Killing Sasha Felton

1 Alice

I wish I’d never seen her face. It’s not that she isn’t beautiful. It’s not that she isn’t intelligent. It’s not that I don’t love her.

It’s the pain she’s brought — the complete destruction of everything I have known, everything I have held dear and everything I have loved.

Everyone turned and looked when the door opened and the head of year ushered the new girl, Alice Clifford, into the room. Her stunning beauty and gorgeous smile caused a communal intact of breath. Hearts beat wildly. From the moment she stepped in the door, Alice turned our world upside down. She was a tornado ripping through a village of grass huts.

‘Why don’t you sit next to Sam?’ the head of year said pointing. ‘He’s a nice lad.’

She sat beside me, turned, looked me in the eye and smiled. I was past rescue before she said, ‘I’m Alice. I hope we can be friends.’

The rest of the lesson was a haze: my brain refused to work properly. I wasn’t just bitten by the Alice-bug, I was slaughtered. My dreams, and I later found out, my nightmares, had come true.

I thought my life would never be the same. Back then, how could I know how true that was?

At break Alice asked me to show her how things worked. She didn’t dump me for someone else, even though there were plenty of others who would have happily taken my place.

It wasn’t only me she charmed. Of course, boys circled her like seagulls around a discarded sandwich, but soon even the girls warmed to her and everyone wanted to be her friend. The strange thing was she didn’t ditch me. My social capital went up about a million percent. Suddenly I was the second most popular person in the school. Alice was a miracle, my miracle.

At the end of school we stood facing each other in the atrium — a large, open area that connected all the wings of the school.

‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I’m being picked up in a minute.’

I’m not sure what I said in reply.

‘Sam, I hope you’ll meet me here tomorrow before school. I’ve had such a lovely day with you.’ She turned and ran to the exit to the car park.

Floating home on a cloud of Alice-magic, it never occurred to me that I would later wish I’d never met her. Don’t jump to conclusions: she didn’t break my heart. She broke my world. She took my life, shattered it, crushed the fragments to dust with a steam roller and blew the powder away with a fan.

To be fair, nothing that happened was her fault. It was because of her family.

The following week sailed by. I was so happy my mother suspected me of taking drugs. She even insisted on searching my bedroom. I didn’t mind. Nothing could upset me.

Every morning I’d get to school early and wait until Alice arrived. She was dropped in the car park fifteen minutes before school started. A large, black car with tinted windows would pull up. A man wearing sunglasses would get out of the front-passenger-side door, look around and nod. Only then would Alice climb out of the back seat and hurry into the building. I always thought it was a bit odd but I reckoned it had something to do with her parents being rich.

In the afternoon, she’d make a phone call and wait inside the doors. The black car would arrive within five minutes, as though it had been waiting. A man would get out, look around and nod in Alice’s direction. Only then would she leave the building.

The men were too young to be her father and so I guessed the family must be well off because they had staff and a flash car.

‘Alice,’ our tutor said one morning, ‘I’ve been told to chase up records from your previous school. Can you give me some details?’

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible, Mr Turner. I was home-schooled because I had glandular fever. Father hired a private tutor to teach me and after I got better we liked the arrangement. That’s the way it continued until we came to Plymouth. I’m sorry, but there are no other records.’

‘Didn’t your tutor keep notes, or something?’

‘He may have. But he ran off with one of his tutees and so naturally Father didn’t want any further contact with him. Instead, he sent me here.’

This puzzled me because she’d told me she’d attended a primary school in Manchester before they moved to France for two years. The French bit rang true because she spoke the language like a native. Then she’d been home-schooled. She’d never mentioned a tutor.

When I asked her about it she said, ‘I told you, not the teacher, the truth. Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone else. Okay?’

‘But — ’

‘Safety. Don’t ask. Just accept. Trust me.’

Those three commands worried me. Who was she? Was all the concern about safety because her parents were incredibly rich? If so, why wasn’t she at a private school? I wish I probed more.

We became inseparable. The first girl I really fancied was someone who also liked me. It was love at first sight. From that moment Alice consumed my every waking thought.

Two weeks after she arrived I plucked up the courage to ask her out — sort of. I invited her over to my place after school.

Her smile disappeared. She pursed her lips and closed her eyes as though she was going to cry. ‘I’m sorry, Sam, but I can’t. Father won’t let me see anyone outside school, ever. I’d love to come over to your place but I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t explain. Please let it drop. It’s safety.’

I couldn’t. ‘Is that why you always get dropped off and picked up?’

‘Partly. It’s related. Please don’t ask any more.’ Her eyes pleaded with me.

Hurt and confused as I was, I let it drop. Her father was obviously very protective.

We spent all day at school together. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found we had exactly the same classes, except P.E. To me, she brightened up every classroom she walked into. All the teachers seemed to be transformed by her. Even Chemistry lessons were enjoyable.

‘Sam,’ Alice said one morning, ‘I’ve persuaded Father to let me stay to do after school activities every day. Are you pleased?’

‘Pleased? No. Over the moon. It’s brilliant news.’ It was like I’d won the lottery.

Of course, there was nothing on most afternoons but it meant that we got to hang around together for an extra hour and a half. The Art teacher let us use her room and the Music teacher was happy for us to play any of the instruments. Alice was a brilliant pianist and I could nearly keep a regular beat on the drums. We had a fantastic time jamming, or drawing, or just fooling around. I didn’t know we would later have to pay an extortionate price for our happiness.

‘Alice, how come you’re such a good pianist?’

‘It’s what I do in my spare time. There are not many other things I can and it reminds me of my mom.’

‘Why do you need to be reminded — ’

‘I’m not going to talk about it, Sam.’

Three weeks after we met, Alice presented me with a phone. It was a bog-standard brick. I turned it over in my hand and looked at her puzzled.

‘It has one listed number: mine,’ she said.

‘You’re kidding? I can talk to you anytime now?’

‘Father agreed with the restriction of an hour a day during the week and two hours on the weekend. It’s safety.’

There was that word again. But what did it mean?

‘That’s fantastic. Now we don’t have to be apart even when we are.’

‘You’re not a great orator but I love you anyway.’ She leant across and kissed me on the cheek.

I’m sure I went bright red. I didn’t know what to say. She’d said she loved me. She’d kissed me. I wanted to cheer and jump up and down. Instead, I rolled the phone over and over in my hand for a few seconds before saying, ‘Why can’t I simply call you using my own phone? I can see the number here.’

‘Don’t ever call me from any other phone.’ She said each word slowly, deliberately. ‘The thing you have in your hand is an unidentifiable piece of kit. Your own phone is linked to you and your family. Never, ever call my number on any phone but that one. It’s safety.’

The teacher arrived. I stashed the phone away. I didn’t want to fall foul of our school’s strict confiscation rules. But what Alice said didn’t make sense.

That afternoon we met in the atrium after P.E. ‘Alice, rugby didn’t go well. Jake’s tackle made me see red. He — ’

‘Sam, if your eyesight is distorted, you should go to the hospital. It could be concussion or something.’

I was puzzled. ‘No. That’s not what I meant. “See red” means being angry.’

‘Does it? I’ve never heard it before?’

‘Really? It’s pretty common.’

‘It can’t be that common if I don’t know it.’

Suspicion nudged me. ‘Alice, do you know what figurative language is?’

‘Of course. It’s non-literal language. I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘However, and this isn’t to be critical in any way, and I’m sorry if it seems to be like that because it isn’t meant –’

‘What’re you trying to say?’

‘Sometimes it seems to me, or it could be construed to be seen as — ’

She held up her hand to stop me.

‘Just say what you mean. You’re talking rubbish at the moment.’

‘Sometimes you don’t seem to get that people aren’t being literal.’ It had happened several times, in fact. She didn’t seem to get metaphor and idiom.

‘Is that a problem, Sam?’

‘No. I just wondered why.’

‘It’s probably because I’ve led a very sheltered life. Now, what are we going to do this afternoon? Do you fancy music or finishing the pictures we started yesterday?’

Not long after that I tried to find out where Alice lived. I was curious. I thought I could get a satellite picture of her house. Mr Turner, our tutor, was really careless with his computer. While he was getting a cup of coffee, something he was always doing, and Alice had gone to the toilet, I looked up her details.

At home I typed in the information. The street name didn’t exist and the postcode was invalid. Why would you give a fake address to the school? What if they wanted to contact your parents? Where did Alice live?

I leaned back in my chair and thought about it. Should I try the phone numbers that were listed? I might get her father. Also, I remembered what she said when she gave me the phone which I could use to call her.

It rang. I jumped.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Sam, was that you trying to find out where I live?’

‘Why? How did you know someone was looking up your address?’

‘Was it you or wasn’t it? I need to know now,’ Alice said.

‘It was me. Don’t get angry. There’s no need to get upset.’

‘Yes, there is. It’s safety. Don’t ever try to find where I live.’ She paused. ‘Promise you won’t do it again?’

I promised. ‘But how did you know I’d done it?’

‘A program my mother wrote. It tracks searches. I modified it so it’s linked to my address.’

‘But it isn’t your real address. Why have you lied to the school?’

‘It’s safety. Don’t ask. Just accept. Trust me.’

2 The Musical

At the end of September we had a surprising bout of good weather. One afternoon when the sun shone, I suggested we go and sit out on the grass.

‘You’re not serious, Sam?’

‘Why not? The sun is shining. The birds are singing. The bees are buzzing.’ I left out ‘Love is in the air.’

She stared at me with her eyebrows raised and then shook her head. ‘Haven’t you noticed, Sam, that I never go outside?’

‘Well, I just thought because of the nice weather — ’

‘I don’t do outdoors.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Listen. My note to get me out of P.E. says I have a back problem that means I can’t take part in any physical exertion.’

‘Lying in the sun isn’t going to strain anything.’

‘Watch.’ She stood up, bent forward and didn’t just touch her toes but put her palms on the floor. Then she raised her hands above her head, arched her back and fell backwards. She stopped herself hitting the floor with her hands — before pushing herself upright again.

‘If there’s nothing wrong with your back, why don’t you do P.E.?

‘Often, the lessons are held outside. I don’t do outside. Ever. It’s safety,’ she said. ‘Father chose this school because it’s completely enclosed. Students don’t have to be exposed to the elements.’

Was it possible somebody could live like that? ‘But you walk to and from the car.’

‘That’s only twenty metres and I scurry, rather than walk, only after the area has been checked.’

I had wondered about that. It seemed strange, but then so did several things about Alice. One was that she appeared to like me.

‘But when you’re at home, don’t you?’

‘No. Except for getting to and from the car, I stay hidden inside.’ She sighed. ‘Don’t ask. Just accept. Trust me. It’s safety.’

Her mood lightened. ‘Next week are the auditions for the school musical. We’re going to play the leading roles. We need to pick our audition songs and practise them.’ There was no consideration that we mightn’t be good enough or that other people could want the parts.

After trawling through hundreds of videos, Alice picked a solo for each of us and a duet. By then it was time for her to go. ‘When you get home, listen to each of the songs several times to learn the tunes properly and then sing along until you’ve memorised the words. I expect you to know them off-by-heart for tomorrow.’

She didn’t half expect much, but I didn’t argue. I wanted to please. Perhaps if I’d been less of a doormat things would have turned out differently, but there’s no use thinking that now. What’s happened has happened. I can’t change it.

Ben, my annoying, younger brother, complained to Mum about the racket I was making when I practised the songs. Mum’s eyes widened in surprise when she found out what I was doing and why. She guided Ben out of the room saying, ‘It’s all right. Someone’s cast a spell on Sam and it makes him behave strangely.’

‘You mean like a witch?’ Ben said.

‘Sort of. Don’t worry about it. He’ll get over it,’ my mother said, giggling. Parents can be so embarrassing.

Beth, my surprisingly-nice, younger sister, even helped me practise the duet. She sang Alice’s part. All she demanded in payment was to be told what Alice was like. I didn’t mind telling her. I enjoyed talking about Alice. She was my friend, my inspiration, my world. I was a satellite circling around a sun. I was a worshipper glorifying a goddess. I was a rat following a piper.

It was a foregone conclusion that Alice would get the main female role, but when I read my name next to the principal male part I was stunned.

‘I knew you’d get it,’ Alice beamed. ‘You’re a natural star.’

I didn’t think of myself as one of life’s losers but I’d never thought of myself as a winner, let alone a star. It was only because Alice was so good that I looked anything more than mediocre.

‘Don’t put yourself down,’ she said. ‘You did the solo by yourself. That’s what a solo is. You impressed them without me.’

Perhaps all the rehearsal time I’d put in and all the coaching Alice gave me meant I did sing well. Though, I wonder now if Alice threatened them — she wouldn’t do it without me. When it came to Alice, I learned that you never knew.

If you’ve ever done a show, you’ll know you spend hours sitting around talking and messing about and then a few minutes rehearsing. It’s great fun. Fun I had with Alice. She was my laughter, my light and my life.

Of course, there were other people there too: a show with only two characters would be a bit boring. Alice managed to animate them as well, like a strong wind in a boat’s sails. It was as though she had this pent up electricity that needed a motor to run.

However, something strange happened one day at rehearsal. The director surprised us while we were playing cards by shouting, ‘Sasha!’ It was the first name of the teacher doing the lighting.

Alice turned as she put a card down and said, ‘Yes?’

We all looked at her and she realised what she’d done. She mumbled something about it being a nickname her father used but it didn’t ring true. Why should she be called Sasha? It was about as much like Alice as Kylie is.

‘Alice, why did you just answer to “Sasha”?’ I said.

‘Why are you asking about my name?’

I shrugged. ‘I’m curious. That’s all. Is Sasha your middle name or something?’

She leant over and whispered in my ear. ‘Stop asking me questions, Sam. I don’t want to lie to you so stop talking about my name.’

‘But Alice, just then you –’

‘Don’t ask. Just accept. Trust me. It’s safety.’

Lyle was one of the other students playing cards with us. Like half of year nine, he had a crush on Alice. I’d noticed him staring at her when she wasn’t looking. He was always trying to talk to her. ‘What does your father do for a living?’

‘He’s in business. It’s very secret, extremely hush, hush. It would be better if you didn’t ask any more. Play your next card.’

‘Surely you can say something about what he does, unless he’s a drug dealer or — ’

She slapped him across the face. He fell off his chair and dropped his cards. The sound was so loud I knew it must have hurt.

‘He doesn’t deal drugs. Don’t you dare suggest he does,’ Alice said. ‘I hate drugs. I’ve seen how they destroy lives. Don’t ever insult him like that again. If you do, I’ll do more than slap you.’

‘Alice, Lyle was only joking. You didn’t need to do that,’ I said.

‘Really?’

‘I wasn’t trying to offend you or anything,’ Lyle said picking himself up and rubbing his cheek. He was wearing a big, red handprint. ‘You didn’t need to hit me.’

Alice apologised but it cured Lyle’s infatuation. He stayed well away from her after that.

3 Lunch Assault

One incident marked Alice out as different for every other student in the school. She was shorter than average and slender — not skinny but definitely not curvaceous. I’ve already said that she was gorgeous and it wasn’t me being biased — everyone thought so. Eyes followed her as she walked past.

Even though she was only in year nine, she attracted the attention of some year-thirteen boys who fancied themselves. I’d heard rumours about them actually attacking girls. They were trouble.

They came over to our table one lunch time. Damian Durf sat on one side of Alice and Aiden Connor on the other. Lucas Blades, perched opposite, completed the trio.

I was returning from buying lunch while Alice kept our seats. I saw it all but was too far away to do anything. It happened so fast I wouldn’t have been able to react anyway.

Damian and Aiden squished in so they were shoulder to shoulder with her. Lucas reached out towards her face. I saw her lips move. She was warning them off. Lucas moved his hand closer. It was a coordinated attack. Damian reached for her breast. Aiden searched for her thigh.

As Lucas touched her cheek, her hand shot out, grabbed his greasy hair and smashed his face into the table.

Before Damian, on her left, could move, she raked her nails across his cheek. He screamed. Four streams of blood spoke of permanent scars. He clutched at the wound.

A backwards elbow stunned Aiden on her right. Leaping up, she kicked him in the face. Unconscious, he fell to the floor. She kicked him again before grabbing Damian’s collar and bashing his head against the metal pillar that supported the walkway above.

Pandemonium broke out. Students were shouting, running, pushing — nobody knew what was going on.

Alice wiped the blood from her nails with a tissue and tucked her blouse back into her skirt. I reached her as the crowd was gathering, not too close, around her. She grabbed my arm and took me back the way I had come.

‘I need to wash my hands. You never know what you might catch from people like that.’

I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say. It had all happened so quickly.

She stopped suddenly, taking the sandwiches and drinks from my hands and placing them on a table. It was like she was replaying a film of what happened in her mind. ‘Sam, Kylie Phillips — blonde, tall, overweight — had her phone out. She may have videoed or photographed something. Tell her I want her phone. Unlocked. Now. Collect any others that you see in people’s hands. There must be no record of me.’

Kylie was one big, tough girl. I couldn’t see her taking any notice of me. However, when I said what Alice wanted, the phone was immediately thrust into my hand. ‘Take it. I haven’t shared or uploaded the video. Just take it. Tell her I didn’t mean no harm.’

Astonishingly, when I asked for phones that had any relevant pictures on them, three students volunteered them straight away. We had a really strict rule about phones in our school — if they’re seen at any time including break and lunch, they’re confiscated — and so giving them to me was risking having them snatched by a teacher.

I had power over other people because of Alice. In a sort of trance I carried the phones to her as she appeared from the toilets.

Sitting at the table where she had left our food — a space was quickly cleared around her — she flicked through the photos and videos muttering ‘If I had one like that I wouldn’t be sending pictures of it.’ and ‘Why do boys have porn on their phones?’. The speed with which she worked was amazing.

‘They’re clean now. Return them.’ She handed me the phones.

Holding them gingerly in front of me, I carefully put the phones down on a table near the incident and let the owners collect them. The teachers were too busy trying to deal with the three, injured boys.

Alice was eating her sandwich when I sat down next to her.

‘They only had cheese and pickle, or tuna, and I know you don’t like tuna,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’

She took another bite and chewed it before saying, ‘I’m annoyed, in fact, furious about two things. Firstly, that all the rumours I’d heard about those three assaulting girls were obviously true. Why hasn’t something been done about them before? Secondly, I nearly lost my temper. I must always control my emotions, and I didn’t.’

‘Nearly? You seemed in control to me.’

‘No, Sam. If I’d lost it completely, they’d all be dead. But I was on the edge.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’

She turned to look me directly in the eye. ‘I need to work out exactly what I’m going to say to the headteacher. I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I must think hard so I avoid them contacting Father. Please leave me to my thoughts. However, I’d be grateful if you’d put your arm around my shoulders.’ A minute later she said. ‘Come up with an alternative story for how those three got hurt that doesn’t involve me. You’ll have to tell it to the principal.’

Eating a sandwich with one hand isn’t easy, but refraining from saying anything was harder. How could a tiny, fourteen-year-old girl demolish three, huge, eighteen-year-old men? And what was I to say to Mrs Kliner?

A first-aider was trying to mop up the mess while other staff got the rest of the students under control. An ambulance arrived twenty minutes later and took the three away.

I found out afterwards that the scratched cheek required twenty stitches, Aiden Connor had a broken jaw and concussion, and Lucas Blades had a smashed, not just broken, nose and two busted teeth.

With dread I watched the headteacher approach. I was trembling. Alice was calm. How could she be?

‘Alice Clifford, I want to see you in my office.’

‘He comes with me,’ Alice said, pointing at me, ‘or I’m going nowhere.’

The headteacher, Mrs Kliner, stood, staring, with her mouth and eyes wide.

Alice helped her out. ‘He witnessed the events. Unless you’ve already pre-judged the situation from rumour and hearsay, you want to find out exactly what happened. Sam can help.’

Mrs Kliner blustered and then conceded. Half the school was watching. She couldn’t risk the mob siding with Alice against her. Arm-in-arm we followed her to her office.

Without being offered a seat, Alice sat down. She leant slightly forward; the headteacher leant back in her chair behind her desk.

‘Mrs Kliner, you’re responsible for the criminal negligence of the staff in this school when it comes to safeguarding. Those same boys have been sexually harassing and raping female students. If the media or Ofsted get hold of the rumours, you’ll be in jail, not just out of a job. If you don’t do as I tell you, both organisations will find out.’

Mrs Kliner sat with her bottom lip quivering.

‘Firstly, you won’t contact Father. He’d be angry and I don’t want that.

‘Secondly, stop news of the incident spreading. Sam has a story you need.’

I had struggled to think of something credible. How do you explain away young men getting injured in a school? ‘The story that’ll be told is that the three of them were fooling about, it got out of hand, a three-way fight started and they all got hurt. Alice merely happened to be there at the time.’

‘That’s good, Sam,’ Alice said turning back to Mrs Kliner. ‘You’ll hold special assemblies and tell all students that’s what happened. Say I said that’s the only story to be told, or else.

‘Then get to the hospital and make them understand the story they’re going to tell. Help them fill in the details.’

The headteacher was so astonished she didn’t interrupt. She mouthed the words that she was so obviously thinking: Who does this little tart think she is, talking to me like this?

Cowered as I was, I wanted to stand up and object. Alice didn’t let me.

‘Never call me a “tart” again unless you want me to smash both your kneecaps with a hammer so standing will forever after be agony.’ Alice paused to let the threat sink in. ‘I have ensured — with Sam’s help — that no photos or videos of the incident exist. Your useless staff didn’t even think of that.

‘While you do what I’ve ordered, I’ll spend the afternoon in isolation. Sam’s going to accompany me.’

‘You can’t believe for one moment that I’m going to do what you, a child, say.’ Her bottom lip was quivering and face was purple. She ranted for a couple of minutes more

‘If you’re too stupid to do as you’re told, you’ll be the main story on news this evening. Sam, tell her what the headline will be.’

I sat for a few moments panicking. Silent. ‘School students suffer shocking sexual abuse for several years while staff turn a blind eye. Will that do, Alice?’

‘That sounds good, Sam. Kliner, it can be the BBC’s main story tonight, and you’ll end up in jail labelled as a child molester.’ Alice sat back, her eyes still fixed on Mrs Kliner. ‘Also, do what I say or I’ll carve “SCUM” on your face with that pair of scissors there so deep the scars will never go away.’

The headteacher sat in silence. How dare a student threaten her like that? Fury boiled down to naked, visible hatred. She wasn’t stupid — ineffectual, lame and weak, but not stupid. She had no choice but to agree to what Alice wanted.

4 Isolation Room

We sat next to each other in the isolation room. There was nobody else there except the teacher, which was unusual. Normally, the place is packed with people who won’t, or can’t, behave in lessons. I’d never been sent there myself, and mostly it was a few regulars, but you know about these things in a school.

If my mum found out I’d been in isolation, she would have grounded me for a year, taken my games console away and confiscated my phone. Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration — she would’ve only grounded me for six months — but everything else was true. My mum wasn’t unreasonable — just caring.

‘If Father finds out he’ll be angry. I shouldn’t have drawn attention to myself. He might even take me out of school again.’ Alice was whispering so the teacher couldn’t make out what she was saying.

My heart sank. Here was my angel. Take her away and I’d be in hell. At least, that’s what I thought then.

‘I’m also afraid that if Father finds out, he’ll ensure their minor injuries become major, maybe even fatal.’

I didn’t understand what she meant but before I could ask, the teacher walked over and told us we were supposed to be sitting in silence.

‘Miss, we’re not here as a punishment. Mrs Kliner put us in isolation to keep us out of circulation until it’s time to go home and that’s four-forty-five,’ Alice said.

Miss Taylor stared at Alice before saying, ‘I heard about what you did at lunchtime.’

‘What you’ve heard is probably silly rumour,’ I said.

‘Are you telling me that staff are lying when they say Alice hurt those boys?’

‘No. Just that they didn’t see what actually happened. The three boys were fighting amongst themselves. Alice had nothing to do with it. She just happened to be there.’

‘Sam, think about the implications of what you’re saying before you speak again. Are you telling me Alice didn’t injure those boys?’

‘How could she have?’

‘Well, I don’t know. It’s just that — ’

‘It was a traumatic time for the school community with some students getting injured, and facts have got mixed up,’ I said.

‘That’s not the way staff have been portraying it.’

‘Do you mean they’re saying they were in control and knew what was happening?’ I said.

‘I’m not sure — ’

‘They were lying if they did.’

‘I’m not sure I approve of you saying colleagues don’t tell the truth.’

‘I don’t care if you approve or not.’

‘That’s a very negative attitude, Sam. I wonder how your mother would react if I told her that’s how you spoke to me. I’ve a good mind to phone her.’

‘Why bring Sam’s mother into it?’ Alice said. ‘You’re trying to bully him.’

‘That’s a very serious allegation. I don’t think I should put up with it.’

‘Why not? Because you’re used to getting away with it?’ Alice said.

‘How dare you talk to a member of staff like that? I will not be accused of bullying.’

‘Then don’t do it.’

Miss Taylor paused before saying, ‘ I can’t understand why you’re behaving like this because since you’ve arrived you’ve been a model student and I thought everybody adored you. It seems so out of character. And what did you say to Mrs Kliner? She’s walking around with murder in her eyes.’

‘That’s not murder, Miss. It’s just hate. She’ll try to get revenge in petty ways but she won’t try to kill me.’

‘Alice, she was being metaphorical,’ I said, nudging her.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course she won’t try to harm you,’ Miss Taylor said. ‘I was using a figure of speech. What I don’t understand is why you attacked them so…’ She looked around her as if trying to find the right word written on one of the display boards. ‘Viciously.’

‘As Sam’ll confirm, I did warn them. They attacked me. I reacted.’

‘Yes, but did you have hurt them so badly?’

‘Have you ever been raped, Miss?’ Alice said.

‘Of course not. What sort of question is that?’

‘If you had,’ Alice spat the words at her one syllable at a time ‘you would have done exactly the same.’ It was like she was firing a gun, slowly, deliberately at the teacher.

