over his head, but he had no pocket big enough to tuck it into so he threw it behind a shrub as his dad stepped into the hallway.
Dante’s mum, Carol, stood in the kitchen doorway. She wore a pink dressing gown and slippers, but a tattoo of coiled snakes ran from her ankle up to her left knee and marked her out as a biker chick.
‘Don’t give me a hard time,’ Scotty begged, giving his wife pleading eyes as Dante pushed back the front door.
Carol was angry, but kept her voice down because eleven-month-old Holly was sleeping in her parents’ room at the top of the stairs.
‘A hard time!’ she hissed. ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve. Dante’s eight years old and he’s got school in the morning. Do you know the job I’ll have getting him out of bed?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Scotty said quietly. ‘I was discussing the development deal with the Führer and it just dragged on forever.’
Dante put his foot on the bottom step.
‘Wee and teeth,’ Carol told him stiffly. ‘Then straight to bed and keep the noise down. Everyone’s asleep up there.’
‘Can I get a glass of water?’ Dante asked.
‘I’ll bring it up for you,’ Carol said. ‘And where’s your shirt?’
Dante couldn’t think of an excuse so his dad butted in. ‘He got hot running around with Joe and took his shirt off. We had a look around, but we couldn’t find it. I’ve got to go back tomorrow morning and do some work on the bike. I’ll take a proper look in daylight.’
Dante found his mum’s fluorescent pink fingernail waggling under his nose. ‘I’m fed up with you losing things, Dante. If that shirt doesn’t turn up, the replacement’s coming out of your birthday and Christmas money.’
Normally Dante would have protested, but he was so tired he could barely keep upright.
‘Goddammit, Scotty,’ Carol said, as Dante crept up the stairs. ‘Two nights a week is all I ask and you can’t even bring him home at a decent hour.’
Dante was one of four kids, and their dirty clothes and damp towels were spread thick across the scruffy little bathroom. Along with puddles on the floor were his big brother’s mud-crusted rugby kit and sixteen-year-old Lizzie’s stash of deodorants and beauty products.
After a leak and a twenty-second excursion for his toothbrush, Dante headed down a narrow hallway and quietly opened the door of the room he shared with his brother Jordan. The thirteen-year-old snored, with a foot hanging over the side of his bed and his duvet mounded over his head.
Jordan was moody and Dante was likely to get a punch if he disturbed him, so he crept towards his bed. He took off tracksuit bottoms, undies and trainers with a single sweep and slipped on a pair of pyjama bottoms before straightening his pillow and rolling under the sheets.
*
Dante woke on his back with Jordan leaning over his bed. The older boy held the curtains open and peered through the window.
‘What are you doing?’ Dante moaned sleepily as his brother’s briefs hovered above him. ‘Get your damned nuts out of my face.’
‘Do you know that car?’ Jordan asked seriously.
Dante pressed the button on his projector clock making 02:07 flicker in red on the ceiling. As he slid out from under Jordan he heard men speaking downstairs and his heart quickened when he realised they were angry.
‘Maybe it’s the police,’ Dante said edgily, as he shuffled up to the window next to Jordan and looked down on to the driveway.
There were no streetlights out here in the country, so it was usually pitch black at night, but the living-room and kitchen lights were on downstairs and enough light escaped through the blinds to illuminate the outline of a Ford Mondeo and a customised Harley Sportster.
‘That’s the Führer’s bike,’ Dante said.
Jordan shook his head. ‘He drives a Sportster but that’s not his.’
Dante took pride in knowing something his older brother didn’t. ‘It is so. Remember the Barcelona run last summer? That’s the one he took when he couldn’t get his orange one running.’
‘You’re right,’ Jordan admitted. ‘And I’ve seen that Mondeo at the clubhouse before as well.’
As the two boys peered out, blurred words from the three men downstairs came up through the floorboards.
‘I’m gonna sneak down and listen,’ Dante said as he hopped off the bed.
Jordan grabbed his arm. ‘I wouldn’t. Dad’ll go ape shit if he catches you.’
‘I’ll be casual,’ Dante said confidently, as he pointed to the shelf beside his bed with his clock and a