wheels over the gap between the elevator car and the lobby’s marble floor.
‘There’s too many people around for comfort,’ Rosie whispered.
‘Just act confident,’ PT urged, as he started pushing the trolley towards the main entrance.
A pretty young woman stood by the reception desk. She wore a long skirt, light-blue blouse and a Post Office cap.
‘Excuse me, do you work here?’ she asked, standing in PT’s way as he tried to get by. ‘I’ve brought the mail sacks in, but I need Mr Harvey to sign for these telegrams.’
A woman came up the steps and walked by as PT snatched the Post Office clipboard. ‘I can sign for them,’ PT said. ‘Mr Harvey is upstairs, bit of a dickey tummy I think.’
The woman broke into a white-toothed smile that PT would have liked to kiss. ‘Too much brown ale, knowing him,’ she said cheerfully.
While PT focused on the postal officer’s bum as she turned towards the door, Rosie realised that someone delivering sack loads of mail hadn’t arrived on foot.
‘Follow her,’ Rosie whispered, as she jabbed PT urgently in the ribs.
‘What’s your problem?’ PT grinned. ‘I barely looked at her.’
Rosie gave PT a look of utter contempt. ‘I’m not jealous, you idiot. She’s driving a van!’
‘Oh,’ PT gasped. ‘Right.’
But there was no quick way to get the trolley down four steps so Marc and Rosie had to run towards the tiny red Post Office van parked directly in front of the entrance.
‘Did you drop this?’ Rosie shouted, as the postwoman opened the driver’s door and threw her clipboard across the passenger seat.
Rosie checked that there was nobody approaching the entrance and as the postwoman turned around she belted her across the temple with the giant wrench. It was a perfect knock-out blow and Marc dived forwards to catch her fall as she splayed against the side of the van.
PT and Joel struggled down the steps with the trolley as Rosie ripped open the van’s back doors.
‘Can we shove her in there?’ Marc asked.
‘It’s stuffed full,’ Rosie said. ‘And there’s four of us.’
The trolley wheels bounced off the bottom step as Rosie reached in the back of the van and began frantically pulling out mailbags and parcels.
‘Can any of us actually drive this thing?’ Marc asked urgently.
Three storeys up, the doorman threw open a window and yelled out. ‘Security, security! Stop those kids.’
While he shouted out, the typist who’d found and untied him was making an urgent call to the security staff on the main gates. Fortunately, the office block car park was unguarded and exited on to the road through an open gate less than twenty metres away.
As Rosie climbed into the front passenger seat, Joel and PT tipped the gun and trolley into the back. The doorman had disappeared from the window, but the bony typist who took his place grabbed a pot plant off the window ledge and flung it down.
‘You wait till they catch you,’ she yelled.
Marc jumped with fright as the pot smashed against the Post Office van, leaving a dent in the roof and sending dry earth and chunks of shattered terracotta through the air.
‘Marc, Joel, get in the back with the gun,’ PT ordered.
Marc didn’t fancy a ride in the back of a van with a dirty great gun crashing about, but at least PT sounded like he had a plan.
‘So you can drive?’ Marc shouted.
‘A bit,’ PT said, as he slammed the back doors of the van. ‘Well, on back roads and stuff.’
It was dark in the back of the van, but Marc and Joel were close enough to exchange anxious glances. The cannon stretched from the back doors and rose at an angle, resting on the edge of Rosie’s seat with the muzzle protruding into the cab and almost touching the windscreen.
‘Keys,’ PT shouted, as he slammed the driver’s door.
‘Already in the ignition,’ Rosie shouted back.
PT felt overwhelmed as he turned the key. His dad had let him practise driving in America, but that was years back and the gears in the little van were in a completely different configuration. He pressed the clutch pedal and started the engine. It wheezed for several seconds before shuddering to life.
Gears crunched horribly as PT threw the selector into reverse. Outside, the giant doorman burst out of the front entrance and took the four steps in one leap. Up ahead, two elderly security men were running breathlessly from the main gate.
‘Why are we still sitting here?’ Rosie yelled anxiously.
The door mirrors were angled for the postwoman,