The door opened and a year-seven student dragged himself into the room.

‘Sit down over there,’ Miss Taylor said pointing to a chair without even looking at him.

‘Miss, please don’t tell anyone what I said about Mrs Kliner. It was a misunderstanding.’ Alice was at her most charming again. She could switch it on and off in an instant. ‘And please don’t report anything else I said. I don’t want to get in trouble with Father.’

‘I’m not sure I can promise that, Alice. I think it might be a safeguarding issue. You don’t seem very repentant.’

The softness and charm disappeared in a moment. ‘Why should I repent? Some males assaulted me, so I should feel sorry? I — the victim — should feel bad?’ Alice said. ‘Safeguarding has been a joke in this school. That’s why lunchtime happened. Why the sudden concern for students? Is it guilt? You feel like you’ve done nothing for so long that now you might make a token gesture? Go ahead if it salves your conscience. Cover your weakness by picking on me.’

Miss Taylor looked as though she had been slapped.

But Alice didn’t stop there. ‘Which are you going to do, Miss Taylor? Are you going to continue supporting Damian Durf, Aiden Connor, Lucas Blades and Mrs Kliner, who are happy for girls to be sexually assaulted, subject to domestic violence, the cheap playthings of men, or are you going to stand up and show you have some backbone for a change? Are you so weak that you pretend you want to help children while you stand back, see them exploited and do nothing?

‘You’ve betrayed your gender and the children in your care. You’re despicable, dishonourable and disgusting. If I was you, I wouldn’t merely be ashamed of myself, I’d loathe and detest what I was: a two-faced, sad individual with the moral strength of a raindrop. Try to make me your scapegoat if you want, but remember you’re only trying to cover up for how pathetic you, yourself, are.’

I grabbed Alice and turned her to face me. ‘Stop,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘Stop. Enough.’ I searched for something that would make her cease. ‘If you say anything more, your father might hear about it.’

Miss Taylor had turned away. She was weeping, pierced to the soul by Alice’s words.

I’d seen that Alice could maim people physically but she could also do it with her tongue. Realisation dawned on me: Alice could be an extremely violent person. When provoked she didn’t just hit out, she pulverised her opponent.

She was a dangerous girl.

And I was her boyfriend.

Mum was preparing dinner when I got home. She asked me, as she did every day, about how school had gone. I fobbed her off with a story about the picture Alice had painted in Art. I could see that Mum wanted to ask more, curious about Alice, but she restrained herself. Sometimes, since then, I’ve wondered if she’d pried more, things might have been different. But no — that’s stupid.

Beth needed convincing not to tell Mum. She didn’t even go to the same school as me. (It’s complicated and it’s not important, but she went to one about two miles away from mine.) That she’d heard about the incident was worrying. Because the schools were close and pupils from both lived next to each other, it was common for students to know kids from each. Gossip also passed between the two. But I knew that Alice didn’t want public exposure and so I was worried.

‘Sam, it can’t be true what people are saying. Damian, Aiden and Lucas are not just boys, they’re young men. And they’re big. Lucas, for instance, boasts that he’s nearly ninety kilograms of pure muscle, with not a gram of fat on him. Alice is just a little, year-nine girl. It’s not being sexist but how did she beat them up, if that’s what she did? Were you involved?’

I desperately wanted to talk to someone about it all, particularly what she’d said to Miss Taylor, but I couldn’t trust Beth. It wasn’t because she wasn’t a good sister or anything, but what twelve-year-old would be able to keep what I wanted to say a secret? There were so many questions I wanted answered. How could Alice react so quickly? What did she mean when saying her father might make the wounds fatal? How could she threaten Mrs Kline like she did?

I stared at my hands and turned my phone over and over. It wasn’t even on: the battery was dead. ‘I’ll make a deal,’ I said to Beth. ‘If you promise not to say anything to Mum, I’ll give you a detailed description of what I saw. Also, there’s something else I need you to do.’

Of course Beth agreed: she wanted to know what happened. After I’d finished giving my account of the ‘fight’, Beth sat immobile at the end of my bed, cross-legged. ‘You’ve told me a lot about Alice, Sam, over the past few weeks. You’re obviously deeply in love and you’re so happy together. You two are the talk of both schools. So many boys envy you, I’m surprised there’s not a contract out on you. But why, how, did she do that today? That’s not normal. That’s scary.’

I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know. Instead, I asked Beth to do me a favour.

‘Please try to minimise the rumours. Say everyone exaggerated what happened. Say you know because I’m her boyfriend and I was there.’ I told her the story I’d told Mrs Kline to spread and ended with, ‘Whatever, just try to play it down.’

Beth agreed. ‘I’ll try but there’s something you’re not telling me, Sam. What is it?’

I couldn’t hold it in. I had to tell someone. ‘Alice is different, Beth. I don’t understand it but she’s not like you and me and other kids. And she said something today that suggested she’s had terrible things happen to her. I don’t want to explain it.

‘And I saw that she can be terrifyingly violent. Other people are now frightened of her, too.’ I said what happened with the phones.

Beth leaned back against the bedhead. ‘You’re still not telling me. What terrible things?’

I couldn’t help it. I recounted what she said to Miss Taylor.

‘Oh my god. She couldn’t have really said that. But that suggests she’s been raped. And she was prepared to say it publicly?’

What was I to reply?

‘Did you ask her about it?’

‘How could I? It’s not something you can easily drop into a conversation.’

Beth picked a bit of fluff off my duvet before she said, ‘And how can she talk to a teacher like that?’

‘As I said, Alice is different.’

‘Sam, are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?’ Beth said.

I didn’t. I had no idea. If I’d known what was going to happen to Beth, Ben and Mum, I wouldn’t have walked away from Alice, I would’ve sprinted.

Mum called us for dinner. Seeing the looks on our faces, she was concerned. We passed it off as having too much homework to do. I didn’t like lying to Mum but I didn’t know how I could talk to her about Alice. What could I say about someone I didn’t understand?

5 Father

‘Why do you call him “father” instead of “dad” or “daddy” or “pa” or something? It seems so formal.’ We were heading towards registration one morning.

‘It’s his nickname,’ Alice said.

‘Nickname?’

‘Yes. He’s not my parent.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. He’s not my biological father. Both my parents were killed when I was ten. Father just looks after me. Look, even the men that drop me off and pick me up call him Father.’

‘You never told me you were an orphan.’

‘It’s safety. Make sure you never tell anyone else.’

I didn’t keep my promise. I couldn’t help it. That night I asked my mother what it must be like to be an orphan. She said she didn’t know but then went on to question me about Alice. I didn’t mind saying some of what I knew — mothers need some information to keep them happy — but I hid details, the few that I knew.

On the day of the dress rehearsal I got real shock. Alice took me aside.

‘Sam, I’m nervous.’

‘About the performance? Don’t fret. You’ll be fine, no fantastic,’ I said.

‘I’m not concerned about the actual performance. I’m worried about the makeup. I’ve never worn any before. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.’

I stared at her. Unlike most other girls at school, she never wore foundation. I assumed it was because she had a naturally gorgeous complexion, one that others would sell their souls for. Even those few that didn’t turn themselves various shades of orange often wore eye-shadow, mascara or drew on their eyebrows and painted their nails.

‘Never?’ I said.

‘No. Why? Do you think I should wear some? Are you saying I should’ve been putting makeup on each day?’

‘Of course not. But haven’t you ever at least tried it, for fun or something?’

‘My home life’s been dominated by older males since my parents died. They see me as a little girl. You don’t. Do you think I should be wearing some? Tell me. I want to know.’

‘No way. You’re too beautiful as you are. Other girls do, but you don’t need to. They wear it because they feel insecure. They think that if they don’t plaster themselves with makeup society will think they’re ugly. It’s sad really.’ Had I done enough?

‘Other girls don’t count. I don’t care what people think — except for you, of course. But you like me the way I am, don’t you?’

‘Absolutely. You’re gorgeous.’

‘You’re biased.’

‘No. I’m an objective observer looking at the most beautiful girl on the planet.’ That was what I thought. It wasn’t flattery or hyperbole.

‘Stop exaggerating, Sam. Do I need to wear makeup or not? I want to know.’

Honestly, I didn’t think so. She was gorgeous. However, I also knew that stage makeup was a different thing: you needed to wear it because of the lights. I told Alice she had to submit to the process like everyone else but it wasn’t something to worry about.

‘Will you stay with me while it’s done?’

‘It doesn’t hurt or anything.’

‘Will you?’

I agreed, of course.

The teacher doing the makeup was equally surprised when Alice told her about her inexperience. ‘Someone your age who’s never worn makeup — that’s a first on me. But it’s all right. I’ll explain what I’m doing as I go along. Don’t worry, dear. Does Sam really need to stay?’

‘Yes.’ The word (Is it an interjection, an adverb or a noun?) was said in such a way that it was not only an answer to the question but an indication that Alice was the person with power. It was nearly a threat.

When you first sign up, the dates for the show seem like years away. Suddenly, they’ve arrived and you’re on the stage, and off it, and everything is happening. I didn’t mind Drama but being the principal male terrified me. Alice was a natural. She could be in the West End.

The play had been written by one of the teachers who fancied himself as the next Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Actually, it wasn’t bad. It was a love story set to rock music.

Alice died slowly in my arms in the last scene. The director, seeing as there were only two people on the stage at the end, decided to film us and project us live on huge screens. One of my eyes would be over half a metre across. I thought my face was ugly enough as it was — at twenty times the size it might give people heart attacks. I comforted myself by thinking that Alice, so beautiful and so perfect, would be magnified in all her glory.

It was the morning of the final performance. I was still worrying about remembering my lines. The previous nights had gone brilliantly, I thought, but Mum, Beth and Ben were coming to the last show and I wanted to impress them.

‘Sam, your mother’s been trying to find out about me. She’s been searching on the internet.’ Alice’s voice was low. We were sitting in tutorial.

‘What?’

‘She’s been making enquiries. You must persuade her to stop. It’s safety.’

There was that phrase again. ‘You’re paranoid. How can Mum affect your safety?’

‘I’m not talking about my safety. I know my number will come up soon. It’ll probably be a bullet, but it might be a grenade, or poison, or anything. I don’t know, do I?’

I looked at her in astonishment. ‘What’re you talking about?’

‘A lot of people want me dead. That’s the reality. They’re searching for me now. When they find me, they’ll try to kill me. One of them will probably eventually succeed.’

‘You’re not joking, Alice?’

‘No. I’m being perfectly serious. It’s extremely unlikely I’ll reach twenty-five, let alone fifty. Back to what I was saying, your mother searching for me connects you and her with me. An association brings danger.’ She stopped and looked me in the eye. ‘You don’t understand, do you? I’m going to die soon. I don’t see how I can avoid it. People want to kill me. And, and this is the bad bit you need to consider: How do really hurt someone?’

I shrugged.

‘By hurting the ones they love. How does an enemy hurt me? By hurting you. How do they hurt you? By hurting your family. I know I’m going to die but I’ve tried to protect you. But you’ve got to help me. There must be no connection between us.’

‘Alice, that’s not possible. You and I are linked in a way that can’t be broken.’

‘Don’t say that, Sam. Please don’t say that. Please say you could walk away now and forget all about me. Please.’

‘I can’t, Alice. I’d be lying if I said that. And we said we’d never lie to each other.’

She started to cry. ‘I’ve been lying to Father and to myself about us. And I’ve been deceiving you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve been selfish. I should’ve kept away from you, but I was so lonely. You’re the only friend I’ve had since my parents died. In fact, the only real one I’ve ever had. I was so desperate, I couldn’t help myself.’ She clung to me and sobbed. ‘I’m sorry, Sam. I love you so much. I wish you’d never seen my face.’

The rest of the class was staring. Mr Turner walked in, looked at Alice, flushed with embarrassment and said, ‘Must be overwhelmed by the production. Why don’t you take her to get a drink of water, Sam?’

Drinks of water are seen as panaceas by teachers: everything from sprained ankles, broken relationships, family bereavement and a small cut are solved by them.

When she’d stopped crying, I tried to talk to Alice about who wanted to kill her.

‘I don’t want to talk about it. Today’s the final performance and I want to enjoy it. Did you know that it’s sold out?’ There was no way I could get her to say any more about it.

That night, as I held her when she pretended to die in the last scene, I thought about what she’d said that morning. She genuinely thought she was going to be dead and soon. And I couldn’t help it; I cried real tears and wept with real grief. How could I lose her?

My whole body shook with sorrow and rage. Who could want to destroy something so beautiful?

On the enormous screens torrents of tears splashed onto her face smudging her makeup. I lowered her to the floor, picked up the gun, gave a cry of anguish, pulled the trigger and collapsed. The lights went out.

And then nothing. Nobody clapped. How could an audience be silent at the end of a performance? Surely one of the parents would clap out of politeness.

Then I understood — the audience weren’t applauding because they were weeping, every one of them. The rest of the cast gathered around us as we stood up to take a bow. The lights came up and the audience recovered. They didn’t applaud politely: they rioted.

When we got offstage, Alice grabbed me, violently, by the lapels and pulled my face close to hers. In a savage whisper she said, ‘Sam, don’t you ever weep for me like that. I’m not worth it.’ She threw me against the scenery, turned and ran away before I could answer. I didn’t see her again before she left. She avoided me.

Mum, Beth and Ben met me after the show.

‘I didn’t know you could sing, Sam. You were amazing. That last scene, it was so realistic. Your acting. You were crying real tears. I was so proud.’ Mum beamed with pride and wanted to show me off to everyone, including Mrs Kliner. I tried to keep them apart. The principal hadn’t forgiven me for what Alice did.

Ben gave me a huge hug. Beth, however, looked troubled. She faked a smile and congratulations and then went back to brooding.

‘So that’s Alice, is it?’ My mother was typical of parents: stating the obvious. She was trying and I appreciated it. ‘She’s very pretty.’

‘I know.’ What else could I say?

‘It’s a pity she didn’t wait around. I would’ve liked to meet her, got to know her.’

That prompted memories of the morning’s conversation. ‘Mum, don’t try to find out about her.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘She told me you’ve been searching for details about her on the internet. Please don’t. It’s a safeguarding issue. You’ll endanger her if you keep it up.’ I knew it was an atmosphere killer but it had to be said.

‘What do you mean? How could someone trying — ’

‘Don’t ask. I can’t explain because I don’t know. Please just leave her be.’

The Drama teacher came over to congratulate Mum. So many people came to praise me it was embarrassing, but it was also enjoyable. I wished Alice was beside me so we could jointly bask in the acclaim.

On the way home in the car, Beth and I sat in the back seat.

‘Sam, you weren’t acting at the end. Those were real tears.’

‘I know.’

‘Has Alice dumped you? She ran away at the end,’ Beth said.

‘No. I was thinking about a conversation we had this morning.’

‘What are you two talking about?’ Mum said.

‘How tired I’m feeling now, that’s all,’ I said.

‘Well you don’t have to be at school tomorrow until ten so you can sleep in. You deserve it.’ Mum was happy. I’d made her proud and I was pleased about that.

6 We’d crossed the line

The morning after a show is always a bit of a low spot but I wasn’t prepared for the haggard, unhappy, haunted look on Alice’s face.

‘Father saw the performance last night. He thought we were wonderful. He rarely ventures out to something like that. It’s safety.’ She turned to me and said as though she was a doctor pronouncing I had a terminal illness, ‘But he also said that we’d crossed the line. It’s too late. I’m so sorry, Sam.’

‘Too late for what?’

‘To keep you out of it and so to keep you safe. We stayed up all night making a plan. He’ll do what he can but I’m so sorry, Sam, I have endangered you and your family.’

‘What? How?’

‘I can’t explain. It would only increase the risk. But when the time comes, we’ll have to go — together. Father and the others will try to look after your family. Don’t ask. Just accept. Trust me.’ She stuffed a motorbike helmet into her locker. I saw there was already one in there. Did she collect them? What did she need even one for?

I wanted to ask her about the helmets. I wanted to ask what she meant about us going. I wanted to know why she was apologising.

‘Sam, I can’t explain without endangering you more.’

‘Should I call the police? Somebody’s life can’t be in danger without involving the police.’

‘Don’t do that. It won’t help. It would only make things worse.’

‘Then what should I do?’

She put a finger on my lips and said, ‘Don’t ask. Just accept.’

Why had she left out ‘Trust me.’?

She added, ‘Live each day as though it’s your last. In fear and regret don’t let it pass.’

I also wanted to know why she didn’t use a perfect rhyme instead of ‘last’ and ‘pass’.

Every time I asked questions, Alice would refuse to answer saying that it was safer if I didn’t know anything more. It was frustrating and perplexing.

Disaster struck three days after the musical. I was in my room playing a game — I’d told Mum I was doing my homework — when the phone Alice gave me rang.

‘Hi there, beautiful,’ I said.

‘Sam, I need to speak to your mother. Now. Take the phone to her.’

I ran downstairs to the kitchen where Mum was doing some ironing.

‘Mum, Alice wants to talk to you. She sounds upset.’ I handed the phone over.

‘Hello, Alice. What can I do for you?’ Mum listened for a couple of minutes before saying, ‘Surely you’re joking.’ Another pause. ‘I didn’t mean any harm.’ Pause. ‘There’s no need to threaten me. I’ll take it down.’ She listened again before looking at the phone. ‘She’s hung up. How rude is that?’

‘What did she want?’

‘Me to take down a message I’d posted.’

‘What was it?’ I said.

‘A picture of you two I secretly took during the musical. I’d put a caption on it: “Can you tell me anything about my son’s girlfriend. Her name’s Alice Clifford.”’

I swore, something I rarely did and never in front of Mum.

‘Don’t you dare swear, Samuel.’

‘Mum, you don’t know what you’ve done.’

‘That’s what she said. She went on about it endangering our lives and hers, that I could expect to be shot if I didn’t remove it immediately. And then she said if her father found out he’d be angry and send someone around to make me take it down. I took exception to being threatened like that.’

‘Her father’s very strict.’

‘But to threaten me. If it upsets her that much I’ll delete it but — ’

‘Mum, her family are very particular about security.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. She’s the only one of them I’ve ever met and she won’t speak about the rest.’

‘Sam, I don’t want you going out with someone like that.’

‘We don’t go out. She’s not allowed to see anyone outside school. In fact, she never goes outside, you know, in the open, except to get to the car. And I’m only allowed to talk to her on that phone.’

‘She never goes outside?’

‘No. She says it’s safety.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know.’

Mum looked at the mobile in her hand. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘Alice gave it to me. I’m not allowed to call her from any other phone. She says that one’s untraceable. There’s supposed to be no link between our family and her. I told you not to search for information about her. Now please delete the message.’

‘Oh, all right.’ She picked up her phone and deleted the post. ‘Happy now?’

‘Thank you.’

‘By the way, how did she know I’d been searching for information about her and how did she know I’d posted the message?’

‘I don’t know. Her family are fanatical about security. They somehow monitor the internet for any traffic about them.’

‘Sam, I don’t want you seeing Alice anymore.’

‘We’re in all the same classes. I can’t avoid it.’

‘Well, you at least don’t have to spend your free time with her.’

Beth entered. ‘What’s up, family?’

‘I posted a picture of Alice on social media and she’s got very upset about it.’

‘You know that’s illegal, publishing a picture without permission. It’s a breach of GDPR.’

‘That’s enough from you, young lady. I’m not going to be lectured to by my daughter.’

‘Sam, could you come and help me with my homework? I’m stuck on some maths.’

Once we were in her room, Beth wanted to know all about it.

‘You told Mum the other day not to search for information about her. Sam, do you have any idea why Alice doesn’t want to be found?’

I repeated what I’d told Mum. I’d never got round to telling Beth about what Alice said on the morning of the last performance, about people wanting to kill her. I suppose that I didn’t want to believe it was true, that I’d made it up, that I’d imagined it.

‘Alice is a very unusual person,’ Beth said. ‘There seems to be something not quite right. I have a terrible feeling you’re going to regret ever meeting her.’

Was it because of Mum’s actions? I don’t know but it wasn’t long before Beth’s intuition was confirmed. I wish she’d been wrong.

7 Leaving Together

It was a Tuesday morning. Mr Turner was wittering on about families and how they’re important. (Ironic considering what happened.) Tutorial is such a waste of time.

A phone rang. It was near me.

Alice reached down to her bag. And then, to everyone’s surprise, she didn’t try to covertly turn the sound off. She answered it.

‘Father?’ She listened. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Alice Clifford,’ Mr Turner said.

‘Be quiet,’ she said. ‘This is important.’ She listened again. The class sat enthralled. ‘Sam’s mother and brother? Dead?’ She was silent again.

She hung up and turned to me. ‘They’ve found us, Sam. We’ve got to go.’

She stood up. When I didn’t react she said, ‘We have to leave. Now!’

I stood up. People did what Alice told them to do.

‘Look here. You’re going nowhere. And a phone out in class? I’ll confiscate that, thank you,’ Mr Turner said. He moved to block the door.

‘Get out of the way. Move or I’ll hurt you.’

‘Don’t threaten me like that. Who do you think you are?’

She pressed her face close to his and whispered so that the rest of the class couldn’t hear, ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Mr Turner, do you want men with guns in the school? If you keep us here, that’s what’ll happen. Trust me. I advise you to get out of my way and forget everything you know about me.’

I added, ‘We’re simply going to the toilet. Alice is feeling ill and I have to accompany her.’ You don’t have to tell me that a boy going to the toilets with a girl doesn’t work — I was feeling confused and under pressure.

Reluctantly, not believing what he was witnessing, he stepped aside.

‘What did you mean about telling him who you are?’ I said.

‘Sasha Felton. Does the name ring a bell?’

It did. The name Felton was infamous: gang warfare had broken out in Manchester about four years before. My mother had followed the news story closely. I was ten at the time. Alice must have been about the same age. Was that how her parents were killed? I tried to recall the details. However, I didn’t make the obvious connection straight away.

We sprinted along the corridor. At her locker she stopped.

‘Alice, what are we doing? What’s this about Mum and Ben?’

She turned to face me and drew a deep breath before saying, ‘I’m sorry but your mother and brother have been killed. Someone shot them at the gates of the primary school. Father has sent someone to try to save Beth before they get to her. We’ve got to go. They’ll be here for us soon.’

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

Alice handed me a motorbike helmet, the one I’d wanted to ask questions about before, and took another out for herself.

‘Can you ride a motorbike?’ she said.

I shook my head. How many fourteen-year olds could?

She opened her bag and extracted a gun. She held it in front of me in her right hand. ‘Do you know how to use one of these?’

Of course I didn’t. She made a movement with her left hand. There was a click. ‘It’s loaded and cocked. This is the safety catch. Click it like this,’ she showed me, ‘and the weapon is ready to fire. Understand?’

I nodded. I didn’t know what else to do. What was happening?

‘Good. Put it in your blazer pocket.’ She handed it to me and I obeyed.

I followed her at a run down the stairs and out into the car park. She led me to a motorbike that was always parked in the same place. Like everyone else, I hadn’t really noticed that it never moved. I copied her as she put on her helmet.

‘If anyone in a car or on a bike pulls up beside us at the lights, point your gun at them. If they don’t flinch or shy away, shoot them. Have you got that? Don’t think about it. Do it.’

Again I nodded. I’d understood it in theory. I couldn’t imagine it in practice.

‘He’ll probably be the one who shot your mother and Ben. Remember that when you hesitate. Climb on behind me.’ She kicked the bike into life, tapped the gear lever down with her foot and let the clutch out smoothly. I clung onto her waist. I’d never been on a motorbike before and there I was sitting behind Alice, carrying a loaded gun, escaping from I knew not what, knowing my mom and brother were dead.

As we left the car park, a fat, black car turned in ahead of us, its tyres screeching. I learned later that the men had gone to reception and demanded to see Alice and me. The receptionist had told them she’d seen us leaving a couple of minutes before, carrying motorbike helmets. So much for safeguarding. To be fair, they did point a gun at her.

Out on the main road, Alice didn’t speed. She didn’t want to attract attention.

Ten minutes from the school a red light stopped us.

‘Get ready, Sam. They’re coming.’

The black car pulled up right beside us. Everything went into slow motion. I pulled out the gun. I pointed it. The man smiled. His electric window began to lower. He reached for something in his jacket. Still I didn’t fire.

‘Shoot, Sam!’ Alice screamed.

I pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. I’d forgotten the safety catch.

The man had a gun in his hand. He was raising it.

I flicked the safety catch off with my thumb. I pulled the trigger again. The half-opened window exploded.

The recoil nearly made me drop the gun. The man momentarily turned away from the shattering glass but he was still raising his weapon. He hadn’t been badly hurt. I’d missed.

I fired again. His left hand clutched his stomach. His right hand dropped the gun.

I pulled the trigger a third time, not exactly sure where I was aiming in the car. (Alice later explained why ‘pulling the trigger’ was exactly the wrong thing to do. You have to be gentle and smooth, not sudden, and squeeze it. ‘Stroke it with your finger as though you are caressing it,’ she said.)

The lights changed. Alice shot away.

‘Hang on!’ she shouted.

That was easier said than done. I still had the gun in my hand.

She slowed down after a hundred metres and proceeded at about twenty miles an hour until she could turn left off the main road. Two more turns and she stopped.

‘Are you sure the safety catch is on?’

I checked and nodded.

‘Put it away,’ she ordered. ‘Are you okay?’

I nodded again. I was trembling. ‘Aren’t you worried about them following us?’

‘Didn’t you look back? The car didn’t move when the lights changed. I looked in the rear-view mirror. Your first shot missed the passenger but it must have hit the driver.’

‘When you saw them beside us, why didn’t you just go through the red light?’ I couldn’t stop shaking.

‘They’d chase us. You wouldn’t get a better opportunity. It was then or never. They were sitting targets; you couldn’t hit a moving one. Try to stop trembling. It looks suspicious. We’ve got to get going. The police will be swarming the area soon.’ She reached into a pannier and took out two jackets, one pink and one red. ‘Put this on. They’ll be looking for two people on a motorbike wearing black. Someone might even have recognised our school uniforms or noticed my tartan skirt. Nobody would think we’d try to disguise ourselves with bright pink and red.’

