The Charlie Boys had got used to pilfering from cars and then nicking the cars themselves and selling them on. Charlie and his gang also became expert housebreakers. Summers were particularly good for this. People hot in bed upstairs, windows left open downstairs. Perfect.
They were earning very nicely now by criminal means and were starting to think bigger. Charlie had the manor all set up in his favour and they were raking in cash around the restaurants and clubs. Charlie had his boys on the doors, and before long they had the club owners out the door and were taking over. Added to that, they were screwing three or four big houses every week and getting away with it. But soon the word spread, the Old Bill were after them, and they had to go further and further out on the rob, or invite trouble. Charlie was growing bulkier by the day and Terry and Beezer were too big to get in small windows, so they trained up Beezer’s little brother, baby-face Col, for that job.
It was like a holiday jaunt, a return to the old days, the housebreaking. They drove out into the countryside in Terry’s Cortina, where the pickings were a lot better and where their chances of detection were halved thanks to country plod’s relaxed attitude to law enforcement.
Once at their target area, they found a nice big house and sent Col in to knock on the door. The deal was this: if nobody answered, the job was on and Col would be shovelled through a small open window – or they would break one – and then Col would open the front door to let the rest of the troops inside. If someone did answer, then Col would innocently ask for directions and leave the householder in peace.
It was a system that seemed foolproof, and one that they used again and again. They would get in, dump empty boxes out of the boot of the car and into the hallway. Then they would put all the stuff they were robbing into the boxes and exit by the front door.
Then one night they were doing a big place, bigger than usual. Col rapped at the door, nobody answered. All was fine. They moved round the side of the building in the moonlight, laughing because they looked like they should have a bag marked ‘swag’ on their shoulders as they tiptoed along. They found an open window. Beezer wasn’t with them tonight, but they had enough backup should they need it. Terry clasped his hands together and boosted Col up there. Col grabbed the window frame and wriggled through without any trouble at all. He dropped down onto the floor inside.
Outside, Charlie and Terry were still laughing, waiting for Col to open the front door. Then there was a noise.
Terry stopped laughing.
‘What the fuck was that?’ asked Charlie in a loud whisper.
All of a sudden, Col screamed. It was the most godawful spine-tingling, bowel-loosening scream either of them had ever heard.
Charlie was fumbling for his torch, unable to find it. Terry was leaning into the window, but he couldn’t see a fucking thing inside. But the screaming. He could hear the screaming, loud and clear.
Charlie found the torch. With shaking fingers he flicked it on and aimed it at the window and for a second all he could see was the reflection of his own bleached-out face. Then he angled it down.
‘Oh shit!’ he muttered, feeling hot stinging sick rise in his throat, threatening to choke him.
He staggered back a step and Terry grabbed the torch off him.
‘What?’ Terry was demanding, over and over. ‘What is it . . . ?’
Then Terry looked along the torch’s beam and he saw.
Little Col was being dragged around the room inside there, and he wasn’t screaming any more. A Rottweiler as big as a tank was gripping Col by the neck and yanking him this way and that. A liquid pool of dark red was spreading out, staining the floorboards. Col’s eyes were closed.
‘Shit,’ said Terry, flicking off the torch, his face frozen in horror.
‘We got to clear off,’ said Charlie flatly. ‘He’s dead.’
‘What? No! We got to get him out of there,’ said Terry, wondering how the hell they were going to break this to Beezer.
‘You bloody serious? That bastard’s finished him, and he’ll finish us too. Come on. We’re going.’
It was the talk of the streets for weeks after.
‘You knew that little scrote Colin, didn’t you? Didn’t you used to hang around together at school?’ Mum asked Charlie. ‘Bloody thieving off people. Still, what a way to end up. Nobody should finish like that.’
‘I knew him. Not very well,’ said Charlie, wishing the old girl would shut her mouth.
‘Robbing off people’s houses. It’s disgusting.’
And then there was the funeral. Baby-face Col’s mum and dad were in bits as they followed, stumbling and crying behind the hearse bearing their youngest son up the road and into the church. COLIN was spelled out in red chrysanthemums beside the coffin. Col’s older brother Beezer trailed along beside his parents, his face blank with grief.
All the time the funeral went on, Charlie wouldn’t meet Terry’s gaze. The Bill had questioned them. The coppers knew they were dodgy and that Col and Beezer always hung around with Charlie and Tel. But they both denied all knowledge, and soon it blew over. Charlie, Terry, Beezer and the rest of the Charlie Boys didn’t go housebreaking any more though. They concentrated on bigger and better stuff around the manor. There was no more arsing around fencing gear or giggling in the backs of vans. Somehow, they’d lost their taste for petty thievery.