CHERUB: Mad Dogs (26 page)

‘Happy now, mate?’ Sasha boomed, as he took a short run up and finished the councillor off with a kick in the guts. ‘There’s no Mad Dogs FC without me and anyone who can’t live with that can piss right off.’

It was the most one-sided beating James had ever seen. Even worse, Sasha’s cronies just gawped as Sasha loomed over the unconscious councillor. Half a minute passed while Sasha caught his breath, but it seemed longer.

‘I reckon he’ll live.’ Sasha smirked as he finally backed away. ‘Take him to the hospital and keep an eye on him. If he comes round and starts mouthing off, remind him that I know where his old mum lives.’

Most of the onlookers were tough guys who’d seen their share of violence. But nobody knew how to act as Savvas and a couple of other flunkies picked the councillor out of the mud and dragged his limp body towards the car park.

‘What are you all standing around for?’ Sasha yelled, as he waved towards the pitch. ‘We’re a football club, so go play some bloody football.’

Nobody was going to argue. The coach to the defunct first team blew a whistle and everyone who was dressed for football headed on to the pitch.

‘Stone-cold psycho,’ Junior said admiringly, as James turned around and realised that his friend had arrived and stood right behind him. ‘I can think of a few people I’d like to do that to … My dickhead of a parole officer for starters.’

James had been trained to deal with all kinds of situations, but what Sasha had just done made him feel he’d been punched in the guts.

‘Is that the worst he’s ever done?’ Bruce asked.

Junior shrugged. ‘Worst I’ve seen, but I’ve heard much nastier stuff. Anyway, listen, I know you boys have been earning for that surveillance job. I’m so broke, could one of you lend us thirty quid?’

‘You already owe me fifty,’ James said.

‘Come on,’ Junior begged. ‘Sasha won’t put any work my way. My mum won’t pay my pocket money because I’m supposed to be grounded and I’ve robbed everything out of April’s purse.’

Bruce tutted. ‘You robbed your own sister? That’s low, man.’

Junior gave Bruce the finger. ‘None of your business who I rob.’

‘Any time today, ladies,’ the coach shouted as he eyeballed the three boys from the centre circle. ‘We’re gonna warm up with some shuttle runs.’

Junior groaned. ‘This is such crap. This is supposed to be the Sunday league side,
fun
football. But now we’ve got this Nazi drilling us like he’s still running the first team.’

‘Wimp,’ James grinned. ‘The only reason you can’t handle it is because of all that shit you put up your nose.’

Junior looked behind and saw that Sasha was still around. ‘I’d piss off now, except Sasha would bite my head off; but I swear this is the last time I’m coming down here.’

As the players lined up along the half-way line to start doing shuttle runs, James realised that Junior wasn’t the only one who felt like he was in the wrong place. The quality players wanted something meatier than pub-league football, the casual Sunday players certainly didn’t want shuttle runs and the youth-team players wanted to be back in a squad with their mates.

Sasha Thompson could stomp on as many people as he liked, but it wouldn’t change the fact that the Slasher Boys’ attack spelt the end of Mad Dogs FC.

*

After twenty minutes the coach was sick of all the moaning and gave up on serious training. He divided the players up into two nine-man teams, gave half of them red training bibs and retired to a bench next to Sasha while they played a match.

A few minutes into the game, James went into a sliding tackle out on the right. He’d mistimed hopelessly and the former first-team player didn’t even break his stride, but as James stood up he slipped a piece of glass from the pocket of his shorts and drew the sharp edge up his leg.

He was too chicken to press down hard and the first attempt didn’t even break the skin, but the second try cut into the tight skin around his calf muscle and produced a dribble of blood.

‘Owww,’ James yelled, as he looked around for Bruce.

Bruce had been waiting for James to go down and was on the scene in seconds, offering him a hand up.

Bruce inspected the wound and tutted. ‘That’s barely a nick, you tart. If you show Sasha that he’ll laugh his arse off.’

‘Bugger
off
,’ James said indignantly. ‘There’s plenty of blood there.’

‘Gimme the glass,’ Bruce said, as he looked around.

Fortunately play continued in a disorganised scrum around the distant goalmouth and the only spectators – Sasha and the coach – had lost interest in this pathetic excuse for a training session.

‘I know what you’re like,’ James said, as he palmed the glass over to Bruce. ‘
Don’t
go mad.’

Bruce bent forward as if he was concerned about James’ injury, then sneakily pressed the jagged edge into the tiny cut before ripping it out in a downward motion.

