CHERUB: People's Republic (30 page)

Six kids and two dozen women emerged sopping wet into the courtyard. Ning found herself encircled by wet, angry bodies.

‘Why’d you start a fire?’ a tough-looking Russian shouted. ‘All my stuff is in there. Are you gonna pay for what’s ruined?’

‘It wasn’t me,’ Ning said desperately. ‘Veronica started the fire.’

‘I saw you come back from interview,’ a black girl standing behind Ning said. ‘You just got marching orders, didn’t you?’

‘I did,’ Ning said, ‘But Veronica …’

Ning didn’t get to finish because the big Nigerian lady had grabbed hold of the pack on her back.

‘Veronica’s things are burning,’ she shouted. ‘Our things are all getting ruined, but guess who kept all of hers?’

If any of the mob doubted that Ning had set the fire, the realisation that Ning had walked out with all her belongings snuffed them. With the Nigerian gripping her backpack, Ning couldn’t defend herself as a woman smacked her hard across the face.

As the mob roared approval, the Russian spat in Ning’s face, followed immediately by three or four others.

‘Lucky you’re leaving cos I’d stab you up,’ someone shouted, as Ning held her arms up to stop the torrent of spit.

‘All right, ladies,’ a male guard shouted, as he jogged towards the scene with a burly colleague close behind. ‘Break it up. Move calmly towards your assembly point.’

As the women peeled away, the Nigerian gave Ning an almighty push, sending her sprawling out by the feet of the approaching guard.

‘Ooopsy,’ the guard said, pretending he hadn’t seen anything.

As Ning rolled over on to a grazed elbow, she saw Lucy glaring down at her.

‘What was the point of that?’ Lucy said angrily. ‘It’s going to take
weeks
to get my unit straight.’

Ning didn’t bother denying that she’d started the fire. Nobody ever believed anything she said and she felt so worthless that she didn’t even wipe the spit off her face.

Lucy looked up at the burly guard. ‘Take her to C building, put her in a segregation cell.’

‘Is she being charged?’ the guard asked.

‘That’s probably what she’s hoping for,’ Lucy said, with no hint of the sympathy she’d shown earlier. ‘I’ll make a couple of calls and tell the deportation unit she’s a priority. I can’t hold a girl her age in seg for more than a day and she won’t be safe back amongst the other girls. I just hope they can get her on tomorrow’s flight.’

38. TRAIN

It was after nine and Ryan still had a stack of homework to do, but he sat at the desk in his room with the pages of Amy’s report spread around him. He had Google Maps up on his laptop screen, centred on the point where the police had found Leo unconscious behind the wheel of his Peugeot.

Ning didn’t know where she’d been held captive, but told the police that it had taken forty minutes to drive from the house to the point where she’d run off. Leo had regained consciousness in an ambulance and discharged himself from hospital before the cops were able to question him.

All signs pointed to Leo being an illegal immigrant. He’d made no attempt to reclaim his car from the police impound. The vehicle had no insurance or registration documents and carried a cloned number plate from an identical vehicle. Like the police and TFU before him, Ryan couldn’t see any way to trace the house where Ning had been staying, or the sandwich factory stuffed with illegal immigrants.

‘You don’t have a lot of luck, do you?’ Ryan told himself, as he looked at Ning’s picture.

The door swung open and Max burst in, dressed only in luminous orange stretch briefs and brandishing a large black gun.

‘Hold on to your girlfriends, cos Max Blaaaaaack is here,’ he yelled cheerfully.

‘Nice pants,’ Ryan said. ‘I seriously doubt any female on earth will be able to resist you.’

‘Exactly,’ Max said as he slammed the gun down on Ryan’s papers. ‘Now, stop focusing on my pants and check this baby out.’

Ryan knew a real gun when he saw one, and this wasn’t. ‘It’s paintball.’

‘Yeah,’ Max said. ‘But saying that
this
is only a paintball gun is like saying a Lamborghini is only a car. This is an RAP4 T68. Three hundred rounds per minute, upgraded for automatic burst fire. Comparing this to those weedy little guns they’ve got in the campus paintball zone is like comparing a rat turd with a big ball of elephant dung.’