It was difficult doing the jacket up because my hands were shaking. Alice zipped hers up, took a pair of weatherproof trousers and pulled them on over her skirt.

Extracting number plates from the pannier, she slid them into grooves so that they covered the existing ones. Even if somebody had noticed our registration, the police wouldn’t be able to find us.

We set off again. Crossing the A38, we continued on the A386 heading towards Tavistock. The bike was chosen to be easily manoeuvred by a fourteen-year-old, not faster than the latest sports car, and it wasn’t really made for two, so the journey was slow. At Yelverton we turned right and headed onto Dartmoor. I lost track of where we went with all the twists and turns but we ended up at an entrance that had a locked gate and trees blocking the view of anything beyond it.

Alice got off, punched numbers on the combination lock and told me to wheel the bike through while she held the gate open. She locked it behind us. A rough, curved track lasted for about fifty metres. We pulled up in front of a small, pre-fabricated house.

‘I’m hot, Sam. Wait here while I change.’ She entered a bedroom. When she reappeared, her pink coat, weather-proof trousers, blazer, blouse and skirt had been replaced by jeans and a hoodie (I glimpsed a dark-green t-shirt underneath). Her school shoes had been swapped for white trainers. She handed me a t-shirt and a hoodie. ‘Get rid of the shirt, tie and blazer. Your shoes are black trainers so they’ll do. We can’t do much about your trousers.’

She went outside (the reception being bad inside) and tried to contact Father. I went into the bedroom and got changed.

8 Beth

Her face was grim on her return. She took a deep breath and breathed out through her nostrils. ‘It’s more bad news, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Sam, but Beth was killed as part of a kidnapping attempt. The Company tried to snatch her. She was shot three times and so she wouldn’t have felt much pain. I know that’s not much compensation but it’s all I’ve got. Richard tried to save her but he couldn’t.’

I didn’t know what to say: Mum, Ben, and Beth. All gone. I was alone in the world. Dad had died in a car accident when Ben was two. Mum and Dad had been separated for twelve months by then. We didn’t have anything to do with his parents after that.

Mum’s parents both died when I was about ten. Mum was really broken up by their passing away, and only a month apart. We used to see them at least once a week, sometimes three or four times.

Nan and I were close in a way that’s hard to explain. Did I get over her death quickly? I don’t think I’m over it now. I missed her so much. I suppose one of the things Alice did was help me forget her.

Now I have so much more to grieve and feel sorry about.

‘Are you okay, Sam?’

The voice came to me across a void. You’d expect I was overcome by grief. I wasn’t — not then. There was this gaping vacuum in my soul. It wasn’t pain. It was nothingness.

‘I’ll be okay,’ I said. I had to get my mind off myself and onto something that mattered more: Alice and keeping her safe.

Noticing she was crying, I went and put my arm around her shoulders. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’m sorry, Sam. This is all my fault.’

‘No, it isn’t. How could it be?’

‘You don’t understand. If I’d stayed away from you, this would never have happened. Your family are dead because of me.’

I guided her to the sofa. ‘Alice, who are those people and why did they kill my family?’

‘To punish Father and me.’ She mopped her eyes with a tissue and took a few deep, slow breaths. She was back in control. ‘I’ll try to explain. First, let me get something to eat and drink. You’re going to be in shock soon and you need the liquid and the calories.’

She ratted around in a cupboard and found a couple of cartons of fruit juice, some breakfast bars and some chocolate.

‘It’s not real food, but the sugar will do you good. Eat.’

Trying to hold the drink, I noticed not just my hand, but my whole body was trembling.

‘I suppose you’ve guessed: our family’s involved in organised crime.’

It had never occurred to me. ‘The Mafia?’

‘Like the Mafia, but based in Manchester. My parents, Father and a few others wanted out. They were sick of the violence, the fear, the death and what it was doing to me. They wanted to go straight. Mum was clever. She knew how to make money legitimately. She was a computer genius.

‘The Company, that’s its name, didn’t want to lose us. Mum and Dad and a few others were killed. Father took me and four others and escaped. We’ve been running and hiding since.

‘Somehow The Company’s found us again. I’m sorry I involved you, Sam. I truly am.’ She lapsed into silence and then started to cry again. ‘I’ve loaded my misery onto you. Your family, your whole family, is dead because of me.’

‘Live each day as though it’s your last. In fear and regret don’t let it pass,’ I said as I held her close. I didn’t allow myself to think about what had happened.

Eventually, I let her go. ‘Alice, won’t the police be after us? Won’t they have pictures all over the media?’

‘There were never any photos of me at the school. Father said it was a safeguarding issue and there were to be no images of me. That’s why the publicity for the musical was a bit strange.’

A conversation I’d overheard between members of staff suddenly made sense. They had been irate.

‘I deleted pictures of you from the school system a couple of days ago,’ Alice said. ‘Mr Turner was never careful with his computer. He was still logged on when he went for a coffee on Monday. Deleting your photo from the register database took a bit, but I’m good with computers, like my mum was.’

‘You’ve deleted all the pictures of me?’

‘Getting rid of every other image that you might’ve appeared in took longer. I had to insert a Trojan that was linked to facial recognition software. All the shots from the musical had to go. The network manager nearly had a heart attack when he realised that something was deleting files.’

‘So, there are no photos of me?’

‘Not at the school and as soon Father heard about Beth, he sent Frank around to your place. He destroyed all the computers and the family portraits on the wall. There are no images of you now.

‘I set up a program a month ago to start tracking down and deleting all your online activity.’

‘Is that why Harvey was moaning at me the other day?’

‘Probably, when I went out to call Father, I triggered another app to delete all your social media accounts.’

‘But how could you do that? You don’t even know my password.’

‘I didn’t even have to use a password cracker. I watched you change your school one to “ILoveAlice”. It’s very romantic, Sam, but not very secure. And you use the same password for everything.’

Who didn’t? How could you remember them all otherwise?

‘There are no images of you now. Also, people won’t connect us with the shooting at the lights. After all, who’d think it was two kids carrying a gun and riding a motorbike? At school the bike was parked outside the view of the CCTV camera. They’ll think we walked out.’

‘Alice, how long have you had a gun in your bag?’

‘Since the day I started. I always carry one.’ She got up. ‘That reminds me: you’ve got mine so I need another.’

She walked to the centre of the room and pulled the rug to one side. Underneath were floorboards which moved, as a whole, when she shifted a catch. Beneath them was a trapdoor about a metre square with a keypad in its centre. Alice typed in a number. There was a whirring sound and the trapdoor opened to reveal a ladder.

We descended into a basement that contained an arsenal. There were different types of pistols, shotguns, rifles, machine guns and even grenades. You could start a war with that lot. Alice picked out a handgun the same as the one she’d given me. She also collected a silencer (she called it a suppressor), a packet of bullets, two laser sights, a wad of twenty-pound notes and boxes of disposable gloves that were nearly the colour of skin. She handed a pair to me. ‘Whenever possible, wear inconspicuous gloves. They stop fingerprints.’

We climbed back up into the house.

Holding the gun in front of me she said, ‘This is a Glock 26, the same as what you’ve got. Where’s your pistol?’

I’d left it in my blazer pocket. Scrambling around, I found it and held it out to her.

‘Never, ever let you and your weapon get separated again. Put it in your hoodie pocket. From now on it goes wherever you go. You dress in such a way that you can always carry it. You behave in way that doesn’t reveal you’ve got it. Generally, that means you keep your hands in your pockets.’ The tears and grief were gone. Alice was in action mode.

‘As I said, this is a Glock 26. It takes ten nine-millimetre cartridges.’ She flicked out the magazine and showed me. ‘This is how you insert the bullets. This is how you cock it. You know how to turn the safety catch off.’ She took a silencer and fitted it to her gun before handing me one. ‘Do what I did. Remember, the word “silencer” is wrong. You still make a noise. But it isn’t as easily identifiable as a gunshot. Also, you lose accuracy when you fit one. That isn’t going to make much difference to you if you can’t hit a person a metre away. How did you miss?’

I shrugged. ‘I guess I was nervous.’ I could have been offended by her criticism and question, but I’d learnt that Alice never meant to insult you when she said things like that. You knew if she wanted to upset you.

‘Remember this is a pistol, not a rifle. Don’t treat it like one.’

I had no idea what she meant. They were all guns to me.

‘Also, this isn’t a forty-four magnum, or anything of the sort. It is a compact gun but it still has good stopping power. A stomach wound and your opponent is probably incapacitated. A chest wound and they’re probably dead. Don’t aim for the head: heads move too quickly and erratically.

‘This is a laser sight. You fit it like this.’ She attached hers and watched me clumsily fit mine. ‘Turn it on and you release the red-dot-of-death. Fire whilst the spot is on your target and at close range you’ll hit. If ever you notice a dot on you, dive. Forget everything else. You might beat the bullet. Don’t freeze and wonder. Move.’

I had seen guns like this in films. I had never imagined I would hold one.

Alice led us outside. ‘Keep your gun in your pocket wherever you can. Aerial photography, even satellites, can pick them out if you’re in the open.’ We walked to the shade of a tree. ‘Try to shoot that tree over there.’

I switched on the laser sight, aimed at the tree twenty metres away and fired.

‘Squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it. Spread your legs apart. Hold the gun with both hands whenever you can. I use one but that’s because I know what I’m doing.’

The next time I fired, I hit. Success. It felt good. How many people do you know can hit a tree with a real gun?

Alice then pointed out different trees to aim for.

After gaining reasonable proficiency with the laser sight, Alice told me to turn it off. ‘Often you won’t have time or be able to use the red dot. Point the gun like you’re pointing your finger at a target. Hold your breath while you’re actually firing. It removes that little bit of movement. Breathe straight away afterwards. Deep breaths.’

She demonstrated by shooting a pine cone thirty metres away. I couldn’t hit one at a third of the distance even though, over the next few minutes, I took another fifty shots.

‘You’ve done well, Sam. We need to go in. I don’t want anyone to notice the noise. At least I know you’re partly prepared for the future.’ She picked up the spent cartridge cases. These she deposited in the cellar a couple of minutes later: ‘We don’t want to leave any evidence of firearms lying around.’ She then closed it all up again and replaced the rug.

‘Let your gun cool for a minute before you put it in your pocket unless it has to be hidden immediately. Is the safety-catch on? Always double check the safety-catch.

‘Remember, if you’re using a shotgun, make sure you pull it back hard into your shoulder. Otherwise, the kick will give you a bruised shoulder. It’s particularly bad if it’s an automatic shotgun.’ It was like she was reciting facts she had been told to learn for a test.

‘Alice, stop for a minute. You’ve lost me a bit. I know about some of the things you’ve mentioned because of computer games but I’m out of my depth.’

‘Whatever you do, don’t follow what they do in games. They’re so unrealistic. Let me give you an example — ’

‘No. It’s all right, Alice. I believe you. But how come there are all those guns in there?’ I pointed at the floor.

‘Organised crime needs weapons. You have to be able to threaten and kill people, including those who have weapons as well.’

‘But why so many?’

‘Any punk can get a knife. To control him you need a pistol. If someone has a pistol, you need a pistol and a rifle. If they have a rifle, you need a pistol, a rifle and a machine gun. It’s an arms race. This is just one of the stores my parents set up before they were killed. I’m the only one that knows where this one, and two others, are. Even Father doesn’t know.’

‘So he doesn’t know about the secret cellar?’

‘No. But he thinks that he has an idea where the two in Manchester are. He has his own stash. That’s where your gun came from. By the way, don’t mention I’ve given the weapon to you. Okay?’

I shrugged. How could I object?

‘I want you kept out of everything as much as possible. So, I shot the two in the car. All right?’

I couldn’t see why that was what she wanted, but I also couldn’t see an objection.

‘Try to remain as inconspicuous as you can. In my culture, boys your age are nearly as inconsequential as girls.’

I was puzzled because Alice seemed to have some sort of power.

Picking up our uniforms and bags, she took them outside to a large drum with holes in it and dumped them in. She poured some diesel over them from a tin that was sitting nearby. She lit the fuel. There was little left in five minutes. Much of my identity went up in flames.

‘When Father comes, don’t say anything. I’ll do all the talking.’ It was an order I hadn’t expected.

An hour later a car pulled up and an olive-skinned man in his thirties stepped out. Alice went out to greet him. ‘Father, it’s happening again. What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know, Sasha.’

The penny dropped. The girl I knew wasn’t Alice Clifford; she was Sasha Felton. I felt stupid because I hadn’t made the connection before.

Seeing me he said, ‘You must be Sam. I’m sorry about your mother, sister and brother. I wish your family hadn’t become involved. Sasha made a real mistake there.’

He turned to Alice. ‘Make me a cup of coffee. I want to call the others.’ He walked back to his car.

Alice and I went inside. As she made the drink, I stood beside her. ‘I should call you Sasha, shouldn’t I, because that’s your name?’

‘No. Please don’t, Sam. I’m your Alice. I want to be Alice to you. Do you understand?’ Unlike the way she normally behaved, she pleaded with me instead of commanding me. I didn’t understand but I agreed.

She took the mug out to Father.

Ten minutes later he returned and sat in the armchair facing the sofa we were perched on.

‘What do you think we should do?’ Alice said.

‘They’ve thrown caution to the wind with this one. Two shootings outside a school in broad daylight, a kidnap attempt and then going to your school — those are all incredibly risky. They were trying to make a point.’

‘They want me at all costs, don’t they?’ Alice said.

‘That’s about it. They’re prepared to take huge risks to eliminate you. I don’t know why they’ve put the pressure on now. And somehow they’ve found you again.’

I couldn’t help but wonder if my mother was to blame. Why had she posted that photo?

‘So where do we go from here?’ Alice said.

‘We’ve tried running and hiding in Europe. We could try Australia or South Africa. But it’s your call.’

Why was Alice being asked to decide?

‘They keep finding us. We can’t run forever. I think the only thing to do is go on the offensive. I know we wanted to escape it all and my parents were killed because of that, but I don’t see any alternative.’ She paused before saying in a low voice, ‘We’re going to eliminate them.’

‘Are you sure that’s what you want to do?’ Father said. ‘I’m not sure the others will agree to take the risk.’

‘What other choice have we got? At least we won’t just be running and hiding like hunted animals.’

I couldn’t help myself. ‘Does eliminate mean kill?’

‘That, or put them permanently out of action,’ Alice said, elbowing me in the stomach and giving me a look which shouted ‘Shut up!’.

‘How many of them are there?’ Alice said.

‘Forty-one, now, to the five of us,’ Father said .

‘You haven’t counted me in that,’ Alice said.

‘I want you to hide, Sasha. You’re a little girl. They’re adults who have a lot of experience killing people.’

‘A couple of hours ago there were forty-three. I can do my bit.’ I recognised Alice’s determined voice.

Father thought for some time. ‘I have to look after you. Without you, I’ve got nothing.’

‘If The Company could find me today, they can find me again. I can’t go on hiding. I want to be part of the solution.’

‘All right, but you take no risks.’

He pointed at me. ‘What’re we going to do with him?’

‘He’s sticking with me,’ Alice said.

‘We could dump him near a town. He can look after himself. He’s a liability.’

‘No. I’ll look after him. He won’t be any trouble.’

I wanted to say, ‘They killed my mother, Beth and Ben. They want to kill Alice. If she dies, what do I have to live for? I want to join the fight, too.’ I stayed silent.

‘All right, if that’s your decision, I’ll accept it. I’ll contact the others and see what sort of incentive you need to offer for them to take the risk. Maybe double the monthly rate.’

‘No. The incentive is we can stop running and hiding. That’s enough.’

‘It should be double the money as well.’

‘No.’

‘I don’t agree but the others might find your deal acceptable. I’ll see. Whatever they decide, I’ll go along with.’

I had no idea what they were talking about.

‘I need to get out of here. Can you drive me to a railway station?’ Alice said.

‘I don’t want you to go back to Plymouth. It’s eleven o’clock. I can give you a lift to Exeter Railway Station. What do you plan on doing?’

‘I’ll get a train to Manchester. There’s a Premier Inn right near the station. It’s basic but it’s anonymous. That’s what we want at the moment. But I need another identity.’

‘Seeing as you’ve been using the name Alice, dig out the passport and bank cards for Alice Green. She’s eighteen.’

Alice moved a picture on the wall and revealed a safe. I could see Father knew about it because he didn’t look surprised. She took a passport, a credit card, a debit card and a thick wad of twenty-pound notes from it and put everything else back. How did she have money sitting about in piles?

She found a backpack in a cupboard and placed the cards in the purse it already contained. It also had pyjamas and toiletries in it. She went to another cupboard and took out a pair of men’s pyjamas. ‘These’ll have to do. They’ll be too big but you’ll survive.’ She found a toothbrush in its unopened packet and a pair of socks. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have spare boxer shorts here. I don’t have much call for them.’

We laughed, even though it was a bad joke. I think it was the tension.

‘If we get to Manchester before the shops close, we’ll buy you some there.’

On the way to Exeter, Alice and I sat in the back while Father drove. I noticed that he was wearing a Rolex watch and mentioned it to Alice.

‘It’s a replica. It came from a counterfeit factory The Company owns.’ She looked at me. ‘You do know what counterfeit goods are, don’t you?’

‘Aren’t they fake designer stuff? For example, you produce something that looks like a Gucci handbag with a Gucci logo on it and call it authentic.’

‘Exactly. It’s big business — I didn’t realise how enormous it is until I walked down Bury New Road in Manchester one Sunday morning. There were all these shops near the Arena with men standing outside. A group of people would approach a shop, the man would look around before unlocking the door, the people would enter and the door would be locked again.

‘Originally I thought it must be prostitution but then I saw women, as well as men, being let in and out of the shops. I thought of gambling but it didn’t make sense when the casino was just up the road. I couldn’t work it out so I asked my dad.’

‘And?’ Why did she have to pause in the middle of a story?

‘He said they were selling counterfeit goods. What’s more, The Company had a factory that produced many of the items sold in those shops. He took me to see it next day. It was hidden in the basement of a car dealer in the area. I remember the building because there was a big sign outside.’ She fiddled with her phone for a couple of minutes. ‘Look, here’s a picture of the place.’

‘What’re you two whispering about?’ Father said.

‘Nothing. I’m looking at where the hotel in Manchester is.’

I looked at Alice before whispering, ‘You told a complete lie. Is that how you treat me too?’

She looked me straight in the eye as she murmured, ‘In my world lies are the norm. However, I never lie to you, Sam. Remember that.’

9 To Manchester

We were eating lunch at St David’s Station in Exeter when it occurred to me: ‘Alice, if we know where the factory is, why don’t we get the police to raid it? It might get rid of some of The Company?’ I had been replaying conversations in my mind trying to get a grip on what had happened.

Alice wasn’t convinced and said we shouldn’t involve the police.

‘I don’t see why we can’t use the law,’ I said.

‘Maybe it’s not a problem for you, Sam, but I’m a criminal. You aren’t. The police want me in jail.’

‘Alice, I’ve shot two people. I imagine I’d also be of some interest to the authorities. But if we can get other people to eliminate The Company that’s got to be a good thing, hasn’t it?’

She wriggled. ‘It’s part of the code of conduct I sort of grew up with: you don’t involve the police. You look after your own.’

‘But they’re there to protect people — us.’

‘You don’t understand. The police are our enemies.’

‘No, they’re not.’ Why she was being so obstinate?

‘They are in my world. We look after our own. Once, when I was seven, a car was stolen from one of Mum’s friends. It was some local teenagers out for a thrill.’

‘So she called the police and claimed it on insurance, didn’t she?’ I said.

‘No. She didn’t. She sent a couple of blokes round to break their legs.’

Shocked as I was by the story, I couldn’t let The Company determine what Alice did. ‘Which do you think would’ve been better: two young men unable to walk comfortably for the rest of their lives, or involving the police?’

She sat and thought about it for a few minutes. ‘Sam, the police are our enemies.’

‘No, they’re not. They help and protect us. They’re the good guys. They fight crime.’

‘How could you be so stupid?’

Ignoring the insult I pointed out the clever parts of the plan: no risk and minimal time.

‘But we don’t ever involve the police. We look out for our own. It would be wrong.’

‘Telling the police where crimes are being committed is wrong? I don’t think so, Alice.’

‘But it’s the police.’

‘Exactly. We want to reduce the number of criminals — The Company in particular. The police want to do the same. We get them to help us. We’re helping them.’ She wasn’t convinced. ‘Do you want to eliminate The Company or not?’

Alice thought this over while she finished the last of her salad. ‘Whatever you do, don’t tell Father. He’s very funny about the police. I don’t think he’d understand.’

The next five minutes were spent on my phone. Using a fake email address, I sent the Manchester police the address of the counterfeit factory. I included a pseudonym (EliminateTheCompany) so that if I sent any further information it would be respected.

The train trip to Manchester was long. We didn’t talk much. I sank into misery about my family. I was so self-absorbed that I don’t know what Alice did. The shops were closed before we arrived so I couldn’t even buy clean underwear.

Booking into the hotel under the name of Green was straightforward after Alice showed her fake passport. We ate dinner at a nearby Chinese place before returning to our room.

‘Right,’ Alice said. ‘Sharing a room is slightly awkward but we’re going to have to get used to it. You sleep in the double bed. I’ll sleep in the single. We’re brother and sister as far as the hotel is concerned and that’s the way we should act. Okay?’

I could hardly disagree so I nodded.

‘I’m going to change into my pyjamas in the bathroom. In fact, I’m going to have a shower first, clean my teeth and get ready for bed. Then you’re free to do as you wish. I’m going to crawl into bed and watch TV. We’ll negotiate the lights when you’re out of the bathroom. Is that okay?’

Sometimes I wondered why she asked that question. Was it so she could pretend I had some say in things? It seemed to me that Alice didn’t give me choices: she made them for me.

The next morning we went to the Arndale Centre. To be perfectly honest, it’s my idea of hell: hundreds of shops and millions of people. I don’t enjoy crowds or shopping.

For both of us, Alice chose jeans, t-shirts, baseball caps and hoodies. I was sent off with fifty pounds to buy boxers and socks. She wanted to choose pants and bras alone. She mumbled that bras need to be fitted but I didn’t understand that. Don’t you just know your own size?

We also bought two top-of-the-line laptops. There wasn’t much change from four thousand pounds. Where was the money coming from? Alice’s card seemed to keep on giving. I was worried about the cost. How could we pay for things?

Alice kept pulling the brim of my baseball cap down. It annoyed me and so I kept pushing it back up.

‘Will you stop doing that, Sam? It’s meant to make it harder for CCTV cameras to get a good picture of you.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Should I put my hood up?’

‘No. People are suspicious of anyone like that. They take more notice of you.’

Returning to the hotel, we booked another five days. It could take time to find permanent accommodation.

‘Alice, those computers alone cost a fortune. Have we got enough money to live on? I don’t mean to be funny but I don’t have much in my account.’ After buying Beth’s birthday present, I had fifty pounds.

‘Don’t use your bank account. We don’t want anyone to know where you are.’

‘But what will we do for cash?’ My mother had never been skint but we didn’t take long train trips, stay in hotels or buy expensive computers. We couldn’t afford to. We’d spent more money that morning than our family would normally spend in two months.

‘We’ve got plenty of money, believe me. And it’s not the proceeds of crime. From the time my parents decided to leave, the day I was born, in fact, they worked to make us legitimately wealthy. My mother was a genius with computers. They quickly made a fortune and invested it intelligently. In fact, it’s still invested shrewdly.’

‘How?’ I was trying to understand.

‘Mostly in stocks and shares, some government bonds. And do you know what crypto-currency is?’

‘No. Should I?’

‘It’s like electronic money. It’s hard to explain but it works by people keeping track of transactions. They call that mining. You get paid to mine crypto-currencies. My parents set up a long-term program that uses fifty of the biggest computers in the world. We rent their processing power when it’s not needed, like on weekends and late at night. Do you know what I’m talking about?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said having no clue at all.

‘Well, mining currency is profitable if you have the computing power. My dad negotiated a deal, using smart software my mum wrote, that makes mining lucrative. The computer owners get paid for their processing power — the servers have to be running and so they may as well be doing something. The process generates huge amounts of funds even though nobody is doing anything. It’s called passive income, and it means that I’m very well off.’ She looked at me. ‘You didn’t understand any of that, did you?’ Don’t count on Alice not being patronising.

I scrambled for some self-respect. ‘But crypto-currencies aren’t real money, are they?’

‘I can exchange them for pounds or American dollars. Or, importantly, I can exchange them for a kilogram of heroin or even a car, and nobody can trace the transaction. They’re not only secure, more secure than a normal bank, but because all the transactions are completely anonymous and untraceable, I don’t pay tax.’

‘So your money is really crypto-currency?’

‘Only some of it. Dad put money into long term bonds, real estate and other such investments. I have a large chunk of shares in Google’s three-class system. Dad managed to get some Class B shares which are supposed to be reserved for –’

‘Stop. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ I didn’t even understand how tax worked. ‘But you have money that didn’t come from killing people or something similar, is that right?’

‘Yes. Though I bet a lot of people would be prepared to kill me to get hold of the money we’ve got if they knew how much it is.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. The underworld revolves around money. In the end, that’s the sole goal: get money. Ask anybody and they’ll tell you they’re simply trying to make some cash. But it’s actually not that easy to generate funds being a criminal unless you have a big organisation, and even then it’s not straight forward.’

‘But crime is supposed to pay. Surely that’s why people do it.’

‘It’s not that simple. Let me give you an example. If you do a robbery and steal a hundred thousand pounds of stuff, by the time you get rid of it you only get thirty thousand. If three of you did the job, that’s just ten grand each, and if it took a year from the time you started planning to the day you get the money, that’s less than the minimum wage. You’d be better off stacking shelves in Tesco.

‘Drugs pay more, but the risks are much higher.’

‘Because of the police taking them more seriously?’ I said.

