Kevin wouldn’t have dared, but TJ holding out the straw was an opportunity for Lauren to make a grab.
‘Too slow!’ TJ teased obnoxiously, before quickly firing off another lentil.
It was only tiny, but moved fast enough to sting when it hit Lauren’s neck, just below the earlobe. She didn’t like the idea of ending up in casualty having a lentil tweezered out of her ear, so she glowered at Kevin.
‘Stop him now,’ she ordered. ‘Or I’m blaming you.’
Kevin’s face straightened up when he saw the fury in Lauren’s eyes.
‘Game’s getting old, mate,’ Kevin said, as he sneaked his hand under the armrest and snatched the bag of lentils.
TJ made a grab, but only managed to tilt the bag. Lentils spewed over the leather seats and across the car’s thick carpets. The bodyguard was used to obnoxious passengers, but drew the line at people making a mess that he’d have to clear up.
‘Pack it in,’ he shouted, in a forceful voice that made TJ jump.
But after the initial shock TJ was determined to act like a brat. ‘Don’t speak to me that way,’ he said sniffily. ‘Do you know who my dad is? He could have you sacked like that.’
TJ snapped his fingers, but this only seemed to irritate the bodyguard, who waited to negotiate a roundabout before responding.
‘I don’t care if your dad is the King of China,’ he shouted. ‘Pick that up, then sit still and shut your mouth. If you don’t like my rules you can get out and bloody well walk.’
Kevin watched TJ’s face. His expression mixed defiance with shock and for a couple of seconds it looked like TJ was going to erupt into a full tantrum. But the bodyguard resembled a heavyweight boxer and TJ decided against tangling with him.
Kevin helped scoop lentils off the seat and back into the bag as TJ undid his seatbelt and crawled around the spacious foot well picking them out of the carpet. Lauren gave the bodyguard an appreciative smile.
There were still a few lentils floating around as the black Mercedes convoy stopped at a side entrance of the exclusive Elbridge department store. A doorman helped the drivers and bodyguards open car doors and a man in a suit who seemed prepared for their arrival rushed out to greet June Ling, who looked pissed off as he kissed her on the cheek.
TJ was one of the few people in the world who didn’t defer to June Ling’s supermodel status and he unceremoniously grabbed her arm.
‘You’ll be hours looking at dresses,’ TJ said sourly. ‘Give me a bodyguard so we can look at boy stuff.’
Lauren felt slightly depressed as she headed off behind June Ling, Suzie and Melissa. Kevin looked more cheerful as he charged off through a large perfume department with a pair of oversized bodyguards close behind.
‘Do you always have bodyguards?’ Kevin asked.
‘Everywhere,’ TJ nodded. ‘My oldest sister was kidnapped once. They wanted a million dollars, so my dad told them to keep her.’
‘Not Suzie?’
‘No, one of my half-sisters from my dad’s first marriage. They’re all ancient, like thirty or something.’
TJ seemed to be an expert in Elbridge’s layout and by this time they’d raced down an escalator and reached the sportswear department.
Kevin occasionally shopped with his mates, but cherubs weren’t given huge allowances so they mostly just looked around. TJ lived in a different world. He walked up to the trainer wall, picked off six pairs and told a disbelieving sales assistant to get his size in all of them. He then attacked the rails of football shirts.
‘Who do you like?’ Kevin asked.
But before he got an answer, TJ had pulled Chelsea home and away shirts from the rails and held them out towards one of the bodyguards.
‘Actually, I’d better get two of each,’ TJ explained. ‘One to collect, one to wear.’
‘You’re a teensy bit spoiled, aren’t you?’ Kevin grinned.
The assistant had come back with the four pairs of trainers that were in stock in TJ’s size. He tried one on and furiously berated the assistant as he pulled balled-up brown paper out of the toe.
‘Why leave this in?’ he shouted, as he threw it across the store. Then he turned to Kevin. ‘Who’s your team?’
‘I’m not a big football fan,’ Kevin said. ‘But if I have to pick I’d go for Arsenal.’
‘Dog shit,’ TJ grinned, then he looked at the bodyguard. ‘Get him an Arsenal shirt.’
‘I can’t,’ Kevin said modestly.
