Troll Read online

  ‘So, next day, after I talk to Hector? We come into the office and everybody, every single employee, our credit history is ruined.’ The ball ricocheted off a triangular island, straight between the two flippers. Nic swore and launched another ball while the backboard blinked and bleeped and lit up in contempt. ‘We’re all blacklisted, nobody will touch us. How about that?’

  ‘He did it?’

  ‘Who else? But that’s nothing. That was just, like, what? Like the aperitif. The hors d’oeuvre. Somehow, and to this day I don’t know how, nobody knows how, but somehow he found our algorithm, he hacked his way through everything we’d put in place, all the encryption, and he open-sourced it. Published it online. He hit a key and the future of AIX was done. Gone.’ Nic missed another ball, a shining bullet straight down the middle, and turned to Fortune. She threw her hands apart, imitating an explosion. ‘Nothing left to invest in, the IP all over the net.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Fortune. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Nic turned and launched the final ball, playing the flippers hard, bitterly, like it was them, not Hector Emmerson, who was the cause of all this.

  ‘A week later, Peter threw himself off a motorway bridge. Ten years’ work, gone. Worthless. All his employees, his investors, betrayed. He couldn’t deal with it. Who could have?’

  ‘You did.’

  Nic’s final ball bounced up, hit a metal skull, shot down a hole in the machine’s playfield and back out again, the backboard lighting up like a Vegas casino, her score rocketing and old-school digital numbers flickering, struggling to keep up.

  ‘Like I said, I was the business head. Couldn’t understand the half of it, tell you the truth. And I’ve got a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Fortune.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Nic, then, ‘Goddamn it,’ as she lost her final ball. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, then straightened up, looked at the backboard and laughed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nowhere near. The high score. It was Peter, see? Never knew that he had it. Just like he had it all. Talent, genius, I guess. He was funny, he was cool, he was kind.’ She spoke without looking at Fortune, softly, to herself. ‘We, all of us, we were just kids. Just kids with a really brilliant idea. How could it have come to this?’

  Fortune waited for her to turn around; when she didn’t, he said, ‘Did you go to the police?’

  ‘With what?’ said Nic. She leant back against the machine, her palms on its glass surface. ‘We didn’t have any proof. Hector hid his tracks, we couldn’t pin anything on him. Besides …’ She stopped, closed her eyes briefly.

  ‘Besides what?’

  She opened her eyes and there was a look there, of fear, fear and shame. ‘Besides, we didn’t know what else he could do. We were … okay, okay, we were scared of him. We didn’t know how he did what he did, didn’t know how far he’d go. He was like totally untouchable, pulling strings, manipulating. He’d massacred our credit history but it felt like, I don’t know, like something a petulant child would do. He could do far worse, we were sure of that.’

  Fortune thought of Charlie Jackson, dead in his hotel room. Of his daughter, held somewhere, terrified. Yes, he agreed silently, he’s capable of a hell of a lot worse than that.

  ‘Do you have a photo of him?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  Nic looked away from Fortune, avoiding his gaze. ‘No.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘I don’t. The man’s a ghost.’

  ‘Yes you do. You don’t run a … what was this business worth? Fifty million?’

  ‘More,’ said Nic. ‘Last valuation was four hundred, and that was the VCs. It was worth a lot more, it was worth …’ She lifted her hands towards the ceiling, then dropped them in a gesture of despair, of complete desolation. ‘It was worth more than money.’

  Fortune sighed, suddenly tired, and sorry, very sorry for this ambitious and broken young woman. Broken by his son. He bowed his head and shook it. ‘I’m sorry, I really am. This is, I can’t imagine. I’ve never built something for myself, always worked for others. Been a cog.’ He snorted, in self-disgust, then looked back up. ‘But Nic, you do know where he lived. In a business like this, you must know where your contractors come from. You must check them out. If you don’t, then somebody else will, the amount of money the investors had sunk in this. They get vetted, and that’ll include an address.’ He regretted pressing her, regretted bringing it back to the here and now. But he needed to find his son. He had no choice.

