Jay nodded. ‘It can get pretty boring working on the door.’

  Karl laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘See? That’s the crap we develop at Unit Seventeen. The dumb games, the quizzes, “What’s Your Porn Star Name?” crap. We churn it out, upload it and then all the beautiful data comes pouring back in.’

  ‘What kind of data?’

  ‘Well, look, take “What’s Your Porn Star Name?” for starters… Your first pet’s name and your mother’s maiden name – put them together and bingo. What’s your name?’

  ‘Rex Cobbley,’ Jay replied. He smiled. The name actually kind of worked.

  ‘There you go, two pieces of data I just wangled out of you. Classic security questions. With that and your address, I’d be able to hack into your online bank account pretty fast.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ Jay grimaced.

  Karl chuckled. ‘It’s probably not worth my while. Anyway, you play one of those games and your info is coming straight to me, along with every other bit of information you’ve leaked about yourself. Your favourite films, superheroes, ice cream, your post code, the website you go to next, whether you buy something… and, if you do, what it is. Your political persuasion –’

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘No? Oh, you do, even if you don’t know it, bro… and the things you like or share… the things you linger indecisively over – all that good stuff comes in a big old river of information to people like me.’

  ‘What do you do with it?’ Jay asked, looking slightly horrified.

  Karl shrugged. ‘Sell it by the truckload to the highest bidder. I’m telling you, Jay, if I pulled your IP number up, there’d be enough info linked to it for me to totally freak you out. It’d be like going on a blind date with some creepy stranger who’s been stalking you their whole life.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Best-case scenario?’ Karl continued. ‘You’re constantly hit by banner ads that seem to be spookily on point. Right?’

  Jay nodded.

  ‘And the worst case … bad people gaslight the fuck out of you. Think of your Facebook feed as your window looking out to the world outside. If I controlled what you saw in that window, I could tell you it’s raining when it’s actually sunny. I could hook you up with lots of other people who I’ve also fooled into believing it’s raining… then you could all chat together about how much it seems to fucking rain all the time!’ Karl shook his head. ‘That, my dear naive brother, is how we end up with the Trumps of the world.’

  Jay gazed out of the window onto the mews down below. The world he was presently occupying was totally different from anything he could even have begun to imagine just yesterday.

  ‘Anyway…’ Karl said. ‘Bro… back on topic. We’ve got to think about getting you away.’

  Jay turned to look at him. ‘Where to?’

  ‘On a plane and out of the country, mate. It’s safest for now. Take a little holiday.’

  ‘How am I going to do that?’ Jay asked. ‘Jesus. Why is this happening to me? I don’t want to leave the fucking country, bro. I just want to go home. I don’t even have my passport…’

  Karl raised a finger. ‘Leave that to me.’

  36

  Boyd found a desk phone away from all the others and dialled the number.

  Okeke answered immediately. ‘Guv?’

  ‘Yes. Sam… I –’

  ‘First, tell me you’re not on your regular phone.’

  ‘No,’ he replied softly, ‘because I’m not a complete idiot. Sam, look, I just want to say –’

  ‘I get it,’ she cut in. ‘Well… I hope I do. That was for Hatcher’s benefit, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied quietly. ‘She’s watching me like a hawk.’

  ‘And can I trust you?’ she asked.

  ‘If you’re asking me whether the Salikovs have paid me a personal visit yet, then the answer’s no. As far as they’re aware, I’m onside, following orders and doing my best.’

  He heard her sigh with relief.

  ‘Sam, I’m going to do what I can to hamstring this operation. To give Jay a chance, but if I do anything too obvious, I’ll become part of their problem. You do understand what I mean by that?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Obviously,’ she said finally. ‘So I’ll ask again: have they threatened you yet? You know… directly?’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly.

  She paused again. ‘I want to trust you. Look, Boyd… if they’ve dropped another severed ear at your house, or even just mentioned Emma’s name… this is exactly the conversation you’d be having with me, right? Trying to win my trust, trying to reassure me that you’ve got Jay’s back. Because, let’s be honest, it would come down to a choice between my Jay or your Emma, right?’

