The majority started heading out of the lounge, but as Lauren and Joe gave each other relieved smiles a kid in a Man United shirt stuck a pool cue through another window.
‘This is bullshit, man,’ he yelled.
‘Dickhead,’ Joe shouted, and charged into the older kids. But one good punch and some alcohol-fuelled bravado hadn’t turned him into a fighting champion. The sixth former in the Man United shirt clamped Joe’s head under his arm and punched him hard in the eye.
As Lauren waded in to save her boyfriend, a whole bunch of Joe’s mates charged towards the older kids. Most didn’t want trouble, but a hard core of five lads stood their ground and traded punches with eight younger boys plus Lauren.
Dante overbalanced as he dragged the toughest looking kid away from a skinny Year Eight and ended up stumbling forward and slamming a window sash down on the tough kid’s head.
Lauren freed Joe from the kid in the Man United shirt, but she was drunk and hopelessly mistimed a Karate kick. She landed up on her arse, but her opponent was all mouth and she launched a savage upwards kick as he tried to punch Joe.
Of the five older kids who’d stayed to fight, Lauren and Dante had nailed one each, two had been knocked to the ground and were getting worked over by all Joe’s mates. The last kid stood up on the pool table. Small and squat, with tangled black hair, he swished a cue back and forth and yelled, ‘Come and have a go then ya cocky little bastards!’
Lauren and Dante made eye contact and moved in together. As Lauren snatched the swinging cue, Dante jumped on to the end of the pool table and brought him down with a rugby tackle. His chin thumped the corner pocket before Lauren grabbed his neck and dragged him away.
‘All right, son,’ she said cheerfully as she gave the lad a gentle slap on the cheek. ‘Time to go home to mommykins.’
As Lauren escorted the grunting boy towards the door, Dante realised that the two down on the ground were getting serious beats and told the others to back off. Once the fighting stopped some of the older group came back into the lounge to extract the injured.
The cue swinger swore at Lauren as she threw him down on the front porch. There were a few kids squatting nearby, including a girl being sick and a boy with a bloody face. Most of the older kids were heading towards the road, though a few took revenge by ripping up plants and shrubs and one shouted that the Führer was a Nazi tosser as he ripped up the Eagles’ Nest sign and lobbed it over a hedge.
Lauren checked that there were no more older kids upstairs before turning off the music and telling the girls to come inside and lock the French doors until the older kids were gone. Everyone gravitated towards the kitchen and Joe sat on a stool, clutching his eye and trying not to sob.
A whole bunch of girls gathered around and offered sympathy. Lauren was out of breath after grappling with two older kids and she located her unopened wine spritzer.
‘Maybe we should all tidy up a bit,’ Dante suggested.
A couple of the girls started picking up empty cans and bottles, while Dante found a dustpan and brush to pick up the broken glass in the back lounge. As he walked along the hallway he saw a police car rolling up the drive.
*
When the Brixton Riots docked back at Kingswear, Paul Woodhead drove his van up to the dockside and the four-man crew took ten minutes to transfer the boxed guns and ammunition into the rear compartment.
The surveillance team didn’t have the resources to follow everyone, so they prioritised. They couldn’t lose track of the weapons, so McEwen and Neil Gauche took the BMW and surveillance van respectively and stayed a kilometre behind the tracking signal from Paul Woodhead’s van. Chloe stayed behind in Kingswear, monitoring Riggs as he moved from the shore to the village pub and listening to the conversation inside Julian’s car.
‘My arms feel like they’ve been stretched on a rack,’ Julian complained, as he slammed his door. ‘Quite a workout.’
‘I’m sorry you got dragged into this,’ Nigel said, getting in next to Julian. ‘I reek from inside that hold. I’m gonna stink out your car.’
‘Smoke?’ Julian asked.
Nigel laughed. ‘I need something to take the edge off. I hope I never see that bastard Woodhead again.’
Julian’s hands trembled with a mix of fear and exhaustion as he put two cigarettes in his mouth and lit them both before passing one to Nigel.
‘At least you made a grand,’ Nigel said.
