I can see the malicious delight on Keisha’s face, even from twenty yards. I can’t take this today, not on top of everything else, and I can’t be held up. I can’t be late.
But then the gods smile. A bus slows to a crawl as it approaches a red light at the junction, and I step on without hesitation. As it pulls away again, I see Keisha and Gabrielle staring at me through the window, a nasty look of satisfaction on both their faces. They all know what just happened.
The bus gets me to Lilly’s school with time to spare, but as I peer through the railings I can’t help calculating what it has cost me: what I could have bought for the fare that has been taken from my Oyster card. It’s all going to be the finest of margins from now on. But what really stings is that it isn’t the bus journey that has truly cost me: it was not facing down Keisha and her harpies. That was an avoidable expense. A coward tax.
I watch the first of the kids appear, their wheelchairs coming out of the big double doors on to a gently sloping ramp. The rest will start streaming out of a different entrance separated from the car park by a fence. I am always amazed at everyone’s patience as several of the pupils are loaded on to minibuses, the hydraulic platforms slowly lifting one wheelchair at a time. I couldn’t handle that: being powerless, waiting ages every day while your time bleeds from you.
One of the buses is heading to an after-school facility at the Nisha Leyton Centre, a day-care complex that provides services for adults with learning disabilities.
I realise that’s another item on the big list of things I urgently need to look into. I’m going to have to find a job, and there aren’t many of those that will let me knock off around half past three every day so I can be standing here dutifully at the Loxford School’s gates to collect my younger sister.
Being There For Lilly could be the title of my brief and boring autobiography. It certainly feels like the story of my life.
We moved around so much growing up, and it was difficult enough to fit in and make friends at each new place without Lilly always following me around. The other kids never saw me as an individual: they saw the little Down syndrome girl first and her big sister was merely part of the package.
‘She’s my half-sister,’ I sometimes told them, out of a need to distance myself. I always felt ashamed later, and it hurts now to remember saying it. Bloody stupid anyway. Half the kids I went to school with had brothers and sisters from different mums and dads.
Lilly emerges carrying an art folder – it catches the wind and she needs a second’s attention to get a better grip. I see Lilly before Lilly sees me. I always love that, because it means I can savour the moment when Lilly reacts. Her face lights up like she hasn’t seen me in days, and it makes me feel, just for an instant, like I’m the most special person in someone’s life.
These days that moment lasts only until I remember that it’s true. Right now I’m all Lilly’s got.
‘I’ve painted Batgirl. She’s fighting Harley Quinn.’
Lilly loves comics, especially girl superheroes.
She makes to open the folder but I head her off, leading her towards the pelican crossing.
‘Show me when we get home. It’s a bit breezy right now.’
‘It’s not finished. I’m going to finish it at home. I need some new colouring pens. Can we buy some new colouring pens?’
I wish the answer could be yes.
‘Was Cassie back in school today after her tummy bug?’
A change of subject often does the trick. Lilly will forget about the pens until she gets home, where she can make do with what she’s already got or more likely start drawing something new.
‘Yes. She’s feeling better.’
Lilly is quiet for about a hundred yards, seemingly lost in her thoughts. It’s long enough for me to think the question is not coming. But then it does.
‘Is Mum home yet?’
I stifle a sigh, trying not to vent my frustration. Every night we go through this. Is she pretending she doesn’t understand? Is it a kind of protest? Then I remember how long it took Lilly to understand about her dad.
‘No, she’s not home yet. She won’t be home for a long time. She told you that, remember? When we went to see her.’
‘But why is she there? Why won’t she come home?’
‘Because they won’t let her out.’
‘Why won’t they let her out?’
I give vent to a sigh. It’s that or a scream.
‘Because she’s in jail, Lilly.’
TELEPHONE BANKING
‘Good morning, HR, Don Corrigan speaking.’
His tone is breezy, someone whose day hasn’t gone wrong yet.
