The final stretch towards Locksley was steeply uphill. Flash stopped at the edge of a small lookout area with spots for six cars. It had been built for its spectacular vista over the forest, but the picnic tables had rotted, the coin-operated binoculars were smashed and thieves had forced open the cashboxes.
‘Message me if you need a ride back,’ Flash said.
Marion had started checking maps on her phone and shook her head. ‘Thanks for the offer, but we’ll head to the mall after. Will’s upped security and says we’ll be safe.’
Flash nodded. ‘Don’t stick around after your lawyer meeting. There’s gonna be trouble in town tonight.’
Robin looked up curiously. ‘What kind of trouble?’
‘What do you think?’ Flash said, as if Robin was dumb. ‘Gisborne sent an army into Designer Outlets and broke the no-interference pact. And Castle Guards blew Sherwood Women’s Union off the map. They can’t pull stunts like that and expect Forest People to suck it up.’
‘We don’t want to start a war we can’t win,’ Marion said warily.
‘What’s Sherwood Women’s Union?’ Robin asked.
‘Best outlaws ever!’ Marion said fondly. ‘Imagine all-girl Brigands, with better hygiene and strong feminist principles.’
Flash laughed. ‘Pinning up stripy flags and saying you stand for something doesn’t automatically make you a good person. I dated this hot Union chick for a while, and believe me those ladies were ruthless.’
44. ROBIN TELLS A BIG LIE
They had over an hour before meeting Tybalt, leaving time to check out Robin’s house and grab extra clothes.
Most of the walk was too far from the university to attract student squatters and long past the stage where there was anything inside left to steal. Locksley P.D. occasionally patrolled these dead zones, but you could hear their cars long before they saw you, and overgrown gardens gave a million places to hide.
‘Forest People could make these into proper neighbourhoods if they let us,’ Marion complained, as they walked.
‘My dad says Gisborne’s gradually buying up all the plots and turning Locksley suburbs into giant landfill sites,’ Robin said. ‘Big cities pay handsomely if you’re willing to take trash off their hands.’
‘I wish you’d shot Gisborne through the heart,’ Marion snarled.
Robin thought there was a chance Gisborne would have someone keeping watch on his home, so they climbed over the gates of Swan House and crossed six back yards. When they got to his neighbour’s yard, Robin logged into his house Wi-Fi and checked the feed from CCTV cameras that his dad fitted to deter thieves.
‘Looks clear,’ he said, as he checked the security system’s activity log.
Robin had his key ready, but the back door had been left open by the ambulance crew that stretchered Gisborne away. He caught the familiar smell of the kitchen as he stepped in. The breakfast bowls were still out, the contents of the recycling bin were spewed across the floor and there was a big patch of Gisborne’s dried blood by the dishwasher.
‘Aww,’ Marion said, as her eyes were drawn to an old family photo stuck on the fridge door. ‘You had baby curls!’
She almost added, and your mum was beautiful, but remembered how pained Robin was when she’d last mentioned her.
Robin hopped with fright when he stepped through to the hallway. A stray black cat had wandered in and Marion laughed as it yowled and shot out of the back door.
Once he’d recovered, Robin charged upstairs to his attic room. It had only been a few days, but he felt nostalgic as he walked in. He’d left his school backpack at Designer Outlets when they fled, but found the big pack he’d taken on his elementary school adventure camp and stuffed it with extra clothes, a hunting knife that had belonged to his grandfather and a couple of family photos.
He then crammed in as many arrows as would fit and grabbed a wooden bow before heading downstairs.
‘Present for you,’ he told Marion. ‘It’s battered, but it’s fine to learn with.’
‘Are you sure?’ Marion asked, as she took hold and was surprised by the weight.
‘Wood’s heavier than carbon fibre,’ Robin said, as he headed to his dad’s ground-floor office.
‘I’ve never lived anywhere but the mall and the forest,’ Marion said airily, as she followed him. ‘This is such a cool old house.’
Ardagh’s office had originally been the house’s formal dining room. There was an octagonal stained-glass skylight over a heavy ebony dining table and Marion admired a glass-doored cabinet with a display of plates printed with the Hood family coat of arms.