  ‘I’m telling you they haven’t… Not yet anyway.’

  He heard her breath rustling down the line.

  ‘Look, this call has to be brief, Sam. We’re on the move.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ve got his brother’s address in Brighton and I’m going over with some lads to interview him this afternoon.’

  He heard her breath catch. Then: ‘Luckily, Jay’s not there.’

  ‘Well, whether his is or he isn’t… we’ll be there in just over an hour.’ He looked around the office to make sure no one was watching him. ‘Sam, I get you can’t trust me, for obvious reasons. But what I can do to help you, I will, okay?’

  She paused.

  ‘I hear you.’ She paused again. ‘Thanks, guv.’

  DI Shannon drove and Boyd took the front passenger seat. In the back, DI Abbott grumbled and wheezed on one side, while O’Neal kept them entertained with woefully unlikely tales of his Tinder exploits on the other.

  Boyd had decided to bring O’Neal along with him so that he could report back to Her Madge that he was doing his job thoroughly.

  ‘So, O’Neal, how’re things over on Flack’s team?’ asked Boyd.

  The young lad leant forward. ‘Good, yeah. We did a raid on a cuckooed flat last week. It was pretty bloody mental. We nicked three foot soldiers and a big stash of spice.’

  ‘And they had several modified shooters stashed in the house,’ added DI Shannon. ‘Nasty little shites had taken over the home of a disabled woman.’

  ‘She was wheelchair-bound,’ said O’Neal. ‘They’d just parked her in the back room with a telly turned up loud and some water. Felt bloody good throwing those scrotes into the back of the van.’

  ‘So it’s a bit more of an active role, eh?’ said Boyd.

  ‘Well, you know… not gonna lie.’ O’Neal grinned.

  ‘It’s a bit like whack-a-mole, though,’ said Shannon. ‘You shut one place down and pull a few low-level scum off the street, then the very next day another one pops up the next street over.’

  O’Neal laughed. ‘It’s the gift that keeps on giving.’

  Boyd looked across at Shannon. ‘The drugs business… keeps us all gainfully employed, right, Shannon? Busting down doors? Nicking minnows?’

  Shannon nodded but kept his eyes on the road. ‘So what’s the plan when we get there, guv?’

  ‘You and me, we’ll interview Karl Craig. O’Neal, Abbott… while Craig’s busy with us, you two take a look around his place. See if there’s anything amiss.’

  ‘Amiss?’ echoed Abbott, who was halfway down a bag of cheesy Wotsits. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like Jason Turner being there, for starters. Or any sign that someone else has been bunking over. You know… two cups on the side instead of one? Sleeping bag?’

  ‘Ah, okay. Gotcha, boss,’ Abbott said, tipping the rest of the packet into his mouth and showering his jacket with orange dust.

  Christ. He really is a deadweight.

  37

  Jay went out onto the metal fire-escape steps at the front of the old brewery, rolled himself a cig and lit up.

  He looked down at an old cobblestoned forecourt that he imagined had once been host to horse-drawn carts and then belching old trucks laden with barrels of hops. Sometimes he wondered whether he was an old soul stranded in the wrong century. There were too many gadgets and gizmos nowadays, too many memes and fads to keep up with. He figured he’d been one of the last people in Britain to learn that those green and yellow squares popping up on his Facebook page with monotonous regularity were results from a word-game fad that had come and gone.

  He took a pull on his cigarette and let out a rolling ball of smoke.

  And now, just because he’d been incensed at the injustice of some posh tosspot literally getting away with murder, he was somehow the marked man of not only a mafia family but perhaps also the Russian secret service.

  ‘What the actual fuck?’ he muttered to himself.

  Karl was right. He was going to have to stay away from Hastings, which had been his home town for the last fifteen years. To be fair, it had been his only home town. Before Hastings, he’d been moved from a foster home in one town to another. Jay knew he’d been a nightmare child; he’d been bad-tempered and big, an unhelpful combination when it came to appealing to prospective dewy-eyed adopters. Karl, on the other hand – three years younger and far more wily – had cottoned on pretty quickly that a few well-deployed manners and a cute smile went a long way.

