Lone Wolf - Robert Muchamore Page 0,8
north-west accent sounded more curious than alarmed.
‘I’m friends with Chloe,’ Fay said airily. ‘She gave me the key and said to wait for her. We’re studying together.’
Fay emphasised this by making a writing gesture.
‘Studying what exactly?’
‘Our subject,’ Fay stuttered.
‘You’ll have a tough time. She dropped out and works behind the till in Tesco’s. Now tell us who you are and why you’re sneaking around our house?’
As the lad said this, he moved up the stairs and tried to grab Fay’s arm. He was well-built, so Fay’s only advantage was surprise. She let the hand grip her shoulder, but countered with a vicious palm under the chin. As the student stumbled back, Fay launched one of her newly acquired black boots at his stomach. Then she jumped down the stairs and knocked him cold with a knee to the face.
‘That’ll teach you to ask awkward bloody questions,’ Fay said, as she crouched down and started going through the student’s pockets.
She found ten pounds in his jeans, but hit the jackpot when she got into his room and found a wallet containing fifty. That gave her enough to get back to London and grab something to eat along the way. There was also an iPhone, but it asked for a pin code when she turned it on, so she left it behind.
5. EUSTON
Fay expected cops every time someone came into the carriage, every time the train stopped and when she arrived at London Euston. It was 8 p.m., bitter cold and sleety. After scoffing a quick Burger King she took a bus to Islington.
The studio apartment Kirsten owned there was at the top of a six-storey block. The lift was out and Fay got called a ‘skinny slut’ by random kids hanging out on the stairs. Once she was in, she switched the boiler on. She found a bin liner and placed the knife in it, along with everything she’d worn that day.
After a shower Fay towelled off and opened a wardrobe. There were spare clothes, though she’d grown since they’d been left here so she ended up wearing some of her aunt’s gear instead. Once she was dressed, Fay pulled an armchair out of a corner, rolled back the carpet and lifted a floorboard.
She felt slightly more secure when she saw the cache. There was twenty thousand in cash, two small bricks of cocaine, mobile phones and a selection of weapons and body armour, including two automatic pistols and a compact machine gun.
Fay took out a knife and a couple of hundred in cash. The only place to sleep was a sofa bed, so Fay unfurled it and hunted around until she found a duvet and pillows in a cupboard off the hallway. As she lay in bed, part of her was tempted to turn her mobile on to see if there was any message from her aunt, but she knew it would give her location away.
Instead she burrowed under the duvet feeling scared, trying not to see the knife slashing the cop’s face and hoping that her aunt was going to turn up with some sort of plan.
*
Fay woke early, but had nothing to do except hide. It was a grim December morning and the flat felt lonely so she reached out with her big toe and switched on an ancient portable TV. The signal kept breaking up, but Fay sat with her head poking out of the duvet watching a cosy interview with a bunch of kids from some new reality show, followed by Carol the weather girl.
Then the seven o’clock headlines gave her a ten-thousand-volt shock.
‘Manchester police are hunting a girl of thirteen who left a police officer in a critical condition after a major drug deal went wrong.’
Fay saw herself up on screen. The first image was blurry CCTV footage from the lobby of the Belfont hotel. The second was a full-resolution photograph, taken when she’d visited France the previous summer. The cops could only have got it by searching the apartment in St John’s Wood.
The TV cut to a clip from a police press conference:
‘Following lengthy surveillance work, Manchester Police in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police staged an operation to break up a large drug deal. Several Manchester gang members and a London-based female were arrested. Sixteen kilos of cocaine and a large quantity of cash were also seized.
‘One of the suspects is believed to have brought her thirteen-year-old niece with her. When police tried to apprehend the girl, she assaulted two officers, leaving one in