He turned towards the gate and shouted: ‘We didn’t start this. Anyone snitches and they’re dead, you understand?’
Lauren wasn’t too impressed with what had occurred and she glowered at Jake as he came near. ‘Make a scene, why don’t you? We’d better get the hell out of here.’
Jake and Fahim were both hurting but Lauren grabbed their blazers and forced them to walk quickly. The first bus stop was only two minutes from the school, so they carried on walking towards the next one. This took them past a McDonalds, which was pretty empty at this time of the afternoon.
‘Inside,’ Lauren said stiffly.
Fahim shook his head. ‘I haven’t got any money.’
‘I’m buying,’ Lauren said. ‘We need to talk.’
Fahim smiled awkwardly. ‘I appreciate what you two did, but I’m not stupid. If anyone asks what happened back there I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut.’
But Fahim’s smile was fake. He was terrified that news of the brawl would reach home, and if he got suspended or expelled it would be the excuse his father needed to send him abroad.
‘I don’t want to talk about the fight,’ Lauren said, as she pulled a twenty-pound note out of her blazer pocket. ‘You two must at least be thirsty after all that lot.’
As Lauren said this, she noticed that Jake was in a state. The Year Nines had landed some bad punches and his eyes were moist. ‘Do you want a tissue or anything, Jake?’
‘I’m not crying,’ he said defensively. ‘Just get me fries and a Coke.’
There were no customers waiting at the counter, so it only took a couple of minutes for Lauren to come across with a tray of fries and soft drinks.
‘I got six nuggets,’ she said, as she sat with Jake and Fahim in the quietest corner of the restaurant. There were a few kids from a nearby primary school with their parents and some pensioners drinking cups of tea, but basically the place was empty.
Fahim opened the box of nuggets. ‘Two each,’ he said.
Lauren shook her head. ‘I’m vegetarian.’
‘None for me,’ Jake groaned. He was still clutching his chest and Lauren was getting worried about him.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
‘Been better,’ Jake croaked. ‘Think I’m just winded.’
Lauren looked at Fahim and sounded serious. ‘Fahim, there’s something I have to tell you. Jake and I came here to help you.’
Fahim looked mystified. ‘I really appreciate what you did. If Alom had his way I’d be eating dog turd instead of McNuggets right now.’
Lauren shook her head. ‘That’s not what I meant. Two weeks ago, you made a call to the anti-terrorist hotline. You sounded extremely scared about something and we’ve noticed that your mum has disappeared.’
Fahim’s jaw dropped, exposing a nasty-looking mouthful of chewed-up chicken. ‘Pardon me?’
‘I know it’s a bit of a shock,’ Lauren continued, as she tried a reassuring smile. ‘But keep calm and listen carefully. Jake and I work for the government. The intelligence service traced you from your call.’
Fahim tapped his head. ‘You’re messing with me. How come you know all this?’
Jake didn’t sound too healthy, but he took up the story. ‘Our people have been running background checks on your father, but rather than send a bunch of police in to arrest him and start asking questions we wanted to speak to you first and get some more information.’
‘Was the call a hoax?’ Lauren asked bluntly. ‘Do you think your dad might have anything to do with the airliner that crashed?’
Fahim was in shock. He thought about trying to fob Lauren off, but the past two weeks had been the worst he’d ever known and he was desperate to speak to someone about his nightmarish excuse for a life.
Fahim spluttered as he pointed at Jake. ‘You’re eleven. Lauren, you’re like, thirteen. You work for the government … I mean, what are you, kiddie detectives or something?’
‘Kind of,’ Lauren smiled. ‘Here’s the thing, Fahim. All we have to go on is your call. If the cops moved in and arrested your dad with no clue what’s going on, they’d probably make arses of themselves. We know you reached out and called the hotline because you wanted to help, but you were scared and you hung up. We understand that, but now we’re here to help you.’
‘And we can help find your mum,’ Jake added.
‘Help how?’ Fahim asked.
‘We want all the evidence you have,’ Lauren said.
Fahim shrugged. ‘I don’t have evidence. Just some stuff I overheard when my parents were fighting.’