  Now, Jay’s evacuation plan was going to have to be simple and low key; he’d get a lift with a trucker through the Chunnel and show-off his brand-new fake passport in Calais. Then he’d wing it from there. He had his burner phone to keep in touch with Okeke, and Karl said he’d set up a pre-paid debit card for Jay that he could use abroad, virtually untraceably. The card and the passport would be enough for him to re-establish himself somewhere else. Greece or Crete had been Karl’s suggestion. Money would go further in those places and it was still largely a cash economy.

  Plus, it was fucking nice over there.

  ‘Seriously, bro… you could get work in a bar. Or you could recycle old furniture to your heart’s content for ex-pats wanting to do that whole Mamma Mia-chic thing.’

  It sounded good, to be honest: sun, sea, cheap beer. And maybe he could entice Sam to come out and join him once he was settled.

  His burner phone buzzed in his pocket. Speak of the devil.

  ‘Hey, babycakes,’ he answered.

  ‘Jay,’ she said quickly. ‘I just got a call from Boyd. He’s on his way over with some of his team to interview Karl.’

  ‘What?’ Jay shook his head, dumbfounded. ‘How the hell did he figure –’

  ‘Detecting. It’s his job, love,’ she said gently.

  ‘Shit! But… if he’s on our side, why’s he –’

  ‘Listen, Jay, he is on our side. That’s why he gave me the heads-up. You’ve got to get out of there, though. And quickly.’

  Jay took a long pull on his roll-up.

  ‘Like, right now, okay?’

  ‘It’s okay, Sam. The only listed address Karl has is his workplace. They’ll head there first. I’ve got a little time.’

  ‘Well, then don’t waste it!’ she said.

  ‘Wait! Sam… what about you? Are you okay?’

  ‘What? Yes, I’m fine,’ she assured him. ‘But, babe, you need to –’

  ‘Sam,’ Jay cut in. ‘I’ve been talking with Karl about the Salikovs –’

  ‘You did WHAT?!?’

  He held the phone away from his ear. ‘Relax. It’s okay, it’s okay,’ he said. ‘He’s not going to shop me to them, is he? But listen – I think I might be in bigger shit than we realised.’

  He explained to Sam what Karl had told him about Rovshan’s special relationship with the Russian secret service. ‘I really have kicked the wrong molehill, haven’t I, babes?’

  She sighed. ‘You can say that again.’

  He told her that Karl was getting someone on the dark web to knock up a fake passport and that he was going to lie low abroad for a while.

  ‘Okay, that’s good,’ she told him. ‘It’s good that you’re thinking ahead.’

  ‘I was thinking Greece,’ Jay said. ‘It’s cheap. And warm. I’ll head off as soon as Karl’s got me that fake passport. You could join me.’

  ‘Yeah, hun – look, we can discuss this later, okay?’ He heard her breathing heavily.

  ‘Are you running?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’m packing some things. Just in case,’ she said. ‘Babes, just get your arse out of Karl’s place and I’ll speak to you later, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said again. ‘You got enough money?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, mum.’

  ‘Right. Then bugger off.’

  ‘Love you, babycakes.’

  ‘Love you too,’ she said, and hung up.

  38

  Boyd led his team up the metal steps to the first floor of the old brewery, their heavy feet clanking as they climbed to the top. ‘So, Rachel, your PA, said –’

  ‘Assistant developer,’ Karl quickly corrected. ‘FYI, she’s one of the best coders I’ve got.’

  ‘Ah.’ Boyd nodded, rightly chastened. ‘She said the company owns this place, not you?’

  ‘Uh-huh. And lets it to me for a nominal fee,’ Karl said.

  ‘It’s a nice place, Mr Craig,’ said Boyd, pausing at the top. ‘Very Dragon’s Den.’

  ‘Karl is fine,’ he replied as he beckoned them over to the lounge area of his open-plan living space. ‘So what’s my idiot big brother gone and done now?’

  Boyd sat down on a leather sofa beside a tall window that looked over cobblestoned mews with a row of boutique shops opening onto it. ‘He assaulted someone,’ he replied.

  ‘At gunpoint,’ O’Neal added.

