CHERUB: Shadow Wave (25 page)

‘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.

‘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.

A doorman in pinstripes trotted towards Kyle as he stopped the van in the hotel driveway.

‘We have guests arriving imminently,’ the doorman warned. ‘You can’t stop here, poppet.’

‘The Tan Abdullah party?’ Kyle asked.

He hopped out of the van and noticed a small gathering on the opposite side of the narrow one-way street. Hopefully there would be twenty or thirty more by the time the three Mercedes arrived.

‘You really
can’t
stop here now,’ the doorman repeated, his voice becoming shrill.

‘I have June Ling’s flowers,’ Kyle said. ‘We just got a call to say she was arriving early. These
have
to be in her room when she arrives or she’ll throw a fit.’

‘Oh goodness, we wouldn’t want that, would we?’ the doorman said, shuddering at the thought. ‘Well you’d better pass the flowers over, we’ll take them up to the room.’

Kyle shook his head and looked offended. ‘This is a floral display. Only I can set them up in the room.’

The doorman pranced inside and called out for Carlo, who duly arrived with a baggage trolley. Kyle loaded three huge displays of flowers on to the trolley, as the driver took the van into an alleyway at the side of the hotel.

A glass lift had been constructed in the hotel courtyard, and Carlo had to swipe a card to bring the lift up to the luxury suites on the top floor. Tan Abdullah and June Ling each had a personal assistant, who had travelled directly from the jet to the hotel so that the billionaire couple would arrive to find bags unpacked, beds made the way they liked and any other special requests fulfilled.

Carlo knocked and double doors swung open, admitting Kyle into the lounge of a spectacular hotel suite, centred around a circular leather couch with strips of pink neon running between the cushions. June Ling’s chunky-legged assistant looked horrified when she saw the flowers.

‘What is this?’ she said urgently. ‘Mrs Ling will be here
very
soon. She’s not in a good mood. You must
not
be in here.’

Carlo looked alarmed, but Kyle stayed cool as he glimpsed a huge marble bathroom where a tub was being filled ready for June Ling’s arrival.

‘These flowers were sent to Mr and Mrs Abdullah by the French ambassador,’ Kyle lied smoothly. ‘Would you like us to pass any message back to the embassy on why you refused them?’

Tan’s personal assistant was hovering in the background, but as soon he heard the word
embassy
he came rushing over. ‘From the embassy?’ he smiled. ‘Of course we shall accept the flowers. Would you like to display them on the dining-table?’

Kyle contemplated the table for a couple of seconds, before nodding. ‘I think the light coming through the skylight will illuminate them beautifully in that position. There’s also a message for Mr Tan Abdullah.’

Kyle passed over an envelope, embossed with the crest of the French embassy in London.

‘I’ll make sure Mr Abdullah is aware of the message as soon as he arrives,’ the assistant said.

Carlo had already pushed the trolley stacked with flower vases towards the dining-table and Kyle began standing the pots on the table and fiddling with the stems, using the limited knowledge of flower arranging he’d picked up in a North London florist’s shop a few hours earlier. As Kyle fiddled, Tan’s assistant waved an electronic wand over the pots to make sure none had been fitted with listening devices.

‘I just got a text from the driver,’ June Ling’s assistant shouted. ‘They’ll be here in two minutes. I need
everyone
out of this room.’

*

Following the attack outside Elbridge’s, a marked police car had picked up the convoy of Mercedes. But even an occasional siren blast wasn’t much help and the two miles between Oxford Street and the Mayfair hotel took twenty-five minutes.

The Leith was situated on a narrow lane, with upmarket boutiques opposite and a coffee shop on the corner. As the final black Mercedes clipped the kerb, half a dozen latte drinkers stormed out behind waving placards.

Kevin looked back and was confused by a long banner with an anti-arms trade slogan, placards bearing the Guilt Trips logo and others holding up the picture of a skinned mink he’d already seen outside Elbridge’s.

He jumped as an egg pelted the back windscreen.

‘Full reverse,’ TJ demanded. ‘Run the bastards over!’

‘Quiet,’ the bodyguard at the wheel said firmly. He was trained in advanced combat-driving techniques, but no amount of skill could counteract being stuck in a long car on a narrow street. The way ahead was blocked, so he put the car in reverse and began edging back while making regular blasts on the horn.

The protestors didn’t appreciate this aggressive gesture. They surrounded the car on all sides and pounded on the windows and the boot lid. TJ got rather excited with his hand pressed against the window giving them the finger.

‘Don’t provoke them,’ the driver said irritably, as he continued crawling backwards.

Up ahead the middle Mercedes was half in the road and half on the driveway of the Leith Hotel. There were a couple of dozen protestors stopping them from going any further.

‘Why are the police just sitting in their car?’ June Ling complained.

