The Acid Vanilla Series

by Matthew Hattersley

  She paused. The atmosphere in the room had changed. A stillness had descended. Banjo sat upright. Hanging on her every word. “Seventy-two times,” he whispered. “Shit.”

  Acid ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “I was still sitting on the kitchen floor when they turned up. Didn’t resist. It went in my favour though, in the long run. The severity of the attack meant they put me in a secure unit rather than jail. A home for psychologically dangerous children. Some bullshit. The type of place does more harm than good. But it prepared me well. You learn how to look after yourself pretty quick. That’s where Caesar found me. He got me out of there. Took me under his wing. Trained me up. Been working for him ever since. Sixteen years now.”

  She went to get another drink, one for Banjo too.

  “Your mum still around?”

  Acid paused. The bottle hovered over the top of her glass. “No. She’s dead.” She poured the drinks and returned to the couch.

  “Some story.” Banjo whistled, accepting the glass.

  “It is what it is. It’s so long ago now it’s like it happened to someone else. And you know what? It did. The person I was back then doesn’t exist anymore.” She stood. Her turn to pace. Nervous energy bristled down her spine.

  “You okay?”

  She stretched her arms in front of her. “Yeah, fine. I need a holiday, that’s all. Gets to you, this job, after a while.”

  Banjo turned his mouth down. “I love it. All the power. It’s like we get to play God every single day. Gets me hard.”

  Acid kept on pacing. “Don’t you think it’s suffocating, all that power?” she asked. “Don’t you want to find some space inside of all that? Remind yourself you do have a soul?”

  Banjo smirked as he drank. “Nah, I don’t have one. I like the power.”

  Acid wasn’t listening. She was on a roll. The bats spurred her on. The drink just as much. “Recently I’ve felt out of sorts. It happens now and again and I get over it, you know. I make peace with what I do. But lately there’s been this recurring sense of something sinister stalking me.” She walked over to the window and looked down onto the swirling blackness of the river. “Forget it. I’m talking absolute crap. I know I am. I’m overtired, that’s all. Like I say, I need a holiday.”

  “I don’t know, babe, sounds to me like you might need more than a holiday.”

  “God. Will you give it a rest?”

  “No, I mean, it sounds to me like of the game. Looking for redemption, maybe.”

  Acid turned from the window and gave him a stern look. “Don’t talk shit,” she snapped. “This is who I am. I’m the best in the bloody business. Everyone knows it. Of course I don’t want out.”

  Banjo held his hands up. “Fair enough. Sorry I spoke.”

  “Even if I did, Caesar would never allow it.” She finished her drink and went to the cabinet to pour another. “I need a few weeks away. That’s all.”

  She sat on the edge of the couch. Neither of them spoke for what seemed like forever.

  “A naughty girl’s home, hey?” Banjo said at last. “Bet that was hot. I figured it’d have to be something like that with you. You’re too much of a rebel to be ex-military.”

  Acid laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment. That what you are?”

  “God no. Look at me. I’m far too lithe and fabulous for all that.”

  “So what’s your story?”

  “Nothing much to tell.” He threw his matchstick legs onto the couch and put his hands behind his head.

  “Come on, I’ve told. Spill.”

  He closed his eyes. “It’s simple, babe. I’m a total bloody psychopath.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “How do you think I got to be such a charming fucker? All part of the brand, isn’t it?”

  Acid got to her feet. “Well, on that note, I’m going to try to get a few hours. Best we’re rested before meeting Caesar. I see you’ve made yourself comfortable. I’ll be through here.” She turned to look at him. “Again, not an invitation.”

  Banjo grinned at her. “I might go through till morning, work out what to tell him.”

  “Well, no more booze if you’re driving. I mean it. There’s coffee through there if you want it. But try and relax, okay? We tell Caesar the truth, he’ll be fine. Shit happens.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Hey. I’m always right.”