‘What stuff?’ Jake asked.
‘Something to do with the Anglo-Irish crash, for sure,’ Fahim said. ‘I don’t know what they did, but I heard them fighting about it. Then that night they were fighting again and my mum threatened to go to the police and tell them what was going on. When I got up the next morning she was gone.’
‘Do you think your dad killed her?’ Jake asked.
This wasn’t subtle and Lauren shot him an angry look.
‘She doesn’t have friends or relatives in this country,’ Fahim said weakly. ‘I hope she’s alive, but if she is she must have run off in the middle of the night with a bloody mouth, no phone and no money.’
‘What does your dad say?’
‘Lies,’ Fahim said, close to tears. ‘First he said she was at a spa, then she was supposedly looking after someone. The last time I mentioned her name he just glowered at me, like I shouldn’t. And he wiped the CCTV tapes.’
Lauren’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What CCTV?’
‘We’ve got cameras covering the front door and the outside of our house,’ Fahim explained. ‘I waited for my dad to go out and looked for the recordings from the night my mum disappeared, but he’d put in a new set of tapes.’
‘We know she hasn’t used her credit cards or mobile phone since the night you called,’ Lauren said. ‘Although if she was involved in a plot to bring the plane down she might well have another identity.’
Fahim shook his head. ‘She threatened to go to the police … I don’t know anything for sure, but she definitely didn’t like whatever it was my dad has done. The thing is, I’ve got no evidence and the school shrink thinks I’m a nutter so who’s gonna believe me?’
‘That’s where we come in,’ Lauren explained soothingly. ‘Tell your dad that we’re friends from your new school. If you invite us home, is he likely to complain?’
‘He doesn’t mind me having mates round, as long as they don’t make a racket,’ Fahim shrugged. ‘Our house is pretty big and my dad’s usually either out or he works in his office until at least seven.’
‘So who looks after you?’ Jake asked.
‘The cleaning lady is around in the morning. It used to be my mum, but now, if Dad’s out at a meeting or something I’m on my own until he comes home and makes dinner. Sometimes that’s not until eight, or even later, so he leaves me a note and a ready meal to go in the microwave.’
Lauren tried to speak with authority. ‘Our first step would be to discreetly gather as much evidence as we can. We’ve already bugged your dad’s home and mobile-phone calls from the exchange. We’ll also try and get listening devices in the house to record his conversations and we want to go through all his documents and computer files.’
Fahim looked worried as he bit the end off a couple of fries. ‘And what about me?’
‘What do you mean?’ Jake asked.
‘Suppose you get evidence against my dad and my mum doesn’t come back?’
Lauren wasn’t prepared for this. ‘Our files say that you have an uncle nearby and heaps of relatives in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.’
Fahim shook his head. ‘My uncle Asif and my dad do everything together. If my dad is involved, Asif is too for sure. If they go down I’ll end up being adopted by my granddad and I hate it in Abu Dhabi. He’s mega rich, but he’s the most miserable old git you’ll ever meet.
‘All my aunts and uncles tiptoe around doing exactly
what Granddad wants them to do because he’s nearly eighty and they want their share of his loot when he pegs it. My cousins are a laugh, but they get sent away to Islamic schools that are like, mega strict. They have to learn the entire Koran by heart and they get beats if they recite one word wrong.’
‘What about your mum’s family?’ Jake asked.
‘My mum’s parents were from Pakistan and they came to the Emirates to work as servants. They’re piss poor and I’ve never even met any of them.’
Mac hadn’t anticipated this problem. ‘So what is it you want?’ Lauren asked.
‘I just can’t help you,’ Fahim said firmly. ‘I hate my dad’s guts, but if I snitch on him I’m totally screwed.’
‘Maybe Abu Dhabi isn’t that bad when you get used to it,’ Jake said.
‘It’s nothing to do with the country,’ Fahim stressed. ‘My granddad’s a psycho and what he says goes. If it wasn’t for him I’d have gone to the cops the minute I realised that my mum was probably dead.’
Lauren ran tense hands through her hair and tried to think. ‘OK Fahim, would you help us if we found somewhere for you to live?’