Robin was concerned less with past glories, more with the heaps of box files, computer parts and cables strewn all over the place. Fortunately the file marked Captain Cash Project was easily located in an alphabetised file cabinet.
He also took his dad’s laptop, because his own was back at the mall, plus a charger, a pack of SIM cards, two burner phones that his dad used for security testing and a couple of cables that might come in handy.
Robin had made a list the night before. He meant to check it before they left, but got distracted by two message notifications when he opened his phone.
‘Oooh,’ he said brightly after he read the first one.
‘Good news?’ Marion asked.
‘Very,’ Robin said. ‘My dad’s security report said that the Captain Cash ATMs are aged machines with a number of unpatched software vulnerabilities. But I know squat about how cash machines work, so I posted a message on a hacker forum I use. This guy just messaged me back with a ton of links and information.’
‘I didn’t know Captain Cash had an ATM,’ Marion said.
‘Two,’ Robin said. ‘One in the store, and one facing out into the parking lot. And each one stuffed with lovely money.’
Marion smiled, but also looked wary. ‘You’re dead serious about this, aren’t you?’
Robin nodded. ‘They busted my dad, saying he robbed laptops from Captain Cash, but really because he mouthed off about Gisborne at the learning centre. It’s poetic that he basically wrote an instruction manual on how to rob the joint.
‘Then as we’re on our way here, Flash tells us there’s going to be trouble in town tonight. Which means every cop will have their hands full, while we stage the robbery.’
‘We?’ Marion blurted. ‘Tonight …? Are you high on drugs, Robin Hood?
‘You said you liked my idea.’
‘I thought you were talking about making a plan that we’d show to Will or Azeem. And then maybe they would do the robbery if they liked the idea …’
‘I doubt anyone at Designer Outlets has my hacking skills,’ Robin explained. ‘With all the info in Dad’s report I could probably do the robbery on my own. But no way could I find my way to the mall in the dark without you.’
‘Are you certain this will work?’ Marion asked.
Robin nodded. ‘I reckon there’d easily be enough money to get my dad a good lawyer, and if there’s extra we can split it between us. Maybe we could donate some to the clinic at Designer Outlets. They patched me up good, and you said they’re always desperate for supplies.’
‘That’s certainly true,’ Marion said, but still seemed wary. ‘I know you’re into hacking and stuff, but have you ever pulled off anything like this before?’
Robin nodded. ‘I hacked my school and changed the report grades for me and my friend Alan.’
Marion laughed. ‘That’s cool, but logging into your teacher’s computer is hardly in the same league.’
‘The principles are the same,’ Robin said.
‘And your school hack worked?’
Robin didn’t want to lie to Marion, but he needed her help.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ he said, trying to sound confident. ‘And my school-grades hack went off without a hitch.’
45. LOCKSLEY MUSEUM, OPEN WEEKENDS ONLY
After the Macondo South assembly line spat out its last SUV, the blast furnace and factory build
ings were levelled and replaced with a riverfront nature reserve and a small transport museum. It displayed vehicles made in the city, from a rickety 1910 wagon to an armoured limousine built for a South American dictator.
Funding cuts meant the museum only opened for school visits and on weekends, and one of the volunteers who kept the place running was Tybalt Bull. He’d opened the museum’s sliding hangar door with his own key and parked his small silver hatchback inside the building, so it couldn’t be seen from the expressway that ran along the riverbank.
As instructed, Marion led Robin through a blue fire door that had been propped open with a trash can. The museum space had an echo, with a World War Two fighter plane hanging under the glazed roof and rows of polished vehicles stretching to the opposite end.
‘Robin Hood,’ Tybalt said politely.
He’d just emerged from a staff break room, with a teabag in a chipped Mission Impossible mug. ‘And you must be Marion. I’ve known your mother for many years.’
His handshake was a soft-skinned contrast to the burly Brigands’ and there was nothing remarkable about him. Average size, average build. His dark suit typical for a lawyer and his wiry hair clipped short and neat.
‘Have a seat, young man.’ Tybalt said, as he set his phone to record. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but it’s impossible to remember every detail.’