  Nic frowned at him, this bearded, creased, sick-looking approximation of a man, and re-evaluated her opinion. ‘You’re his father, I know that. But … who are you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t. Please, Nic. Where does he live? I need to know.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘We …’ Nic hesitated, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘The police didn’t want to know. So we broke in. We … we kicked the door down.’

  Like it was an offence punishable by death. These kids, Fortune thought. Living in their unreal world of AI, virtual reality, where kicking a door open is a crime beyond imagining, a transgression of enormous moment. As he thought this, he realized how far he’d come, how far he’d drifted from the respectable, ordered world of his previous life.

  ‘Good on you,’ he said. ‘I’d have done the same. Listen, just tell me where it is. Tell me where it is and I promise you, everything he’s done? He’ll be held to account.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’ Nic said it flatly, like the enemy was so powerful, so resourceful and omniscient that no mortal could possibly prevail against him.

  ‘Believe it,’ said Fortune. ‘Look at me. Do I look like I have anything to lose?’

  ‘No,’ said Nic. ‘But you don’t know him.’

  ‘He’s only human,’ said Fortune.

  Nic laughed. ‘You think? You ask me, he isn’t even close.’

  forty-four

  HECTOR EMMERSON, THE MAN FORTUNE WOULD NOT, COULD not think of as his son, lived in a sixties brutalist apartment building five minutes from Old Street station, a forlorn sink estate hidden behind the hipster cafés and gastro pubs that lined the main streets. Fortune rang every number on the entrance phone, then did it again, waiting in the dusky gloom until someone inside got bored of the disturbance and buzzed him in.

  The door that the people of AIX Industries had broken down was closed, but it only took a shoulder to push it open, just an old pizza takeaway box wedged underneath to keep it shut. The apartment consisted of a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom, every room small, high-rise battery housing for the post-war generation. It was also empty, completely empty, except for furniture: a sofa and two armchairs in the living room, and a made-up bed in the bedroom. Fortune walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, which was clean but had nothing in it. He opened drawers and found cutlery, plates, but no food, nothing to indicate anyone actually lived there. He went back into the living room and looked out of the window. The apartment was on the eighth floor and night was falling outside, lights illuminating a chain-link playground where a group of kids were playing basketball, a dog chasing the ball, what looked like a pit bull, an angry bundle of muscle.

  He closed the curtains, opened his case and found his remaining clean clothes. He didn’t have a towel, but he didn’t care; he went to the bathroom and took a shower anyway, drying himself with his old shirt. He had been on the move since he woke up in the lay-by and he was tired, very tired, his thoughts erratic and unfocused, a black sense of despair closing in, his vision tunnelling. He had to sleep; if he wanted to continue, he needed to sleep. He turned off the lights, dragged one of the armchairs against the front door and got into the bed, the sheets clean and crisp, the mattress soft. He closed his eyes, and before he could wonder just why the bed should be so welcoming and warm, he fell immediately a
sleep, a deep submersion into the cocoon of this strange bed in this empty apartment in this bizarre and confusing world he could not escape.

  It was still dark when he woke, aware of a nagging irritation in his back, a sensation that had found its way into his dreams, manifesting as an insistent prodding from an unknown presence. He sat up and felt beneath the sheet, pulling out a folded piece of paper. He opened it and spread it out on the bed. It was a photocopy of a newspaper article. The room was dark, and Fortune stood and turned on the light, then went back to the sheet of paper. At the top was a date, 11 February 2002. He sat down on the bed, lit a cigarette, and read:

  ORPHANAGE CLOSES AMID SCANDAL

  An orphanage part-funded by the Church of England has been closed down amid claims of child abuse and a regime of violence. The institution, St Basil’s, which was established in the late sixties, had been under investigation following the death of a fifteen-year-old boy. It is understood that the boy was a charge of the orphanage, and that his body was found in woodland thirty miles from the orphanage, bearing evidence of beatings and torture. According to DCI Paul Spencer, ‘These marks were not only recent, but suggested a historic catalogue of abuse. On investigation, disturbing discoveries were made within the grounds of the orphanage and this, coupled with testimony from current wards, led us to the conclusion that St Basil’s posed a very real threat to children.’ No charges have so far been brought, but it is understood that the warder, Oliver James Burridge, is under caution. More to come.

