Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle (33 page)

Seven thirty. Synchronise watches. This will be fun for everyone.

Not counting Bethany.

¶riotbaby

NOW.

One

The firmess of J-R’s morning erection was bewildering. It pushed painfully away from his stomach. What could cause this intense sensation?

He fumbled for his bedside clock and his hand landed on his phone. Its shape was odd. He peered at it and realised it was his old personal mobile, lying where he generally left his Party BlackBerry.

Slices of memory returned, then stuttered before they gave up the night that had just been. J-R powered up the phone and tapped to open his photos. Lying dry-mouthed in the half-light he paged through the pictures, impressions of the previous night returning on a slow shutter. Dark streets. The boy – Jo – and the East End nightspot where J-R stumbled across him. Images of warmth, countless empty bottles and the snug embrace of a cluster of young men. They didn’t cohere into a narrative. J-R had no idea how he’d got home, or who he was by the time he got there.

He put the phone back and stared at the peeling ceiling, rubbing himself a few times, but he was not aroused. He got up and pottered naked around the bedroom, which was in its usual state of catastrophic abandon, clothes strewn about as though in the aftermath of enthusiastic sex. Fat chance. He began to pick at the mess, penis flapping in front of him as though stuck on as a prank. He sniffed hopefully at items before folding them into the chest of drawers. Dirties he dropped in the Ali Baba basket. He moved from room to room, accompanied by radio news. There was more on yesterday’s leaks. A woman spoke from a group called GiveMeData, defending DigiCitz, but struggling. A tide was turning against Bethany. J-R stopped in the bedroom doorway to listen, a grey ribbed sock in his hand.

The hell with Krish’s reticence: he was locking this thing down too tight. Letting Number Ten lead the defence: they were defending the government but not the minister. If J-R had his way he’d put Bethany up for just one candid interview at today’s press event. Get her in front of someone good who wouldn’t spare her. Mair, perhaps. She could give him her mea culpa and let people see her honesty. Her commitment. He should call Krish.

Except what if Bethany wasn’t honest? He couldn’t call until he knew what had taken place between her and Mondan. The key to everything was decrypting that mail attachment.

When he’d finished tidying, he dressed and picked up the landline. The handset smelled of shed skin – he couldn’t remember when he’d last used it. Blood still pumped in his penis, which was now stowed sideways in his underwear. Mark answered on the first ring.

‘Mark Dinmore.’

‘Mark. J-R.’

‘Oh. I didn’t recognise this number. I’ve been leaving messages.’

‘Yes, apologies. Did you by any chance have something?’

‘Are you OK? I was concerned.’

‘No, it’s just that my BlackBerry is damaged and –’

J-R stopped himself in the lie. That was the old him, rebutting reactively.

‘To tell you the truth, Mark, I’m rather lying low. The email I sent you, with the contract, was – intercepted. The police –’

He tailed off, circling his hand in search of clearer language. Mark completed the sentence for him.

‘They’ve been reading your emails.’

‘Yes, that’s – yes.’

‘This is an issue,’ said Mark, and fell silent.

‘I really wouldn’t worry. Everybody is convinced Dani Farr is responsible. I don’t think I’m under suspicion as such.’

‘In my line of business,’ said Mark, ‘this is not a small thing.’

Some pressure stored up from the previous day rose in J-R’s chest.

‘Mark, I—’

‘What?’ Mark snapped. Mark never snapped.

‘I can’t help but ask: did you – do anything with that contract after I sent it to you? Share it in any way? Perhaps somehow link to it on your blog? I’m sure not intentionally, but –’

There was a long drawn moment.

‘Are you asking what I think you’re asking?’

‘No. No, of course not. It’s an odd coincidence. Apologies, this is unfamiliar ground.’

Mark’s sigh broke and crackled on the poor line.

‘So your office catches you sharing confidential material and in response you take the battery out of your BlackBerry? Go into hiding?’

J-R said nothing. Mark laying the thing out bare made it ridiculous.

‘That’s not a logical response. Why not just explain?’

‘You’re right. You’re probably right. I will, at some point. But today is the launch event. I’m not wanted, it seems.’

‘Ah.’

‘But also, I don’t know. Ever since my BlackBerry, ah, broke, I feel I’ve been off the hook. I have time to think things through.’

