Ollie sat in a chair while Emily sorted him out. She was a quiet girl with a permanent half-smile on her face.

‘So you work with Einstein then, do you?’ Ollie asked her.

Emily just said, ‘Mmm,’ and carried on cleaning his wound.

‘And you know what you’re doing?’ Ollie flinched as she wiped the cut.

‘Let’s face it,’ said Emily softly. ‘None of us really know what we’re doing, do we?’

‘Guess not.’

‘Whoever stitched up Achilleus’ ear certainly didn’t. Made a right pig’s arse out of it.’

‘It’s an improvement,’ said Ollie.

‘I helped him clean it last night,’ Emily went on, ‘and gave him some fresh bandages. It’s a mess. He’s going to look well rough when it heals.’

Ollie winced as Emily rubbed something stingy into his cut.

‘I told you I didn’t know what I was doing,’ she said.

Ollie looked around. The kids were unwinding. There was something peaceful and relaxing about this place. Surely if there had been any sickos in here there would have been some signs of them.

He didn’t allow himself to completely loosen up like the others. He could sense the relief all round at being inside and at least temporarily safe from attack. Achilleus was sitting chatting to Jackson and Paddy. Blue was talking to Einstein. Mick’s fighters were casually searching the place, going through the drawers behind reception and studying bits of paper. Ollie’s guys were slumped like him, lost in their own thoughts.

The only one of them who appeared uptight was Big Mick, who was pacing up and down muttering to himself. Eventually Emily finished what she was doing and went over to him. Made him sit down and roll up his sleeve. Ollie watched as Mick turned away, not wanting to look at his bleeding arm. The big man obviously wasn’t as macho as he made out.

There was a shout from the kids behind reception and they started to lay some plans out on the desk. Blue and Einstein joined them and they all started nodding and pointing. After a while Blue jumped up on to the counter.

‘OK, listen up,’ he shouted. ‘We got a plan. Looks like there’s some big loading doors at the back of the warehouse where the supplies are kept, but we don’t reckon we’d be able to get them open from the outside.’

‘We could try,’ said Achilleus.

‘No,’ said Blue. ‘The less time we spend outside, the better. Ain’t safe out there.’

‘So what we gonna do then?’ Achilleus asked. ‘Sit around on our arses in here?’

‘Why don’t you just listen?’ Blue was trying not to lose his temper. ‘We think we found a way through from the inside. We got to go through the offices and down to the next level, then there’s this sort of underground tunnel that will take us into the warehouse.’