Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  As the door swung shut behind her, he dropped to his knees and opened the bag wider. Inside was his iPAQ. Small, discreet, it was still his favourite tool for this kind of work. It was already powered up, and as there were no cameras around he would be able to sneak a quick peek.

  The screen blinked and what it showed him made him smile with delight. Oh, great. The path forward would be relatively easy. This commission was not going to require any athletics, thank God. On his last job he had had no choice but to break in, and he had found himself crawling around false ceilings, fighting his way through phone lines, air-conditioning equipment and fire sprinklers, in order to bypass some truly maddening security controls and gain access to a restricted research area. This time he would be able to pluck the information from the air, so to speak.

  The door opened. It was the girl. He got to his feet and closed the leather bag without fuss.

  ‘Yes.’ The girl nodded. ‘You can leave the package here. We’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Actually,’ he shook his head regretfully and hitched the bag onto his shoulders, ‘looks like it has to be Croydon, after all. Just spoke to my boss.’ He gestured at the mobile clipped to his belt. ‘He says Mr Peake has to sign for it personally. Sorry for the trouble.’

  She sighed with exasperation, but he could tell that she had already lost interest in him. ‘Just shut the door on your way out, please.’

  He opened the door and looked back. It had been a brief visit. No more than ten minutes had passed since he first walked in here. But the trip had been a definite success. Apart from everything else, it would have been worth it just to see those lips. He was going to have fun describing them to Isidore.

  • • •

  Outside in the street, he unclipped the mobile and speed-dialled Isidore’s number. Isidore didn’t answer his phone, but that did not mean he wasn’t at home.

  The answering machine kicked in and for the next few moments he was forced to listen to Isidore’s newest outgoing message. Isidore’s idea of humour was to record Bible verses of the muscular kind—painful penance and eternal damnation—before inviting his caller to leave a message. Gabriel waited impatiently for the beep.

  ‘Isidore, pick up. Now.’

  A click. ‘Gabriel, my man. Where you hanging?’

  Gabriel sighed. Isidore had been to Eton and Cambridge but was hopelessly in love with black street rap and every so often he would sprinkle his conversation with a highly personalised version of American street slang. As his accent remained stubbornly upper-crust, the effect was startling, to say the least.

  ‘I’m still in the City. Guess what? Bluetooth.’

  Isidore chuckled. ‘You don’t say. Well, we be good boys. We due a break. See you soon?’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  He closed the mobile and found himself smiling. This job was going to be a breeze.

  His iPAQ had told him Pittypats was making use of wireless technology. Wireless technology certainly made for lovely uncluttered work environments, with computers talking to each other without being connected by a rat’s nest of hardwire cables. But there was one problem. Wireless electronic emissions can be picked up if you have the right equipment. And he and Isidore most certainly did have the right equipment.

  He unchained his bicycle and took off the black-framed glasses, substituting them with a pair of Ray-Bans. The sting of the sun was easing slightly, but the glare was still considerable. He glanced at his watch. 4.30 P.M. Another twenty minutes at least before he’d get to Isidore’s place.

  Isidore lived close to Smithfield market and he liked it there, something Gabriel did not understand. The sight of bloody ribcages was too reminiscent of a horror painting à la Francis Bacon. Meat had been sold at Smithfield for eight hundred years and for close to four centuries it had also been the site where witches, heretics and traitors were burnt or boiled alive as so many pieces of meat themselves. Probably another reason why Gabriel was immune to the stunning architecture of the marketplace, with its ornate ironwork and imposing arches and pillars.

  Isidore lived in a narrow two-up, two-down terrace, squeezed in between two abandoned houses with boarded-up windows. Just as well he didn’t have any neighbours: Isidore liked his music loud. As Gabriel walked up the shallow steps leading to the front door he could hear music pulsing through the double-glazed windows. It was a good thing he had a key to the house as there was no way Isidore would be able to hear the doorbell over this racket. He turned the key in the lock and braced himself for the onslaught of sound.

