not hard to hack a computer. Anyone who says differently is a liar. It’s like lock-picking, or face-reading: all you need is the right teacher, and the correct motivation. All these films showing nerdy kids sitting around watching Star Trek, and Quantum Geek, and hacking into NASA or whatever, it’s just bollocks. Just another way to bully the weirdies. Box them in. Make them this. Make them that. Make them sit alone in the dark.
Mind you, I like sitting alone in the dark. It means nobody else is there.
Most of the tube stations have Wi-Fi now, including Holborn, so all I had to do to get a signal was set up a booster along the running tunnel between there and the British Museum Station. It’s not hard. There are so many redundant cables and junction boxes down here that finding a power source was easy, and disguising it unnecessary. The walls look like something out of Alien, all rubber-coated armoured cable and danger signs. No one can tell what belongs to what, down here. That’s why they never remove anything. Pull the wrong thing out and a train stops moving. Or all the lights go out. Something awful might happen, so leave it alone; that’s the thought process.
Works for me.
I’ve made my crib in the part of the station that was used as an air-raid shelter, the deepest part of the structure. It’s still got the ‘Dig for Britain’ posters on the walls. I’ve got fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, a camp bed, a laptop with remote speakers, and a rail for my clothes. There’s still a working toilet in the main part of the station, although I have to fill it with water from a stand-pipe in the running tunnel. Really, It’s more home-y than home ever was.
I’ve got other cribs in other stations for other things, scattered all across London … I don’t like to have all my eggs in one basket in case one of them breaks.
There’s three ways out of this crib, so I feel OK. Any less and I start getting jittery. I set the alarms, tune the laptop to the World Service, and lie down in my cot. I stare at the fairy lights sparkling above me, their little twinklings reflected in the millions of tiny dust particles that are no doubt poisoning my lungs. The computer is all news speak. Fucked-up country this. Fucked up climate that. All happening in a world I’m so separate from, it might as well be made up. I tune out and just lie here, looking at the tiny porcelain tiles that make up the ceiling. Honestly, it must have taken them years to fit all those bricks in. Why did they do it? Why did they make the bricks so small? And where did they make them? I can’t think of an answer so I stop thinking about it, and just lie here, breathing in and out.
Like I’m alive.
That’s about it really.
Lights out. Night-night.
Even from the doorway where he and DS Stone are standing, DI Loss can tell the girl has been messed over good and proper. She’s got that gaunt look of someone who’s lost weight suddenly: skin too tight and eyes too big. Like a cancer victim, or someone who’s undergone extreme circumstances. War. Famine. Or, he thinks sadly, someone who’s been repeatedly raped and beaten and no longer sees her body as an ally.
They are shown into the living room. It is a rectangular box identical in structure to thousands of other rectangular boxes the DI has been shown into over the years. The mother has tried to personalize it with pictures and paint, furniture and rugs, but to Loss’s mind it’s still a rabbit hutch on a sink estate that might as well be a prison.
The mother is staring hard at them, her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Protecting her. Pouring strength into her. Neither of them wants him here. Or his DS. He can tell that from their faces. He can see that from their posture. Have to be blind not to. What he can’t tell is why. It could be that, after the attack, the police were brutish and unsympathetic. They often are where rape is concerned. In some police circles, rape is just another word for ‘changed her mind’. Not in all. Much better than it used to be, but some. It could be that, mother and daughter have simply had enough, and want to shut themselves away and heal, or try to heal, and they, the police, are just a reminder of past horrors. It could be all these things and more besides. Loss had noticed a strange expression on the daughter’s face when she’d first caught sight of him. Almost guilt. And that furtive look at her laptop? The DI doesn’t know what to make of it, so decides to make nothing of it and get on with why he is here. He leans forward in his chair.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you this morning, Mrs Lorne, Lily, but I’ve got some information possibly relating to your, er …’ He is at a loss what to say. Sitting here in this tidy small flat with its touches of humanity, even using the word ‘rape’ seems to invite an evil that doesn’t belong in this place. He can see the mother’s hand whiten as she squeezes the daughter’s shoulder.
‘We heard it on the radio, Inspector …?’ The mother wants his name again. Even though he’s told her. Wants to keep control. He doesn’t blame her.
‘Loss.’
‘Inspector Loss, all I can say is those animals got everything they deserve.’ The mother’s face is flushed high with anger, and the daughter is staring at her hands. Loss notices she has bitten her nails down to such an extent that the skin has been chewed and the end of each finger is raw and bloody.
‘I’m sorry to have to ask, Mrs Lorne, but because of the nature of the attack on the young men …’
‘Animals!’ Mrs Lorne interjects vehemently. ‘They raped my daughter, beat her up, and then raped her again. Everything that happened to those vermin, it wasn’t enough.’
‘And because it was those specific young men,’ Loss continues, lowering his voice, ‘well, I’m afraid I have to ask.’
The seconds tick by, and mother and daughter just stare at him. Finally Mrs Lorne understands what he is saying. Asking. She looks at him with loathing and says, ‘We were in all night. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?’
‘The CCTV shows a young woman at the scene of the crime …’ Loss stops speaking as Mrs Lorne makes a cutting motion with her hand.
‘Enough. We were here all night. People called round. Unlike those animals who attacked my daughter, we have witnesses apart from ourselves.’ Mrs Lorne curls her lip in disgust. For a second Loss thinks she’s going to spit on her own floor. ‘They just back each other up. Cover each other’s tracks and sneer at us as if we’re nothing.’ Loss can see that Mrs Lorne is only just holding her rage in check. ‘Not that we’d need witnesses if those bastards had been locked up. The last month I’ve not been able to leave the flat without one of them hanging around, laughing into their phones. Even when I go to the shop downstairs I have to get a neighbour to sit in or else Lily starts screaming, or worse,’ Both Mrs Lorne and Lily-Rose seem to be falling apart in front of him, and Loss has a deep sense of self-loathing within himself. All these people want to do is heal, and here he is twisting a screwdriver into the wound, opening it up for inspection. Making things worse. So he twists it again.
‘Does the word “Tuesday” have any special meaning to either of you?’
‘Get out.’ The mother is striding to the door, barging past the DS. ‘I’d like you to leave now. My daughter needs to rest.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Loss stands up and follows her to the front door. As he passes Lily-Rose he has an urge to touch her shoulder, seeing his own daughter in her, but resists.
