Nobody Saw No One (20 page)

So while we’re waiting for Danny to get back home from work, Scarlett takes us to the library. We get a screen each, next to each other. Private but friendly. And I’m glad about the privacy, because I have to play the film, test it, don’t I?

But first up: I’m a bit put out to discover I’ve got a friend. And one “like” for the video. It en’t right, ’cos I an’t got any friends. Nobody can “like” me video, ’cos there en’t nobody seen it. And nobody can be me friend unless I like them and they like me.

So how come I’ve got a friend?

I glance across at Scarlett. She’s engrossed in social work documents.

Who could have broken into me account? I had the perfect password and everything. Nobody even knows that Katariina is me mam’s name, apart from the Digit and Call-Me Norman. And Barry.

What if the Jimmys have tracked us down and hacked us? They could be making their way here right now. I look all up and down the library. It’s creepily quiet.

I click on the “friends” list. Me “friend” is called
City Zen
and his profile photo is me actual birth certificate.

Relief. It’s the Digit fair enough. It’s a message, letting us know he’s still on me side. But, actually, I think I can manage quite well without him at this stage. Clever or not, that lad’s nowt but trouble.

In fact, I wun’t put it past him if he’s even gone and done summat dumb like disabled the video. Trying to move it somewhere “safer”. Got to have it all, dun’t he?

So I press
play.

First up all you get is a rosebush and all you hear is Byron breathing, dead nervous. He en’t so cool. Then you hear the first car, and he starts to work the camera. It’s deadly dull. It just feels like a bad lad spying on some grown-ups, and any second now he’s going to get caught and probably get a fine or summat.

Then there’s movement, and you can hear Byron breathing heavily again, as he makes his way to Call-Me’s office.

And me heart’s beating here in the library and Byron’s hand is shaking holding the camera, but on he goes. It’s just an open corridor, they don’t even have the door shut at the end. You can see a bit of a porn film playing on a screen on a wall. It’s all well lit. Then he shoves the camera through the gap in the door.

Then you see ’em. Then you see the faces, wi’ their crawling eyes. And their hands, creeping. Then it gets all shaky and falls on the floor.

I click off the screen.

“All good?” says Scarlett, leaning over. “You look pale.”

“I think I’m a bit peckish,” I say. It’s only half a lie.

So we meet Danny for dinner, and then we go for a walk around Finsbury Park. It en’t a bad park, even if it is surrounded by traffic and big buildings. It’s got all kinds o’ facilities, like running tracks and children’s play bits and a duck pond and a big football pitch.

For half a mo, I think I see Citizen Digit, sitting on a bench on t’other side o’ the football pitch, watching us. I’m about to wave, when I realize it’s not him at all, just some other lad.

No way is Citizen Digit bothered thinking about anyone other than hisself. It’s t’others I need to be watching out for – Call Me’s crew.

Danny sees me eyes scanning across the playing pitch and reckons I want to join in the game.

“Go on,” he says. “Go play. We don’t mind.”

No way. Running round the middle of a field? I might as well wave a sign over me head saying come and get me! I feel all right wi’ Scarlett and Danny. I en’t leaving their side.

We pass by a bloke on a bench, wearing shades, reading a paper. Seemingly reading a paper. I think he’s watching us. I huddle in close. “Can we feed the ducks?”

Danny raises his eyebrows. “You sure?” He and Scarlett exchange a look. I s’pose they expect lads like me to be into drugs and gangs.

Scarlett buys some duck feed from the café and the three of us stand and watch while ducks, moorhens and seagulls go ape over the crumbs in the water. They’re funny, dive-bombing and splashing. Danny does a spot-on impersonation of a mad seagull. We all laugh like crazy. Then we go back to the café and buy cola and crisps. Scarlett rips open the bag so the crisps are spread across the table and we all dive in, pretending that we’re the different birds, fighting over the crumbs. It’s a right mess.

After the café
,
there’s some big swings and we go on them, and a big climbing frame an’ all. Danny and Scarlett stick close by. They allus have their eyes on us, but it dun’t feel like it’s ’cos they don’t trust us. It’s like they’re watching out for us.

Other folk are watching too. People always stare; you get used to it. The tricky bit is figuring out
why
they’re watching. Some folk just stare ’cos I’ve got blond hair, catches their eye. Other folk are thinking other things when they stare at us, like the Jimmys. I know that now. But you can never tell which is which.

See this bloke on the bench ahead of us. Looks like a right psycho. His dog’s going nuts after the squirrels, racing round like a loon to try and get ’em. He reckons that’s hilarious, this bloke. I bet he’s, what’s that word?
Care in the Community.
Chuckling away to hisself, like he knows summat dead funny that the rest of us don’t. His hands are big as spades, and his fingers are clutching in and out like he’s exercising ’em. He gives us the weirdest look as we walk by, all red eye and glaze. Gives me the creeps. We speed up a bit.

Next thing, his dog scurries past and manages to get a hold of a squirrel. I allus thought dogs weren’t fast enough. It gets this squirrel and shakes it. It makes a horrible squealing noise and dies. Then the dog starts chomping at it, trying to swallow it down.

Behind us, the bloke is laughin’, like it’s the funniest thing he’s seen ever. Scarlett takes me hand, like I’m eight, and I don’t mind.

Fifteen minutes later, when we’re leaving the park, I see this bloke again. He’s stood up this time, and I can see he’s a proper giant. He’s leering at us, and his dog starts sniffing round me ankles as we go by. It’s missing half an ear, and its tail’s got no wag.

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.