belongs to the Luton-based Slasher Boys (so named because of their reputation for attacking enemies with machetes). The gang is believed to have approximately eighty members.
Slasher Boys are almost exclusively of Jamaican origin and the leaders are believed to be closely connected with Jamaican gangs who use their island as a stop-off point for illegal drugs travelling from South America …
… The mission to infiltrate and undermine the Slasher Boys will require two CHERUB agents of Afro-Caribbean appearance and has been categorised as HIGH risk …
(Excerpts from a mission briefing for Gabrielle O’Brien and Michael Hendry, January 2007.)
The Bedfordshire Halfway House was a residential home close to the centre of Luton, but everyone called it the Zoo. Built in the 1980s, it had been graffitied and trashed by several generations of freshly released young offenders and youths too troubled for foster homes.
To say that the Zoo had a bit of a reputation was like saying that getting run over by an eighteen-wheeled truck would give you a bit of a headache. It had seen every scandal going, from teen pregnancy to kids stabbing each other in the showers and two drunk girls almost killing a cyclist by lobbing a roof slate on to his head.
The Zoo knocked fifty thousand off the value of every house in the neighbourhood and the only reason it hadn’t been shut down was the tide of objections that arose every time the council found a piece of land on which to build its replacement.
But despite two months living in the Zoo with a mattress that stank of god knows what and kids running riot 24/7, Gabrielle was happy. She’d turned fifteen at Christmas and fallen in love before New Year.
Michael Hendry was a navy-shirt CHERUBand Gabrielle’s first proper boyfriend. They’d been going out for six months. At first it was kind of mechanical: going bowling, going to the cinema, going shopping and snogging in Michael’s room afterwards. That’s what Kerry and Gabrielle’s other mates did with their boyfriends and she’d only joined them out of curiosity and the desire to fit in.
But it got more intense and they’d become one of the closest couples on CHERUB campus. Their friends felt excluded but the young lovers didn’t care, and the isolation of being on mission together stoked things even further.
It was a Thursday, just gone ten. Most of the kids in the Zoo were supposed to be at school, but teachers are happy for kids like this to stay away and at least half of the dozen bedrooms on the third floor had someone who was suspended, excluded, or just couldn’t be arsed to get out of bed.
Gabrielle’s roommate Tisha was one of the few Zoo residents who did pack books into a bag and head for school. This suited Gabrielle, because it meant Michael could come up from the boys’ floor and spend a couple of hours snuggled beneath her mauve duvet.
‘Don’t answer,’ Michael begged, when Gabrielle’s phone started ringing.
But she reached out blindly and grabbed her mobile from the vinyl floor. She expected it to be her mission controller, Chloe Blake, but was surprised by the name flashing on the display.
‘It’s Major Dee.’
Michael’s dark torso was glazed with sweat as he sat up sharply. ‘I’ve never known him bat an eyelid this side of lunchtime.’
‘Major,’ Gabrielle said, trowelling on her Jamaican twang. She’d become self-conscious and toned down her accent after joining CHERUB, but roots in the Caribbean were a big help on this mission and she’d found her old voice with surprising ease.
‘Morning, sweet pea,’ Major Dee said. ‘Tell me what clothes you’re wearing. What colour are your panties?’
Major Dee was the leader of the Slasher Boys: a big man with a line of gold teeth and a vicious reputation. In Dee’s eyes, women stayed home to make food and babies. Gabrielle had to work ten times harder than Michael to prove herself and even now, Dee treated her with a lack of respect that would have earned any boy on CHERUB campus a mouthful of blood.
‘My panties are my business,’ Gabrielle said, making out like she thought his cheek was funny. ‘If you’re ringing me this early it better be some way to make bread.’
‘I’ll give you half a loaf,’ the major said, which was his way of saying fifty pounds. ‘Michael there?’
‘In the flesh,’ Gabrielle nodded.
‘I’ve got a man who wants to buy a K bag. I want you two to dig one up in the park and bring it over.’