‘Oh, hi, Don,’ comes the reply, matching his friendliness. ‘This is Morgan Bell over at Corporate Security in Holborn.’
‘Oh. How can I help?’
Don sounds suddenly guarded but trying to disguise it. Like talking to a cop: he’s sure he’s got nothing to answer for, but slightly edgy all the same.
‘It’s nothing heavy, don’t worry. How are things over in Canary Wharf? I haven’t been in the building for a while. They ever fix that big digital thermometer above the lobby?’
‘No, it’s still twenty-eight degrees every day, including January.’
He’s relaxed again, friendly. He sounds like he wants to help. Maybe not help get the ball rolling on a massively high-profile hack of his employer, the RSGN Bank, but cooperative even so.
‘Look, apologies if this isn’t your remit, but I’m chasing up a list Human Resources was supposed to have sent us more than a week ago. I’m organising a security awareness seminar for new employees. They were meant to send me the names of anyone who has started in the last three months.’
‘At Holborn as well, or just Canary Wharf?’
‘Just Canary Wharf. I already got the list from our end, but only because I was able to go down to HR in person. I’m not having a lot of luck and I’m right up against a deadline now.’
‘Do you know who was compiling it for you?’
‘I’ve been back and forth between so many people that I’ve forgotten the name. Can you do a quick search? For all I know it might turn out there’s nobody eligible and that’s why I never got a list.’
‘Okay, give me a second to get into the right system.’
There is a clack-clack of keys, a pause, an impatient sigh.
‘Sorry,’ Don says, but it’s a good sorry. ‘Computer’s a little slow this morning.’
He’s under control. He’s going to deliver.
‘Ah, here we go. There’s actually quite a few. Fourteen results.’
‘I’d better get busy, then. Can you email me their names and contact details? You’d really be digging me out of a hole.’
‘Sure thing. I can send you this list right away. What’s your email?’
‘It’s morgan.bell@RSGN_blue.com,’ I reply. ‘Major thanks, I really appreciate this.’
‘RSGN Blue? I’ve never seen that address before.’
‘It’s a new thing. Part of the rebranding: certain departments are getting a colour.’
‘You should have it now. Has the email come across okay?’
‘It’s just appeared. That’s brilliant. Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome. Sorry about the delay. Will my email address be changing, then?’
‘You’d have heard by now if it was. Don’t worry, it’s completely meaningless anyway. They’ll probably ditch it again as soon as they’ve printed the new stationery.’
Don laughs in agreement and the call comes to a polite end.
‘Good morning, Customer Communications.’
‘Yeah, good morning. I’m looking for Sonya Donovan?’
‘Yeah, that’s me. How can I help?’
‘This is Morgan Bell at Corporate Security over in Holborn. Don’t panic, we’re not about to have you escorted from the building or anything.’
‘God, well that’s a relief.’
Sonya sounds on the back foo
t but cheery, eager to please. She’s not been in the job long, which is, after all, why she’s been chosen from the list Don helpfully supplied.
‘It was November you joined us, right? How are you liking it at RSGN? Settling in okay?’
‘Yes, great.’
‘Glad to hear it. I’m calling because it’s coming up on our files that you haven’t had a computer security audit yet. Is that right?’
‘Er, no, I mean yes, that’s right, I haven’t. I was at a briefing when I started, but . . .’
‘Yes, that’s the standard briefing. The audit is something different. Don’t worry, it’s only a check-up to make sure you’re okay with all the protocols. It’s pretty painless and very rarely results in you being escorted from the building.’
Sonya chuckles, nervous but keen. Don’s list said she was forty-one. She sounds mumsy: cheerful, responsible, cooperative.
‘We’re doing this now?’ she asks.
‘It should only take a couple of minutes, but if you’re about to go for lunch I can schedule you for an after-hours audit. I’ve got a window at six forty-five tonight, or my colleague Mazood could fit you in at eight tomorrow morning.’
