CHERUB: Brigands M.C. - Robert Muchamore Page 0,123

Lucy told Maureen, who sat at a desk nearby. ‘What do you think?’

‘They’re like two peas in a pod,’ Maureen replied. ‘Surly, miserable, teenaged peas.’

‘With zits,’ Lucy laughed, as the twins remained determinedly silent. ‘They were so much easier to match up before they started getting hormones.’

Lucy took out a powerful LED torch and moved it methodically over Callum’s skin. He had a couple of bright red zits on his neck that would hopefully be covered up by the collar of his shirt. Connor had a more visible zit on his right nostril, and Lucy got to work with her make-up bag, toning down Connor’s zit with concealing cream and painting a red patch on to Callum so that the boys looked identical.

‘Stand up straight,’ Lucy ordered. ‘Shoulders touching.’

When the twins stood level Lucy carefully eyed the top of their heads. ‘You’re catching up, Callum,’ she said. ‘But you’re still about ten millimetres shorter than your brother. I’ll give you a lift to put inside your shoes.’

‘Nobody will notice,’ Callum moaned.

‘It’s only a tiny difference, but twenty tiny differences are enough to make someone suspicious, as you well know.’

‘Do you ever get them mixed up?’ Maureen asked.

Lucy laughed. ‘I’ve spent enough time staring at these two under bright lights and magnifying glasses to know every blemish. But the easiest way to tell them apart is Connor’s nose. It tilts slightly to the right if you look carefully.’

Maureen stood up and looked as Lucy pointed out the difference. ‘So it does,’ she said.

‘That’s where our mum lost it and smashed my face against a tabletop,’ Connor explained.

The twins rarely spoke about their early years, but they’d been taken into care aged seven and their mother had spent eighteen months in prison for abusing them. This awkward truth hung in the air until Lucy broke it by giving Connor a gentle prod in the buttock with the pointed end of a plastic comb.

‘You’re done,’ she announced.

‘That was sexual harassment,’ Connor moaned. ‘I’m suing!’

‘Sexual harassment, you wish,’ Lucy said, as she poked him again. ‘Don’t wash off your make-up, sleep on your backs. If anything calamitous happens, you can call my mobile number. But I live in Sevenoaks and I’ve been on duty all day, so please try not to.’

Callum and Connor both thought Lucy was sexy and laughed, until they caught themselves smiling at each other and went back to being miserable. The two boys turned towards matching sets of school uniform lying across the bed, along with matching shoes and two backpacks with cricket bats sticking out of them.

As Lucy packed her make-up bag into a wheeled case, Callum started getting dressed. When he was done, Maureen took a photograph of how he looked, while Connor made sure that his tie was knotted at the same length as his brother’s.

‘Did you put the lifts in your shoes?’ Connor asked.

He didn’t sound nasty, but it was designed to needle his brother about being a few millimetres shorter.

‘Of course I did,’ Callum said acidly. ‘I’m not a moron.’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ Connor said.

Maureen sensed another row brewing and stood up. ‘You know boys, I heard that they’re looking for a couple of lads to scrape the sludge out of two hundred metres of guttering around the mission control building. Would you like me to volunteer you?’

The twins got the message and shut up.

Thursday, 4.17 a.m.

The embassy was in a grand terrace close to Regent’s Park. A black people-carrier stopped two doors away and Callum and McEwen stepped out into a drizzly summer morning. The pair had green boiler suits with the name of a heating engineering company zipped over their clothes and McEwen carried a large metal toolbox and a long policeman’s torch. They walked up six steps and a security guard opened the door before they could buzz the intercom.

‘Are you familiar with the protocol?’ the guard asked, as he led them up thickly carpeted stairs, with chandeliers hanging overhead.

‘Just about,’ McEwen said. ‘But remind me anyway.’

The guard wore the uniform of a regular security company, but was actually an MI5 operative. ‘We’ve had a technical crew working up here for the last two nights making your access point. Of course, it goes without saying that there might be a major diplomatic incident if you were caught.’

‘We’ll do our best not to be,’ McEwen said, smiling cheekily. ‘I promise.’

‘I got picked for tonight’s assignment because I worked with a CHERUB agent many years ago,’ the guard said. ‘Lovely girl