by Steve Tasane
I can’t wait to get back home to Scarlett and Danny’s.
The Digit and the Great Manager go to work on email blackmail. Virus’s scam is straightforward. He has thousands of fake web identities, all set to serve Operations at the click of a mouse. Connected to forums, chat rooms, Facebook pages, Twitter.
He’s going to drop a Rumour Bomb. A mass attack of libellous suggestions and outright lies by people with fake names at untraceable addresses, who don’t exist anyway. You can’t exactly sue them, can you?
Chris Primrose is this. Chris Primrose did that. Apparently, Chris Primrose. Primrose is part of a secret network. The track always leads back to Chris Primrose.
And Virus, techno-whizz that he is, got the identity of the Chief Constable too. Name of Wedderburn. Search the name online now – Chief Constable Wedderburn – and it’s fair to say the Force Is in Disrepute.
None of these terrible rumifications, of course, flow from Cash Counters, Fair Deal For All, Seven Sisters Road, N7.
But Virus will – anonymousely – email Call-Me Norman a copy of our magic film. Call-Me will be Virus’s cash machine, collecting the money from his sick associates, with V collecting all the crinkle direct from a ghost bank account.
“It’s all so beautiful, Didgy-Boy,” Virus brags.
True, but.
“Call-Me and the Jimmys will want to obliterize Byron twice as much now, won’t they? And Alfi. It’s obvious that I made the film, and that Alfi’s in on it.”
The Great Manager dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “Well of course. But Byron Blank Space is already a marked man. They can’t kill him twice, can they? As for Alfi – well, you’re just going to have to trust me on that one.”
Making mockers at me. But the Digit don’t care. I’m worrying more over Alfi’s bones. If Mad Dog Banks and Obnob have already sniffed him out, will there even be any bones left?
“You sure Jackson isn’t actually going to do anything to Alfi then?”
“Well, he’s not going to bring him back here, is he? Cash Counters is a marked site now – thanks to certain persons near by. I suppose he’ll – I suppose he’ll keep him safe somewhere.”
But before I can ask where, the intercom’s all a-buzz, and when Virus goes to answer it, it ain’t Jackson Banks.
No. It’s the Sherlocks. Sherlocks at the door.
Virus throws me the evils. It’s the Citizen’s fault for letting Alfi get long-armed. If he’s blabbed, it’s a disaster.
If he’s blabbed? This is Squealer-Boy we’re talking about.
Virus claps his hands at me, impatient. “Vanish, boy!”
I hide in the cupboard. It ain’t clever, but it is tidy.
The Sherlocks make their way up.
So I eavesdrop a crack, listen for the catastrophic news. The Sherlocks are certainly not happy. They are seeking one Jackson Banks. Yes! Resultification.
Then they say it’s in connection with having found a body – a WhyPee’s body – and I almost fall out of the cupboard.
Please, please, don’t let it be Alfi Spar.
Virus is as cool as a clue-comber and polite as a teapot.
“You’ll already have tried Mr Banks’s home address, I suppose?” he says to the Top-Notch Sherlock.
“No one at home. We’re of the understanding that Mr Banks is an associate of yours.” Here Virus gives a disgusted snort. “And we’re keen to speak with him. We have an unidentified body—”
Alfi. No. No.
“We aren’t able to make any connection with dental records, fingerprints or DNA. The boy is off-system.”
Alfi’s off-system.
“But he did have one distinctive physical feature.”
“Ohh?” says Virus, all nonshalonse, couldn’t give a monkey’s buttons.
“A scar, running down the left side of his face.”
Thank you!
I guess Jackson didn’t sink Crow as deep as he reckoned. Poor kid, denied a life and a decent burial.
“I see,” says Virus. “Mr Banks, of course, being foster parent to a young man with a scar, you need to establish with him whether or not the poor body might be that of young, what’s his name? Raven?”
Oh, he’s a sly one, that Virus.
“Of course,” says Top-Notch Sherlock. “You can understand the urgency. If the body is that of Banks’s child, we need to speak with him. This is a murder enquiry. Should you hear from Jackson Banks you need to contact Tottenham police immediately.”
Soon as the Sherlocks leave, I clatter out of the cupboard to find Virus checking his Smartphone for Alfi Spar’s whereabouts.
“Your talkative friend remains at the same Finsbury Park address,” he tells me, “and I can confirm that it is not a mortuary.” He’s silent for a moment. “Poor Crow.”
