‘Esteemed businessman!’ Marion snorted.
‘Gisborne’s an absolute scumbag,’ Robin blurted. ‘That story is rubbish. We weren’t anywhere near his house.’
‘The Locksley Gazette was once a decent newspaper,’ Azeem explained. ‘But Gisborne’s thugs threw the editor’s desk out of a fifth-storey window, then told her she’d be next if she published more stories criticising their boss.’
The woman who’d given Robin the m’smen smiled at him and began eagerly telling Azeem a story in Arabic.
‘Tala says she used to run the best bakery in Locksley,’ Azeem translated. ‘Gisborne demanded protection money every week. When she hit a tough patch and couldn’t pay, his thugs broke in and cut open a water pipe. Her basement flooded. Her ovens and equipment were ruined, and they ordered her to leave town. Now Tala’s broke, but she says Robin Hood gets free m’smen for life, because someone finally stood up to Gisborne and gave him what he deserved.’
‘That’s kind,’ Robin said, nodding as he licked honey off his thumb.
‘It takes guts to shoot Gisborne and rob his car,’ Marion told Robin admiringly. ‘But I wouldn’t walk in your shoes if you paid me ten million bucks. He’ll move heaven and earth to hunt you down.’
Robin knew Gisborne would be after him, but Marion voicing the danger gave him chills.
Azeem gave Marion a filthy look.
‘Don’t freak the poor boy out,’ she scolded. ‘Robin is safe here. The truce has stood for more than a decade: Forest People stay out of Gisborne’s crooked dealings in Locksley and his thugs don’t enter the forest.’
‘I know,’ Marion said, holding up her filthy hands defensively. ‘But even normal guys get angry when you shoot them in the plums. And Gisborne whips people for kicks …’
Azeem put a hand on Robin’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring look. ‘Once I’ve showered, I’ll seek out Will and we’ll find the best way to keep you safe.’
Robin hardly heard this because he’d had a brainwave and wanted to confirm something he’d read on the tablet. He moved too quickly and got a blast of pain through his skull, then he scrolled to the top of the tablet screen and confirmed that the Gazette article had been published less than two hours earlier.
‘It says “wanted” under both pictures,’ Robin said as he zoomed in on Little John’s face. ‘Which means my brother is still out there.’
23. SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS
Treetop Buzz was another Sherwood Forest attraction that went bust when bandits frightened off the tourists.
Fraying rope bridges and zip lines had been engulfed by moss, vines and bird poop. At ground level, the tin-roofed sheds where people changed into safety gear and bought overpriced souvenir photos had become a base camp for Sherwood Women’s Union, or SWU.
Their food was veggie and there were Pride flags and feminist slogans draped about the big room they used as a lounge, but the number of weapons and stacks of boxed smartphones and polythene-wrapped cashmere sweaters gave Little John the feeling that politics took second place to stealing.
The women had tied his wrists, gagged his mouth and kept a brutal pace as they’d marched him deep into the forest. When they arrived at Treetop Buzz the gag came off, on condition he kept silent. They stripped Little John down to his tartan boxers, shoved him in a back room and used orange parachute cord to tie his wrists around a padded steel beam.
It was a room designed for kids’ parties, with low tables, a soft-play area and a Whack-a-Mole machine. Little John’s bindings had enough slack to raise a spoon to his mouth or unzip his fly, and he could stand, or slide down the post and sit. But neither position was comfortable and the tall woman – who the others called T – snorted and told him to suck it up when she came to empty his pee bucket.
The door of Little John’s room was propped open, so his captors could keep an eye on him. While he fretted about what would happen next, imagined his dad in a prison cell and wondered if Robin was alive, the women spent the evening on recliner chairs in the next room, popping endless cans of beer and singing along to the ancient musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, with a fancy soundbar and a giant projector screen.
John spent the night on a filthy tiled floor with his arms twisted awkwardly. He was anxious and only managed naps, the last one ending sharply when a soccer ball crashed against the outside of the wall behind his head.
