by Steve Tasane
“I see.” I’m going to say more. I’m going to switch on the Citizen Digit sarcastical button, and give him the rattatat verbals he deserves. But I can’t. I need V’s help, not another zapping.
The Great Manager stands up and leaves the room, muttering. He leaves me there, with the ugly image frozen on-screen, and an anger, from the balls of my feet to the brows of my eyes.
He’s gone into the room next door and he doesn’t shut the door properly. After a moment, I hear the electric buzz. I hear him wince. I hear him thud against the floor. And in that moment, it seems like Citizen Digit is the only sane person left in an insane world.
Fifteen minutes later, he comes back in. He’s carrying a tray, with tea and biscuits. He’s smiling like a tea-party chimp.
We drink the tea and dunk the biscuits. He picks at the stray crumbs, and without another word, he gets straight back to business. He’s perkiness itself.
“So. You guessed that Alfi’s password was Katariina?”
“Yes,” I say, all warylike.
“Katariina is the name of Alfi’s mother, you say?”
The Digit nods, affirmativelike.
“And you remember this all from looking at the file at Tenderness House?”
The Digit nods, affirmativelike.
“And you worked all this out yourself?”
The Digit’s bored with the nodding.
“Digit, you’re a genius. You do me proud. I always knew you would. Tell me though, would you have any idea at all as to who Alfi Spar’s father might be?”
“Does it matter?”
“Everything matters,” he snaps, more at himself than me, but his voice echoes shrilly in my ear, the side he zapped. “Look at this number plate.” He’s frozen the film on the shot of the Jaguar driving into the Tenderness grounds. “Any idea who this belongs to?”
“The man in the suit, who gets out and walks into Call-Me’s office.”
“Don’t get too facetious, Citizen, it’s not a pretty habit to fall into. Do you know the name of the man?”
The Citizen shrugs it.
“Well, see, it just so happens that I have an app here that allows me access to every document belonging to the DVLA. Know what the DVLA is, Didge?”
Shrug it again.
“It’s the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Means that in less time than it takes to make you some toast, I will know who this fine old gentleman is. In fact, Mr Didge, this little film is gold dust, I say, gold dust! Do you know why, Didge?”
Gold dust. The only type of dust Virus approves of.
“Why’s that, Mr Virus?” I say, all duty-bound.
“We have the technology,” he purrs. “See these men here? The Sherlock? The man in the Jag? The other one? They have made themselves high visibility, haven’t they? I will have their identities and personal details in a mere moment. Digit, you are a star!” He lays his hand on my leg. “I’m sorry about last night,” he says, all remorse. He sighs and adds, “But, you know, you did rather bring it all on yourself.”
“I know,” I fib. I move on. “So we can expose them all?”
I’m all a-flush. A bunch of kiddliwinks bring down the evil predator ring. Rewarded with all their dreams come true.
“Expose?” Virus frowns. “No, no. Threaten to expose.”
Oh, what? I’ll be jibjabbed. Virus can zip me with the zapper all he likes – but these Jimmys are getting long-armed.
“They’re,” I say, “they’re.” I can’t think of a word. Then I know. “They’re shit.”
Normally, Citizen Digit is more imaginatious.
“Language, Digit,” says Virus. “I completely agree.”
“Then all you have to do is persuade Jackson Banks to lay off his boy-hunt. The Sherlocks can dive in mob-heavy – and bam! The Jimmys get banged up for ever.”
He thinks before he answers. “Digit, these men certainly merit the severest punishment. But, believe me, I’ve had acquaintances who’ve faced stronger evidence than this and still avoided court.”
“Not possible,” I say.
“Possible,” he insists.
“Only if you own the court.”
“That,” he agrees, “plus bribery, intimidation of witnesses, technical loopholes, corrupt judges, Sherlock stupidity, cross-contamination of material evidence, flight to a sunny island. Need I go on?”
“The Citizen comprehends. But, even so…”
“Oh, look,” says Virus, peering at the screen. “Very interesting.”
I await his expansion.
“Turns out,” he says, “your man in the Jag is rather important indeed. His name is Chris Primrose. Guess his job. Go on, Digit, take a wild stab.”