“Poor Crow,” I echo. I’d always had the shivers about that boy not making life past his teens. What a short, horrorful existence.
“And Jackson?” says Virus. “He was … quite agitated over the loss of his young assistant?”
Crow wasn’t so much an assistant as a slave, but now’s not a wise time to be correcting Virus over such matters. So I agree. “He was bonkers as ever.”
Bonkier than bonkers. Banks was thinking. He was looking at me – like I might be the next Crow.
“Hmmm,” says Virus.
Hmmm? What’s that supposed to mean?
I don’t like it.
If the Sherlocks are going to long-arm Jackson, and he’s got Alfi with him, it could get bloody.
“So what do we do?”
“We wait. We sit tight and wait for Jackson Banks to return.”
“Call him off. Isn’t that simpler?”
Virus gives me a stern look. “When Banks is on a job, he’s switched off. Incommunicado.”
So that’s that, then.
Cash Counters is on skeleton staff. Virus still has most of the WhyPees packed off to safeholes, and the bulk of his gadgets hidden away. There’s not much for us to do, other than watch his Rumour Bomb splattering all over the internet.
Afternoon turns to teatime, and still no JB.
Virus tries to perk me up with a steady supply of tea and toast, and I try not to make a mess. (“Crumbs, boy! Crumbs!”) He puts on some tunes – old soul stuff – which seem to flow out of every electronic screen scattered round us. He normally surrounds himself with the chitter-chat of his henchboys. It’s funny, it just being me and him.
To kill time, he teaches me a few magic tricks. Coin-out-of-the-earhole type stuff: the Magic Knife (it’s there/it’s not/it’s there/it’s not) and the Not Knot (very handy for kidnappy-type situations). He teaches patiently. “You have to get it wrong before you can get it right, Digit. Do it wrong two hundred times, then the two hundred and first, you’re a winner. You’ve got ’em bamboozled, boy, bamboozled.”
Oh, yeah, that’s the Digit – the Mighty Bamboozler.
Early evening. No Alfi. No Jackson. Citizen Digit is beginning to stress. Virus starts to sweat it too. But we don’t hear zilch from the Sherlocks, so we just gotta sit safe and soundless. Grace must be with JB or we’d have heard from her, surely to goodness. If Grace is there with him, then whatever’s descending, Alfi’ll be all right. In fact, he’s probably a thousand times all righter than the Digit, who’s still in fear of a grievous bodily harming that’s officially owed to Byron Blank Space.
That’s right, Didge, convince yourself.
Before cooking up supper, Virus teaches me a few online scams. The interweb ain’t usually the territory for a finger-slick invisible fiend like Citizen Digit, but it never hurts to have a bit of wisdom up your sleeve.
Alfi’ll be just fine and dandy.
The Rumour Bomb, meanwhile, has been gunpowdering across the network. Where there’s smoke, there’s money.
JB’ll just be laying low somewhere, is all.
We email Call-Me Norman. It’s a cracker. ’Cos of course it’s not us sending him an email, which would be simplic
ity itself. No, we play with his nerves. Virus hacks into the account of Chief Constable Wedderburn, and wha-lahh, it’s Bent Sherlock who sends this message:
NORMAN, HAVE YOU SEEN THE VIDEO OF OUR LAST NIGHT AT TENDERNESS HOUSE? IT’S NOT IN SAFE HANDS. AND SOMEONE’S BEEN SPREADING DANGEROUS RUMOURS. GOOGLE OUR DEAR FRIEND CHRIS PRIMROSE. GOOGLE CHIEF CONSTABLE WEDDERBURN. IT’S NOT NICE.
GOOGLE YOURSELF, NORMAN. GOOGLE YOURSELF. TAKE A GOOD LOOK. AND LISTEN CLOSE: I’M NOT EVEN ME. I’M HACKED. WE ARE BEING THREATENED WITH EXPOSURE FROM CRIMINAL MASTERMINDS. THEY WILL BE IN TOUCH. DEMANDING MONEY. IT’S THAT OR THE FILM GOES VIRAL.
I AM NOT ME.
I DIDN’T SEND THIS. THEY DID.
THEY CAN HACK YOU TOO.
PAY THEM THE MONEY!!!!!
Rinky dink.
I wanted to get Virus to add: LAY OFF ALFI SPAR but he thought it was buttering it a bit thick.