‘Take your half if you want,’ Julian replied, with his voice croaky from the smoke.
‘It’s your money, Julian. Paul would have had my legs smashed if you hadn’t come through and done this for me.’
Julian grunted. ‘You did save me from drowning when I fell off that rope swing.’
‘I forgot that,’ Nigel said. ‘How old were we? Eight or nine?’
‘I don’t want dirty money,’ Julian said. ‘I’ll pay my debts, but making money off guns is bad karma. I’ll stick it in a charity box. African babies, or blind pandas or some shit.’
‘Sweeeet,’ Nigel laughed, as Julian started his engine.
Julian pulled away from the empty seafront. Chloe thought about following them back to Salcombe, but she couldn’t see anything useful coming out of it and decided to stick around for a while, just in case Riggs went back to the boat, or McEwen called asking for backup.
‘This is some heavy shit,’ Julian sighed, as he drove up a cobbled lane heading for the road back to Salcombe. ‘I mean, when you think about it a grand seems like a lot for a night’s work. But what if we’d been busted gun running?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Nigel smiled. ‘That’s prison time for sure. But we’re out of it now and we wore gloves the whole time, so there’s no prints on those boxes.’
Julian burst out laughing as he made a left turn. ‘Man, you really stink of fish. You’re gonna have to burn those clothes.’
36. COPS
Joe answered the door to a policewoman, while her male colleague walked back to the gate to speak with a group of the older kids who were waiting for a taxi. The policewoman realised that Joe was shaken up.
‘Can I step inside?’ she asked cheerfully. ‘We had a call from a young girl inside the house. She seemed a bit worried about what was going on.’
The police weren’t strangers to the Führer’s house, but he didn’t leave anything incriminating in his home and Joe had instructions to be polite and allow the police to search if they asked to.
‘Not much happened,’ Joe explained, as the policewoman walked down the hallway past peanut shells and crumpled cans. ‘There was a rumble and a couple of windows got broken.’
The officer nodded as she walked into the kitchen and acknowledged the girls leaning on the cabinets. ‘Are you all OK?’
The girls looked sheepish as Joe wondered which one had called the police.
‘Well,’ the officer sighed, ‘if it’s any consolation I’ve seen house parties resulting in much bigger messes than this. But it’s a warning to you all the same. If you have an unsupervised party, make sure you only invite people you know and trust. Or better still, don’t have one at all.’
The friendly lecture took Lauren back to primary school when the local beat constable turned up to teach her class road safety. The young male officer who came through the front door wasn’t as friendly.
‘Got a lad up there with a busted nose,’ he told his colleague stiffly. ‘I’ve radioed for an ambulance and told him to wait. I don’t suppose any of you lot saw what happened?’
Dante shrank back behind Anna, suspecting that it was the guy whose head he’d slammed in the window.
The female officer took Joe back into the hall and spoke quietly. ‘I think I know your mum, don’t I?’
‘You might do,’ Joe nodded. ‘She’s on the neighbourhood watch.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when she gets home,’ the officer smiled. ‘I think it’s best if I ask everyone to go home, don’t you?’
Joe was embarrassed at
the way the policewoman was mothering him, but was also relieved to have some of the responsibility taken away.
‘Listen up everyone,’ the policewoman said, as she clapped her hands. ‘I think it’s time you all went home. So call your parents or make whatever arrangements you have to. And while you’re waiting, perhaps you can help your friend Joe to pick up as much mess as you can.’
Some of the kids lived within walking distance and left straight away, but a dozen had to wait for pickups and they all mucked in with the clean-up. Lauren loaded the plates and glasses into the dishwasher, Dante hoovered and swept while Anna mopped the kitchen floor.
By half-eleven the two cops and all the kids except Lauren, Anna and Dante had left. The house looked reasonable, but Joe was still going to get in trouble for the things that would take time to fix: three busted windows, torn felt on the pool table, and the huge penis and hairy balls someone had drawn on the wallpaper in the upstairs toilet.
‘It’s not bad at all,’ Lauren said. She sat on a bar stool in the kitchen draining a wine spritzer, with the dishwasher humming in the background.
