It was Saturday morning. James was still buried under the covers at ten o’clock when he got woken up by Kyle jumping off his bunk and heading down the hall to take a shower. Deciding it was time to haul himself up, James threw off his duvet and gave himself a good scratch as he pottered across to the window in his boxers. He pulled back the curtain.
‘Holy crap …’ James spluttered, as he looked down and saw half a dozen people standing on the tiny square of lawn at the front of the house. They all held polystyrene cups and a few had cameras strung around their necks.
‘Kyle, get out here,’ James yelled.
‘What?’ Kyle yelled back. ‘I’m getting in the shower.’
James leaned out into the hallway. ‘Screw that Kyle, there’s millions of journalists standing on our front lawn. What are we supposed to do?’
Wearing a hand towel around his waist and covered in beads of water, Kyle disbelievingly hopped up to the leaded window and peeked between the curtains.
‘Someone must have told them Ryan’s coming out today.’
‘Well duh,’ James said. ‘What are we gonna do about it?’
‘Don’t panic,’ Kyle answered. ‘I’ve been on missions where the press are involved before.’
‘Aren’t we supposed to keep our faces out of the media though?’ James asked. ‘I mean, what was the name of that kid who got his face on the front page of all the papers? His CHERUB career was burned. There was no way they could send him undercover after that.’
Kyle nodded. ‘Jacob Rich, but that was years before my time. Apparently, he was working on some threat to blow up one of the young royals. The fourteen-year-old princess falls off her horse in front of two hundred photographers and the idiot runs across to pick her up off the ground. She pecks him on the cheek as a thank you, next day his face is on the front page of all the papers claiming that he’s her first love.’
‘So what if that happens to us?’
‘Wear a baseball cap and point your head down. If anyone’s taking pictures stay in the background. But I wouldn’t sweat it: Quinn’s a long way short of royalty. He’ll be lucky if he can get his mug on page sixteen.’
‘Guess you’re right,’ James nodded. ‘Have you seen Lauren around?’
Kyle shook his head. ‘She must have gone into Bristol with Zara. They’re meeting Ryan at the station.’
‘You fancy a fry-up?’ James asked.
Kyle nodded. ‘We haven’t got any eggs, but I think there’s veggie sausages and tofu in the fridge.’
‘Bloody hell,’ James moaned, screwing up his face in disgust. ‘I can’t hack this vegetarian muck.’
‘You know, someone like you, who’s a bit on the porky side, would probably benefit from being a veggie. Besides, you scoffed enough of Zara’s vegetable lasagne last night.’
James shrugged. ‘Yeah, Zara’s cooking’s really improved since we were in Luton. But it still could have done with a garnish, like a nice twelve-ounce steak or something.’
*
Kyle cooked a late breakfast of veggie sausages, mushrooms and fried bread, while James took his shower. The boys were mopping their plates when Zara pulled up, blasting her horn to clear the reporters off the driveway.
As Lauren and Zara moved furtively around the far side of the car and grabbed a box of books and a large sports bag out of the back, Ryan Quinn emerged triumphantly through the sliding door on the passenger side. He raised both arms and gave victory signs; an exuberant gesture that was rewarded with a salute from half a dozen flashguns.
A haggard-looking reporter stuck a tape recorder in his face. ‘Ryan, are you happy to be out of prison?’
‘Very happy indeed,’ Ryan said with a slight shake of the head, indicating that he thought it was a stupid question.
‘In the light of Malarek’s robust financial statement to the American stock markets last month, do you really think that
the Zebra Alliance campaign can be successful?’
‘Absolutely.’
A female journalist took up the questioning. ‘Does your coming straight out of prison and moving into Corbyn Copse mean that you want to be right back at the heart of the campaign?’
Ryan nodded. ‘I hope my presence will re-energise the campaign.’
‘As leader of the Zebra Alliance?’
This question knocked Ryan out of his exuberant stride. ‘Well …’ he mumbled uncertainly. ‘The campaign has been ably managed by others while I was detained at Her Majesty’s hostelry. I’ll be meeting with the Alliance committee over the coming days, with a view to deciding my future role. Now I’m going inside for lunch, but I’ll be visiting the protest site later and I hope you’ll all be there to see it happen.’