The lawyer’s knees almost went up to his chin as they settled at a low hexagonal table with green kiddy chairs. The space was designed for teaching school parties, and there was a timeline on the wall behind, showing Locksley from its foundation as an eighteenth-century logging camp to a picture of a prince at the museum’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.
‘Do you play soccer, Robin?’ Tybalt began.
‘In PE,’ Robin said. ‘I’m not really a fan …’
‘I always say being a defence lawyer in Locksley is like trying to win a game of soccer when the ref supports the other team. It’s not impossible, but it’s never easy.
‘The police are in Gisborne’s pocket. Locksley judges are appointed by Sheriff Marjorie, based upon recommendations of an interview panel stuffed with Gisborne’s friends.’
‘Sounds more impossible than difficult,’ Marion said.
Tybalt smiled. ‘Sheriff Marjorie and Guy Gisborne have things sewn up in Nottingham and Sherwood. But they have plenty of enemies in the rest of the country and I can appeal local verdicts in a national court.’
Robin thought he understood. ‘So Dad has to tough it out. Get found guilty, then appeal to the national court and they’ll get him off?’
Tybalt laughed. ‘Except Ardagh is facing minor theft charges that carry a three-year sentence for a first-time offender. If he pleads guilty that drops to two years. But the Locksley justice system grinds slowly, so it will take three months for a pre-trial hearing. Another six to go to trial. If we lose, it’ll take at least six months to get the appeal approved, then another three months before the appeal is heard. If the verdict is overturned, the prosecution might lodge a second appeal to the High Court.’
‘And my dad is in prison this whole time?’ Robin asked.
Tybalt nodded. ‘And every one of those cases and appeals racks up thousands of pounds in legal bills. My ten-thousand estimate may make it sound like I’m going to get rich, but every hearing involves hours and hours of interviews, research, planning, court fees. Even if I give my time for free, the legal cost of a trial and appeal to the national court would likely be over thirty thousand pounds.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ Marion growled, kicking one of the desks. ‘The whole system is rigged against poor people.’
‘What about juries?’ Robin asked.
Tybalt shook his head. ‘They’re only for major crimes like murder. What I need is solid evidence that makes the Locksley Police Department case seem so ludicrous that the judge knows it will be overturned on appeal. Judges don’t want that, because a judge who loses lots of appeals will get fired by central government.’
‘Gisborne’s blood is all over Robin’s kitchen,’ Marion said. ‘But the police said Gisborne was shot in his own house when Robin and Little John tried to rob him.’
‘Really?’ Tybalt said brightly. ‘I guess Locksley P.D. has got so used to getting their own way, they don’t bother cleaning up evidence!’
As Tybalt said this, Marion thought she heard something shift behind the timeline display boards.
‘Did you guys hear that?’ she asked.
Tybalt shook his head, but stood up and glanced around. Then there was a thumping that left no one in doubt.
‘Go hide,’ Tybalt said, pointing to a vintage Locksley fire truck. ‘The doors aren’t locked. You can burrow under the fire suits in the back.’
When Marion stood up, she noticed a set of black tactical boots moving beneath an old Locksley tram.
‘Castle Guards,’ she choked.
‘They must have been in here before me,’ Tybalt said. ‘They must have a spy in my office, because I took every precaution.’
As Robin put his boot on a metal rung and reached up to grab the fire engine’s door a woman in dark-green uniform bobbed up inside and tapped the muzzle of a pistol against the inside of the glass.
‘Don’t move, dirtbags!’ another Castle Guard shouted from the open top deck of the tram.
Tybalt and Marion froze as red dots from laser gunsights jiggled about on their chests. Robin wobbled and dropped down off the step by the fire engine, just as a remarkably tall woman stepped through a fire door.
‘Good afternoon,’ Sheriff Marjorie said.
Then Little John came through the door behind her.
46. TODAY’S SPECIAL OFFER
Robin stared at his brother, and saw something alien. Little John wore slip-on loafers, well-fitted chinos and a Hugo Boss polo shirt. He had a seventy-pound haircut from Sherwood Castle’s spa and smelled like fancy macadamia-nut hair product. They’d only been apart for three days, but he seemed an entirely different person.