Joe came in from taking out black rubbish bags filled with empties. He was almost back to his cocky self and moved in to give her a kiss, but Lauren leaned towards him and completely lost her balance. She hit the floor hard. Dante was concerned enough to come running over, but Lauren clutched her sides and began shrieking with laughter.
Joe gave her an arm up as Dante inspected the wine spritzer bottle. ‘How many of these have you had?’ he asked.
‘I love your cute little chops,’ Lauren grinned, as she pinched Joe’s cheek between her thumb and finger and then stumbled forward. She was heavy and Dante had to grab her waist to stop her knocking Joe over. The two lads then grabbed Lauren under the arms and dragged her to the conservatory where they dumped her over the sofa.
‘Those things are delicious,’ Lauren hooted. ‘Someone go back to the clubhouse and rob more spritzers!’
Anna hovered behind the two boys. ‘I could make her some black coffee or something.’
Dante sighed. ‘It’d take half the Brazilian coffee harvest to sober that up.’
‘Did you phone your mum?’ Joe asked.
Dante knew that Chloe was helping with surveillance duty. ‘She’s on a date and she’ll go nuts if she sees Lauren in that state.’
This was completely true. CHERUB agents have to fit in and are allowed to drink and smoke within reason in social situations, but it’s easy to make slip-ups with your cover story when you’re as drunk as Lauren was, and if Chloe found out she’d be in serious trouble.
‘I’ll take her home,’ Dante sighed. ‘Hopefully the walk will sober her up a bit.’
‘I’m hardly even drunk,’ Lauren protested, as she stood bolt upright with her arms rigid like a soldier about to march.
Joe looked at Anna. ‘What about you?’
‘I lied and told my mum that I was sleeping over at Tracy’s house,’ Anna explained. ‘But Tracy’s dad picked her up ages ago.’
‘You can stay here,’ Joe said.
‘But no hanky panky,’ Lauren snorted, as she bunched a fist. ‘He’s my man. You keep your hands off !’
‘Come on, sister,’ Dante moaned as he grabbed Lauren’s arm and pulled her forward. ‘Let’s get you home.’
‘We’ve got a wheelbarrow,’ Joe grinned. ‘You could stick her in that if you like.’
Anna cracked up laughing as Lauren staggered down the hallway, holding on to the walls and telling nobody in particular that she was perfectly fine and didn’t need any help. Then she tripped over the doormat and sprawled out on the patio.
‘Ooopsie daisy,’ Lauren giggled, as Dante rushed forward and helped her up. ‘Who put that stupid thing there?’
‘See you tomorrow, maybe,’ Dante called back to Joe, as he began walking up the drive with Lauren’s arm draped over his shoulder. ‘Or maybe at school on Monday.’
‘Not if I see you first,’ Joe said, giving the thumbs-up as he closed the front door.
Lauren being off her face had seemed funny back in the kitchen, but by the time they’d made it up the long drive and turned towards home the stumbling and giggling was getting on Dante’s nerves. When they reached a section of the busy lane with a grass verge he stopped walking, grabbed Lauren’s hand and jerked her arm to make sure she was looking at him.
‘I don’t know if Chloe’s home,’ Dante warned. ‘But if she sees you walking into the house like this you’re gonna face suspension from missions. So stop mucking about.’
Lauren poked out her tongue. ‘Bee boo,’ she giggled, showering Dante in spit.
Dante squeezed her hand hard and spoke firmly. ‘I’m not mucking about, Lauren. This is serious.’
‘You’re hurting me,’ she whined, as she tried tugging her hand free.
Dante was worried, because even though Lauren was completely smashed she still knew some nifty combat moves. But he kept squeezing Lauren’s hand because otherwise she’d ignore him.
‘You’re being an idiot,’ he barked. ‘Do you want me to leave you here? Because I will.’
As Dante said this, a big four-wheel-drive Toyota whizzed past, blowing Lauren’s hair about.
‘If you don’t let go of me,’ Lauren began angrily, but then her expression changed. ‘You know, your eyes are dead sexy when you’re angry.’