  She went to the bedroom and closed the door behind her, listening for the click.

  He’ll be fine.

  Now if she could only convince herself of that, she might get some of that elusive sleep she’d been talking about.

  Eight

  Spook Horowitz had already resigned herself to the fact sleep wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight. Not when she still had so many unanswered questions spinning around her brain. She poured herself another drink – coffee this time, a safer option – and went back to her laptop, refreshed her emails. Still nothing.

  “Come on, Kelvin.”

  Once she’d cleaned herself up, Spook’s first thought had been to call the police, tell them what she’d seen. But Cerberix had made the Watchers sign some hefty NDAs when taking on their new role, and whilst she knew murder trumped breaking a contract, Spook was a computer genius, not a lawyer. She wasn’t certain how it worked. She did not want to get sent back to the States. Or worse.

  The wise move then would have been to delete the recording. Forget what she’d seen. But this was someone’s life and that didn’t seem right. So instead Spook had transferred the file onto a thumb-drive – for safe keeping until she figured out what to do – and gone to bed. She was exhausted and could do nothing to help that poor girl now. Except then a terrible thought had hit her, one she needed an answer to right away. Which is why she was now mainlining coffee and refreshing her inbox every five minutes in the hope Kelvin would see her message and reply.

  The clock said 5.30 a.m. Spook thought back to yesterday and Kelvin droning on about some new fitness regime that involved an early morning run. That meant he’d hopefully be awake soon. She refreshed her screen again. Her right leg shuddered like a jackhammer. Too much coffee. Or maybe she was in shock and didn’t realise it. She stood and walked around her kitchen, looked out the small window above the sink as the new day’s sun rose over London Fields. She thought about going for a walk. A way to distract her from this nightmare. Or a shower might do it.

  She was on her way to the bathroom when she was drawn back to her laptop. One last time. She hit refresh and let out a soft yelp. There it was. Kelvin’s reply.

  Hey Spook. Good to hear from you. Sorry but I’m not sure what you’re asking. Want to jump on a quick video call so we can talk?

  Spook sighed. Not what she was hoping for, but if this is what it took. She typed back, Sure, I’m logging on now, and hit send. A few seconds later she heard the familiar beep-beep-beep of an incoming video call: Kelvin Walker is attempting connection.

  Yeah. Not for the first time, Spook thought.

  She settled herself in front of the screen and accepted the call as Kelvin flickered into focus.

  “Good morning, Spook. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon after last night.”

  He was red-faced and sweaty, wearing one of those elastic headbands that held his glasses in place.

  “Thanks for getting back to me.” She was conscious of her tone, trying to sound calm. “Something occurred to me last night. It’s nothing. But I thought you might know the answer.”

  She could tell Kelvin loved that she needed his help. “You said in your email something about recording your screen?”

  “That’s right. As I say, no biggie. I was curious, that’s all. When we’re watching subjects, what’s the policy if we were to like… I don’t know… accidentally record the screen, for instance? I mean it happens, right?”

  Kelvin whistled. “Yes, it happens, but Cerberix don’t like it. No siree. Didn’t you hear about that guy in Team Yellow? The black
guy with the blue hair? Used to walk around like he owned the place?” Spook hadn’t. This wasn’t doing anything for her anxiety. Kelvin went on. “The way I heard it, he’d been collecting data on this guy who was a friend of a friend. Only he was having an affair and Blue saw it all, recorded him in the act. Idea was to blackmail him. That is, until the bosses found out and he was slung out on his arse.”

  Kelvin took a large drink of something that resembled pond scum. He gulped it down noisily and smacked his lips.

  “How did they find out what he’d done?” she asked. “The bosses.”

  “Not sure. I guess it gets flagged if anyone hits record. Easy enough to set up. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have something like that in place.”

  Spook’s eyes drifted to the thumb-drive next to her coffee mug. “How do you think it works?” she asked, her voice straining. “Would it be someone actually monitoring our activity? Or more automated?”

