‘Case won’t fit in.’
Daniel shrugged. ‘Everything else will, though.’
Oli was chomping to say something, but had to swallow his chips first. ‘I told you, man. I know this guy, Trey. I’ve nicked stuff before and he’ll pay us in cash. He’s a serious dude, like Islamic State terrorism.’
The twins both laughed.
‘What’s your problem?’ Oli growled.
Leon smirked. ‘No offence, man, but you’re a little colourful.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, you’re almost a Muay Thai black belt, but you don’t know how to make a proper fist,’ Daniel said. ‘You’re the top goal scorer for your school team, but you run slow and get out of breath after two hundred metres. You owned a PS4 but you didn’t know where the L2 button was.’
Oli started going bright red.
‘It’s OK, dude,’ Leon said. ‘We like you. But you don’t need to make crazy shit up to impress us.’
Oli didn’t know what to say, but broke into a huge involuntary smile as Leon gave him a shoulder thump, hard enough to rock him off his plastic seat into the chicken shop’s front window.
‘I never had much in my life,’ Oli said. ‘I guess I trash-talk sometimes. But Trey is for real.’
Leon smiled. ‘You’re sure we won’t get blown up by a USAF drone strike if we visit his flat?’
‘Screw you,’ Oli said, giving the finger with his muddy hand. ‘I’ve nicked stuff before and he buys it. And a few times I’ve done jobs for Trey, like bricks through windows and shit.’
This sounded pretty far-fetched and Daniel snorted. ‘Why does Trey want you to put bricks through windows?’
‘He runs a protection racket,’ Oli said, folding his arms furiously when he saw the expressions on the twins’ faces. ‘That’s god’s honest truth, you assholes. If you don’t believe me, we’ll go see him.’
Leon decided to call Oli’s bluff. ‘Now?’
Oli scraped up the last few chips and stood up. ‘Number eighty-four bus. Ten-minute ride. You coming?’
The trio kept a wary eye out for cops as they waited for the bus and got off by a stop under a railway arch. A cobbled alleyway took them past Asian taxi drivers standing in a noisy circle alongside their parked Priuses and into a cab office under a railway arch.
The receptionist behind the Plexiglas screen looked suspicious when Oli asked to see Trey.
‘He knows me,’ Oli explained.
‘He’s in a meeting,’ the woman said, as a cynical eyebrow flickered beneath her headscarf. ‘Have a seat.’
An old-fashioned bottled gas heater gave off a sweet smell as the boys squished together on a knackered sofa. Leon flicked through an ancient copy of FourFourTwo magazine, while Daniel played with his phone, texting James to let him know what was occurring.
‘Just in case there’s any argument,’ Oli said, as he slid a Samsung Galaxy with a pink cover out of his pocket. ‘Everything is split three ways, but the money from this is mine.’
‘Where’d you get that?’ Leon asked.
‘Remember that snivelling girl who I locked in the shower?’
‘Abigail,’ Leon said.
Oli nodded. ‘Gotta pick a pocket or two, eh?’
‘Her mother died and you ripped off her phone?’ Daniel said incredulously.
Oli shrugged and smirked. ‘Life’s a bitch, then you die.’
A flimsy door by the service counter came open, and a haze of cigarette smoke along with it.
‘Trey’s ready,’ an old dude in carpet slippers said. All three boys stood up, but he pointed at Oli. ‘Just you.’
As Oli vanished inside with the wheeled case, Daniel looked at Leon, shook his head and spoke in a whisper. ‘Who robs a girl whose mother just died?’
Leon nodded in agreement. ‘Before we go back to campus, I’m gonna bundle Oli into one of the shower rooms at Nurtrust and give him such a beating.’
‘It’s a nice thought, but they’ll kick our asses out of CHERUB if we do that.’
‘Who’s gonna tell ’em?’ Leon asked. ‘James is cool.’
The pair played with their phones and clock watched. Five. Five fifteen. Five twenty-five.
‘Maybe they killed him,’ Leon suggested.
‘Maybe he took our share and legged it out the back way,’ Daniel suggested.
Oli finally emerged, looking unsure of himself and reeking of cigarette smoke. He zipped his jacket and started towards the door.
