The Killing

  James was furious. ‘My bed and all my clothes and everything are gonna stink,’ he sulked. ‘I’ll have to wash the whole lot tomorrow.’

  Dave peeled a greasy worm of dust from between the fan blades at the back of the computer and flicked it at James.

  ‘If this had been left much longer, it could easily have gone up in flames.’

  Dave’s tone changed abruptly from shocked to curious. ‘What the … ? I’ve never seen that before.’

  ‘What?’ James asked, as he crouched down beside Dave to take a look.

  ‘There’s something behind the fan. See, like a plastic bag.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ James nodded. ‘I’ll get my multi-tool.’

  James grabbed the fold-out tool from a sports bag under his bed and Dave used it to undo the four screws that held the computer case together. The metal was still warm, so Dave draped the tracksuit top over before lifting it away. The bag Dave had spotted was taped to the inside of the case and the clear plastic felt tacky, like it had been close to melting. He ripped the bag away and unravelled it. There was a mass of green strands, like tealeaves, in the bottom.

  ‘Marijuana,’ Dave grinned, as he gave the contents a sniff. ‘I think we’ve uncovered Will’s stash.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ James nodded. ‘Hannah said Will was stoned off his head half the time.’

  ‘And if his parents snooped, they might have turned out his drawers and looked under the mattress, but you can bet they wouldn’t have opened up his computer.’

  James stared at the computer’s innards and spotted something else. It was a purple envelope, wedged under the hard drive. He slid it out and removed a cheap-looking birthday card with a picture of a footballer on it.

  James read the inscription out loud. ‘Dear William, have a fabulous eighteenth birthday, Nana and Pop.’

  But the envelope contained more. James’ eyebrows shot upwards as he pulled out a thin wad of £50-notes and a CD-ROM with PATPaT written on the label.

  ‘And the plot thickens,’ Dave said dramatically. ‘How much is that?’

  ‘You count,’ James said, throwing the money at Dave. ‘I want to know what’s on this disk.’

  James slid his laptop out from under the bed. He put it on the desk and flipped up the lid.

  ‘Two thousand, two hundred smackeroos,’ Dave said, while the laptop booted up. ‘Not a bad haul for an unemployed eighteen-year-old.’

  James blew the dust off the CD-ROM before putting it into the drive on the side of his laptop. It spun for a few seconds before an error message popped up:

  This disk is not Microsoft Windows compatible. Do you wish to exit Windows and run this program in MS-DOS mode?

  YES/CANCEL

  James had done an entire lesson about MS-DOS when he’d learned computer hacking, but he could hardly remember it.

  ‘Dave, help us out here will you?’

  Dave looked at the screen. ‘Click yes,’ he said. ‘MS-DOS stands for Microsoft Disk Operating System. It’s what everyone used before Windows came out.’

  James was confronted by a black screen with a single marking on it:

  C>:

  ‘I should know this,’ James groaned. ‘What’s that thingy I do to get a list of all the files on the disk?’

  ‘Pass it over,’ Dave said, grabbing the laptop. ‘You need to type DIR, which is short for directory.’

  Dave typed it and a list of about three hundred files scrolled up the screen and whizzed off the top. He scrolled through before pointing out one called cpx.exe.

  ‘Can you remember what .exe means?’ Dave asked. ‘It’s the same as in Windows.’

  ‘It’s short for executable, which is another word for a program,’ James said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Dave nodded. ‘And the batch of files next to it with .cpx at the end of their names are saved files that work within that application.’

  Dave picked one of the .cpx files at random and typed its name. The screen flickered to a crude depiction of a roulette wheel and the laptop played a couple of bars of Viva Las Vegas before a screen of text popped up:

  Welcome to CPX – Casino Module for Nimbus

  Accounting System

  Copyright Gamblogic Corp 1987

  Please enter your operator password >_

  Dave correctly guessed that the password was PATPaT. A list of options opened up on the screen.

   (1) Inputs

   (2) Staff

   (3) Payroll

   (4) Cash Account

   (5) Nominal Ledger

   (6) More Options

  Dave was mystified. ‘This must have come out of some old computer, but why would Will have it?’