But Kevin smiled as the bodyguard came back and held up an Arsenal home shirt. As Kevin slid off his jumper and pulled on the shirt to check the size, TJ grabbed a couple of Nike footballs and two tracksuit tops and added them to his pile of purchases before staring at a signed Gridiron helmet in a display case.
‘How much is this?’ TJ demanded, then looked disappointed as the assistant told him it wasn’t for sale.
‘Do you have a spending limit?’ Kevin asked, as one of the bodyguards told the sales assistant to charge all the stuff to Tan Abdullah’s account and bring it down to the parked Mercedes.
‘This is nothing,’ TJ explained. ‘All this lot is like five hundred pounds. My stepmom will spend ten times that on one dress. Where next?’
‘I’ve only been here once but the video games department is pretty cool. And it’s a school day, so you’ll be able to play on all the consoles.’
But TJ shook his head. ‘I get every single video game that comes out.’
Kevin thought this was just a boast, but TJ explained how it worked.
‘My dad owns more than fifty hotels and some have games consoles in the rooms. So the big companies send all their games and new consoles as samples. I never even bother to open most of the games. The clothes here are OK. Wanna go look?’
Kevin shrugged. ‘You’re the guest.’
TJ staged a repeat performance in the kids’ designer wear, dropping nearly three thousand pounds on all the best labels. Kevin was playing the role of the son of a rich arms dealer and had a two-hundred-pound allowance. The only thing he really liked was a leather jacket, but it was five hundred quid.
‘Try it on,’ TJ urged.
Kevin fingered the soft black leather. The coat was fixed to the rail with a security lock that ran down the sleeve, but as soon as the assistant saw that Kevin was with TJ he bolted over to unlock it.
‘I can’t really afford it,’ Kevin said apologetically.
‘Your dad’s tight,’ TJ said. ‘Two hundred pounds is a shitty allowance.’
‘We’re not poor,’ Kevin explained. ‘But we’re two houses and nice cars rich, not private jets and fifty room mansions rich like your mob.’
‘If my dad ever says no I go crazy ape and start smashing stuff,’ TJ explained. ‘One time I smashed an ash tray. My dad freaked out because it was in some famous movie and he’d paid like, seventy thousand dollars in an auction.’
Kevin wasn’t sure if TJ was making stuff up to sound cool. The shop assistant was holding out the leather jacket and it seemed plain rude not to slip his arms inside and take a look in the mirror. The fit was good, and Kevin could just see himself striding around campus in it, making Jake and the rest of his mates wildly jealous.
CHERUB had a rule that kids weren’t allowed to keep expensive items or any money that they made during a mission, but it wasn’t like anyone kept a log of what clothes he owned, so Kevin reckoned he’d easily get away with it.
TJ told the assistant to unlock an almost identical jacket, but his one had snakeskin trim and cost twice as much. Then he lined up beside Kevin in front of the mirror.
‘We look so awesome!’ TJ said. ‘I’ll get them both.’
Kevin shook his head. ‘The football shirt was enough, mate. I can’t take this as a gift.’
But the matter didn’t seem to be up for debate. TJ had decided and was looking Kevin up and down.
‘I know I’m sexy, but it’s rude to stare,’ Kevin told him.
TJ gave him the finger. ‘I’m not a queer! B
ut I like your shoes, and the chinos. Where can I get those?’
Kevin’s shoes were Timberland, and the assistant directed them towards the store’s Timberland concession on the next floor up. TJ found shoes and trousers like Kevin’s and he insisted on putting them straight on, along with the leather jackets.
‘Now I’m hungry,’ TJ said. ‘You hungry? The diner on this floor does massive burgers.’
*
Lauren hadn’t hit it off with Suzie straight away, but their relationship warmed up when they split off from Melissa and June. The two teenagers headed away from three-thousand-pound dresses designed for women shaped like pencils and sauntered around the patronisingly named Young Miss section on the next floor down, with a bodyguard keeping a discreet distance.
If TJ was the personification of a spoiled brat, Suzie was making a good stab at the stereotypical surly teenager. She walked between the rails, picking things up and announcing that they were rubbish, or that all London shops were crap compared to Tokyo or Paris. Lauren was no flag-waving patriot, but found herself grinding her teeth as the Malaysian girl slagged off her birthplace.
