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 water 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.
‘You boys,’ he shouted, beckoning them towards a seven-seat VW parked across the street. ‘Get here.’
The twins were curious as they waited for a break in traffic before jogging across. If they’d had their com units inside their ears they could have alerted James, but they’d taken them out before playing football in a soggy field.
The car was arranged so that the front passenger seat had been swivelled to face in towards the rear seat. ‘You know who I am?’ a stocky, olive-skinned man asked.
The old dude urged the boys to climb through the van’s sliding door, but the boys stood their ground.
‘What’s this about?’ Daniel asked.
‘I’m Trey,’ the stocky man said, as an even bigger dude in the driving seat turned around to eyeball the boys. ‘Been looking for your smartass friend Oli. He got detention or something?’
The twins shrugged and exchanged nods before Leon said, ‘He’s not at this school. He goes to Fresh Start, over somewhere … I don’t know exactly.’
‘Got expelled from here,’ Daniel added.
The old guy kept urging the boys into the van, but Leon knocked his arm away when he gave him a shove.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Leon growled.
‘We’re outta here,’ Daniel added.
But as he took a step back, Trey pulled out a pocket revolver and cocked the trigger. ‘In,’ he ordered.
Leon wondered if there was some way he could get his com from his backpack and alert James as he settled on a rear bench with stained blue covers stretched over it. The old guy slammed the sliding door, and didn’t get a chance to jump in before Trey signalled his driver to pull out.
‘What do you know about my print shop?’ Trey asked, pocketing the gun as the van accelerated. ‘I’m told Oli left Nurtrust with two older boys last night. Must be you, right?’
Trey clearly had a source, so the twins both nodded. ‘Sure.’
‘What