  ‘God knows,’ James shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s just data he found on a second-hand PC. Hannah mentioned that Will was a serious computer geek. He took computers apart and made a bit of money upgrading them, and setting them up for people and stuff.’

  ‘But that doesn’t explain why he burned the data on to a CD and hid it inside another computer,’ Dave said. ‘There’s got to be more to it than that.’

  ‘Open up the files. See if you can work out what casino it belonged to,’ James suggested.

  Dave selected option one and a screen popped up with a list of data fields.

  ‘Golden Sun Casino, Octopus House, London SE2,’ James read aloud, then he gasped. ‘Holy turd on a stick!’

  ‘What?’ Dave asked.

  ‘Millie’s list, the one I showed you with all the robberies on. Have you still got it?’

  ‘I tossed it after you showed me. We can’t leave stuff like that around with Max, Pete and Sonya coming in and out every five minutes.’

  ‘OK, forget that,’ James said. ‘Switch that disk off for a minute and go on to the Internet. Do a news search for Golden Sun Casino and see what you get.’

  It took James’ laptop a couple of minutes to shut down, reboot and connect to the Internet. But a quick Google News search confirmed his suspicions:

  (Golden Sun Casino Robbery Nets Over £90,000

  BBC London News – 03 Jun 2004

  LONDON – A security guard was seriously injured following an armed raid on the Golden Sun Casino. The raid took place over … (8 Related Stories)

  Dave grinned at James. ‘Well remembered. The only snag is, Leon would have needed way more than ninety grand to buy that pub, especially if he had to share the loot with partners.’

  ‘But look at the date on that web article: June 2004 ties up perfectly,’ James said. ‘It’s obviously not the whole story. But you can’t tell me it’s a coincidence that a kid who lives on this block has information about a casino that was robbed at exactly the time Leon came into the big money.’

  Dave nodded. ‘I think Millie’s on duty tonight. I’ll leave a message about this on her answerphone. You contact the twenty-four-hour desk on campus. E-mail them the data on that disk and get them to send it to MI5 for a detailed analysis. Carbon-copy the message to John Jones, so he knows what’s going on as soon as he gets to work in the morning.’

  25. GLAMOUR

  By the time James had converted the information on the CD into a format that could be read by Windows and attached to an e-mail, it was gone 1 a.m. He dragged his duvet and mattress through to the living-room to escape the lingering smell of burnt dust.

  Dave had already set off for his first morning’s work on the car lot when James got woken by a text message from campus:

  AM ON THE CASE. WELL DONE ;) SPEAK LATER. JOHN

  James snapped his phone shut and snuggled up. He fancied a lie-in after the late night, but realised he had to get off his butt and go to the laundrette, unless he was prepared to walk around smelling like a bonfire for the rest of the week.

  *

  It was a quiet morning on the lot. Pete had gone fishing with a couple of mates from college. Dave waxed cars and Leon watched daytime TV in the cabin until the first customer turned up. She wanted to test drive a Vauxhall Astra with a Car Of Th
e Week sticker in the front window.

  ‘Back in a flash,’ Leon yelled, as he clambered into the car with his customer. ‘Any problems, go next door and speak to George in the pub. If any more customers turn up, be polite. I’ll be back in under half an hour and tell ’em I’ll make it worth their while for waiting.’

  Once Leon drove off, Dave strolled into the office. He bent under Leon’s desk and plugged a flash memory drive into the USB socket on the front of Leon’s computer. The machine was already on and had no security whatever, not even a basic password. Dave simply clicked on the My Computer folder and dragged the icon for the hard drive across to the window that had popped up when he’d plugged in the miniature drive. It took five slightly nervous minutes to copy everything over.

  Dave was back to waxing, with the contents of his boss’ computer tucked into his shorts, when Leon returned. He squeezed his barrel-shaped body out of the Astra and led his customer into the cabin to sort out the fine points of the deal; emerging ten minutes later and shaking her hand enthusiastically before she drove off the lot.

