Bandits, Dirt Bikes & Trash, page 12
Once Robin had wiped his hands, he swiped through Ísbjörg’s pictures, the other three standing behind him. The house next to the Kendalls’ was abandoned, with the roof caved in and a rusted motorhome standing on concrete blocks.
‘That motorhome looks perfect,’ Robin said. ‘We can set the laser microphones up to point at all the windows, and it’s flat ground so there won’t be any dangerous climbing involved.’
‘I read the instructions you forwarded,’ Ísbjörg told Robin. ‘I’ve rigged a mobile phone to transmit the audio from the bug, and Unai helped me to wire up a big power pack using lithium cells we stole from TwoTu trucks. If we keep up the surveillance for longer than ten days, someone will have to sneak back and replace the batteries.’
‘Is the Kendall place walking distance from here?’ Robin asked.
Ísbjörg nodded and pointed at some overgrown land at the back of the lot. ‘Three hundred metres. Alan knows the way, so he’ll go with you. Neo and I will get rifles from the van and cover your backs in case any of Gisborne’s heavies show up.’
‘You should go instead of me,’ Robin told Ísbjörg. ‘I’m half asleep. You built the power pack with Unai and you’ve read the instructions for the laser microphones. I’m here for my climbing skills, but there isn’t any climbing.’
‘Maybe Robin and Ísbjörg can go,’ Alan suggested.
‘You have to go,’ Robin told Alan. ‘You told me you see Heirani’s burned face in your nightmares. You can’t bring her back to life, but it’s just like Will told you: you’ll feel a hundred times better when you start fighting back.’
FOUR WEEKS LATER
28. CHICKEN TIME
Robin wiped a gluey eye on the corner of his duvet, then groaned as he rolled and saw 05:57 on his bedside clock. His body begged him to pull up the warm covers and sleep some more, but he swung his legs out and slapped his cheek to wake up.
‘Only bloody Tuesday,’ Robin groaned to himself.
The underfloor heating didn’t come on until six, so the marble was like ice under Robin’s feet. He yelped as one of Finn’s Lego bricks dug into his heel.
‘Keep it down, mate,’ Alan teased from his mattress on the floor. ‘You know I don’t have to get out from under this toasty duvet for two whole delicious hours.’
‘Get stuffed,’ Robin grunted.
He launched a barefoot kick at Alan’s mound of bedding, but not hard enough to do damage. After peeing and dressing in some of the least dirty clothes balled up on the floor, Robin sauntered down the hall towards the kitchen.
Otto always woke up super early, so it was normal to see him in the living room watching cartoons on a tablet, but Robin was surprised to see Indio with Zack in the kitchen. The baby sat in his high chair with a miserable red face and sweaty hair.
‘Morning,’ Robin said sleepily. ‘Something up with the little guy?’
‘He’s got a slight temperature and he kept waking up with a blocked nose,’ Indio explained. ‘I guess it’s the bug you boys brought back from School Zone.’
‘Poor little monster,’ Robin said, as he gave Zach a smile.
‘I mixed pancake batter,’ Indio said, as she stood up and stepped towards the hob. ‘If you’ve got time.’
Robin smiled keenly. ‘There’s always time for pancakes.’
He usually picked something random out of the fridge and ate it on the way to the chicken sheds, but hot pancakes made it worth getting yelled at for being late.
‘Blueberry or chocolate chip?’ Indio asked, as she turned on the heat below a large pan.
‘One of each,’ Robin said, as he opened the fridge and poured a glass of milk.
Indio sighed as the pan warmed up. ‘I spoke to Lucy late last night, after her trip to Pelican Island.’
Robin felt a twinge of awkwardness. ‘Lucy finally got on the visitors list?’ he asked. ‘Was Marion OK?’
‘As good as can be expected,’ Indio said, as three blobs of pancake batter spread across the big pan. ‘Most juvenile inmates are sixteen or seventeen, so Marion’s one of the smallest. But they’ve moved her away from the girls who were bullying her. She’s now on a different landing, where her cousin Freya Tuck looks out for her.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Robin said.
‘She’s also seen a surgeon and she’s been booked in for the operation she needs on her club foot. And Lucy told her about you clobbering Mr Khan and getting punished.’
Robin half smiled. ‘What did Marion say?’