‘Like where?’ Fahim asked.
Jake smiled. ‘You could join CHERUB and live with us.’
Lauren glowered at Jake. He wasn’t supposed to mention the name under any circumstances.
‘What’s CHERUB? Is that the organisation you work for?’
‘Yes,’ Lauren said reluctantly. ‘But you can’t just join. I mean, you need to be extremely fit and speak other languages and pass loads of tests.’
‘I speak good Arabic,’ Fahim said. ‘Practically fluent.’
Lauren was furious with Jake. Not only had he mentioned CHERUB by name, but with Fahim’s history of psychiatric and behavioural problems she was sure he’d never get in.
‘I’ll speak to our boss and see what we can sort out,’ Lauren said cautiously. ‘For all we know, your mum’s gonna turn up again.’
‘I don’t wanna be dumped in some grotty children’s home,’ Fahim said, and the way he ignored Lauren’s comment about his mum made it clear that he thought she was dead. ‘I want to grow up like an ordinary kid.’
‘Joining CHERUB is a long shot,’ Lauren sighed, ‘but a foster family shouldn’t be a problem.’
Fahim pondered over the last McNugget. ‘You’re not winding me up because there’s no way you could have known about the phone call, but I want to speak to an adult and … I mean, I want to know what happened to my mum and if you guarantee that I’ll never have to go and live with my granddad, I’ll do everything I can to help you.’
24. HOME
It was half-four by the time the bus came to take Lauren, Fahim and Jake back to Hampstead. They all went up to the top deck. Jake and Fahim sat at the front, while Lauren found empty seats up the back. She discreetly called Mac and explained the conversation in McDonalds.
‘Let me talk to Fahim,’ Mac said.
There were a few people at the front of the bus, so Lauren called Fahim over. Jake followed down the aisle as Fahim took her phone.
‘Hello Fahim,’ Mac said calmly. ‘I understand that your situation is a difficult one, but I’m delighted that you want to help us.’
‘That’s OK,’ Fahim said, as he sat on a seat in the back row. ‘My life’s a mess. I need a way out.’
‘If you help us to find evidence against your father, I’m prepared to guarantee that you’ll never have to go to Abu Dhabi. We can set you up with a comfortable home and provide enough money to ensure that you’re properly looked after.’
‘I know what I heard my parents saying,’ Fahim said. ‘But I don’t have proof. What happens to me if you don’t find any evidence?’
‘It would be more difficult,’ Mac said cautiously. ‘But our investigation will be thorough, and while I can’t say what will happen under every possible circumstance, I give you my word that we’ll look out for you.’
Fahim had been trapped in a nightmare for two weeks and it almost seemed too good to be true. ‘I guess that’s fair,’ he said. ‘But can I get something in writing?’
‘We’re part of the secret service so we can’t make a legal agreement,’ Mac explained uneasily. ‘But I’d be happy to sit down with you and discuss your needs. However, there’s one thing you’ll have to consider very carefully.’
‘What’s that?’
‘If we set you up with a new identity there’s no going back. The separation from your family and its money will be irreversible.’
Fahim didn’t hesitate. At eleven years old he cared far more about being a happy child than a rich adult. ‘As long as I don’t end up living with my granddad,’ he said resolutely. ‘My family in Abu Dhabi all have two things in common: they’re all rich and they’re all miserable.’
‘OK,’ Mac said. ‘But I really want you to think carefully about this.’
‘Is there any chance I could join CHERUB like Lauren and Jake?’
Lauren had avoided telling Mac about Jake giving away the name and the retired chairman practically swallowed his false teeth. ‘Fahim, CHERUB is … There are very stringent criteria for entry.’
‘Lauren said that already, sir, but would I be allowed to try? Can’t I at least get an interview or something?’
‘I suppose,’ Mac said reluctantly. ‘But I’m not in any position to guarantee entry.’
Fahim broke into a big smile. ‘I understand,’ he said.