‘Partly, but mostly because other criminals don’t want you making money they could be getting. It’s not a good business to be in: the life expectancy is too short and drugs ruin people’s lives. I’ve seen too many people who are slaves to heroin or cocaine. It’s worse than murder. I hate drugs. Don’t ever take them, Sam.’

‘I’m hardly likely to, am I?’

‘A lot of people do.’

‘I can promise that I won’t. Do any crimes pay more than drugs?’ I’ve always been naturally curious.

‘Arms dealing. You know, selling illegal weapons is probably the most lucrative, but that’s major league. However, certain types of fraud, such as getting people to give you all their savings, are quite reward-high but low-risk. And people trafficking –’

Alice’s phone rang. It was obviously Father.

‘No. Is that what happened? I wonder who tipped them off.’ She listened. ‘I know where it was. That’s a really big hole in their operation, isn’t it?’ The conversation continued.

She hung up and beamed at me. ‘You know how you tipped off the police about the factory? They raided it early this morning. Because the people tried to resist arrest, armed officers shot three of them, killing one. The Company is down to thirty-eight . Father was so surprised. He couldn’t believe it had happened. I didn’t tell him we were responsible. No risk to any of us and they’re three down.’

She bounced up and down on her bed, then went and sat on the sofa. She sprang up from that and went to the window. Like a bit of potassium in water, she shot all over the place. All the while she was going on about it. She was a little girl who’d just been told she’s going on a week’s holiday to Disneyland.

Eventually, she calmed down.

‘Alice, is there a chance we could win?’

‘If you mean eliminate them all, I don’t know, Sam. There are thirty-eight of them and seven of us, if we count you, which I do, but the others don’t. Your idea with the police tip-off was brilliant, but what other information can we use?’

‘So we’ll have to shoot them all, or something?’

‘Probably. Sam, you haven’t grown up with it, but it’s kill or be killed.’

‘I think I get that. I’m trying to cope, adjust, whatever. I just haven’t quite got my head around people actually dying, okay?’

‘I hope you never do.’

‘But you have.’

‘No, I haven’t. I do it. I haven’t got used to it.’

She walked over to the window. ‘What shall we do today?’

How many teenagers use the word ‘shall’? Even I don’t and I’m a pedant.

We went and got our hair done. Alice said it would make us harder to recognise; I had my doubts. I had a number three all over. It looked ridiculous but we always wore baseball caps so it didn’t matter much.

Alice had her beautiful, natural-blonde dyed. She even had her eyebrows done. Her long hair, which she usually plaited, was cut shorter to make her look older. (Yes, she did look eighteen rather than fourteen but I liked it the way it had been.) She emerged scowling.

‘How can women stand it?’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Sitting still for so long. You know, some of them even seem to enjoy it. Why else would you pay for a pamper weekend? That’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back. Can you believe the waste of time?’

I didn’t have an answer so I steered her towards an Italian for lunch. We ate out because there were no cooking facilities in the room. But it wasn’t the fun you’d expect it to be because we were always worried about somebody spotting us: the police or The Company. A good pizza quickly becomes an ordinary one when you’re watching everyone instead of thinking about the food.

I’d seen it in films how people couldn’t stand being on the run after a time and gave themselves up. Alice and Father had chosen a different route. I was now experiencing it for myself and I hated it.

‘I know Father is working on ways to eliminate them but couldn’t we do something, Alice?’

‘What? As I said, it was a lucky idea with the factory. Normally, to eliminate someone you have to know where they are, or are going to be, and what they’re going to do. Then comes the difficult bit. You have to kill them in a way that doesn’t attract attention.’

‘Why?’

‘You have to dispose of the corpse. If there’s no evidence of a murder, nothing physical to suggest someone has been killed, there’s nothing for anyone to investigate. We don’t want the police looking for us. We use suppressors so the public aren’t aware a crime is being committed. If gunshots are heard, they have to be investigated. It’s the same with a body.’

I must have looked clueless because she continued, ‘Put it the opposite way around to understand: how can the police investigate a crime they don’t know has been committed?’

‘I don’t know. How?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But how do you dispose of a body? I’ve heard that’s really difficult.’

‘It is. It would be a major problem if we got involved in eliminations. I doubt I could even lift most men. Even adults struggle if they’re working alone. Think about it. You’ve got between sixty and a hundred-and-twenty kilograms of floppy material to get rid of. Obese people are even heavier.’

‘In stories, people use acid baths.’ I was trying to pretend I knew something.

‘That’s a myth. Where do you get enough acid without being noticed and it doesn’t work well anyway? Bones and sinews, in particular, take gallons and gallons of extremely strong acid. Then you’ve got to get rid of the liquid and the gunk in it. You end up with lumps of stuff that haven’t dissolved.

‘However, you can use sodium hydroxide commonly known as caustic soda. But you need a tub that’s big enough to hold a human. You end up with a liquid like thick coffee and bones. Those can be crushed with your fingers. You also need a lid because the fumes are dangerous.’

I knew better than to ask Alice how she knew that. ‘Could you burn the corpse?’ I said.

‘Difficult. A human body is mostly water, after all. If you cover it in diesel (petrol explodes rather than burns) and set it alight, even if you keep adding fuel you still end up with bones. If you get enough wood you might just conceivably burn all the flesh, but you’re still left with the skeleton. Also, burning flesh stinks. It’s really distinctive. I hate it. It’s not like having a barbeque because the skin smells really different and the internal organs absolutely reek. It’s like when you smell marijuana — you know it straight away.’

I wanted to ask how she knew about the different odours but I kept silent. What sort of childhood had this girl had?

‘An organisation might be able to arrange to use a crematorium. During one gang war The Company did that when it had ten bodies to get rid of quickly. Crematoriums are obviously designed to burn bodies. This might seem like an attractive option but it’s really too public. If nothing else, you have to drive through a memorial garden with a body to get to the incinerator. Also, not everything is burnt. They use a long metal thing like a rake to crush the biggest bones, like the skull, afterwards. Hospitals also have them but they’re usually for clinical waste. There’s a better alternative.’

‘Which is?’

‘Vets. They have to dispose of numerous pets. Some of these, particularly horses, are big. Nobody checks the ashes. They aren’t regulated like crematoriums. Don’t pick city vets. Rural ones deal with farm animals.’

‘So a dog’s ashes could be mixed with a human’s?’

‘Exactly. Of course, you still need to get the body into the incineration chamber without anybody noticing.’

‘Any other alternatives?’ I said.

‘You can weigh the body down and dump it at sea but it needs to be naked and secured at several points. Even then, limbs can turn up on beaches.

‘Another alternative is to bride people at recycling places. There, huge grinders are used to mash food-waste into compost. Add a body and nobody, except the people that run the place, a potential weakness, knows.’

‘They’re turned into compost?’

‘Yes. I’ve heard of one person cutting the corpse up, cooking it and then slowly putting it out in her food waste bin. She had a big freezer.’

‘So disposing of the corpse is a problem?’ I was checking my understanding.

‘Most murderers get caught because of the body. The corpse is the biggest difficulty with murder.’

‘Unless you’re the victim.’

‘Don’t be flippant, Sam. This is serious. How can you make a joke out of death?’

Not knowing how to respond and definitely not wanting to provoke Alice into attacking me the way she’d verbally assaulted others, I said nothing. Surely there was a way we could help.

‘Do you know the names of any of The Company?’

‘I know a few. I imagine Father has a list of those left. Why?’

‘Instead of just sitting around, we could try to find them, at least. That might help the others.’

Alice didn’t say anything for several seconds. ‘That’s a brilliant idea. We’ve got two laptops. I’ll email Father to get the list from him straight away.’

Alice had bought two mobile internet connections while we were out and so it was no problem to hook up to the web.

Once we’d decided on trying to help, I searched for people Alice could remember. She emailed Father for a list of names and then settled to typing furiously. I didn’t know what she was doing but I assumed it was useful. Searching wasn’t exactly an exciting task but it was something to do and I reasoned it might keep Alice safer. My own family were gone. I had to keep the only thing I had left safe from harm.

Two days after arriving in Manchester we visited a real estate agent. Before we entered I said to Alice, ‘I’m your severely disabled brother. I can’t talk properly. They aren’t going to want to lease us a property and you’re going to play the disability card. I won’t say anything. Remember the story we worked out about our parents being killed and problems with the executor of the will. I would do the talking, but you’ve got the adult identity.’

I practised walking a bit oddly and making some unusual sounds. Of course I felt badly about it but we needed somewhere to live.

The agency had a two-bedroom flat near the casino. It was ideal because it was fully fitted out with everything, including bed linen and towels.

‘We normally only let this place out to wealthy clients, and ones who are much older than you,’ the agent said.

‘I understand,’ Alice said. ‘But we’re desperate. My brother is severely disabled.’ She left out the other bits about our parents and the will. I nudged her but she took no notice.

‘What’s wrong with him? He isn’t incontinent, is he? We can’t have him there if he is.’

It was a dangerous moment: Alice had a complete intolerance of people who were intolerant of disabilities. I know that sounds like a contradiction but it isn’t really. I wondered if the agent was going to get a punch in the face rather than a signed contract.

‘No. He isn’t. He’s properly house-trained. He’s perfectly normal, except that he doesn’t speak properly. You can only make noises, can’t you, Sam?’

I grunted.

‘I can offer you the full six months’ rent in cash in advance.’ At least Alice remembered that bit.

‘I don’t know. You’re very young. I don’t think we can do this. You don’t have any references.’

Alice’s patience ran out. ‘How old are you?’

Taken aback, the woman answered, ‘Twenty-nine.’

Leaning forward so that she was whispering to the agent Alice said, ‘If you want to reach thirty have the rental agreement signed and the keys handed over within the next five minutes. Although I look like a weak, little girl, I am a terrifyingly violent person. If you’re clever, you’ll wet your knickers out of fear right now. If you’re stupid, you’ll carry on as you were before.’

I wanted to stop her but I didn’t know how.

‘Before you do anything else, including signalling to your colleague over there, consider whether you want to see your cat tonight. (You have short grey hairs all over your tights.) You’ve really offended me. Fill in the forms, take my money, give me the keys and do it as fast as you possibly can or I’ll gouge your eyes out with your letter opener before I slit your throat with a knife I have in my pocket.’

Alice was frightening me so I could imagine how the woman felt.

‘You’ll also forget everything you know about me unless you want to shorten your life expectancy. I know where you work. I know who you work with. I know they’ll give away things like your home address, the names of family members and other useful information if you try to make things difficult for me.’ She sat back.

The woman stared at her, unable to decide what to do. She looked at me for help.

‘Do as she says,’ I whispered giving up my mute persona.

She pulled the computer keyboard towards her. She didn’t understand how she’d got into the position she was in. ‘What was your full name again and I’m going to need to photocopy your driver’s licence or some other form of photo identification.’ Her voice was shaky but she had made up her mind that cooperation was the best option.

Fifteen minutes later we left with the keys. We went back to the hotel. We couldn’t move in for another twenty-four hours.

I didn’t know how she’d react but I had to say it. ‘Alice, you can’t go on threatening people like that.’ I expected her to turn on me, dump me, even. ‘She mightn’t have been very nice but she didn’t deserve that.’ I held my breath.

‘I’m sorry, Sam.’ She hung her head and stared at her fingernails. ‘I know I shouldn’t have threatened her like that but I was upset by her attitude to disabilities.’

‘I don’t blame you. Somehow you’ve got to learn to control yourself, Alice. Otherwise, it’ll get us in trouble. What would’ve happened if she’d wet herself?’

Alice didn’t reply and we walked on.

‘Sam, I know it’s not an excuse but I’m not coping very well. I’m frightened, no, I’m terrified. Actually, I don’t want to talk about it here. Wait until we get back to the hotel.’

I suggested we got a taxi.

‘No. I don’t want to tell anyone who might remember it, our address.’

Once we got back to our room, Alice flopped face down onto her bed.

‘Do you hate me, Sam?’

‘Of course not. Why would I?’ I was hurt that she could think that I could.

‘I would if I was you. I’m a terrible person — a nasty, horrible, evil human being.’

‘No, you’re not, Alice. But you’ve grown up in a world that other people don’t even dream exists.’ I stopped. I wanted to find words of comfort but I didn’t have any.

‘I’ve got this pressure inside me,’ she said. ‘I’m so frightened. I pretend I’m eighteen but I feel as though I’m ten. I wish my mother was here. I wish anyone was here. I know you are, Sam, but I need an adult. I need someone else to take responsibility.’

Guilt overwhelmed me. I always let Alice do everything. I just did as I was told. ‘How can I help? I’m sorry I’ve left everything to you.’

She rolled over so she could see me. ‘You haven’t. You’ve been so much help. You’re my rock. I depend on you. I’m crying because I’m frightened and stressed but you, you’ve lost your family and yet you act as though nothing’s happened. You just cope. You’re so strong and I’m so weak.’

I had to look away. I didn’t want her to see me cry. ‘Alice, I don’t cope. I’m not strong.’ I paused to blow my nose. ‘I don’t miss them. I don’t think about them. I don’t remember them — no, I haven’t forgotten them. I force the memories out of my mind. Sometimes I can’t help it and an image of Beth annoying me, or Ben playing, pops into my mind. I have to work hard to black it out or else the pain tears me apart. I keep thinking I see one of them out the corner of my eye.’ I couldn’t go on. Sadness and grief had been stalking me. They attacked me from behind with brutal savagery. The world went black. All that existed was pain.

By the time the black cloud started to lift and I noticed things around me again, I was exhausted. Alice was sitting next to me, her hand on my shoulder. I hadn’t felt it before. But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t bear the emptiness.

‘Are you all right, Sam?’

I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t say that I wasn’t. I couldn’t bear it.

‘Sam, listen to me. You’ve got to stop. You’ve been crying for an hour. You’re exhausted. Because you’ve been sweating so much, you’re probably dehydrated.’ I could hear the desperation in her voice but I still couldn’t do anything. People speculate about what hell is like; I knew that day.

Finally, I managed to get some control of myself. I felt completely washed out, physically and emotionally. I tried to sit up but I felt too weak.

‘Stay where you are. I’ll get you a drink,’ Alice said. We’d put a few bottles of fruit juice and some water in the tiny fridge in the room. Alice bought me both and helped me to drink them. Then I lay on the bed unable to move.

Alice’s hand was shaking as she put the water down. ‘You’ve been bottling it up inside, Sam. It had to get out sometime and it exploded. I’m sorry but please don’t fall apart now. I need you. I know it’s selfish. I’m a very selfish person. But I need you to manage. I can’t even go outside by myself anymore. After all these years of running and hiding I’ve become agoraphobic. Without you I’m imprisoned. I tried to go and buy some lunch, but I couldn’t. ’

I suppose it was the sugar in the fruit juice that helped because ten minutes later I sat up, at least partly in control again. I knew I couldn’t let Alice down. I had to manage. She was the only thing I had.

10 The Flat

The flat was fantastic: two, double-bedrooms, a bathroom, a separate kitchen and lounge/dining room. It not only had a washing machine/dryer, fridge and microwave, but there was a large television. It wasn’t a normal rental place because broadband, gas and electricity were all already paid for. It was really more like a holiday cottage but near the middle of the city. Because it was in Salford, near Grosvenor Casino, it was only fifteen minutes’ walk into the centre of town.

There was a McDonald’s nearby but Alice refused to eat junk food. The only takeaway she would tolerate was pizza and that was only if we had a salad with it. We never bought fizzy drinks. It was fruit juice, smoothies or water. I thought if I suggested chips she’d slap me. I’d been vaguely aware of her food preferences when we were at school but it didn’t really come home to me until we were eating three meals a day together. Have you ever eaten a banana, kale and wheat germ smoothie for breakfast before? (I don’t want to again.) Mum had insisted on cereal or toast, but I’d never dreamed they could be seen as junk food. What’s wrong with eating chocolate-flavoured puffed rice anyway? The milk’s good for you if nothing else.

‘Sam, I need to talk to you about money.’

I didn’t know where that came from. We were sitting at our computers. The flat had a table where we set up our laptops. Alice immersed herself in writing computer programs. I searched for people: any mention of them anywhere, in news articles, on social media, anywhere. It wasn’t the most interesting job in the world but it gave me something to do.

I waited for her to continue.

‘You can’t use your bank account.’

‘You’ve already told me that,’ I said. ‘I appreciate you paying for everything and I’ll find a way to pay you back eventually.’ I wasn’t sure how. I had an idea about selling off our family home — Mum had made a will and I would be, under the circumstances, the sole heir. The mortgage wasn’t paid off but I thought more than half of it was accounted for. I didn’t fully understand those sorts of things then but I had an idea.

‘No. That’s not what I mean. And you don’t have to pay me anything. But you need some money. How much do you have on you?’

I looked in my wallet. ‘Ten quid.’

‘That’s not enough. Take this,’ she said handing me five hundred pounds.

‘You need to be financially independent. What will you do if something happens to me?’

I stared at the money. When had I ever held that much in my hand before?

‘Alice, you can’t give me this amount of money.’

‘Why? Isn’t it enough?’

I handed four-hundred-and-fifty pounds back to her. ‘Surely I can’t need more than fifty pounds.’

‘Why won’t you accept money from me?’

‘Why should I?’

‘What’s wrong with me, Sam?’

‘Nothing. Why?’

She looked at me, squeezed her lips together and frowned before replying. ‘Everyone else wants money. They expect it as a right — that they deserve it. Why don’t you do that? I’m quite happy to pay you.’

I was confused. ‘Pay me for what? It sounds like you think I’m working for you. Sometimes I don’t understand you, Alice. You don’t need to pay me. I’m not your employee.’

‘You don’t want to be paid?’

‘Of course not. I’m not your servant or anything.’

‘I’m not sure what to do then.’ She breathed out through her nose making her nostrils flare while staring at the floor. She took several deep breaths before saying, ‘I’ve never met someone like you before, Sam. You don’t want me for my money.’

‘Of course I don’t. I want you because I love you.’

‘I don’t understand that,’ she said continuing to look at the floor. ‘If you won’t let me pay you, will you share my money with me?’

I didn’t understand the significance of what she was asking. I thought she was moderately well-off.

‘Alice, we’re misunderstanding each other. I know I rely on you for everyday costs and I’m very grateful that you pay them. I don’t know how I’ll pay you back but I will.’ Without her I would have starved. ‘However, I never go out without you and you always pay for everything so I don’t need money from you. I don’t mean to offend you but I can’t accept five hundred pounds.’

‘Do you think my money’s dirty, that it’s the proceeds of crime and that’s why you won’t take it?’

‘You told me it wasn’t. You told me you don’t lie — ’

‘Sam, I have never and will never lie to you. You’re special to me. I treat you differently to anyone else I’ve ever met. I haven’t told you a lie, ever, and I don’t intend to. If I make you angry because I tell the truth then I’ll have to cope with that.’

How could I know what making me angry would mean to Alice? I didn’t understand her world.

Eventually, to keep her happy I accepted two hundred pounds. That seemed to please her.

Two days after we arrived at the flat, a week before Christmas, Alice bought three fitness DVDs while we were shopping. When we got home — and every day afterwards — we spent an hour doing aerobics. To make it more difficult, she insisted we hold a tin of tomatoes in each hand like weights.

I wasn’t a great athlete but I had cycled the two miles to school each day and played football with my mates, so I wasn’t completely unfit. However, Alice made me look like a morbidly-obese pensioner. By the time the sixty minutes was up, I’d be huffing and puffing and drowning in sweat, whereas she’d only have a red tinge to her cheeks. If you asked me for one word to describe it, I’d say ‘disgusting’ and ‘demoralising’. (Yes. I can count but allow me a little poetic licence, please?)

It was important we got exercise, she explained, partly because we spent so much time imprisoned indoors. But there was another reason: ‘If you’re fit, you can cope with stress better. If fear makes your heart race, being in shape helps to get it back to normal more quickly. Being able to calm yourself, so you can think more clearly, could mean the difference between life and death. When you need motivation to keep working hard, think about getting shot in the stomach — it not only hurts at the time but it could mean you die in a pool of your own intestinal fluids. An extra bit of effort could make all the difference.’

That sounded pretty convincing to me.

‘Oh, I forgot one more thing: you can run away faster if you’re fitter.’

After that, by the end of each session I was exhausted.

I have to admit there was one compensation for working out every day: I got to watch Alice move.

11 The Deal

A week later, Christmas Eve, Alice came and sat facing me at the table after speaking to Father on the phone. She was serious and thoughtful.

‘Father’s had a tip-off about some drug dealing The Company’ll be doing. He wants me to see if I can eliminate one of them. He and the others would be recognised a mile off. It isn’t likely I’ll succeed but I want to try.’ She paused and squeezed her lips together. ‘I need you to come with me. Sam, it’s hard to say this, but I can’t go outside on my own anymore.’

‘We need to deal with your agoraphobia, but that’s a different issue. Of course I’ll go with you and help to eliminate one of The Company.’

After spending the next hour thinking about how she would go about it, Alice explained the plan to me. You might think that’s a long time but if you’re going to kill someone, and they might try to resist, an hour of your time isn’t much … compared to eternity dead.

‘Why can’t you walk up to the dealer?’ I said.

She pulled up her left-hand sleeve. On her forearm was a small tattoo. It was basic: two one-centimetre circles next to each other.

‘It’s a sign that I belong to The Company. Other gangs have their own designs. As you approach the lookout you have to show your arms to prove you’re not branded.’

I’d wondered why Alice always wore long sleeves.

‘Why can’t you just tell the police? They’d be interested in drug dealing.’

‘They’d be spotted by the lookout. That’s what he’s there for. He and the dealer would be gone before the police car doors opened.’

‘Why don’t I do it then? I don’t have a tattoo. I could walk up and shoot him.’ For a moment I couldn’t believe I’d said that.

She stared at me for a minute. ‘Would you really do that?’

‘They want to kill you, Alice. I’ll do anything for you.’

‘But it’s so dangerous. You can never predict exactly how these things are going to pan out.’

‘I’ll do it, Alice.’

‘You’re so brave.’

‘No, I’m not, but I don’t want anyone to hurt you. I don’t have anyone or anything else.’

‘You’re so wonderful, Sam.’ She jumped up, stepped around the table and hugged me.

‘Can you tell me what to expect?’

‘The place is a block of terraces backing onto the railway line. Next to the last house is an alleyway and the dealer will be at the end facing towards the road. On his left there will be a narrow footpath that runs between the fence for the railway and the wall for the backs of the houses. He’ll be positioned there so he can escape along the back, if the police turn up, and dispose of any evidence quickly. He also can’t be seen easily.’ Alice drew a diagram to show me.

‘The signal is the first train after four o’clock. That’s when they’ll start to sell. Anyone who approaches before obviously doesn’t know the signal and so the lookout will stop them. The dealer will flee, or hide and wait for an all clear. The lookout stands opposite the alley on the other side of the road. He’s watching out for police and rival dealers. Wait till the addicts have all approached. Hang back.

‘With a suppressor on your gun, nobody but the dealer and the lookout should notice the sound, I hope. The junkies will be too worried about getting their hit and hopefully there’ll be nobody else around.’

She wanted me to practise. I was to walk up to the lookout with money in my left hand and with me sleeves pulled up. Five paces from him I was put my right hand in my pocket, pull out my already cocked gun, flick off the safety-catch with my thumb (I wouldn’t make that mistake again.), point the pistol at his stomach and fire two shots. I was then to flick the safety-catch back on, turn around, put the gun in my pocket and walk away.

I practised the moves about twenty times. We then looked at the location using Street View.

‘Hang on. I’ve got a better idea if you’re game. We could get the dealer.’ She explained her new plan. We practised the new set of moves. With an empty magazine, we ran through the plan perhaps thirty times. That might seem like a lot but when you could die if you get it wrong, it isn’t.

‘How did Father find out?’

‘The information came from the brother of an addict. He wants revenge on the people that got his sister addicted.’

At three o’clock we set out. The place was over near the A6, about thirty minutes’ walk away. Although we’d studied the location using Street View, Alice wanted to see it with her own eyes and to find an appropriate hiding spot.

Arriving, we found about ten people hanging around. Most were smoking. All were scruffy. They were the sort of people you crossed the road to avoid.

I went and stood by myself near a lamppost. Alice disappeared. I was nervous. Could I really pull it off? Could I shoot someone in cold blood?

Yes. They’d killed my family. They wanted to murder Alice. I could do it. I had to do it. I would do it.

I focused on remembering every instruction Alice had given me.

At five to four a black BMW (Why did they always have to be black?) pulled up near the alley. An athletic man about twenty-five got out of the passenger-side and walked around, obviously checking that the coast was clear. He took up his position. The driver got out carrying a small bag. He was older, and whereas the lookout was wearing jeans, a hoodie and trainers, this man was clothed in a shirt with a collar, a tie and polished leather shoes.

He was only just in position before the train rattled past. That sound animated all the half-asleep people. They scurried towards the lookout. One even ran. They were clearly regulars because he waved each one past without hesitation.

I waited and then approached holding my bare forearms in front of me.

‘You don’t have to be so obvious,’ the lookout said. I put my arms down, keeping the money in my left hand.

‘What’re you doing here?’

‘My regular dealer seems to have disappeared. I’m desperate.’

‘How much have you got?’

‘Four hundred quid.’ I showed him.

‘That’s a lot of heroin, my friend.’

I wanted to scream at him I wasn’t his friend. I shrugged instead.

‘How did you hear about us?’

‘Tom, in the squat, said Jon or Jason or Jake — I think it started with “J” — one of your regulars had mentioned it and he could see I needed a hit.’ I hoped one of the people before me had a name starting with ‘J’.

‘I can see you do, my friend. You’re trembling.’

Fear can be a friend sometimes. ‘I’m in a bad way, man. Please?’

‘Go on.’ He waved me on with his left hand. His right held his phone.

One step. Another. I was terrified I’d give myself away before I was within five metres of the dealer. There was no going back. It was kill or be killed. I had to do it for Alice.

Everybody else had melted away to bury themselves in their few minutes of pleasure. I shuffled down the alley.