  ‘If every customer was as dumb as her, I’d be driving round in a Rolls Royce,’ Leon grinned, as he sauntered up to Dave with a finger in his ear. ‘She could have got that same car at a supermarket for six hundred less than what she paid me. Not a bad rack on her either.’

  Dave nodded. ‘Yeah, but a few too many miles on the clock for my taste.’

  ‘Let’s lock the gates for half an hour and we’ll get a fry-up. My treat.’

  The Palm Hill Grill was on the corner a few hundred metres from the lot. The staff and regulars all knew Leon. A couple of elderly men sucked roll-ups at the table next to Dave and Leon. The other diners were spattered in paint or brick dust.

  ‘Bacon, beans, two fried eggs, bubble, fried slice and a mug of tea,’ Dave said, when the waitress came over to the table. She was small and curvy, with pouty lips and a spray of zits across her forehead.

  ‘Look but don’t touch, Dave,’ Leon grinned. ‘My Pete’s been after little Lorna for two years.’

  Everyone in the café roared with laughter; except Lorna, who flushed bright pink. Dave realised this was a good moment to find out if anything had ever gone on between Leon and Will.

  ‘So’d you hear about my brother’s new computer?’ Dave asked.

  Leon shook his head, as he drank a mouthful of tea.

  ‘He got off with Hannah Clarke. She took pity and gave it to him, along with some bits of furniture.’

  ‘Lovely young girl, that Hannah,’ Leon nodded. ‘Quite friendly with my Liza, though she’s being sent to some posh school now.’

  ‘It belonged to Hannah’s cousin, Will. James left it plugged in and the poxy thing was clogged up with dust. It overheated and damn near burned us out. I blasted his room with air freshener, but it still reeks in there.’

  One of the old men at the next table overheard. ‘Isn’t Will Clarke the young fellow who came off the roof?’ he asked, with a heavy Irish accent.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dave nodded.

  The man shook his head slowly. ‘A real pity that was.’

  ‘Tragedy,’ Leon said. ‘Really bright kid. He was only about thirteen when I got my first computer on the lot, but everyone told me Will was the bee’s knees. I had him over for a couple of afternoons and he set everything up for me and showed me a few tricks. When Max wanted a computer in his room, I got hold of a dodgy one off a bloke in the pub. Will came over and fixed it up: you know, put the Windows disk on it and the latest games. It would have cost hundreds to have bought the real stuff.’

  Dave was satisfied. He couldn’t push further without seeming suspicious, though he’d fish for more later.

  The Irishman looked at Dave, with the bloodshot eyeballs of a man with a serious taste for drink. ‘Why do you think that boy killed himself?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Dave shrugged. ‘I just moved here, so I never even met the guy.’

  ‘But you’re a young person,’ the Irishman explained. ‘So I thought you’d know how these things go.’

  ‘Drugs killed him,’ Leon interrupted, with the authority of a man who weighed over a hundred kilos. ‘Whether he fell, or whether he topped himself, it was the drugs messing with Will’s mind that made all the problems.’

  Both the old men nodded sincerely. ‘It’s true. It’s terrible what these young fellows pump into themselves.’

  The cook was weaving between the tables holding Leon and Dave’s breakfasts. ‘There you go boys. Enjoy.’

  ‘Cheers, Joe,’ Leon said, as he grabbed the salt and showered it over a set breakfast, with extra sausage, extra fried egg and four slices of toast. ‘I’m absolutely famished.’

  The cook looked at Dave. ‘Course, you know the real reason why Leon doesn’t like kids doing drugs?’

  Dave shook his head. ‘Why?’

  ‘ ’Cos he wants all of yous in his pub, drinking his beer and smoking his cigarettes.’

  Dave smirked, but the two old geezers at the next table started wailing like it was the funniest thing ever. One of them pounded the table so hard that the brown sauce bottle tipped over and rolled on to the floor.

  ‘That’s a good one. He wants them in his pub … hahaah!’

  The other old man exploded into a machine-gun laugh, right in Dave’s ear. ‘Leon’s beer and fags,’ he snorted. ‘Good one Joe.’