“World-famous hip-hop star?”
“Oh, ho.” He thinks I’m so witty. Not. Virus feeds me the most serious look. “He’s actually a politician. A Member of Parliament, no less. And a front-bencher. Know what a front-bencher is, Digit?”
“He always sits on the front bench?” The Digit was always didgy-doo at tests.
“Bright boy!” He’s all a-mock. “And he does indeed sit on the front bench. Very close to the Prime Minister himself. Call-Me Norman’s nasty little gang is only headed by the Minister for Urban Development. Ohh, I’ve waited years for this kind of opportunity.”
Citizen Digit shakes his head, like a dog spongy with water.
No I almost say it’s just Call-Me and his weirdo pals… But I ain’t such a peanut brain. What I say ain’t much higher wattage. “Are you sure?”
He throws me a look of mild reproach. Of course he’s sure; the computer knows everything. But this can’t be factual. It’s a politician. A minister. What’s he doing joining in with Jimmys like Call-Me?
Virus reads my mind. “Men,” he snarls. “You never know.”
For all his other faults, Virus clearly ain’t no fan of the Jim’llfixits. You can see his headcogs whirring, trying to figure out the best course of acting.
“What’s this mean, then, V?”
“It means we have him. It means blackmail. It means extortion. It means making them sweat. We’re going to have a lot of fun. I’ll fetch you that toast.”
Off he goes, letting the fact of the matter settle into each of our heads. Virus is obviously now as happy as Larry, but the Good Citizen has to think it through a tad.
Shouldn’t we just yell for the Sherlocks?
’Cept a Sherlock was one of them, wasn’t he? Brilliant – the Long Arm gets long-armed!
“That Sherlock,” says me, when V comes back in. “Just wait till his Chief Constable finds out what he’s been up to.”
Virus rolls his eyes. “He is the Chief Constable.”
Ah.
Virus hands me a plate of toast. And a napkin. He goes on. “Anyway, the Minister for Urban Development will be, shall we say, closely related to the constabulary in London.”
He throws me a look. I get it. The Digit should know much better than be thinking we can rely on the Sherlocks.
And we’re on the wrong side of the straight and narrow road as it is.
If we threaten them, will we be able to make Call-Me Norman stop his evenings of evil?
Will we make money out of it? (Virus will.)
Virus can do all the negotiating, via his gadgets. Me and the Alfi-Boy will sit on the sidelines, watching YouTube and eating toast.
V seems to be waiting for the Citizen to think all this through. Like there’s something he’s missed. A paw in the flan?
A fuzzy, fuggy point of order starts harrumphing around inside my headcase, raising a point of utmost vitality.
Ah. Last night. I blabber-boxed, didn’t I?
“Err, Virus,” I say. “There’s something you might need to know.”
He feeds me his quizzicals. I’ve set him up, haven’t I? Set the Mad Dog on V’s own tail.
“Last night,” I confess, “I let it slip, didn’t I?” I’m in for another zapping, high wattage this time. “I told Jackson Alfi’s wherea
bouts. I’m sorry!”
I close my eyes. Twice in two days. But I feel his hand, gently, on my shoulder.
“It’s all right,” he says. “Just because Jackson is Norman Newton’s dog, doesn’t mean I can’t get him to perform a trick or two for me.”
“What d’you mean?”
“He came round a while ago. You need to rise earlier, young Citizen. Early birds: worms? Don’t worry. Despite his obvious disgruntlement, we reached an understanding.”
Oh the Digit is slowness itself this sunny morn. I need to catch up. Previously, at Cash Counters…
“You see,” Virus continues, “when push comes to shove, Norman Newton isn’t Jackson’s master at all. You need to observe more, young Digit. Money is Jackson’s master. Money! JB is now of the belief that Alfi Spar offers more financial reward if he’s in our hands than if he’s back at Tenderness.”
“You lied to him?”
Virus doesn’t answer that. Instead, he looks at his watch. “I have already dispatched Jackson Banks. I checked the present whereabouts of Alfi Spar. He’s now at a less conspicuous address than Tottenham Nick. Jackson should be with him, right about now.”