  Kelvin sat back. “What’s going on, Spook? What did you do?”

  “Nothing. Just curious.”

  Kelvin didn’t look convinced. “I can’t imagine there’s any real-time monitoring going on. The logs get checked once a week maybe, and if any recording has been flagged it’s dealt with then.”

  “Okay, cool, yeah,” Spook replied. Her mind was racing. “Thanks. And these logs, where do you think they’d be stored?”

  Kelvin tilted his head. “What did you record, Spook? Wasn’t me, was it?”

  Spook ignored him. “Thanks so much for that, Kelvin. You’ve been a massive help.”

  Before he could reply, she closed the laptop. All at once she felt in need of a shower. Then she had some thinking to do. Thinking and planning. She might even say a prayer. Spook hadn’t been to church since she left home, wasn’t religious. But right now she needed all the help she could get.

  Once showered, Spook dressed and went back into the kitchen. Out of the small window that looked onto London Fields she could see the sun was already up. A new day had begun. She took a bottle of coconut water from the fridge and drank half of it in one go. Then she went through into the lounge and flicked on the TV. There it was in black and white, at the bottom of the screen, today’s leading item:

  Woman’s body found in London home of Sinclair Whitman, Chief Finance Officer of Cerberix Inc.

  Spook sat, not quite believing what she was reading. She switched channels. The reports differed as she went through the networks, but the main thread was the same for all. They said Sinclair wasn’t in London at the time of the murder. Said his private chef had been arrested.

  Spook turned up the volume on a female reporter standing outside Whitman’s Mayfair apartment. She was telling the anchor how the police had arrested a thirty-year-old Hispanic male this morning.

  Shit.

  They were covering it up.

  Spook thought back to her conversation with Kelvin. The recording. Being flagged. The Watcher logs.

  Shit.

  She needed coffee. She went through to the kitchen and switched on the kettle, seeing the tell-tale thumb-drive on the kitchen table, mocking her. She had an idea to shove it into the waste disposal unit and have done with it. But she couldn’t bring herself. Instead she stared at it impotently as the kettle boiled. However, if Kelvin was correct and the logs were only checked once a week then she still had a chance. She already knew the Watcher logs were air-gapped somewhere, meaning she couldn’t hack her way in. But if she could get in front of them she could hard-wire it and delete the evidence. It would be risky, of course. But the alternative was much worse. She had to try, she had no choice. She tipped a heaped spoonful of coffee into a mug and added boiling water. Then she went back into the lounge to make a phone call.

  Nine

  It took Spook three hours to get across London, but the travelling time allowed her to calm herself and get her analyst head on. Luckily, Michael had answered her call and was more than happy to answer Spook’s questions, once she’d assured him they were purely for research purposes. A screenplay she was working on.

  Spook had met Michael in her induction week at Cerberix. He’d started in the cybersecurity team at the same time and, although not directly involved in the Watcher project, he was part of the inner circle. They’d got on well. They liked the same films, the same games. Spook had been upset to discover Michael was gay, but they still met for drinks on occasion.

  Michael informed Spook that there were twelve servers on the sixth floor of Cerberix’s main building in Canary Wharf. Each server was situated in its own air-conditioned room, and number three was the one Spook was interested in. This was the air-gapped storage unit that was only accessible via a limited intranet link and dealt specifically with the formatted user logs from the Watcher project. The logging agent carried the data here at the end of each session, where it was stored for forty-eight hours before being analysed and then deleted. Spook couldn’t help but squirm with joy when Michael told her that. She’d be able to delete her session log before anyone saw it.

  Her heart was racing as she approached the main reception desk and smiled sweetly at the woman on the other side.

  “Hey, how you doing?” Spook asked.

  The woman looked her up and down. “I’m fine, thank you. Can I help?”

  “I certainly hope so – Carol,” Spook said, clocking her name badge. “Not a biggie. I just need to get to six to check on one of the servers.”