‘No, no, if it’s only going to take a little while . . .’
‘It really is. Firstly, were you happy with the IT security briefing you received when you first arrived at RSGN? Was it clear enough? Did you understand it all?’
‘Yes, totally. It was pretty similar to other places I’ve worked.’
‘And so you’re confident about your own security practices? You’re never thinking: I hope this is okay?’
‘No, never. I’m not dealing with anything sensitive here anyway. Despite the name, Customer Communications doesn’t deal with any customer accounts. We’re part of Marketing.’
‘Okay, but as an aside I would warn you never to assume any information isn’t sensitive.’
‘Of course. Absolutely.’
‘Have you had any communication that you were worried might be suspect?’
‘Do you mean emails? I know not to open any attachments: that was all covered in the briefing.’
‘Good. And have you ever been given any media – a disk or a flash drive – that originated outside of RSGN?’
‘No, never. Again, that was covered in the—’
‘Yes, I appreciate that. But not everybody remembers the briefing so well when it comes to the day-to-day, which is why we have to audit.’
‘Of course.’
‘Now, to confirm, your email is [email protected] and your login name is “sonyadonovan”, all one word?’
‘No, it’s “sdonovan”.’
‘Oh dear. And you were doing so well.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘You just told me your username, and I could be anybody.’
‘Oh, jeez, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay. This is why we have audits. I’d say seventy per cent of people get tripped by that one the first time. Now, more importantly, your password. Is it easily guessable?’
‘No. Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure now.’
‘I’d better test it for you, then. We’ve got software that calculates how long it would take an automated program to crack it. If your password comes in at less than a certain figure, we have to insist you change it. So, what’s yours?’
Sonya takes a breath, then sighs, letting out a chuckle.
‘No. You’re testing me again, aren’t you?’
‘Hey, you’re catching on. Rule number one, and rules number two through fifty, are never tell anyone else your password. And we recommend you change it every three months as a further precaution. Would you like me to take you through that right now, so you know how to do it?’
‘Sure, yes, that would be great.’
‘It’s very straightforward. Then that’s us done and we can both get off to lunch. I’m starving, actually.’
‘God, me too.’
Sonya listens carefully, following the instructions until she has reached the Change Password screen.
‘Okay, just this once, because it’s your first time doing this, in case anything goes wrong, I want you to change the password to “testpass”, all lowercase, then press Save.’
‘Testpass, got it. Okay, it’s gone through.’
‘Now I need you to log out of the system, then when you log in again, go to the Change Password screen and put in a proper password. And make sure nobody is in sight of your monitor when you do.’
‘Understood. I’m logging back in now. No, hang about. It’s saying “User already logged on”. It’s not letting me in.’
‘It’s okay, don’t panic. Sometimes it takes the system a while to update itself. When do you get back from lunch?’
‘Two o’clock.’
‘Oh, no bother. It will be sorted long before that. And if it’s not, my extension is . . . well, actually I’ll be out of the office this afternoon, so I’ll give you my mobile.’
‘Thanks. And is that it now? The audit?’
‘Yes. All done. Thank you, Sonya. You’ve given me everything I needed.’
And she sure has. Because at this point, the hacker known as Buzzkill is already inside the system, having logged on to the RSGN Bank – username ‘sdonovan’, password ‘testpass’ – the very second Sonya logged out. And Buzzkill has a whole hour to go exploring before she comes back.
THE TOMORROW PEOPLE
‘There are few more impressive sights than a Scotsman on the make,’ according to J.M. Barrie, who might not qualify as an entirely objective source. His fellow countryman Jack Parlabane would like to believe Barrie’s words are true, but right now he is more certain of the fact that ‘wanting it too much’ looks the same on a Scotsman as it does on every other nationality, and ‘impressive’ definitely does not seem the appropriate adjective. That’s why nobody ever thought to use Desperation as a brand name for shower gel.