And then, Virus cooks us steak. With onion gravy, roast potatoes and steamed broccoli. He must be trying to convince himself, as well as me, that Alfi is in no danger. Alfi: if the human Monster Munch known as Alfi Spar was with us now, he would die of culinary overload. The steak is perfecto, but it all feels a bit Last Supper. There’s none of the racket of the other WhyPees; Jackson Banks still hasn’t made an appearance; we’ve no idea where Grace is. Virus lights a candle over the dining table and puts out napkins. One point, the Digit swears he’s even about to say grace. Talk about sacrifistic.
Maybe Jackson Banks has done a runner. And maybe Alfi is just away someplace, living a life. Yeah, that’d work. Banks gone. Grace could come back, move in here with me and Virus and any other stray WhyPees, and we’d eat steak and play picky-pock and whatnot.
I pester Virus to check Alfi’s whereabout one more time.
“If Banks is off the case,” I say, “what are we going to do about Alfi? I could get him, bring him back home. He must be worried shirtless.”
“Please!” Virus snip-snaps. “Don’t fret about young Alfi. We’ll reel him in. You Facebook-friended him earlier.”
“I did?”
“Well, City Zen did.”
What the Hull? Virus created a false Facebook ID for me? What an intrusion on my personal liberties. “So,” I snap, “what did you do, post an ID pic of Byron Blank Space with it? Call-Me and the Jim’llfixits will be round any minute!”
He reaches into his jacket pocket. “I told you. You must stop fretting about your online presence. Earlier today, you mislaid this. You ought to be more careful, Didge. I used it as the ID pic.”
Alfi Spar’s Birthday Tificate. I snatch it back. Throw Virus the evils. “You know what he’s like about who his mum was. He’s obsessed.”
“Exactly. Who can blame him?” Virus replies. “If I was him, I’d be searching everywhere.”
“He deserves some answers, and soon.” I wish I was hopeful of it. I disappear the Birthday Tiff into the folds of my threads.
“He needs to look in the right place, doesn’t he,” says Virus, enigmastically, “young Alfi?”
“Meaning what?”
He pauses. Looks at me, deep. “Sometimes,” he says, slow like a numb-tongue, “we have to go back to where we’re running from. To find where we’re going.”
“Oh, yeah,” says me, all sarko. “Like Tenderness House?”
But V gives the slightest of nods.
“You’re nutkins!” Virus really is nuts. “Alfi would have to be insane to go back to Tenderness now.”
“Perhaps. Either way, Alfi knows you’re watching out for him,” says Virus. “He may feel he’s better off where he is now, but he’ll come back to us soon enough.”
“How d’you reckon that?”
“For starters, he hasn’t blabbed to the Sherlocks, has he? And he’ll want his Birthday Certificate back. If Jackson Banks really is off the scene, I expect we’ll be hearing from Alfi pretty soon.”
I’ll certainly be happier once his squealer-slot’s safely back in front of us. And I hope he’s getting as good grub as the Digit is. But what Virus says about Alfi needing to return to Tenderness House is so bonkers, the Digit almost puts it right out of his mind. Almost.
Virus gives me a room with a big double bed. “You need a proper rest,” he says. He goes back down to his living space, to check the networks and plan the next day.
Then there’s a knock at the front door, and it ain’t the safe, secret rhythm. It’s the Sherlocks again. I’m all Agent Lightfoot in my socks, tippytoeing through the upper rooms, until I’m close enough to eardrop.
They’re still seeking Mr Popularity himself. They had a bluebottle parked twenty-four hours outside JB’s house, and he never returned. I suppose you wouldn’t, if you had guts on your hands and the Sherlocks parked at your front door.
Virus is as politely unhelpful as ever, and the Sherlock leaves, happy that Mr Virus is As Good a Citizen As It Gets, and full of surety that he’ll let them know in the immediate, if he hears of Mr Banks’s roundabouts.
I’m back in the room. Virus is practically rubbing his fingerprints off in glee. “He’s gone,” he sings out. “Done a runner! Jackson knows he can’t avoid being long-armed for Crow’s death if he stays around – even if, as he claims, it was a genuine mishap – so he’s gone!”
The Digit pretends to be not too delighted, but can’t resist a skip and a jump and an eensie whoop whoop! or three.
Let’s wishful-think that he’s gone and left Grace behind too. Imagine.