  Carol fiddled with her mouse. “Do you have clearance?”

  “Uh-huh.” Spook rummaged in her rucksack and flashed her ID badge. “I’m from the Watcher project. My supervisor asked me to investigate as we’ve been experiencing awful latency issues on the server.” Spook held the woman’s gaze.

  “I’ve not been informed of any visitors today,” she said.

  “Hmm, that is odd. But you can ring John Rimmer if you want clarification. He’s my supervisor. I mean, it’s the weekend and he’ll be at home with his kids today, but if you want to bother him, go ahead.”

  Rimmer wasn’t Spook’s supervisor, but he was the most feared supervisor on the Watcher project and well-known for being a real prick to subordinates. Carol looked to be thinking about it, then handed Spook a clipboard with a sheet of A4 paper attached.

  “Okay. Sign in, will you? Name, department, time.”

  Spook did as she was told, putting her name down as Karen Walker. Then she thanked Carol and called the elevator. Only as the door shut and she was safe in the confines of the metal box did she allow herself to breathe again. That was close.

  Once on the sixth floor, she hurried along the windowless corridor and found server room three. You needed a passcode to open the door, but Michael had already let this slip on the phone. Spook keyed it in and slid inside as an intense chill from a large air-conditioner unit hit her in the face. It woke her, at least, focused her attention. She moved over to the far corner of the room and pulled her laptop from her rucksack followed by a handful of USB cables, an Ethernet cable and a rollover cable too. She wasn’t sure what she would need, so she’d brought everything. After examining the main storage unit, she plugged her laptop into the central control panel and fired it up.

  Accessing the system wasn’t easy. There were more passcodes to get through, an expertly set up firewall, but nothing Spook couldn’t handle. She checked her phone. It was 3 p.m. With any luck she’d have this done and be home by 7 p.m. at the latest. Job done. In the clear. Enjoying her day off.

  She got through the backdoor of the system in about fifteen minutes. Folders and sub-folders filled her screen, all with long serial numbers. They were stored in team and then date order and Spook found her log file easily enough.

  “What the hell?”

  Every day Spook had worked over the last five days had its own folder – with sub-folders inside each main directory that contained search data, trending tags, analysis captures and service records. Only there was a folder missing. The one that corresponded with yesterday’s activit
y. The one that would have been flagged as soon as she hit record. As soon as Sinclair Whitman began strangling that poor woman.

  Someone had deleted the folder.

  A shiver ran down Spook’s neck. They knew what she’d done. More importantly, they knew what she’d seen. And if they were prepared to frame an innocent man for murder, what would they do to her?

  Ten

  “That’s our story, yeah? We tell Caesar the guy went for the gun,” Banjo shouted across at Acid. Shouting, because he had both windows down on the vintage S-Type and was going well over the speed limit. Shouting, because Bob Dylan was turned all the way up on the stereo. “We tell him the neighbour was trying to be a hero and we had no choice. I mean, it’s the truth. Sort of.”

  Acid Vanilla closed her eyes behind her sunglasses. “In my experience, the more you plan out what to say, the easier it is to trip yourself up. We’ve done nothing wrong. That’s the only energy you need go in there with.”

  Banjo cleared his throat. “I wish I had your confidence.”

  “Who says I’m confident?”

  “Well, it’s easy to be when you’re the boss’s favourite, I guess.”

  “Who says I’m his favourite?”

  Banjo looked at her. “Come off it, everyone knows you can do no wrong in Caesar’s eyes. What’s that about, anyway? You guys had a thing?”

  Acid pulled down her shades and stared at him. She waited for him to catch her look. To see she wasn’t messing around. “Absolutely bloody not. And don’t ever say anything like that to me again. You hear me, Banjo? I’m good at my job. That’s all. Now shut up about it. We carried out the hit. Got the right mark. That’s all that matters.”