Morning sun cooked the shack’s metal roof and left Little John with a sense of breathless panic. Contrasting with the freedom of the kids’ kickabout outside.
A seventeen-year-old called Agnes arrived in a Nottingham Penguins ice-hockey shirt. She gave Little John a pitying smile when she brought in a plastic bowl containing muesli soaked in milk that tasted slightly off. She seemed more cheerful than T, so he risked repeating his complaint and she flung over a couple of vinyl-covered cushions from the soft-play area.
The beam John was tied to was padded to protect kids, but the foam stopped just above his eyeline. Up near the ceiling the metal had rusted from a small leak in the roof.
After making sure there was nobody in the lounge, John used his full height and tiptoes, stretched the cord tight between his wrists and scraped it back and forth over rough, corroded metal.
The result was satisfying. Just ten seconds’ rubbing frayed part of the cord, and he guessed a few uninterrupted minutes would be enough to cut through. But there were people checking in all the time and they’d tie him in a less mobile position if they caught him.
If Little John was going to try to escape, he needed quiet time to grind through the cord, and a plan for when he broke free.
24. PEPPERS, EGGS AND PURPLE SPLOTCHES
Robin felt like stretching his legs and breathing fresh air when he left the clinic, but after a ten-minute rooftop stroll and a spell sitting cross-legged with Marion, scoffing Sam Scarlock’s mushroom-and-pepper omelette, he suddenly felt weak. He wobbled as he stood, and his vision flooded with purple splotches.
‘I need to lie down,’ he said, grasping the back of his head as Marion steadied him. ‘Sorry.’
‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ Marion said softly. ‘Shall I get someone to carry you down?’
Robin was too proud for that, but he had to hold both banisters as he went down the narrow roof steps. Marion put an arm around his back as they turned left onto the mall’s main arcade, with dead shops either side and tiny wrens making short, swooping flights under the roof.
‘Home, sweet home,’ Marion said, as she took off Robin’s pack, so she could squeeze between metal gates, pulled over a store entrance.
The high-ceilinged space inside stretched back forty metres and had once been the discount outlet for a major sports brand.
Two of Marion’s three little brothers were mucking around on a pair of escalators.
‘Matt’s nine. The oldest and most annoying,’ Marion explained. ‘The one chasing with the crazy red hair is Otto and I expect my mum is taking the little guy, Finn, to nursery.’
Most of the store’s shelving and display tables had been taken out, but there were empty shoe racks along the back wall, and the sides had giant black-and-white panels, with pictures of sports stars hurdling and dunking, and cheesy phrases like, Failing over and over is the reason you’ll succeed and The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.
As Robin stumbled after Marion, towards an area screened off by a large blue construction tarp, Matt dived onto the shiny metal strip between the two static escalators and slid down head first. Robin was alarmed by his speed, and relieved when the lad crashed into a mound of swimming floats and yoga mats at the bottom.
‘Hey, dummies,’ Marion shouted, as Otto followed his brother down and landed on top of him. ‘Your mums will murder you if they catch you doing that.’
Matt put hands on his hips and shouted back across the echoey space, ‘Who made you boss?’ before stopping at the bottom of the escalators and adding, ‘Is that your boyfriend?’
‘Idiots,’ Marion sighed, as they neared the tented area. ‘Matt literally just got his arm out of a sling from jumping off the roof. It’ll be miraculous if he survives into his teens.’
‘Most escalators have those sticky-up things to stop people sliding between,’ Robin noted.
Marion tutted. ‘Matt unscrewed them.’
Then she pulled back a rustling blue flap of a tarp suspended from sprinkler pipes under the ceiling. As Robin followed her through, he saw a comfy space with tons of cushions, two electric fans wafting air, and daylight streaming from a crudely cut skylight.
‘The shop fronts are all glass, so this gives us privacy,’ Marion explained. ‘The solar panels on the roof don’t generate enough power to run the mall’s main heating and air conditioning, so we make dens like this.’
‘It’s cosy,’ Robin said, as he looked to one side and saw that shop fittings and shelving panels had been adapted to make five private sleeping cubicles. ‘Does it get cold in winter?’
