Then one night they were doing a big place, bigger than usual. Col rapped at the door, nobody answered. All was fine. They moved round the side of the building in the moonlight, laughing because they looked like they should have a bag marked ‘swag’ on their shoulders as they tiptoed along. They found an open window. Beezer wasn’t with them tonight, but they had enough backup should they need it. Terry clasped his hands together and boosted Col up there. Col grabbed the window frame and wriggled through without any trouble at all. He dropped down onto the floor inside.

Outside, Charlie and Terry were still laughing, waiting for Col to open the front door. Then there was a noise.

Terry stopped laughing.

‘What the fuck was that?’ asked Charlie in a loud whisper.

All of a sudden, Col screamed. It was the most godawful spine-tingling, bowel-loosening scream either of them had ever heard.

Charlie was fumbling for his torch, unable to find it. Terry was leaning into the window, but he couldn’t see a fucking thing inside. But the screaming. He could hear the screaming, loud and clear.

Charlie found the torch. With shaking fingers he flicked it on and aimed it at the window and for a second all he could see was the reflection of his own bleached-out face. Then he angled it down.

‘Oh shit!’ he muttered, feeling hot stinging sick rise in his throat, threatening to choke him.

He staggered back a step and Terry grabbed the torch off him.

‘What?’ Terry was demanding, over and over. ‘What is it . . . ?’

Then Terry looked along the torch’s beam and he saw.

Little Col was being dragged around the room inside there, and he wasn’t screaming any more. A Rottweiler as big as a tank was gripping Col by the neck and yanking him this way and that. A liquid pool of dark red was spreading out, staining the floorboards. Col’s eyes were closed.

‘Shit,’ said Terry, flicking off the torch, his face frozen in horror.

‘We got to clear off,’ said Charlie flatly. ‘He’s dead.’

‘What? No! We got to get him out of there,’ said Terry, wondering how the hell they were going to break this to Beezer.

‘You bloody serious? That bastard’s finished him, and he’ll finish us too. Come on. We’re going.’

It was the talk of the streets for weeks after.

‘You knew that little scrote Colin, didn’t you? Didn’t you used to hang around together at school?’ Mum asked Charlie. ‘Bloody thieving off people. Still, what a way to end up. Nobody should finish like that.’

‘I knew him. Not very well,’ said Charlie, wishing the old girl would shut her mouth.

‘Robbing off people’s houses. It’s disgusting.’