CHERUB: The Sleepwalker (21 page)

‘OK,’ McEwen said, as the team gathered around the equipment in the hallway. ‘Dave and I will take the laptops around and clone every hard drive we can get our hands on. Jake, I want listening devices in every room. Bethany and Lauren, there’s a pair of high-speed document copiers in the back of the car. Go to the office and duplicate anything you find interesting.’

‘Can I help?’ Fahim asked.

McEwen sounded unfriendly. ‘Are sure you’ve told Mac where all the computers are?’

‘Definitely,’ Fahim said. ‘My dad’s no computer whiz. I have to install the software and sort out his internet whenever it crashes.’

‘Right,’ McEwen said. ‘And you gave us the combination of the safe, so the best thing you can do is sit on your can and let us do our jobs.’

As Bethany and Lauren ran outside to get the copiers, Jake unzipped the giant equipment bag Dave had brought in and pulled out a device that looked like a staple gun.

‘Come with me if you like, Fahim,’ Jake said warmly. ‘Show me where your dad likes to sit, then I’ll be able to put bugs in all the best places.’

‘What is that thing?’ Fahim asked, as they headed up the stairs.

When they reached the balcony, Jake opened up a catch on top of the device, then swung open a metal panel, exposing a reel of what looked like tiny black needles.

‘It’s the very latest,’ Jake explained. ‘We used to have bugs that were about the size of your little fingernail, but there was still a chance they’d be discovered. These new ones are like hairs: you just line up the gun over something soft and fire them in. As they leave the gun, a seal is broken which activates a small chemical battery and it transmits a compressed recording pulse about once every three seconds for the following eight to ten days, depending upon how often people talk.’

To demonstrate, Jake lined the gun up over the back of a velvet armchair and pressed down on the handle. There was a pulse of compressed air.

‘Now it’s embedded inside the cushion. It’s flexible, so it won’t prick you if you sit on it and it’s sensitive enough to pick up sound even if it’s embedded two or three centimetres inside a pillow or mattress.’

‘Nifty,’ Fahim smiled. ‘It must take you ages to learn how to use all this equipment.’

Jake held his thumb and fingers wide apart. ‘They give you massive fat technical manuals to read. You have to take a test before you’re authorised to use any piece of equipment and there’s no room for error. You get a hundred per cent, or you fail.

‘Of course, something like this is relatively simple. But it takes weeks to learn all the ins and outs of cloning computer hard drives and installing key loggers and stuff like that.’

Fahim’s eyes were wide with excitement. ‘All this is so cool,’ he beamed. ‘I’ve dreamed of doing stuff like this ever since I watched Spy Kids.’

Once Jake had injected listening devices into cushions, carpets and mattresses throughout the house and adjoining offices, he took out a PDA and walked around checking the signal strength.

‘The last step is to install a relay box,’ Jake explained, as he dug inside the equipment bag in the hallway. ‘We’ll probably need a pair for a house this size. The relays pick up the weak signals from the tiny needle bugs and boost them for transmission to a master receiver stationed a few hundred metres from the house.’

‘What about on TV, when you see people sweeping for bugs?’ Fahim said.

‘Only works with old technology,’ Jake said, as he showed Fahim the two relays, which were the size of drinks coasters but flatter. ‘The kind of bugs you’d buy in a spy shop transmit continously. Two disadvantages: transmitting all the time uses a lot of energy, which means they have to be fitted into something like a light socket or a clock radio. Continual transmission also means they’re easy to detect.

‘All our bugs store sound in memory and compress it into a tiny pulse which lasts less than a hundredth of a second. It’s impossible to detect them over the background static created by the earth’s magnetic field.’

Jake gave Fahim one of the relay boxes and he turned it over in his hand.

‘The best place to put this is in your room, inside a toy or somewhere else your dad never goes. The higher the better if you want a good signal.’

‘CD case?’ Fahim asked. ‘You know, if you snap out the black bit that holds the CD? It would go inside and he’d never look there.’

‘Good thinking,’ Jake smiled.

The relay had a sticky backing, which they peeled off and fitted inside the case of Fahim’s Killers CD. Then they placed it on top of Fahim’s wardrobe under a stack of board games.

Jake pulled out his telephone and called Mac. ‘Hey boss, I need a signal test,’ he said. ‘I’ve installed unit IDs 65341 through 65409.’