  In this empty apartment, Fortune immediately understood that this was a clue, that it had been deliberately left for him. He had been meant to find it. He was suddenly aware of a dark intelligence around him, so much like a real presence that he shivered as if somebody was standing behind him. A malign presence, pulling strings, dictating Fortune’s every move.

  He packed his belongings and left the apartment, taking the paper with him. He could not get out fast enough, something about the antiseptic cleanliness of it all unnerving him, the deliberateness, as if it had been prepared especially for him. He felt old and tired and stupid, a relic of another age, incapable of matching this new intelligence, this dark design. He had to keep going, but he didn’t know if he could.

  *

  The neighbourhood was scattered with trendy coffee shops offering exotic blends, all served up with Wi-Fi, naturally. Fortune ordered an Americano and a pastry and sat in front of his daughter’s computer, searching for St Basil’s. There were plenty of news reports, even a Wikipedia entry. He quickly built a picture of an institution where beatings, confinement and psychological and sexual abuse were the norm, where children lived in perpetual fear of the men who were paid to protect them. In many ways it was a familiar story, but that did not minimize its specific horror, the fact that this had happened in today’s society, under the eyes of people whose job it was to prevent exactly this kind of suffering and abuse.

  But as ever, a child’s word against that of an adult carried little weight, particularly given that the warder, Oliver James Burridge, had connections in high places. His brother was a Conservative MP who later sat in the House of Lords, and nothing ever stuck. Many ex-wards came forward to testify against the regime at St Basil’s. Grown men whose lives had been blighted by what had been done to them, emotionally damaged men who were condemned forever to live on the fringes, terrified of society. Torture was mentioned, again and again. But back in the days when corporal punishment was a legitimate form of discipline, where was the line that tipped it into abuse?

  The killer of the boy dumped in the woodland was never found. Nor were at least sixteen other boys, runaways who had been reported missing over the years. The orphanage was closed, the wards dispersed, scattered about the country, their secrets with them. A report a decade later observed a disproportionate incidence of suicide among children, now adults, who had attended St Basil’s over the previous decades. But by now it was of academic interest, a statistical artefact. Data. What was done was done. Society moved on, learnt lessons, put more checks and balances in place, and the victims were left to cope with the aftermath in any way they could.

  Fortune stopped reading. He knew a cover-up when he saw one, could read between the lines. He left the coffee shop, lit a cigarette and walked to where he had parked his car. He tried to fight his sense of guilt but could not, could no longer push it away. If he had let his daughter down, then what he had done to his son was an order of magnitude worse. You didn’t know about him, he told himself. You didn’t know he existed. You didn’t know that he’d been born, disowned by his family and sent to St Basil’s. What could you have done? But this rang hollow, just like the investigation into St Basil’s rang hollow. You could have kept in contact with Claudia. Made sure that she was okay, that she was coping. And when you learnt that she had taken her life, what did you do? Nothing. Tried to forget. Sins of omission, the haughty disregard of the comfortable white male, disconnected from the less fortunate. He thought of Dubai, of the foreign workers, the maids, the labourers, the exploited underclass with no recourse to any kind of justice. It wasn’t so different here. Somebody, somewhere, was scared and helpless and ignored by the rest of society. And people like Fortune simply pretended it wasn’t going on. Everything that was happening, he was prepared to concede, he deserved. But not Sophie. Sophie had done nothing. Sophie was as much a victim as the boys of St Basil’s. At least he could still save one soul.

  forty-five

  A MAN I HAVE NEVER MET BEFORE IS GOING TO KILL ME IN TWO days’ time.

  A man I have never met before is going to kill me in two days’ time.

  A man I have never met before is going to kill me in two days’ time.

