CHERUB: Mad Dogs (27 page)

‘What do you reckon?’ Lois grinned, as she unhitched the bra.

‘Stop!’ James spluttered. ‘No offence, Lois, but if your dad found out about this he’d kill me … Slowly.’

‘It’ll be OK,’ Lois said reassuringly. ‘Mum won’t be back for ages and if Dad comes in he’ll go straight down the basement to play cards.’

‘But,’ James said anxiously. Lois was sexy and completely up for it, but the image of what her powerfully built father had done to the councillor was fixed in his head.

‘You only just moved into town and I heard from Wheels that you didn’t have a girlfriend,’ Lois said, as she pulled down her sweat pants. James was stunned by the lack of underwear as she opened the bathroom cabinet and spun a foil-wrapped condom across the room. It hit his arm before landing in the bathwater.

‘What’s that for?’ James asked stupidly. He could hardly breathe and half expected to wake up and find it was all a dream.

‘I don’t know where you’ve been,’ Lois said, as she stepped into the water and kissed James on the neck. ‘And your mate’s wandering around downstairs, so if you want some action you’d better hurry up.’

James felt numb as he walked down the front steps of Sasha’s house. He hadn’t wanted to put his muddy kit back on after the bath, so Lois dug out one of Sasha’s old tracksuits and a pair of trainers. Both were a couple of sizes too big, but that was the least of his worries.

The fact that he’d just lost his virginity felt like a three-hundred-kilo gorilla on his back. And to make matters worse, Lois had suggestively mentioned that he could
bring the clothes back any time he liked
.

‘You’re acting weird,’ Bruce noted, as they walked away from the Thompsons’ house towards the bus stop. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Course,’ James said, shrugging half-heartedly and keen to change the subject. ‘How did you get on with the search?’

‘Not bad. You were up there with Lois for
ages
, so I had a chance to go through everything. I got the numbers for a couple of pay-as-you-go phones. I snapped some interesting business cards and I even managed a quick rummage through the cupboards in the living-room. I don’t think I’ve unearthed anything spectacular, but it might get us somewhere.’

‘The phones sound good,’ James said, though he found it hard to concentrate. His heartbeat was all over the place and there was a two-thousand-voice choir in his head screaming
you just had sex!

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Bruce asked again. ‘You look pale and you’re all clammy.’

James wished Bruce would stop talking and let him get his head straight. ‘I guess it’s the cut on my leg,’ he said irritably. ‘You dug that glass in too deep.’

‘You know what’s weird though?’ Bruce asked, raising one eyebrow slightly.

‘What?’

‘You know Lois asked me to make a cup of tea?’

James nodded.

‘Well after I’d searched Sasha’s study, I made a quick cuppa and when you didn’t come down I started taking it up the stairs.’

‘You
what
?’ James gasped.

‘It was really strange,’ Bruce smirked. ‘When I got up near the bathroom I could hear water splashing everywhere. You were making this kind of low groaning noise, then afterwards I could have sworn that I heard Lois saying that you
weren’t bad for a first timer
.’

James realised he’d been rumbled. ‘She was all over me, Bruce,’ he blurted. ‘You’ve
got
to keep this quiet.’

‘Do you reckon?’ Bruce laughed. ‘Sasha would hook you up by your scrotum and Dana … Well, let’s just say she wouldn’t be too happy if she found out.’

James had grown to hate his reputation for cheating on girls and he really cared about Dana.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ James shouted. ‘Lois locked the bathroom door and then practically jumped on top of me.’

Bruce wasn’t listening. ‘You’re such a jammy dog. She’s got a good body. Was it as amazing as everyone says it is?’

James got a kick out of the fact that he’d leapt into the adult realm, while Bruce was forced to remain curious. ‘It was OK,’ he shrugged. ‘I mean, it’s definitely nice to have done it. But Lois kept bossing me around, which wasn’t exactly how I imagined it …’

‘The dominant female,’ Bruce giggled, ‘very kinky. Kerry’s gonna burst when I tell her.’

‘For god’s sake,’ James said. ‘You can’t tell anyone. You’ve got to swear, Bruce. And I’m only fifteen and a half, so I could get expelled if the staff find out.’

But by this time Bruce was laughing so hard that he could barely stand up. ‘Sasha’s daughter!’ he howled. ‘You dirty little goat.’

James was starting to get annoyed. ‘Will you shut up? It’s dark and there could be anyone walking around here.’

