Black Friday (CHERUB) - Robert Muchamore Page 0,51

banged back. ‘I’ve put up with your snoring every night for the last five years.’

Ryan laughed. Natalka knelt on the bed, one striped sock, black knickers, white singlet and no bra. Ryan loved her desperately, but his mind was in faraway sky imagining F18s and Ilyushins, and Natalka’s mum laid out on the runway with a camouflage-clad Yank aiming a rifle at her. The bedside clock told him that the scene he kept imagining had probably played out about an hour earlier.

‘No parents,’ Natalka said, as she put her head in Ryan’s lap. ‘You wanna sleep here?’

For all the time they’d been seeing each other, Ryan and Natalka had never actually spent the night together. Ryan wasn’t sure if Natalka was hinting that she wanted to have sex. The prospect excited him, but while he was a virgin, Natalka had knocked about with some older boys. He suspected she’d had sex before, and was scared that he’d do it all wrong. And if he did, Natalka was the kind of girl who’d laugh her arse off rather than show any sympathy …

‘I guess I could stay here,’ Ryan said. ‘Are we talking about … ?’

‘No we’re not,’ Natalka said firmly, and Ryan was kind of relieved. ‘My mum’s got vodka though. What say we get hammered and blow off school tomorrow?’

Ryan laughed as Natalka rolled a bottle of cheap Russian vodka out from under the bed. ‘Get the Pepsi and some glasses.’

It should have been great, but Ryan felt like puking.

Just after 9 p.m., the Kremlin PA started gurgling. The system was a relic from Soviet days and most of the funnel-shaped wall speakers either didn’t work or had been ripped off. The closest one to Natalka’s room was down the far end of a hallway by the toilets and you could barely hear it.

‘What’s it saying?’ Ryan asked, cupping his ear. ‘Something about the assembly point.’

‘Probably drunks pissing about,’ Natalka said. ‘If it’s anything important they set off the fire alarm.’

Natalka’s comment coincided with the fire alarm and they both laughed.

‘And there you have it,’ Natalka said, a touch drunk. ‘Confirmation of my genius.’

‘Best move, in case it is a fire,’ Ryan said, knowing it wasn’t as he reached for the floor and threw Natalka her jeans.

If it was a fire, they’d have to go outside, so they put on shoes and hit the hallway pulling on their warm coats and making sure they had gloves. The fire alarm automatically locked out the lifts and they merged into bodies going down the stairs.

There was no panic, and Ryan and Natalka quickly picked up rumours that everyone was being brought down to the lobby for some big announcement.

‘Nat-al-kaaaa!’ a guy called Vlad said, as he rudely pushed a couple of people out of the way.

Vlad was eighteen, a fair-haired Russian. He was the son of a loadmaster and had a reputation for being not too bright.

There wasn’t much to do at the Kremlin, but there was a big stack of outdoor weights in the yard out back and a lot of young guys were into bodybuilding. Ryan had bulked up there himself, but mainly used the weights for fitness and as an excuse to pick up gossip from the older guys. Vlad was at the other extreme and had reached his present size with the help of serious steroids.

‘Well, well,’ Natalka said acidly. ‘All the bugs are crawling out of the woodwork.’

Vlad and Natalka had gone out with each other in the past. Ryan didn’t know the details, but found the four-year age gap paedo-ish.

‘I’m surprised you and Ryan are still an item,’ Vlad said.

Vlad left his comment hanging, but resumed when Natalka didn’t take the bait.

‘I heard Ryan went for a stroll on Saturday. Dirty little boy wound up in the café by the bus station.’

Ryan gulped. ‘You’re talking out of your arse.’

But Natalka was intrigued, because Ryan had disappeared on Saturday afternoon and she’d given him a weird look when he’d arrived back in Igor’s car without a single item of shopping.

‘Which bitch did you go for?’ Vlad teased. ‘Scabby Su-Ling? Licey Lucy? VD Valenka?’

Igor spent a lot of time in the Kremlin bar and must have flapped his mouth when he was drunk.

‘I had a Coke and I left,’ Ryan said, slowing right down as more people joined the staircase from the first floor.

But Natalka looked pissed off. ‘That place is way over by the bus station. There’s no bus to the Kremlin, so how’d you end