“But Jackson Banks is out of control! You have to stop him!”
“Too late.”
“This is ugliful!”
He attempts reassurance. “Call-Me Norman ordered Jackson not to hurt Alfi. I myself reiterated that instruction. And now I can prove to Banks where the profit really lies.”
I’m bunching my fists. “Do you think he’ll bother to obey?”
“You can rely on it.”
But there’s something he’s not telling me. The Digit is being kept out of the loop. Virus gazes at the cushion, checking against stray crumbs. There are no crumbs. He closes his eyes. Again.
The Digit’s wondering. What exactly is Virus’s perfect master plan?
18. THE PERFECT MASTER PLAN
I sleep in. Danny’s already gone to work and Scarlett’s realized there’s nowt in for me brekkie. She knocks on me door, says we need to go to the shop. It’s 11.30!
I leap out o’ bed.
“If we’re quick, we’ll be in time for breakfast,” she says.
“Hunh?”
“Trap it, kill it, cook it, eat it. Thirty minutes. Beans on toast. The deadly beast.”
She’s la-la.
Still: beans on toast. What’s not to like?
London corner shops are pretty much the same as Bradford’s. Scarlett spends ten minutes gossiping wi’ the owner. I can’t remember last time I stood in a shop this long, not without getting hissed out. Scarlett likes talking.
The thing wi’ beans on toast is you have to heat up the beans nice and slow. If you just bring ’em to the boil the heat won’t seep through. They’ll go cold. And you need room-temperature margarine, so it melts upon touch o’ the toast, rather than making the hot toast go cold. And lastly; hot toast fresh from the toaster. Be ready wi’ the marge, slop on the gently bubbling beans, grind some black pepper and serve on a pre-warmed plate, wi’ fresh, steaming tea.
Oh, aye, I’d have some o’ that.
Scarlett says I’m worse than Iggy, dancing round her feet while she’s trying to cook. She won’t even listen to any advice, but, to be fair, she makes a cracking beans on toast.
“Danny’s on half-day today,” she says, “so we thought we could spend the afternoon down the park.”
She’s got a big grin on her face. “Unless,” she goes on, “you’d rather play computer games all day?”
Is she teasing? “No,” I say, “I like the park.”
“Just as well, ’cos we ain’t got no computer.”
That sentence literally dun’t compute. “Everybody has a computer,” I say. “What about a laptop?”
“Nope.”
“So you’ve all the info you need on your Smartphone?”
“It can take messages,” she says.
See? Weird.
Then a thought hits us. I need a computer so’s I can check on me evidence. “I need Facebook,” I say. “What do you guys do when you need Facebook? Or email?”
“Don’t panic. We do it the old-fashioned way.”
“Smoke signals?”
“Library. That’s what it’s for.”
So while we’re waiting for Danny to get back home from work, Scarlett takes us to the library. We get a screen each, next to each other. Private but friendly. And I’m glad about the privacy, because I have to play the film, test it, don’t I?
But first up: I’m a bit put out to discover I’ve got a friend. And one “like” for the video. It en’t right, ’cos I an’t got any friends. Nobody can “like” me video, ’cos there en’t nobody seen it. And nobody can be me friend unless I like them and they like me.
So how come I’ve got a friend?
I glance across at Scarlett. She’s engrossed in social work documents.
Who could have broken into me account? I had the perfect password and everything. Nobody even knows that Katariina is me mam’s name, apart from the Digit and Call-Me Norman. And Barry.
What if the Jimmys have tracked us down and hacked us? They could be making their way here right now. I look all up and down the library. It’s creepily quiet.
I click on the “friends” list. Me “friend” is called City Zen and his profile photo is me actual birth certificate.
Relief. It’s the Digit fair enough. It’s a message, letting us know he’s still on me side. But, actually, I think I can manage quite well without him at this stage. Clever or not, that lad’s nowt but trouble.
In fact, I wun’t put it past him if he’s even gone and done summat dumb like disabled the video. Trying to move it somewhere “safer”. Got to have it all, dun’t he?
So I press play.