‘Great,’ Ryan said wryly. ‘You have a totally awesome gun, which means you can shoot the crap out of everyone. Which means nobody is ever gonna want to go paintballing with you.’

Max smiled. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, smarty pants. Because I’ve got eight of ’em, along with all the trimmings: hoppers, loaders, compressed air tanks. Even some decent goggles that haven’t got five years of crud stuck all over them.’

Ryan looked suspicious. ‘And where did the money for all that lot come from?’

Max gave a sly smile. ‘Let’s just say I was on a mission and a small quantity of cash found its way into my hands.’

Ryan tutted. ‘It’s against the rules for us to keep money we make on missions.’

‘Is it?’ Max said, grinning. ‘Guess I forgot.’

‘I’m already in Zara’s bad books,’ Ryan said. ‘So no offence, but find someone else to play with, OK?’

‘Come on,’ Max begged. ‘You, me and Alfie plus some other guys. Tomorrow night, as it’s getting dark. Running round, getting muddy, having a laugh. Where’s your spirit of adventure?’

‘I expect I’ll be in recycling,’ Ryan said, as he pointed at a mound of textbooks. ‘Or working my way through that lot.’

‘So what’s this?’ Max asked, as he snatched a photo sticking out from Amy’s folder. ‘Aww, that’s revolting. What happened to her?’

Max had picked out a copy of a photo of the burn on Ning’s stomach, taken by a doctor who’d examined her the morning after she’d been picked up.

‘No joking around,’ Ryan said angrily, as he snatched the photo and gave Max a little shove. ‘She’s a potential CHERUB recruit, but what she’s been through is awful.’

‘So what are you doing with it?’

‘I’m helping Amy with her candidate assessment. And if she does come here, you’d better not say anything about seeing that picture because I’ll kick the shit out of you.’

‘Christ,’ Max said, raising his hands and taking a step back. ‘You’re wound up tight. You
need
to chill out.’

‘I’m sorry, but reading this file doesn’t put you in the mood for joking about,’ Ryan said. ‘I’ll
try
and make time for paintballing tomorrow night. But I can’t promise cos I’ve got so much on.’

*

Amy’s train was due into Edinburgh at eight-thirty. She was supposed to pick up a hire car and drive to Kirkcaldy IDC, where she’d arranged to interview Ning at a quarter to ten. But the train in front broke down and Amy spent an hour marooned near the Scottish border, without even a mobile phone signal.

When her train finally got moving they were stuck behind a slow-moving freight train. She reached Edinburgh at a quarter to eleven, only to find the car-hire desk had shut fifteen minutes earlier.

Amy called Kirkcaldy, but got a recording on the other end.

‘
We only accept telephone enquiries between eight-thirty a.m. and seven p.m., Monday to Saturday, and between twelve and six p.m. on Sunday. If you’d like to leave a message, please speak clearly after the tone. All messages will be forwarded to the relevant staff member or detainee within twenty-four hours
.’

‘Hello,’ Amy said, rapidly trying to think what to say. ‘My name is Amy Collins. I spoke with Officer Lucy Pogue in section D early yesterday morning. I was supposed to interview detainee Fu Ning, but my train into Edinburgh was very late and the car-hire desk is closed. I’m also jet-lagged, so I’m going to book into a hotel and try making it up there early tomorrow morning. Thanks, bye.’

*

The segregation cell was designed so that inmates had nothing to break. The plastic mattress and pillow were moulded to the floor, there were no sheets, and the toilet, shower and sink were a single pressed aluminium moulding, with water controlled by heavy-duty floor pedals. To minimise suicide attempts, the lights stayed on 24/7 and inmates were stripped of everything but underwear.

There was no TV, books or radio and the only sounds Ning heard were footsteps passing by and a man two cells down who was completely mental and kept screaming that rats were biting him.

