Lone Wolf - Robert Muchamore Page 0,4
have spaces, it might be possible to get you in after Christmas.’
Fay gulped. ‘That’s just over three weeks. I thought you were talking about September, when the new school year starts.’
‘I’d rather you bedded in to school life before you start your GCSEs.’
Fay smiled. ‘If I get a good report, can we rob someone during the school holidays?’
Kirsten laughed. ‘Fay. You scare me.’
‘Why?’
‘I rob drug dealers to make money,’ Kirsten said. ‘You’re just like your mother was. You want to rob places for the hell of it.’
3. MAGAZINES
Kirsten drove from London to Manchester in a silver Mercedes wagon, hired using a driving licence and credit card in the name Tamara Cole. Fay spent the journey in the back seat reading a book about a man who sailed around the world. She liked the idea of being all alone in a tiny boat, with waves crashing around it.
‘I want to do a sailing course,’ Fay announced, as the silver Merc eased past a coachload of pensioners.
‘If you do well at your new school,’ Kirsten said.
Fay seemed satisfied with the answer and delved back into her book.
Their destination was the Belfont. It was one of Manchester’s newest hotels, with a swanky black marble lobby where the air had a slight jasmine scent and illumination so moody that you could barely see a hand in front of your face.
The sixteen kilos of cocaine had travelled in a wheeled aluminium case, and Kirsten had to shoo off a top-hatted doorman eager to help with her luggage. Kirsten asked for directions to a meeting room called The Windermere and got directed to the ninth floor.
After backing away from reception, Kirsten looked at Fay and spoke in a whisper.
‘They won’t like having a kid in the meeting, so you wait here. They’ll want to check every brick for purity before handing over the cash, so I’ll be gone for at least forty minutes. Don’t wander off.’
Fay didn’t look too happy. ‘All right if I go to the Starbucks across the street and grab a Frappuccino?’
The green Starbucks roundel was visible in the street opposite the lobby and Kirsten nodded.
‘But don’t go any further than that. Once we’re sorted, we’ll find somewhere nice for a late lunch and shopping, OK?’
Fay wasn’t a big shopper, but she wanted some new running shoes, and wondered if she’d be able to find any more books on sailing.
As Kirsten waited for the lift up to the ninth floor, Fay exited the hotel lobby through a revolving door and crossed a side street. It was still cold out, so after a short queue she ordered a hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. The Starbucks seats looked comfier than the ones in the hotel lobby so she settled into an armchair close to the counter and fished her book out of a little linen shoulder bag.
Her aunt seemed confident that she’d sell the drugs they’d stolen from Hagar, but they’d never dealt with this Manchester-based crew before. So even though it was a good book, Fay found it hard to focus with her aunt involved in a seven-hundred-grand drug deal across the street.
She had the hot chocolate up to her lips when a woman kicked her outstretched leg. Instead of saying sorry, she glowered at Fay.
‘Can’t you mind where you’re putting them legs?’
‘How about you look where you’re walking?’ Fay spat back irritably.
The woman didn’t reply. She just grabbed a cardboard rack with six coffees slotted into it. As she headed for the door, Fay noticed how the woman was all bulked out around her waist, and wearing black shoes like a cop would wear.
Fay took another sip and decided she was being paranoid, but then something else hit her: the woman had spoken with a London accent. So there was a woman from London wearing cop shoes, with her waist bulked out like she had cuffs and equipment. And she was buying six drinks, like there was a whole bunch of them . . .
Am I imagining things?
Sometimes when you’re nervous you see things that aren’t really there. If Fay had been certain she’d have called her aunt straight away, but she wasn’t, so she burned her mouth downing the hot chocolate and stuffed her book back in the linen bag as she headed for the door.
The woman with the six drinks was already across the street and pushing her way through the Belfont’s revolving front door. From the rear Fay caught the unmistakable silver glint of a set of handcuffs poking