The kids formed a long straggly line, tensed, weapons raised. The hunters’ dogs were at either end, tugging at their leads.

But for a minute nothing happened. The Collector didn’t appear.

Nobody moved. Nobody said anything until Courtney broke the silence.

‘He’s not coming out. No way am I going back in there again.’

She fell silent as a shudder passed through the waiting kids and one or two swore as the Collector’s great shape appeared in the doorway. He stood there, angry and confused, studying the kids, trying to work out who they were and what he was going to do.

He blinked five times, and then slowly, slowly, slowly he shrank back into the darkness of the house as if he was sinking into a bog. He became a vague dark shape in the hallway and then there was just blackness.

DogNut spat. Swore viciously. Was about to say something when a hideous racket started up – banging and shouting and clanking.

What now?

Smoke wafted from the house and the next moment the Collector came staggering out as if he’d been shoved from behind. He squealed as bright sunlight hit him and he raised an arm to shield his eyes. The sheets of newspaper were still incongruously pinned to his belly, like a napkin in a gimmicky restaurant. They flapped in the breeze.

Marco and Felix and the three museum boys now burst out of the front door, banging pots and pans together. Felix had a rolled-up newspaper that he’d set light to. He waved it at the sicko and the boys threw their pans at him. He tottered across the pavement. The fire, at least, seemed to frighten him and Marco was goading and prodding him with his spear, all the while yelling and screaming like a mad person.

The waiting kids now formed a circle round the sicko and began jabbing at him with their own weapons, and they, too, shouted, hurling obscenities at the huge father who tried to ward them off with his massive arms. Every now and then he would let out a long high-pitched wail and try to charge out of the circle, but every time he was driven back into the centre, the dogs snapping at him.

Sharp blades flashed and flickered at him, ripping his clothes. The newspaper was getting shredded. Patches of blood were appearing on his filthy, darkened skin.

‘Do him!’ someone shouted, and the kids laid into him with greater ferocity.

Paul went over to Felix and Marco.

‘Did you find her?’ he begged. ‘My sister. Where is she?’

‘Yeah, we found her,’ said Marco softly. ‘She’s dead, mate. I’m sorry. Weren’t nothing you could have done for her.’

‘I want her body.’

‘No you don’t,’ said Felix. ‘Leave her be.’

‘No …’

Paul made a move towards the house, and Felix and Marco held him back.

‘Leave her be!’ Felix repeated.

Paul fought his way free of them and turned on the Collector.

‘I’m going to kill him …’

Courtney stepped back from the circle of flailing kids. She couldn’t bear it any longer. The Collector was disgusting. He’d killed and mutilated God knows how many children, but to see him like this, a trapped animal, she couldn’t help but feel pity for him. She couldn’t watch as he was worn down by a thousand tiny cuts. The kids’ faces looked insane, drugged, worked up into a frenzy of bloodlust, every vile word they could think of spitting from their twisted lips.

This must have been what it was like to watch bear-baiting or a bullfight.

Hideous.

Still the cruel darting blades plunged into the father. Still the dogs’ teeth nipped at him. He was making a circle of blood in the road, stamping it into the ground with his bare feet as he kept up a horrible shrieking, crying sound. His strength was seeping away from him. He couldn’t last much longer. He fell first to his knees and then on to his side, and the kids just hacked and slashed at him and clubbed him and swore at him even more.

Finally he slumped forward, face down in the road.

The kids jeered, kicked him, battered him …

‘Stop it!’ Courtney screamed. ‘Stop it now.’

They stopped. Startled. Stood there panting and heaving, staring at the bloody mess on the ground, unable to quite believe what they had done.

Courtney went to the body. He was still just alive, still breathing. One yellow eye stared up at her, uncomprehending.

‘Can’t somebody just finish this?’ she said, and Paul rushed forward. He had got another knife from somewhere. He leant over the Collector and stabbed him repeatedly in the back, but it was no good; he wasn’t penetrating deeply enough to finish him off.

He was crying, his tears falling on to the bloody back of the Collector as his knife chopped and chopped and chopped. At last, DogNut and Robbie managed to pull him away and Jackson took his place.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said, and stepped on the Collector’s head, holding it still. She carefully placed the point of her spear in the same spot she had stabbed him before, just below the ear, but this time she was able to angle it towards his brain.

She pressed down with all her strength. His eye went wide, and then the life went out of it.

‘It’s done.’

36

Just as DogNut and his crew were heading off back to the museum, another group of kids were setting off on their own expedition, a mile away to the east at Buckingham Palace.

The mood in the two parties could not have been more different. DogNut’s gang was in high spirits, coasting on a wave of bloodlust and sweet victory. They laughed and shouted as they re-enacted the death of the Collector. It was true that one or two of them, Courtney included, weren’t joining in, but most of them were behaving like conquering heroes returning home after a war.

In contrast, Jester’s group was quiet and miserable and fearful. They had no idea what might be waiting for them out there. They hadn’t met their monsters yet.

Jester himself was furious. As he walked out through the palace gates, he was ranting to Shadowman and waving his hands in the air.

‘Three!’ he protested, showing three fingers. ‘Three kids! What does David think I can do with three kids?’

‘We’ll be all right,’ Shadowman tried to reassure him.

‘No, seriously, Shadowman, what the hell does he think I’m gonna do with three bloody kids?’

‘What did he say exactly?’

‘Just a load of bullshit basically. As usual. Said he couldn’t spare anyone else, that he didn’t want to leave the palace undefended. The bastard couldn’t even spare me any of his bloody guards. I’d feel a lot happier with a couple of red blazers armed with rifles in my squad.’

Shadowman checked them out. Jester’s little group was armed with spears and knives. All except for Jester, who didn’t seem to have a weapon of any kind. Unless he had a knife in the leather satchel he’d slung over his shoulder.

‘It’s always the same with David,’ Jester went on. ‘He makes all these big promises, then when it comes to it he doesn’t give you half what you expected.’

‘He doesn’t like to risk putting his precious red guards in any danger, Jester,’ said Shadowman. ‘You should know that.’

‘What’s the point in having a trained army if you never let them fight in case you lose any of them? I don’t get it. Instead of sending his soldiers into battle he sends bloody civilians.’

‘Are they that bad?’

Jester lowered his voice and looked round to make sure that the three kids who were moping along behind them couldn’t hear any of their conversation.

‘He asked for volunteers. That’s all we got. Well, there were five of them originally, but two dropped out overnight. This lot weren’t exactly keen this morning, either. I begged David to give me some more, but he claimed he didn’t want to force anyone. They’re not completely useless, but they’re nothing like the best fighters at the palace. We should have had Pod and his toughest rugby players, not those three dopes.’