CHERUB: Brigands M.C. - Robert Muchamore Page 0,93
van Woodhead arrived in.’
‘Van,’ Chloe smiled. ‘So they’ll load up into that.’
‘I’d guess,’ McEwen said. ‘The coastguard are going to track the boat on radar, just in case it tries to drop the cargo somewhere else. My biggest worry is that none of our equipment is designed for use at sea.’
Chloe nodded. ‘The memory chips will store the video from the deck even if the signal drops out though.’
‘Yeah,’ McEwen said. ‘But what about the weather? Sea, salt spray and all that.’
‘At least the sea’s calm,’ Neil noted, as he dragged a chair across the van’s floor towards the monitors. ‘We’re gonna be here for a few hours, Chloe. You might as well sit down.’
*
By quarter to eight there were about twenty kids in the Führer’s house, mostly Year Nines but a couple who were a year or so either side. The teenagers were past the age for sleepovers and birthday parties, but not yet comfortable with the concept of an evening party with no parents, unlimited booze and a chance of getting your hands on members of the opposite sex.
The result was awkward, with boys drinking cans of lager around a pool table and dart board in the back lounge, while a slightly smaller number of girls colonised the kitchen, mixing cocktail recipes from a book belonging to Joe’s mum, or sprawled over the chairs in the adjoining conservatory gossiping about their lives and in particular the lies they’d told their parents in order to come to an unsupervised party.
Dante was slightly drunk after two beers, and he bumped into Anna at the top of the first-floor stairs as he came out of the toilet.
‘This is dull,’ Anna complained, as she went up on tiptoes and gave Dante a kiss. ‘Everyone down there is brainless.’
Anna’s breath smelled boozy, but Dante didn’t complain as she pushed him against the wall and slid her hand down the back of his shorts while they snogged. A couple of girls giggled and said, ‘Oooh Anna!’ as they walked by and went into the bathroom together.
‘Lesbians,’ Dante sniggered.
Anna took his hand and gave him a tug. ‘Let’s find somewhere private,’ she said.
‘You’re braver when you’re tipsy,’ Dante smiled, as they walked down a corridor covered with a dated turquoise carpet.
The first room they opened was Martin’s. The large space was similar to Joe’s room, but with fewer gadgets and a big map of the world on the wall with pins marking all the places where he planned to travel.
They skipped Joe’s room, then laughed when they opened his parents’ bedroom door and saw Marlene’s giant underwear and the Führer’s baggy Y-fronts lying on the floor.
‘Old people’s bodies are so horrible!’ Anna winced. ‘I want to die young and beautiful.’
A loud cheer came up from the lads playing pool downstairs. As it subsided the two girls came out of the bathroom and Dante and Anna dived through the double doors at the end of the corridor to make sure that they weren’t spotted.
‘Wow,’ Anna said, as she stared along the narrow room towards a bay window draped with heavy velvet curtains. The land dropped away sharply where the house ended and there was a view over orange sky and an expanse of fields and countryside.
The room was the Führer’s study and it reminded Dante of the German officer’s headquarters in a hundred World War Two TV dramas. A painting of Hitler hung over the fireplace, and a shop dummy wore a full Gestapo uniform.
‘Joe’s dad isn’t quite right in the head,’ Anna noted, as she looked around. ‘He’s got guns as well.’
Dante saw the pair of shotguns. He knew that the Führer held a shotgun licence, and the firearms cabinet was fitted with toughened glass and a heavy lock as the law required. Below the case were open shelves containing a selection of crossbows ranging from an expensive handmade bow with an optical sight to a selection of cheap-but-powerful crossbow pistols.
‘No psycho’s home should be without one,’ Dante grinned, picking up a menacing looking crossbow and pointing it at Anna.
‘Don’t,’ she protested, and shielded her face.
‘There’s no bolt loaded,’ Dante smirked, as he put it back on the rack. ‘Silly girl.’
Anna put one hand on her hip and adopted a soppy look. ‘I’m not silly,’ she said.
Her body language said snog me and Dante obliged. Anna ended up on a leather armchair in Dante’s lap, joined at the lips with their hands roaming. But Dante froze when he noticed a picture on the wall above