Lone Wolf - Robert Muchamore Page 0,68
a mission controller and he wanted to do things by the book.
‘I guess it depends,’ James said, letting the sentence hang until Ryan responded.
‘On what?’
‘Well, I’m finding laundry a chore. And emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming. I might be prepared to be lenient if those things got taken care of.’
Ryan smiled and nodded. ‘I’m on school holidays now, anyway.’
‘Maybe the odd foot massage,’ James added, but it was such an obvious joke that Ryan didn’t bother to respond.
‘Thanks,’ Ryan said.
‘What about Ash’s package?’ James asked. ‘When’s he due to deliver it?’
‘Monday morning.’
‘What’s your plan?’
Ryan shrugged. ‘I don’t have one yet. But they’ve given me his home address, and it’s a safe bet that Ash will keep it in his house until he goes out to deliver it.’
35. GEARS
The girls watched Warm Bodies on Ning’s MacBook and switched out the light just after eleven. An hour later, Fay lay on a floor softened with cushions and beanbags. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but at least she couldn’t hear rats scuttling about like on the allotment.
Ning had a foot dangling over the side of her bed, and made a gentle whistle with each breath. Fay kept one eye on Ning as she sat up and began feeling for her things in near darkness. She slid on a T-shirt and jeans, but could only find one balled-up sock so she gave up and pulled her All Stars over bare feet.
After checking that her wallet and keys were in her pockets, Fay unplugged her phone from its charger and began creeping out. It was warm, so the door was ajar, but the hinge still squealed and Fay was relieved when she glanced back and heard Ning’s familiar whistle.
At this time in the morning, Nebraska House’s main door was locked and could only be opened by a button in the staff room. Fay crossed a hallway, entered a room that she knew was unoccupied and unlatched the window.
They were on the ground floor, but this side of the building was raised up, so Fay jumped off the window ledge and dropped a metre and a half on to woodchips. There were CCTV cameras, but Fay knew nobody watched them full time. She made a dash, before stepping on to a low wall and swinging her legs over a mesh fence.
Fay mixed doubt, excitement and the odd yawn as she walked briskly towards Kentish Town underground. She arrived twelve minutes later, finding metal grilles over the station entrance and a sign inside saying that the last train had now departed.
Feeling slightly dumb, Fay headed to a bus stop to work out which night bus would take her to Totteridge. The map at the stop only showed the local area, so she resorted to her phone and worked out a two-bus combo that would take her north to the allotment.
*
Ryan had spent his Friday night belly down on the flat roof of a day-care centre. The spot gave him a view over the ground-floor apartment where Ash lived with his mum and brother. Ash had been visited by a hot Year Eleven girl, and Ryan felt jealous as the pair spent an hour behind closed curtains.
The girl left just after 9 p.m. Twenty minutes later an elderly BMW coupé came by and blasted its horn. Ash and his ten-year-old brother got in the back carrying overnight bags, and Ryan figured that the man had to be their dad.
Once the boys had left, Ryan looked into the living-room. Their mum sat in a big armchair, surfing with an iPad and watching TV, with the window wide open and curtains billowing on a night breeze. Ryan willed her to go out or go to bed, but three hours ticked by, during which the scratchy roof felt dimpled his skin and he twice had to crawl behind an air conditioner and take a piss.
It was half midnight when Ash’s mum closed the window and switched off the TV. Ryan couldn’t see the windows out back, but he gave it forty minutes, by which time he felt fairly certain she’d be asleep.
Ryan would have preferred an empty house, but all things considered Ash and his brother spending the night with their dad wasn’t a bad result. He stifled a yawn as he crossed the street. There were two drunk couples walking arm in arm, so Ryan diverted around the block and headed back to Ash’s flat when the street looked empty.
His aim had been to get in through the front door, but Ryan