‘Waiting for backup I expect,’ the bodyguard in the front passenger seat explained. ‘Get out in front of a mob that size and they’ll just make fools of themselves.’

‘Well I’m not anyone’s prisoner,’ June Ling shrieked, with such violence that Lauren put a hand over her left ear in case of a reprise. ‘I’m getting out of here. You’re my bodyguard, now guard me!’

The crowd surged as June Ling threw open the passenger door. She’d left her high heels in the foot-well, and a couple of cameras flashed as she scrambled barefoot across ten metres of concrete and into the hotel lobby.

The jostling crowd reacted furiously because their prime target had got away. But they were better prepared by the time the bodyguard flung his door open. The protestors threw eggs through the open doors, one of which cracked on the seat beside Melissa and spattered her leg. She turned quickly towards Lauren.

‘Wanna make a run for it?’

‘Sod it,’ Lauren nodded. ‘We could be stuck in this car for ages.’

The police officers grabbed a protestor as Melissa and the bodyguard in the front passenger seat made the dash towards the hotel.

Lauren flipped her cardigan up over her head and ran through the gap in the protestors cleared by the huge bodyguard. A hotel doorman stepped out bravely, shielding the three runners with a large umbrella. Lauren almost made it, but took simultaneous egg hits as she passed through the doorway. One hit her back, the second spattered noisily against the cardigan over her head.

‘You OK, sweetie?’ Melissa asked, as Lauren peeled off the cardigan.

Outside, one of the protestors was yanking at the glass door, while a doorman pulled in the other direction. June Ling stood with folded arms, breathing fire as she waited for the lift.

‘I’m really sorry about this,’ Melissa said.

‘Not your fault. You’re not security,’ June Ling snapped, as she turned angrily towards the bodyguard. ‘This is the biggest shambles I’ve ever seen. These people know every step we make.’

The lift doors made a dinging sound and in her rush to get upstairs to her room, June Ling knocked into a young man dressed in a green polo shirt who was trying to step out. Lauren’s mouth dropped open as Kyle emerged from the lift and brushed silently past her.

The Leith wasn’t a large hotel and the entire top floor had been booked out by the Malaysian government and David Secombe. Lauren had a two-bedroom suite which she was supposed to be sharing with Kevin, but he was off with TJ as she padded out of her bathroom in her robe and slippers. She picked up her mobile, slid a glass door and stepped out on to a balcony.

She dialled Kyle, then peered down into the street below, and saw that the protestors had been cleared into a pocket on the opposite side of the street. There was a police van parked on the hotel driveway and armed officers standing by the main entrance.

‘Kyle, what the hell is going on?’ Lauren asked, sounding angry but keeping her voice low in case someone was out on another balcony.

‘Oh, hi,’ Kyle answered awkwardly.

‘You went through James’ mission briefing before he pulled out, didn’t you?’ Lauren asked accusingly. ‘That’s how the protestors knew what hotel we were staying at.’

‘I might have glanced at it,’ Kyle admitted.

Lauren shook her head. ‘If security finds out, you’ll never be allowed on campus again. They’ll cut you off financially and throw the book at you in court if you give them an excuse. And the last thing you need is a criminal record when you want to become a lawyer.’

‘That’s why I didn’t tell you,’ Kyle said. ‘But I’m not an idiot, Lauren. I’m working with good people.’

‘They know there’s a leak,’ Lauren said. ‘So you’d
better
have covered your tracks. And what about James, is he involved?’

Kyle had to think before answering. He didn’t want to lie, but it was more important that he didn’t drop James in it.

‘I have no idea where your brother is,’ Kyle said.

‘Is there anything I should know?’ Lauren asked. ‘What are you planning exactly with your flower delivery?’

‘It’s better if you don’t know,’ Kyle said firmly. ‘You’ll probably encounter a few more protestors when you’re out and about, but the element of surprise is gone. The cops will follow every step you make from now on.’

‘Just be careful, OK?’

‘I will,’ Kyle said. ‘Are you pissed off that I didn’t tell you?’

‘Slightly,’ Lauren admitted. She heard the boys coming into her room. ‘I’ve gotta go, bye.’

‘What do you want?’ Lauren said aggressively as she stepped back into her bedroom.

‘They’ve taken the booze out of the mini bars and locked out porn on our TV,’ Kevin explained. ‘We’re bored.’

TJ inspected the eggy cardigan balled up on the floor. ‘They got you good,’ he grinned. ‘Should have stayed in your car for five minutes. We had about twenty cops escorting us.’

There was a knock at the door. Kevin opened up and Suzie strolled down towards Lauren.

‘The bodyguards say there’s no way we can go out until dinner this evening,’ Suzie explained. ‘So how about we get down to the spa and have ourselves massaged by a couple of hunks?’

‘Oooh, I
like
the sound of that,’ Lauren agreed.