The Turning Tide

  ‘I talked the key off of someone,’ she said. ‘It’s not breaking in if he gave it to me.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with the price of peas in Tobago?’ Buster said. ‘I bet you didn’t tell him who you really are.’

  ‘Obviously not. But it’s not breaking in,’ she said. ‘Technically.’

  ‘Oh, now that’s an ethical conundrum,’ Buster said. His brow creased as he thought aloud. ‘Trust gained by fraudulent means is not consent.’

  ‘That’s still different from taking it by force,’ Erykah said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Buster said. ‘You have to consider, security can never protect against all motivated individuals. Even if you can’t pick a lock, for instance, you can always kick in a door. Locks are not force-proof; they’re there to keep honest people honest.’

  Billy turned to his colleague. ‘I get that, but if that’s the case then why not leave everything unlocked as a sign of trust?’ he asked. ‘Like people do out in the country.’

  ‘Well, how I see it’s like this,’ Buster said. He wiped the crumbs from his face with a paper napkin and leaned back from the table, stretching his long body. ‘An unlocked door is representative of nothing but an unused lock. If folks out in the country want to make a statement about their willingness to keep their belongings unsecured and how much they trust people, then they should remove the lock from the door.’

  ‘How you see it?’ Erykah raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t heard Buster say more than a sentence or two, much less anything like this.

  ‘Yeah.’ He paused, gazing at the ceiling like a man working out the meaning of life from the vantage point of a bed in a cell. ‘Few people would dream of getting rid of locks, because the lock itself is symbolic. It’s all about signalling public and private spaces in society. If you have a lock to it, it’s yours. You own it. Like in the joint, you don’t get a key to your cell. That’s the punishment. You have no more private space.’

  ‘Also to keep you in,’ Erykah said.

  ‘Sure, that too,’ Buster said. ‘But it’s a kind of a – what’s the phrase Hobbes used? A social contract.’

  Erykah smiled. ‘Hobbes? Isn’t that a bit—’

  ‘Esoteric for a con?’ Buster said. ‘You’re not the only one who read their way out of the estate, yeah? With that much time on my hands I read every book I could get,’ he said. ‘Technically nowhere is unbreakable, not even prison. And people on the inside outnumber the guards, so what keeps us in? We’re conditioned to accept punishment. Especially if you’re, you know, black. We stand where they tell us to stand.’ Buster looked back at his plate. ‘Breaking in and out has nothing to do with the locks themselves. It’s a message about something else. Power.’

  ‘You got a point,’ Seminole Billy had to concur. He speared a piece of chicken with a plastic fork. ‘Not to mention, you don’t get less time in the lockup if you hit a house with a shitty lock.’ He popped the food in his mouth, chewed briefly, then swallowed. ‘You know, this chicken isn’t too bad. For England.’

  Erykah considered. What if Peter hadn’t been there, or hadn’t given her the key? She shook her head. ‘Anyway, houses are a bad analogy. It’s a personal crime, breaking into a home. The individual has no moral responsibility to treat an office in the same way they treat a house.’

  ‘Well, whatever,’ Seminole Billy said. ‘If you want to chat about what-ifs all day, then we can stay here and do nothing until the police find out about us. Then we’ll have all the time in the world for talking.’ He crossed his left boot over his right knee. The tops of the boots might have been polished, but underneath the soles were scratched and old, the heels pocked and worn. He turned to Erykah. ‘Point is, what we need is for you to find someone for us online. Can you do that?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Erykah said. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Remember the tweet at your press conference?’ Seminole Billy said. Erykah nodded. The Media Mouse story was not something she was going to forget in a hurry. ‘Them.’

  ‘I thought someone already figured that out?’ Erykah said. ‘Some blogger said it was a setup from inside the SLU to drum up publicity. Sock puppets, I think he called it.’

  Billy and Buster exchanged glances. ‘What, that washed up ex-novelist trying to restyle himself as some kind of investigative journalist?’ Billy sneered. ‘He’s about as likely to stumble over a real story as Buster here is to pass for Jeremy Paxman.’

