‘The latest policy is to spend as much time and effort as possible on testing potential recruits, before they reach campus and learn the secret of CHERUB. Not like in my day, when you just woke up on campus after being drugged and got warned that nobody would believe if you said anything.’

‘Waking up naked was creepy too,’ Daniel noted.

‘And you’re not the only one keen to stay off campus,’ James added. ‘Every day there’s a half-metre stack of paperwork, and John Jones blaring in my earhole. Budget reports, mission briefings, threat meetings, education liaison meetings, ethics committee meetings, post mission reintegration plans. And when I’m out here on a mission, all of that becomes SEP.’

‘SEP?’

‘Somebody Else’s Problem,’ James explained.

Daniel cracked a big smile. ‘So how long we gonna study Oli for? Two weeks?’

‘That’s probably pushing it,’ James said, smirking. ‘But I totally need to finish watching the last three seasons of Game of Thrones. And on a serious note, the intelligence service is putting so much effort into infiltrating Islamic State, that I think we can justify a bit more time to investigate the remote possibility that Oli didn’t invent the whole terrorist thing.’

‘Love Game of Thrones,’ Daniel said. ‘One of the carers made me take my nudie of Emilia Clarke from inside my wardrobe door.’

‘Which one’s she?’ James asked.

‘Daenerys, the dragon lady.’

‘She’s totally my dream girl,’ James said, before clearing his throat abruptly. ‘After Kerry, obviously.’

‘Obviously, boss.’

James smiled. ‘In the spirit of thoroughly assessing young Oliver, I suppose we ought to test his mettle in a tense scenario, yes?’

Daniel nodded enthusiastically. ‘I’ll head off now. With any luck, Oli will get his ass bit.’

James tapped an icon on his laptop screen. ‘You there, Michael … ? Leon and Oli have left the house. They should be in sight any second now.’

‘Go left,’ Leon told Oli, as they reached a T-junction. ‘We can hide out at my cousin’s place while the heat dies down.’

Oli was chuffed about the robbery and even more full of himself than usual. ‘Screw your cousin and his thirty quid cleaning a garage,’ he said. ‘I know this guy Trey who buys stolen shit. He’ll give us cash. Three hundred at least.’

‘But the cops’ll be looking for us, Oli. Best be off the street, yeah?’

Before Oli got to answer, a battered Renault SUV squealed to a halt in a disabled bay across the street.

‘You thieving little shits,’ the man getting out shouted. He was a big guy, dressed in trackies and a paint-spattered hoodie. Even worse, a huge black Rottweiler jumped out behind on a lead. ‘Gimme the stuff back.’

Oli froze for half a second, before realising that Leon was already running. The pair scrambled into the road to dodge a woman with three young kids.