After Hours by Jenny Oldfield

more time.
    â€˜Maybe. Maybe not.’ Rob’s brain was a riot of ideas, some feasible, some not. They could sell both Morrises and buy one new Cowley. They could team up with another outfit, cut down on overheads, start saving all over again. They could borrow more money. ‘Maybe not!’ he repeated, careering through puddles with a hot hiss of steam. He pulled to a halt outside the depot, leaped out and slammed the door as he went inside.
    Walter jumped into the serviced car still parked inside the garage. Richie handed him an address, saying the woman had already rung up twice to ask where he was. Rob started up the engine, Walter put his foot down and was on his way. Rob went into the office to check the next job on the list.
    â€˜What the bleeding hell’s this?’ he asked, shoving a basket to one side. He glowered at the scrawled messages.
    Richie frowned. He stood in his shirt-sleeves, a wide leather belt buckled carelessly round his waist, his collarless shirt open at the neck. ‘Sadie brought it in,’ he answered. His choice had been to get rid of the basket and avoid awkward questions, or to leave it on view. Some stubbornness in him had chosen the second option. Now he stood looking steadily at Rob as the information sank in.
    Rob, never one to ask questions, pounced on the one unacceptable fact. ‘She never came down here?’
    â€˜She did.’ Richie took his jacket from a peg behind the door.
    â€˜By herself?’
    He nodded.
    Rob kicked a chair to one side and slammed the office door shut. Its glass panels rattled. His eyes widened, his fists clenched as he pinned Richie into one comer. ‘Now listen, Palmer, you leave that girl alone, you hear me? You lay one finger on her and I’ll break your neck!’ He faced his strong, able-bodied opponent head on, without a scrap of fear. Even when Richie unfastened his belt and swung its brass buckle out in front, wrapping the leather strap around his wrist for a firmer grasp, Rob refused to back off. ‘Come on, then! Come on! What you waiting for?’ He crouched low and made a beckoning motion.
    â€˜You don’t want a fight,’ Richie warned him, low and menacing. ‘Ain’t nothing worth fighting over.’
    Further enraged, Rob swung at him. Richie dodged sideways, escaping from the corner. He was three or four inches taller than Rob, younger, fitter.
    â€˜I’m telling you, lay off my sister. She ain’t interested, get it? She don’t want nothing to do with a hooligan like you!’ Rob spat with ineffectual rage. He swung again, once more missing his target.
    â€˜You’d better ask her that.’ Richie put the desk between himself and his boss. He never even raised his voice.
    To Richie, things had suddenly changed. Five minutes ago he’d been prepared to vanish, without wages, without explanation! He’d take his cap and jacket off the hook and never show up again. This thing with Sadie was too complicated. Since he never knew which way she’d jump, he felt the whole affair was out of his control, and he was uneasy. Besides, whenever he saw her, his urge to hold her and the memory of kissing her that once resurfaced and threw him further off balance. He didn’t like that feeling one bit.
    Now it was different; Robert had come charging in with orders, with the idea that he could lord it over Richie and rule his life. Richie had never been able to bear being told what to do. Brought up by Barnardo’s, he’d learnt to follow his own instincts to survive. He took the children’s home for what it gave him – food and shelter – but he hated the rules and Christian browbeating that went with them. He left there when he was ten years old. His teenaged years on the streets had toughened him up and taught him never to trust. Then two years of army service had fuelled his obsession with car engines. He gleaned information and experience from