She spent hours rolling about, sticking to a mattress that reeked of disinfectant. It was three a.m. when she dozed off, but she was woken just over an hour later.

‘I’m Joan Higgins,’ the woman said, as Ning sat up, rubbing her eyes. ‘We’re going to be alongside each other all the way to Beijing, so I hope we can be civil.’

‘Whatever,’ Ning said. ‘They took everything away when I got in here. Have you got my bag?’

Joan nodded. ‘It’s outside. I’ve found you some clean clothes, shampoo, a towel and a flannel. It’s a long journey. There’s time to freshen up if you’d like.’

Joan waited outside while Ning showered and put on clean clothes.

‘I’m told you’re a wild one,’ Joan noted, as they walked to the front of the building. ‘You don’t seem wild to me, but I have to put plastic cuffs on until we board the plane.’

Ning said nothing as she went through formalities in the detention centre’s processing area. She signed a form to say she had all her personal property and another saying that she accepted the verdict of the immigration officer. The government had no grounds to seize her eighteen thousand dollars, so she was also given an envelope containing a cashpoint card, pin number and
thanks for opening an account
letter.

Joan fitted the plasticuffs, but left them loose so that Ning could have fought her way out of them if she’d wanted to. But she’d lost the will to fight or run away. Coming to Britain now felt like a childish fantasy and while Ning didn’t want to kill herself, there didn’t seem much point in being alive either.

Joan led the way into an empty visitors’ car park. The sky was black and the floodlights illuminating the perimeter of the detention centre had an eerie blue shimmer.

‘How long will it take?’ Ning asked when they reached a Ford Focus.

‘Our flight to Beijing leaves at seven-fifty, total flight time is about thirteen hours.’

Joan popped the button for the central locking and opened the driver’s door.

‘What happens when I arrive in China?’ Ning asked, as she got in the passenger side.

‘Someone from Chinese immigration will meet us in Beijing. I’ll pass you over, and after that you’re in their hands.’

39. PLANE

Amy’s journey had been crap, but she’d compensated herself with a room in the five star Balmoral Hotel next door to the station and eight hours’ sleep in a huge cashmere-topped bed. She wanted to be at Kirkcaldy IDC by ten, so she ordered breakfast in her room for half-seven and was downing porridge and black coffee in bed when her mobile rang.

‘Amy, it’s Lucy Pogue from Kirkcaldy. I got your message, but I’m afraid Fu Ning’s deportation papers came through yesterday. She was booked out of the detention centre shortly after four this morning.’

Amy practically choked. ‘How did this happen?’ she spluttered. ‘I’ve flown all the way from Dallas to interview her.’

‘We had problems involving Fu Ning yesterday afternoon and we took the decision to accelerate her departure. I know we spoke, but with everything that was going on your interview request slipped my mind.’

‘Do you have her flight details?’

‘There’s only one daily flight from Edinburgh to China,’ Lucy explained. ‘I don’t know the exact time.’

Amy did a quick mental calculation. The drive from Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy took just over an hour, so Ning would have been at the airport by five-thirty. For an international flight she’d need to check in two hours before departure, so her flight could be leaving at any point from about seven-thirty onwards.

‘Thanks for getting back so early,’ Amy said, with angst in her voice. ‘I’ll try catching her before the plane leaves.’

Amy’s phone said 7:42 a.m. She tapped the screen to open the browser window and Googled
Edinburgh Airport Departures
.

The phone was only connected using 3G, so she had an agonising wait while the main page of the Edinburgh Airport website downloaded. Another click took her to a departure board. She scanned down the list and found Ning’s flight:

CI208    Beijing          7:50      Last Call

Throwing her breakfast tray aside, Amy yanked jeans up her legs as she called 999 using the hotel landline. She asked to be connected to the Edinburgh Airport emergency number.

‘That isn’t how it works,’ a soft-spoken operator explained. ‘If you explain the nature of the emergency, I will direct your call as required.’

Amy grunted angrily. ‘I’m an American security agent. There’s a person on board a plane who I
need
to interview. I need you to connect me to the airport security chief.’