
Link notices that something is "off" about Gail, but he does not know what. While Gail leaves him to make a phone call to her sister, Shelter invites Link into his flat and tries to kill him. Gail manages to save Link's life by calling the police, who catch Shelter in the act of attempted murder. At the end Gail tells Link that she is actually is Louise Bain, a reporter studying homelessness (to refute the claims made by The Sun that Ginger mentions earlier). Link is furious and believes that they knew about Shelter for ages, but only hoped to be there when he was busted. Gail, shocked by her experiences and her former friend's fury, gives Link a lot of banknotes, which he decides to keep rather than "throwing it in her face." Moreover Link thinks that it is unfair that Shelter gets a roof over his head and three hot meals a day (in prison) and Link gets nothing living on the streets of London, cold and hungry.
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