He is in a café in Shoreditch, sitting opposite Candace Montracon and Lee Williams, respectively the founder and the London bureau chief of Broadwave. The place is a former greasy spoon that has been given the full gentrification make-over, though with the hipster ‘ironic’ twist that it is serving pretty much the same menu as in its previous incarnation. The principal differences are that the walls have been stripped back to their bare bricks, the crockery is now uniformly black and square, and the brown sauce comes in a pewter ramekin. Oh, and that it’s a tenner for a roll and sausage.
There are not many things in this world that would entice Parlabane to tolerate such an establishment, but the prospect of a job with Broadwave is one of them.
‘You’ve been in the game a long time,’ Candace states. ‘Going all the way back to the early nineties.’
Parlabane can’t quite read her tone, but from the fact that she makes the early nineties sound like it could be the Victorian era, he’s not so sure she thinks his longevity is an entirely positive attribute. The phrase ‘veteran reporter’ has already been used, which he is not delighted about, but he is sufficiently familiar with the terms ‘disgraced reporter’ and ‘former reporter’ as to make his peace with it.
‘I started unusually young,’ he tells them, hoping this shaves a few years off their perceptions of his age. ‘It helped when I was first investigating scams in Glasgow. I looked too innocent to be a cop or a reporter.’
‘And from there you were headhunted to join a major investigative team here in London, before moving out to LA.’
‘Yeah,’ Lee chimes in, her gushy excitement pouring forth in contrast to Candace’s detached cool. ‘You went undercover investigating corruption in the LAPD. Seriously hardcore.’
‘How do you know about that?’ Parlabane asks, partly to hide his delight at how pleased she looks.
‘Travin Coates, one of your colleagues from back then heads up our west coast features desk,’ Candace says. ‘We were talking about the Black Widow story and he said he’d worked for you. Gave you a good reference, said we
should hit you up.’
Parlabane nods, wondering where his stock is right now. He thought he was being, if not headhunted, then at least asked to audition, and reckoned that was on the strength of his career overall. If the Diana Jager scoop is the principal reason they are looking at him, then the ground feels a lot shakier beneath his feet. That story put him back on the radar after a difficult few years, but the attention it brought was always likely to be transitory. There is a very good chance that it merely made Broadwave curious, and now that they have the chance to run the rule over him, they will see that he is not what they were hoping for.
This would be a massive kick in the plums, because Broadwave is very much what Parlabane is hoping for. There are precious few opportunities left in traditional print journalism, even for individuals who haven’t burned quite so many bridges, so he is running out of time to find a future. Broadwave is a burgeoning cross-media entity that has evolved from a completely new perspective upon news and technology. While other outlets are struggling to manage the change from their old analogue platforms, often drowning under the weight of their own legacies, Broadwave is a product of the digital age.
It was started in San Francisco by Candace Montracon, whose background was in tech start-ups rather than journalism or television, so its models and paradigms derived from Silicon Valley rather than Fleet Street. It wasn’t trying to be anything that had gone before, which was perhaps why it quickly developed such a strong brand in a crowded and hyper-competitive market. What had impressed Parlabane was that in a web full of clickbait and content dilution, Broadwave was all about substance. When a big story broke, it went deep: its features were lengthy and detailed, its interviews wide and prolific.
Critics called it ‘Broadfunnel’, because it was one of the first places would-be reporters and ordinary punters sent their blogs, vlogs and phone-cam footage in the hope of a payment or simply a credit. Candace called this ‘crowdsourcing the news’, and hired a new breed of editors whose job was about filtering and compiling content from the deluge of material that came to them over the wires. It wasn’t a scattershot strategy: this new breed needed strong news sense, and worked closely with a staff of experienced reporters who helped shape the coverage across multiple media. The results weren’t merely garnering page hits: Broadwave’s features were regularly being picked up by newspapers, and its logo was becoming a familiar sight in the corner of video footage shown on network news.
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