  ‘True.’ She read the blog post herself and while the guy seemed to think his evidence was a lock, he was missing a lot – like IP addresses and email receipts. Even the tabloids qualified his claims as “only a theory”. All he had was a wild imagination and a lot of conjecture. ‘What happens when I find them? We’re talking about probably some kid here, some online troll who—’

  ‘We’re paying you to put up and shut up.’ Billy said. ‘What they did and what happens next is not your concern.’

  ‘The Major never mentioned anything about hacking.’

  ‘And you never mentioned your computer science degree, so we’re even.’

  ‘I didn’t graduate,’ Erykah shrugged. ‘I spend a bit of time online but it’s not what you would call my base skill set.’ She could see they weren’t convinced. ‘I mean, we get some trolls leaving nasty comments on the club website, but it‘s a piece of piss to track them down.’

  ‘See? You’re already more of an expert than any of us.’

  She took a deep swig at the can. The beer tasted good, very good. It had been a long day.

  ‘I thought you might need some inspiration,’ Seminole Billy said. ‘Which is why we brought a little financial incentive. Let’s call it a down payment. For services to be rendered.’

  She was glad they had mentioned money. ‘How much?’ Erykah asked. ‘Is it, like, I’m-going-to-buy-a-car money, or are we talking, I’m-going-to-buy-an-island money?’

  Seminole Billy considered. ‘Middle of that. Let’s call it you’re-going-to-buy-a-yacht money.’

  Erykah stroked the condensation on the side of the beer can with one long finger. ‘That sounds lowball to me. An extra zero on that would buy a whole lot of silence.’

  ‘You’re not dealing with the Major now. If I wanted to guarantee your silence,’ Seminole Billy lowered his gaze to the level of her face, ‘that wouldn’t cost me nothing.’

  Erykah gulped. ‘Yacht money is perfect,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ Seminole Billy said, and flashed the corner of a fat envelope tucked inside his leather jacket. ‘And we need a positive ID, not a shortlist of candidates. I don’t do interviews.’

  ‘No, no, clearly not,’ Erykah said. She stole a look down at Seminole Billy’s boots. He slid the envelope onto the table. Erykah did not pick it up, did not open it. Counting the money would be something she did later, after they were gone.

  ‘Any way you can lure them?’ Buster asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ Erykah said. She pulled a tablet out of her bag. ‘First thing is getting someone in a conversation. Getting them to let their guard down. I’ll have to make a new account so it doesn’t come back to me.’ She started tapping away. ‘Done.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Billy asked.

  ‘No, that’s just the start. I need some time to think this through. I have to figure out where they are, then who they are. I assume the tabloids have already tried.’ Her fingers flew as she downloaded a generic webcam face shot from a random person on the Web, then uploaded it to the new account. Every secret identity needs a face. She followed the first twenty accounts Twitter suggested, mainly football players and television presenters. ‘Whoever is doing this would spot a journalist a mile off. You have to ingratiate. Establish a relationship.’ She filled in a short bio to complete the profile. MSc history & romcom lover. Coventry. Will work for G&T’s!!

  ‘You need some followers, so you don’t look too new.’ Erykah navigated to a pag
e that claimed to sell Twitter followers for money. Best to choose a modest number, and an odd one – tapping in her card number from memory, it was only moments before she had 127 followers. Good.

  Billy and Buster watched over her shoulder as she worked. Erykah scrolled back in the accounts she was following to tweets from a few weeks earlier. She retweeted those old messages, to give the impression the account had been live for longer. She sent a couple of tweets of her own complaining about having to write an essay. Then she followed Media Mouse and tapped out a message complimenting the tweeter for their success.

  ‘Jesus, woman, are you baiting a hook or setting up a dating profile?’ Billy said.

  ‘Be patient. The trap has to look like it isn’t a trap,’ she said. ‘If Media Mouse is being cautious, they probably won’t reply to an account with no details.’

  ‘So how long is it gonna take?’ Buster asked.

