CHERUB: Man vs Beast (24 page)

‘Joe Jules,’ Lauren grinned.

‘How’d you guess?’

Lauren shrieked as Meatball reared up and licked the bottom of her foot. ‘That
tickles
,’ she giggled, as she gently nudged him away. ‘Any news about the film studios?’

‘There certainly is,’ Zara grinned. ‘Your hunch was spot on. They typed
Jay Buckle
into the police computer. He’s been arrested twice at animal rights demonstrations, both times with Adelaide Kent. Two weeks ago he was arrested on the set of
Wild Ride II
and questioned about a Volkswagen Transporter that had disappeared a few days earlier. The charges are still on file, but the police haven’t got enough evidence to charge him.

‘At the time the van was stolen, it was loaded up with three hundred grand’s worth of TV cameras, studio lights and other equipment being used to shoot a documentary on the making of
Wild Ride II
. And the cherry on the cake is that the theft of a respraying rig and a pressurised metal cylinder used in car stunts has also been reported to Avon police.’

‘So, it was worth me hiding out and taking those photos,’ Lauren grinned.

Zara nodded. ‘We’re starting to put together a really solid picture of the AFA. There’s already enough evidence to move in and make arrests. Just one huge spanner in the works: at this moment James, Kyle and all of the main AFA suspects have headed off to some unknown location with no intention of resurfacing until they’ve pulled off some kind of terrorist spectacular.’

‘Yeah,’ Lauren said, ‘and I wonder what they want with all that TV equipment.’

*

The van finally arrived at a semi-derelict farmhouse, with a dozen rooms spread over two storeys. The lads were told to dump their stuff in a bare room with sleeping bags and pillows spread over the floor. Down in the kitchen, two men were cooking up a vegan roast to feed at least a dozen.

Jay and Adelaide had equipment to set up inside the house and Viv was asked to join them shortly after they arrived. That left James, Kyle and Tom to stroll the isolated farm and wonder what they’d let themselves in for.

‘Wherever we are, it’s a long way from civilisation,’ Kyle said.

The sun was setting and he looked out over hills bedded with heather and rocky peaks in the distance.

‘Pretty though,’ James said. ‘What do you reckon, Scotland?’

‘I’m not sure we went that far,’ Kyle said. ‘Maybe northern England. Northumberland or somewhere like that.’

As James turned back towards the house he spotted Mark – a.k.a. Kennet Marcussen – wading through the long grass and waving his arms.

‘Get back here,’ he shouted. ‘Everyone’s waiting for you.’

Mark led them into a huge dining-hall, with a vaulted ceiling and dark patches on the walls where paintings had hung many years earlier. One end of the room had been set up as a TV studio, complete with cameras on wheeled tripods, bulky studio lights and a video production suite.

The stage set consisted of pale blue background panels with two trendy black chairs and a man-sized cage at its centre. The cage had been designed for show rather than security, with chromed bars and a neck brace dangling inside.

Jo stood at the opposite end of the room, in front of a giant flipchart on which she’d written the detailed plans for the operation. As the crowd gathered around her, Viv approached James, Kyle and Tom. He’d changed into a smart suit, matched to an expensive-looking tie.

‘Did you and Jo make up and decide to get married?’ Tom grinned.

‘Looks the business, doesn’t it?’ Viv said. ‘I’ve just had my screen test. I’m presenting the show.’

‘What show?’ Kyle asked.

Jo clapped her hands together before Viv could answer. She looked sweaty, like she’d been hefting stuff about, and as always the gun bulged at her waist.

‘Can I have everyone’s attention please,’ she said sternly.

James counted eleven people besides Kyle and himself as the room went quiet.

‘OK,’ Jo said. ‘Thank you all for coming. I’m sorry that the journey was an undignified one for so many of you, but absolute secrecy is required for this operation to succeed. I’m sure none of you need reminding that while you’re here, you’re strongly advised not to divulge your surnames or any unnecessary personal details to people you don’t already know.

‘The launch of the AFA a few days back proved a spectacular success. The latest news is that Clyde Wainwright is still in a critical condition and unlikely to resume his job as the Chairman of Malarek UK. But the general public are still not paying attention to our message. Animal rescues aren’t even local news these days and even the most spectacular property destruction gets scant attention.