‘One last question,’ the female journalist continued. ‘What are your feelings on the activities of the Animal Freedom Militia?’
‘I condemn all acts of violence towards any species, including humans.’
‘Do you think the AFM has damaged your campaign?’
‘If there’s been any setback it will be a short-term one. A hundred years ago, most people believed that it was right for a father or teacher to beat a child who misbehaved. A hundred years from now, I believe that people will feel equally repulsed about the idea of enslaving, torturing and brutally killing animals for food, clothing or scientific experiments.’
Quinn had a childish grin across his face as he stepped
into the hallway and pushed open the front door.
‘Hello boys,’ he said, looking at James and Kyle. ‘It sure feels good being back in the heart of things.’
*
Despite Ryan’s plea for the journalists to stay, they’d got the photo and quotes they’d come for and had no intention of spending any more time than they had to hanging around Corbyn Copse.
‘Expected nowt else,’ Ryan said bitterly, as he peered through the living-room nets at the deserted driveway. ‘The lazy buggers, can’t even hang around an extra half hour.’
‘We should still head up to the protest site,’ Zara said. ‘I called my contact with the local cops. There’s always a fair crowd up there on the weekends and I want the kids getting stuck in amongst the protestors as soon as possible.’
‘Sure we’re going up there,’ Ryan nodded as he pushed home the last piece of a sandwich Lauren had made for him. ‘I’ve already arranged to meet Madeline Laing.’
‘She’s the one who’s running the Alliance now, isn’t she?’ Lauren asked.
Ryan nodded. ‘Young, fiery and utterly bloody hopeless.’
The kids had read a ton of flattering press reports on Laing and were surprised to hear that Ryan held her in contempt.
‘I didn’t realise you had a problem with her,’ Zara said.
‘Nice hair, looks good in a photograph,’ Ryan sneered. ‘That’s why the press is in love with her. But she doesn’t understand how to focus a campaign, or keep the momentum going. I’ve spoken to a few people and it looks like we’ll have to go root and branch and rebuild this whole fight against Malarek from scratch.’
‘You’ve got to get back on the Zebra Alliance committee before you can take over,’ Kyle reminded him.
Ryan wagged his finger confidently. ‘Don’t you worry, laddie. I was playing politics when you weren’t even a glint in your mother’s eye. I’ll be back running the show before you know it.’
As Ryan said this, he grabbed his army surplus jacket off the sofa and headed for the front door. ‘Are yous all coming or not?’ he asked excitedly.
The shortcut to the Malarek laboratory took Ryan, Zara and the three youngsters across a field of long grass. They crossed the deserted road near the roundabout on the edge of the village, then walked a couple of hundred metres along the verge beside the graffiti-strewn wall. Along the way they passed a gang of protestors’ little kids chasing around and screaming at each other.
The group behind the police barriers was more impressive than it had been the previous afternoon, but it was still barely
thirty strong.
Dressed in smart black leggings and sporting a figure to die for, Madeline Laing stood out amidst the drab bodies in walking boots and fleeces.
‘Hello there,’ Quinn said brightly.
A weak round of applause broke out when the protestors realised that Ryan Quinn was on the scene. Madeline and Ryan exchanged a brief hug and cooed as they kissed on opposite cheeks.
‘Still going strong,’ Ryan grinned. ‘I’m told you’ve been
doing a fantastic job.’
Madeline was flattered by the lie. ‘It’s been a tough few years,’ she smiled, ‘but we’re still fighting. And I see you’ve come out to a ready-made family.’
While Ryan, Zara and Madeline exchanged pleasantries, James, Kyle and Lauren’s espionage training kicked in. They didn’t expect a member of the Animal Freedom Militia to leap out and announce themselves from the gaggle of protestors and their bored kids, but this was the perfect time and place to start chumming up with the Zebra Alliance activists.