Little John stared at his brother and saw something alien too. Robin wore crusted army boots, grubby jeans with a ripped knee and a denim biker’s waistcoat. His matted hair was speckled with clumps of dried mud and he smelled of earth and sweat. They’d only been apart for three days, but he seemed an entirely different person.
‘We need to talk, Robin Hood,’ Marjorie said, stiff and businesslike. Then she snapped her fingers and pointed at Tybalt and Marion. ‘Get those two out of earshot.’
‘Unacceptable!’ Tybalt protested, as a burly guard stuck a gun in his face. ‘This is a clear violation of my client’s constitutional right to –’
The guard punched Tybalt in the nose and roared, ‘You speak when spoken to!’
Tybalt stumbled, but stayed on his feet by grabbing an information plinth.
‘If there is one thing I loathe, it’s a goodie-two-shoes lawyer,’ Marjorie said, shuddering with disgust, but changing to a more accommodating expression as she stepped closer to Robin.
‘I found out something big,’ Little John told Robin, as he stood beside Marjorie. ‘Really big …’
Robin took a deep breath. ‘She’s your mum,’ he said stiffly.
John looked shocked. ‘You knew?’
‘Suspected,’ Robin said. ‘Marjorie and Dad were tight. You look like her. You’re both enormous, and you walking in beside her dressed like a golfer confirmed it.’
‘I’m safe,’ Little John said. ‘You’re in massive danger, but my mum has agreed to help you.’
Robin tutted. ‘Hand me to her pal Gisborne, more likely.’
Marjorie wasn’t used to people showing disrespect to her face. She flashed with anger, but kept calm.
‘As far as I’m concerned, Robin Hood can sleep in the forest when there’s two feet of snow on the ground,’ the Sheriff admitted bluntly. ‘He can drown in autumn floods, or get hung upside down next to Guy Gisborne’s collection of antique whips. But I do care about John, and he won’t be happy if I make no eff
ort to help you.’
This weird and unexpected situation made Robin’s brain fire random thoughts that didn’t join up. He buried his hands in his pockets and couldn’t decide where to look.
‘You can’t live on the run forever, bro,’ Little John said. ‘I know you’re fast and smart. But you can escape a thousand times, Gisborne only needs to catch you once.’
Robin saw the logic, but it still didn’t sit right. ‘So I get to live with you at the castle and dress like an accountant on vacation?’
‘These clothes are from the golf shop in Sherwood Castle,’ John said irritably. ‘I’m getting a chopper into Nottingham to buy stuff I like.’
‘You ride choppers now, do you?’ Robin laughed. ‘Dad would be real proud of your new lifestyle.’
‘What, Dad’s a saint now?’ Little John asked. ‘We went to school with patched-up trousers, ate tinned chilli and wonky carrots for tea. And you complained about it as much as I did.’
‘If stuff is all you care about, I’m sure your new mummy will make you happy,’ Robin fumed.
‘Why are you hating on me?’ Little John asked. ‘I stuck my neck out to help you.’
‘Quiet, both of you,’ Marjorie snapped, as she stepped between the glowering brothers.
‘Now …’ she began, through gritted teeth, ‘to answer Robin’s question. He can’t live at the castle. Gisborne will understand me protecting my own son, but Robin shot Gisborne and he won’t stomach me protecting you too. So this is my offer:
‘I’ll arrange for new identity documents under a false name. I’ll find somewhere out of town for you to stay over summer. When the new school year starts, you’ll be enrolled in a decent boarding school. I’ll pay your fees, and give you a reasonable allowance. You’ll have to steer well clear of Locksley, but the two of you can meet up elsewhere and do brother stuff during school holidays.’
Robin nodded slowly while his brain did somersaults.
‘If Gisborne catches you, he’ll whip you, then kill you,’ Little John said pleadingly. ‘My mum is the only person powerful enough to protect you. This is your only chance to live a normal life.’
Robin Hood: Hacking, Heists and Flaming Arrows Page 13