  It was even worse than he had expected. Rap was Isidore’s poison, but it seemed his friend was in a nostalgic mood. Vintage Guns N’ Roses was the choice du jour. Welcome to the jungle! screamed Axl Rose with enviable lack of inhibition.

  With his hands over his ears, he mounted the steps two by two and ran through the wide-open door at the top of the flight of stairs. Without pausing, he went over to the wall unit and pressed his thumb hard on the power button of the CD player. The sudden silence was a shock.

  He turned round. In the swivel chair in front of him, blond hair falling untidily across his forehead and eyebrows raised in pained surprise, was Francis James Cavendish, a.k.a. Isidore. Isidore was a nom de guerre, chosen in homage to Jack Isidore, the dysfunctional hero of Philip K. Dick’s Confessions of a Crap Artist. The fictional Isidore believed the earth to be hollow and sunlight to have weight. The real-life Isidore was able to come up with theories easily more off the wall than that.

  Now he threw his hands in the air in mock surrender, the long fingers calloused from hours of slamming the keyboard. ‘Hey, bro. What’s your problem?’

  ‘I don’t want to go deaf, that’s my problem. Shit…’ Gabriel paused and looked around him. Every available surface that wasn’t taken up by computers, screens, keyboards, tech manuals, wires and other computer detritus was cluttered with empty pizza boxes, chocolate wrappers, soft-drinks cans and greasy chip wrappers. ‘It stinks in here. You’re turning into a cliché, you know that? This is the stereotypical hacker hell. Why not try for a little originality, for God’s sake?’

  Isidore managed to look hurt. ‘Like you? Driving a Jaguar and listening to Chopin. Oh, yeah. That’s original. I’m waiting for the day you start smoking cigars. Besides which, five years from now you’ll still be paying off the mortgage on that fancy flat of yours and I’ll be rocking in the sun sipping mai-tais.’

  Gabriel knew that Isidore’s plan was to retire within five years to Hawaii and spend his days surfing the waves off Banzai beach. Which would be a good plan, except that he had never surfed in his life. And the idea that he would actually be able to break his addiction to the computer screen and leave the keyboard for the great outdoors was even more ridiculous. But Point Break was Isidore’s favourite film and the Patrick Swayze character his hero.

  He sighed. Isidore was an ass but he was also a genius. No one could hack together code more robust and elegant.

  ‘OK.’ Gabriel sat down on the edge of a pumpkin-coloured velour chair, pushing two empty beer bottles out of the way. ‘Here goes. I wasn’t able to see inside the offices themselves, but there’s no doubt Pittypats are using wireless technology. I think it could be because they’re situated in a listed building. Regulations probably prevented them from installing cables and disturbing the structure.’

  Isidore nodded. ‘Don’t you just love planning permissions? What about WEP?’

  ‘Yes. It looks as though their CTO is doing his job on that front.’

  Isidore grunted but, as Gabriel expected, didn’t look in any way concerned. WEP was a doddle: it could be cracked by anyone with half a brain using freely available software. Isidore had more than his share of grey matter to begin with and seldom used anything but his own custom-designed software anyway.

  It was amazing, Gabriel thought, how cavalier some companies were when it came to computer security. High-tech groups and the biotech industry were more cautious, but in general very few com
panies scanned their network regularly or even ran an integrity checker to see if their system files had been altered in any way. And very often with wireless networks, WEP encryption wasn’t even enabled.

  The bottom line was that the only way Pittypats could protect itself from electronic penetration would be to install layers of steel inside their offices. And one thing was for sure: that house didn’t have any steel walls. So it was only a matter of fishing within the pond of electronic emissions and hooking a password, the name of a file or a project handle, and he and Isidore would be home free.

  Gabriel yawned suddenly. For the first time today he was feeling tired. He glanced at his watch. ‘I have to get home. I wanted us to work out the surveillance schedule today but let’s wait until next time.’

  ‘Heavy date tonight?’ Isidore was watching him sardonically. ‘Is it still… what’s her name… Bethany?’