  *

  James lugged his stuff to the laundrette and spent twelve quid washing the smell of smoke out of clothes and bedding. He got into a tedious conversation with the manageress.

  She rambled on about her son, who was in the army. She told James it would be a good career for a handsome boy like him. James didn’t mind answering the first couple of questions, but when it started to seem like the woman wanted to know his entire life story he got ratty. He leaned forward and lowered his voice.

  ‘You know, I can’t really talk to you,’ James grinned. ‘You see, I’m a secret agent. I work for an undercover organisation called CHERUB and if I told you any more, I’d have to kill you.’

  ‘You don’t have to be bloody sarcastic,’ the woman said sourly, crossing her arms as she stormed off in a huff. ‘I was only making a bit of conversation to pass the time.’

  James felt like an asshole. He’d only made the comment out of boredom, but the woman looked really upset. Then the door jammed on one of the dryers and he had to go and ask her for help. The manageress did her job switching off the power to reset the machine, but the look on her face as she refunded James’ coins could have cracked a boulder.

  Two and a half hours after entering, James emerged on to Palm Hill High Street holding four giant carrier bags of dry washing. He threw them into the back of Dave’s car, which was parked on a double yellow.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Dave asked, as James slumped miserably into the passenger seat beside him.

  ‘I’d sooner have spent the morning in school,’ James huffed. ‘That’s how bad it was.’

  Dave didn’t look sympathetic. ‘Yeah? Well I just spent a morning washing and hoovering out cars. This woman brought in a part exchange. Her kid must have spat about fifty lumps of gum into the ashtrays and I had to chip it all out.’

  ‘Gross,’ James gasped, screwing up his face. ‘I guess that is worse than doing the laundry.’

  Dave smiled. ‘I signed up for parachute jumps, exotic islands and getting chased down mountains by masked men on snowmobiles.’

  ‘Yeah,’ James giggled. ‘And what do we get? Chewed-up gum and laundry duty.’

  ‘Anyway, the Chairman was heading down to Whitehall for some meeting and John hitched a lift in the chopper. So we’re meeting up at Millie’s house for a conference. It’s ten miles out, over Romford way. Get the map book from under the seat. I know how to get out there, but I’m not sure about the local streets when we arrive.’

  *

  Millie lived in a semi-detached house, with a Toyota RAV4 finished in a girlie metallic purple on her driveway.
She opened her front door as they pulled up and the boys walked down a hallway and through to the kitchen. John Jones sat at a knotted pine table, with two plates of sliced cake set out in the centre.

  James and Dave both used the toilet before settling down and grabbing chunks of Battenberg while Millie made the tea.

  ‘I bumped into your sister early this morning,’ John said, looking at James as he bit the marzipan off the edge of his cake. ‘She’s just got back from the summer hostel.’

  James nodded. ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘Not much,’ John said. ‘She’s looking very tanned and she asked how you were. I told her you’d give her a call when you got the chance.’

  ‘Cool,’ James nodded. ‘I’ll ring her after she’s finished lessons.’

  Millie put the boys’ mugs on the table and sat herself down. James read his mug before his first mouthful: Metropolitan Police Squash Club, written beneath two crossed rackets.

  ‘OK,’ John said, gently rapping his hand on the table to get everyone looking his way. ‘First of all, good work last night, lads. I know there was a hefty chunk of luck involved in your discovery, but you deserved a break after doing such a bang-up job getting yourselves involved with the natives.

  ‘I passed the casino data on to MI5. They had some difficulty with the accounting software, but I got their initial report through twenty minutes ago. I’ve also asked to be sent all of the documentation on the Golden Sun Casino robbery. It should be coming over from Abbey Wood serious crime squad within the next couple of hours. Now, I’ve only had a few hours to get cracking, but I’ll run you through everything we’ve discovered so far.

  ‘First off, there’s the discrepancy between the amount of money Leon made and the amount that was stolen from the casino. I spoke to the inspector in serious crime at Abbey Wood. The Golden Sun Casino only has a licence for fifteen table games and thirty slot machines. However, the police believe that a lot of illegal high-stakes baccarat gets played in two suites on the upper floors that aren’t licensed for gaming.