11. HELPER
Sunday always drew the largest number of protestors to the barricades around Malarek Research, and the combo of fine weather and articles about Ryan Quinn in the morning papers had brought the crowd up to more than a hundred. Zara wanted the kids in the centre of the action, but kept out of the way herself because a new adult – even one with three kids – would be treated with suspicion.
Lauren played the role of a helpful and slightly overexcited kid. She wasn’t naturally the keen type, but running errands was a great way of putting names to faces. It was two in the afternoon and she’d spent most of the day going back and forth between the protest site and the cottage. Her many good deeds included refilling Thermos flasks with tea and coffee, donating a packet of tissues to a man suffering from hayfever and buying sticky tape and a stapler in the village shop to help fix a broken placard.
‘You’re a godsend,’ a chubby woman in a lumberjack shirt said, as Lauren held out two vegetable pasties she’d microwaved back at the house.
‘Be careful, they’re probably pretty hot in the middle.’
The woman smiled down at her. ‘Thank you very much for doing that.’
‘That’s OK.’ Lauren smiled back brightly.
But her smile dimmed as she turned away. Lauren was supposed to be on the lookout for the Zebra Alliance’s hardcore members, but she’d realised that these weekend warriors with their wellies and 4x4s parked up on the grass verges of the surrounding fields were about as far from hardcore as you got. This crowd opposed animal experimentation, but didn’t have a clue about the liberationist ideas of people like Ryan Quinn. She’d even seen a couple of them tucking into ham sandwiches and Scotch eggs.
The trouble was, although Lauren had become increasingly convinced that she was wasting her time, she wasn’t sure what else to do. In the end she decided to see how the boys were getting on.
‘You haven’t seen my brothers around have you?’ Lauren asked, interrupting the woman she’d heated the pasties for, who was now having a conversation with a bearded man about the nightmare she was having getting her new kitchen fitted.
The woman sounded rather irritated. ‘Yes, thank you darling, it’s delicious.’
Lauren realised that the woman was actually saying something different. She was saying, The grown-ups are having a conversation now, could you please go away, which made her feel like she was a millimetre tall.
‘I asked if you’d seen my brothers,’ Lauren said, obviously narked.
‘Oh,’ the woman said, finally turning away from her friend. ‘No I haven’t, but you could try the field across the road. A lot of the teenagers hang around over there.’
‘Cheers,’ Lauren said half heartedly. ‘I’ll go look.’
She checked there was no traffic – there almost never was around here – before springing athletically over the metal barrier and crouching through a gap in the hedge on the opposite side of the road.
The sunlit field was waist-high with bright yellow rapeseed plants whose pollen tickled the inside of Lauren’s nose. She couldn’t see bodies, but noticed cigarette smoke rising out of a fallow area fifty metres away.
A dozen sunbathing teens came into view as she got near the long grass. They were mostly sixteen to eighteen, plus a couple of student types who might have reached twenty.
James was at least a year younger than anyone else, but that hadn’t stopped him enjoying himself. He lay in the grass, bare-chested, with his trainers off and a polo shirt rolled under his head as a pillow. His female companion looked about a year older. She was a chunky thing with enormous boobs who sat on her haunches, stripping the yellow petals off the rapeseed plants and grinning as she sprinkled them over James’ head.
‘Hey,’ James said, sitting up with a start and guiltily flicking the bright yellow dandruff out of his hair. ‘This is Robyn. Robyn, this is my sister Lauren.’
The way James flirted with anything even vaguely female and conveniently forgot about his girlfriend stuck in Lauren’s throat. But after the whole blackmail thing, she was on weak ground and knew she’d start a massive row if she passed comment.
Lauren consoled herself with the knowledge that Kerry wasn’t stupid: sooner or later she’d find out what James got up to behind her back and reward him with the punch in the mouth he so richly deserved.
‘What’s occurring?’ Lauren asked.
James grinned at Robyn, then shrugged. ‘Hanging out, you know …’
‘Is Kyle around?’
‘Over there,’ James pointed, ‘sitting behind the two rugby shirts.’
Lauren glanced at the two chunky lads blocking her view of Kyle. The threesome was having an animated conversation. ‘Those dudes are fit,’ she grinned.