Mac couldn’t help laughing as he pulled a PDA out of the glovebox and tapped the screen with a stylus to turn it on. ‘Sixty-nine listening devices in one house! Call me an old fart, but I can remember the days when we had to drill holes in the walls to fit devices the size of a fist … I’m getting medium or strong signals on everything except 65389 through 65404.’

‘More or less what I thought,’ Jake said. ‘We need another relay in the office wing. I’ll get right on it.’

The office annexe was a hive of activity. Hassam and Asif Bin Hassam had three PCs and three laptops between them, plus two extra machines in the third office which was used when they hired a temporary secretary, or when Yasmin did the bookkeeping.

While Dave and McEwen copied hard disks and backup data tapes on to a laptop specially configured to rip data to a bank of high-speed hard-disk drives, Lauren and Bethany worked with the document scanners.

The latest scanners were based around ultra-high-definition video cameras. All you had to do was flash a document in front of the lens and it would be recorded legibly within a fiftieth of a second. The two girls worked meticulously through the filing cabinets, with the cameras mounted on tripods as they flicked through pages as fast as their hands allowed. But even with near instant scanning, filming every page in a filing cabinet would take hours, so they had to make educated guesses as to which documents were likely to prove valuable before replacing them exactly as they found them.

‘Anyone seen a good spot for a second audio relay?’ Jake asked.

Dave Moss pointed towards the drawer unit built into the side of Hassam’s desk. ‘Pull the drawer out and stick it on the back. Nobody will ever look there, and even if someone does, it’ll just look like a sticker.’

Lauren looked at Fahim as Jake knelt in front of the desk and began fitting the relay.

‘You holding up OK?’ she asked.

‘My heart’s racing,’ Fahim admitted. ‘But the way you guys work is amazing. You pull all this fancy equipment out and you know exactly how it works.’

‘Mac’s got the front gate covered,’ Lauren said reassuringly. ‘And we’ve got hiding places and escape routes worked out if your dad does turn up.’

‘Finished,’ Jake said, rubbing dirt off his gloved hands as he stood up. ‘Is there another document scanner, or maybe I could make a cup of tea?’

‘There’s only the two scanners,’ Lauren said, ‘but don’t worry. I reckon we’ll have filmed all the important stuff within an hour.’

Dave Moss clapped his hands. ‘I’m definitely up for a cuppa. Just make sure you don’t spill any on the carpet or you’ll give the game away.’

‘I know, Dave,’ Jake tutted. ‘I’m not stupid.’

‘Just cocky,’ Lauren said, before noisily clearing her throat.

Bethany, Dave and McEwen were mystified, but Jake knew he was being warned about his attitude.

‘Sorry,’ Jake said anxiously. ‘I’ll make sure all the cups are washed up and put back properly afterwards as well.’

‘It’s safest if we take a ten-minute break and drink it in the kitchen,’ McEwen said. ‘We’ve got bags of time.’

It was already dark and misty rain drifted on the wind. James had his arm around Dana’s waist as he walked up to the door of a second-storey flat and pressed the doorbell. Kerry walked a few paces behind. She’d invited Gabrielle and her boyfriend Michael, but they’d dropped out because Gabrielle wasn’t well.

‘Come in,’ Gemma said cheerfully, opening her front door, barefoot and dressed in a baggy cardigan. ‘Bloody hell, James, you look smart. And you must be Dana.’

‘Hey,’ Dana said. ‘Thanks for inviting us.’

James wore a Chunk T-shirt, Dana’s leather jacket and black chinos with weathered brown shoes. Dana wore scruffy CHERUB-issue combat trousers and a denim jacket, while Kerry had gone all out to impress with a red micro dress and white Converse pumps.

‘I’m not
quite
ready, as you can see,’ Gemma said apologetically. ‘Why don’t you go through to the living-room? My sister Mel will fix a drink.’

The trio followed Gemma down a hallway with loud carpet and Tonka toys parked along the skirting board. The

TV was playing a
Charlie and Lola
DVD when they got through to the living-room. Mel, who looked like a teenaged version of Gemma, sat on the couch, while two little boys mucked around behind it.

‘Mel’s babysitting for me,’ Gemma explained. ‘I’ve gotta go upstairs and find my shoes, but make yourselves at home. There’s a bottle of vodka in the cupboard. Get pissed ASAP, I say.’

Mel looked fifteen at the most, so James was stunned when she stood up, revealing that she was a good six months pregnant.

