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by Claire North

  “Twenty-two point three million.”

  An explosion. You idiot! You bumbling buffoon! This is the Company we’re talking about do you really think you can get twenty-two million out of them do you really think that you’re that man that you can take on the corporate lawyers and win you’re such a I don’t even know what kind of give me the file!

  But Mr. Witt …

  Give me the goddamn file you absolute …

  Theo gave Edward Witt the file, and ran away, heart pounding.

  Two days later, he slunk back into the office.

  “Mr. Witt? I’m sorry to intrude but …”

  “What is it?”

  “I left a USB stick with you a few days ago and I realise now that it still has some documents on it which are …”

  “Bloody hell, Miller!”

  They found the USB stick in an empty dagger case that Edward kept in his middle desk drawer. It hadn’t held a dagger for years but the plush velvet interior had always appealed to the manager, and he liked to throw things inside that offended him.

  “Thank you, Mr. Witt, thank you …”

  “Get out, Miller!”

  That night, on an open Wi-Fi network in a café in Battersea, Theo puts the USB stick into his laptop, dials the office through a VPN, and uses the keystroke recording program buried within the antiviral software to retrieve Edward Witt’s username and password.

  He instinctively audits the cost of this crime in his mind—approximately £12,000 so far, rising with every minute he spends contemplating the data that he’s illegally gathering—and feels not insignificantly pleased with himself.

  Search: Lucy Rainbow Princess/Cumali.

  Born on

  mother arrested on

  taken into

  caught shoplifting on

  alcohol abuse

  arrested by

  sent to

  imprisoned at

  They met in a different café, down in Limehouse. Dani read in silence, turning through the stolen pages. Theo had printed them on used paper, didn’t notice until too late that behind Lucy’s life story is advice on how to prevent damage from hyper-mobile knees and relaxation techniques for the busy office worker.

  Lucy Cumali barely existed any more. Only Rainbow Princess, part-property of Princess Parties Gold, remained in the system.

  Three years old, the care home where she’d been placed got sponsorship from a kids’ party company. Lucy Rainbow Princess had been judged suitably cute, and the first fashion shoot had her dressed up in a rainbow tutu with a plastic crown in her hair, posing with the rest of the most winsome kids with the tagline “Make Your Child a Princess for the Day!”

  It was cheaper to use kids from the home. Parents could be so pushy these days.

  For the next few years, the kids were hired out for photo shoots, as extras in adverts needing a background of cute tots, and for bespoke party events in mansion houses that needed more children, preferably with semi-celebrity marketing kudos, to help make up the numbers. The money they brought in meant the home could afford two meals a day and a Victoria sponge cake at Christmas. The rest went towards management fees. You had to be careful to keep talented people happy.

  When she was seven, Lucy Rainbow Princess was diagnosed with malnutrition. The cost of feeding her up to minimum standard required extra appearances at parties and ads to make up the budgetary shortfall, but as she began to put on weight, fewer advertisers wanted her. When she was eight, Lucy burst all the balloons at a party; three weeks later she stabbed a stuffed unicorn with a cake knife, leaving tattered shreds of polyester on the floor and the younger guests in tears. The care home withdrew her from the sponsorship scheme, put her on the third floor on the basic care package and didn’t spot when she dropped out of school four years later.

  The cops, when they arrested her aged twelve and a half for drunk and disorderly behaviour, had to give her a lift back to the home when no one came to collect her. On her thirteenth birthday she was picked up, stoned, booze on her breath, standing in the middle of the street not knowing where she was. One of the girls had taken her to the house of some friends of hers, older, all men, who’d put something in her drink and told her to smoke more, more, they had more mates coming come on it’d be great it’d be …

  But Lucy Rainbow Princess had a decent head on her shoulders, even when her face had gone walking elsewhere, and told the men to go fuck their mothers and stormed out of the flat and later

  in the hospital

  couldn’t press charges because she didn’t know where the flat had been or what the men were called.

  And by the time her older friend came forward to tell the cops everything, the world had lost interest.

  On her fourteenth birthday Lucy Cumali punched a cop in the nuts for trying to take her beer away while drinking in the square. The indemnity was set at £546—a very low rate, given her crime—but no one was willing to pay it. She was sent to juvenile detention, where she worked copying and pasting five-star online reviews for sports products.

  CAME IN PERFECT CONDITION REALLY HAPPY WITH MY PRODUCT

  FAST RELIABLE SERVICE IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED

  OMG ITS JUST PERFECT I’M GOING TO USE THIS IN ALL MY WORKOUTS

  And so on.

  The day before she was meant to receive parole, she set fire to the unused gymnasium, and her sentence was extended. This seemed to cause Lucy a great deal of satisfaction.

  Chapter 11

  Dani cried, and it wasn’t pretty crying. It was gasping, sort of asthmatic crying, all puffy-cheeked, dribbling transparent snot and little half-whistles of indrawn breath as she tried and failed to calm down. People were staring at them and Theo felt really, really awkward and got her some more paper napkins in the hope that was sort of helpful.

  Somewhere between the snot and the tears she gasped: help me.

  Theo said: how?

