Revenger

2

Danny Cropper worked in the hazy no-man’s-land between security and crime, where tough men who once served their country, men with shaven heads and pumped-up muscles slowly turning to fat, do dirty work for the rich and powerful who want to keep their own hands clean.

When he wasn’t working, Cropper had two main interests: getting wrecked and getting laid. It had been a long Saturday night, and he woke at half two on Sunday afternoon with a sore head, a lurching gut and a mouth that tasted like a fishmonger’s dustbin. He heaved himself out of bed, wincing at the backache that always seemed to hit him worst first thing, then sat bleary-eyed on the edge of the mattress with one hand in his well-worn underpants. As he gave his package a ruminative scratch he wondered whether to wake up the girl snoring softly on the other side of the bed. No, why bother? She hadn’t been that good a fuck last night, and she looked a lot rougher now than she’d done when he’d had his beer-goggles on.

She farted in her sleep, and that made Cropper’s mind up for sure.

There was a packet of fags on the bedside table. The tobacco companies weren’t allowed to put their colours or logos on the packs any more, only the health warning and a brand-name in plain black text. Cropper thought it just demonstrated the stupidity of politicians. The economy was in the shitter. The streets were a battleground. The electricity kept cutting out because the Greens wouldn’t let anyone build power stations that actually worked, and if the dustmen or the tube drivers weren’t on strike then it was the nurses and the cops. The whole world was falling apart, and all the twats in Westminster could worry about was lung cancer.

Cropper pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt and lit his first cig of the day, stuffing the pack into his trouser pocket as he shuffled out of the room. He made a cup of tea — so strong it was darker than coffee, with a shot of condensed milk and three sugars — then took the cup to the kitchen table where his laptop was lying. He logged in and scanned the headlines. A rocket attack on Tel Aviv had killed forty-five Israelis, including a dozen children. Barclays Bank had just been bought by a Brazilian corporation. As net immigration to the UK reached record levels — ‘Fuck knows why they want to come here,’ Cropper muttered to himself — the government was denying, for the umpteenth time, that it had lost control of Britain’s borders. With another half-dozen clubs facing financial oblivion, the football authorities were considering merging the former Premiership and Championship divisions to create a single league, with no promotion or relegation. And some royal tart had stood next to a celebrity tart Cropper had never heard of, but they’d both been wearing the same dress, so that was a big fucking deal, apparently.

He checked his emails. Amidst all the spam, promising cheap drugs and a bigger penis, there was one message that interested him. It purported to come from a girl called Veronika, and the subject line was, ‘Baby, I want to meet you.’ The message read, ‘Hi, Baby, I am looking for new friends. I am cute and I love big men who can make me feel good deep inside. I would really like to meet you, and if you really want to know how much fun we will have together, just open up the video I have sent you and look at my hot, wet pussy. It is waiting here for you.’

Cropper moved the video to a digital editing application, and watched four minutes of tacky Romanian porn until the image faded to black. Three seconds passed with a blank, silent screen, and there was a brief burst of static interference and white noise. Cropper cut and deleted everything apart from this burst, which was less than half a second long. Then he played it again through another app, which mimicked the function of a super high-speed tape recorder, allowing Cropper to replay the message in real time. He heard a voice, itself distorted to the point where it was un-recognizable, saying, ‘Got another job if you want it. Wednesday night, starting at eight-fifteen precisely. Three locations: Netherton Street, London SW4; Cleveway Road, Bristol BS13; Dunstone Lane, Leicester LE3. The aim is maximum devastation of property. Theft and arson would be good. Moderate levels of human collateral damage are acceptable. But we don’t want bodies everywhere. And arrange for maximum social media coverage at all locations: we want this viral across YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram — the works. Signal acceptance by usual means. First payment will be transferred on receipt of acceptance.’

Cropper replied to the email: ‘Hi, Veronika… I want your hot, wet pussy. Let’s meet… Big D.’

He jotted down a note to himself, reminding him to sort out the two key personnel at each location: someone local who’d get the scum together to do the actual damage, and one of his own lads to keep a discreet eye on things and make sure everything ran to plan. Then he sat back and finished the rest of his cold, sweet tea. This was the third time he’d got one of these jobs, and the first two had been the most lucrative gigs he’d ever been given. But they’d not been so specific about timing. Usually he was given a two- or three-day window, but this was timed to the minute. What was that about?

Cropper went back online. He looked for anything else that would be happening at the same time as the riots. And then he saw the same name popping up again in countless different news stories, previews and links. And suddenly it all made perfect sense.