Silence on the line

‘Are you still there?’ said J-R.

There was a sigh, then Mark spoke.

‘I’m here.’

‘You said you had something?’

‘Yes. I’ve decrypted Bethany’s files.’

J-R’s heart began to pump in tiny bursts.

‘And it’s – does it let Bethany off the hook?’

J-R held his breath. Bethany was honest; Bethany was corrupt. Any second he’d know one way or the other. But Mark said nothing. J-R heard typing.

‘You’ve broken the encryption?’ he said. ‘Read Bethan’s file? Is it – connected with the hack?’

‘Broken it? Hardly! That would take a quantum computer. Which before you ask hasn’t been invented.’

J-R was sure he already knew that.

‘No,’ said Mark, ‘I got in by an easier route. Are you near a PC?’

‘I – well, no –’ His laptop was still in his backpack, behind the reception desk at Parley’s offices. ‘Will a tablet do?’

‘Sure. I’ve just emailed you a link.’

J-R tucked the receiver between shoulder and ear then extracted his tablet from the bookshelf, where it was lodged between the two fat volumes of a Gladstone biography.

‘Could you read out the address?’ he said. ‘I’m rather avoiding my emails.’

Mark sighed again and rattled off a long string of characters. J-R fumbled to recreate them on the tablet and hit return. What appeared was a copy of an email from Perce to Bethany.

Beth. Use this to encrypt. Looking forward to.

This was followed by a long block of garbage letters and numbers. And that was the entirety of the mail.

‘He’s an efficient communicator, isn’t he?’ said Mark.

‘What am I looking at?’

‘A document from sic_girl’s blog. One of the leaked emails. I found this nugget buried among yesterday’s shares.’

‘So anyone can see it?’

‘Yes, but it’s no use to them without your mail – and the encrypted file. There’s a load of useless junk like this in the email dump. Nobody else would pick up on this.’

‘And this code unlocked our attachment?’

‘In a split second.’

Mark went silent again. J-R thought he might burst at the seams.

‘For God’s sake—’

‘Oh, right, sorry. Holiday snaps.’

A burst of bass-heavy music started up from a car outside the open window. J-R grappled with his suddenly oversized tongue.

‘Sorry – ah – holiday –?’

‘– snaps, yes. The encrypted file contained forty-four twelve-megapixel photos of a Spanish conference hotel. Here. I’ve shared the folder.’

Mark dictated another stream of characters, taking J-R to an area of Mark’s website, followed by a username and password. A shot of a swimming pool filled the screen. Crisp honey paving. The unbroken azure of a pool bouncing back a shard of sunlight. Sea beyond. J-R clicked an arrow and a new picture slid in to replace the pool: livid sunset over ocean. Then another picture. Sean Perce, in long pink swimming shorts, his torso a knot of athlete’s muscles, a washed wall of ancient stone behind him. Another click. A new picture slid into place. Spot the difference. J-R’s stomach somersaulted.

Perce again, in the same shorts, in front of the same stone wall. Wrapped around him, giggling and lithe, in sunglasses and a red sarong, was Bethany. Childish, relaxed and rather beautiful, the Minister of State for a Digital Society cuddled like a honeymooner against the man whose business was about to receive one hundred and seventy million pounds of taxpayer’s money from her.

Mark continued in a flat tone.

‘You’ve got to the two-shot?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m assuming they used a timer. They wouldn’t be dumb enough to have someone take it for them.’ J-R paged through several individual shots of Bethany japing on a balcony. ‘I thought I recognised the pool so I did some googling. I was right – this is the Excelsior in Cádiz. Which was the venue for an event I attended last month called
Public Digital Futures: A Global Perspective.
Among whose other attendees were listed – well, I guess you know.’

Only now did J-R register the suppressed fury in Mark’s voice. It had been there, simmering under the whole conversation.

‘Mark –’

‘See, this really bloody bothers me. This is who you work for? The conviction politician?’

‘This doesn’t mean she—’

‘It doesn’t?’

‘No, this is—’

‘This is
stupid
. Crass and predictable. Sending each other photos? Even encrypted!’

Fat water pushed at the back of J-R’s eyeballs. He willed it back and sat as still as he was able, levelling his breathing. Had he spent the last two years of his life selling the public out to a vested interest?