  I need to get Lucy back I need to get her out of there she needs to be

  I can’t help you

  She needs to be I can if I can get her out of there then

  There’s nothing I can do

  But you’re part of it you’re part of the system you work for

  I can’t do

  I NEED TO GET HER BACK I NEED TO

  I’m going now

  SHE’S THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS NOW SHE’S WHY I’M HERE SHE’S WHY I’M OUT WHY I’M CLEAN SHE’S

  Don’t contact me again.

  FUCK YOU YOU’RE A FUCKING COWARD YOU’RE

  Goodbye.

  COWARD YOU PIG FILTH YOU MOTHER FUCKING

  He left her mid-flow. She ran after him, crying, begging, and he got on his bicycle and pedalled away as she screamed abuse, and lay on his back on his bed in Tulse Hill and wondered what the fuck he was doing with this fucking stupid excuse for his fucking life.

  Chapter 12

  In the time before

  before the patties, before the wild things and the beautiful things and the things that need more things always and for ever

  When the boy who was not yet called Theo Miller was sixteen years old, the police came to arrest his dad. They came at three o’clock in the morning, which was ridiculous, cos his dad had been in since 6.40 and they’d been watching the house for weeks. There wasn’t any reason to break down the front door, smash the glass in the garden porch, wave their guns and shout “Move!” or “Down!” or sometimes “Don’t move!” or a combination of all three in a confusing cacophony.

  There wasn’t any reason to put a gun against the boy’s head as his mum screamed and screamed and cried because her son had a fucking gun against his fucking head are you fucking

  His dad, as they took him away, was the quietest, stillest thing about the entire affair. He didn’t panic, didn’t look the boy in the eyes, and later Theo decided that was probably how he knew he was guilty.

  Reluctantly, Theo and his mum tried to visit his dad, but Company Police said:

  “We do not have that sus
pect currently within our files it is probable that he has been transferred for the expectation of his trial you must fill out form I89 for further information and there will be …”

  They filled out the form.

  “This form needs witnessing by an authorised signatory of the Company until you have an authorised signatory you will be …”

  Eventually Mum got a signature, Theo didn’t know how, and the cops told them it was £65 a visit, and Mum said they didn’t have the cash. There was a company—this was before the company became the Company and these things were just taken for granted—but there was a company which owned a company who owned the company that Theo’s dad was alleged to have robbed, and the company that owned the company also owned a company that was invested in Budgetfood, and the rest of Budgetfood anyway was owned by this conglomerate of investors and so all things considered …

  “The Corporate Community Council is not sure that we can renew your benefits,” declared the mayor, unable to meet his mum’s eyes. “Things … being what they are.”

  The mayor wasn’t a bad man. But he had his pension to consider, and Budgetfood had been putting pressure on him to cut social spending anyway. It didn’t contribute to overall productivity, and his daughter had this condition that needed a lot of care; if he lost his place, if they sacked him then she’d go without the medicines and he just had to make these choices, these hard choices, these realistic …

  It was £25 an hour to get an appointment with the chief investigative officer, and Theo wasn’t making much from his off-book work cleaning down the pub, and by the time he had £65 saved up the case was already being heard and the fee had gone up to £180 as his dad was considered a flight risk.

  Four weeks after his dad was taken away, the boy who would be Theo went with Dani Cumali to get their GCSE results.

  They had been in six of the same GCSE classes, including food distribution and logistics, business studies and graphics for marketing. There was only one school in Shawford by Budgetfood. Once a year the mayor came to judge sports day, and they’d get special guest speakers from the factory to talk about Retail Branding for Social Media or Fish Waste Product Use.

  As children, Dani and the boy called Theo hated each other.

  Dani couldn’t remember because it wasn’t important to her, but when she was eight she told Theo that his father was a done-out crook who was going to the patty line, and Theo had run away and concocted ten thousand schemes for revenge, and carried out a grand total of none, and Dani hadn’t realised that he was the last person in town to know his dad was a thief, or how close she’d come to having her hair set on fire.

  And when he was eleven, Theo had muttered to Dani that maybe the reason she never had a proper school lunch was because her mother had left her when she was two and there wasn’t anyone at home to make a lunchbox for her, and Dani had told him that he was the stupidest, weirdest kid in class and no one liked him and he’d never be anything other than a screamer or a fader or a zero and anyway she was …

  By the time they were thirteen, the injuries had begun to fade behind new outrages of puberty, and slowly, suspiciously, they’d forged a cordial neutrality.

  And when they were fourteen, they had to choose what GCSEs to do, and the company sponsor had come down to the classroom to talk to all the pupils, and explain the compulsory curriculum subjects, the core recommended subjects, and the extra-curricular activities that Budgetfood would not fund should you chose to pursue them further.

  Both Dani and Theo wanted to do art, but it wasn’t a sponsored subject, so they did graphics for marketing instead, and he finished with 131/160 and she had 132/160 and they both agreed that was the best possible way it could be.

  Overall, she did better in every subject except maths.