‘Camden Market would be better,’ Lauren said. ‘More our kind of stuff.’
‘Camden’s OK,’ Suzie admitted, which in her world was the equivalent of a twenty-one-gun salute. ‘Do you know any bars near here? I feel like eating sushi and drinking vodka and Cokes ‘til everything goes wobbly.’
‘I’m sure there’s lots of bars, but they wouldn’t serve us,’ Lauren said. ‘And my heroin dealer’s skiing in the south of France this week.’
Suzie took a couple of seconds to realise that Lauren was joking, but when she did she laughed noisily.
‘Fourteen is the worst age,’ Suzie moaned. ‘Want everything, but can’t do shit.’
‘My dad’s a pain in the rear,’ Lauren agreed. ‘I never should have let him persuade me to wear these clothes. I feel like such a dork.’
‘You should buy something outrageous and let him see you in that,’ Suzie suggested. ‘PVC trousers, or a leather hat with swastikas.’
Lauren nodded. ‘Or a T-shirt with some really buff naked guy showing his willy.’
Suzie howled with laughter. ‘Oh, if only they had those,’ she beamed. ‘My dad would completely chuck the shits.’
As the girls rounded a shop-within-a-shop selling a bizarre range of day-glow Lycra gear they saw a tacky looking fifties diner. Kevin and TJ were below the partition separating the dining area from the rest of the store, but the slab-like heads of two bodyguards loomed above it.
‘Wanna go piss our little brothers off?’ Suzie asked. ‘TJ is such a prick. He’s eleven, but he acts more like he’s eight.’
The diner was almost empty and the two boys sat opposite each other in a booth designed for four. Their bodyguards sat a couple of tables across, demolishing triple cheeseburgers.
‘They’re eating the entire cow,’ Lauren grinned, as they approached the boys’ table.
‘Budge up,’ Suzie ordered, giving TJ a powerful sideways shove as she sat on the padded bench.
Kevin moved aside more willingly for Lauren, who looked at his jacket. She examined the distinctive pock marks in the soft leather, checked the label and gave him a very hard stare.
‘That’s ostrich leather,’ Lauren said disapprovingly.
‘Don’t care if it’s panda,’ Kevin said, with burger crammed into his cheeks. ‘It’s the awesomest jacket I have ever owned.’
TJ held up his slightly more elaborate jacket. ‘This one’s got snakeskin trim as well.’
Suzie shook her head as she looked at TJ’s chinos. ‘You copied Kevin’s look. Have you ever had an original thought in your life?’
‘Kiss my arse,’ TJ snapped back.
‘You know the funniest thing about TJ,’ Suzie said to Lauren as she pushed her middle finger deep into her mouth. ‘He’s got a phobia about saliva.’
To prove her point, Suzie wedged TJ against the side of the booth and shoved her spit-glistening finger in his ear.
TJ yelled, wriggled and started freaking out at the top of his voice. ‘Get off me … Suzie you bitch! Jesus, you’re disgusting.’
The waitresses and passing shoppers looked horrified, but the bodyguards had clearly seen worse and kept chewing like nothing was happening.
After a brief struggle, TJ stood up on his seat and flopped over the partition into the shopping area. Kevin was surprised to see that TJ was practically crying. He ran off, shouting that he had to find a toilet and wash out his ear.
‘What the hell was that?’ Kevin gawped, as one of the bodyguards chased him across the store.
‘Saliva phobic,’ Suzie explained. She waggled her finger experimentally in front of Kevin in case it had a similar effect. ‘It’ll be interesting when he gets his first girlfriend.’
Kevin blew off the threat by flicking his tongue out and cheekily raising an eyebrow. ‘I like Goth birds. I’ll exchange saliva with you any day.’
Kevin was quite cute, but he was only twelve so Suzie acted like she was repulsed. Lauren put one arm around Kevin’s neck and rubbed her knuckles against the top of his head. ‘Isn’t my baby brother sweet?’ she said. ‘The little ostrich-wearing pervert.’
TJ came back a few minutes later. His ear and the side of his face were bright red where he’d scoured them with soap and hot water. He wanted to leave the girls and go off with Kevin again, but June Ling had called and wanted to meet up by the cars.
