Jimmy Coates: Target. Joe Craig

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СКАЧАТЬ to share this place since he and his brother had run away from their foster home. Sometimes, Mitchell wished he could go back there, but he knew what he really longed for wasn’t possible – for his real parents to have come out alive from the crash.

      Then he heard the click of the front door.

      “Mitchell!” His brother sounded cheerful, but that wasn’t necessarily a good sign. “Come here, mate, I have to do something.”

      Mitchell felt sick. He knew that greeting his brother face to face was the last thing he should do, but the flat was so small there weren’t exactly places to hide. He heard his brother stomp into the living room and pictured precisely what he was doing. First, he’d throw something at the sofa – probably his shoe. Then, when there was no reaction, he’d pull off the blankets and take on that mystified look, unable to comprehend why Mitchell wasn’t lying there, waiting to be harassed.

      “Mitchell?” This time his brother sounded confused. Mitchell’s stomach turned over. He scrabbled through the bathroom cabinet for any medicine that wasn’t out of date. “Listen, mate,” his brother continued, still in the other room, “this guy said I could have ten grand, but, er…”

      The bathroom door creaked open and Mitchell caught sight of his brother’s haggard face in the mirror.

      “All right, bruv?”

      “All right, Lenny.” Mitchell turned to face his brother, but clutched his stomach. It felt like something in his belly was burning.

      “Like I said,” Lenny explained, blocking his brother in, “this bloke offered me ten grand. He had it there in a suitcase and everything.”

      It wasn’t like him to talk so much, thought Mitchell. For some reason his brother had decided to make up some ridiculous story as a build-up to the violence. Then Lenny’s face took on a leering grin. Mitchell knew what that meant.

      “I have to knock you around a bit,” Lenny chuckled. “Shall we do it in the living room?” He slapped Mitchell across the cheek then turned to go. Mitchell wasn’t following. The blood rushed to his face and his breathing deepened.

      “Come on,” insisted Lenny and slapped Mitchell again, harder this time. It really stung. As Lenny turned a second time, Mitchell’s strange stomach-ache intensified into a ball of energy. It quivered inside him and leapt up his throat.

      Mitchell wanted to shout, but the energy hit him in the head with five times the force of his brother’s slap. Lenny’s back was turned and, without even realising he was going to do it, Mitchell pounced.

      Lenny was a lot taller and three years older, but Mitchell yanked him backwards by the throat and they fell to the floor.

      “Oi!” cried Lenny, elbowing Mitchell in the ribs.

      “How stupid do you think I am?” shouted Mitchell through his teeth. He kicked his brother away and threw himself on top of him. He led with his knee and slammed it into Lenny’s midriff.

      “How do you like that?” Mitchell crowed.

      Lenny rammed his fist towards Mitchell’s face. Mitchell caught it. He had never had this strength before, but he was too angry to notice. Instead, he revelled in his new superiority.

      “I’m sick of you!” he screamed as he pounded his fists into his brother’s face. “This is how you make me feel!” Tears blurred his vision now, but fury kept his arms moving. He was numb inside. The pain that had built up all these years was pouring out. It felt like he wasn’t even in the room, but watching from a distance.

      Then something pricked his senses – a flash of blue reflected in the mirrors and tiles. It bounced around the bathroom and pulled Mitchell out of his frenzy. He sprang to his feet. His brother didn’t move. His eyes were closed and blood covered his face.

      That wasn’t me, thought Mitchell, but at the same time, What have I done? He ran to the living room and smeared his hand across the window. Through the streaks of blood on the glass, he saw an ambulance waiting in the street below. It was surrounded by three police cars.

      Then the door of the flat burst open and Mitchell spun round to see two beefy men in black suits. They were pointing guns at him. His mind went blank. His brother’s battered face appeared before his eyes and he couldn’t think clearly. What was going on?

      Before he could even raise his hands, his knees bent without him telling them to. Then his legs snapped straight and his entire body recoiled backwards – through the window.

      Glass peppered Mitchell as he fell and in his head he heard himself scream. Then he landed – but not on the ground. Something cushioned his fall. He saw a dozen men staring at him with blank faces. Mitchell was lying on some kind of air cushion – it felt like a bouncy castle. Had all this been set up, waiting for him?

      Then one man, tall and broad with a face like a wrinkled toad, pulled Mitchell to his feet.

      “Looks like someone didn’t play nicely,” he said, cracking his jaw. Mitchell could hardly hear for all the electricity running through his head. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Leonard Glenthorne.”

      “Murder?” Mitchell gasped. His hands were shoved behind his back and roughly clasped in metal.

      “Your brother’s dead. Get in the car.”

      “But—” Mitchell’s throat seized up. Nothing made sense. How had they come so quickly? How did they know Lenny was his brother? And worst of all, how could Lenny be dead?

      Mitchell was grabbed on each side by two men. They rushed him to a long black car with leather seats and tinted windows. As his head was pushed down to guide him into the back seat, Mitchell saw a stretcher being wheeled out of the building. On it was a zipped-up, black body bag. On the side of the bag was a thin green stripe.

       CHAPTER TWO – BROTHERS

      UNO STOVORSKY SIGNALLED to his unit to move out. They obeyed almost silently, retreating to the ring of vehicles a safe distance from the building. Stovorsky remained, eyeball to eyeball with Christopher Viggo.

      “Come on,” Saffron said gently to the others, “we should leave them.”

      Yannick nodded and shepherded them through the door opposite the kitchen. But Felix and Jimmy were transfixed.

      “Jimmy!” snapped his mother. “Come here now! You too, Felix.”

      The boys exchanged a glance. They knew they didn’t have a choice, no matter how much they wanted to know what was going on between the two men at the front door. They trudged after the others, into what looked like an unoccupied dormitory. There were four beds in the room, but the sheets were dusty, as if they hadn’t been slept in for years. Eva ran to one and curled up.

      “It’s cold in here,” she squeaked, pulling her blanket round her.

      “There are another couple of bedrooms upstairs,” Yannick explained, though nobody was paying him much attention. As soon as the door closed behind them, the shouting started. The old wattle-and-daub walls were too thick for Jimmy to make out what was being said, but it СКАЧАТЬ