Robin’s room spanned the entire width of the attic. He liked this, because he had archery targets at the far end, and could sit in bed shooting his bow, until his dad yelled because the thud of arrows hitting the target drove him crazy.
Robin felt grumpy as he pulled on a long-sleeved rugby shirt and some old jeans. The whole world was on his back and he was reluctant to admit that it was about ninety-nine per cent his own fault.
He was at the end of his bed pulling his first sock on when he heard a deep growling sound. The traffic out here was light enough for any vehicle to be an object of curiosity, but a jet-engine roar sent Robin scuttling across to look out the attic window.
There were two vehicles approaching the house. The first was a trashed sedan with blue lights and Locksley Police Department painted down the side. The second was the source of all the noise, and Robin knew who owned it.
Guy Gisborne had named his customised Mercedes pick-up truck Black Bess. It had a matt-black paint job, enormous spinner wheels, a chromed snorkel exhaust, and a custom-chipped engine good for eight hundred horsepower.
Black Bess broke all kinds of laws, spewing deep grey exhaust, and the mufflers had been removed so it sounded like a race car. But no cop ever dared pull Guy Gisborne over. Nor was any mechanic brave enough to tell him his prized possession had failed an emissions test.
‘Dad!’ Robin yelled from the top of the stairs.
‘I see it,’ Ardagh shouted up. ‘Stay up in your room. Let me deal with them.’
Ardagh also tried sending John upstairs, and Robin heard his brother stubbornly refusing as the cop car pulled up the driveway, while Gisborne swung aggressively off-road, leaving churned brown tracks across the front lawn.
Two cops in dark blue uniforms waddled to the door.
Ardagh was waiting on the doorstep. ‘How may I help you, ladies?’
Robin shuddered, seeing Guy Gisborne step out of the Mercedes, dressed all in black. He’d been Ardagh’s boyhood friend, but while most kids grow out of squishing frogs and forcing weaker lads to hand over their lunch money, Gisborne kept getting nastier.
Robin was surprised to see Clare Gisborne jump out of the passenger side. She was copying her dad’s taste for black leather and sunglasses, with a hefty baton swinging off her hip.
‘Are you Ardagh Michael Hood?’ one of the cops in the doorway asked.
‘I am,’ Ardagh answered, as Robin crept downstairs to get a better look.
The other cop spoke. ‘Mr Hood, following a search of your property, we have discovered four laptop computers that were stolen from the High Street branch of Captain Cash yesterday afternoon. I am therefore placing you under arrest.’
Robin gulped.
The officer took handcuffs from her belt as her partner began reading Ardagh his rights.
‘You have the right to remain silent. This means you do not have to say anything, answer any question or make any statement unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say can be used as evidence in the Sheriff’s court …’
‘What search?’ Ardagh demanded, as he refused to put his hands out to be cuffed. ‘You haven’t searched. You just arrived.’
‘I can make this as hard as you want it to be,’ one officer shouted. ‘Give me your damned wrists.’
Robin’s heart thumped as he kept creeping down the stairs. He’d heard his dad complaining about Gisborne taking advantage of police cuts to sink his tentacles into Locksley Police Department, but seeing two uniformed officers shamelessly do Gisborne’s bidding was still a shock.
‘On your knees, Ardagh,’ Gisborne demanded, taking a coiled whip off his belt as Ardagh reluctantly accepted the cuffs.
‘Leave my dad alone,’ John shouted.
‘I’ll get to you in a minute, Little John,’ Gisborne sneered, then eyeballed Ardagh from less than a metre away. ‘Knees!’ he demanded.
Ardagh defied his boyhood friend, until one of the cops jabbed the back of his thigh with a 50,000-volt stun stick. Clare Gisborne laughed noisily as Ardagh sprawled forward onto his face, groaning and spasming before Gisborne pinned him under his alligator-skin boot.
Robin was now on the landing between the ground and first floor. Four quick arrows would take out the cops and the Gisbornes. Except he’d dumped his archery stuff outside on the porch when he got back in from training …
‘First your big lump of a son assaults my daughter,’ Gisborne began, as he put all his bodyweight behind the heel dug in Ardagh’s back. ‘Then you dare to stand in the middle of Locksley Learning Centre making nasty allegations about me in front of an audience.’
‘You won’t get away with this,’ Ardagh moaned.
Gisborne laughed, uncoiling his whip. ‘Stolen goods worth more than five thousand pounds is a class-C felony, Ardagh. A minimum two-year sentence under Sheriff Marjorie’s zero-tolerance sentencing regime. And since your poor wifey dropped dead, I guess I’d better give social services a bell about your boys.’
Robin clutched his fists and stifled a hiss of rage.
You don’t make jokes about my dead mum and get away with it.
‘But don’t worry, Ardagh. I have chums in child services. I’ll make sure they’re placed in a nice group home on the other side of the forest, so they can’t come and visit.’
Ardagh didn’t want Gisborne to see him cry and blinked rapidly to stop tears forming in his eyes.
‘We could easily drop the boys off at social services,’ one of the cops suggested. ‘It’s no bother.’
Gisborne laughed. ‘Get Ardagh on his feet and booked in at the station. I’ll deal with these brats, but there’ll be extra in your wage packets if he arrives with injuries from his attempted escape …’
The cops smiled knowingly at one another as they hauled Ardagh up and marched him out to the battered police cruiser. This left Clare standing back by the front door, while her father closed on Little John.
Being small had taught Robin that mental toughness was as important in any confrontation as size or strength. On paper, Little John was stronger, faster and far bigger than Gisborne. But Gisborne oozed sadistic confidence, while the giant sixteen-year-old was a clammy mess, backing up the staircase, with hands trembling in fear of Gisborne’s whip.
‘Sit at the kitchen table,’ Gisborne ordered, before turning back to his daughter. ‘The little one’s creeping around upstairs. Go fetch him, so he can witness what happens to people who lay hands on my daughter.’