‘Apparently she laughed and said some things never change.’
Robin fake coughed. ‘I’ve been a model citizen for weeks. I’ve been to school every day. I’ve done my chores and every homework on time.’
‘Don’t expect us to pin a medal on you.’ Indio laughed as she turned the pancakes over. ‘Kids are supposed to go to school and do their homework.’
Robin smiled as he picked up a plastic doll that Zack had knocked off his high chair. It felt like things were getting close to normal with Indio and Karma. They still partly blamed him for Marion getting busted, but you don’t make pancakes at six in the morning for someone you can’t forgive.
The hot breakfast was an unexpected treat, but added several minutes to Robin’s morning routine. He risked taking the unreliable lift down to the ground floor and ran the whole way to the chicken sheds behind the castle.
Robin entered cautiously. He could handle the heat and eye-watering ammonia smell from a thousand pooping birds, but he also expected Chicken Sheila to yell at him for being seven minutes late.
But there was just the noise of hungry chickens – and Josie, with her hair tied back. She wore a blue zip-up overall and rubber boots crusted with chicken manure.
‘Afternoon,’ Josie said cheekily, as Robin dropped his bow and backpack and started swapping his trainers for manure-spattered wellies. ‘Nice of you to drop by . . .’
‘Where’s Sheila?’ Robin asked, as he glanced across at the caged zebras in the adjoining shed.
‘I got a message from one of the nurses in the clinic,’ Josie explained. ‘They took Sheila in last night after she collapsed walking up the stairs to her room. They put her on a drip and kept her in overnight.’
‘Sheila won’t admit it, but something’s really wrong,’ Robin said, as he gave Josie a quick peck on the cheek. ‘She’s lost weight since we moved to the castle, and there wasn’t much meat on her beforehand.’
‘Blueberry breath and a purple tongue,’ Josie noted, before giving Robin a longer kiss on the mouth. ‘What girl could resist you?’
‘Indio made pancakes.’
‘I’ll go visit Sheila when we finish feeding and collecting the eggs.’
‘She’ll yell at you,’ Robin warned, as Josie used her pocket knife to slash open a sack of chicken feed.
‘No doubt,’ Josie said, smiling and shrugging. ‘But I’m fond of the old battle-axe, and she’ll want to know how many eggs we got.’
As Robin started checking the incubator drawers for newly hatched chicks, Josie stepped into the giant chicken enclosure and began pouring pellets into feed troughs. While the birds went mental fighting over breakfast, Robin cracked a big yawn, then joined Josie in the enclosure to gather eggs that had been laid overnight.
‘Did your man in Vietnam send over our Shakespeare homework?’ Josie asked.
‘He sure did,’ Robin said, as he crouched over a scrawny bird that hadn’t gone for food and was bloody from being pecked. ‘I’ll have to put this lady in a separate cage till she heals up.’
‘I’ve got another customer for Year Ten Maths homework,’ Josie said.
Robin tutted. ‘I wish you wouldn’t tell other people about our scam. The more people who know we’re paying a dude to do our homework, the more chance we’ll get busted, or blackmailed by some smartass like Matt Maid.’
‘All right for you to say, Mr Moneybags.’ Josie snorted. ‘You’ve got thousands in savings. But selling Maths homework for five quid a pop makes a big difference to my finances.’
‘When you get caught, keep my name out of it,’ Robin said, as he brushed sawdust and manure off the injured bird, before gently lowering it into a plastic storage box. ‘If I stay out of trouble until Friday, I don’t have to clean up after school. That means I can switch back to feeding the chickens at night and I don’t have to get up at six o’clock seven days a week.’
‘I’m only selling homework to people I trust,’ Josie said. ‘You’re being paranoid.’
Robin didn’t feel as confident as his girlfriend, but his phone started ringing before he got the chance to answer back.
29. CELEBRITY MASH-UP
Before touching his phone, Robin peeled off his rubber gloves, smeared with poop, sawdust and the injured bird’s blood.
‘Oluchi, wassup,’ Robin said, answering a millisecond before the call went to voicemail. ‘Give me a tick, I’m in the chicken shed and it’s deafening.’
