Ryan met the twins as they headed out of school. They grabbed McDonald’s, then drove to the Sunray Travel office. Monty and a guy with a hipster beard were doing design work in the office, as the three brothers ripped up carpet tiles in the print room.

Just before six, Monty went out and got coffees for everyone. The quintet sat around having their break when a key turned in the main door. The new arrival was short, sunburnt skin peeling off his nose, and ten years older than in police surveillance photos. But it was unmistakably Uncle.

He was accompanied by a broad-shouldered Asian woman, dressed in canvas pumps and a jogging suit.

‘Uncle,’ Monty said, trying to sound warm, but obviously cacking himself as the little man looked around at the whirring humidifiers and glue patches where the carpet had been ripped up.

‘What’s all this then?’

Monty looked sheepish. ‘We had a flood.’

Uncle gave his accomplice a nod. She gave Monty a brutal punch in the mouth, followed by an expert knee in the ribs. Then she ripped his arm up behind his back and splayed him face first over a desk.

‘Did you just lie to me?’ Uncle said calmly, as hipster-beard and the three CHERUB agents looked on warily.

‘No,’ Monty said, then as Uncle stepped closer, ‘OK, yes … Trey told me to.’

‘Who do you work for?’ Uncle demanded. ‘Me or Trey?’

‘You, sir,’ Monty begged, as the woman tightened the wrench on his arm.

‘Who is the manager of this print shop?’

‘I am, sir,’ Monty snorted.

‘I’m told I need a 950L printing machine, for the princely sum of seventy-two grand,’ Uncle said. ‘And I’m not paying for that, Monty. You are.’

‘I don’t have that kind of money,’ Monty begged. ‘There’s no way …’

‘Your parents own their house, don’t they?’ Uncle teased. ‘And the bakery? I’m sure they can get another mortgage.’

‘My parents worked all their lives,’ Monty gasped. ‘They’re in their sixties.’

‘I don’t give a shit how you get my money,’ Uncle shouted, then looked at his female bodyguard. ‘Give him another taste, sweetheart.’

She moved ruthlessly, a knee in the kidneys, then flipping Monty on to his back and boxing him with a barrage of head shots.

‘You have one week to come and tell me how you plan to pay for my new printer,’ Uncle said.

Blood streamed from Monty’s mouth as the kickboxer yanked him up and shoved him out into the hallway. Hipster-beard looked terrified as Uncle approached, pulling something out of his back pocket.

The bearded designer was relieved by the sight of two twenty-pound notes.

‘Taxi Monty to the hospital,’ Uncle ordered. ‘Keep your trap shut.’

The designer trembled as he scrambled out, half expecting the kickboxer to sprawl him with a kick up the arse.

This just left Uncle, bodyguard and the Sharma brothers, still holding their drinks.