CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,14

boys at Warrender Prep and no matter how much Fahim explained that the Bin part of his name simply meant son of and was no different to a British boy with a name like Johnson or Stevenson, his schoolmates couldn’t resist calling him Bin Laden. They made jokes about his lunchbox being packed with explosives and refused to sit next to him on school trips in case he blew himself up. The plane crash would make this situation even worse.

After placing the pancake plate in the dishwasher, Fahim moved into the annexe where his father worked. This part of the house was fitted out like a commercial office, with carpet tiles, strip lighting and two offices: one for his dad and another for his uncle Asif.

As he closed on the office, Fahim heard his parents Yasmin and Hassam arguing.

‘How can you possibly be sure?’ Hassam shouted.

‘I do your bookkeeping and spreadsheets,’ his mother replied coldly. ‘There are invoices from Anglo-Irish Airlines on our system.’

‘I run a container-shipping business,’ Hassam said, pounding on his desk as his son listened from the corridor outside. ‘We have invoices from a hundred companies every day.’

‘They will investigate—’ Yasmin started, but her husband cut her dead.

‘This doesn’t concern you,’ he insisted. ‘My business is in order, while our son runs wild. You spoil him. Why don’t you deal with that, while I worry about my business?’

‘You know how they investigate,’ Yasmin said. ‘They recover every piece of debris. They lay it all out in a hanger and practically rebuild the aircraft.’

‘But nothing can be traced back to us,’ Hassam shouted. ‘I’m busy, let me work.’

‘This disgusts me. Over three hundred people are dead.’

‘Leave my office and let me work, woman.’

‘You’re not the man I married,’ Yasmin said bitterly. ‘You disgust me.’

Fahim backed down the corridor as his father roared with anger. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. After all the teasing he’d faced because he was Arab, the idea that his parents had something to do with a crashed airliner felt like a sick joke.

‘Let go of my hands,’ Yasmin cried, before sobbing with pain. Fahim couldn’t see, but he knew his father was bending her fingers back, like he always did.

‘Bitch,’ Hassam yelled as he cracked his wife hard across the face. She crashed backwards on to a leather couch and sobbed noisily.

Fahim felt sick as he backed up towards the kitchen. He wished he was big enough to defend his mum, but all he could do was scurry upstairs to his room.

‘What the devil’s got into you?’ the cleaning lady asked, as Fahim’s socks skidded on the polished floor.

‘None of your business,’ he snapped angrily.

He buried his face under his pillows and tried not to cry.

*

Yasmin Hassam had grown up in the United Arab Emirates. She’d always expected to marry, bear children and become a loyal wife. While she often found herself hating Hassam Bin Hassam, she’d never considered divorcing him.

‘Did you eat breakfast?’ Yasmin asked as she walked into her son’s bedroom and found him curled under the pillows in his uniform.

Fahim rolled on to his back and saw that his mother had positioned a headscarf over her swollen eye, but no amount of make-up could disguise her fat lip.

‘Look at the state of you, Fahim,’ she said brightly, as she pulled a silk square from a pocket and spat on it before zooming in to wipe chocolate sauce off her son’s lips.

Fahim hated mum spit, but after the beating she’d taken he didn’t want to make her life any more difficult.

‘I got my own breakfast,’ he said, trying not to sound shaky. ‘I thought you must have gone into the office to help Dad with his work, so I left you to it.’

Yasmin nodded. ‘Your father is snowed under at the moment. It’ll be best if you give him and Uncle Asif a wide berth for a day or two.’

Fahim wanted to ask about the conversation he’d overheard about the airliner, but he knew his mother wouldn’t tell him and a big chunk of his brain wanted to shut it out and pretend that he’d never heard.

‘Get your shoes on,’ Yasmin said as she glanced at her watch. ‘You know what the traffic’s like. If you want we can stop on the way and get McDonalds.’

Fahim managed a half smile, but as he stood up and grabbed his school shoes from under the bed, his mother noticed that his hands were trembling.

‘Sweetheart,’ Yasmin said, as she pulled her son into