‘I’m up in the Nest,’ Oluchi answered. ‘I spoke to an old friend, Henry Davenport, last night. He was on my journalism course at uni, and one of the other interns when I worked with Lynn Hoapili at Channel Fourteen. I think he’s found an angle that could make this landfill site story exciting enough to make people give a damn.’
‘You’re spending more time in the Nest than me,’ Robin noted, as he exited the chicken enclosure and stepped under an archway into the quieter shed next door, with four bored-looking zebras watching him.
‘There’s nothing calling me back to the legit world,’ Oluchi explained. ‘Unless you count student debt, a court summons for unpaid rent, and a crazy mother who wants me to find a handsome Yoruba boy and make lots of babies.’
‘So, what have you got that’s worth calling me at half six in the morning for?’
‘I’ve listened to everything Katerina Kendall has said in her home office since we planted those microphones a few weeks back. And D’Angela helped me use the information from Nick Adale’s laptop to hack into Gisborne Waste Management’s entire computer system.
‘It’s clear that all kinds of illegal waste are being dumped at Gisborne’s landfill sites, and I’ve heard a lot of discussion about cheap ways to fix the gas leaks at Mile End Landfill. But Gisborne is really careful. He keeps phone conversations short and never puts anything in writing. So, if we run the story Gisborne can apologise, sack a few of his senior managers and maybe pay a fine for breaking environmental regulations. It won’t do his election campaign any good, but it won’t wreck his chance of winning either.’
‘What about Heirani and the other two dead workers?’ Robin asked.
Oluchi sighed. ‘We can prove they’re missing, but without bodies I still have no evidence to prove that anyone got murdered. Gisborne could deny everything and suggest that they’re hiding in the forest.’
Robin knew that Josie would be annoyed that he wasn’t doing his share of the work, so he sounded a touch impatient. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Oluchi, but I’m super busy. What’s your big breakthrough?’
‘One hundred and twenty thousand litres of expired emulsion paint,’ Oluchi answered cryptically. ‘Paint is highly toxic. None of Gisborne’s waste facilities have a licence for processing and disposing of leftover paint, but yesterday I recorded Katerina Kendall on the phone, saying that two tankerloads of paint will be delivered to Gisborne’s South Range landfill site late tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Interesting,’ Robin said. ‘But won’t Gisborne deny knowing about the paint too?’
‘He can’t wriggle out of this one,’ Oluchi said. ‘I have a recording of a phone conversation between Kendall and Gisborne. Gisborne asks her to sort out the paint disposal problem as a favour to Sir Stanley Launcelot.’
‘I’ve heard that name somewhere,’ Robin said.
‘Launcelot’s a businessman who made a fortune with the Sir Savalot DIY stores. He’s also a big political donor with lots of friends in senior government positions.’
‘Now I get it,’ Robin said sharply. ‘Sir Stanley has tons of unsold paint to dispose of from his DIY stores. Gisborne is doing him a favour and disposing of his surplus paint because he’ll need to make powerful friends in Capital City once he’s elected as the new Sheriff of Nottingham.’
‘Exactly,’ Oluchi said. ‘And this is where Darrell Snubs comes in.’
‘Snubs?’ Robin said, sounding puzzled. ‘The stand-up comedian with the long hair, who swears a lot?’
‘My friend Henry Davenport landed a job as a production assistant on Darrell Snubs’ new TV show,’ Oluchi explained.
‘I watched Snubs’ stand-up special with Marion one time,’ Robin said. ‘She kept going on about how tall and good-looking he was.’
‘I wouldn’t kick Snubs out of bed,’ Oluchi agreed. ‘His comedy has got more political in the last few years, and he’s done TV debates with politicians where he’s discussed you and defended the Sherwood Forest rebels. Henry says Snubs would love to meet you.’
‘Seriously?’ Robin said, flattered and cracking a big smile. ‘That’s cool, but what does it have to do with two truckloads of paint?’
‘Snubs just launched a new TV series called Truth to Power. He goes undercover with anti-hunting groups, environmentalists and anti-poverty campaigners and tries to shame the bad guys.’
‘And now he wants to do us?’ Robin said.
‘Snubs is keen to work with us, but we have to move fast,’ Oluchi explained. ‘The two tankerloads of paint are being delivered to the South Range landfill site tomorrow afternoon. I only found all this stuff out yesterday, and Darrell Snubs and his producer would like to talk with you this morning to discuss what we can do about it.’