‘What the …’ James said, clutching his agonised leg. He would have yelled out, but he had to cover up because the injury was supposed to have happened when he’d gone down half a minute earlier.

‘That looks much better,’ Bruce said, as a torrent of blood poured down James’ leg into his crumpled football sock.

‘What have you done?’ James gasped, as Bruce gave him a lift out of the mud. ‘I’m bleeding to death.’

‘Don’t exaggerate,’ Bruce grinned, before he ran to the bench.

‘What’s up, champ?’ Sasha said disinterestedly, as he looked up and saw Bruce with James hobbling behind him.

‘My cousin cut his leg,’ Bruce explained, holding out the bloody chunk of glass. ‘Have we got any first-aid stuff around?’

By this time James was close enough for Sasha to see the state of his leg.

‘I’ll get the first-aid kit out of the van,’ the manager said, much to the alarm of James and Bruce.

‘Forget that,’ Sasha said, as he leaned forward and inspected James’ leg. ‘You can’t clean up all that blood without running water. Go over to my place and my missus will fix it up: she was a nurse, she’ll know what to do.’

‘That worked OK,’ Bruce smiled, as he helped James to limp across the empty car park.

‘You’re a git,’ James moaned. ‘You know I’ve got a low pain threshold.’

‘That’s just a posh way of saying you’re soft.’

By the time they reached the main gate, James had walked off some of the pain and didn’t need Bruce’s arm around his back. As they passed on to the street, Bruce ducked behind a tree and grabbed a small backpack Chloe had dumped there half an hour earlier. It contained everything he’d need, hidden beneath a layer of dirty sports kit: a tiny PDA with a built-in voice recorder and camera, a couple of compact listening devices and a stun gun just in case things went wrong.

They rang the bell and were surprised when sixteen-year-old Lois Thompson opened the door. She looked like she’d been chilling in front of the TV, dressed in grey sweat pants with a ripped knee and a giant Luton Town football shirt that must have belonged to her dad.

‘Hey,’ Bruce said. ‘James slashed his leg, is your mum home?’

‘Did my dad send you over?’ Lois tutted. ‘He knows she goes to Weight Watchers on Monday night.’

‘Oh,’ Bruce said, exchanging an awkward glance with James as Lois examined James’ leg.

‘Looks nasty,’ she said. ‘I can take a look if you like. I used to be in the St John Ambulance when I was a kid.’

‘Would you mind?’ James nodded. ‘It’s a long walk home.’

‘Try not to drip blood anywhere.’ Lois let them into the hallway. ‘It’s brand new carpet and my mum would freak.’

‘Thanks,’ James said, pulling off his football boots.

‘Leave ’em on the mat,’ Lois smiled. ‘The first-aid stuff is in the big bathroom up on the first landing. Can you manage the stairs?’

‘I can hold the banister and hop,’ James grinned.

Lois looked at Bruce, unsure why he’d taken off his boots. ‘Aren’t you going back to the game?’

‘Oh …’ Bruce said.

‘There’s not much going on,’ James said, covering hurriedly. ‘Can’t he wait for me here? I might need help coming back down the stairs or whatever.’

‘I guess,’ Lois said. ‘It’s Bruce, isn’t it?’

Bruce nodded.

‘I tell you what Bruce, you both look half frozen. Why don’t you go in the kitchen and make some tea? There’s all kinds of biscuits in there too.’

Bruce had been knocked off his stride when Lois answered the door, but he now realised that the search would be easier with only one person in the house and being left alone downstairs was perfect.

As Bruce cut into the Thompsons’ expensively fitted kitchen, James wound his football shirt around his leg to stop the blood dripping and began walking upstairs.

‘First on the left,’ Lois said.

She reached in behind James and pulled on a light cord, revealing a space that was as big as James’ room on campus. There was a large corner bath, a stack of lifestyle magazines beside the toilet, a separate shower cubicle and a wicker lounge chair in front of a circular window.

‘Sit down,’ Lois said, as she threw a bath towel over the bottom half of the lounger to keep the mud off. ‘I’ll sponge off the worst of it, then you can have a soak in the bath and I’ll bandage it up when you’re clean.’

‘Cool,’ James nodded, sitting down with his grubby legs stretched out in front of him.

‘Raise your leg up, so I can see the cut,’ Lois said, as she leaned over the bath and turned on the taps.

‘You’ve got a nice house,’ James grinned.

‘Parents are a pain though,’ Lois smiled, as she knelt on one knee and began peeling off his football sock. ‘You must get heaps more freedom living in the Zoo.’