‘So?’ Daniel asked. ‘What did we get?’
They were out of the alleyway and walking towards the bus stop when Oli finally answered.
‘Sixty pounds each,’ Oli said, peeling a roll of notes out of his pocket.
‘You what!’ Daniel shouted. ‘That was a twelve-hundred-quid Lenovo laptop. Plus the Xbox.’
‘I tried to get it up to two hundred,’ Oli said. ‘Trey said the market was really tight. Like, nobody is buying stuff.’
‘You should have walked out,’ Leon said.
Oli shook his head. ‘It’s the risk you take, OK. Trey’s a serious guy. If you walk out, you’re gonna offend him. And he’s not someone you want as your enemy.’
Daniel gave Oli a little shove back into the bus canopy. ‘You’d better not be ripping us off.’
‘How much did you get for the phone?’ Leon demanded. ‘Open your pockets.’
Oli bordered on tears as Daniel and Leon stood close. They unzipped his jacket, went down the pockets inside and out, then made him turn out the pockets in his muddy tracksuit bottoms. All they found were a couple of pound coins and a Fresh Start ID card.
‘Where’s your share, dumbass?’
‘I didn’t get one,’ Oli blurted. ‘It was a hundred and twenty for all three of us. I messed up, OK? I gave you my share because Trey acted like a dick and I felt bad for letting you down.’
A tear welled in Oli’s eye and the twins felt sorry for him. He was kinda pathetic.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘We should go back over the road and beat the shit out of everyone,’ Leon said.
Oli raised his hands anxiously. ‘They’re serious people, you can’t mess with them. But there’s something else.’
‘What?’ Leon asked.
‘Trey says there’s a job that needs doing. I vouched for you two and he said there’s a bunch of stuff we can steal. Probably only take a couple of hours, but it needs to be done tonight.’
‘What kind of job?’ Leon asked.
‘And how do you know he’ll actually pay us?’ Daniel added.
14. FLOOD
‘Trey Al-Zeid,’ James said. ‘He runs a taxi office, possibly involved in a protection racket. My people didn’t get to actually see him.’
James was in his flat. The woman on the other end of the phone was Aisha Patel, an intelligence service liaison officer with West Midlands Police.
‘The name means nothing to me,’ the policewoman said. ‘I’m assuming you’ve already checked his background?’
‘Sure,’ James said. ‘Mid-thirties. His older brother owns the taxi firm, and another one south of the city. He’s had a couple of minor traffic violations, and he was arrested in London at a Stop-the-War march back in 2003.’
‘Right, right,’ Aisha said. ‘I’ll ask the local beat commander if he knows anything that’s not in official police records.’
‘What about the possibility of a protection racket?’
‘We know it exists,’ the officer said. ‘There are hundreds of small, mostly Asian-owned businesses in north Birmingham and there’s plenty of evidence that criminal gangs extort protection payments from landlords and business owners in return for their safety.’
‘What evidence?’ James asked.
‘People turning up at casualty with broken thumbs but refusing to say how it happened, smashed windows, arson attacks on shops and industrial units. But people are reluctant to speak to the police. There’s a long history of distrust between polic
e and the Asian community, and people who speak out fear for their family and friends. We can protect an individual and their immediate family, but it’s impossible to protect an extended family of parents, cousins, aunties, uncles and so forth.’
‘Who’s behind the extortion gangs?’ James asked. ‘Is it a large organisation, or lots of different gangs fighting over territory?’
‘Police funding has been cut by a quarter over the past ten years,’ Aisha explained. ‘We know there’s a problem, but we don’t have the resources to investigate properly.’
James nodded. ‘I hear that a lot.’
‘But I certainly have colleagues who’d be very interested to share any information you unearth on Mr Al-Zeid,’ Aisha said. ‘And I’ll get back to you if the local officers come up with anything useful.’
Leon pushed Rhea gently against the door of his room, put his hand on the back of her neck and gently nibbled her lower lip. Tongues connected as he moved the hand down her back and she slid one socked foot up the back of his leg as he grabbed her bum.
‘Hey,’ Daniel yelled, thumping on the door from outside.
‘Ignore him,’ Rhea whispered, gripping Leon’s waist as he backed away.