I stopped in front of the dealer and held out the money. I couldn’t speak. He took it and counted it. I was about to kill him and he treated me as though I was nothing more than a cash machine. I slipped my right hand into my pocket. He turned to the bag slung over his shoulder. I took out my gun. He extracted the drugs. I aimed it at his stomach. He didn’t notice. I fired twice.

He looked up at me finally meeting my eye, surprised. He stared down at the growing red spots, shocked. He clutched his stomach, scared. A cry of pain. A step backwards. A grab at the fence for support. He crumpled to the ground. He was no threat to me. He was eliminated.

Bending down I snatched up some of the small packets he’d dropped. I turned to the lookout.

Realisation slapped him across the face. He hadn’t expected this. A boy with a gun was facing him. He was unarmed in case the police showed up. What was he to do? He was frozen to the spot.

A red dot on the side of his head. A sound like a plastic drinks bottle being stepped on. He fell sideways.

I ran up to him. He had a bullet hole in the temple.

Alice appeared beside me. ‘Put your gun away.’ She bent and prised the phone from his hand. ‘Let’s go. Walk quickly, but don’t run.’

It was hard not to at least jog. Alice took out her phone, dialled 999 and pretended to be panicked because of the shooting.

‘You said we didn’t want to attract attention.’

‘That was while we were there. Now we want the dealer picked up. You provided a good diversion. I eliminated one. We want the other one eliminated by the police.’

‘Diversion? Me shooting someone was a diversion?’

‘Yes, Sam. If I’d wanted you to kill him, I wouldn’t have told you to aim for the stomach. I would’ve said the heart. This way he’s injured and the police should pick him up.’

‘But why? Why didn’t you want me to kill him?’

‘I don’t want to make you an assassin, Sam. You’re too precious.’

We walked on in silence. I was upset. Alice was fiddling with the phone she had taken. She downloaded an app. She detoured to behind a shop, wiped the phone carefully with her gloved hands, found a bin and dropped it in.

‘What did you do to it?’ I kicked a plastic bottle that was lying on the grass and snarled at a cat that was watching me. It took off.

‘It had pictures of you on it. That’s something the lookout does. However, they don’t normally upload them until they get home. The phone was unlocked when he fell. I’ve deleted the pictures of you.’

‘But you did something else, as well.’

‘I put a software bug in it. They’ll probably track the phone. They’ll search for it, wanting to know who picked it up and why. Maybe they’ll take it back to where they’re living. I downloaded an app that’ll send me their location.’

She cocked her head to look at me. ‘I’m so proud of you, Sam. That took real guts. Few people I know could have stayed calm like you did. You’ve really helped our cause. But I don’t want you to end up like me or Father.’

There was something else bothering me: ‘Alice, we spent all that time talking about disposing of bodies and things and yet we left those two there.’

‘Drug dealers get killed all the time. It’s almost always by rivals. The police usually don’t bother investigating the individual crime unless there are obvious leads. We didn’t leave them with anything they would bother with. They’ll put it under the umbrella of organised crime and get on with what they do know. An addict isn’t going to have a gun and you left the money behind. You weren’t trying to rob him.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive. Think of it this way: two less drug dealers are two fewer criminals on the streets. That’s what the police want. If someone is eliminating undesirables, why would they try to stop them?’

Then I had another thought. ‘If I didn’t kill the dealer, he could recognise me and tell the police what I look like.’

‘Did he really look at you, Sam?’

When I thought about it, I knew he’d have trouble remembering anything about me.

‘Anyway, he’ll pass on the little he can remember to The Company, not the police. It’s not the authorities you have to worry about.’

As we neared our flat we did what we always did: stopped, checked for people sitting in cars, noted any vehicles that didn’t usually park there, looked for anything unusual.

This routine had seemed silly before. Having shot a man and seen another lying dead on the footpath, I craved anything that might make us safer. If I could shoot someone that easily — a teenager who knew nothing about guns or crime — what could someone from The Company do? Alice wasn’t safe. I had to do more to eliminate The Company.

Inside the flat I couldn’t contain myself. ‘You said that you didn’t want to make me a killer but I murdered those two people in the car at the lights in Plymouth.’

‘No, you didn’t. You only injured them. Check on the internet if you don’t believe me. But they’re eliminated. The police caught them and linked them to the shooting of your mother and Ben. They’ll spend the next twenty years in prison.’ She sat beside me on the sofa where I’d slumped, the adrenalin having burned itself out. I was feeling as low and awful as an out-of-tune double bass.

‘It’s the first time you’ve planned and deliberately eliminated someone. It’s reasonable to feel upset. I did. You’ve done well today, Sam. I’m very proud of you. You’re so much better than me.’

‘But, Alice, whether he actually dies or not, I meant to kill him. I intended murder. What’s the difference between you and me?’

She sighed deeply, stood up and walked towards the window, her refuge. It was as though the glass teleported her to a world beyond her own.

‘We’re not the same. There’s no use denying it. If nothing else, you didn’t know that aiming at the stomach wouldn’t usually be fatal. You acted, in the end, to protect me. I was born and brought up in the world of: my life and my pleasure are all that matter. Your life is unimportant. Can’t you see how different what you did was?’

I tried to interrupt.

‘Be quiet, Sam. Listen. When I was eight, The Company used me to kill three men. Nobody suspected a little girl would carry a gun and shoot people. During my ninth year it was five. I’m not proud of it, Sam. It’s just the way it is. My parents tried to get us out of it. But The Company killed them. Father has tried to hide me. We desired something different. We wanted out but we couldn’t make it. You don’t have to be like me, Sam. You’re different. You’re so much better than me. In more ways than one, I’m damaged goods. I’m not good enough for you. Why did I ever involve you?’

She turned and faced me. ‘You should leave me.’

She started to cry. It seemed our relationship was characterised by tears rather than smiles. I stood beside her, my hand on her shoulder.

‘Live each day as though it’s your last. In fear and regret don’t let it pass. We’re in this together. If we die, we die together but I’ll never leave you. Don’t offend me by suggesting it again.’

‘Why, Sam? I’m no good.’

‘You are the most beautiful, most wonderful, most amazing person I have ever known. I love you as I have never loved anyone else, Alice. I can’t think of words to express what I feel.’ I grabbed her shoulders, turned her towards me and held her at arms’ length before I pulled her close and hugged her. I hated it when she doubted herself or thought I didn’t want her.

Perhaps that was the problem. I wanted her too much. I had done so since the day I’d first seen her. If only I had turned away the moment she’d walked into the classroom: Mum, Beth and Ben wouldn’t be dead. But I couldn’t think like that.

She pushed me away and said, ‘Give me your gun, Sam.’

I handed it over. She removed the magazine and inserted two more bullets from a packet she had. Of course she had her gloves on. She also topped up her own magazine. She started talking to cover up the emotion in the room. ‘We could have picked up the spent cartridges. The police will find them. Of course they can be traced to a particular gun that fired them but because I loaded them using gloves there are no fingerprints on them and probably no traceable DNA. You never want to leave any clues if you can.’

‘Stop, Alice.’ I held out the tiny packets of heroin I had picked up. ‘Can we figure out a way to use these?’

She was gobsmacked. ‘Where did you get those?’

I tilted my head. ‘Think about it.’

She took the packets from my hand. ‘That’s over a hundred quid there. Surely, if we use our joint brains, we can find a way to make The Company pay. Hey, that rhymed.’

‘You’re a poet and you don’t know it.’ I knew it was corny but it eased the tension.

Christmas Day was a muted celebration. We ate a festive meal for lunch, put on party hats and pretended it was fun, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t get away from remembering Christmas with my family and I lapsed into depression. Eventually, Alice stopped trying to humour me out of my mood. She played the piano with headphones on. (It’s what she liked to do in her spare time. I preferred to play a game.) I sat staring out the window or mopped about the flat.

It was the most miserable Christmas I have ever endured: no Ben ripping away paper and being ecstatic about what he found, or the pleasure of seeing Mum appreciate what I’d bought, or Beth being grateful for the bath bomb I’d given her. Alice didn’t understand celebrating Christmas; I felt sorry she’d missed it all her life, but I also felt desolate.

‘Alice,’ I said looking up from my computer. ‘I’ve found something on one of the names: Dennis Rayburn.’

She turned to me.

‘It seems he’s in prison in Ireland. He was sentenced last year to a minimum of fifteen years for drug dealing, arms trading and grievous bodily harm.’

‘Let me look,’ she said coming around and peering over my shoulder. ‘That’s another one eliminated. He must have upset The Company and so they set him up.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘You normally stick with one area. You wouldn’t do both arms and drugs. You’re expected to specialise and develop expertise, unless you’re at the top, of course.

‘Also, grievous bodily harm goes with drug dealing, not arms trading.’

‘Why?’

‘Because weapons are worth so much, you’d kill somebody, not merely hurt them badly. It might be different if it was a police officer or a security guard that was surprised, but it always says if they’re involved.’

‘But he’s eliminated?’

‘Yes. Well done for finding that. I’ll tell the others when I next make contact.’ She patted me on the shoulder. Pride gave my spirits a lift.

The Company did fish the phone out of the bin. More importantly, they took it home with them to a large house near a synagogue in a quiet, leafy street. Like many residences in Manchester, it had a high wall and electronic gates. The satellite pictures on the web were indistinct. We couldn’t make out much.

‘If we could find out more about it, we might be able to think of a way of attacking it,’ Alice said.

‘Why not use a drone?’ I said. ‘Couldn’t we fly one around and film the place.’

‘Would it be possible? Have you ever used one?’

‘Dave, you know in our year group, his father was rich. We used to fly one down at the skate park to film people doing tricks and things.’

‘Are they hard to control?’

‘Not once you get used to it and not if it’s expensive. Cheap ones can be tricky.’

She sat back for a minute before asking about resolution.

‘You can get them with 4K. I’ve even heard of 8K but I don’t know why you’d want that. There’s virtually nothing you can show it on.’

‘Wouldn’t they hear it?’

‘Not if they were inside. Even if they were in the garden or something, a good one doesn’t make much noise, and if you keep it at a distance or high up, they probably won’t notice it. The only problem would be if they see it and track it back to where it lands. But that could be ten miles away.’

‘So how much does a good one cost? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand pounds?’

‘No way. Not now. Five hundred pounds will buy you something really good. A thousand pounds and you can set the course before lift-off. It uses GPS to follow your path. You have a flight time of over thirty minutes with an automatic return-to-base and a speed of over twenty miles per hour. Video is streamed live to wherever you want. Alternatively, we can take ultra-high resolution stills.’ I’d really wanted a drone once and so found out heaps about them. However, playing with Dave’s had cured me: they weren’t that much fun. I didn’t have the money anyway.

‘Faces would be recognisable?’ Alice said.

‘Probably fingerprints.’ It was an exaggeration but I wanted to make a point.

‘You couldn’t really see someone’s fingerprints, could you?’

‘No, because you can’t normally anyway, but you could read the screen of a mobile phone or something similar. Can you afford a thousand pounds? I mean this flat is really expensive and — ’

‘Sam, we, notice the word “we”, have plenty of money. You don’t have to ask if we can afford anything.’

‘Then I’ll do some research and find a shop that sells what we want. We can buy it online.’

‘No. There would be a record of the purchase because it would be by card with an address. We need to pay with cash, even if we have to go to the bank first.’

I spent half an hour trying to find what we wanted. There was a shop near the Arndale Centre. I asked Alice if she wanted to go that morning.

‘No. It’s raining and so not only would we get wet, we couldn’t use it anyway. Thinking about it, I’m not so sure about it anyway. We’ll leave it to another time.’

‘Should we go and have a look at the address?’

‘Street View showed us about everything we could see. I need to think about it a bit more.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Go back to searching for people.’

‘Okay.’ It was boring but I didn’t know what else I could do.

Forty-five minutes later I hit gold. ‘I think I’ve got something. I’ve been searching for “Kenneth Sylvania” — nothing. So I decided to try “Ken” instead because Sylvania is a pretty uncommon surname. I’ve found “Kenny Sylvania” with an old email account. It’s out of date and you can’t access it, but I thought I might try the name a bit more.’

‘Well done.’ She patted my shoulder; my heart jumped. ‘Send it to me. I’ll see if I can crack the password.’

After lunch I lost several games of football on the games’ consol. Alice’s reflexes were too quick. There I was, a boy who’d wasted his childhood slaving over a hot controller, competing against a girl who’d learned how to play in the last week, and yet I lost every time. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not sexist. Of course girls can do anything boys can, but my mates at school would have given me hell if they’d found out.

I suggested she challenge people over the internet.

‘Don’t be stupid. I don’t want to create an online presence that I don’t need. Everything you do on the web makes you that bit more visible to someone looking for you.’

Her computer binged. She went to look at it and sat down.

A few minutes later she announced: ‘You’re a genius, Sam. I’ve cracked the password and he was not a careful man.’

‘I didn’t think you could crack passwords. That’s the point of them, isn’t it?’

‘Because he set up the account in 2008, it was before people used numbers, special characters and long words. Modern computers are so much faster than back then. I bought a password cracker and it tried billions and billions of combinations. I thought it would take hours, days even, but he picked something stupidly obvious: football.’

I looked at her screen.

‘Are you sure it’s the right person?’

‘Positive. One of his earliest messages has a picture of The Company’s tattoo as an attachment. This is a first class idiot.’

‘Even I realise that’s dumb.’

‘The big news: this email was used for three years, but the last thing he did was forward all his messages to another account. I’ll bet that’s his current address. If we’re lucky, he’ll still be using a simple password. If so, from it we’ll be able to get more information and maybe find out where he is now. Then someone can go round and eliminate him.’

‘That’s great.’ I went and got us some orange juice.

Everyone except old fogies loves social media, don’t they? I did until I met Alice. She tried to get me to shut down every link that could be made to me or my family. I ignored her. I didn’t understand at the time. Mum, Beth, Ben. Why didn’t I just hang a banner out the front of our house saying, ‘Kill my family. I don’t care.’?

The trouble is I do care. And I care about Alice. How could I have known where it was all going to end up?

When I placed the glass next to her, Alice smiled and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this. He used the same password.’

‘What an idiot. But Alice, I was thinking, if we can hack his current account, nobody needs to go near him.’

I explained my plan. She wasn’t happy because it involved using the police again for our purposes but she eventually came around.

While we were making designs on Sylvania, Paul cooked up a plan to eliminate Megan Whaites. I didn’t really get her part in The Company but Alice said it was vital. Being responsible for getting her home address, I was pleased when Paul said he’d be using the information. If I’d thought properly about what he was might do, I would have been mortified.

Megan Whaites lived in a terraced house in Trafford Park near Media City. From the outside it looked more modest than it was and its garage nearby housed a year-old Mercedes.

Pretending to be delivering an Amazon parcel, Paul rang the doorbell and then put his right hand back in his coat pocket grasping his gun. He was going to fire through his clothing when she opened the door.

However, a seven-year-old girl carrying a teddy greeted him. She’d been expecting her father. Paul couldn’t bring himself to shoot her. He was taken in by her wide, blue eyes and innocent smile.

Megan poked her head around the corner and reacted immediately. There was a gun kept handy near the door, up out of the reach of the children. She grabbed it.

Paul, Alice said, should have shot the child: ‘It’s what he would’ve done in the past. Wars have innocent victims. That’s the way it is.’

As he tried to manoeuvre for a clear shot, Megan fired, hitting him in the left shoulder.

He fired. A chest wound but not immediately fatal. The child screamed and ran to her mother, blocking another shot from Paul.

The woman wasn’t finished. Her second shot ripped into his stomach.

Badly wounded, Paul retreated to his car, drove to a place beside the water, pitched his gun in and then called an ambulance. He realised he’d be arrested and eventually jailed. The alternative was dying. He’d got rid of the gun so he might not be associated with Megan Whaites. If she was dead, they could match the bullets in him to her gun. If she wasn’t, she’d ditch the gun and get to a hospital too. You can’t patch up a chest wound yourself.

It turned out that she didn’t die but the police got her on various charges, as well as that of possessing a firearm, because there were drugs and stolen goods in the house.

We found out what happened because Paul phoned Father who contacted Alice: she was expected to pay for a lawyer for him. Megan Whaites identified him and so after he got out of hospital Paul was going to spend a long time in jail.

Our group was shrinking.

12 England for the English

I’m not stupid. I don’t know about computers like Alice. I don’t know about organised crime like Alice. But I do know about social media and how to get people going on it.

If we could control someone’s current email account, there didn’t seem to be any reason to actually confront him in person. While Alice searched Kenneth Sylvania’s emails for anything useful, I set up three new profiles on every major platform and started sending out appropriate messages. One I labelled Don’tMissTheAction which was purely to publicise events I was going to manufacture. A second I labelled EnglandForTheEnglish and linked it to far-right groups, using Sylvania’s email. The third was JusticeForJews which I used to tap into the huge Jewish community in Salford. This was a delicate one because I wanted to look credible, inoffensive and yet authoritative all at the same time.

I spent my time building up an online presence for each profile. I didn’t have much hope that Don’tMissTheAction was going to have a huge influence the first time but I thought I might start with that elimination and it might prove useful later.

Alice didn’t understand what I was doing.

‘If it doesn’t work, someone can shoot him. What have we got to lose?’ I argued. She wasn’t convinced.

‘Trust me. He’s unlikely to change his email password in the next few hours and it’s not one that tracks device log-ins so he will have no clue we’re using it. Anyway, soon it won’t matter because the damage will have been done.’

‘I found a picture of him attached to a message he sent. He was very careless. Can we use it?’ Alice said.

‘That’s fantastic. It’ll make it that much more certain it’ll work.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m setting up social media accounts using his email, his name and his photo, and with no privacy settings. We’re going to send a number of messages using his identity. Then we’re going to get other people to have him arrested.’

‘I don’t believe you. How could we do that?’

‘Watch,’ I said. This was a chance to show Alice what I was made of.

Firstly, I pasted several anti-Semitic messages using his profile. I made out he was a Nazi with a mission. Using fake email addresses, I used the EnglandForTheEnglish tag to drum up support for him and spread his messages around. I suggested they should find where he lives and send him a six-pack of beer each. Also, there were rumours of a protest against him and they should be prepared to defend his home.

Next I used JusticeForJews to alert every Jewish group and synagogue. I suggested we find out where he lives and protest outside his house. Of course, I included links to the anti-Semitic messages he’d supposedly sent. They needed proof of his hate-speech.

Finally, I sent two messages to Don’tMissTheAction. One said that if they could find where he lived, they might find a free six-pack of beer. The second said that there was going to be a protest outside his house and it could be a good spectator sport.

It took hours to devise and send all the messages but I knew it was a plan of pure genius.

The far-right responded more quickly than I expected. They had an address by the next morning. I sent it on to JusticeForJews and suggested a date of Sunday and a time of ten o’clock for a protest. Don’tMissTheAction broadcast the details as well, but it didn’t have many followers.

It was hard not to laugh. All that was then required was to sit back and wait.

‘Alice, I don’t really know what happened with Beth. You never explained and I can’t understand why the kidnappers killed her.’ We were sitting at the table. I was watching the rain fall because I was bored with searching for people. Alice was typing something.

Giving a big sigh, Alice looked me in the eye. ‘Sam, this is going to be a shock and I’m not going to fill in all the details but I’ll tell you what happened.

‘Beth wasn’t killed by The Company.’ She stopped to let that sink in. ‘Richard shot her.’

‘But I thought Richard was on our side?’

‘He is.’

‘Then why did he do it?’

‘Do you know what they do to twelve-year-old girls they kidnap?’

I had no idea. By the look on Alice’s face I knew it wasn’t good.

‘They make snuff movies.’ She stopped and waited for me to respond.

‘What are snuff movies, Alice?’

‘They set up cameras and film several men raping a girl. Usually, they then torture her. Finally, they kill her and capture it on film. Sick people pay huge amounts of money for the films.’

Sometimes I simply can’t understand how people can be so cruel.

Alice continued: ‘Richard tried to eliminate her kidnappers. He injured one but there were three of them and only one of him. They used Beth as a human shield. When it became clear they would get away, he risked his own life to make sure Beth didn’t suffer. I’m sorry, Sam.’

We sat in silence. I’d never thought of killing someone to ‘save’ them.

‘Sam, if I’m ever kidnapped, promise me you’ll shoot me through the heart rather than let them take me.’

‘How can I promise that?’

‘Think about the alternative. Think about what I’d suffer if you didn’t.’

I went and shut myself in my bedroom for a couple of hours. I’m not ashamed to say I cried. Grief punched me in the stomach and loss slapped my face.

On Sunday morning I was busy sending last minute messages encouraging everyone to turn up and then we sat back and watched it on the live news channels. They were interested in anything that moved at that time.

Several hundred supporters of the Jews, including Muslims and Christians, turned up with banners. (The messages I’d sent in Sylvania’s name were pretty extreme.)

There was also a huge crowd of far-right extremists. Some of them had taken the idea of leaving beer outside the house seriously, thinking they had a champion of their cause, someone brave (or stupid, in my opinion) enough to say publicly what they thought. They weren’t going to let some ‘foreigners’ silence him. They didn’t, however, reckon on the police presence and remained peaceful.

About ten people had taken the Don’tMissTheAction’s tip and so there were spectators. (The reputation of the tag skyrocketed immediately afterwards.) It wasn’t a huge number of people but it was enough.

‘The police are there in their thousands,’ I said. I couldn’t help grinning.

‘Are there that many?’ Alice said.

‘That was hyperbole, Alice.’ Sometimes her literal mindedness irritated me.

Kenneth Sylvania was led out in handcuffs. The police felt justified in searching his house. He was charged with hate crimes, possessing stolen goods and firearms. He was eliminated. Alice and I high-fived each other.

Father’s reaction was surprisingly. ‘How did you do it, Sasha? How did you get him arrested by the police? Why did you involve them at all?’

Alice explained what we’d done but she kept my name out of it.

‘Where did the idea come from? If we involve the police in our affairs, we never know where it’ll lead. They’re our enemies. If they find out what we’ve done, we’ll spend the rest of our lives in jail.’ He went on for some time along the same theme. I heard because Alice had put him on speakerphone. She’d thought he’d be ecstatic.

She was more than disappointed. Why had he reacted like that?

‘You convinced me that having the police involved wasn’t a bad thing, Sam, but Father didn’t see it that way. I can’t blame him. We shouldn’t have done it.’

I argued, like I had before, that it was so much safer and the police were on the side of right. She countered that the police were corrupt, self-seeking and puppets of the rich. The argument continued for ten minutes or more. Alice could see that I was right but she didn’t want to admit it: not because I was right and she was wrong, but because Father was wrong.

I tried another line of reasoning. ‘Think about the scorecard, Alice. How many have we eliminated compared to how many he has? I think he’s jealous.’ I was surprised Alice didn’t attack me. Perhaps, by that time, a tiny crack of doubt was appearing in the dam. Suspicions lurked like spiders that crawl into your shoes at night ready to bite the unsuspecting foot in the morning.

13 Race of the century

Alice was pensive as she walked into the room. A phone call from Father was on her mind. Doubt, however, was tapping her on the shoulder and stopping her from joyously announcing what she would have shouted as a triumph two weeks before.

‘Father wants me to perpetrate an elimination on my own. Don’t shout at me again that we’ve already done that, with the drug dealers and the men in the car. He seems to be blind to some things.’

I couldn’t remember ever shouting at Alice. After all, I was still alive, wasn’t I?

‘Sam, I’ve got a plan but there are risks involved. Father suggested it. All I can do is ask that you’ll share the danger with me. Can I do that?’

‘I’d risk anything for you, even my life,’ I said.

‘You don’t seem to understand, Sam. That’s exactly what I’m asking of you. One or both of us may be killed doing this job and I can’t guarantee we’ll eliminate one of them.’ She slumped back in her chair.

‘How big are the risks?’

‘I can’t be sure. I don’t think they’re huge but nothing has no risk. You understand that?’

I nodded. You can’t ever account for every variable. People are unpredictable.

‘My problem is that I don’t want you to endanger yourself but I can’t do it without you. I don’t need you to do anything; I need you near me. I’m ashamed but it’s true.’ She stopped.

‘The others are risking their lives all the time. Paul was wounded and captured eliminating Megan Whaites. I’d like to do my bit too, Alice, even if it’s simply supporting you. I know I’m not much good at things that matter, but if it helps you, I’ll do it — anything.’

Alice started to cry. ‘Thank you, Sam. But you’ve got me wrong. I don’t deserve you.’

I walked around and put a hand on her shoulder — my desire was to hug her tightly but I didn’t dare. ‘I don’t deserve you but I’m glad I’ve got you.’

She looked up at me with teary, kitten eyes. I would have gone to hell with her, I thought. You could argue that’s what I did.

‘What’s the plan?’ I needed to get away from emotions. I’d been thinking about Beth and was feeling vulnerable.

‘You found that car registration number for Jed Flack. I bought his address online. We’re going to target his car.’

I asked how we could be sure he’d be the driver.

‘We can’t be absolutely certain but it’s a hundred-and-fifty thousand pound vehicle. I doubt he lets just anyone at the wheel.’

I couldn’t disagree so I listened to the plan.

At five o’clock the next morning we were striding, hoodies covering our heads and faces, along roads parallel to Bury New Road away from the city. (This made the journey much longer than it should have been because there weren’t many streets that ran parallel.) Alice wouldn’t walk along the main road: she wanted to reduce the chance of being caught on CCTV. And she wouldn’t take a bus or taxi in case someone remembered us. I thought we were much more memorable as teenagers out walking at that time of the morning. Most would be in bed where I wanted to be.

After an hour we turned right, crossed the still-deserted main road and headed along residential streets.

Ten minutes later Alice signalled to stop. We were at the entrance to a dead-end street lined with expensive houses. It had evidently recently become fashionable because there were no garages and cars were parked on what had been front gardens or on the street.

Alice turned, grabbed my arm and led me away. ‘Too dangerous. I didn’t realise. Most of the houses in this area of Manchester are behind gates. There are no barriers here but there’s CCTV everywhere. I spotted five cameras straight away. And there was someone watching us from a window across the road.’