Robyn nodded as she made eye contact with Lauren for the first time. ‘Rugby players are totally fine. I don’t know their names, but they’re here quite a bit and I wouldn’t mind finding out.’
‘I’ve played tons of rugby,’ James lied, put out by the way Robyn’s attention had drifted towards the two older teens.
Lauren wanted to take James down a peg and call him a liar, but you always have to invent some elements of your fictional background on the fly and one absolute rule of working undercover is never to contradict a fellow agent in case you mess up their story.
‘You are muscly, James,’ Robyn purred, as she sprinkled more yellow petals over his head.
If James hadn’t snogged Robyn already it was probably only a matter of time and Lauren reckoned she’d spew if she had to witness that. She thought about going over to Kyle, but his new friends were much older and she reckoned her presence would make things awkward.
‘Doesn’t look like much is going on,’ Lauren said, tilting her head back and letting the sun warm her face. ‘I’m gonna wander back up to the cottage and watch TV or something.’
‘I saw you making sandwiches earlier,’ James said. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of fetching one down here for us is there?’
‘You’re right, there isn’t,’ Lauren said sourly. ‘Later, dudes.’
She felt a bit down as she turned tail and started the gentle stroll towards home. It seemed James and Kyle had made genuine connections with people, while all she’d done was aggravate the blisters on her feet.
*
Kyle reckoned he was on to something with Tom and Viv Carter. The brothers were seventeen and nineteen, dark hair, plenty of stubble and built like brick shithouses. They looked and spoke like a couple of loutish public schoolboys, but you didn’t have to scratch far below the surface to get a far more eccentric picture.
He’d literally bumped into the pair an hour earlier as they clambered out of a rusty MGB sports car near the village pub. They were immediately recognised as protestors and heckled by a bunch of locals drinking in the beer garden. Viv’s response was to bend over, pull down the back of his shorts and repeatedly slap his hairy arse. Kyle’s laughter broke the ice and by the time they’d reached
the protest site down the hill, their conversation was flowing.
Or at least, conversation with Viv was in full flow. Tom was the sensible brother, seventeen years old; he’d just taken his A-levels at a Bristol sixth-form college. He dressed and acted conventionally and didn’t say much, although when he did it was usually something worth listening to. Viv was the total opposite, a student at Avon University with a blond streak in his hair and a pierced tongue. His mannerisms were over the top and he loved saying stuff to shock people.
As the three lads sat in the grass surrounded by rapeseed, Kyle mixed a few probing questions amongst Viv’s ramblings, which bounced hysterically from Scott Walker CDs, to Barcelona, to a story about a Green Day concert where he’d ended up slipping into a urinal.
Kyle needed to know where the Carter brothers stood on animal liberation and found out that they were on the bitter edge. Both brothers reckoned it was fine to kill someone if it saved lots of animals, though Tom seemed less than convinced that it was a good idea to go round attacking employees of Malarek Research because of the bad publicity it created.
Ten minutes after Kyle saw Lauren disappearing back through the hedge, the teenagers were joined by a geeky dude in an army jacket. His name was George. He was in his mid-twenties and he gave Kyle the evil eye before demanding to know who he was.
‘Kyle’s kosher,’ Viv said. ‘He’s just moved into the village with Ryan Quinn.’
George looked surprised. ‘I didn’t think Quinn had kids.’
‘He’s not my dad,’ Kyle said. ‘My mum got off with him when he was inside.’
Viv broke out in a machine-gun laugh. ‘Your mum must be some nut, shacking up with a dude she met in the nick.’
‘Whatever,’ Kyle shrugged. ‘Who gets to pick their parents?’
‘Quinn’s an admirable character,’ George said, a touch pompously. ‘He practically wrote the book on undercover operations and Zebra eighty-four were legends.’
‘Everybody loves the mighty Quinn,’ Viv said noisily. ‘He should have kept it tight though. Zebra Alliance is a joke. Bunch of la-di-dah Guardian-reader mango heads scared of their own goddamned snot.’