Read The Criminal Escapades of Geoffrey Larkin for Free Online Page B

the boys from his dormitory. There was a danger he would lose his hold over this group, which was based on fear and intimidation. His eyes had been reduced to fine slits from the effects of the mustard. Through this misty haze he picked out the perpetrator of his present situation standing with the two brothers who had also recently dared to challenge his authority.
    Sidney Locket was the biggest boy in the school; he was even bigger and heavier than most of the teachers. Something had snapped in his brain.
    All Sid Locket saw through the mist of pain were three boys who he was going to give the biggest kicking they had ever had in their short lives. There was murder in his heart as he made for the group at the dirty plates table.
    The rest of the boys scattered as Locket, his face now a deep purple, wheezing and gasping for breath with tears streaming from the fine slits where his eyes had once been, headed in the general direction of Geoff and the Bolton brothers. He was like a wild bull, kicking to one side several chairs that he happened to stumble against, in his headlong rush to make physical contact with the three younger boys whose images were growing dimmer by the second through his rapidly closing eyes.
    Geoff bolted one way and collided with the Bolton brothers who were going the other way. They parted as Locket, arms outstretched, charged to where all three had been a split second before. He missed the boys by inches but his impetus carried him forward until he collided with the table holding all the dirty dishes. The combined weight of all the crockery and a big thirteen stone lad was too much for the frail timber supports of the fold away piece of furniture. It snapped in half sending all the dishes onto the floor of the canteen with a resounding crash, leaving the figure of Sidney Locket floundering in the centre amongst the broken remains of crockery, greasy plates, knives, forks, spoons and portions of left-over food.
    By now there were several teachers trying to regain some form of order by sending the rest of boys, including Geoff and the Bolton brothers, most of whom were laughing hysterically, from the canteen and into the school playground.
    Geoff was standing with the Bolton boys as the ambulance took Sidney Locket away. He was laid out on a stretcher covered with a blanket, a mask over his face and tubes connected to a gas cylinder bottle that had OXYGEN written in large letters on the side. Via the school grapevine Geoff heard Sidney Locket was kept in hospital for three weeks with severe blistering of his mouth, a badly swollen throat and some minor problems with the lining of his stomach. When he recovered he did not return to the young offenders’ institute
.
By then he was eighteen so he was released into the care of a social worker where he was allowed to mix with the unsuspecting general public.

    *
    â€˜Bullies are always cowards,’
murmured Geoff to himself, recalling one of the sayings of the old tramp who he had not seen for several years. When he had been on the run from the social workers he had been to the old house on several occasions but Sir Reginald was never there. He knew that he had been there though because the cigarettes and the bottle of cheap booze had been removed from their own special hiding place.
    The last time he had visited the property it was fenced off with all the ground floor windows and doors securely boarded up with large signs warning, ‘Unsafe – Keep Out!’ Geoff managed to gain entry by removing an iron grid in the rear yard then sliding down into the basement; this was where the coal was delivered for the original occupants.
    There were several inches of water in the cellar that he hadn’t noticed in the poor light. It came over his shoes and soaked his socks. He squelched up the stone basement steps forcing open the flimsy wooden door at the top to give him access from under the stairs into what had been the kitchen.
    Their hiding