Chapters (88)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dear Reader …
- Also by Robert Muchamore
- PART ONE
- Walter J Freeman Adolescent Mental Health Unit – East Grinstead, UK
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- PART TWO
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- PART THREE
- Walter J. Freeman Adolescent Mental Health Unit – East Grinstead, UK
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- PART FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- EPILOGUE
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- Have you read KILLER T?
- 1 SLASHED RUBBER
- 2 NOT HARRY POTTER
‘Cookie, you’re upset, but you can’t wander the streets on a Saturday night.’
‘I’m not your bloody Cookie!’ Georgia shouted, knowing she’d never outmuscle her dad and wondering if she could make a dash for the back door. She zipped the jacket, but this defiant gesture was spoiled by the realisation that she only had slipper socks on her feet.
‘Calm down,’ John soothed. ‘We all feel rotten at the moment. If you’re fed up being cooped in the house, we could go for a drive. Buy ice cream for dessert. Or maybe there’s something on at Cineworld.’
‘Dad, just …’ Georgia grunted with frustration, then surprised herself with blurred vision and a powerful voice. ‘Get out of my way!’
‘You know that’s not going to happen,’ John said firmly.
‘I hate this stupid family,’ Georgia screamed, knowing she was being a massive teenage cliché as she spun and stomped upstairs.
She slammed her bedroom door, hoping her dad would assume she was staying there. Then grabbed her wallet off her desk, slid on a pair of flats and checked her hair in the mirror. After standing by the door to make sure nobody followed her up, Georgia opened it quietly, stepped into Sophie’s old room and turned a handle to open a window.
The window was at the same height as the one in her own room, but the bin store directly beneath halved the drop. Rotten timber creaked alarmingly as she lowered herself out, forcing her to abandon stealth and leap noisily into the gravel driveway.
NINE
Ondo State Governor’s Mansion – Akure, Nigeria
Julius had grown several centimetres since the tailor had fitted his dark suit. He felt weighed down as he sat in the corner of an icy-chilled, marble-floored ballroom. The space was lavishly finished, with windows made from Chinese coloured glass, chandeliers from Italy and walls hung with six-metre-high tapestries, designed by a major Nigerian artist and woven on computerised looms in Guangzhou.
It was close to 7.30 p.m. Along with more than thirty members of Julius’s family, drinks and nibbles were being served to some of the most important figures in Ondo state. The reception was an election fundraiser for Julius’s uncle, SJ Adebisi. As governor of Ondo, SJ was supposed to be the centre of attention. But Julius watched wryly as people who mattered shook the governor’s hand when they arrived but quickly moved towards his mother.
Julius watched his mother’s giant purple headdress wobble above the gathering as she greeted the chief of Ondo State police, the leader of the local transport union and the chief executive of UNICEF in West Africa. Bunmi’s biggest smiles came for the grey-suited men from the Chinese Development Bank. The Chinese had funded billions of dollars’ worth of projects in Ondo State, including twenty million for the elaborate governor’s mansion in which they now stood.