‘Sorry,’ Bruce grinned, as he wiped tears on to the sleeve of his tracksuit top. ‘Don’t worry, I’m your mate and was only joking about telling Kerry, but…’

Bruce couldn’t finish the sentence. He was laughing so hard that he had to clutch his stomach to stop his sides hurting.

*

The boys had arranged to meet Chloe at a bus stop about a kilometre from Sasha’s house. From there they made the short drive to her hotel near the town centre. It was gone eleven when they arrived, but the gang lifestyle revolved around late nights and long lie-ins, so neither boy was tired.

‘You look like you’ve been laughing,’ Chloe said as the boys stepped into her room.

For a moment James thought Bruce was going to crack up again, but after a little snort he managed to get a grip on himself.

‘Care to share?’ Chloe asked.

‘Oh, it was nothing,’ Bruce lied. ‘Just this old lady with one of those fancy poodles with all the hair done up in pom-poms. They always make me laugh.’

Chloe looked baffled. ‘It never ceases to amaze me the stuff teenage boys think is funny,’ she said. ‘I’ve got the laptop logged into the police computer. You said you had phone numbers or something?’

Bruce guffawed as he sat at the small hotel desk and pulled the PDA out of the little backpack. ‘The main thing is that I’ve got a couple of pay-as-you-go phone numbers,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to run them?’

‘Sure,’ Chloe nodded. ‘If you know how to use the system.’

Bruce opened the PDA and played back the voice recordings he’d made of the numbers and handset IDs. Technically, you were supposed to get a judge’s approval to access mobile phone records, but in reality the intelligence services had instant access to call records from all of the major networks. If they found anything interesting, they could always get permission afterwards.

As a long list of phone numbers appeared on the laptop screen, Bruce was delighted to see that both mobiles had been heavily used right up until earlier that evening.

‘Print everything off,’ Chloe said. ‘I don’t have analysis software here, so we’ll have to go through it by hand.’

Over the course of the mission, James, Michael, Bruce and Gabrielle had collected the phone numbers of gang members whenever they could. The big men like Sasha and Major Dee covered their tracks by regularly switching phones, but most of their deputies stuck to one handset. Despite this, there were still more than a hundred numbers on the list.

Once three months of Sasha’s calls had dropped into the tray of the laser printer, Chloe divided the twenty sheets into three piles and split them evenly with the boys. They each grabbed a pen and began marking off numbers.

‘07839 is Savvas’ home number,’ Bruce said. ‘25614 is one of Wheels’ phones.’

Chloe and James skimmed through their papers, writing the name of the person Sasha called beside each instance of the number being dialled. Within ten minutes, they’d marked off most of the numbers and eliminated a few others – such as the garage that was fixing Sasha’s car – by using a reverse searchable version of the telephone directory.

‘I’ve still got one number that comes up every day or so,’ James said, as he lay on Chloe’s hotel bed. ‘It’s a mobile ending 42399.’

Chloe nodded as she ran her finger down the list of Mad Dogs phone numbers. ‘I’ve got it on my sheet too. It’s an unregistered mobile, but it’s not on the list.’

‘Yes it is,’ Bruce said, waving his copy of the number list at Chloe. ‘42399, Simeon Bentine.’

‘Where?’ Chloe asked, as she slid her nail down the page for the third time. ‘I can’t see it.’

Bruce had made a discovery and seemed pretty full of himself. ‘I’m not using the list me and James got,’ he explained. ‘This is Michael and Gabrielle’s list.’

‘Get out of town,’ James grinned, as he snatched the paper from Bruce to confirm that the phone numbers matched. ‘You’re right … So who the hell is Simeon Bentine?’

‘No idea, but Michael should know where he fits in,’ Chloe said, as she picked up her mobile from her bedside cabinet and gave him a call. ‘Hey, is it safe to speak?’

‘Chloe,’ Michael said fondly. ‘It’s safe. I’m in a cab heading off to some house party.’

‘Sounds like fun,’ Chloe said. ‘Listen, I’m here at the hotel with James and Bruce. We’ve got a call log from an unregistered mobile phone found in Sasha Thompson’s house. It looks as if he’s been spending a lot of time speaking to a man called Simeon Bentine. Ever heard of him?’

Michael sounded shocked. ‘You said Simeon? E-O-N?’

‘That’s what I said. Who is he?’

‘He’s Major Dee’s money man. I’ve only met him a couple of times. He’s in his fifties, not much in common with the other Slasher Boys. Dresses in a pinstripe suit, drives a dark blue Mercedes E-class, respectable. You know, not blinged up or anything.’