*

It was a large house and Bruce had to be completely sure that Lois was the only person home. After scrubbing his hands under the mixer tap, he filled the kettle, then grabbed the backpack and headed out into the hallway.

He moved stealthily in his socked feet. His first step was to open the door that went into the basement. He peered down the slatted wooden steps and was pleased to see all the lights out and no sign of life.

Next, he raced down the ground-floor hallway, checking that the living-and dining-rooms were empty before opening the door to Sasha’s study. The room was a fair size, done out in matching Ikea office furniture. The longest wall was all shelves, crammed with books: mostly the histories of football clubs and biographies of players. Two partially melted trophies rescued from the Mad Dogs clubhouse stood atop the filing cabinet.

Bruce unzipped the PDA from the backpack and used it to phone Chloe.

‘I’m in the study now,’ Bruce whispered. ‘James is upstairs being cleaned up by Lois. Are you in place?’

‘I’m in the car directly across the street,’ Chloe said. ‘If anyone comes in or out you’ll be the first to know.’

‘First impressions aren’t good,’ Bruce said. ‘It all looks like football stuff.’

‘Sasha’s had the cops on his back for yonks,’ Chloe said. ‘He’s too smart to leave anything obvious in his own home. Remember what we discussed: be thorough and keep your eyes peeled for small clues.’

‘Will do,’ Bruce said, as he ended the call and flipped open the leather appointments diary in the middle of Sasha’s desk.

It was mundane stuff: hospital appointments for a bad knee, a meeting about the insurance on the clubhouse, taking the car in for a service. But as Bruce flipped it shut he noticed Sasha had used the inside front page to write down several phone numbers and he used the PDA to snap a couple of photographs.

Next he moved on to the desk drawers. Amidst the pens, clips and elastic bands were a couple of CD-ROMs, but there was no computer in the room and Bruce didn’t have the equipment on hand to copy them. The next drawer was stacked with old photos, whilst the large file drawer at the bottom appeared to be a makeshift liqueur cabinet, stacked with partially drunk bottles of vodka and brandy.

It was only as Bruce pulled the drawer open to its fullest that he spotted a pair of old Nokia phones squeezed between duty-free sized bottles of Jack Daniels and Cuervo Gold. The handsets looked cheap. Maybe they were just phones that Sasha no longer used, but the way they were propped deliberately between the bottles made him wonder.

Whilst home phones, internet connections and contract mobiles are easy for police to listen in on, pay-as-you-go mobiles, bought and topped up with cash, are completely anonymous. What’s more, they’re cheap enough for criminals to use for a few weeks and throw away before the police get wind of them.

Excited by the phones, Bruce laid each one on the desk and switched it on. As the grey and black LCDs went through the start-up screens, he was relieved that neither handset was set up for a PIN number. As soon as the phones detected the network, Bruce dialled *#06# and the phone’s unique handset ID flashed up on screen. He flipped the PDA into voice-record mode and carefully read out the numbers before placing the handsets back exactly as he’d found them.

Bruce looked around the room and decided that his next move would be a rummage through the filing cabinet and then a flick through the bookshelves, just in case anything had been tucked inside.

*

Upstairs, Lois slid her hand across James’ thigh as she stared at the clean rectangle of flesh around his cut.

‘It’s not all that deep,’ she murmured. ‘We’ve got some binding plasters that will hold the two halves of the cut together. It should heal up fine.’

Lois backed off and swished her hand through the clear bath water. ‘Feels about right to me,’ she said. ‘I haven’t put in soap or anything because it might sting if it gets inside the cut.’

‘You wouldn’t want that,’ James smiled. ‘I’m a total baby.’

‘You don’t look like a baby,’ Lois noted admiringly, as James stepped towards the bath. ‘Do you work out?’

‘I lift some weights,’ James nodded. ‘Nothing major.’

There was an awkward pause. He had to pull down his shorts and boxers before climbing into the water, but Lois stood less than a metre away and she clearly wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Don’t be shy on my account,’ Lois smirked. ‘I’ve seen plenty of blokes in the nude.’

James didn’t want to seem like a prude, but he didn’t like the idea of being naked in front of Sasha’s daughter. His solution was to turn towards the bath and drop his shorts quickly so that she only got a flash of his bum. Mercifully, Lois had backed up to the bathroom door by the time he’d settled into the hot water. He figured she’d be out of the room by the time he’d soaped his arms; but instead of leaving she slid the bolt across and pulled Sasha’s Luton Town shirt over her head, unveiling a bright orange sports bra as she approached the bath.