  ‘How long is a piece of string? All depends on if they’re still active on the site and looking at their replies or not. No way to tell unless you send them something.’ She typed another message, asking if Media Mouse could follow her back.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then, I try to get something out of them. An email, maybe, where I can use the headers to trace back to a location. Or maybe they click on a link and I get the ISP. It could be days though. For now we wait.’ Seminole Billy looked unconvinced. ‘Trust me, it’s the rare person who can stay away from making a repeat performance once they’ve had a taste of media interest,’ Erykah said. ‘Especially if they’re now famous – or at least, Internet famous. Tens of thousands of followers wanting to know what comes next? It’s only a matter of time before they bite.’

  Seminole Billy nodded, satisfied. She talked the talk even if he didn’t know exactly what the talk meant.

  Erykah paused. Can you ask mercenary thugs if they would please leave now? She had taken the job, what else did they want? Was this some kind of test to see how she would react?

  ‘Didn’t you say something about a beer in the freezer?’ Buster finally asked.

  ‘Oh! Right. Sure,’ Erykah said. Nervous sweat had soaked through her jeans, and she could feel them sticking to her thighs. ‘Here you are.’ Billy helped himself to another water.

  They sat in uncomfortable silence for several more minutes while Buster and Seminole Billy sipped their drinks. ‘You got a radio in here?’ Billy said, looking around the kitchen. ‘Only we’re missing the end of something I was listening to on LCC.’

  ‘Stuebner show?’ Erykah said, and ran her fingers over the tablet screen to bring up the Internet radio stations. ‘I love her.’ The dulcet tones of Diana Stuebner reading the headlines at the top of the hour poured out of the surround sound into the whole house.

  Buster let out a low, appreciative whistle. ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said. ‘Nice system you got. Sounds a lot better than that piece of shite you call a car stereo, Billy.’

  Seminole Billy pushed his empty mineral water bottle in Erykah’s direction. ‘Missed the last of the call-in though,’ he said. ‘My favourite thing on the radio. That woman can talk a wasp out of its sting. We’re out. Buster, come on.’

  ‘Aww, I was getting used to this,’ Buster said, looking longingly at the rest of the food.

  ‘Don’t make me have to persuade you, mate,’ Seminole Billy said in his low voice. Buster sprang off the chair in record time. ‘Be in touch,’ Seminole Billy said, and gave Erykah an offhand salute. ‘And give your husband our regards.’

  Erykah smiled and nodded until they were gone, then let out a ragged sigh. What a day. She tore open the brown envelope Billy had given here and found a stack of odd-looking cash. Crisply ironed fifty-pound notes, but green instead of pink? Instead of the familiar image of Her Majesty the Queen, the stippled head of a man in a ridiculous wig looked back at her. She turned the notes over – Royal Bank of Scotland. Surprise, surprise. Counted it up. Just shy of twenty grand. Not as much as she had hoped. So maybe a used yacht. Or a new rowing boat.

  Diana’s voice danced over the headlines. ‘The whistle-blower known only as Media Mouse has resurfaced today with allegations of a senior woman politician trading sex for positive press,’ the smooth voice purred from the radio. ‘The claims came to light in the last hour from the now notorious anonymous social media account. Number 10 have released a statement categorically denying any of the cabinet are the target of the blind item. Opposition parties have not yet responded.’

  Was that . . . ? Yes. Erykah clicked rapidly back to Twitter to find Media Mouse at the top of trending topics already.

  @MediaMouse One way to get good press: front bench woman having affair with news producer. The future of hands on journalism? #blinditem

  ‘Posted only fifteen minutes ago.’ Erykah’s breathing went short and shallow with excitement and her fingers flew over the tablet screen. The game was most definitely on.

  : 19 :

  ‘Morag?’ Arjun tapped on the door between their offices, opening it a crack. ‘Call still on hold,’ he whispered.

  Morag Munro was not feeling entirely herself. The tailored suit jacket hanging off the back of her chair could do with a dry clean. She had woken up with dry eyes so was wearing her spectacles, which made her look older. Her shoes were a new pair, not yet broken in, and pinched at the toes. She kicked off the patent red heels under the desk. On top of that Delphine had been bombarding her with emails about new rumours that had popped up overnight, that someone on the front benches was shagging a journalist. Morag was not interested in taking any calls just now.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’ Arjun asked. He slid a mug of tea across the desk to her alongside a folder of selected clippings from political websites that morning, issues that were tipped to become the day’s talking points.