I hadn’t seen anyone. I had, however, spotted the vehicle: a light-blue Range Rover.

We got a bus back to within half-a-mile of our flat. Alice argued that we hadn’t done anything wrong so no one would be asking after us. Depression, caused by our failure, sapped her energy so she couldn’t face the long walk.

Back at the flat we sat at the table. I made coffee for us both using a cafetiere. Alice insisted on having good-quality coffee. I would have preferred tea but I didn’t have the motivation to do both.

We sat sipping our drinks. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

‘Sam, we have to come up with another plan. The best I can suggest is that we wear black and go in the middle of the night. However, it’s likely that one of the cameras will pick us up anyway.’

I didn’t like the idea and said so.

I took another sip of the coffee-I-wished-was-tea. ‘If we could only get the police involved, they’re detaining everyone with The Company tattoo. We need to get Jed Flack arrested for anything and he’ll then be out of the picture, at least for the short term.’

I had to find an elimination strategy and it had to be one with little or no risk for Alice: she was too precious to sacrifice. I couldn’t let her suffer.

‘Don’t slurp your coffee, Sam. It’s disgusting.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I was doing it.’ Mum used to tell me off for the same thing.

We sat and thought for several minutes.

‘Alice, I think I have a better idea. I’m almost certain I’ve seen that Range Rover at least twice before. It’s a very distinctive colour.’

‘Where?’

‘At the market stalls selling car accessories — you know the place where all those blokes go to show-off their vehicles. I’m sure I’ve seen that one there on at least two Saturday mornings.’

‘I know where you mean. But surely he can’t go there regularly, can he? That wouldn’t be safe.’

Extracting my phone from my pocket I searched through the pictures. I’d been taking some photos there for an idea I had that didn’t work out. (It was a stupid one to do with using the nearby prison that I’m not even going to describe because it was embarrassingly bad.) I hadn’t got around to deleting them.

‘Look here. You can see the vehicle was there last Saturday.’

‘I suppose some people are careless.’ She considered the situation.

‘Maybe it’s not carelessness,’ I said. ‘Maybe he can’t help himself. He thinks: if I can’t have this little pleasure, life isn’t worth living. I won’t get caught.’

‘It’s a terminal way of thinking.’

‘I know but perhaps he doesn’t consider it that way.’ I took a deep breath before trying to push the idea on. ‘You’re good at never doing the same thing twice, aren’t you, Alice?’

‘I try to be and you should too. For example, every time you log on, do you visit the same websites? In the same sequence?’

I mumbled an answer because I realised I’d created a pattern in my behaviour. My moment of triumph was snatched away. I felt like a golfer who thinks he’s a tournament winner only to find the officials have disqualified him for filling in his card wrongly.

‘I’ll try not to do it again,’ I said.

‘I don’t blame you, Sam. You grew up where the worst thing you could do was give your personal information to strangers so they could defraud you. That’s completely different to not creating a pattern for enemies to exploit.’

‘Let’s focus on the plan,’ I said. Originally, Alice was going to slip under the car and cut the back-driver’s-side brake lines. I was to stuff some wet rags into the exhaust pipes — there were two. The material would cause a backfire, eventually, making Flack brake hard to find out what was going on.

Before this he would have pressed the brakes gently a few times as he approached the lights or came up behind other vehicles, which would have oozed the flammable brake-fluid onto the red-hot disks: the possibility of a fire. Once alight, it burns very hot.

Braking hard had another consequence: the car would spin, perhaps one hundred and eighty degrees, and crash.

‘For what I have in mind, we need some cash. Do you have any on you?’ I said.

‘Only about two thousand pounds. I can get more if we need it.’

I was incredulous. How many teenagers carry that much around with them?

I explained the plan, ending with: ‘If it doesn’t work out because he doesn’t show, all we’ll have lost is five hundred pounds and a day.’

Alice agreed to give it a try.

I posted messages using Don’tMissTheAction and EnglandForTheEnglish before we set off.

We walked to the Arndale Centre and found a machine that printed business cards. We were careful to keep our faces hidden from any cameras. Otherwise, the cards might be linked to our images. It was Friday afternoon so we didn’t have time to waste.

I should say at this point that we spent a fortune on hoodies and baseball caps — all bought from different shops, of course. As soon as we wore clothes where we could be caught on video, we discarded them. The local clothing bank had to be abandoned for others more distant because we recycled so much.

The next phase took place outside Victoria Station on Saturday morning at eight o’clock. We needed to move quickly for the plan to work. I picked our first three, unknowing accomplices — homeless people — gave them twenty pounds each and twenty business cards to distribute which read: ‘Race. Today. 10 o’clock. £20,000 to the winner. Bury New Road. A light-blue Range Rover (WG17 WHK) versus all-comers. The police have been paid off.’

I adored the last touch even though I was responsible for it myself. How can you alert the police to something and make sure they’ll investigate? Say they’ve been paid to stay away.

Careful to avoid CCTV cameras (Alice had found an up-to-date map of their locations on a Dark Web site.) we walked around the area in front of the cathedral and near the prison where the car accessories market would take place, dropping five pound notes attached to cards with the above message and alternating with: “Spectators could win a thousand pounds. 10 o’clock today. The race of the century. £20,000 to anyone who can beat WG17 WHK.”

From my phone (obviously through a proxy) I sent out several messages from Don’tMissTheAction before adding the final touches. We placed two hundred pounds in an envelope, wrote ‘You’re a Spectator Winner’ on it, included a business card, dropped it and hid nearby. It didn’t take long before a woman pushing a pram found the envelope and picked it up. I captured her surprised look on my phone. I would have liked to scrub all information from the picture but speed was everything. Posting it on Don’tMissTheAction I included a message that said that there were more envelopes being distributed in the area.

We dropped one other money-filled envelope, posted the picture and then quit. We didn’t want to be seen placing the cash.

Jed Flack was surprised by the crowd. It was always busy on Saturday mornings but it seemed to him to be more congested than usual.

As he stepped out of his expensive Range Rover, he was confused by the attention he received. He didn’t know about the challenge.

‘I’ll beat you!’ a hard-nut near a Lexus shouted.

Flack was bewildered. The crowd started chanting when he didn’t respond to the challenge.

‘No. I got here first. I’m gonna race him,’ came another voice standing near a supped-up Nissan. Other challenges were issued. In amongst the pushing, pulsing people, Alice did a simple job. I blocked her from view while she pretended to tie her shoelace. She stuffed a wet t-shirt into his exhausts — not too tightly.

Flack watched as numerous people claimed their right to race him. He knew he was in trouble even if he didn’t understand how or why.

Retreating into his vehicle, he did a screeching U-turn and headed back the way he had come, flat out.

I waited with my fingers crossed behind my back.

By the second set of lights his vehicle was backfiring. Some of his would-be challengers caught him up.

At the third set of lights the police intervened. They had been ready with multiple cars and officers to respond to what they thought of as an assault on their ability to control the streets and the assertions of corruption. How dare anyone say they’d been paid off?

It was impossible to see exactly what happened (we read about it later) but I had taken some photographs of Flack fleeing using my phone. These would later appear on Don’tMissTheAction. The reputation of the tag was skyrocketing.

I started a post for EnglandForTheEnglish about police interference and human rights but I couldn’t go through with it. Successful it might have been, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

The first thing the police did was check for the tattoo. Jed Flack had been lured into a trap and then panicked to get out, causing maximum damage for The Company. When they fingerprinted him at the station, he was linked to a string of burglaries. A later search of his house turned up some drugs, weapons and stolen goods.

We walked home hand-in-hand, giggling. Relief and triumph were a heady mix replacing the fear I had felt before and during the operation. I’m not brave like Alice. I can’t stare danger in the face without being scared.

Of course we stopped at the corner of our street and checked for people sitting in cars, etc. Inside, we fell onto the sofa and laughed until we cried.

Alice called Father and said what had happened. However, her smile disappeared as she talked and listened. She put the phone down.

‘I thought he’d be pleased but he wasn’t.’

‘What do you mean? I thought he’d be ecstatic: another one eliminated with no risk.’

‘He seemed to be really, really surprised. And then he seemed upset and disinterested.’

We looked for news of the event online and pushed Father’s reaction aside.

Two hours later he rang Alice back. She was happier after talking to him.

‘He apologised and said he was pre-occupied. The Company have put out a fifty-thousand pound contract on him.’

‘That’s terrible, isn’t it? Every hitman in the UK will be after him, won’t they?’

‘Think again,’ Alice said.

I did but I reached the same conclusion.

‘Consider the economics: fifty-thousand pounds for a minimum of ten years in jail. Five-thousand pounds a year — you could earn more with a paper round. And there’s a chance you’ll get a bullet in the heart instead. Only morons and wannabees who think they’re good enough for the big league will try. If you knew Father’s reputation, you’d want a minimum of a million.’

‘So it’s not bad at all?’ I said.

‘It’s more an inconvenience. They published a photo with the offer. Not only could Father be bothered by having to deal with stupid, low life, but their injured or dead bodies will help pinpoint his location for The Company.’

‘What can we do?’

‘I suggest that we, my knight in shining armour, take an even more active part in eliminating The Company while Father lies low for a bit. What do you think?’

‘I’m up for it.’ Flattery will make me say anything. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know yet. I was hoping you had another bright idea. You’ve had some amazing ones so far.’

14 Everyone was gutted

Nobody liked it. It was too dangerous. But Richard insisted. There was in him a daring, a recklessness even, that had meant he’d been very successful recently against The Company. (He’d managed three eliminations on his own.) Alice feared he’d soon be dead.

Richard hadn’t been able to cope since he’d shot Beth. Something had snapped inside him. It wasn’t that he thought he’d done the wrong thing: he knew he’d spared her. He just couldn’t manage in a world where you had to kill something young, beautiful and innocent to save it from pain. The paradox broke him apart.

His idea was simple: he’d put it about, under a false name, he had information about us and was willing to sell it. He would meet someone from The Company, they would pay him and he would tell them where we were.

Alice explained that these types of arrangements rarely worked: They paid the money. You gave them the information. They checked the facts. They killed you and took the money back. Only a mind-numbingly naïve person would propose a physical meeting. Richard would have to pretend to be an idiot.

I couldn’t see how we’d benefit if Richard told them about us.

‘Sam, don’t be a moron. The information will be false. It’ll look like it’s accurate so when they check, they’ll believe it. Then Richard will shoot them. They, hopefully, won’t suspect he’d do something like that.’

‘So what’s our part?’

‘We stake out the area beforehand, it’s near the recycling centre, and see if we can eliminate any others safely, or assist Richard.’ She explained the rest of the plan and ended with, ‘I just can’t see how he thinks this is a good risk.’

Father’s orders rang in my ears: we were to take no chances, even to save Richard. If they fell for the plan, they did. If they didn’t, we were to get out of there. Father had been against it. Richard wouldn’t take no for an answer, saying he would do it alone if necessary.

Because the recycling centre wasn’t close to public transport, Alice bought two, old but sound mountain bikes. We rode to the meeting point at four in the afternoon. It was at the end of Cobden Street, which has on its left a railway line and on its right industrial units. Just before you reach the recycling centre, Laundry Street crosses Cobden at right angles. If you turn to the left, you go under the railway line. If you go right, you enter a small dead-end lane. This was where the exchange was to take place.

We were to be stationed in the bushes that flanked the railway line on the western corner of Laundry and Cobden Streets.

When we arrived, we looked around. The only place to leave our bikes was on the eastern side of Laundry Street back the other side of the railway arch. We would have to cross the road in full view to get away.

‘I don’t like this, Sam. Richard’ll be trapped in the lane opposite. The only way to escape will be to shoot his way out. He can’t go over the back fence.

‘And our escape route means we could be seen by anyone facing this way, but there’s no other place to conceal ourselves.’

We settled into our hiding place. Alice checked our guns. We had silencers and laser sights fitted.

‘Don’t fire until I tell you to.’

‘When will they arrive?’ The exchange was set to take place at six o’clock, an hour after the centre closed. It would be dark by then.

‘Richard is going to phone them at five and say the exchange point has to be moved. They’ll be here a few minutes later. They’ll have someone at the original meeting place by now.’

‘Why not change it at five-to-six?’

‘They’d suspect a trap. An hour is okay. He phoned the police and said there’s a drug deal going on near the original meeting place. He’ll contact The Company and say there’s a police car prowling about. They’ll see it too. Now we need to be quiet. We don’t want someone to walk by and notice us hiding here.’

Does lying in hiding seem like fun? It isn’t. We had to restrict movements to only those that didn’t make sounds, such as blinking. Try it. Find a really comfortable chair. Settled yourself down in it. See how hard it is to sit absolutely still.

At a quarter-past-five a dark-blue BMW (at least it was a change from black) crawled along Cobden Street. It parked in Salford Waste Management which bordered Cobden and Laundry Streets, diagonally opposite us. Alice texted the information to the others.

Three men got out. They weren’t interested in rubbish. Instead, they surveyed the area. Alice held her gun ready with her thumb on the safety catch. I could barely breathe.

Then things got bad. We watched one of them concealing himself to our right under the railway arch. He was only half-hidden and so his spot would have been no good for us. He was about twenty metres away. We hoped he wouldn’t notice our bikes.

But a second man chose a position in the bushes to our left. He was barely five metres from us.

We didn’t know where the third one was.

It was the one just fifteen feet away that was the biggest worry. We had to stay absolutely still. One movement and he would know we were there.

Do you know how itchy you get when you know you have to be completely motionless? It was agony and I had pins and needles in one arm and my foot. And my nose was freezing off.

The plan had been for Alice to text Richard about the location of all members of The Company we could spot. With someone so close, that was impossible. The movement would give us away. There was nothing we could do. He would have to go into it blind.

At ten to six Richard drove into the dead-end side of Laundry Street next to Salford Waste. We heard the man to our left speak into a phone saying Richard had arrived. The man was so close we could hear every word.

Five minutes later another car arrived. Three more men got out. That potentially made it six-to-one. You can’t win with those odds. Alice tensed as she saw it.

A red-haired man spoke to Richard and handed him a small bag. He opened it, checking it contained money and started to speak. A tall man took out his phone. He was getting ready to pass on the information. The third drew his gun.

Richard protested. However, he eventually gave in and told them that Frank and Phillip were hiding in a campervan in Heathton Park. The Company could approach, give a particular whistle and the two men inside would think it was safe to open the door. (Richard had parked two vehicles there several of hours before.)

Instructions were barked into the phone. The timing here was crucial. There were two vans so they would have to ask which one. That would tell Richard it was all about to happen.

We learned later that both people who approached the campervan were eliminated. Frank and Phillip were sitting in a car near the vans and they simply shot the two men that walked up to the campervan and whistled.

The tall man on the phone was listening. He heard the gunshots but then he heard nothing. He took the phone away from his ear and looked at it.

Richard drew his pistol and shot the one with the gun. The other two were stunned. How had a novice outsmarted them?

They dived behind their car pulling out their guns as Richard fired twice more and dashed behind his vehicle.

All three were firing.

Alice moved beside me. She turned on her laser sight. She fixed the red dot on the enemy in the bushes with us. He turned towards us. She squeezed the trigger as he realised there was a red spot on his forehead. He was dead.

Alice wriggled through the bushes on my right. Her red dot fixed on the man under the arch. He was looking through the telescopic-sight on his rifle, trying to get a good shot at Richard.

He was dead. It was that quick.

How long do you think a firefight lasts in real life? Films draw out what actually happens. When you’re there it seems to last forever. In reality the time could be measured in seconds.

The two men firing at Richard looked back. They had expected extra fire power behind them and yet nothing seemed to be happening.

‘We can give Richard a hand here,’ Alice said. ‘Two quick shots and then we scramble left. Although small, our guns will still give off a flash. Ready? Three, two, one, fire.’

We squeezed off two shots and slithered left.

Bullets smashed into the spot where we’d been. If we’d stayed there, we’d be dead. We looked to see the results.

‘Well done, Sam. You wounded one.’

‘So there are two left?’

‘One and a half — the half is the one you shot. He’s got a leg wound. I didn’t miss. Where is that other man? Richard might have a chance, you know.’

Our conversation was interrupted. Richard stood up. What was he doing? He ran towards the wounded man while firing behind him. He was so open. What was he thinking?

A boom. Richard fell. The enemy we hadn’t been able to locate was standing on the wall with a shotgun in his hand. He shaped to fire again.

I looked at Alice wondering what we could do to help Richard. He had risked so much. We couldn’t leave him.

‘We have to go,’ Alice said. ‘We can’t compete with those two.’

There was a second shotgun blast. I imagined Richard’s body.

‘But Richard?’ I pleaded.

‘Shut up.’ She was fierce.

Keeping our heads down, we scrambled out of the bushes, across Laundry Street and grabbed our bicycles. The man on the wall had hopped down and was inspecting Richard’s corpse. He saw us running across the road.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘He’s too far away.’

Another blast. Something burned the side of my neck. Alice had been wrong. He wasn’t too far away.

We mounted our bikes and pedalled for dear life. The man with the shotgun fired again.

‘He’s empty now.’

I touched my neck. I was bleeding but I didn’t dare slow down.

Sirens filled the air. A police car raced towards us. I was sure we were sunk. We would be stopped, searched and arrested. If nothing else we were cycling on the pavement at night with no lights.

The police car slowed as it came near. But it didn’t stop. When the driver saw we were kids, he hit the accelerator again.

We cycled to the end of the road, turned right, carried on for about five hundred metres before dumping our bikes near some shops and catching a bus into town.

By the time we got home, it was all over the news. The Home Secretary was calling it all-out gang warfare. The opposition was demanding her resignation.

Father was angry. He said Alice had taken unnecessary risks.

‘I had to do something or I’d have been trapped in the bushes,’ she argued. ‘Taking the first two out was low risk. I admit that firing at the men behind the car was dangerous but if they’d seen me escaping I would’ve been finished. And I didn’t shoot at Richard’s killer. I could have. I weighed up the chances and decided against it.’ She was crying. It wasn’t only Father having a go at her, it was losing Richard, the reaction to the fear and the danger, and the knowledge she had killed three people. She was only fourteen.

‘I don’t understand how you did it, Sasha. How does a little girl shoot four men without getting shot herself?’

As usual, Alice hadn’t mentioned my part. She re-told the story.

In the end, it was decided the plan had been successful: six of them confirmed dead, one injured and detained by his majesties, and one (the man with the shotgun) arrested by the police, to our one dead. Although the ratio sounded fantastic, everybody was gutted about the one on our side.

15 A false identity

‘Alice, how do you get a false passport and bank account? You’ve got both in the name of Alice Green. I thought a passport, in particular was almost impossible to fake.’

‘There are several ways and it depends on what you need. If you’ve got a passport, it’s relatively easy to get a bank account: you simply fake the address documents. This sort of passport is easy to obtain: you buy it.

‘But because there is no official record of it, you can’t use it at immigration control, except in Europe where they normally don’t check.’

‘Okay, but yours is a real one. How do you get one like that?’

‘The best, and perhaps the easiest way, is to take the identity of a recently deceased person who looks like you. Obviously, nobody can know they’re dead so you must dispose of the body and make sure they’re not reported missing. That’s where my passport and bank account came from: Alice Green was collateral damage when her father was shot. Their two bodies won’t be found. Their two identities still exist.’

It was at times like this I couldn’t understand Alice. How could she talk so lightly about people that had been murdered?

‘The problem with this method is that the new biometric passports record things like fingerprints. Those are hard to forge, though I have heard of chips being reprogramed.’

‘You mean like they change your height or hair colour?’

‘Or age or gender. Exactly. A second method is to rent someone’s identity. You pay them to stay at home, open accounts in their name that you control, apply for a passport using your picture and details — that sort of thing. The problem with this method is that the lenders can get greedy when they realise they have a hold over you or they want to travel themselves. Sometimes, you end up having to kill them.

‘The third method is to create a false identity using a birth certificate. Obviously, you can’t merely print one for a fake person: there has to be a record on a government computer. Pick a real individual and then steal or forge a copy of theirs. The problem comes when they try to apply for a passport themselves. Pick someone who’s in an institution long term and you’re fairly safe.

‘Alternatively, pay someone to insert two false records, one for you and one for a parent, on the government computers, get false birth certificates printed for both and do it that way. In Russia there are a number of computer hacking firms, probably supported by the government, who will do this sort of job. These passports are very expensive. That’s because they’re bullet proof.

‘The fourth method is to pay a company to do everything. All you supply is a photo and fingerprints, and the name you want to use. I saw a company advertise this service on the ordinary web. You’d have to be a fool to buy from someone like that.’

‘Why?’

‘They’re amateurs, government officers trying to entrap you, or people that are going to blackmail you — they’ve got your photo and details. Having said that, on the Dark Web, this is a legitimate business because a company will build up a reputation and then people will start to trust them. Though, they could still double-cross you.’

It was an unusual use of the word ‘legitimate’.

‘Is there a fifth method?’ I was stunned that you could get one so easily.

‘The last method relies on blackmail. It’s one of the best, but it’s a long term investment. You use a process called “Little to Large” to exert power over someone. I’ll use a customs official to illustrate because it’s easier to understand.

‘You approach a customs desk with something very, very little but illegal, say a plant that is suspect or banned. You make sure it’s discovered but plead that you didn’t know there was anything wrong with it and it was a present from your recently deceased parent.’

How many other teenagers use the word ‘deceased’ as often as Alice did?

‘You beg the official to let you take it through. You weep and you wail and invoke the emotional pull of your daughter’s birthday, her last because she has terminal cancer. The officer lets you through and you take note of his or her name.

‘A week later, you, or your colleague, make sure you’re being questioned by the same officer. It might take a few tries but you get the idea. This time you make sure he — Can I call the person “he” to make it easier? — discovers something bigger, such as an illegal bird’s egg. He tries to arrest you or take it away and you say he let you through before and if he makes a fuss you’ll tell.

‘You can imagine what happens next. You insist on knowing when he’ll be on duty again and bring bigger and bigger contraband in. That’s how many drugs enter the country. An officer is trying to be nice rather than nasty and ends up paying the price. The same principle works with someone working in the passport office, but it’s harder to explain.

‘You add a bribe here and there so that it’s more tempting and gives you more power over them. It moves it from a disciplinary matter if caught to a criminal act.’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘No. My dad used to control two people at a time who checked passport applications. They approved dodgy ones and alerted dad if there was a security flag put on one of ours.’

Alice’s next pronouncement chilled me.

‘They get to the point where they’re no longer useful: they’re going to bottle it and tell someone. You eliminate them.’

16 Laundering cash

An idea came to me on the bus back from the M&S Food Hall out near the ring road. Alice insisted on never going to the same supermarket twice in a row and on changing the intervals between visits. It was a right pain, particularly as her preferred method of transport was walking.

‘The undoing of many people is patterns of behaviour. If you always do something at a certain time or on a certain day of the week you’re a sitting duck.’

I remembered how we’d eliminated Jed Flack. He’d been careless. I needed to be more careful.

Alice was stunned when I explained my idea. ‘That’s simple, brilliant and low risk. I love it.’

She phoned Father because we needed help. He was unreachable. Alice shook her head and bit her bottom lip. ‘He’s not only in hiding, he’s turned his phone off. This is the third time this week I haven’t been able to get him. I hope nothing’s happened to him.’

Dread sidled up to me and put its arm around my shoulder. Had we lost Father?

Alice contacted Frank instead. He loved the idea. Initially we only wanted him to arrange for a van to be parked in a particular place but he insisted on making the necessary contact with The Company as well.

Our first task was to find a suitable location. It had to be non-residential, isolated and yet have a car park and buildings nearby. We tried loads of places, searching firstly on internet maps. Then we used Street View to survey each place and to check it didn’t have a gate at the entrance or something.

We tried industrial estates north near the M60, public parks all over the place, even two places in the Peak District National Park. We were getting desperate when I stumbled upon a business park near Clifton Railway Station. Western Avenue off Southern Approach looked like a good possibility. Alice and I decided to go there in person to be a hundred percent sure.

It was too far to cycle and so we got a train from in town and then walked. We looked suspicious: why would anyone walk in an area like that?

‘If anyone asks us, we’re doing a school project about air pollution and the positive effect of placing businesses in amongst wasteland,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Just let me do the talking.’

The site was perfect. It was isolated so no one would hear the noise. It would be deserted at night so there would be no innocent casualties. It had vehicles parked everywhere so no one would notice an extra van. And it had buildings. These were important for the plan.

Alice actually skipped for part of the way back. It was so lovely to see her happy.

The next part of my idea was securing a van. The difficulty was not being associated with it in any way. Frank couldn’t simply go and buy a new one: the dealer could easily be traced and would remember him. Also, it would take too long.

I suggested he paid cash to a private seller.

‘That looks like a solution but we have a problem,’ Alice said. ‘Frank doesn’t have access to the ready cash and I can’t just give it to him.’

‘Why not? You said you have plenty.’

‘That’s not the problem. I could go to a bank and withdraw the money needed but there are two difficulties. Firstly, the notes would be new for that amount and the bank would have a record of the serial numbers on the notes. Whoever was paid would deposit those particular banknotes. Essentially, they could be traced back to me.

‘Secondly, I have to get the money to Frank without anyone linking us. I don’t know how to do it.’

The first problem seemed to me easy to solve: we lived near a casino. ‘Go, buy five thousand pounds worth of chips, gamble until you’ve lost a thousand pounds, cash the chips back in and leave with a different set of bank notes.

‘As you’re the only one with ID for an eighteen-year-old you’ll have to go alone but I can wait outside. You’ll lose but you can afford it, can’t you? Even if you lose everything and you have to go back a second time it should be okay.’

‘That’s pure genius, Sam. Gambling has always been used for money laundering but I hadn’t thought of it like that. Can we try it tomorrow?’

We needed the cash before we could launder it. We went to the main branch in town to make getting the amount we needed easier.

‘I want to withdraw ten thousand pounds,’ Alice said.