First up all you get is a rosebush and all you hear is Byron breathing, dead nervous. He en’t so cool. Then you hear the first car, and he starts to work the camera. It’s deadly dull. It just feels like a bad lad spying on some grown-ups, and any second now he’s going to get caught and probably get a fine or summat.
Then there’s movement, and you can hear Byron breathing heavily again, as he makes his way to Call-Me’s office.
And me heart’s beating here in the library and Byron’s hand is shaking holding the camera, but on he goes. It’s just an open corridor, they don’t even have the door shut at the end. You can see a bit of a porn film playing on a screen on a wall. It’s all well lit. Then he shoves the camera through the gap in the door.
Then you see ’em. Then you see the faces, wi’ their crawling eyes. And their hands, creeping. Then it gets all shaky and falls on the floor.
I click off the screen.
“All good?” says Scarlett, leaning over. “You look pale.”
“I think I’m a bit peckish,” I say. It’s only half a lie.
So we meet Danny for dinner, and then we go for a walk around Finsbury Park. It en’t a bad park, even if it is surrounded by traffic and big buildings. It’s got all kinds o’ facilities, like running tracks and children’s play bits and a duck pond and a big football pitch.
For half a mo, I think I see Citizen Digit, sitting on a bench on t’other side o’ the football pitch, watching us. I’m about to wave, when I realize it’s not him at all, just some other lad.
No way is Citizen Digit bothered thinking about anyone other than hisself. It’s t’others I need to be watching out for – Call Me’s crew.
Danny sees me eyes scanning across the playing pitch and reckons I want to join in the game.
“Go on,” he says. “Go play. We don’t mind.”
No way. Running round the middle of a field? I might as well wave a sign over me head saying come and get me! I feel all right wi’ Scarlett and Danny. I en’t leaving their side.
We pass by a bloke on a bench, wearing shades, reading a paper. Seemingly reading a paper. I think he’s watching us. I huddle in close. “Can we feed the ducks?”
Danny raises
his eyebrows. “You sure?” He and Scarlett exchange a look. I s’pose they expect lads like me to be into drugs and gangs.
Scarlett buys some duck feed from the café and the three of us stand and watch while ducks, moorhens and seagulls go ape over the crumbs in the water. They’re funny, dive-bombing and splashing. Danny does a spot-on impersonation of a mad seagull. We all laugh like crazy. Then we go back to the café and buy cola and crisps. Scarlett rips open the bag so the crisps are spread across the table and we all dive in, pretending that we’re the different birds, fighting over the crumbs. It’s a right mess.
After the café, there’s some big swings and we go on them, and a big climbing frame an’ all. Danny and Scarlett stick close by. They allus have their eyes on us, but it dun’t feel like it’s ’cos they don’t trust us. It’s like they’re watching out for us.
Other folk are watching too. People always stare; you get used to it. The tricky bit is figuring out why they’re watching. Some folk just stare ’cos I’ve got blond hair, catches their eye. Other folk are thinking other things when they stare at us, like the Jimmys. I know that now. But you can never tell which is which.
See this bloke on the bench ahead of us. Looks like a right psycho. His dog’s going nuts after the squirrels, racing round like a loon to try and get ’em. He reckons that’s hilarious, this bloke. I bet he’s, what’s that word? Care in the Community. Chuckling away to hisself, like he knows summat dead funny that the rest of us don’t. His hands are big as spades, and his fingers are clutching in and out like he’s exercising ’em. He gives us the weirdest look as we walk by, all red eye and glaze. Gives me the creeps. We speed up a bit.
Next thing, his dog scurries past and manages to get a hold of a squirrel. I allus thought dogs weren’t fast enough. It gets this squirrel and shakes it. It makes a horrible squealing noise and dies. Then the dog starts chomping at it, trying to swallow it down.
Behind us, the bloke is laughin’, like it’s the funniest thing he’s seen ever. Scarlett takes me hand, like I’m eight, and I don’t mind.
Fifteen minutes later, when we’re leaving the park, I see this bloke again. He’s stood up this time, and I can see he’s a proper giant. He’s leering at us, and his dog starts sniffing round me ankles as we go by. It’s missing half an ear, and its tail’s got no wag.
