CHERUB: Brigands M.C. - Robert Muchamore Page 0,81
turn the roaring formation into tangled metal.
*
McEwen’s interrogation of Nigel and Julian the previous day had revealed many facts. The most important were the identity of a Newcastle-based drug cartel that was taking delivery of the assault rifles and the name of Paul Woodhead, who’d paid Nigel and told him where to collect the weapons.
Woodhead was an inactive South Devon Brigand. He’d retired after a riding accident and moved to a remote cottage near Dartmouth, twenty kilometres north east of Salcombe. He’d been off police radar for more than a decade and his emergence as an element of the Führer’s weapons smuggling operations was a major breakthrough.
This information was useful, but McEwen suspected Nigel wasn’t telling him everything he knew. McEwen would have liked to spend more time on the interrogation, but Nigel and Julian had to be released or they’d fail to make their delivery in Bristol and the Brigands would become suspicious.
While the boys were under interrogation, Neil Gauche had fitted listening devices inside their mobile telephones and wallets. Nigel told McEwen that they would meet with Paul Woodhead on Saturday morning to receive their payment for the delivery. McEwen planned to follow them to their rendezvous and listen in, hoping that he might glean information on future deliveries and in particular the huge order made by undercover officer George Khan through the London Brigands.
With his beard gone, his hair cropped and the Brigands out of town Neil Gauche felt reasonably safe parked in a street directly below Marina Heights. The bug in Julian’s wallet picked up a muffled version of the teenager’s morning routine, including pissing, push ups, Crunchy Nut and a polite conversation with his parents about the chamber orchestra they’d seen in Torbay the night before.
When Nigel called on his mobile, Julian said goodbye to his parents and picked up his friend in his Fiat at the bottom of the road out of Marina View. McEwen and Neil were in a small BMW less than a hundred metres away.
‘Dartmouth,’ Nigel said. ‘I’ll navigate. I’ve done it before on my bike.’
‘You see Caitlyn last night?’ Julian asked, sounding quite upbeat as he pulled away.
‘Yeah,’ Nigel said happily. ‘You seemed to be getting on pretty good with that girl in the bar.’
‘Twenty-five years old,’ Julian smiled. ‘Got her phone number. I might call her later and ask her out for a meal or something.’
‘Cool,’ Nigel said.
McEwen pulled away as Julian turned out the end of the street. The tracking device in the Fiat’s wheel arch gave an accurate location signal from anywhere in the country, but they had to keep within one and a half kilometres to pick up the audio from the listening devices.
‘I didn’t sleep,’ Nigel said. ‘That guy McEwen really put the shits up me.’
‘My ribs are black and blue,’ Julian said. ‘My nose is all clogged with dried blood. I weigh seventy kilos and he wasn’t even straining when he slammed me down on that table.’
‘Hard bastard,’ Nigel nodded.
McEwen and Neil smiled at each other. Serious criminals like the Brigands didn’t speak openly in cars, avoided mobile phones and used codes, but Nigel and Julian were just a couple of sixth formers and it hadn’t occurred to either of them that their car or possessions had been bugged when they were pulled in.
‘We’ve always been mates,’ Nigel said. ‘I’m sorry I got you into this.’
‘From now on I’m buying my spliff with cash only,’ Julian said. ‘No debts to repay.’
‘This gun-running shit’s too heavy,’ Nigel said. ‘My brother fixed up something else for tonight, but I’m gonna speak to Paul about it. You don’t get MI6 or whoever it was threatening to drop you in the shit when you’re selling weed to a few mates.’
‘So we pick up our money and we’re free and clear,’ Julian said cheerfully. ‘Money in our pockets, no debts and a date with that randy little twenty-five-year-old.’
‘Like old times,’ Nigel said noisily. ‘Sex, weed and parties!’
Neil and McEwen kept a kilometre behind until the Fiat pulled into the grounds of Paul Woodhead’s farm house. Neil had scouted the location the night before and they passed the front gate and pulled on to a track a few hundred metres from the house.
Woodhead came to his door in wellies and jeans. He was a big man, with a knee that buckled with each step. His thinning hair was combed back and matted down with sweat.
‘Another scorcher,’ he said as the door came open. ‘Let’s walk.’