A thought came to him. If two old pros were crazy enough to send each other goofy pictures, in spite of the risks – did it mean they genuinely cared for one another?

‘This doesn’t answer the question,’ he said.

‘Oh, really?’

‘It doesn’t tell us what Mondan is doing with the data. Whatever Bethan’s motives, we need to know what they’re up to before I—’

‘Before you what, exactly?’

‘I just need to know.’

Mark breathed out slowly.

‘Sure. I want that, too. I’m – not happy with this. I’ll tell you what. We’re going to talk to Mondan, OK, you and me. And then you’re going to talk to your own people. All right?’

Sick of the photos, J-R shut off his tablet.

‘You know,’ Mark’s voice continued, ‘when we design systems, we start by envisaging the main route through. The least complicated scenario. We call it
the happy path.
The happy path is easy, but it’s never the way things really go. Most of the work is figuring out all the less favourable scenarios – deviations from the happy path – and trapping them. Tying off loose ends.’

‘It sounds like politics. Sod’s Law tends to apply.’

‘Life isn’t exclusively the happy path, John. Or seldom at all.’

J-R nodded. Was this intended as consolation? Either way, he was grateful for the gentler tone.

‘Can I see you, Mark? Today?’ he said. ‘I –’ The rest of the sentence was unavailable. He tried again. ‘Do you know Parley’s offices in Shoreditch? I want to introduce you to someone I think might be useful.’

‘At Parley? Is that wise?’

‘Everyone will be focused on the launch event today. And also – I seem to have left my bike there yesterday. And my coat. And my laptop bag.’

¶TurdoftheDay

I can’t do this any more.

No pic.

I’m sorry, I need t#

Two

From the door the intern tapped her watch. Hell, the conf call. One of the cops caught Jonquil and the intern exchanging a look. She shrugged at him:
So?

Somehow in the next three minutes she had to clear the room. Raeworth and Ackroyd, London’s finest, had been installed at her meeting table for the past half hour and were making it super-clear they wouldn’t move their butts till Jonquil gave them Danielle. She didn’t have Danielle and wouldn’t have been inclined to hand her over if she did; but she needed to clear the room before she went on the line with Sean in – what? – two minutes thirty-five. She couldn’t have Sean knowing she was receiving courtesy calls from the five-oh. With more time and an ideal world, she’d have preferred to ditch them without giving up Danielle – but needs must.

‘So, look,’ she said. ‘Officer. You want to speak with Danielle Farr? So do I. You got to wait in line. She’ll be here for a disciplinary at nine. Right now,’ she flipped up her sleeve to check her Rolex – one minute fifty-five. ‘I got confidential business. Unrelated.’ She hopped up and grabbed the door. ‘So if you could wait in – here you go, in the room right across here?’

They didn’t move. So, OK. She had to sell them on it.

‘You’ll be able to see when Danielle arrives, through the glass panel, look.’

The head cop twitched forward in his chair. One minute thirty. If she could only get him to raise his butt she could keep him moving through the door.

‘And pastries! We have pastries. A danish? Genevieve, could you be a total babe and set up a breakfast collation in 2.03? Bless you.’

She looked back at the cops to see if this was landing. Did British cops like a danish? Should she offer pies?

‘There’s a phone right there. We’ll call through the second Danielle arrives, I guarantee.’

The two exchanged a look, then rose together and filed into meeting pod 2.03. Jonquil popped her door shut and checked her watch. Fifteen seconds. She patted her hair straight. Damn but life can be exhausting when you got to spin the plates. She dialled in to conference. Sean didn’t do pleasantries at the best of times but his starting gambit was direct even for him.

‘I’m going to kill Parley,’ he said. ‘Dead, this weekend.’

Jonquil stared at the phone.

‘I’m – sorry, Sean,
what?
’

‘I think I was pretty clear. I’m about to terminate your service.’

Jonquil clicked the button of her pen.
Clickety clickety.
Sean’s voice fizzed out of the spider phone.

‘Hello? Are you getting me?’

‘Sean, Sean, you’re being hasty. We have something real big here. For the whole group. A new narrative.’

‘You know what, Jonquil, you’re correct. We have something big. A big looming shitstorm which you’re about to remove by pressing the kill button on this sideshow.’