‘We live in a society that cares little about religion and even less for the politicians and businessmen that lead it. But there’s one group of people in which the public still has an extraordinary degree of interest: celebrities.

‘In less than twelve hours, we’re going to have a celebrity guest in the cage at the opposite end of this room and our very own TV show going out live on the Internet.’

Jo looked pleased with herself as she paused to build up the suspense. ‘For twenty-four hours, this room is going to be hosting the most sensational media event ever staged by liberationists.’

Jo leaned forward and dramatically ripped the front sheet off the flip chart, revealing an A3-sized mug shot of a man instantly recognised by everyone in the room.

‘Comrades,’ Jo grinned. ‘I give you our special guest, celebrity restaurateur and TV chef, Nick Cobb.’

Nick Cobb stood at a mirror in his dressing-room. The windowless space had a pastel pink sofa straight out of 1985 and shiny black marks trodden into the ragged carpet. Cobb could remember when all this stuff was new and – depressingly – the mirror seemed to indicate that he’d aged no better than the furniture.

He’d come a long way since those first television appearances at Tyneside Studios, standing in for the resident chef on a long forgotten magazine show. He now owned eight restaurants, had eleven bestselling cookery books under his belt, hosted the longest running cookery show on United States television and owned a major stake in The Gourmet Network satellite channel.

Cobb strolled across to the drinks cabinet and thought about a shot of vodka, but it was ten in the morning and he couldn’t face the dusty bottles and fingerprint-smudged glassware. His publicist, Amanda, knocked on the door and stepped in without awaiting an answer.

He was about to ask why they’d agreed to come back to this dump, when a set of grey tyres inched into the room. The kid in the wheelchair was thirteen, with twigs for arms and metal braces on her legs. He’d heard her sob story, but could only remember that he’d been too tired to argue when he’d agreed to let her visit the dressing-room.

‘Hello there, young lass,’ Cobb said, turning on the charm with an accent pitched awkwardly between Tyneside and California. ‘You must be Gaynor.’

The girl smiled and said something, or rather gargled because of the breathing tube sticking out of her throat.

Fortunately, Gaynor’s mother could translate. ‘She’s baked you cakes,’ the mum explained, as she reached into a basket beneath the wheelchair and picked out an airtight box.

Gaynor was weak and it took her half a minute to peel the lid off. Cobb eased the silence by asking his publicist to fetch a pot of tea.

‘Clean china cups,’ he added, instantly wondering if the demand made him sound like the kind of celebrity prick he was always telling himself he hadn’t become.

Cobb took one of the little sponge cakes out of the box and bit it, expecting the worst.

‘That is one
fantastic
bit of sponge cake,’ he beamed.

And Cobb wasn’t lying; the cake got everything right: fluffy without being too dry and just enough vanilla to stop it from being dull. But once he’d commented on the cake he couldn’t think what else to say and the perfect sponge somehow made the presence of the grinning Gaynor even more dismal.

He’d seen more than his share of dying kids over the years, but still felt as uncomfortable as when he’d encountered the first, eighteen years earlier. What were you supposed to say?
Hey Johnny, how’s the whole dying of cancer thing coming along?
But ignoring the presence of death and talking about something else seemed impossibly awkward: like taking a swim while trying to ignore an alligator at the other end of the pool.

‘
Sooooooo
,’ Nick said, sucking air through his teeth as he helped himself to another magnificent cake. ‘Did you come here by car? Was the traffic OK?’

Then he glanced at his $16,000 Patek watch and wished that Amanda – a master of small talk – would hurry back with the tea.

*

After an edgy night sleeping on bare boards, James had been woken up at 5 a.m. Kyle helped him dye his hair brown and spike it up with gel, while they discussed the possibility of ambushing the AFA operation before it got underway. But there were eleven AFA members, several of whom carried guns; the two cherubs had no idea where they were and no way of communicating with the outside world. They decided to play along with the operation and hope that an opportunity arose to stop it before anyone was seriously hurt.

After another hour stuffed in the windowless rear compartment of a van, James ended up in the front row of a studio audience, getting slowly cooked by the lights hanging over his head. Mark and Adelaide sat on either side of him.

