Free Crusher by Niall Leonard

was a sun terrace with a set of wrought-iron table and chairs that looked like they’d come from a catalogue and had never even been sat on. Leading away from the terrace and heading off nowhere in particular was a timbered framework laid out like a tunnel, for roses to climb on. A pergola, that was the word for it. I dodged into it and paused, looking around for CCTV cameras. If I could see them, they could see me. But this seemed to be a blind spot. I leaned back into a gap between rose bushes and tried to figure out what to do next. Tricking my way through the front gate had seemed like a great idea, but I would never get out the same way. In fact, I couldn’t see how I was going to get out at all, and I didn’t even know what I was looking for. What the hell was I doing?
    I was looking for McGovern, that’s what I was doing. Why not just ask him to his face if he knew about my dad and the script he’d been writing? Even if he didn’t answer the question, I thought I’d be able to tell something from his reaction. Maybe he’d get some of his heavies to work me over for trespassing, but what the hell, I’d been smacked around before. When I realized I could take on anyone in the boxing club and win, I’d started boasting about it, and Delroy had arranged for a special visit from an ageing clapped-out middleweight.He hadn’t even had my reach, but he still knocked seven shades of shit out of me. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, my dad had said, getting out a bag of frozen peas for my jaw. I thought that was bollocks at the time, and I still did. It was quite possible McGovern would just kill me, and if he only half killed me it wouldn’t make me stronger.
    Presuming McGovern was there. He might not be. The man had properties all over Europe, supposedly, and an island in the Caribbean. Who’d want to be in North London in April when they could be on a beach in Jamaica? Maybe this whole journey had been a waste of time. But to hell with it, I was here now, and I couldn’t squat in the bushes till it got dark. I might as well look around.
    Pretending to be with the gardening team had got me this far, and it might buy me some time if things went pear-shaped. I pulled a few stems off the rose bush behind me and got a few bloody scratches from my trouble. Clutching them in my hand, I walked on round the house, feeling like some village idiot carrying a bouquet of twigs and thorns for his favourite goat. The house seemed to go on for ever; I guessed it had started off with four walls and a roof, then been extended sideways and to the rear, and those extensions had sprouted more extensions, and extra floors, and carports. Betweenthe outbuildings and extensions little sun terraces and patios and barbecue areas were dotted around, some looking vaguely Spanish, others all black and white and minimalist, as if whoever designed them couldn’t make up their mind what they liked.
    I heard voices; a child screaming. The screams had a ringing echo like you’d hear at a swimming pool. About ten metres away was a long, low outbuilding with a slanting glass roof. The screeching was coming from there. That’s where everyone was, I thought, hanging out at the indoor pool. Mind you, what’s the point of having your own pool if you can’t keep screaming kids out of it? The screeching went on and on—a little girl, by the sound of it. She would pause for breath, then start again, and nobody was scolding her or trying to get her to shut up, from what I could tell.
    By now I was at the corner of the pool building. The brat’s echoing shrieks were so brain-piercing I had momentarily forgotten to check for CCTV. I peeked round the corner, to find that the end wall was made up of glass panels that folded back so that the pool opened straight onto a sun terrace. The middle door-panel was open, and through the plate glass I could see a girl of about five in a frilly pink swimsuit, crouching slightly, hugging herself, and