‘I’ve got school,’ Robin said warily. ‘I know that sounds lame, but I signed a behaviour contract. I’m almost done with my punishments and my life might actually be bearable once I get Will, Emma, Karma, Indio and Mr Khan off my back.’
‘Robin, this only works if you’re involved,’ Oluchi said pleadingly. ‘Darrell Snubs teaming up with Robin Hood to fight for justice could turn a story about two truckloads of paint getting dumped into front-page news.’
‘Well, I’m always up for a bit of action,’ Robin said thoughtfully. ‘The behaviour contract does say I can get time off school in exceptional circumstances. But Mr Khan gets to decide what counts as exceptional, and he’s not exactly my biggest fan . . .’
30. TURN ME UPSIDE DOWN
After three tedious hours being educated about Industrial Era canal building, false perspective and number bases, Robin shot out of his chair on the B of the lunchtime bell.
‘Calm down!’ his Maths teacher yelled.
Robin barely heard as he charged the door, with Josie steps behind. His stomach growled as he caught delicious smells from the busy food stalls in the resort’s atrium, but he kept running. He went under the sign that pointed to the casino, then charged up the dead escalator and sprinted flat out between the rows of slot machines towards the Nest.
‘I can’t believe we’re gonna talk to Darrell Snubs,’ Josie gushed as she struggled to match Robin’s speed. ‘The actual Darrell Snubs!’
Robin smirked as he glanced back. ‘I’m talking to Darrell Snubs. Who even invited you?’
‘I’ve crushed on Snubs since I saw him in a shower gel commercial when I was eight,’ Josie said. ‘So, either I have an invite, or you have an ex-girlfriend.’
‘I just don’t see what’s so amazing about him,’ Robin gasped, slowing down as he reached the door of the Nest, then hit the stairs.
‘We got here as fast as we could,’ Josie told Oluchi, as she tripped on the top step and nearly sprawled out.
‘No worries,’ Oluchi said. ‘My contact, Henry, called. Darrell Snubs has been running behind schedule all morning, so you’re fine.’
But Robin didn’t feel fine. As he stepped deeper into the Nest, his nose caught a distinctive smell. It was a mix of cigars, beer, petrol and not washing, and it belonged to two members of the Brigands Motorcycle Club.
The first biker was Luke, one of the gang’s newest recruits. Just out of his teens, he had a wispy beard and was spinning around in an office chair like a five-year-old. The second was the monolithically vast figure of gang leader Jake ‘Cut-Throat’ Maid.
Robin’s life flashed in front of his eyes as Cut-Throat stepped close. Especially the bit where he’d encouraged Cut-Throat’s daughter, Marion, to take part in a robbery, which led to her getting caught and thrown in jail . . .
‘How’s life, short stuff?’ Cut-Throat bellowed, eyeballing Robin.
Robin’s eyes were level with Cut-Throat’s belly. Besides his terror, Robin was fascinated by the extraordinary layering of stains on the big man’s leather waistcoat.
‘I . . .’ Robin stuttered, taking half a wobbly step back.
‘You look like you’re gonna crap your pants,’ Cut-Throat said cheerfully. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’
‘I’m . . .’ Robin began.
He almost said I’m sorry about Marion, but decided Cut-Throat wouldn’t appreciate weakness.
‘I’m not sure if you’re angry about what happened to Marion,’ Robin spat boldly as he took a nervous glance towards the stairs. ‘If you are, can I zip back to the penthouse and grab my bow and arrows?’
Oluchi, Luke and Josie gawped at Robin’s cheek, but after a frightening pause Cut-Throat erupted with booming laughter, then lifted Robin effortlessly into the air and flipped him upside down.
‘You’ve got some balls, Robin Hood!’ Cut-Throat roared, rattling Robin like a snow globe in one hand, while stretching the other leather-gloved mitt out to shake hands with Josie. ‘I could never get Marion to do what she was told, so I know you didn’t force that girl into anything.’
Cut-Throat kept up the booming laughter as he dumped a relieved Robin in an office chair, head on the seat cushion and trainers flailing in the air. As Robin clumsily righted himself, he turned towards Oluchi with a furious expression and mouthed, ‘You could have warned me.’
