CHERUB: Brigands M.C. - Robert Muchamore Page 0,19

and Linda were on the sofa, Ross in an armchair and Holly lying on her belly in front of the TV messing with a stack of DVD boxes.

‘Basically,’ Ross admitted. ‘The alternative would be to keep you here and give you twenty-four-hour police surveillance, but we don’t have the resources.’

Dante had got used to living with the Graveses and their menagerie of foster kids. He was disappointed, but he’d suspected that moving would be the only practical option.

‘This Doods,’ Ross said, as he pulled a flip photo wallet out of his briefcase. ‘Is that the only name you’ve ever known him by?’

Dante nodded. ‘That’s how it works with the Brigands. Like, my dad probably knew the real names of all the guys in the South Devon chapter, but with other chapters it’s just nicknames. And it’s rude to ask.’

‘And he was definitely from Holland? But no patch identifying his chapter?’ Ross said. He opened the thick photo wallet about two thirds of the way through and passed it to Dante. ‘Take a look and see if you can pick him out.’

Dante took the album and flipped through photographs of Dutch Brigands. Some were police mugshots, but most were surveillance shots taken at biker festivals, concerts and runs. These were the centrepiece of outlaw biker culture, taking place during the warm weather between Easter and September with bikers from all over the world meeting up at a central location.

Some events were Brigands only. The biggest were open to everyone from lone riders to members of the major international outlaw gangs and drew in up to ten thousand bikes. At the friendlier events, the South Devon Brigands would hire a pair of coaches and bring along wives, girlfriends, hangers-on and kids.

Many of Dante’s best memories were of going on runs. You got muddy and didn’t wash for a week, you slept in tents, ate food cooked on a fire or drove to the nearest town for takeaway. The adults got drunk and let kids roam free between motorbikes, beer cans and bonfires.

The pictures made him sad, because he’d become what bikers hated most: a snitch. Many of the bikers posed for the surveillance photos, flexing muscles, grimacing and mooning the camera.

Dante welled up when he recognised a small blond girl hanging off a man’s leg. Dante and Joe had made friends with her a few years earlier. They’d been four years old and both lads were fascinated by the way she had to pull her jeans down and squat when she needed to pee.

Holly was at the age where she wanted whatever Dante had and with so much attention on the photo album she made a grab.

‘Not for you,’ Dante said gently. ‘I’ll play with you later.’

Holly squealed in protest until Donald came over and scooped her up.

‘What I don’t understand is how they could have found Dante here,’ Linda said. ‘I mean, this Doods was a big fellow. He could have come in with a gun or a knife and there’s nothing Donald or I could have done to stop him.’

‘Information leaks,’ Ross said bitterly. ‘The Brigands might only have sixteen full-patch members in South Devon, but there are four times that number of hangers-on, the Dogs of War and the Monster Bunch are basically Brigands puppet gangs with another fifty members, and they all have wives, girlfriends and other relatives. That’s between a hundred and fifty to two hundred biker associates in South Devon. Somewhere amongst that lot there’s bound to be someone who works as a cleaner in the police station, or a secretary at Dante’s old school who saw where his school record was sent, or someone whose brother-in-law is a cop.’

Dante looked alarmed. ‘You’re saying I can never be completely safe?’

Ross shrugged uneasily. ‘Dante, something has gone badly wrong and we underestimated the threat from the Führer and the Brigands organisation. We’ll have to be more thorough and give you a complete new identity. That will take a while to put together and while you’re waiting I’m going to suggest to social services that you move in with me.’

‘Presumably he’ll be much safer once the Führer is behind bars,’ Donald added. ‘I mean, they might hold a grudge, but nothing will get the Führer out of prison once he’s convicted.’

‘That’s him!’ Dante said, as he saw Doods standing in a crowd of full-patch bikers. They held beers and stared without interest at a stripper on stage in the background. ‘Photograph number eight-one-four. This guy, third from the