Nobody Saw No One (25 page)

“Oh, Didge,” he says, “I knew I could rely on you to see me through.” He coughs and splutters. “I’m all messy, aren’t I? Bloodstains on the boards.”

“It’ll mop,” I say. “Don’t be fretting it.”

He points his eyes towards a hole in the wall, where one of his fancy artworks hung. The artwork is snapped and ripped, and the hole behind is empty like a slurped-out breakfast bowl.

“He took my safebox,” says Virus. “Much good as it’ll do him. He could never get the lock code out of me. I tried to stop him, you know.”

“Surely you did.” His Smartphone is still vibrating in his fingers, the Zap App sizzling to find a target. But the bullet hole in Virus’s stomach shows he was evidentially outgunned.

He says more, but his voice is faint. I lean in close. “He’s got Alfi, you know.”

“I know.”

“He’s taking him back. He thinks you’re dead.” His eyes go all watery. “And Grace?”

“Grace will be fine.” I wipe the sweat from his forehead, with one of his hankies. “Back where, V? To Tenderness?”

He blinks agreement. “He has to do something to silence him. Alfi’s now a witness to murder, so he thinks. Now you’re dead. Grace. And me. And Newton will keep Alfi quiet… Then Banks can go off somewhere – start again. With my savings. That was my pension.”

I’d figured as much.

“Newton’ll never let Alfi go. He knows too much, and he means too much.”

The Digit understands that there’s still more to this than meets the eyeball, but the one thing I’m sure of is, if Virus could have, he’d have protected us – Alfi, Grace, and me as well. He was just a bit rubbish, is all.

“Tell me, Didge,” he says, “I wasn’t too bad, was I?”

I smile at him, shake my head.

“And Newton.” He stiffens in my arms. “Newton. If there were no Newtons … well, there’d be no Jacksons. Isn’t that so, Didge?”

“Sure, V, and if there was no Mr Virus, there’d be no – well,” I say, “there’d be no fun and games, would there?”

“Did we?” he goes on. “Did we have fun?”

I make myself nod. His voice is fading now. He whispers, and I lean in closer. “I did you that favour,” he says.

“You shouldn’t be worrying about that now.”

He smiles, feeble. “You get what you deserve. We all do.”

I nod again. “What happens now?”

“Let’s end it.” He coughs and splutters.

“End it?”

“All the badness comes from Tenderness House. It’s where it all started. Norman Newton. You’ve got to bring him down.”

I snort. Can’t help myself.

His eyes gleam back at me. “You know what
is
funny?”

Everything? We’re having a right old laugh.

“He started paying up. Our plan was working. He just transferred the second sum of money. Meaningless now. Let’s do it.”

“Do what?” I say.

“Tell.”

“Tell?”

“End the silence. How many more years should we let them get away with it?” His fingers twitch themselves towards his phoney. He forces a lopsided smile as I pass him his box of tricks.

“I have a magic app. In the
untimely event of my death
. I believe it’s time to activate it.” His eyes fill with a fierce warmth as his fingers clutch the Smartphone. “This is for all you boys,” he says, “and all the girls.”

His thumb dances, its final dance. I watch as a series of images and info flash merrily one after the other across the display. First up, mine and Alfi’s horrible
You’ve Been Framed
Jimmy clip – faces of the kids pixilated out – directed to YouTube and shared with several hundred Facebook “Friends”. Then, some choice Twitterings to all and sunny.

Next up, names, addresses, photo ID of Chris Primrose, Minister for Urban Development, and top cop Chief Constable Wedderburn, as well as all details of Tenderness House, hacking themselves into what looks like dozens of media, government and police websites. Telling. Telling all. Instantaneous tittle-tat, blabber-mouthing to the whole wide world. Alfi would be so proud. It’s what he wanted all along.

Finally, instant imagery of Mad Dog Jackson’s
SH4NK1
mean machine, sent to every media outlet Virus could find.

All good. All flashing by in the space of seconds.

Virus looks content. He lets the phoney fall from his fingers.

“And Digit?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

So I smile again, soft for him. And I let him go.

I’m floating. I’m floating up in the blackness, and I can smell the oil and petrol fumes. Floating around in the stinking dark.

I’m dreaming me mother’s name. Katariiiiiiina. But not her last name. Not
my
last name. It’s what I were going to do, find me name. Find it, wi’ Digit, and wi’ Grace. But I lost Grace. Digit’s probably dead an’ all.