Leon looked around as Rhea started pushing him towards the bed.
‘Ten to nine, dude,’ Daniel shouted as he rattled the doorknob. ‘Get your butt out here.’
‘Don’t,’ Rhea warned, then looked sore as Leon backed away, wishing that he didn’t have to. ‘What’s so bloody important?’
‘Gotta beat nine o’clock curfew,’ Leon said, then to the door, ‘Come in.’
Rhea scowled as Oli and Daniel strode in, both in shoes and jackets. Leon sat on his bed, grabbing his phone and sliding feet into a pair of Adidas.
‘She on board?’ Oli asked.
Rhea shook her head and held out her hand. ‘Tenner.’
‘We said five,’ Leon noted.
‘Unilateral renegotiation,’ Rhea said, waggling her fingers. ‘Seven minutes to curfew.’
‘Bloodsucking leech,’ Leon said cheerfully, wishing he didn’t have to leave her as he grabbed two crumpled five-pound notes from his jeans and passed them over.
‘Pleasure doing business,’ Rhea said, as Leon gave her a quick kiss, then grabbed his school pack and followed the others down the hallway towards the office.
Gurbir heard the three boys coming towards the exit and stepped out of his office, theatrically tapping the face of his watch.
‘No, no, no.’
‘It’s before curfew,’ Oli said. ‘We’re just going over to Morrisons. They’re doing Jaffa Cakes for a pound.’
‘Three of you?’ Gurbir said, as he reached around and thumped Daniel’s backpack. ‘With luggage? How stupid do I look?’
Oli smirked. ‘You always look pretty stupid, Gurb.’
Gurbir smiled and raised one finger. ‘One of you can go over to Morrisons. And you’d better run. Ten past nine at the latest.’
‘We’re allowed out before nine,’ Oli moaned. ‘You’re violating our human rights.’
‘You must think I’m some sort of—’
Before Gurbir could finish, Rhea made a piercing scream from inside the TV room. ‘They’re fighting. They’re fighting! Jono’s been stabbed!’
‘Stay,’ Gurbir said, eyeing the three boys firmly before darting off in a jangle of keys.
The instant he was out of sight, Leon dashed into the office and hammered a green button to unlock the exit door. By the time Gurbir reached the TV room, where a smiling Rhea told him that she was only joking, Leon, Oli and Daniel had vaulted the stairs and made it down the long corridor and out on to the street.
‘Nice,’ Daniel said, as outdoor air hit his lungs.
‘Ten more minutes,’ Leon moaned, as they started walking towards the main road. ‘I was that close to getting Rhea’s shirt off.’
‘Horny toad,’ Daniel sneered, as Oli led the way towards a battered Honda saloon with a phone number along the side. The driver looked suspicious as the three boys jumped in the back.
‘I booked you,’ Oli told the driver, waving a twenty-pound note, as Leon and Daniel looked out the back for any sign of Gurbir or one of the other Nurtrust staff. ‘Drive.’
It was a ten-minute ride in the dark. The destination was a little row of shops beneath offices and eight storeys of student accommodation. The twins’ eyes followed tattoos and a miniskirt into a busy Chinese takeaway. A convenience shop also seemed to be doing a good student trade, but the third shop in the row was boarded and the final shop was a dry cleaners’. Shuttered for the night, but with a couple working inside.
‘There’s a side gate,’ Oli said, as he led the way around.
The gate was locked from inside, but the brick post alongside had a ledge that made it easy to clamber over and drop into a narrow courtyard. All the trash from the student accommodation dropped down chutes into four giant wheeled bins, and the smell tangled with a sickly aroma venting out the back of the dry cleaners’.
‘Does that door even open from outside?’ Leon asked, as he followed Oli up a flight of metal stairs.
‘I’ve been here before,’ Oli said triumphantly, as he turned a knob and stepped into a hallway. ‘Did some errands for Trey in the summer holidays.’
The lights blinked on with a motion sensor, showing off a bare concrete hallway with pipes and ductwork along the ceiling. The rumble of the dry-cleaning machine below mingled with thumping music from a student party above. Oli seemed to know his way, and pulled a key from his pocket as they approached a plain grey door. A cheap plastic sign read Sunray Travel Agents.