  Her superfood chia porridge and yoghurt smoothie sat on her desk, both untouched. All of her meals were delivered these days, the better to fit in between meetings. It suited her. She ate for fuel only.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Morag nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She nodded at the folder. ‘Sit down. What’s the takeaway from the press this morning? Apart from the obvious.’

  ‘More European elections nonsense,’ he said, making the exaggerated shrug that indicated he knew she had no interest in the topic, but that he thought she should pay more attention to it. ‘Anti-devolution candidates are starting to campaign north of the border, one of them mentioned you.’

  ‘Really?’ She raised her eyebrows above her glasses, which made her look like a startled owl. ‘Good or bad?’

  ‘Let’s see, shall we?’ Arj rifled through the clippings and held up a printout from a site known for its parliamentary gossip. ‘Quote from Major Whitney Abbott, the SLU candidate,’ Arj said. ‘You know of him?’

  ‘Yes. Old goat with a tenuous claim on heroism,’ Morag said. Arj wasn’t even old enough to have been alive during the Falklands War, much less remember it. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Says he thinks you should join his party and bring the fight for a, quote, Re-United Kingdom, unquote, to Westminster.’

  Morag took off her glasses and massaged the crease in the middle of her forehead. ‘You know I can’t touch that. Next.’

  ‘A-level student in Cheltenham overstayed her visa and is making an asylum claim. Home Office are moving to deport so a good chance to come out on the right side, a solid social media win? There’s an online petition. Emma Watson tweeted support.’

  ‘State school student?’

  ‘Cheltenham Ladies’ College.’

  This did not sound hopeful. ‘Is she black? Or Muslim? Any FGM risk?’

  Arjun shook his head. ‘Canadian. White as the driven snow.’

  ‘Really? Canadians can claim asylum now?’

  ‘Her solicitors are angling for a domestic violence exception. Parents divorced, but the court records a
re sealed. She’s being sent back to her dad.’

  ‘Deadbeat redneck? Trailer park? Give me something to work with here,’ Morag said.

  ‘I wish. On-paper billionaire with oil sands extraction patents and Russian oligarch friends.’

  Morag sighed. ‘Ten thousand forced removals every year, and no one gets exercised until it’s some . . .’ She flipped open the folder. She replaced her glasses and examined the grainy photo. ‘Pom-pom girl from Alberta. I despair.’

  ‘Tabloids are likely to jump on this one,’ Arjun said. ‘You know how they love blondes in distress.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Morag said. ‘Pull a neutral response from the archive – rule of law applies equally to all, support a sensible and sustainable policy . . . you know the rest.’

  Arjun nodded and withdrew.

  Morag grimaced as soon as the door shut. On any given weekday, Westminster was teeming with people, everyone living in everyone else’s pockets. She was accustomed to the loss of privacy, but his keenness was beginning to get on her nerves. She slurped the tea and scowled. It was perfect even by her specifications: strong, dash of milk. His careful study of her habits, her moods, her likes and dislikes, infuriated her. She didn’t care for people who were too observant. More to the point, she didn’t trust them.

  The light on her office phone blinked twice, then went dark, then blinked again. Over and over, indicating a call that was on hold and had been for a quarter of an hour.

  Morag placed a hand on the phone. She supposed she would have to answer it sometime. She picked up the receiver and hadn’t even said a word when a breathless man blurted, ‘Have you seen the fucking tweet?’

  ‘Hello to you too, Jonathan,’ she said coolly. ‘I have heard about yesterday’s tweet.’ There was no avoiding the developing scandal about the rumour of a politician sleeping her way to good press. She had feigned ignorance when Arjun mentioned it in the lift, but wondered if perhaps she had played her surprise too strongly. What was the saying – the lady doth protest too much? Her name was coming up no more frequently than that of any other female MP’s. The problem was: with few women to choose from, she did not feel safe from suspicion.