Virus goes all misty-eyed. “What a lovely way to finish the day,” he says. “Digit, you must get your rest. Tomorrow, we’ll plan our next step against Norman Newton.”
“Yes,” I say, “yes. But what about Alfi? We’ve got to bring him back. Tomorrow. We have to!”
Virus sighs. “All right. Tomorrow. First thing. But now, you need a proper sleep, young man.”
Indeed the Digit does, and he tries to sleep, he really does. Animals like Banks are never gone – they’re just lurking round different corners. But who cares? He’s off Alfi’s back, on the run from the Sherlocks, and V and me have got Call-Me Norman cornered in a cyber-trap.
Tomorrow, perhaps, will bring us all our heart’s delight. Just like it always happens in the Grim Feary Tales.
19. THE FUR-PECKED PLASTER MAN
Me second morning waking up at Scarlett and Danny’s. It’s a sunny day and Scarlett says she’s going to take us ice-skating up at the Alexandra Palace. It sounds posh. She says you get a view o’ the whole o’ London. I like that, being able to look down at a city, when the city can’t look back up at you. I don’t care if nobody ever sees us again, apart from these two – and Patti and Iggy, o’ course. Patti slept on me bed again, and she’s lying on me chest with her paws resting against me chin. I think she’s trying to hypnotize me: feed me breakfast, human boy, feed me breakfast and tickle my chin.
While Scarlett makes us scrambled eggs for me breakfast (hah, I don’t need to hypnotize her) I soak up more o’ their space. They’ve got a zillion books for starters, a whole load o’ boring ones about politics and philosophy, but also a huge pile o’ graphic novels, and a whole wall full o’ children’s books. A big pile of old-fashioned board games too, like Buckaroo and Monopoly and Cluedo.
“How come you have so much stuff for kids, but you don’t have any computer games?” I ask Scarlett.
She laughs. “Are we grumpy, out-of-date losers who don’t think computers are fun?”
“No.” I suppose not.
“The thing is,” she laughs, “our young guests usually only stay with us for a few days, tops. And because we’re Emergency they’ve had quite a few things going on that they’ve got to think over. We like to offer space, and time to think. What about you, Fred? Would you rather be playing Grand Theft Auto or chasing Iggy and exploring the area?”
Durrr. Grand Theft Auto, obviously.
“If you had kids stay for longer – more permanently – would you let them play computers?”
She laughs agai
n. “Sure.” Then she frowns. “But our kids always move on, to someplace else.”
“Don’t you ever—”
“Here it comes! Get it while it’s hot!”
Oh my God, what a fantastic breakfast! Can this woman cook, or what?
Toast. You can’t beat it. I’m about to enjoy my first chomp when morning is broken by the intercom buzzing its coded rhythm. V and me look at each other – both for a mere nanosec hoping it’s Alfi, back to collect his Birthday Tiff. I leap up, happy as a fizz-crack firework.
But it’s Grace.
She is on her own, and by the look on her face she’s not a funny bunny.
“You seen ’im?” she says by way of greeting.
“’Im?” queries Virus.
“Alfi?” asks me.
“Jackson.”
“’Im,” says Virus. “Laying low. Many miles from here.”
“Was laying low,” she corrects. “Like a hunted beast. And much nearer than you’d hope. ’Cos now ’e’s flipped, ain’t ’e? Proper bad, this time.”
This time? Does JB make a habit of flipping? Personally, myself, I’m of the belief he’s permaflipped.
“It’s your doin’ too,” she says to Virus. “You and your fancy forgeries.”
The Digit’s right out of the loop. “What forgeries?” I say to Virus, and to Grace, “What’s Jackson done?”
“’Opefully nothin’ yet. But what with the Sherlocks crawlin’ all over the postcode, and ’im bein’ so terrified of gettin’ nabbed for Crow’s death, I’m worried, Vi, I reckon ’e’s got an insane plan. ’E reckons if ’e can show that ’e ain’t missin’ ’is young assistant, the Sherlocks won’t be able to make any connection between Crow and ’im. So ’e’s after a new Crow.”
“Well, how’s he going to manage that?” The Digit is well and truly slow on the take-off.
“Alfi.”
I ain’t getting it. The Digit turns into Citizen Blank Face.
“If Crow ain’t missin’,” Grace explains, “then Crow ain’t the dead boy. Know what I mean?”