‘Trey gave me the key,’ Oli explained. ‘He knows the building manager.’
Oli took half a minute to figure that you had to turn the key one way, then the other to open the deadlock. A burglar alarm chimed as the door opened, but Oli silenced it by tapping a plastic fob against the control plate inside the door.
There was a bank of lights, but Oli just flipped one switch, as Leon crept across the carpeted floor and peeked through a Venetian blind at the street out front.
‘What’s our job?’ Daniel asked, as he studied three desks set up with MacBooks and a fourth with a giant hi-res monitor connected up to a Mac Pro. There was a toilet and kitchenette off to one side, and a glass partition, behind which stood a huge Xerox printing machine, and metal racking stacked with packets of large-format printing paper.
‘Guess they print holiday brochures and stuff,’ Leon said, as he leaned into the print room.
There was a stack of A2-sized posters just inside the door, depicting the Arabic alphabet along with the logo of a local mosque. Another poster showed illustrations of Muslim prophets, printed for the same organisation.
‘So Trey wants this place trashed,’ Oli said. ‘I’m gonna bung up the sinks in the kitchen and bathroom and run the water full blast. You guys smash up the big printer. I’m told it’s worth over fifty grand. Then we throw all the papers and shit on the floor so they get soaked.’
‘Can we steal stuff?’ Daniel asked, as he eyed a swanky Wacom graphics tablet and a shuttle controller used for video editing.
‘Steal it or smash it,’ Oli said, as he headed for the kitchen. ‘That’s what Trey asked.’
To emphasise the point, Oli picked a wilted spider plant off a desk, spewed soil over a desk top and then lifted one end of the desk so that everything slid on to the floor. As Daniel stuffed MacBooks and computer gear into his backpack, Oli started blocking the kitchen sinkhole with a bin-liner weighed down with a packet of paper and Leon went for the printer.
He didn’t fancy getting electrocuted, so Leon ripped the plug out of the wall. The printer was a metre deep, shoulder height and almost three metres from where paper got sucked in to the point where it shot out the other end. He opened a bunch of plastic flaps around the machine and launched a couple of kicks, but it was a sturdy beast so he went to the kitchen.
‘Quicker and quieter if we just pour w
ater over it,’ Leon told Oli.
Leon made several trips, pouring buckets of water over the printer, before pulling all the toner cartridges and paper off the shelves. Daniel had fun flipping desks and tipping the contents of drawers out over the floor. Oli seemed to have expertise in flooding, and not only got the kitchen and bathroom sinks overflowing, but also removed the lid of the toilet cistern and wedged the inlet valve so that water kept running into the blocked toilet bowl too.
A dozen minutes after they’d entered, the office was trashed and the puddles emerging from kitchen and bathroom had merged into one and were working their way across the carpet tiles.
‘Someone’s gonna be pissed when they get to work in the morning,’ Daniel said, as he wedged the cylindrical Mac Pro into Leon’s backpack.
‘Half-ten,’ Oli said, as he headed back out into the hallway.
‘What about the stolen gear?’ Leon asked. ‘Will Trey give us cash?’
‘Trey won’t want anything that links him to this,’ Oli said, as the trio set off back towards the rubbish chutes. ‘I know a dodgy pawn in town that’ll probably take most of it.’
‘But where will we keep it overnight?’
‘Stop worrying, you chicken,’ Oli said. ‘Gurbir will have finished his shift. It’s all agency staff on nights, and none of them give a shit.’
15. GAMES
Last lesson the next afternoon was Games. Leon pulled his blazer over his school football shirt and headed out of the changing room in shorts and muddy hooped socks. Daniel had decided to put tracksuit bottoms over his kit and came out a few seconds behind.
‘Nice goal, man!’ a big kid told Daniel. The twins had only been at the school for a week, so they barely even knew names of guys in their own class.
‘Cheers,’ Daniel answered.
Changing meant they’d emerged from school after kids in regular lessons had cleared off. The twins crossed a paved yard with nothing but a few Year Eight girls standing around an outdoor ping-pong table. As they moved through a gate on to the pavement, they were surprised to spot the old man who’d beckoned Oli into the taxi office the previous afternoon.