Marion nodded. ‘At Christmas I was sleeping under two duvets with a hoodie and a woolly hat. This time of year isn’t bad, but in high summer you sweat buckets.
‘My aunt Lucy and her boyfriend have their own den up on the mezzanine level,’ Marion continued, as Robin slumped on a giant beanbag and tilted his head back. ‘They’re away now and my brothers are noisy, so you might do better resting up there …’
‘My batteries are flat,’ Robin said, pulling off one sneaker as Marion put down his bow and backpack. ‘And those peppers made me thirsty. Can I bother you for a glass of water?’
‘You didn’t drink the whole time you were unconscious, so you must be dehydrated,’ Marion said, as she opened a little fridge and felt the temperature of a drinking bottle. ‘The electricity is wobbly when the sun drops, so I’m afraid it’s not very cold.’
Robin gave no answer and when Marion glanced away from the fridge she saw that he’d crashed out with one sneaker still dangling off his big toe.
25. SPICY COURGETTE CLEAR-OUT
The good news was that Little John had an escape plan.
The bad news was, it had many flaws and he was too indecisive to go for it.
The Sherwood Women’s Union seemed casual with their weapons. When John craned his neck to peer into the lounge he saw boxes of ammo, two rifles and an 80,000-volt stun stick lying amid empty beer cans and half-eaten nachos.
So, he’d wait until it was quiet, use the rust to grind through the parachute cord binding his wrists, grab a gun, then bolt for the door …
Sherwood Forest stretched over fourteen thousand square kilometres and John didn’t know where he was. But he knew people used to bring their kids to Treetop Buzz for a weekend outing and figured nobody would build a place like this more than a couple of kilometres from Route 24.
The road to the highway would be overgrown, but he could follow it on foot until he reached the motorway, and then …
This was one of the places where John’s plan fell apart. Nobody would pull off the highway to pick up a random giant teenager who’d wandered out of the forest. Especially one wearing tartan boxers and holding a gun.
Plus Little John had never shot or even loaded a gun, and had no idea where they’d put his clothes and boots after he got stripped.
He couldn’t see anywhere further than the lounge, so an armed guard might shoot him the instant he stepped outside. And his captors knew the terrain.
Every time Little John reached up to start scraping through his bindings, he found three more reasons not to risk it.
His torso trickled sweat as the day got hotter. Agnes checked in every so often and brought a bottle of tepid Rage Cola and some rice with spicy courgettes for lunch.
Little John couldn’t see a clock, but it felt like late afternoon when the teenager paid her next visit, stretching her hockey shirt over her mouth as she grabbed his toilet bucket and saw a big brown present inside.
‘Are you kidding me!’ Agnes snapped furiously, trying not to retch. ‘Pig!’
‘I can’t hold it in forever,’ John said apologetically.
The sympathy Agnes showed when she’d given him cushions had worn out. When she came back, she flung the hosed-out bucket hard enough to sting his leg.
‘I’m not doing this disgusting job again!’ Agnes told the world, as she stormed out. ‘Can we at least close the door, so his BO doesn’t stink up the lounge?’
Agnes’s anger drew T out of the Treetop Buzz manager’s office.
T gave Little John a look of contempt as her lanky frame leaned into his room, with hands resting on top of the door frame.
‘Does Gisborne want him or not?’ Agnes asked, making John feel like beef hanging in a meat locker.
‘My contact tells me the arrow Gisborne was shot with went deep into his groin and caused a lot of internal bleeding,’ T explained, as she scowled at Little John. ‘He’s been helicoptered to some fancy private hospital in the capital and needs complex surgery to sew up all the damaged pipes.’
‘So who’s left in charge?’ Agnes asked.
‘I think that’s our problem,’ T sighed. ‘Gisborne’s oldest kid, Clare, is getting involved. So are his current girlfriend, his ex-wife and at least three flunkeys who seem to think they’re boss. But nobody’s brave enough to hand us a big chunk of Gisborne’s cash without his say-so.’
