CHERUB: The Killing - Robert Muchamore Page 0,72

story I suppose: it’ll be my word against Holmes’, but it’s still a damned nuisance. It’ll be half a day wasted dealing with CIB, when I’ve got a million better things I could be doing.’

Millie turned the screw a little tighter. ‘I did get one other detail: James’ solicitor reckons he’s got hold of some CCTV footage of the incident.’

‘Oh,’ Mike said, audibly shocked. He missed a couple of beats before covering himself. ‘He can have all the CCTV he likes, boss, because nothing happened.’

‘Of course,’ Millie said. ‘I know you’re whiter than white, Michael. You’ve got nothing to worry about and you know I’ll be supporting you all the way. I just thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.’

21:17

John snapped his mobile shut and tucked it into his jacket as he headed down the deserted seventeenth-floor corridor. Greg and Ray walked in step behind him.

‘Good news?’ Greg asked.

John nodded. ‘That was Millie calling. She’s a good cop, but she’s tearing herself apart over all that’s been happening. She’s just spoken to Patel. She reckons he swallowed her line about the phoney complaint. He won’t be sleeping easy tonight with that hanging over his head.’

‘So how old are these cherubs?’ Ron asked.

‘Dave’s the oldest, he’s seventeen. James and Kerry are thirteen and Lauren is ten. You’ve got to remember though, they aren’t ordinary kids. They’re all intelligent, disciplined and highly trained. The things I’ve seen them accomplish in the year that I’ve worked for CHERUB have been astonishing.’

John slid his key card into the lock and pushed the door open, revealing a scene of destruction. There were sofa cushions scattered about, dots of popcorn everywhere, streaks of water across the carpet and puddles on the furniture.

James nearly crashed into John, as he sprinted out of the toilet holding an ice bucket filled with water.

‘Oh …’ James said, wilting under John’s scowl.

John looked set to kill. ‘James, what in the name of god are you playing at?’

‘We’re just messing,’ James said, glancing around at the carnage. ‘I suppose we got carried away.’

Kerry burst out of the bedroom, holding a plastic water bottle and using a pillow as a shield. ‘I’m gonna make you guys so wet …’ she said, tailing off abruptly when she spotted the three men standing in the doorway.

‘You two stand over there,’ John yelled, pointing at the wall. ‘Where’s the other one?’

Lauren meekly emerged from beneath a pile of sofa cushions in the far corner. She had a gigantic Coke stain down her T-shirt and significantly more popcorn stuck to her clothes than James or Kerry.

‘This behaviour is ridiculous,’ John screamed. ‘Millie has set off the sting operation, there’s a room next door packed with tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of electronic equipment and you three are throwing water around and acting like a bunch of five-year-olds.’

He pointed at Lauren. ‘You, get in the shower right now. The other two, I want you to straighten up, wipe up the puddles and pick every piece of popcorn off this carpet. And be quick about it, because if this place isn’t cleared up by the time Dave gets here, I’m gonna start dishing out punishment laps.’

Ray and Greg were grinning at each other as they stepped into the lounge area and began brushing popcorn off a couple of the sofa cushions.

‘Highly disciplined,’ Greg laughed.

John allowed himself to smile as everyone mucked in with the clearing up. ‘No matter how much we train ’em, they’re still kids.’

21:32

James returned the vacuum cleaner to the housekeeping cupboard at the end of the hotel corridor. Now they’d finished cleaning up, he realised he needed a shower to get all the bits of toffee off his skin, but Kerry was queuing outside the door and Lauren was still in there.

He battered the door. ‘Get a move on, Lauren. Any normal person takes five minutes, not twenty.’

‘Use the shower in the other room,’ she yelled back.

‘We can’t,’ Kerry yelled. ‘Chloe’s got cables running from the shaving socket. You can’t close the door and the steam might blow everything up.’

‘OK,’ Lauren tutted. ‘I’ll be two more minutes.’

James and Kerry leaned against the wall near the entrance of the room, facing each other. John and the two cops were drooling over the surveillance equipment in the next room. Kerry’s face was red from chasing around. She wore a giant T-shirt that almost went down to the bottom of her shorts and one lemon trainer sock. The other one had gone missing during the battle.

James