‘I’ll need a few hours to make arrangements and then I’d suggest that we meet somewhere and discuss your future properly. I don’t want you to rush into decisions that you’ll regret, but we do need to move quickly. How about I let you think of any questions you might have overnight and we’ll meet tomorrow morning, before school?’
‘That’s fine by me,’ Fahim said. ‘I can tell my dad that I’m going in early to play football in the playground or something. And I know you just want me to be sure, but I swear I won’t change my mind.’
‘I hope not,’ Mac said softly. ‘Could you put Lauren back on please?’
Fahim smiled as he handed the phone over.
‘Hey,’ Lauren said cheerfully. ‘Everything sorted?’
Mac growled, ‘How the hell does he know the name CHERUB? Don’t answer me while Fahim can overhear, but there’s going to be trouble later.’
Mac’s ire made Lauren’s heart skip, but she knew it wasn’t her fault. ‘I’m sure Jake will be glad to explain,’ she smiled, anticipating the way Mac would lay into him.
*
By the time Jake and Lauren got home, Jake’s chest was swollen and he was struggling to breathe. Mac took him straight back downstairs and drove to the nearest casualty unit for an X-ray. Lauren had changed out of uniform and was sitting in front of the TV when the pair returned holding boxes of take-out pizza and garlic bread.
Jake had his school shirt unbuttoned and bandages strapped tightly around his chest. Unfortunately for him, severely bruised ribs weren’t enough to earn him much sympathy.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jake said weakly, as he sat on the sofa chewing a slice of Hawaiian.
Mac shook his head. His voice was calm, but you could tell that he was really angry. ‘I know this is the first day of your first big mission, Jake. I could have excused one slip-up, but two smacks of carelessness.’
‘I only said CHERUB by mistake. It’s one little word.’
‘Easily done when you’re nervous,’ Mac acknowledged. ‘But it was a stupid thing to even mention and you’ve done enough role-playing exercises on campus to know better. However, it’s the incident outside the school that really troubles me. What in the name of god possessed you to start a fight against six boys so much bigger than yourself?’
‘You might have a black belt, but you’re not superman,’ Lauren added. ‘And the way you kicked that guy in the head, he could have ended up with brain damage.’
Jake made a sorry figure with his bandages and his crumpled school uniform. He was clearly shaken
up, but Lauren thought Jake was too cocky for his own good and reckoned the dose of harsh reality would do him good.
‘You’re extremely lucky that Lauren arrived when she did,’ Mac said.
‘But she took ages getting there,’ Jake said. ‘I sent her a text.’
This was the one area where Lauren realised she was at fault. ‘I could have stayed by the gates instead of under the bus shelter,’ she admitted. ‘But I belted over there as soon as I got his message.’
‘And was I supposed to stand there and let Fahim get beaten up?’
‘You should have waited for Lauren,’ Mac said. ‘What do we teach you in training about fights getting out of control?’
‘OK,’ Jake said bitterly. ‘I know.’
‘What do we teach you?’ Mac insisted. ‘Say it.’
Jake shook his head, but he didn’t dare tut. ‘Gangs pose a much greater threat in a violent situation because the presence of other gang members means that they all egg each other on.’
‘I already pulled you off and told you not to butt in at nine o’clock this morning,’ Lauren added. ‘What if one of them had a knife? What state would you have ended up in if I’d arrived two minutes later?’
Jake stood up and shouted, ‘Lauren, piss off, OK? I know I messed up, but have you got to keep rubbing it in?’
‘Get your arse back on that chair,’ Mac barked, finally losing his cool. ‘Lauren is an experienced agent. This isn’t a game, Jake. This isn’t you hanging around on campus with your mates. Several people ended up seriously hurt, you and Lauren are lucky to have got off relatively unscathed and for all we know the police are going to want to question the pair of you about the fight. If they want to talk to Fahim and it gets back to his father, he won’t let you two anywhere near his house and our mission will be blown before you’ve even got through the front door.’
Jake opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but instead he sobbed, ‘I said I was sorry.’
Lauren had never seen Jake as anything other than Bethany’s annoying kid brother, but seeing him cry made her feel horrible. She remembered how worried she’d been before her first mission and the sense of relief when she didn’t mess up.