When they got downstairs one of June Ling’s three bodyguards was throttling a woman who’d snapped the moderately famous model on her camera phone.
‘Delete the shot, or I’ll delete you!’ he ordered, then loomed over her as she erased her picture with trembling hands.
Outside, the three identical Mercedes had been driven up from the store’s underground car park and shop staff crammed the trunks with dozens of distinctive purple carrier bags. The boys headed out first and didn’t notice anything odd as they got back into the last car, but all hell broke loose as June Ling and Melissa stepped on to the pavement.
A dozen scruffy looking animal rights protestors charged towards the Mercedes and blocked the doors. ‘Fur is murder!’ one of them shouted, as another ran behind June Ling and blasted her back with a squeezy ketchup bottle.
Several paparazzi photographers had been tipped off and flashguns popped as June Ling tussled with a woman dressed in a scruffy parka with an orange scarf wrapped over her face.
‘Where’s my security?’ June Ling shouted.
Her answer came as a huge bodyguard dragged the protestor away from June Ling and flung her with such force that her head cracked noisily against Elbridge’s plate-glass display window.
Lauren would always support anti-fur protestors over a bitchy model, but became a victim of guilt by association as her route to the car was blocked by a man holding a placard with an horrific photograph of a freshly skinned mink.
‘Fur is murder,’ he spat. ‘Rich little princess.’
‘Get out of my way,’ Lauren screamed, as Suzie broke away from her and ran towards the front car. ‘I’m vegetarian, so what do you know?’
As the man processed this, a female protestor grabbed Lauren around the waist and started trying to drag her backwards. Lauren tried using minimal force, by hooking her white pump around the woman’s leg and tripping her up, but this move is tricky when you’re being dragged backwards and she was forced to use her elbow.
The blow connected with the woman’s jaw, sending her crashing backwards on to the pavement minus two front teeth. As Lauren looked up, ready to deal with the male protestor still blocking her path to the car, one of the huge bodyguards grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and sunk a knee into his stomach.
Someone inside the Mercedes flung the door open and Lauren jumped inside.
‘Thanks Melissa,’ Lauren said, as she pulled up the door and looked outside where two of the bodyguards were dealing brutally with the largest and most
persistent of the protestors.
Inside the car, June Ling was screaming her head off to the man in the driver’s seat. ‘Why am I getting ambushed by this unwashed scum? Where is my protective screen? Kidnappers could have plucked me off the pavement before you useless turds even noticed.’
Melissa was calmer, but wore a puzzled expression. ‘How could they possibly know we’re here?’
Another bodyguard got in the front passenger seat and the car started moving rapidly away from the store.
‘Maybe someone in the shop tipped them off,’ Lauren suggested.
‘Possible,’ Melissa agreed. ‘But it was well organised. A dozen protestors, all with banners, and the press were clearly tipped off too.’
‘We have a traitor in our midst,’ June Ling insisted. ‘I only made my mind up what shop to visit when we first got in the car. Only people inside these cars could have known where we went.’
‘Do you want to visit any more stores?’ the driver asked.
June Ling practically bit his head off.
‘What do you think?’ she shouted. ‘Why are you a total dipshit? Do you think I’m going to walk around London with this red shit stuck all over my back? Take us to the hotel.’
As Lauren looked out of the car at the posh shops, feeling guilty about thumping an animal rights protestor and wondering if there really was a mole passing information to a protest group, the phone in her pocket sent a text message to James, indicating that they were back on the move.
30. FLOWERS
‘Cheers for the warning, James,’ Kyle said. ‘I’ll get right on it.’
Kyle sat in the cab of a Japanese micro van, wearing jeans and a green polo shirt with the logo of Mayfair’s top flower delivery company embroidered over his nipple. After pocketing his phone, he started the engine and got honked by a black cab driver as he pulled out.
‘Sorry, mate,’ Kyle said, as he made an apologetic wave out of the window.
The one-litre engine and high body didn’t make it easy to drive fast and then Kyle got trapped behind a dustcart on the last hundred-metre stretch. The Leith was a recently opened boutique hotel, with a gaudy pink and yellow reception and a surreal sculpture made from brass instruments sprouting from the ceiling.