  ‘Briony. And no, it’s not.’

  ‘She dumped you, huh?’

  ‘You could say that. I’m pretty cut up about it.’

  ‘Oh, give me a break. You only dated her so you could get close to her friend—the blonde with the cute lisp.’

  Gabriel frowned. ‘Not true. Well,’ he amended, ‘maybe at first, but that’s all changed. Briony broke my heart.’

  ‘Heart? Man, you have no heart.’

  ‘So maybe hearts are overrated.’

  ‘Essential equipment for most of us, bro.’

  ‘Not me. I get by on sex appeal alone.’

  Isidore scowled. ‘Get out of here, you smug bastard. I have to get ready for a date myself.’

  ‘Don’t tell me.’ Gabriel grinned. ‘Some digital babe in the kingdom of Dreadshine.’ He was referring to one of Isidore’s regular haunts on the Internet: a multi-user domain of the more surreal kind. Here, in a cyberworld entirely built up of words, Isidore regularly turned himself into a medieval knight slaying gremlins and demons with ruthless gusto. Isidore and a host of other Dreadshine residents—all equally dazzled by the products of their own imagination—had a grand old time amazing one another with their cleverness and virtual feats of daring. But never any face-to-face contact. Romance and adventure via keyboard. It was all a little sad.

  He gave Isidore an abbreviated salute. ‘So have fun.’

  ‘Always.’ Isidore grinned wolfishly.

  As Gabriel walked down the stairs the music started up again. Belinda Carlisle this time. Good grief.

  • • •

  Contrary to what Isidore thought, Gabriel did not have a date tonight. He was looking forward to a glass of twenty-year-old Scotch, some spicy stir-fry and a long soak in his cedar-panelled and very expensive bath.

  As he walked into the loft, the light was blinking on his answering machine but he ignored it. After hanging the bike on the wall, he walked across the huge room with its beautiful jarrah floor and pulled open the sliding door that gave access to a narrow balcony. His flat was the biggest in this converted warehouse and the balcony ran the entire length of the loft space. It was close to Tower Bridge and the view of the Thames never failed to make him feel deeply content.

  He loved the river. He loved it in winter with the fog hanging still and white, shrouding the gold-tipped bridge with its high walkway so that it looked like a ghost. He loved it in summer, when the river became a lazy brown snake and the smell of wet earth hovered in the air.

  The loft apartment with its radiant views was not merely a pleasant place to live. It was much, much more. It represented to him everything he had hungered for as a child. The Bristol neighbourhood in which he grew up had been dreary and joyless. His father had been a long-distance lorry-driver, while his mother added to the family income by making beds and cleaning bathrooms in a hotel. The family wasn’t poverty-stricken, but their lives had very little grace. Seared into his memory was the house in which he had spent the first seventeen years of his life: the paper-thin walls, the cramped rooms, the low ceilings. The television forever tuned to some or other Australian soap; the house smelling of macaroni cheese and his brothers’ dirty woollen socks. His mother’s tights and bras dripping from the shower railing. The dreadful feeling of claustrophobia, of never having enough air to breathe.

  His parents barely tolerated each other, their relationship worn thin by the repetitive strain of their daily routines. Some of his earliest memories were of the toneless bickering they kept up with mindless, dogged intensity: a despairing white noise. They were not cruel parents—no abuse or intentional neglect—but they did not seem to like their offspring very much and had very little interest or energy to invest in them.

  By the age of twelve, he was running with a group of boys whose behaviour hovered perilously between obnoxiousness and outright hooliganism. He might have found himself in serious trouble if it hadn’t been for a teacher who had managed to find him a scholarship to a school where the emphasis was on hard work and high standards. The school ironed out his accent and gave him an excellent academic grounding, and he’d been offered a place at Oxford.

  Then, six months shy of graduation, he dropped out. His friends were aghast but he never sought to explain his reasons to anyone. He simply packed up and left for London. And became a thief.