  If I say it to myself enough, maybe it will seem real. Even normal. People are killed all the time. History is full of them, mostly forgotten. Killed for no good reason, here, then gone. Because they stole some bread, or believed in the wrong god, or just looked so strange they were denounced as a witch. They didn’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it either. Do I? I don’t believe I do. I hope I don’t.

  Yesterday I asked the troll if he was going to kill me and he didn’t say anything, and then he said, ‘Probably,’ like I’d asked him if it was going to rain. Probably. I said, ‘How are you going to do it?’ This was through the door, me one side, him the other. He was quiet for a long time, and then he said, matter-of-factly, like a dentist reassuring a patient, ‘Don’t worry. It won’t be so bad.’ It won’t be so bad. So I started hammering on the door and kicking it, kicking it, screaming at him, calling him every name I could think of. Bastard, evil bastard, shit, coward, bastard bastard bastard. And when I stopped, there was silence, a long, long silence, and I thought he’d gone but then he said, ‘It’s not your fault.’ And then he went away and I called after him again, but this time I was telling him that I was sorry, sorry, so so sorry, I didn’t mean it, please, come back, come back and talk, can’t we talk? But he didn’t come back and I can’t stop thinking about what he said. It won’t be so bad. What does that even mean? How do you kill someone without it being bad? Of course it’s bad, it’s terrible, oh Jesus, I can’t do this any more, I’ll kill myself before I let him do anything to me. I will. I will.

  Do I deserve this? Maybe I do. I’ve done some bad things, I’ve hurt people, manipulated them, used them. I’m not a good person and I’ve never thought I was. My own father doesn’t want anything to do with me. Can I blame him? After all the grief and trouble I gave him? All right, Sophie, okay. You’ve got nothing better to do, so let’s conduct an audit. Let’s see. See if you deserve it.

  Let’s start with the good stuff. It shouldn’t take long. I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve got a job. Well, actually I got sacked, but that doesn’t count since it wasn’t my fault. Okay, job. Tick. Friends? Kind of. Not many. Not enough. But some, so, yeah, okay. Job, friends. What else? I did okay at school and went to university. That’s more than a lot of people. I achieved something. And I mean well. I
really do, I mean well. It doesn’t always work out, but I try my best, most of the time. I try to do the right thing. I’m not evil. Yeah, right, high fives all round. I mean, seriously, is that the best I can do? Here lies Sophie Fortune. She kind of had a job, a couple of friends and three mediocre A levels, oh, and she definitely wasn’t evil, we know that because she never killed anyone. What an epitaph.

  I’m gabbling. Slow down. Calm. Okay. Let’s talk about the less good stuff, or, if you will, the bad stuff. I was, I am ashamed to say, terrible to my parents, by which I mean BAD. Any time I didn’t get my own way, I lost it, threatening, screaming, threatening some more. And pretty soon, I’d threatened to kill myself so often, it seemed like it was an actual thing. Somehow in my head I’d managed to normalize it. Go on, kill yourself, why not? It’s the only way out, the only way to control your life and get your own way. It’s taking selfishness to a whole new dimension. Or was I, in actual fact, mad? I really don’t remember. But what I do know is that I was an insufferable, self-centred, manipulative, toxic young woman. Taking an overdose and then calling my mum, thinking it was normal, that it would serve her right, teach her a lesson, she deserved it, she’d made me do this. Who thinks like that? Seriously?

  I don’t know. I worked on it. I tried to become a better person. I thought I was getting somewhere, making acceptable progress. But maybe it was too late, like the people who give up smoking but not in time because the cancer’s already there and the damage is done. Maybe I do deserve all this.

  Oh God. I just thought of what he said. How it won’t be so bad. What he’s going to do to me, it won’t be so bad. What does that mean?

  I hope it means he’s not going to stab me. I don’t want to be stabbed. I don’t want to be crying, screaming, watching him do it. Please don’t. Stab. Please, not again. Stab. Please, you’re going to kill me. Stab. The feeling, the metal inside me, watching my own blood leak out as I beg. Anything but that. If it’s something different, if it’s quick, if it doesn’t hurt, if he’s telling the truth, then maybe it really won’t be so bad.