New Guard (CHERUB) - Robert Muchamore Page 0,1

taunted. ‘How do you like my tight little shorts now?’

‘This is entrapment,’ Nigel shouted, pointing at Leon. ‘He set me up … What have you done with my damned shoes?’

‘I’m sure they’re around somewhere, Nigel,’ Leon teased.

Nigel started wagging his finger in presenter Jason’s face. ‘I have a very, very good lawyer. If you put this online I will sue you for every penny you have.’

Jason smiled to the camera. ‘Paedophile Hunting takes legal advice on everything we do, Mr Kinney. Perhaps you’d like to take my business card so that your lawyer can contact me?’

‘Pricks,’ Nigel shouted, as he gave up on finding his shoes, grabbed car keys from his pocket and opened the front door. ‘May you rot in hell.’

Leon and his twin gave Nigel two-fingered salutes as he stumbled on to the leafy driveway in his socks. They stood behind the camera operator as she filmed Nigel getting into his car, revving the engine and squealing his rear tyres as he backed off the drive.

Everyone paused for breath, then smiled.

‘Nicely done,’ the camera operator said, as she switched off and took the bulky cam off her shoulder.

Jason grinned and led the quartet in a round of high fives. ‘You boys were great.’

‘How long till the video goes live on your YouTube?’ Daniel asked.

‘I’ll upload the footage to my edit guy in London. He should have something online by this evening, and we’ll send the evidence to the cops by tomorrow morning.’

‘And you’ve got to blur our faces,’ Leon said firmly. ‘We could get in a lot of trouble with our ’rents for getting involved in this.’

‘For sure,’ Jason agreed. ‘There is one thing though.’

‘What?’ Leon asked.

‘Your contact, the one who got us intelligence on Nigel Kinney’s previous convictions and stuff. Is there any way I could talk to them personally?’

The twins shrugged. Daniel answered, ‘We’ll help you again if we can.’

‘But our contact is personal,’ Leon added, before checking the time on his phone. ‘Can you run us to the station? Our dad will go ape if we don’t make it home before six.’

‘Sure,’ Jason agreed, before glancing at his camera operator. ‘You mind starting the clean-up here while I drop the boys off?’

As the camera operator nodded, Jason grabbed his car keys, but Leon had disappeared into the living-room.

‘We need to shift, Leon,’ Daniel said anxiously. ‘There’s only one train an hour and it’s due in fifteen.’

‘I know,’ Leon agreed, as he grabbed a set of black trackie bottoms draped over a leather couch. ‘But I don’t care how late we are, I’m not going out in public in these dumbass shorts.’

2. BALLS

‘It’s weird,’ James Adams admitted, as he sat at a circular table in Channing’s restaurant, twelve miles from CHERUB campus, eating a starter of deep-fried risotto balls. The twenty-four-year-old former CHERUB agent sat close to his fiancée Kerry Chang, while long-term friend Bruce Norris sat opposite with bean salad and a nasty black eye.

‘What’s weird?’ Bruce asked.

‘When I shut my eyes, it’s like yesterday that my mum died,’ James explained. ‘Waking up on campus, meeting you guys for the first time. Being a cherub …’

Bruce paused to count on his fingers. ‘Thirteen years, pal.’

‘And in my head, when I’m working on campus and one of the kids is up to something I feel like I’m one of them. But then I have to do a double-take, and be Mr Mission Controller and get them to listen and behave.’

‘Can I taste?’ Kerry asked, not waiting for an answer before stabbing half a risotto ball with her fork.

‘You always do that,’ James moaned.

‘What?’ Kerry growled.

‘You say you don’t want a starter and then you eat half of mine.’

Kerry turned sideways, gave James a quick kiss before poking his slightly bulging stomach. ‘You don’t need the calories, fat boy.’ Then she pointed across the table. ‘Look at Bruce, all tanned and muscly from Thailand.’

‘I can’t help it,’ James said. ‘I’m stuck behind a desk most of the day.’

‘He failed his staff fitness assessment on campus,’ Kerry said. ‘And frankly, I’m fed up looking at his paunch.’

‘It’s just my build,’ James protested. ‘Body fascist.’

‘So anyway,’ Bruce said, pausing as a waitress swept by close enough to overhear, then speaking to Kerry. ‘What are you doing now? Are you on campus?’

Kerry shook her head. ‘I visit weekends. If James is around and I’m not working.’

‘She sold her soul to the devil,’ James added.

Bruce looked confused, before Kerry explained. ‘Unlike certain boyfriends of mine, who inherited hundreds of thousands of