New Guard (CHERUB) - Robert Muchamore Page 0,37

don’t work for the newspaper any more, do you?’

‘When classified advertising went online, the Echo went under, like most local newspapers,’ Tanisha admitted. ‘I have two office cleaning jobs and I volunteer in a women’s shelter. But I still live in the community and I still hear things.’

‘So your source on this was reliable?’

‘My source was a housekeeper who worked for Uncle’s third wife. I don’t know her well, but she had nothing to gain by lying to me.’

‘So Uncle turned radical?’

Tanisha looked slightly irritated by this comment. ‘Uncle drinks alcohol and holidays in Las Vegas, his latest wife and four of his six children aren’t Muslim. So he’s not about to grow a beard and start living under the principles of Sharia Law. But after the drone strike, he is violently opposed to western interference in the Middle East and North Africa.’

‘And is he active?’ James asked. ‘Does he donate to causes?’

‘Uncle has the morals of a sewer rat. He’s had drivers run over by their own taxis, blackmailed local planning officials, petrol-bombed family businesses that don’t pay his protection fees and beaten two of his ex-wives into the hospital. He now makes four or five trips a year to the Middle East. I have no idea what he’s up to, but if I were you, I’d be looking for something that’s unsavoury and highly profitable.’

21. JUDO

Ryan met the twins as they headed out of school. They grabbed McDonald’s, then drove to the Sunray Travel office. Monty and a guy with a hipster beard were doing design work in the office, as the three brothers ripped up carpet tiles in the print room.

Just before six, Monty went out and got coffees for everyone. The quintet sat around having their break when a key turned in the main door. The new arrival was short, sunburnt skin peeling off his nose, and ten years older than in police surveillance photos. But it was unmistakably Uncle.

He was accompanied by a broad-shouldered Asian woman, dressed in canvas pumps and a jogging suit.

‘Uncle,’ Monty said, trying to sound warm, but obviously cacking himself as the little man looked around at the whirring humidifiers and glue patches where the carpet had been ripped up.

‘What’s all this then?’

Monty looked sheepish. ‘We had a flood.’

Uncle gave his accomplice a nod. She gave Monty a brutal punch in the mouth, followed by an expert knee in the ribs. Then she ripped his arm up behind his back and splayed him face first over a desk.

‘Did you just lie to me?’ Uncle said calmly, as hipster-beard and the three CHERUB agents looked on warily.

‘No,’ Monty said, then as Uncle stepped closer, ‘OK, yes … Trey told me to.’

‘Who do you work for?’ Uncle demanded. ‘Me or Trey?’

‘You, sir,’ Monty begged, as the woman tightened the wrench on his arm.

‘Who is the manager of this print shop?’

‘I am, sir,’ Monty snorted.

‘I’m told I need a 950L printing machine, for the princely sum of seventy-two grand,’ Uncle said. ‘And I’m not paying for that, Monty. You are.’

‘I don’t have that kind of money,’ Monty begged. ‘There’s no way …’

‘Your parents own their house, don’t they?’ Uncle teased. ‘And the bakery? I’m sure they can get another mortgage.’

‘My parents worked all their lives,’ Monty gasped. ‘They’re in their sixties.’

‘I don’t give a shit how you get my money,’ Uncle shouted, then looked at his female bodyguard. ‘Give him another taste, sweetheart.’

She moved ruthlessly, a knee in the kidneys, then flipping Monty on to his back and boxing him with a barrage of head shots.

‘You have one week to come and tell me how you plan to pay for my new printer,’ Uncle said.

Blood streamed from Monty’s mouth as the kickboxer yanked him up and shoved him out into the hallway. Hipster-beard looked terrified as Uncle approached, pulling something out of his back pocket.

The bearded designer was relieved by the sight of two twenty-pound notes.

‘Taxi Monty to the hospital,’ Uncle ordered. ‘Keep your trap shut.’

The designer trembled as he scrambled out, half expecting the kickboxer to sprawl him with a kick up the arse.

This just left Uncle, bodyguard and the Sharma brothers, still holding their drinks.

‘I hear you boys are a bit tasty,’ Uncle said, raising his fists like a boxer. ‘Messed up Trey and his idiot driver. Any of you prepared to show my girl Mya what you’ve got?’

Ryan figured it was his job, since he was oldest. ‘I’m game if she is,’ he said, putting his coffee on a desk and