The Recruit

5. Safe

Ash racked up the pool balls and blasted the white into them. It didn't matter where the balls went. He only wanted a distraction from the awful stuff going around his head. He'd been playing for hours when a jug-eared twenty-something introduced himself.

"Rudy Legg. Dogsbody, former inmate." He laughed. "I mean resident, of course."

"Hey," Ash said, not in the mood for jokes.

"Let's get your stuff." They walked outside to a minibus.

"I heard about your mum, Ash. That's tough." Rudy craned his neck, looking for a gap to pull out into the traffic.

"Thanks, Rudy. You lived here once?"

"For three years. Dad went down for armed robbery. Mum had a breakdown. I got on all right with all the staff here, so they gave me this job when I turned seventeen."

"Is it OK?" Ash asked.

"It's not a bad place. Look after your stuff though, everything gets nicked. First chance you get, buy a decent padlock and stick it on your locker. Sleep with the key tied around your neck. Don't even take it off in the bath. If you've got cash we'll get you a lock on the way back."

"Is it rough?" Ash asked.

"You'll be OK. You look like you can stand up for yourself. There's a few hard cases same as anywhere, just don't wind them up is all."

The flat was a tip. A lot of valuable stuff had disappeared. The TV, video and internet were gone from the living room. The telephone was gone in the hall and the microwave from the kitchen.

"What happened?" Rudy asked. "Was it like this last night?"

"I half-expected this," Ash said. "Giovanni's been here and stripped the place. I hope he's left my stuff alone." Ash ran upstairs to his room. His TV, video and computer were gone. "I'll stab him," he screamed.

Ash kicked his wardrobe door. At least Giovanni had left the Playstation 4 Pro, Xbox One and most other stuff. Rudy came in.

"You're not gonna be able to take all this," Rudy said, looking at the piles of stuff. "Your mum must have been loaded."

"We'd better take as much as we can. Giovanni says the house is being cleared Friday." Ash had a thought. He asked Rudy to start packing his clothes in bin-liners and went to his mum's room. Giovanni had taken the portable TV and the jewellery box from the dressing table, but that was no biggie because Giovanni had stolen all the good jewellery years ago.

Ash opened his mum's wardrobe and looked at her safe. There were thousands inside. Delia Ryan was a criminal; she couldn't keep money in the bank without people wanting to know where it came from. Judging by the tools on the carpet and the scratches around the safe door, Giovanni had made a fairly pathetic attempt to get in. He'd be back with better equipment.

Ash knew he'd never break open the safe. When it was delivered it took three guys to carry it up the stairs. There was no key; you dialled a combination of numbers with the big knob on the front. The only clue Ash had was that one time he'd walked in and surprised his mum while she was unlocking it. She'd been holding a Danielle Steele novel and it made sense that she would hide the combination inside the kind of book he and Giovanni wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. But what if she'd changed the combination since then? It was Ash's only chance to beat Giovanni to the money, so he was at least going to try.

Delia had a handful of novels on a shelf over her bed. Ash found the Danielle Steele and flicked through the pages.

"Are you all right in there, Ash?" Rudy shouted from the other bedroom.