the flex tightly around his wrists and ankles.
‘Where’s our drugs, Joe?’ Kerry asked, bunching her fist in the air above him.
‘How old are you guys?’ Joe grinned. ‘Thirteen, fourteen?’
‘Nearly thirteen,’ James said.
‘I’ve seen it all now,’ Joe said. ‘You guys were supposed to get scared and run home to Mummy.’
‘Shut it,’ Kerry said in a firm voice. ‘From now on, you talk when I say so and you better make sure I like the answer. So, for the second time, Joe, where are our drugs?’
‘Found ’em,’ James said, spotting the two backpacks beside the couch.
He unzipped them, making sure the stuff was still inside.
‘Look for the gun, and anything else you don’t want him coming after us with,’ Kerry said. She kept Joe under control while James searched the flat. The shotgun was inside Joe’s leather jacket, hanging up by the front door. James found a pistol and more drugs under the bed. It was cocaine in one-gram bags, identical to what James delivered most nights.
He’d been trained where to look for hidden stuff and an uneven piece of skirting was a dead giveaway. James pulled it off and found two supermarket carrier bags stuffed with more cocaine, and a few thousand pounds in scrunched-up cash. James stuffed the drugs into the carrier bags on top of the money and carried the lot into the living-room.
‘Shall we take all this?’ James asked.
‘Why not?’ Kerry said, smiling. ‘He made us suffer.’
‘We better not hang around here,’ James said.
‘You kids are in way over your heads,’ Joe gasped.
Kerry bunched up her fist. ‘Did I ask for your opinion?’
She grabbed a wad of serviettes out of a greasy pizza box and forced them into Joe’s mouth.
‘Are we gonna call a cab, or what?’ James asked.
Kerry pointed at a picture on the wall. ‘Is that parked around here somewhere?’
James looked over his shoulder at a framed photo of a slimmer, younger Joe, standing in front of an American car. It was a fancy two-seater, with mad-looking air scoops on the bonnet and a two-tone orange paint job. James read the little gold plaque stuck on the frame: 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1. Tuned to 496 Horsepower.
‘They look like car keys on the coffee table,’ Kerry said.
Joe wriggled his arms and furiously tried to shout something through the serviettes plugging his mouth.
James grinned as he picked up the keys. ‘Sure beats hanging around for a mini-cab to turn up. Where’s it parked?’
‘You wouldn’t leave that on the street around here. It must be in one of the garages out the back.’ Kerry pulled the soggy wad of tissue out of Joe’s mouth. ‘What’s your garage number?’
‘If you touch my car,’ Joe gasped, spitting bits of white fluff off his tongue, ‘you’re both dead.’
Kerry smashed her trainer into Joe’s guts.
‘Next time it’ll be your balls …’ Kerry shouted, as Joe groaned in agony. ‘What’s your garage number?’
‘No way,’ Joe grunted.
‘James,’ Kerry said sweetly, ‘hand me the gun, please.’
James passed it across. Kerry pulled down on the stock to load it and pointed the sawn-off barrel at Joe’s knees.
‘The next word out of your mouth had better be a garage number,’ Kerry snarled. ‘Or it’s gonna take a miracle to get the bloodstain out of this carpet.’
James knew Kerry wouldn’t pull the trigger, but she put on a good act and Joe wasn’t so confident.
‘Forty-two,’ Joe said.
‘How hard was that?’ Kerry said. ‘And if you’re lying, I’ll come back here in a minute and blow off your foot before I ask again.’
‘OK, OK,’ Joe gasped. ‘I lied … It’s in number eighteen. Why don’t you call a cab? It’s a very powerful car. Do you kids even know how to drive?’
‘Don’t you worry yourself about that,’ James said.
All CHERUB agents are taught to drive. It’s essential to be able to escape on wheels if things turn nasty.
‘Why don’t you take a pair of Joe’s trainers?’ Kerry asked.
‘Too big,’ James said. ‘They’ll be like clown shoes on me.’
‘We better rip the phones out,’ Kerry said. ‘We don’t want him calling his pals before we’re well on our way.’
She pulled the phone out and kicked the socket off the wall with her heel. James pocketed Joe’s mobile and demolished the extension in the bedroom.
Kerry grabbed both backpacks.
‘Ready to go?’ she asked.
James got the carrier bags with the money, pistol and Joe’s drugs. They went out of the front door and walked briskly along the balcony, down the stairs and around to the garages at the back. Kerry’s head was