The cashier screwed up her face as though she was going to refuse Alice’s request. ‘Insert your card and type in your PIN.’ Her face changed as soon as she saw the balance. ‘Of course, Miss Green. I’ll be happy to oblige. However, I’m not sure we have that many notes immediately available. If you’d like to take a seat in one of our offices, we’ll get you a coffee or something while we fulfil your request.’ Her obsequiousness was awful. The manager came over to see what was happening. The cashier explained.

‘Please follow me this way, Miss Green. Have a seat in my office. I’m sorry there’s a delay. We’ve had a bit of a run on notes and so we’re a little short. But we’ll sort things out as quickly as possible. In the meantime, is there anything else we can do for you? You obviously don’t need a loan but perhaps you’d like travel money or insurance. Would you like something to eat while you wait? We don’t have a canteen or kitchen but I can send somebody out for something.’

We followed her into her office. Again coffee was offered. Alice refused. She hated drinking bad coffee. The manager tried to make polite conversation about the weather and sport. I tried to keep up our end; Alice isn’t big on small talk. Also, she didn’t really know how to sound like an eighteen-year-old so she mostly kept quiet.

‘Can I be so rude as to ask why you need the cash?’ The manager knew she was on shaky ground but she also wanted to be helpful. ‘We could issue a bank cheque immediately.’

‘My sister has an eye on an old Porsche we saw for sale in a driveway this morning. It’s pink and she wants to get it before anyone else does,’ I said. I went on about how I thought it was probably a rip-off that didn’t work but it was her money.

Within ten minutes the cash was delivered, the manager thanked us for choosing her branch and we were back on the street.

I told Alice I thought their reactions were strange.

‘It’s because of the account balance,’ she said.

‘What is it?’

‘Two hundred thousand pounds but the account has a note on it because of fixed-term deposits linked to it. They total nearly two million pounds.’

I didn’t say anything for the next hundred steps we took.

‘Is that real money?’

‘Of course it is. That’s a real bank, Sam. However, that’s only a small part of what my parents left me.’ She gave a little smile. ‘I told you we don’t have to worry about money. Now, where next?’

I looked all around us. Carrying ten thousand pounds in cash was dangerous as far as I was concerned. She saw my anxiety.

‘I’m worth a lot more than ten thousand pounds to people. Don’t worry about it, Sam.’

‘Then let’s go and see if my casino idea works. It’s open twenty-four hours a day.’

I knew Alice would be anxious without me. As well, she wouldn’t be able to carry her gun with her because of metal detectors. She wasn’t going to be able to simply walk in and gamble large amounts of money. She had to build up to it. I explained my plan standing next to her across the road from the casino.

‘They’ll probably want you to register at the reception desk. You’ll need your passport. Exchange two fifties for ten pound notes. Go to the first slot machine, play it a bit and then swap machines. After an hour, if you have any winning tickets or anything, exchange them at the reception and leave. You are acclimatising yourself. Try to look around at other things.’

Alice didn’t move.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

‘What do you mean what’s wrong?’

‘Why don’t you go in?’

‘I can’t, Sam. You’re not going with me. Don’t you understand? I can’t even cross a road by myself anymore.’ She was on the verge of tears.

I looked both ways along the footpath to see if we were attracting attention. A little boy smiled at me as his mother dragged him past us. Otherwise, we were just two teenagers hanging about on the street. I seriously considered taking up smoking so that we would look less conspicuous, but I knew Alice would never accept it. She was too health conscious.

Taking her by the hand, I led Alice across the road, up to the metal fence of the casino, in through the pedestrian entrance and up to the steps.

‘I’ll wait outside on the footpath. Text me from the entrance before you leave and I’ll walk over to the steps. The distance outside you’ll have to travel alone is less than ten metres each way. You’ve done that before at school.’

I pushed her towards the door. I wondered about CCTV. What would they make of us?

Alice explained later that a security officer had met her immediately inside. As the doors closed behind her, the anxiety departed. She had shown her passport, become a member at the reception, got change and found the machines.

My phone beeped an hour later. I raced to the bottom of the stairs. Alice was frozen at the top. A security guard stood beside her. I mounted the steps two at a time.

‘Excuse me, miss, but are you all right?’ the man said. He was concerned rather than suspicious.

I put my arm around her shoulders.

‘I’m sorry. My sister has been ill. She’ll be all right with me.’ I handed the man twenty pounds. ‘Thank you for taking care of her.’

He was puzzled because he hadn’t actually done anything but pleased to have twenty pounds in his hand.

I guided Alice down the stairs. We walked silently across the car park, out onto the street and towards home.

‘Thank you, Sam. I’m sorry I’m so pathetic, such an embarrassment.’ She started to cry.

‘You’re not pathetic. You’re not an embarrassment. You’re so brave.’ I gripped her hand harder, so hard it might have hurt. I needed to win this argument on logical grounds not emotional ones.

‘Alice, are you afraid of the dark?’

‘No. Not anymore than anyone else. Why?’

‘If you’d been attacked twice when you were in complete darkness, do you think you’d be afraid of the dark?’

‘Probably. Why?’

‘You would, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t want to go to sleep at night without a light on, would you? It’s a logical, reasonable, rational reaction to what has happened to you before. In effect, you’ve learned from experience. Do you agree?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘If you were allergic to bee stings, what would you do if you saw a bee?’

‘Stay away from it, of course. Why?’

‘You’d try to avoid exposing yourself to the danger, wouldn’t you?’

‘That’s obvious. What point are you trying to make, Sam?’

‘Going outside is an inherently dangerous thing for you to do. Going outside alone is almost suicidal behaviour — it isn’t only the universal things that kill ordinary people, it’s all those who want to murder you and who have a greatly increased chance once you aren’t inside a building. Your fear isn’t pathetic or embarrassing; it’s rational and logical. It’s the only intelligent response to the situation you find yourself in.’ I stopped. I had argued my case. I had to wait to see if counsel for the defence had a stronger argument.

‘So you weren’t embarrassed by having to come to the top of the stairs and rescue me?’

‘Of course not. I was worried that I’d asked too much of you, but that’s different.’

‘So you don’t dislike me, then?’

I stopped, put a hand on each shoulder and looked her straight in the eye. ‘How could I dislike someone so lovely? You are so good, so brave, so amazing. Alice you are the love of my life and I don’t know what I would do without you.’ I pulled her towards me and hugged her.

She didn’t reciprocate by putting her arms around me. I thought I had made a mistake until I heard, ‘I love you too, Sam. You are …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence. She wept. I held her. I gave her a tissue. We walked on.

At the corner of our street we checked the parked cars, compared them to our list of previous vehicles, and looked for anyone suspicious. Normal people don’t have to do this. Being associated with Alice made you abnormal.

Once inside, I poured Alice a fruit juice and broke open a packet of handmade crisps.

‘Do you really think I was brave, Sam?’

‘Brave, beautiful and brilliant.’ I was proud of the alliteration.

‘You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?’

‘Of course not. Think back to our tutor group. How many of them could have posed as an eighteen-year-old? You’re amazing, Alice.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely. Now we need to make a plan about tomorrow and decide what we’re going to eat for dinner tonight.’

‘I’m going to cook chicken Korma,’ Alice said. ‘You can microwave the peas we have with it, but I’m going to cook it.’ Her confidence had come back. She was herself again.

‘Okay.’

‘Sam, why do people gamble?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I walked in there with a hundred pounds. An hour later I walked out with eighty pounds. How is that fun? It seems daft to me.’

‘You’re thinking about it too logically. Did you win at all?’

‘Five pounds a couple of times and ten another but so what?’

‘Did you get a thrill when you won?’

‘Not really. It was pure chance. Was I supposed to?’

‘Yes. And there’s the possibility, the hope, that you might hit the jackpot.’

‘I just felt annoyed that the machine was taking my money. If I’d have stayed there I would have had to pay forty pounds for two hours. That’s a ridiculous amount. I don’t get why people think it’s entertainment.’

‘That’s because you’re special,’ I said.

‘Are you making fun of me?’

I reassured her that I wasn’t and changed the topic to the plan for the next day. ‘I think you should play roulette. It’s simple, the odds are easy to work out and it shouldn’t take too long. Each time bet on red or black. It doesn’t matter which and it might be clever to change it sometimes, or go odds or evens. There are thirty-seven numbers: zero to thirty-six. Zero is green and then there are eighteen black numbers and eighteen red. Obviously, the same number of odd and even numbers.’

‘Why doesn’t it matter which set I bet on?’

‘Because they all have exactly the same chance of coming up: eighteen divided by thirty-seven. You can’t bet on zero.’

‘Just under forty-nine percent chance?’

‘Yes. How did you calculate that so quickly?’

She shrugged.

‘Anyway, if what you bet on comes up, you get your stake plus the same amount back.’

‘So the house has a one percent advantage.’

‘That’s how they make money. Remember, it’s probability so there is a chance that you’ll lose several times in a row or win several times in a row. Don’t worry about that as long as you bet the same amount every time.’

‘How much should it be?’

‘Two hundred pounds, unless the house minimum is more than that. I doubt it will be.’

‘Is there anything else I should know?’

‘Yes. There’s a slight chance that you will win rather than lose. If that happens, place some bets on individual numbers. They only have a one in thirty-seven chance of coming up. You should be able to lose a bit that way.’

‘Why would I want to lose, Sam?’

‘Because casinos are businesses. They have to make money. They don’t want winners. You might need to go back there at some time. You want to be welcomed not barred.

‘Also, winners are remembered by other gamblers as well as the casino. You don’t want that. Okay?’

‘I suppose so. I wish you were going to be with me.’

I smiled and shrugged.

Not long after lunch the next day we went to the casino. I decided to accompany Alice to the top of the stairs. They had my image on CCTV from the day before anyway. The same security guard was on duty and he smiled at me.

I walked to McDonalds. Alice may have a hang-up about eating junk food but I don’t — I love it. It gave me something to do as well. It took Alice nearly two hours and I was bored by the time my phone rang, and full of food: a burger, fries, chicken nuggets and a chocolate shake.

I met her at the top of the stairs. She waited inside until she saw me. The security guard waved and we set off home.

Alice dumped the money on the table: four thousand five hundred and fifty pounds. The casino had given Alice some new notes as well as used ones but we checked the numbers and they weren’t the same as the ones she had given them. Frank was going to change the other five thousand at a different casino or at betting shops. We simply had to figure out how to get it to him without being seen together.

We fixed on using a Sainsbury’s bag and the central library. Alice worked out the details with Frank.

I was nervous carrying nearly ten thousand pounds. It didn’t look like a great deal (seven centimetres thick) but it felt like a fortune. Alice wasn’t fazed by it at all.

‘Think about,’ she said. ‘The gun in your pocket is worth at least as much and you’ve got used to carrying it with you everywhere.’

She was right. I felt somehow naked if I didn’t have it.

On reaching the central library we went to the Henry Watson Music Room. Alice took a score from a shelf and sat down at a piano. She unplugged the supplied headphones and took her own out of her backpack. She shoved the Sainbury’s bag with the money in it down by her feet and began to play. I was standing ten feet away pretending to look at books.

After ten minutes Alice unplugged her headphones, re-connected the supplied ones and stood up without the shopping bag. A man I hadn’t noticed before, immediately sat down at the piano. Alice had only taken a few steps before she realised she’d left the bag behind. She went back to get it.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to the man. ‘I left my shopping behind.’

He handed her the Sainsbury’s bag, she turned around and headed off. He put on the headphones and played the piano. She went out the door. Startled, I headed after her.

‘Where are you going?’ I whispered (after all it was a library).

‘Home.’

‘But what about meeting Frank? We’ve got to give him the money.’

She stopped and held open the shopping bag. The money was gone. It only contained a scarf and a little teddy bear.

Panicking, I looked at her. ‘Where’s the money?’

‘Frank has it, of course. I gave it to him at the piano.’ She looked at me. ‘This is his bag. You didn’t think I’d leave ten thousand pounds behind, did you?’

I didn’t know what to say.

‘It wasn’t a perfect plan because we were seen together and there are security cameras in the library, but who would suspect I was handing over a large amount of cash. You didn’t notice it. Why would anybody else?’ She smiled, reached for my arm and tugged me gently in the direction of home.

As we walked along, she pulled out the scarf. It was bright pink and made of silk.

‘This is a present from Frank. He thought I might like it. Terrible colour but it feels nice. He has no idea what a teenage girl would like.’ She took out the teddy and looked at it. ‘Imagine giving someone my age a stuffed toy.’

There was also a note: Missing you, Kitten.

‘He calls me Kitten because he thinks I’m so cute and harmless.’

I thought ‘lion cub’ or ‘tiger whelp’ would have been more accurate but I didn’t say anything.

‘Why did Frank buy you a present?’ I tried to keep the jealousy out of my voice.

‘For my birthday next week.’ She looked at me. ‘You haven’t forgotten, have you?’

How could I have forgotten? I didn’t know. What was I to say?

‘Don’t panic, Sam. I’m only teasing. Of course you didn’t know it was my birthday.’ She punched me lightly on the shoulder and laughed. ‘The expressions on your face then were so funny. You did surprise, confusion and fear one after the other. You’re hilarious.’

I then realised I had a problem nearly as big as eliminating The Company: I had to buy Alice a birthday present. But what could I get her? She had everything she wanted, and if she didn’t, she could buy it.

The walk home was one-anxious-foot-in-front-of-the-other as I considered options. Smellies were no good; she would think I was saying she had a body odour problem. Jewellery was no good: she didn’t wear any. Clothing was no good: how could a fourteen-year-old boy buy clothing for a teenage girl? I didn’t know what size she was or anything. And I could hardly buy her a negligée. What was I going to do?

After we had done the check on our street, a full forty minutes after she had announced it was her birthday the next week, Alice said, ‘Don’t fret, Sam. I know exactly what I want from you for my birthday. I’ll tell you when we get inside.’

I couldn’t wait to close the door. She flopped on the sofa and patted the spot beside her.

‘I’m sorry, Sam. It was my ego but I liked watching how anxious you were. I’d already decided what I want for my birthday. Would you like a drink?’ She got up and went to the fridge.

I still had no idea. Did she want a diamond necklace? A gold bracelet? A rocket launcher? She was deliberately dragging out telling me.

‘Your face is doing it again. Don’t ever try to play poker. You’d give yourself away immediately.’ She was giggling. ‘What I really want is to go on a perfectly normal date — you and I.’

I was speechless.

She continued. ‘We’ll go and get something to eat: I’ve got a restaurant in mind. It’s got one Michelin star. I’ve already made the booking. Then we’re going to see a film at the cinema. How does that sound?’

I didn’t know what to say. I’d barely ever been to a restaurant, let alone one which had a Michelin star. What was one of those, anyway?

‘Is there something wrong, Sam? Don’t you like my idea? I’ve never been to a cinema but if that’s too difficult then say so.’

I found my voice. ‘Cinema — easy. Mum took us several times. Beth and I went sometimes on our own in the school holidays. Restaurant — out of my league. We only went to one or two, ever.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘But you’d take me to the cinema?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re so wonderful, Sam.’ She gave me a hug.

‘What do you want to see?’

‘What do you mean? Is there a choice of films?’

Sometimes the things Alice didn’t know astounded me. She could tell me the difference between a pump-action shotgun and an automatic one, but she didn’t know that a multiplex offered a number of different films.

‘What sort of film do you want to see? Hang on, what time have you booked at the restaurant? That could make a difference.’

‘Twelve o’clock. I know you don’t like being out late at night and so I thought we could do lunch, go to the cinema and, as an adventure, just because it’s my birthday, get a takeaway for dinner on the way home. Does that sound all right?’

‘Fabulous. But what kind of film do you want to see and what day is this happening?’

‘Tuesday the third of February. I don’t want to see a violent film; they’re so unrealistic. In real life people don’t die like they do in films. I don’t want to see a romance; I’m not soppy. I don’t want to see an animated film; I’m not a child. What does that leave me with?’

‘We could see the latest YA film.’ Her blank look led me to expand. ‘Young Adult. The main characters are always teenagers, the world is in danger in some way, adults decide that only a teenager can save the world, lots of people get killed (Yes, there is violence but it’s supposed to be unrealistic.), the main characters are amazing and do things no ordinary teenager would do, most of the adults get killed and it ends happily-ever-after unless it is part of a trilogy, which is usually is. Also, contrary to real life, nobody ever swears.’

Alice looked at me blankly. ‘Why would we want to go and see a film when you know what’s going to happen already?’

‘Because it’s fun.’ What else could I say? She chewed the left side of her lower lip. I added, ‘It’s what normal teenagers watch. Look it up on the internet if you don’t believe me.’

She looked dubious and then smiled. ‘I’ll trust you to pick a suitable film. I don’t think I want to see a YA one unless it’s really good. Do we need to book the tickets in advance?’

‘Not for a Tuesday afternoon during term. Remember, most teenagers are in school. We need to check times against availability to see what’s worth a view.’

‘Then,’ Alice said, ‘part of your birthday present for me is to find a film I’d like to see. How does that sound?’

‘Fine by me,’ I said, relieved. Then the realisation hit me: how was I to find a film Alice would like to watch? She’d already ruled out so many. I wondered if she’d like an art house film: the ones in French or Italian. There were a couple of places in Manchester that show them.

Our minds turned back to the immediate problems. Frank was going to buy a van anonymously. A private sale, cash, a bit above the asking price, sale agreed. Money to be left at the front door of the seller. No one to look who placed it there. Half an hour later the keys to be placed on a mail box nearby. No one to watch the mail box. The DVLA document to be filled in with certain details (obviously not Frank’s real ones). An extra thousand paid an hour later if all conditions were fulfilled. The seller was told it was all hush hush because it was going to be used to catch terrorists (violent, despicable, evil men) but the police had to cover the tracks of the original purchase. If anyone else found out within a week, the whole operation would be put in jeopardy.

Usually, an organisation like The Company would have a number of ways to source a vehicle. They could have some that had been bought using false identities before, avoid the problem of money being traced by buying months in advance or get around the difficulty of serial numbers on notes by using previously laundered money. There were so many ways they could achieve their goal it was ridiculous but more importantly, dangerous for us. Any vehicle we came near could be the weapon of or transport for an assassin.

Frank bought the van and parked it in Western Avenue, the place Alice and I had identified. He then used a third party to contact The Company. The message was simple: We wanted a truce and we were willing to pay. We were prepared to make an initial payment of half a million pounds and then fifty thousand pounds a week if they promised not to kill us. An income of over three million pounds in year for doing nothing would be attractive, according to Alice. I didn’t comment, thinking about what Mum had earned.

If they were willing to agree the truce, they were to meet us at nine o’clock on Saturday evening (when all the businesses would be closed) in Western Avenue. We would be in a white Transit van, which two representatives were to enter so talks could take place and the initial payment be made.

On Saturday I was really nervous. Would the plan work? Would they even turn up? As eight o’clock approached I couldn’t sit still and fidgeted so much I annoyed Alice, who snapped at me. She was feeling the strain too.

A car with two members of The Company appeared at eight-forty-five and drove around the area very slowly. A Range Rover with four other men arrived soon after. It parked about a hundred metres from our white van.

The first two men stopped a little closer and one got out. He checked out the other parked vehicles and made a cursory search of the buildings. His examination should have been more thorough. He didn’t notice the eyes watching him, let alone the cameras and telescopic sights.

He signalled to the car. It moved forward. The Range Rover followed. He took a submachine gun from the car. Four men got out of the Range Rover and pointed pistols at our van. One of them nodded.

The man holding the machine gun stepped nervously towards the van. If the doors burst open, he’d be caught without cover.

Ten metres away he fired. He emptied the magazine into the back section. He re-loaded and repeated. The noise was horrendous as bullets ripped and buckled the metal panels of the van.

When the magazine was again empty, he lowered the machine gun. He looked for any sign of movement inside. The second man from the car walked up beside the machine gunner. He then approached the van and flung the back door open. It was empty. Realising they’d been had, he spun around, gun raised. Were we hiding in the buildings?

The four men from the Range Rover moved quickly to get in their vehicle and escape.

It was then a loud hailer announced that they were surrounded by an armed-response unit and they should drop their weapons on the ground.

Of course, we didn’t go within miles of the industrial estate.

(If you’re wondering how we knew what happened, the police wanted to make a big thing of them winning the war on organised crime and gave a long press conference about it describing everything that happened and showing footage of the whole event.)

The machine gunner dropped his weapon and put his hands up. The other man made a dash for the car and was shot by a sniper. He was injured but not killed.

The Range Rover found the exit blocked by a riot van. The criminals backed up, looking for another way out. There wasn’t one. A marksman shot out one of the tyres. The men inside knew they were beaten. They got out with their hands held high.

Then one of the men made a dash for the shelter of a skip nearby. He fell two metres short with a bullet in his stomach and one in his buttock. Following orders given to shoot first and ask questions later whenever The Company was suspected, the police didn’t fire warning shots. The politicians were looking like being collateral damage in our war and so didn’t mind if the officers shot a few suspected criminals.

The loud hailer barked out orders to put all weapons on the ground and then lie face down. It was accompanied by the threat that officers had been ordered to shoot to kill if any other weapons were brandished. They might have been criminals but they weren’t completely stupid: they were no match for hidden police marksmen ordered to shoot to kill.

A dozen men in full body armour first approached the wounded men, searched them, tied their hands and then left them where they were.

Those who had surrendered were searched thoroughly before being handcuffed and led away. An ambulance arrived soon after. Armed guards accompanied the injured.

They were all charged with firearms offences. Because she recognised two of them and remembered some of the things they’d done, Alice then sent a long message linking them to various crimes. Some might be proved, some not, but it would keep them out of our hair for a while.

We watched the news conference live on television.

‘I’ve got to admire you, Sam. That’s six of them gone in one go and there was little danger to us.’ She beamed at me. I didn’t know what to say.

‘The thing is, you use the police to help. I would never think of that. The Company didn’t think of it, either. They thought that at the most it might come down to a shootout and they would win because of superior numbers.

‘Yet at the same time you knew they’d turn up. How did you figure that?’

I shrugged. ‘They’d either show up to make the deal, which I doubted, or they’d turn up because they thought half a million pounds would be there for the taking and they could eliminate us. I thought they’d find it too tempting, and they did.’

‘I’m so proud of you.’ The smile Alice blessed me with was a fairy godmother waving her wand before the ball. ‘If you get any more ideas like that, tell me.’

17 The birthday

Monday morning was spent buying trousers, a blazer, a shirt with a collar and a tie to wear to the restaurant. (I still had my school shoes.) I had to dress up. Alice bought a red velvet dress and high heels. She practised for hours before she could walk properly in them. ‘Why do women do this to themselves? The only time I’ve worn them before was for the musical.’

I ignored the question about the shoes: what did I know? ‘Alice, there are two problems with what we’ll be wearing.’

‘What are they?’

‘One, we can’t wear baseball caps with them and so our faces’ll be easy to see.’

‘We’ll risk it.’

It was one of the only times Alice did something that wasn’t safe. It worried me but then I thought, ‘You’ve got to live’.

‘We, or at least I, can’t go to the cinema wearing a blazer and tie. I’ll stand out like a Nazi at a Bar Mitzvah.’

She could see the problem. ‘We’ll take a small backpack each with our hoodies in them. We need some way to carry our guns, anyway. There are no pockets in my dress. We’ll change after we leave the restaurant.’

Alice allowed us to get a taxi to the restaurant (but only from the main road, not our flat, so I had to walk too far in uncomfortable clothes). It was miles away and the weather was unusually oppressive: a freezing February day.

Alice did look gorgeous in her new dress. I simply looked uncomfortable.

Entering the restaurant, she was perfectly confident. I didn’t know about approaching the reception desk, giving your name and being invited to sit at the bar for drinks beforehand. She discreetly slipped a twenty pound note to the man on the desk and said, ‘We don’t want to be recognised. Please alert us if any press arrive so we can leave. I did order a table that wasn’t readily visible.’

The man then thought we were famous. Alice was beautiful enough to be. He guessed she might be a celebrity using her real name.

I was miserable: a poor teenager in a place for rich adults. I tried to look happy for Alice’s sake.

‘The one thing Father would be seen in public for was good food. Of course it was a risk but he said you had to have some luxuries.’

The menu seemed to be mostly in French and I had no idea what I should be ordering.

‘Do you have any idea what you want?’ Alice said.

‘Steak tartare?’ I ventured. I quite like steak.

‘I don’t think so. It’s raw mince with a raw egg on it. Personally, I find it a bit bland unless the steak is exceptional. I don’t think you’d like it.’

A waiter came and asked us if we wanted drinks. Alice ordered two non-alcoholic cocktails and asked for some sparkling water. ‘The water’s to cleanse your palate between dishes.’

I studied the menu. It didn’t become any clearer. I looked at the entrees. ‘Would I like escargots de Bourgogne — ?’

‘Do you like eating snails?’

‘What about foie gras de canard …?’ I couldn’t read out the whole thing.

‘You’re not eating pate produced from force feeding geese. I won’t allow it.’

In the end, I let Alice order for me. If I remember rightly I had asparagus with some sort of sauce on it, fried chicken with chips and these strange vegetables, and chocolate pudding with a type of custard. Of course they were called something else but that’s what they seemed like. Overall, it wasn’t too bad, though I think I would have preferred a hamburger and chips. And you wouldn’t believe the cost. For three courses each, the total was nearly four hundred pounds. I could’ve eaten takeaways for months for the cost of one meal. When I raised this, Alice pointed me to the wine list. How could you pay eight hundred pounds for a bottle of wine?

‘This isn’t an expensive place, Sam. People will pay a lot of money for what they think is the best.’

Alice paid with a card and left a tip of forty pounds in cash. I was staggered by the amount.

‘A ten percent tip is usual, Sam. I didn’t want to draw attention to us. Now, where’s the cinema?’ Sometimes hers was a five-year-old’s enthusiasm. The reality of our situation, however, wouldn’t leave us and we found a quiet corner to change our clothes — I took off my blazer and tie and put on a hoody, while Alice slipped off her high heels and put on her hoody. I felt better when my gun was in my pocket, not the backpack. It’s strange to think that a weapon was a comfort. It was a bit like a security blanket for a toddler.