‘So you’d be pretty surprised to hear that this guy is on the phone to Sasha Thompson almost every day?’ Chloe asked.

‘This is
huge
, Chloe,’ Michael said excitedly. ‘This is the mother we’ve been waiting for. Simeon is the money man, which means he always knows when Major Dee is doing a big deal because he has to put the cash into position.’

‘Major Dee’s drug consignments have a history of being robbed by the Mad Dogs,’ Chloe noted.

‘Exactly,’ Michael said. ‘And it could easily have been Simeon who started up this whole war by telling Sasha where Dee kept his stash of cocaine.’

‘Thanks for your help,’ Chloe smiled. ‘This sounds big. I’ll call you back as soon as I know more.’

‘Good news?’ Bruce asked as Chloe put her phone down.

‘As good as it gets,’ Chloe said. ‘I might even have hugged you if you weren’t still wearing half of the Mad Dogs FC training pitch.’

‘So it looks as if Simeon Bentine is Sasha’s mole inside the Slasher Boys,’ James said. ‘What are we gonna do about it?’

Chloe shrugged. ‘I’ll speak with Maureen and Zara. We’ll need a while to think it through, but this is something we can use to our advantage for sure.’

It was gone 1 a.m. when James got home, but he lay awake, feeling on edge and asking himself the same questions over and over:
Could he trust Bruce not to spill the beans on campus? Could Sasha possibly find out? And Dana
… You don’t always realise that you’re taking someone for granted until you risk losing them.

James had never told Dana that he loved her, but realised now that he did. She was hilariously funny and he adored the way she ambled about in scruffy clothes, not caring what people thought about her. Dana managed to be sexy without spending hours plastering make-up over her face and the fact it was all so effortless somehow made it better.

But the weird thing about being fifteen – or maybe just the weird thing about being male – was that at the same time as James felt terrible about cheating on his girlfriend, he couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever get another chance with Lois. She wasn’t the most amazing person in the world, but she had a great body and he quite fancied trying out sex again when he wasn’t numb with shock.

In the end, James abandoned sleep. He pulled a tiny crack in the curtain on his side of the room and opened a cheesy paperback biography of a motorcycle champion that had been stuck on the front cover of his latest motorbike magazine. James was no connoisseur of literature, but it took him all of five pages to work out that it was a pile of crap and he was back to thinking about Lois in the bath when his mobile rang.

It was 5:57 when he saw Wheels flashing on the display. ‘Hey mate,’ James said.

The ring had woken Bruce, who sat up rubbing his eyes.

James practically swallowed his tongue when he didn’t hear Wheels’ voice.

‘All right,’ Sasha said. ‘Feelin’ fit?’

‘Yeah,’ James gulped. He kept hearing
I just shagged your daughter in his head
.

‘Sorry about the ungodly hour, James, but I just had a call from a mate of mine; we’re heading over to the Rudge Estate to take care of that bit of business we’ve been planning.’

‘Right,’ James nodded.

‘I wasn’t gonna bring you in on this bit, but I’ve got a couple of my lads dealing with some other business and this has to happen within the next few hours. Besides, I’ve really come to appreciate your loyalty, coming out for training when others have turned their backs.’

As soon as Sasha mentioned
loyalty
, James worried if he somehow knew what he’d been up to with Lois. ‘Thanks,’ he said weakly.

‘It’s not gonna be a picnic, but if you’re up for it, I can get a car along for you and your cousin in fifteen minutes. I’ll give you a grand a piece and I’m a fair man, so I’ll cut you in if we do well.’

‘I guess,’ James said, still nervous about Lois. ‘I mean …
Sure
. We’ll get suited and booted.’

‘Wheels reckons you’ve both got body armour and a couple of titchy handguns. Is that true?’

‘Yeah,’ James said.

‘Where’d you get hold of them?’ Sasha asked curiously.

‘Guy we did a couple of jobs for in Scotland. He couldn’t pay us, but he had a ton of dodgy weapons and some Kevlar suits ripped off from an army base.’

‘What about ammunition?’

‘A clip,’ James said. ‘Same for Bruce I think.’

‘Right,’ Sasha said. ‘Wear your armour and bring the guns, but I might have to upgrade your firepower. I want you down on the doorstep when I arrive or I’ll be pissed off.’

‘No worries, Sasha,’ James said.

He realised how tense he’d been as he put his phone down and saw its shape marked out in his palm where he’d been clutching it tight.