Before Dante knew it she’d grabbed him around the neck and started kissing him. Lauren was fit and he instinctively opened his mouth wide and pulled her in, but after a couple of seconds he saw sense and pushed her back.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘We’ve both had a few drinks and imagine if someone drives by. We’re supposed to be brother and sister.’
Lauren started to walk under her own steam. She was a bit wobbly, but Dante kept close and made sure that she didn’t fall or wander out into the traffic.
She turned back with a serious expression and a wagging finger. ‘I think you’re one of the nice guys, Dante,’ she slurred. ‘Most boys would have taken advantage. If you’d been like my brother you’d have my top off by now.’
‘Watch the cars,’ Dante warned, as a Ford skimmed by and blasted its horn.
Dante nudged Lauren back to the side of the road, but at least she was moving quickly and it was much easier going without her arm draped around his back.
The last third of the walk was on a much quieter road with a proper paved sidewalk. It curved up a gentle slope through the estate of luxury homes where they lived. Dante was relieved to be out of the traffic, but now he worried that Chloe would drive past or that Lauren would make a noise and disturb the neighbours.
What he didn’t expect was to see her start clambering through the hedge at the bottom of their road.
‘Where are you going?’ Dante asked.
‘I’m absolutely busting,’ Lauren said. ‘I’ll be two seconds.’
Dante tutted. ‘We’re three hundred metres from home. You don’t need to go in a hedge.’
But Lauren was full of drunken determination and ploughed through the branches. As she stood up on the other side Dante heard her trainer skid, followed by a yelp and a kind of zipping sound.
‘Lauren, are you OK?’ Dante shouted, following her through the hedge.
Dante realised that Lauren had tripped over a knee-high railing. She’d then slid two metres down a forty-five-degree concrete embankment and landed in a drainage channel designed to stop the water that ran off the hill from flooding the road.
‘Are you OK?’ Dante asked anxiously. He cleared the railing and stepped gingerly down the concrete slope. At least the bottom of the channel was dry after all the recent hot weather.
It was almost dark, but the moonlight caught a pained expression on Lauren’s face. ‘I landed really hard on my hand,’ she explained. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done but it hurts like shit.’
*
McEwen parked five hundred metres back and watched through binoculars as Paul Woodhead rever
sed the white van into a dilapidated farm building a kilometre from his Dartmouth home. After padlocking the doors, Woodhead donned a crash helmet and leather jacket before getting on a small Yamaha trail bike and heading back out to the road.
‘What do you think?’ Neil asked over the police radio from inside the surveillance van.
‘I’ll stay here and see what we’ve got,’ McEwen said. ‘You follow Woodhead’s bike. He’s almost certainly heading for home, but let’s be sure.’
‘Copied and understood,’ Neil said.
McEwen grabbed a torch, a video camera and a lock gun from the glove box before stepping out of the BMW and heading towards the barn. He approached slowly and used the binoculars to check the building from all sides, making sure there was no sign of an alarm or surveillance cameras. When he got up close he flicked on the torch and shone it over the dirt outside the shed to see if there were any trip wires or motion sensors.
It all seemed reassuringly low tech. So was the two-lever padlock, which McEwen popped with a filed-down key and a sharp slam from behind. The wooden door was noisy and he jolted as his radio made a bleep.
‘He’s home,’ Neil said. ‘Watched him strip off through the bedroom window and head for the bathroom.’
‘Might as well come back here then,’ McEwen said. ‘I’m already inside.’
‘See you there,’ Neil said.
McEwen kept an eye out for security devices as he circled the van. Once he felt safe, he put on a set of clear plastic gloves and pulled the small video camera out of his pocket. The back doors of the van were unlocked and he caught a whiff of fish as the light mounted on the video camera illuminated the boxes.
‘Could start a nice little war with that lot,’ McEwen said a couple of minutes later when Neil arrived. ‘Grenades, assault rifles, bullets. There’s even an RPG launcher in there.’
Neil was shocked. ‘George didn’t order any RPG launcher.’
McEwen shrugged. ‘Maybe they’ve got other customers. Or maybe it’s for the Führer’s private armoury.’
‘What now?’ Neil asked.