CHERUB: The Fall - Robert Muchamore Page 0,83

out what Ewart’s saying.’

James looked down and realised that his muddy trainers were trashing the carpet in the footwell, but he had more important stuff to worry about. He grabbed a sheet of sticky-backed listening devices from Dana’s backpack. The grey pads were smaller than James’ little fingernail and looked like something you might use to mount photographs.

‘Do you want to do the talking?’ James asked.

‘If you like,’ Dana nodded. ‘You’ll need the palmtop to record the signal from the bugs and there’s a set of walkie-talkies in there somewhere too.’

Once James had everything in his pockets, they got out of the car and walked briskly towards Jason McLoud’s house. They kept a cautious eye out, just in case Ewart decided to turn up early.

When they reached number fifty-one, Dana pulled a mobile and called McLoud’s home phone number. She’d swiped two unregistered pay-as-you-go phones from a store room on campus so that they couldn’t be tracked.

‘Hello,’ Dana said brightly. ‘Is that Mr Jason McLoud?’

Dana waved James on as soon as she heard the elderly man’s voice: if he was on the phone, he’d be unlikely to notice James walking down his driveway.

‘Mr McLoud,’ Dana continued. ‘I’m pleased to tell you that Penguin Travel is able to offer you a special four-hundred-pound discount on one of our Caribbean cruises.’

As McLoud went into a clearly audible rant, demanding to know how they’d got hold of his number and threatening to complain to the telecoms regulator, James cut down the side of the house and crouched between the wall and McLoud’s MG convertible.

‘If cruising isn’t your thing, how about a Florida vacation? I’m sure your grandchildren would love—’

‘Piss off and don’t call me back,’ McLoud shouted, before slamming down his phone.

His voice was so loud that James could hear him through the hallway window. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and whispered: ‘In position and ready to go.’

‘Roger that,’ Dana replied as she pocketed her phone and walkie-talkie. She started walking towards McLoud’s front door and rang his bell.

As soon as James heard the bell ringing, he pulled the sheet of tiny listening devices out of his pocket and began creeping into the back garden. The bugs were designed to detect speech through vibrations in glass. His job was to creep around the outside of the house, sticking a bug to each window while Dana kept McLoud busy on the doorstep.

‘I’m not buying anything,’ McLoud said, when he opened the front door. He was clearly still in a mood from the fake sales call.

Dana turned on all of her feminine charm for the slender journalist, who wore carpet slippers and a hearing aid.

‘You must be Becky’s granddad,’ Dana said.

McLoud looked confused. ‘I don’t know that name.’

While Dana explained that she was here to see her friend Becky and that she couldn’t understand, because she’d definitely been given the address of Becky McLoud at 57 Hillcrest Road, James moved swiftly across the back garden. He stuck bugs to the kitchen window, a small window in the hallway and the conservatory at the back. Finally, as he heard McLoud tell Dana that his surname was McLoud, but that he was one-hundred-percent certain that no one called Becky had ever lived in his house, James crept back to his position alongside the car.

‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you,’ Dana said.

‘It’s not a problem,’ McLoud said, though the groan as he closed his front door indicated otherwise.

As James ran back up the driveway towards the road, Dana leaned across and stuck a bug to the long window at the front.

‘Needn’t have bothered with that one,’ James said as they walked back towards the Volkswagen. ‘It’ll be in the conservatory at the back. There’s cups and biscuits already set out on the table.’

‘Excellent,’ Dana said. ‘We’d have been buggered if he’d taken Ewart upstairs to his study or something. I reckon we ought to move the car out of sight. We don’t want Ewart spotting us as he drives by.’

34. SARAH

Dana drove the Volkswagen down the alleyway leading towards the rugby pitches, then did a three-point turn so they could pull out quickly. James sat in the passenger seat with the palmtop computer rigged up to record the signals from all six listening devices. He had a power line plugged into the cigarette lighter and another cable going into the iPod socket on the dashboard, so that they could listen through the car stereo instead of the tinny speaker built into the computer.

For twenty minutes, they listened to Jason