  He had no illusions about his chosen field. He had turned an aptitude for IT into a lucrative criminal enterprise. Isidore, he knew, subscribed to the romanticised version of what it is to be a hacker, seeing himself as a caped crusader in cyberspace where corporations were fat-cat exploiters of the little man and thus fair game.

  Much as Gabriel loved Isidore, he had no patience with this kind of bumper-sticker libertarianism. Theft was theft, whether in cyberspace or in the real world. Just because the medium was different didn’t mean the principle was. If you download a piece of copyrighted music from the Internet without paying, you have just walked into a music shop and pocketed a CD on the sly. If you hack into the research data of a company and peddle it to the competition, you’re affecting the research and development budget of that company, stealing from them years of effort and monetary commitment. And although bigger corporations might be able to survive the loss of trade secrets, smaller companies can be devastated.

  So he never fooled himself. For ten years now he had been making a living—and a very good one at that—illegally leeching off the creative endeavours of others. It wasn’t heroic, it wasn’t legal and if he got caught he would be in serious trouble.

  He stretched his arms wide—he had a knot in his back from the hours of cycling—and placed his hands on the railing of the balcony. As he stood there, suspended between sky and water, he experienced a profound sense of well-being. Dusk was his favourite time of day. He loved the feeling of the city letting go, kicking back. The glitter of lights on the other side of the river. The softer glow of the street lamps reflected in the dark water slapping gently against the muddy bank.

  It was as he turned away from the water and walked back into the apartment that he spotted it again: the flickering light on his answering machine. For a moment he debated with himself whether to leave it until the next day—it was Friday evening, after all—but then he walked over and pushed the play button.

  The voice on the tape was unfamiliar. It was a male voice, rather thin, the words uttered with measured precision. The message was innocuous: a request for a breakfast meeting the following Monday to discuss a business proposition ‘that could be to our mutual benefit’. The caller did not give his last name, identifying himself merely as William and specifying that he would be sitting in the booth furthest from the entrance.

  The caller’s reticence about identifying himself was not unusual. Prospective clients usually acted coy, at least initially, and it was quite understandable considering the kind of service they were hoping to procure. So the message seemed perfectly normal. Nothing out of the ordinary, certainly nothing that could have set off an alarm bell inside his mind.

  But months afterwards he would think back on this moment when he had stood inside
his beautiful apartment, his finger still on the button of the machine, the light fading outside the window, the sound of voices and laughter drifting upwards along with the smells from the kebab house on the corner. He would remember that moment as though it were frozen in time and search for some sign that might have indicated that his life was about to change completely. On that warm summer evening, when he had felt in absolute control of his destiny, was there nothing that had served as a warning? Surely he should have sensed something. Surely there must have been an omen.

  He lifted his finger from the button, unconcerned, merely making a mental note to himself to rise earlier than usual on Monday in order to get to Piccadilly in time for the meeting with his new, and as yet unknown, client.

  But as he walked towards the kitchen, whistling tunelessly under his breath, a cool wind suddenly lifted one of the silk hangings on the wall. And in the wine-red sky a fat moon was rising slowly.

  Entry Date: 20 May

  Follow the path that does not wander.

  M. is building a new door. The key will be large—as long as a woman’s arm—and fashioned from silver. She is working with such feverish haste, I am getting concerned. But it is true that the door is looking splendid.

  On the other side will be a window. The sky outside this window will always be dark and the window panes smeared with frost.

  Who will live in this place between door and window? A mummer with a heavy heart and blind eyes turning, turning.

  I must meditate upon my name.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He looked wealthy. You couldn’t put your finger on what it was exactly, but the aura of money was unmistakable. He was dressed conservatively in a dark blue suit with a crisp white shirt and a pale blue tie with tiny yellow flowers. His shoes were black brogues. But it wasn’t really the clothes—even though the cut of the suit was impeccable—which gave you the idea that this was a man of material substance. It was something else altogether. Blue blood and money. A potent combination, as distinctive as a smell.