CHERUB: Class A - Robert Muchamore Page 0,80

illegal bank accounts. So they send some thugs in to take Keith hostage and smack him around until he gives them all the bank account details and transfers all his money over to them.’
‘Keith would have had no comeback,’ Beverly added. ‘You can hardly go to your local precinct and complain that the money you made selling illegal drugs that’s stashed away in illegal overseas bank accounts has been stolen.’
‘It’s almost the perfect crime,’ John said. ‘Except the guys they sent in were so incompetent they forgot to check upstairs and get you and Junior out of bed.’
‘Actually,’ James said, ‘we weren’t in bed. Me and Junior sneaked out and went down the beach for a midnight swim.’
He thought it was best not to mention the boxing match.
‘Well, it’s a good job you did,’ John said, breaking into a smile. ‘Otherwise you’d have woken up with a gun pointing at your head.’
31. CATCH
James grabbed a few hours’ sleep in Beverly Shapiro’s office at the DEA’s Miami headquarters. She woke him up at ten the following morning and dumped clean clothes and trainers on the desk in front of him.
‘We got those from the house,’ Beverly said. ‘There are showers down the hall if you want to clean up. We’re going to speak to Keith Moore in about forty minutes. John said you can sit in the observation room and watch if you want to.’
‘I thought Keith had been shot,’ James said.
‘Only in the shoulder. It’ll heal up.’
‘How’s Junior?’ James asked.
Beverly sighed. ‘The bad guys didn’t think Keith was telling them everything about his bank accounts, so they stopped hurting Keith and started on Junior. He’s got a broken nose, broken collar bone and some serious internal injuries.’
James felt sick when he tried to imagine what Junior must have gone through. ‘I should have done something to help him,’ he said.
‘What could you have done against eight armed men?’
Beverly asked, smiling sympathetically.
‘So is Junior going to be OK?’
‘He won’t be able to fly home for a while. He’s asked to see you, but you don’t exist any more.’
‘What do you mean?’ James asked.
‘The United States has no immigration record for James Beckett. You’re booked on a flight to London this evening. We want you to disappear before people start asking questions about you and the guy you shot in the chest.’
‘Oh,’ James said. ‘I kept having these creepy dreams about the gun going off and the room where it happened. Is he dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘He wouldn’t stop coming closer,’ James said, feeling tense as he replayed the scene in his mind. ‘I tried getting him to back down. I thought about shooting him in the leg, but I was taught to go straight for the chest.’
‘I would have done the same,’ Beverly said. ‘You can’t take chances, especially when it’s not your own weapon. You didn’t know how many bullets you had, or if the gun was some rusty piece of junk that’d jam up the second the barrel gets hot.’
‘I just can’t believe I killed someone.’
*
James showered in the men’s locker room. There was paraphernalia everywhere – police radios, holsters, body armour. James stared at his hands while the water rushed over his body, studying the finger that had killed someone a few hours earlier. He didn’t exactly feel guilty about killing a man who was going to kill him, but it did make him a bit sad. The guy probably had a mother, or a kid, or something.
‘Hey, boy, what you doing?’
James looked up to see a couple of muscular cops stripping off their kit.
‘Beverly Shapiro said it was OK to clean up in here.’
‘You sound English.’
James nodded. ‘I’m from London.’
‘Cool,’ the cop said. ‘You ever met one of the royal family?’
‘Sure,’ James said, laughing. ‘I hang out with them all the time.’
James stepped out of the shower and started towelling off. He looked at the cops’ guns lying on the slatted wooden bench and wondered if they’d ever been used to kill anyone. Then he wondered what it would be like to die. He hadn’t given it a thought while he was trying to escape, but there were two bullet holes in the Range Rover, less than a metre from where he’d sat.
Beverly took James to the canteen. She told him to put his bacon and scrambled eggs in a polystyrene box so he could eat it in the observation suite. It was a narrow room, with a row of plastic chairs and black and white monitors. There was a