CHAPTER TEN

"Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
William Shakespeare

Gavin Featherly felt sick. He felt like his Nan had fed him an over-abundance of chocolate at Christmas and he was going to chuck it all back up. He wasn't nervous about what the police were going to do with him – no, being handcuffed and riding in the back of a police car had actually been quite exhilarating. He was more worried about how much his mam would flip her lid when she found out that he, Gavin Featherly – straight A student and serial arse kisser – had been caught shop lifting.

That wasn't the most mortifying thing, though. It was the fact that he'd been caught stealing toothpaste – Sensodyne toothpaste, specially formulated for people with sensitive teeth. He didn't even have sensitive teeth.

He couldn't believe Danny and Tim had abandoned him either. One minute they had been there, walking calmly out of Boots the chemist on Queen Street and the next he hadn't been able to see them for dust.

His first mistake was probably stopping when he was told to. Hardened criminals didn't do what they were told by authority figures. Hardened criminals probably didn't steal toothpaste either, to be honest.

He couldn't believe they'd abandoned him, though. They were supposed to be his mates. Mates didn't leave each other when the going got tough. They stuck together, through thick and thin, going down in a blaze of glory.

Gavin started out of his melancholy stupor as the door of the cell he was in banged open. The arresting police officer was standing there looking stony faced, but he had a companion now. A man in a smart business suit, a clean-shaven face and a look about him that said he had more pressing things to attend to than shoplifting teenagers.

"Are you my lawyer?" Gavin inquired meekly because he'd clearly been watching too much CSI and didn't know what else to say. The man laughed, apparently highly amused by this notion as he stepped into the cell. Gavin bristled slightly.

"I've come to bail you out," the man informed him, placing a hand on Gavin's shoulder. He thought about flinching away from the touch but it suddenly didn't feel like the right thing to do. He had a sudden notion that, no matter what happened now, everything was going to be all right. He would follow this man wherever he would lead and everything would sort itself out. The rest of the occupants in the cells at Cardiff's police headquarters were being released too, following this man in a suit like lambs to the slaughter.

Gavin Featherly didn't think anything of it.