I’m rattling now, bruising me ribs. An engine starts. I’m in Jackson Banks’s car. He’s driving us away. Away to?

Where? Back where I came from? Back to Tenderness?

Me eyes bust open. Darkness! Me arms wave and me legs kick, but they won’t wave and they won’t kick, and I yell, I yell me loudest, me voice muffles back at me, and I wiggle and I yell more. But I’m stuffed in a bag. I’m stuffed in a boot. Am I, am I really going back?

Call-Me Norman Newton just won’t let us go. It en’t fair. He let Grace go, and all t’others. How come I have to go back? I wanted to stay wi’ Scarlett and Danny, make them my home. Not Call-Me and the Jimmys.

I’m crying now, en’t I, like a little kid, and what ’ud me mam think? She’d think I were a right crybaby. There’s no point in it, is there? I need to think instead, and work out what’s the best I can do.

I need to use me ears.

First up, Jackson Banks is talking to someone in the front o’ the car. No. Not someone. Obnob. Obnob’s all he’s got left. He’s droning on, all about Grace.

“You miss her already, don’t you?” he’s saying to the dog. “She looked after both of us, didn’t she? Proper good, she was. And we had a right laugh, the three of us, didn’t we?” And then he adds, “And Crow.” Then there’s a pause, ’cos he dun’t want to talk about Crow, really, does he?

Obnob whimpers. I bet Banks is tickling him behind his ripped-up ear, giving him reassurance.

“She never did as she was told, that was her trouble. You do as you’re told – don’t you, dog? – and there’s no problem. I always did what I got told by Mr Newton and there was no problem. No problem. Do what you’re told.”

Obnob whimpers again. What Banks dun’t get is that Obnob in’t his dog any more. He’s
my dog,
in’t he? He’s only in the car, ’cos I’m in the car. I’m his master now. What the dog hears, I hear.

He’s only letting Banks tickle behind his ear ’cos he’s too soft-hearted to let him know that he’s on his own now. He’s got no one.

Banks is sniffling.

“Ohh, we had some laughs,” he calls out. “Made some good old messes, me and Grace and you … and Crow.”

There’s the sound o’ summat smashing. Obnob barks. Banks must have just punched in the dashboard.

“I never meant to!” he wails. “It were just more funnies, weren’t it? Squiggle a line on the kid’s face – would have only stung for a minute – and then
boom boom,
on we party. Me and you and Alfi-Crow and Grace. Grace my real true-to-life dolly-girl. She were the best gift I ever got given. Thanks, Mr Governor Call-Me Norman. So much. I never meant to!”

Smash again. Another punch to the dashboard. And again. “Never, no, never! I can’t replace her; one of a kind. She – she’s all I ever. I would’ve twisted necks for her, busted up anyone for her.”

The car jerks to one side and I bash against the side o’ the boot. Someone toots their horn. I can feel the steering going all wobbly, and hear him sobbing in the front, not really steering at all.

“Grace!” he’s wailing. “My straight and narrow… My bleeding, bloody heart…”

Obnob gives a bark, and there’s a soft thud against the seat behind me bag. There’s a whimper next to me ear – he’s jumped into the backseat, away from the loon, close to me as he can get. Good doggie…

Up front, Banks is punching Hell out of the car. He’s mad. But he’s right. I’m crying too. How could he do it? Grace were the best thing ever. The best sister, the best mother…

He killed her.

They kill everything good, the Groans.

My mam should never have died.

Or Digit’s sisters.

Or Didge.

It’s Newton, in’t it? Newton and the Jimmys. Destroying everything.

It were Call-Me’s lot that turned me into Alfi Spar. And now they’re going to bury me back at Tenderness House.

Bookmark this. Here’s the Citizen plonked and plumped up in the driver’s seat of a spanking Jag. I zig and I zag like a cabbie on laughing gas, hogging
all
the lanes, and the pavement when I need to. Citizen Digit is a natural born roadhog. The North Circular Road ain’t never seen anything like it.

Jackson Banks’s pimpmobile Bentley is going to have to zoom full throttle to outrace this mean machine.

Virus fired all our shots. But he didn’t think it through. Newton is finished and Barry, and Banks is finished as well, and when that penny drops, it’s going to be curtains for Alfi too – because the apes are going to go
ape
.