The AFA had taken every reasonable step to make James unrecognisable. His usual tracksuit and football shirt was replaced with a punkish look: tatty black boots, drainpipe jeans with rips over the knees and black hoodie with
The Ramones
written across the back. Mark and Adelaide had received a similar makeover for the benefit of live TV.

Nick Cobb grinned at the cameras from a smart blue couch, while husband and wife presenters Wendy and Otis Fox fed him easy-to-answer questions. The excitable audience lapped up every word from the local lad made good.

‘So, Nick,’ Wendy Fox grinned, as James marvelled at the quantity of make-up plastered over her face. ‘You’ve written this mammoth biography – eight hundred and fifty-six pages of it – why did you feel that now was the right time in your life to do it?’

Nick smiled yet again. ‘I’ve sold a lot of cookery books and I’ve had publishers chasing after me to write an autobiography for many years. But when I first spoke with my co-author, Penny Marshall, I realised that I’d finally met a person with the talent to help me get my life down on the page.’

‘Well it is an absolutely
fascinating
read,’ Wendy Fox grinned. ‘Now, I understand that the proceeds from the book are going to charity?’

‘Absolutely,’ Cobb nodded. ‘I hit fifty a couple of years back. The wives have all left me and my boys are at college, so I decided it was time to work on something other than my own bank balance. The royalties from sales of
Word on the Cobb
are going to support a basket of organisations, including Oxfam, the Red Cross and the Chef’s Trust. That’s a local charity here on Tyneside that runs a catering school for underprivileged youngsters.’

Cobb lapped up a round of applause as James’ watch ticked over to 11:54. James pushed his sunglasses up his nose, pulled his hoodie over his head and drew on the string to tighten it around his face. At the same instant, Adelaide and Mark were going for the guns hidden inside their jackets.

‘Nobody move,’ Adelaide screamed, pulling her gun as she leapt out of her seat.

There was an air of disbelief amongst the audience – a student prank maybe? But Mark cleared away the doubts by shooting at the ceiling.

The round tore through one of the giant lamps on the overhead gantry. Members of the audience screamed beneath a shower of hot glass, as James and Adelaide charged on to the stage.

‘I need your radio mic,’ Adelaide demanded, as she waved her gun at Wendy Fox.

James took the little microphone from Wendy and clipped it to Adelaide’s bomber jacket.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your daytime viewing,’ Adelaide said, her voice trembling. ‘But the Animal Freedom Army will not stand by while men like Nick Cobb make millions of pounds through the enslavement and torture of animals.’

While Adelaide unfurled a banner with the Animal Freedom Army’s web address on it, James stepped up to the astonished Nick Cobb and ripped a set of handcuffs out of his jeans.

‘Show us your wrists.’

Cobb grinned dumbly, unwilling to comprehend the gravity of his situation as Otis Fox made a clumsy lunge at James. Unfortunately, the closest the tubby presenter had come to exercising in the past decade was a stroll on the golf course and James dodged easily, before coming back with the handcuffs bunched in his fist and smashing them into the bridge of the presenter’s nose.

Wendy Fox made a pig-like squeal, as Otis crashed off the end of the sofa with blood streaming down his face.

‘Don’t mess us about,’ James ordered.

‘Anyone else pulls a stunt like that, I’ll shoot a member of the audience,’ Mark yelled, swinging his gun around so that it pointed at Gaynor’s wheelchair in the front row.

The audience was eerily quiet, apart from the sobs of a woman burned by the falling glass. Cobb finally held out his wrists so that James could fit the blood-spattered handcuffs as Mark stepped back from the audience and pointed his gun towards the cameraman nearest the studio exit.

‘Open it up.’

James told Cobb to start walking as daylight broke into the studio. He was the last to step out into a drizzly morning and set off at a run across a parking lot towards two Honda touring bikes.

Mark opened up the pannier on the back of the nearest motorbike and tossed James a crash helmet and riding gloves. Adelaide buckled up her helmet and locked her gun away before planting a helmet on Cobb.

‘I can’t shoot and ride,’ Mark said, as he handed his gun to James. ‘Safety’s off.’

With the gun in his hands, James had the power to free Cobb, but Kyle was with Jo and he reckoned she’d shoot him if he betrayed the AFA.

‘How am I supposed to hold on?’ Cobb protested, jangling his cuffs.