One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,70

at a quarter to six on that Friday morning, its success depended on a ten-year-old boy.

Justin sat on his mattress, coughing up phlegm infused with flecks of coal dust as a small, sticky hand touched his back.

‘Are you sick?’ Belle asked, with all the earnestness that a three-year-old can muster.

Belle had her own bed and strict orders to stay in it, but Justin was fond of his youngest sister. He’d always let her climb in and cuddle, in preference to the scream-up he’d get if he tried putting her back in her own bed.

‘I’m not sick,’ Justin said between coughs, as he wiped a trail of spit on the filthy shirt he was about to pull up his arms. ‘Go back to sleep.’

‘Mummy might make it better,’ Belle said thoughtfully. ‘Or send you to Dr Blanc.’

Justin spoke more firmly. ‘Belle, go back to sleep.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Do you want me to tell Mummy that you slept in my bed?’

Either of Justin’s older sisters would have thrown back the threat by saying that they’d tell on him for sneaking out, but Belle had yet to master the subtleties of blackmail and looked scared before lying back down and burrowing under Justin’s pillow.

‘I won’t be long,’ he said.

Justin had twisted his mum’s arm to get her cooperation when Henderson’s team first arrived off the coal train. But the murder of the two railway cops, followed by arson and executions at the intersection had shaken her up and she’d now ordered Justin to stay off the coal train for a few weeks and steer well clear of Rosie.

After creeping downstairs, Justin cut through a gloomy kitchen and leaned out of the front door to look for checkpoints. Following the railway cop murders the thuggish German soldiers had put up several temporary checkpoints, including one less than fifty metres from Justin’s house.

For two and a half days they’d searched, slapped and harassed anyone going near the railway line or intersection, but they’d tired of their games. The checkpoints had been taken down the previous afternoon, and there was no sign of them returning.

Justin’s mum slept at the rear of the ground floor, so rather than take the direct route through the house he straddled a low wall and crossed a patch of shaggy grass to reach the railway line.

He took a furtive glance along the tracks. There was no sign of soldiers or railway cops, but the elderly man who worked the water tower was peering along the tracks, so apparently a train was expected soon.

Justin had no timepiece of his own, so he’d taken his dead grandfather’s pocket watch from a locked drawer the previous night. The worst his mum ever did was shout and whack him with her wooden hairbrush. That didn’t worry him, but she’d most likely start crying if her dad’s watch went missing, so, after using it to confirm that the train was due in fifteen minutes, he made sure to carefully rebutton his shirt pocket.

He felt hungry and tired and a big yawn set off another round of coughing. The first train was a cargo train that didn’t stop at the water tower. The one he was here for came in twenty minutes late, which was frustrating because the longer he was gone, the more likely it was that his mum would be awake when he got back.

Once the passenger train had filled its tank with water, the driver let out a blast of steam and took off the brake. Justin became certain it was the right train when it set off slower than you’d expect it to. He only got a glimpse into the driver’s cab as it rolled past, but he saw the stoker downing his coal shovel and sending a small leather case pirouetting through the air.

The train’s momentum and the steep embankment meant that the case flew some distance, ending up near the back wall of Madame Vial’s garden. Although Justin had thrown thousands of coal sacks down the embankment, today felt scarier because Rosie had warned him that the Germans would try to cultivate spies, and notices had been posted at the intersection offering two thousand francs and the return of a prisoner of war to anyone coming forward with information about resistance activity.

It was fortunate it had been warm and dry for most of the last week, because the spot where the case landed was often muddy. As the sound of the passenger train receded, Justin walked briskly back to his house