But then again, Virus didn’t fire
all
our shots. Citizen Digit is a bullet in a gun, aimed right at the bad guys’ heads.

You want to mess with the WhyPees, do you? ’Cos you think we’re too weak to fight back? ’Cos we’re so small you think you can do what you like to us? Shave our heads and beat us and burn us and feed us to the Jimmymen?

Your mistake, Guvnors.

Jackson’s going to take the most direct route back to Tenderness, so all the Citizen gotta do is the same; keep my peepers peeled for a red Bentley with blacked-out windows and
SH4NK1
plates. He’ll be speedy, but I’ll be speediest. JB won’t be wanting to be pulled up by the Traffic Sherlocks when he’s got Angel-Face stuffed in his boot. Citizen Digit, on the other finger, doesn’t give a monkey’s hooter. The more Sherlocks chasing my exhaust pipe the merrier.

The Digit don’t even bother checking his watch because a) he doesn’t have one and b) he’s going so fast he’s leaving time behind. It’s a matter of mere moments before Londinium is left behind too, and we find ourselves jet-fightering up the M1.

Once you’re on three lanes, you can chill a little and check the car radio news reports while Top Gearing along. Three or four junctions pass by and then
bingo!
Breaking News:
Scandal that goes to the heart of the Establishment. Maniac on the motorway
(hey, is that him or me?).
Police forces across three counties on high alert.

I check the rear-view mirror, see if I’m being trailed by any Sherlocks, but there’s none behind. The Digit has never needed the Sherlocks, indeedly has spent his entirety avoiding their long arms, and what happens the one day you need them? Nowhere to be seen.
On high alert
indeed. Let’s see if I can make this silver machine go a tad faster, find out if I can raise their alertness levels a bit.

Breaking News:
A video has appeared on YouTube, which appears to show Minister Chris Primrose…

Whoo-hoo! The media’s beginning to get up to speed alongside my liberated car and my agitated heart, both roaring along at 100 mph.

…apparently in breach of YouTube’s decency code has been taken down…

Decency code. That’s been well and truly prised apart by Call-Me and the Jimmys. Is it only now that the Authoritariacs have actually noticed?

…available now, in a censored version, on the
Guardian
website. Meanwhile, Chief Constable Wedderburn—

Ah-hah!

I crane my neck upwards and spot a Heli-Cop hovering over. I’m just thinking this is the final showdown when my peepers clock the media logo on the copter’s belly. I see:
literally
Sky News. Makes sense, they’re going to get on the case quicker than the old plod.

Citizen Digit needs the police, needs the police, needs the police…

…numberplate
sh4nk1. Motorists have been tweeting its location, just north of Junction 27 on the M62. The Transport Minister is advising drivers
not
to access social media while dri—

Hold your horsepower – I’ve just passed that junction – and, yes indeedly, there he is ahead. Citizen Digit spots the fleeing villain first. It’s the Digit who knows whowhatwherewhenand
how
! JB may well be oblivioned to the attention he’s getting from the media, but I seen his eyes. The Mad Dog knows he’s gone on one rampage too many.

I slow the Jag, cruising behind him. He’s doing a steady hundred in the fast lane, which is just breaking the speed limit enough to
not
get pulled up.

And ta very muchly, I guess Banks has too many voices guffawing round in his head to bother listening to the radio, because all of a sud he’s indicating in and slowing up, the fool! He’s going to pull into a service station.

Beautilicious: Banks has got all this way – the turning for Tenderness House only a mile or two off – and he’s run out of petrol.

I follow suit. This is it. This is my chance. Alfi, I’ll save you yet.

I pull up and wait. Banks fills up, twitching and jerking so much he spills more than he fills. He probably thinks the sound of the media-copter is his own headcogs whirring. He lurches towards the shop.

Paying for anything is against Jackson Banks’s religion, but I suppose he’s trying –
thinks
he’s trying – to keep a low profile. I can see him all red-eyed and sweaty, like he knows he’s wiping his bloody boots on Satan’s doormat. I clench my fists. Alfi Spar is right there, mere feet away, locked in the boot of the Bentley.

Still
no handy Sherlocks hereabouts. Typical.

Okily-doke. I can break into a car boot quicker than any Sherlock anyway.