  Boyd glared at him. ‘Allegedly,’ he said. ‘It was clearly a misguided attempt at some sort of vigilante justice. He thought he’d picked out the right man for a murder that occurred last week.’

  ‘Oh.’ Karl nodded. ‘Was it the wrong bloke?’

  It pained Boyd to nod, but he managed it. ‘It was a case of adding two and two together and coming up with five. Jason’s done a runner, obviously, and I’m just here to ask whether or not he’s been in touch with you.’

  Karl looked around at them all. ‘Four plain-clothes detectives. It’s a bit overkill for a case of mistaken identity, isn’t it?’

  ‘We have to take this seriously because of the gun that was reported,’ said O’Neal.

  ‘And as Jason’s only blood relative,’ Boyd continued, ‘you’re top of our list to talk to.’

  ‘So you thought he might come and seek me out?’ Karl said.

  Boyd nodded and looked around at the dark and industrial-looking space. ‘It’s a good place to lie low, a place like this.’

  ‘That’s why I like it.’ Karl smiled. ‘Tucked away, off the street but still in the middle of Brighton. You wouldn’t know this place was here, eh?’

  Boyd pulled out his notebook. ‘Right, well, I’ve got a few questions, then we’ll be on our way.’

  Karl nodded.

  ‘Do you mind if my colleagues have a look around while we talk?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘Looking for Jay, huh?’ He laughed. ‘He’s way too big a chump to fit underneath my bed.’

  Boyd smiled. ‘I know. But all the same…’

  ‘Help yourselves,’ Karl said.

  Boyd nodded at O’Neal and Abbott, who got up and left the room. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘we’ve been through Jay’s phone and, to be fair, it doesn’t seem like you and Jay interact that much.’

  ‘Not really,’ Karl said truthfully. ‘We don’t have a lot in common. We’re related, but that’s about it.’

  ‘You share the same background, though. You were both fostered, and both spent time in care homes?’

  DI Shannon studied him. ‘And you say you’re actually brothers?’

  Karl shot him a look. ‘Yes, amazingly… despite the different skin colour, we do share the same blood.’

  ‘Turner’s quite a lot different,’ said Shannon defensively. ‘It’s not just skin colour.’

  ‘He had a very different experience from me,’ Karl said. ‘I got a long-term foster home from twelve onwards. Jay, on the other hand, did a lot of bouncing around until he eventually stopped being the state’s responsibility.’

  ‘You stayed in contact, though?’ said Boyd.

  ‘At first,’ replied Karl. ‘But then that petered out. However, I reached out to Jay about seven years ago.’

  ‘Through Facebook?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘No way,’ Karl shot back. ‘I wouldn’t touch that site with a bargepole. Through LinkedIn.’

  ‘Right.’ Boyd noted that down. ‘And what’s the deal these days? Do you get together at all for birthdays and Christmases? That sort of thing?

  ‘Not so much… We share an occasional pint. Like I say, we don’t have that much in common. But family’s family, right?’ Karl replied.

  ‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’ Boyd asked.

  Karl gazed up at the rafters. ‘I can’t remember. A few months maybe? It was before Christmas at any rate.’

  Boyd noted that down too. ‘And nothing since?’

  ‘No, not a thing.’

  DI Abbott emerged from one of the doors off the main area. He shook his head at Boyd.

  ‘Do you have much contact with your old foster family?’ asked Boyd.

  ‘Christmas cards and birthday cards.’ Karl smiled. ‘I always visit for Mother’s Day, though. You know, a box of Hotel Chocolat and a bunch of flowers. My foster mum was good to me.’

  ‘Has Jay ever met your foster parents?’ Boyd asked.

  Karl shook his head. ‘No. It’s not really his family, is it? I wouldn’t want that, anyway; it would be like me rubbing his face in it. I had a much easier childhood than he did.’

  O’Neal emerged through a doorway. ‘Nothing in the bedroom, guv!’ he called out.

  Boyd reached into his jacket and pulled out one of his business cards. He handed it to Karl. ‘Jay may well get in touch. Do him a favour and give me a call if he does,’ he said.