  “Dani Cumali!” exclaimed Mrs. Lee, deputy head of the school, pastoral care officer, domestic science teacher, head of stationery, head of junior factory recruitment, sponsorship liaison committee, chair of …

  “Dani Cumali! Fancy you doing so well! Such a turnaround such a—you should apply for A levels! You should apply and I’m sure you’d get sponsorship I’m confident that …”

  Dani applied for A-level funding to the Sponsorship Committee.

  They replied:

  It is with deep regret that we have to reject your application as this committee does not feel that the subjects you wish to study are conforming to the overall academic model of this institution; nor have you clearly defined your ten-year business objectives for study as required in article 729b of the standard educational practice document (2).

  Theo also applied for A levels, having no idea what else he was meant to do. For his core subjects he chose maths, food science and agricultural studies.

  Three weeks later he received the rejection letter, and no one was surprised.

  That Sunday a woman knocked on the door and said, “Hello. I’m from Dover County Court. My son plays football down your husband’s club. He always seemed like such a nice man. Sometimes—the paperwork you know how it is—and it’s a corporate case so these things get—but the trial starts tomorrow. I do hope it goes well for you. Such a lovely fellow.” She giggled and waved goodbye, hand stationary and little digits flying, and scampered away like a naughty mouse. Later Theo realised that she was probably terrified, and had done something very, very brave.

  They went to Dover to watch the trial, but the first five hours were spent arguing over what evidence could be admitted, and the judge got bored and the whole thing was adjourned.

  They went back the next day and there was Dad, dressed in blue, sat in the prisoner’s cage as the judge exclaimed:

  “This attack on our values, on society, on the property of people who thought that their investment was safe …”

  It was the first time Theo had seen his father for nearly three months.

  The father stared at the son, and Theo didn’t know what was in his gaze, and imagined every possibility, and looked away and couldn’t look back, because men didn’t cry.

  Chapter 13

  The Grand Union Canal was finished just in time for the railways to be invented.

  Neila lies awake and listens to the sounds of nightmares from the cabin next to hers, and is too tired to check on her guest.

  At some point in the night Theo snores.

  She stifles a laugh.

  He stops snoring.

  She does not sleep and then

  wakes late, even though she did not close the curtains, not that they make much difference against the light off the water and

  the stove is nearly out, the fire down to a few embers, but she puts kindling on it, the smashed-up remains of a wooden pallet someone discarded by the towpath, broken down to splinters, which catch and curl orange so she

  gets more wood a field to the left, a field to the right, a low hill rising in the distance, a train track where the trains do not come, a couple of thick sheep blasting frozen breath out of nostrils, scampering to the places beneath the overgrown hedgerows to find the last vestiges of grass, a Zeppelin flying overhead, she has no idea why, it is advertising a brand of shaving cream but there’s no one here no one to see maybe it got loose from its rope and ah yes, look up, see it go beneath the scudding clouds and

  she is making tea.

  Theo sleeps.

  Neila dresses five layers deep, two pairs of gloves over her hands, goes to the back of the boat, out through the engine room, frees the ropes, guides the Hector away from its moorings, heading north.

  Chapter 14

  Three weeks after Theo ran away from Dani Cumali, from her daughter and her despair and her fucked-up fucking life and

  and the past and the moment on the beach and a bit of maths that he wasn’t daring to do and

  after he ran away because that was the only thing he was ever any good at doing

  Dani called again.

  When you see a person you do not want to see

  are caught picking your nose
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  scratching your backside

  kissing someone who should really have known better than to be kissed

  “Dani,” he said, “You can’t call me I’m not …”

  “It’s important listen, I’ve found something important, something big.”

  “I’m going to hang up now and …”

  “They’ve killed people—so many people—and his own mother, they’re … I’ll fucking tell them who you are I’ll tell them and …”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Lucy’s in trouble she’s in real trouble—I’ll tell them you’re a fraud, that you’re not Theo Miller I’ll tell them that you’re …”

  He hung up.

  For a moment he thought he’d felt … something. Perhaps fear? Fear would have been an acceptable reaction and certainly, when he’d first seen Dani’s face, he’d experienced a thing that was definitely …

  But fear had faded, and in its place had come a resignation which had been only deepened by breaking into his boss’s computer, compounding the legion offences at his back and now …

  he sat on the end of his bed

  in a life that meant nothing

  and spent his days condemning people to slavery while murder purchased its way to freedom, tax-free.

  And nothing was the only thing safe to feel.

  Dani tried calling back, and he didn’t answer, turned the world off and slept surprisingly easily.

  The next morning, there were nearly a dozen text messages.

  Names. Figures. Philip Arnslade. Simon Fardell. Seriously, this is big, this is so big this is

  He deleted the messages and barred her number.

  Two days later, she was waiting outside his office. He saw her before she saw him, and doubled back the way he’d come, and rode the bus home, even though it took forty minutes longer and someone spilt cider on his trousers.

  Chapter 15

  The day after his dad was sentenced, the boy who would be Theo sat on the steps of Dover County Court. The cuisine of Dover was fried chicken. The town was sponsored by the ferry companies but also did sterling business in internment camps. Salt had eaten the walls of the houses. Hardy shrubs grew between the cracks in the walls. The tourists went looking for the Roman ruins, but they were hidden behind the car park, and the signs sent you round in circles.