‘I know,’ Gemma said, when she saw James and the girls’ startled expressions. ‘She’s beaten my record for getting knocked up, the dirty little cow.’

Mel gave her big sister the finger as she pulled down the front of a drinks cabinet. As soon as the two kids heard the door open they belted out from behind the sofa in their pyjamas and demanded Coke.

‘Don’t
start
you two or I’ll tell Daddy,’ Gemma growled, from halfway up the stairs. ‘You should have been in bed an hour ago.’

‘Is Danny here?’ James asked, as Mel poured vodka and Cokes into plastic tumblers with Flintstones characters on the side.

‘Nah,’ Mel said. ‘He went over to open the club and help the DJ set up.’

Kerry and Dana were both fascinated by the sight of someone their own age who was pregnant, and they cooed over Mel’s bump and asked loads of questions. James let himself get swallowed in a leatherette recliner, holding his drink in one hand while putting a Cookie Monster hand puppet on the other and using it to play peek-a-boo with Gemma’s youngest.

‘You look nice,’ James said, when Gemma came back in a different dress and matching shoes.

‘Getting mashed, getting mashed, getting mashed,’ Gemma chanted to the tune of
here we go
,
here we go
, before slugging her vodka and Coke down in one. Then she kissed her kids goodnight and told them to behave for Auntie Mel.

The Outrage club was a ten-minute walk across a housing estate into a deserted industrial park. All the businesses were closed for the night and clubbers were ignoring the
No Parking for Clubbers
signs and hanging around their cars, getting loaded on supermarket booze before having to pay club prices inside.

The Outrage itself had once been a light industrial unit that made hi-fi loudspeakers, but its transformation into a nightclub had led to a redesign that included a trendy roof garden and fluorescent orange cladding.

‘Weird place to open a club,’ James said.

Gemma nodded. ‘Started off as a gay venue – still is on weekends. They put it out here ’cos there’s loads of chav palaces in town and all the gays used to get battered at chucking-out time.’

James hadn’t been to a club before and he’d imagined a velvet rope and crowds of glamorous people waiting to get in. But this was quarter to eleven on a Wednesday in a small town, so there was just Danny and a couple of hard-looking mates crowding the entrance.

‘James you big homo!’ Danny said affectionately, before slapping him on the back. ‘Good to see you.’

‘Kids won’t go to bed,’ Gemma moaned, after Danny gave her a kiss.

‘Another hour and they’ll crash,’ Danny grinned. ‘Don’t sweat. It’s Mel’s problem; I’m paying her enough.’

As they walked inside, Danny gave them flyers that included free entry and two drinks for the price of one before eleven o’clock. The interior was gloomy, with a floor made from railway sleepers and seventies style furniture. Much of the crowd was under age, mostly sixth-formers and students. James, Dana and Kerry were among the youngest, but far from out of place.

The teenaged DJ was letting a home-made mash-up CD of garage and seventies rock deafen the crowd while he sat on the steps leading up to the stage, drinking from a bottle of Volvic while girls in short skirts stood around lapping up every word he said. James looked on enviously, knowing that only a tin ear and a complete lack of talent stood between himself and a career at the turntables.

*

By midnight the club was heaving with students, twentysomethings and creepy older guys who seemed to think that Ben Sherman shirts were still fashionable. One of them got short shrift when he tried chatting up Kerry.

When the music got too much, the flat expanse of roof provided a quieter area where you could chill out. There weren’t enough seats, so most people stood around, their animated conversations fuelled by expensive booze and cheap drugs.

Dana, Kerry and James had found a table under a heated canopy in the VIP area. Maybe some minor local celebrities had graced it over the years, but on Wednesday nights VIP status belonged to anyone who knew the DJ or one of the bouncers.

James glanced drunkenly at his watch and saw that it was quarter to two in the morning. It wasn’t a particularly cold night, but he was sweaty from bopping downstairs and he got goosebumps every time the wind blew.

They’d all had a good time and James particularly liked the fact that he, Kerry and Dana were all getting along. He’d danced with Kerry and he was content to sit back while they had boring conversations about girl stuff.

‘What do you reckon?’ James asked. ‘Time to make a move?’

Dana’s blond hair was straggly from dancing in the heat downstairs and she’d teased James by letting some random guy write his mobile number on her neck. ‘It’s gonna take an hour to sort out a cab and get back to campus,’ she said, before smiling. ‘And I have a maths lesson in six and a half hours’ time.’