damp smell made James’ nose tingle as Hannah opened the padlocked door of her father’s lock-up. She flicked on a bare bulb. The space was a couple of metres wide, maybe four deep and it needed a good tidy. There were boxes of books piled up to the ceiling, half-empty paint tins, old rolls of wallpaper and a hover-mower resting on a tatty armchair.
‘You don’t even have a garden,’ James grinned.
Will’s stuff was all in one corner: boxes of school books, an office chair, a wooden desk covered in aged Action Man and Power Rangers stickers, a bedside table, angle poise lamp and even a dilapidated computer.
‘What do you reckon?’ Hannah asked, as James stepped over a couple of folding chairs to get a closer look.
‘Yeah,’ James nodded. ‘I could definitely use a chair and desk in my room, for homework and stuff.’
‘You might as well have his computer as well. They go out of date really quickly and it’s just sitting there.’
James had a spiffy laptop with wireless Internet back at the flat, but he realised his alter ego, James Holmes, would probably jump at the chance of a free computer.
‘It’s cool,’ James nodded. ‘But what about your folks? Are they gonna mind you giving this stuff away?’
‘My dad didn’t want me keeping any of Will’s stuff in the first place. He said it was morbid.’
James gave Hannah a peck on the cheek. ‘This really means a lot to me,’ he smiled, as he pulled his mobile out of his pocket. ‘I’ll ring Dave. He’s only round at the car lot and he can help us carry.’
*
Although James and Dave were only going to be in the neighbourhood for a few weeks trying to get the inside line on Leon Tarasov, they had to create the impression that they were starting a new life and setting up home in Palm Hill. After Dave helped move Will’s stuff up to the flat, the boys set off for Ikea to spend some of the £325 that an associate of Leon’s had shoved through the letterbox while they’d been out.
The Mondeo was running smoothly and the freshly repaired air-conditioning was doing its job. Unfortunately, they ran into a black spot on the M25 and ended up crawling through three lanes of traffic at walking pace.
‘So what about Millie’s idea that it’s something to do with drugs?’ James asked.
Dave shrugged, as he rolled the car a couple of lengths forward then dabbed the brake. ‘It’s the obvious choice if you can’t link Leon to a robbery. He’s got no history in the drug business, but he’s an opportunist. You saw how quickly his mind worked, slotting us into his little car-theft scam. If Leon saw a chance of making big money through drugs, I think he’d take it.’
‘Mind you, that list was only robberies in the Metropolitan Police area. For all we know, it could have been anywhere.’
The traffic was making Dave moody. ‘Whatever,’ he said irritably. ‘I mean, you can speculate all day long over where Leon got his money from. The only way we’ll get a real answer is by plugging away at this mission. Me with Sonya, Pete and Leon; you with Max and Liza.’
‘I know,’ James nodded, as he watched a wasp crawling up the outside of his window. ‘I’ll try getting into their house more now that Max is off school. Do you think we should place some listening devices?’
Dave shook his head. ‘If you’re on a big mission, you can lay bugs everywhere and we’ll have back-up teams listening in. But we’re small-time here. All we’ve got is me, you, Millie and a bit of oversight from John Jones. It’s not worth running the risk of placing a bug unless we know when and where something juicy is going down. We’ll just end up with hundreds of hours of recordings that nobody’s ever gonna listen to.’
James nodded.
‘To be honest, James, I don’t reckon you’ll get much from your end of this mission. Leon runs his business out of the Portacabin and keeps Sacha and the younger kids well out of it. With me working part-time on the lot, I’m gonna get to hear what’s going down. I’m friendly with Pete and I’ll eventually get an opportunity to rummage through everything in the Portacabin when Leon goes off to a car auction or something.’
‘You could be right,’ James said sadly.
Dave blasted his horn as a car cut in from the next lane, forcing him to jump on the