‘How much longer?’ Agnes groaned, shaking her head.
‘Gisborne should be out of surgery by now,’ T said. ‘But his mind will be foggy when he comes round from a general anaesthetic, and it’ll take time to agree a price and organise the handover. So we’re stuck with our guest until morning, at least.’
Little John realised he’d have a better chance to escape at night, but didn’t let the women see he was pleased.
Agnes tutted again, irritating T.
‘Sister, it’s worth emptying slop buckets for fifty thousand!’
The teen snapped back, ‘Easy to say when you’re not doing the dirty work.’
As Agnes took a moody walk back to a paused Game of Thrones episode in the lounge, a little walkie-talkie clipped to T’s belt erupted with bleeps, followed by a tinny voice.
‘This is Jess at the treetop lookout,’ a stressed woman announced. ‘Red alert! I have eyes on Castle Guards.’
T snatched the walkie-talkie. ‘Is it a routine patrol?’
‘Negative,’ Jess said. ‘I’ve spotted four guards moving around to the west and I think there’s more creeping up from the other side …’
‘That’s an ambush,’ T told the radio. ‘All sisters who can hear this, tool up and get ready for a fight!’
‘I guess Gisborne’s people would rather not pay us,’ Agnes said, grabbing an assault rifle and fitting a fresh ammo clip. She threw this rifle to T before opening a cabinet to grab another.
‘Chuck me more ammo!’ T demanded.
Little John eyed the rust patch at the top of the post and heard an echoey popping sound, followed by the shack’s front window shattering.
T dived for cover as a black-finned object shot into the room and made a rubbery bounce off the ceiling. The fins broke off as it landed in the seat of a recliner and bright purple smoke began spewing out of the top.
‘You are surrounded by overwhelming force,’ a Castle Guard announced through a bullhorn, as the smoke swirled around Little John’s legs. ‘You have fifteen seconds to put down your weapons and step out with hands raised.’
‘Stick that where the sun doesn’t shine!’ T shouted back, scrambling back into the office to grab a gas mask.
‘Five seconds,’ the bullhorn announced.
Little John went on tiptoes and began frantically scraping his wrist bindings against the rust.
‘Four … Three …’
Nobody heard two, because a sniper rifle cracked off a shot from the treetops.
‘I blasted one …’ came over T’s radio.
Little John used his massive strength to snap the frayed remains of his wrist
bindings, as fifty people started shooting.
26. A DELIGHTFUL FAMILY MEAL
Robin slept until mid-afternoon and felt more like himself when he woke. Marion also napped, because she’d sat up through the night watching him.
She was still snoring gently in her cubicle when Robin stirred, so Matt took Robin up to the roof and showed him how to use the showers. Privacy was a wind-buffeted tarp attached to scaffold poles and the shower head was a soup can spiked with holes. It wouldn’t be fun in winter, but Robin loved it when he pushed the button and a blast of hot water soothed all his aches.
He had half of Sherwood Forest stuck to his skin and was amazed by the streams of grit coming out of his hair and gravy-coloured run-off swirling around the shower tray.
Back down in the Maid family den, Marion’s biological mum, Indio, helped Robin put antiseptic cream and new dressings on his wounds, while her dreadlocked partner, Karma, cooked up a huge pot of veggie Bolognese.
Middle brother Otto got told to wake Marion for dinner. The seven-year-old’s technique involved slapping her cheek with a bendy ruler, and Marion didn’t look impressed as she stumbled out of her sleeping cubicle.
‘My vengeance shall be merciless!’ Marion roared after Otto, who squealed and took cover behind Karma.
The two adults and five kids settled around a lurid-green dining table with bench seats. It had been unbolted from the kids’ area in Designer Outlets’ first-floor food court, and the plastic top was printed with chessboards, a snakes-and-ladders game and the logos of giant fast-food corporations.
Robin’s head didn’t hurt much now, but his mind churned thoughts about his dad in custody, Little John’s whereabouts and Guy Gisborne’s massive whip.
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