Читать книгу How to Rob a Bank - Том Митчелл - Страница 15

‘Have you considered offices?’ asked Dad from the sofa. ‘Better an office than a ladder, I’m telling you. Accidents happen on ladders.’

Dad flicked through Sight & Sound as I thumbed the BBC Sport app. Palace hadn’t bought any players and the new season was getting closer. Their problem was the salaries of quality players. How many banks would I need to rob to be able to buy Palace? Even though they’re crap, they’d still cost hundreds of millions.

Football, bloody hell.

‘Did you hear me?’ asked Dad. ‘Even if you don’t get a summer job in an office, you should think about one when you’re my age. You don’t get covered in sewage in offices. Not unless you’re really unlucky.’

I glanced up from my iPhone. He’d not shaved in a couple of days. It made him look homeless. I thought of Beth. I looked back to my phone. What now? Notes obviously weren’t the way forward. How else do people rob banks? Was there a way of making myself invisible? Like when you’re at a popular kid’s birthday party? That’d make the whole robbery thing easier.

Tremors of vibration – a call! I stared open-mouthed at the screen. Beth! it said, as if by magic. (I can’t remember why I’d put an exclamation mark next to her name but it meant every call from her felt dramatic.)

‘A girl?’ Dad smiled.

I ignored him, and shot up the stairs past an eye-rolling sister into my room.

‘Hey,’ I said at the exact moment my back bounced down on to the mattress.

A cat replied. And it mewed. At least, that’s what I thought I heard. Maybe Beth had accidentally cat-called me, meaning a cat had slinked across her phone without her knowing.

But no.

‘Dylan?’ she said and I think the sound was sobbing.

‘Are you with a cat?’

She laughed. One of those congested laughs people do when they’re crying. I don’t know why I asked if she were with a cat. Well, I do: I’m an idiot.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, sniffing. There was a sigh like ripped paper. The sobbing stopped. Usual service had resumed. ‘I was just feeling a little overwhelmed. How are you doing?’

I closed my eyes, imagining I knew how to talk to women.

‘Chilling,’ I said and immediately regretted it. ‘Not chilling. It’s been a weird few days.’

‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Tell me about it. Look. I don’t want to unload but … do you mind if I unload?’

For a brief, brilliant moment, I thought she was about to lay into Harry.

‘No problem,’ I said. ‘Unload away.’

‘So Dad, fresh from the no-insurance revelation, has just announced we’ve got until the end of August to find, like, six weeks’ rent as a deposit.’

‘That’s lame,’ I said, disappointed this wasn’t about Harry and not entirely sure what she meant.

‘That’s, like, thousands of pounds and we’ve literally got nothing. And if we don’t pay, we get evicted.’

‘I’m sure something’ll work out,’ I said. ‘Your dad knows people.’ The grunting sound coming out of my phone indicated Beth wasn’t as confident. ‘And, anyway, what if I got you the money?’

Beth laughed.

‘You? How?’

I thought back to the incident in the post office.

‘Winning the lottery?’

‘That’s sweet, Dylan, but are you even old enough to buy a ticket?’

‘No, but they don’t know that and we could go on holiday to, like, Hawaii and pay people to do our GCSEs and did you know the capital of Hawaii is Honolulu?’

‘Honolulu?’ said Beth.

‘It’s fun to say.’

‘Honolulu,’ said Beth again.

‘Honolulu,’ I replied.

There was a bass rumble down the line, a thumping sound.

‘It’s Mum,’ said Beth. ‘I’ve got to go.’

The line disconnected and I lay staring at the ceiling for a while before creeping back downstairs.

Dad had been waiting.

‘There’s this film I recorded …’ he said the very second I walked into the room.

I collapsed into the sofa and as I did so a huge smash broke through the house. Had I broken the chair? No. The sound had come from above. I almost expected Mum to crash through the ceiling, but she didn’t. The noise was metallic, like a car hitting another car. Rita and Mum were soon standing in the front room’s doorway, faces pulled in alarm. Mum held Rita’s hand.

Even though it was late afternoon, Rita was in her pyjamas (decorated with cartoon dogs). Mum wore jogging bottoms and a T-shirt. She often claimed to be going off for a run, but other than the ‘activewear’, there was no evidence that she ever did. Evidence like leaving the house, for instance.

‘What was that?’ she asked. ‘That noise?’

‘It sounded like something hit the roof,’ said Rita. ‘Like maybe a drone.’

My heart froze at the thought of FBI agents streaming from the attic. They’d found the note. I was done for. This was it – the scene of my arrest. I should have liked to wear something smarter than an old Palace training top. And what if I were put into a cell with a load of Brighton fans?

‘Probably just the aerial,’ said Dad. ‘Sounded like the aerial. It’s looked like it was going to fall for months. Don’t worry. It’s the aerial.’

My heart continued to beat. If I had to imagine what an aerial falling off a roof sounded like, it would have been the exact sound I’d just heard. And the FBI agents would have stormed the front room by now. And, anyway, what would the FBI be doing in Orpington?

Rita pointed at the TV.

‘The picture’s still there,’ she said.

‘Kay?’ said Mum. ‘Are you not going to do anything?

Dad, rising and sighing, told Rita that we got our TV from a cable.

I nodded. Idiot.

‘Oh,’ said Rita.

As Dad looked for his trainers and Rita disappeared upstairs, Mum told me to help my father.

‘You wouldn’t want him falling off,’ she said.

Although it was wet outside, it wasn’t raining. It meant Dad could go ahead with climbing up on to the roof to investigate and I’d have to expend energy helping him.