We walked hand-in-hand to the cinema.

I couldn’t enjoy the film: a fantasy. A pair of teenagers (had to be male and female to make it the traditional love interest — when are we going to get a gay couple on a regular basis?), managed to tame a dragon, which was supposed to be evil but was actually fighting against a wicked witch, etc. I was trembling throughout. It was terrible. What if Alice didn’t like it? How could she enjoy it?

We emerged through the doors to the outside. My stress from the last hour-and-a-half burst out. ‘Did you hate it too much?’

Alice peered at me. ‘Sam, are you all right?’

‘No. I wanted you to like the film. I thought it was dreadful, but I don’t know.’

She looked at me for some time in silence before she said, ‘I enjoyed it very much. It was silly and fun. The only thing I would have preferred was for you to put your arm around my shoulders when it got scary.’

Alice frightened? I didn’t think it was possible. Was she lying to me? No, she wasn’t capable of doing that. Something in her made it impossible for her to lie to me. I think now, but I don’t know, that it stemmed from her need, a universal one, to be able to trust someone and be honest with them. She had nobody else.

We walked home, happy. One thing with Alice, you didn’t take public transport when you could walk. It drove me batty. I tried arguing on several occasions that the free bus service wasn’t being monitored by The Company but she wouldn’t have it.

The next day I thought it was time for another lesson in how to be a criminal from Alice. I wanted to learn so I could fit into her world and not seem stupid all the time. It didn’t occur to me that not adapting might be a good thing.

‘Killing someone isn’t hard. It’s disposing of the body that’s difficult. That was the problem with Richard’s plan: there was no way to get rid of the corpses and so the police became involved.’

‘Can you explain that?’

‘If the authorities don’t know a murder has taken place, they don’t investigate it. I’ve told you that before.’

‘But they’d want to know anyway, wouldn’t they?’ I was clasping at straws. We’d had this discussion in the past but I couldn’t take it in: if people were being murdered, the police should investigate. Surely that’s what happens.

‘Think about it, Sam. The police might suspect that people are getting killed. However, if they don’t know who they are, where it’s happening or when it’s going on, what do you think they’re response is going to be? You’re being really thick about this.’

I couldn’t let it go and so I said, ‘But what about guns? The police aren’t going to ignore guns on the streets.’

‘Who has guns? Not your ordinary criminal. Occasionally, some B-lister working alone will get hold of a pistol, but rifles and machine guns are only available to organised groups with serious financial resources. Take, for example, the rifle pointed at Richard by the man I eliminated, which was an Armalite .308s — they cost about four thousand dollars in America. However, getting one into this country costs a fortune. If you could buy one, it would probably cost a hundred thousand pounds or more.’

‘Really? That much?’

‘Yes. The Glock 26 you have in your pocket costs just a hundred and fifty dollars in the States. Here you’d pay ten thousand pounds. It’s really, really difficult to smuggle arms into this country. That means they’re really, really expensive. It’s like diamonds: they cost a fortune because they’re so rare.’

I thought back to the arsenal I’d seen in the cellar. It was worth a fortune. There must have been a hundred rifles alone. Alice had control of a serious amount of assets if you considered she had two other stashes.

18 Are you going to hit me?

My idea of using a drone had been put on the back burner. We’d had too many other things to do but in the week after Alice’s birthday we had no leads. I suggested we pursued it and Alice agreed.

There was a shop that sold drones near town. It was one of those tiny ones that has barely enough room to stand in.

‘Sam, shouldn’t we buy the most expensive one?’

‘No. I need to look at what’s on offer and the specs.’

‘Why don’t we just buy the most expensive one?’

‘Apart from anything else, it may not be the best. Give me a minute to look.’

‘Can I help you? I’m the manager,’ a man in his twenties with too much gel in his hair said.

‘We want the best drone you’ve got,’ Alice said.

‘I’m not sure you appreciate just how much — ‘

‘Tell me and I might. What’s the best you’ve got?’

‘In stock? At the moment? Something I imagine is way beyond your budget at fifteen hundred pounds.’

‘Sam, pay the idiot and let’s get out of here.’

‘No. Please be quiet and let me deal with this.’ I addressed the shop assistant. ‘Can you show me, or at least tell me, what the specifications are for your top models, please? My sister gets some funny ideas in her head.’

‘Okay, I suppose. What’s your price range?’

‘You said you’re most expensive is fifteen hundred pounds –‘

‘Please be quiet, darling sister,’ I said. ‘You’re not helping. Let your brother negotiate this one.’

‘Why are you calling me your sister, Sam?’

‘Because that’s what you are.’

‘What are you talking about, Sam?’

‘Jane, shut up. Got it? I’m dealing with this.’

‘Is your sister all right?’ the shop assistant said. ‘She don’t seem too bright.’

‘She’s fine,’ I said. I resisted correcting ‘don’t’ to ‘doesn’t’. ‘Now tell me about your best models. I want at least HD resolution, automatic return home and GPS tracking.’

‘So you know something about drones?’

‘Not much, but a little.’

The next fifteen minutes was spent talking about every model he had in the shop. This bloke knew every detail you didn’t need or want to know. Even I was bored by the end. I chose the third most expensive one he had. We paid cash so that if we lost it, it would be impossible to trace it back to us.

‘How come a couple of teenagers have money like this to spend and why aren’t you in school or college or something?’ the shop assistant said as Alice handed over the cash.

‘You don’t need to know,’ Alice said.

‘How do I know you haven’t stolen the cash or something?’

‘It’s not stolen or the proceeds of crime,’ Alice said.

‘Maybe I should ring the police and have them come and check you out.’

‘Would you like me to gouge your eyes out with the pen you’re holding or break both your arms? Go near your phone and the only people you’ll be calling is the ambulance.’

‘Don’t listen to my sister. She’s just joking,’ I said with as much bonhomie as I could muster. ‘We actually received an inheritance from a distant aunt. Jane likes to fantasise, don’t you?’

Alice looked at me questioningly instead of simply saying ‘Yes’. ‘Sam, this turkey should be taught a lesson. I reckon I should break his nose, cut off his testicles and then take back the money we paid.’

‘I’m sorry but you’ll have to excuse her: she’s got a learning disability and she tends to make up stories.’ I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the shop carrying our parcel.

‘Sam, what are you doing?’

‘Don’t say anything else,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to stop doing it.’

‘What did I do?’

‘Stand here. Hold this. Don’t move.’ I walked back into the shop. The shop assistant was on his phone. I wondered if he had pictures of us. There was probably a security camera.

Approaching the counter I thought desperately about what to say. ‘I’m sorry. You’ll have to excuse my sister. She’s out on day-release from the hospital.’ I handed him twenty pounds. ‘I really like getting her out of that place. If they hear she’s been threatening someone, she’ll be locked up again, perhaps even in a padded cell. I’d appreciate it if you’d not mention it to anyone. You can tell by the look of her she’s actually harmless.’

The young man looked dubious. ‘She seems kinda dangerous to me.’

‘Look, I know she’s not completely sane. She has delusions. But she’s my sister and I love her. Please don’t send messages about her.’ I was weeping tears by this time. The shop assistant agreed to keep quiet. I re-joined Alice on the footpath.

‘Sam, I haven’t seen you this angry with me before. What did I do?’ Alice said.

I couldn’t hold it in. I said through gritted teeth: ‘You jeopardised our safety. You made us memorable as violent people. Why couldn’t you reason or even lie instead of threaten?’ I realised I was drawing attention to us both. ‘I’ll meet you outside the cathedral in five minutes.’ I stormed off. I couldn’t control my emotions.

But the show didn’t end. I stomped away. Alice followed. She had no choice. She couldn’t cope outside alone. She was chained to me.

Catching up, she grabbed at my arm. ‘Sam, what’s going on? Stop!’ She was crying. Desperate.

A crowd was starting to pay us attention. They thought there was drama to be watched. An emotional scene always draws spectators. I had to get rid of them. I hugged Alice close and whispered, ‘Follow my lead. Pretend we were acting.’

‘It’s all right,’ I shouted. ‘The King will pardon us. If we are brave, we will survive.’ Pause. ‘The end.’

I released Alice, raised my arms, bowed and said, ‘Jane, my sister, and I, are raising money for Shelter, a homeless charity. If you liked our scene, our piece of street theatre, please drop a coin in my hat.’ I placed my baseball cap on the ground. A couple of coins were tossed into it. Mutterings such as ‘Sudden ending.’ and ‘It wasn’t very realistic.’ were heard but people thought it was a piece of entertainment. They shuffled off satisfied.

I left the hat behind after nodding at a homeless person. I didn’t want the money. I needed anonymity. Dragging Alice by the wrist, I walked under the bridge, up the road, past the prison and to our corner. I did the checks without speaking. Anger, fear, exasperation, worry — they all competed to overwhelm me. Nothing more was said until the door of the flat was closed.

‘Why do you do it, Alice?’

She stood looking at me, afraid.

‘Why do you have to threaten people?’

There was a pause. ‘I don’t know how to do anything else. I’m sorry.’

I raised my voice. ‘That’s not true. I know it isn’t. You don’t threaten me. Why do you do it to other people?’ I flounced around the room, picked up a cushion and threw it down. Alice stood stone still.

Eventually I calmed down enough to sit down on the sofa. Alice stood frozen. I patted the spot beside me. ‘I’m sorry. I was so frightened. I know I over-reacted.’

Alice didn’t move. She stood at the table using it as a barrier between us. ‘Are you going to hit me, Sam? I know I deserve it.’

My head snapped up. ‘Don’t be stupid. I’ve course I’m not going to hit you. How could you think I would?’

‘Every other man I’ve known who’s been angry hit me, even my dad.’

‘Well I’m not like them, am I? Anyway, if I tried, you’d beat me up.’ I wasn’t managing. ‘I just don’t get you, Alice.’

‘Do you want me to leave, Sam?’

‘Of course I don’t want you to leave. Why would I?’

‘Because you’re angry with me.’

‘Alice, it’s not that simple. I was angry but that’s because I was frightened, for you, for us. I want to protect you.’ I looked away from her. I had been hard on her but I felt justified at the time.

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean why?’

‘Why do you want to protect me? What’s in it for you?’

I didn’t know how to answer. It seemed so obvious. I looked and saw a terrified, vulnerable, little girl.

‘Other people protect me for money,’ she said. ‘That’s why Father does it. But you won’t accept money from me, except for insignificant amounts. I’ve brought you nothing but trouble. You’ve had to leave school. You’re on the run. Your family has been killed because of me. What do you gain?’ Alice was so quiet it was difficult to hear.

‘You. That’s what I “gain”.’

‘You want to own me?’

I nearly screamed at her in exasperation. Instead, I kept my voice calm, though there was a tremble in it. ‘No. I don’t want to own you. I love you. I don’t know how else to put it.’ Holding my palms out and up, I pleaded with my eyes. We stood on a precipice rocking slightly in the wind. We had to take a step backwards or we would lose our balance and fall.

‘Does that mean you still want me?’ Alice said.

‘Of course. Come and sit beside me.’

She hesitated. I think she still thought I might hit her. She ran, fell to the floor in front of me, placed her face in my lap, wrapped her arms around my legs and wept. I cried too. Tension, worry, fear: they all conspired to batter me into submission.

It was several minutes before I raised Alice up off the floor and sat her on the sofa. I got tissues for both of us and a glass of fruit juice each. (My mouth was dry and had a bad taste in it.) It was clear we were sitting in the eye of the cyclone: if we didn’t resolve some issues immediately, we’d be shipwrecked. The present calm was hiding the storm of things we needed to sort out.

I started with one that I thought might be easiest. ‘What do you mean when you say other people protect you for money? I don’t understand.’

‘They’re being paid. Why else would they do it?’

‘Father is being paid?’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘What don’t you get?’

I felt like saying ‘everything’. Hadn’t he promised her parents to look after her? ‘Well, for example, who is paying Father? Surely he’s doing it so he can look after you.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Sam. He gets ten thousand pounds a month as long as I’m alive. The others get a similar amount. If there are any expenses, such as extra armaments, I pay for them. Oh, I also pay for things like accommodation.’

I shook my head and blinked several times. ‘They’re being paid to look after you?’

‘Why else would they do it?’

I did a quick calculation. A hundred-and-twenty-thousand pounds a year was very, very good money if you had a job. If you didn’t have the usual expenses such as a mortgage, it was amazing. Were they paid bodyguards instead of friends?

‘Where is the money to pay them coming from?’

‘Me, of course. My parents provided well for me.’

I did another calculation. ‘Alice, that’s over six hundred thousand pounds a year. I know you said you were well off but that’s a huge amount of money. How long can you afford to keep paying them?’

‘Considering present assets, by that I mean long-term deposits, as well as short-term, and capital assets such as shares and real-estate, at least five hundred years. However, that doesn’t take into account interest on deposits, dividends or income from some businesses, which could go up or down. And I have to pay more at the moment because we’re trying to eliminate The Company — ’

‘Stop for a minute. I must have misheard you or something.’

‘Sam, nobody else knows how much I’m really worth. Would you like me to tell you?’

I didn’t know how to play it. Of course I was curious but I didn’t want Alice to think I was after her money. ‘From what you’ve said already, you may be one of the wealthiest people in the world. You’re extraordinarily rich. You don’t have to worry about running out of money. But ….’ I paused. ‘Alice, my guess is they don’t want you just because of your parents, but also because of your wealth.’

‘Correct. But nobody can get hold of my money without my permission. Until this moment, the only person who knows my password is me. Are you listening?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘It’s, every word has a capital letter and there are no spaces between the words. No. I’ll write it down once.’ She went to the table, took a piece of paper and a pen and wrote: LiveEachDayAsThoughIt’sYourLast#10092016. She showed it to me.

‘That will take over a trillion years to crack using the most powerful computers today. Do you know what the number is?’ she said.

‘The date we met. How could I forget?’

She tore the piece of paper up into tiny pieces, wet it in the sink, squeezed it into a pulp and then buried it deep in the food recycling bin. Nobody else was ever going to read it. Then she took a memory stick out of her pocket and held it out to me. ‘This is a copy of my memory stick. On it are the details of all my financial assets. It contains all my crypto-currency details, bank account numbers, identification particulars, share portfolios, passwords for various accounts, etc.’

I couldn’t accept it. ‘Why do you want me to take it? I don’t want it. I don’t want your money.’

‘A couple of minutes ago I gave you my password, Sam. I want you to accept this memory stick. You’ll then have as much control over my assets as I do. As you’ve told me before, everyone needs to trust someone. You’re my someone. I know you could simply kill me now and take the money.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m terrified because every person I’ve ever known other than you would take that option.’

She thrust the memory stick into my hand. She took out her gun, flicked the safety catch off, held it out to me and said, ‘I need to know, Sam. I can’t keep living like this. On that memory stick is access to half a billion pounds. I’ve given you the password. It’s all yours if you want it. All you have to do is shoot me. Go on.’

Anger made my arm shake as I took the gun, clicked the safety catch on, removed the magazine, ejected the cartridge from the chamber and placed the gun on the floor.

‘What do you think I am? I don’t understand you, Alice. You’ve invited me to shoot you. Why would I do that? I’ve told you, I love you.’ I held out the memory stick. ‘I don’t want your money.’

I stopped. She had offered me half a billion pounds. More than that, she had trusted me. You don’t give someone a gun and tell them to shoot you if you believe they’re really going to do it. I didn’t understand the thinking or the culture behind it. An inkling of the importance of the gesture hit me. I shook my head as I tried to work out the best way to respond.

‘Alice,’ I said, ‘I’m a bit thick but I think you’re saying, by giving me this memory stick and the password, that you trust me. I don’t get the gun bit. If nothing else, I already have one …’ It hit me as I was talking. ‘Of course you knew I did but by giving me yours you were making yourself totally vulnerable. You couldn’t fight back.’

She didn’t reply.

I sat back and stared at the ceiling.

‘You offered me half a billion pounds. I have nothing to offer you. Why would you want to stick with me?’

‘I don’t know how you can say that, Sam. You’ve given me everything. You sacrificed your family.’

How could I say that I didn’t do that knowingly or willingly? Given a choice, I think I would have sacrificed Alice. No, that’s not true. However, if I’d known in advance what would have happened, I would have stayed completely away from her. I loved her but was one worth three?

‘Alice, I know you don’t understand this. How can you? I don’t want your money, even though you are unbelievably wealthy. I don’t want to own or control you. However, there are some things I do want if I am perfectly honest.’

She tensed.

‘I want your respect. I want your friendship. Most of all I want your love. Those aren’t things I can demand or take or buy. You have to give them willingly. You’re the most important person in my world because I love you, Alice, and I want you to love me.’

I could see by her face that she didn’t believe me; it was too alien to her world. People didn’t do things for love. I had to let it go for the moment.

‘Okay. That’s issue number one. Number two is threatening other people.’

‘Do you mean like the shop assistant?’

‘That’s a prime example. But there have been others, including the real estate agent.’

‘If people don’t obey me I threaten them. That’s how it works.’

‘Look, you don’t threaten me, do you?’

‘But you always do as I say.’

Was that true? Was I that weak? Was I a robot that followed Alice’s orders blindly?

Alice interrupted my thoughts. ‘So what do you expect me to do?’

‘Reason with them. Persuade them. Lie to them. Even bribe them. Just don’t threaten them.’

‘I can understand “bribe”. I don’t get the other three. So in future I should offer people money if they won’t cooperate. How much is the right amount?’

How literal can you get?

‘No. I don’t mean bribe them with money.’

‘What else can you bribe them with? Do I offer goods or drugs or my body?’

‘No.’ I was stuck. I couldn’t think how to explain it. How could she even think of offering her body? ‘Forget bribe. Let’s talk about persuading.’

‘I don’t know how to do that, Sam. You seem to be good at making things up. I’m not.’

We sat thinking.

‘Okay. Then in future, I’ll do the talking. It’ll look a bit strange because you’re the one who’s supposed to be eighteen and will have to sign anything, but I’ll come up with something.’ I paused. ‘I’m going to disagree with you sometimes from now on. And when I do, you’ll try persuading, not threatening, me. All right?’

Alice agreed and her shoulders sagged. It was relief. We’d suddenly achieved an equality that hadn’t been there before. She wasn’t responsible for everything.

‘That’s two things, Sam. What else do we need to work out?’

There seemed to be so many issues but I needed a break. I looked around the flat. It was a mess.

‘We’ve let things go a bit here. We need to dust, vacuum and clean the bathroom. The kitchen floor needs washing and we need to do a general tidy up.’

The next two hours were spent cleaning, something I hate. Alice seemed perfectly happy. As we worked, I thought about our next steps. We needed to practise operating the drone before sending it out on our mission. I’d already put the charger on the battery. It would take a couple of hours and so we couldn’t fly it straight away.

19 Drone attack

There was a big park a couple of blocks from where we lived. We carried the drone down there in a shopping bag to disguise it. Linking it to a phone took ages but we got it to work eventually. I had it flying and sending back pictures when a group of five blokes in their early twenties wandered over towards us. One of them broke off from the group and walked straight up to Alice.

‘That’s a nice looking machine you’ve got there. And a nice body.’

We ignored him.

‘And you’re one cute, little thing,’ he said leering at Alice. ‘I’m Adam. Why don’t you ditch your boyfriend with his toy and come with me?’

‘Adam, if you look to your right you’ll see two men sitting in a car,’ I said. ‘Each of them has his hands on a rifle. The man concealed behind the toilet building has a sawn-off shotgun.’ I didn’t take my eyes off the screen as I spoke. ‘If you reached forward and touched the right-hand pocket of my sister’s hoodie, you’d feel something heavy. It’s metal, it’s a weapon and it’s not a knife. Can you guess what it is?’

He swallowed and shook his head.

‘It’s a Glock 26 pistol. Show him the butt, Alice,’ I said. Discreetly she did. ‘It’s loaded and cocked. And it’s fitted with a laser sight.’ It wasn’t at that very moment but he didn’t have to know. ‘Even if you ran very quickly my sister could shoot you five times before you took ten steps. I’ve watched her do it before. She’s an expert shot.’

I tapped my hoody pocket. ‘I’m also carrying a gun.’

He was spooked by this time and starting to back away.

‘Stay where you are, Adam,’ I said. He stopped. ‘I want to tell you about one other person who’s watching you. We call him Cutter. Do you know why? He specialises in making films, … of people screaming while he cuts off their fingers and toes with a pair of bolt-cutters.’ I looked at Adam and smiled.

‘Now ask yourself why two teenagers are standing in a park with guns in their pockets being watched by four, armed men. What might be in the backpack I’m carrying? Why I am using a drone to check out and photograph every person in the vicinity, including you? I have exquisitely clear images of you and your mates. How angry is my boss going to be with you, if you interfere with his business transaction?’

I paused and looked back at the controls. ‘I’d be pissing my pants if I was you. I’m going to count to thirty. If I ever see you or your friends again, Adam, you’ll star in Cutter’s next film. Run. One, two, ….’

He turned and fled.

His friends had no idea what was going on but they saw the fear.

Adam grabbed the others and dragged them with him. ‘Run. Trust me. Run.’

They couldn’t understand what had happened. What could two kids have said to frighten him so much? But he was obviously terrified. He was going for his life. He must have had a good reason to do so. They joined him.

‘Sam, I thought you didn’t want me to threaten people anymore.’

‘I don’t, and you didn’t. This was me and this was different. They deserved it. Young men need to know they can’t harass teenage girls.’ The drone landed five feet in front of me.

‘Is the drone working okay?’

‘It is truly spectacular. It’s so easy to fly and the pictures I’m getting back are stunning. I can’t wait to see what they’re like on a big screen. Do you want to try?’

Alice was a natural. She made me look like a clumsy five-year-old.

We fiddled about with it until the battery ran out nearly an hour later. I tried setting addresses for it to fly to (which turned out to be dead easy), doing all sorts of manoeuvres and zooming in with the camera. It was all so simple. It had automatic landing and could hover almost motionless even with a breeze blowing.

On the way home I was so excited I almost forgot to do our safety checks.

When I saw the pictures on my computer, I was staggered. The video was super high definition and crystal clear. I had taken a still picture of somebody on their phone from a height of a hundred metres. When I zoomed in, I could read the text message on his screen. It was so much better than what I’d hoped for.

It was time to make a definite plan. Before lunch was no good because even though there wouldn’t be so many people around to see it, gangsters tended not to be morning people. We also didn’t want to attract attention by being teenagers in the park during school time. Four o’clock the next day was chosen for the first test. There would be a few parents with their kids on the way home from school but they wouldn’t pay us much attention.

‘Don’t get your hopes up too high, Alice. There’s a good chance that we’ll have to do many flights to get a useful picture.’

We got lucky on our first trip. The drone flew the three miles to the house in under ten minutes. I circled around it for about five minutes photographing everything. Then I went lower to get a better angle on the licence plate of a car parked there. While I was doing this, a man came out of the house and got into the car. I got some good shots of him.

Not wanting to push my luck, I took some footage of the surrounding area and ordered the drone to return. We packed up and went home.

Alice recognised the man who got into the car but she couldn’t remember his name. While I considered how we might attack the place, Alice set to buying the name and address of the person who owned the vehicle.

It was a solid house made of grey stone. It was box-like with three storeys, if you counted the tiny top one meant for midget servants. The windows looked like they had wooden frames: the bottom lifted up and the top came down. The roof was slate. Mum had dreamed about owning a thatched house. I couldn’t see the attraction myself. Isn’t a roof a roof? Adults want such stupid things.

Several security cameras were visible. There looked to be a fence inside the wall, but the image wasn’t clear. Alice guessed it would be electrified and have sensors attached. Of course, remote-controlled gates kept people out.

A weakness hit me. If I could find an appropriate launching point, there was a way to get at them. I studied Street View images of the area around.

‘Alice, I’ve got a plan for how we attack the house. We need a few other things so we can make a bomb and some other bits and pieces.’

‘Sam, two teenagers aren’t going to be able to storm a heavily-guarded fortress belonging to The Company even with an explosion. We’d be killed, or create such a ruckus that the police would get us.’

‘I don’t mean attack with violence.’ I explained my plan. I finished with, ‘As you can see, there are two risks. Firstly, buying the materials for the bomb: we need to think how to do it without being associated with either one. Secondly, there’s a risk when we send the bomb off. If somebody comes out of the house at that exact moment we could be in trouble, but if you cover me we should be okay. Otherwise, we’ll be fine.’ I explained my idea.

Alice sat silent, staring at me.

‘Well, what do you say?’

‘It’s brilliant, Sam. How on earth did you think of it?’

‘The gap under the gates. I reckon it’s fifteen to twenty centimetres. That gave me the idea.’

‘What about the bomb? Will it work? How do you know about explosives?’

‘YouTube. I’ll show you. There are heaps of videos.’ Although the specific one Dave and I had watched together had been removed, there were plenty of others. ‘We need two things to make it. It doesn’t have a detonator.’

The next morning we set off to buy what we needed for the plan. We travelled to near Trafford Park, went into a shop and bought some pool chlorine granules. Then we visited a clothing bank and dumped our hats before putting on some others that we had taken with us.

We bought a small remote-controlled dumper truck from a toy shop. We paid cash but I knew we could be traced through CCTV images. It couldn’t be helped.

We took these items home before I went out alone — always being seen together would make us easier to pick out and Alice couldn’t go by herself.

I walked to a small, independent petrol station and bought a bottle of brake fluid, pretending to be a resentful teenager who’d been sent by his dad. There was no CCTV camera but the man at the till might have remembered me. Again, it was a risk, but it had to be taken. I’d never realised before just how many times we are photographed, videoed, or simply noticed.

The following afternoon we set out, on foot, of course. I was carrying the drone and the brake fluid. Alice had the remote-control truck and the chlorine. It took us an hour to walk to the street.

I crept along the road and checked out the house from a distance. There was no obvious movement but there was a car parked near the entrance to the house. Perfect.

We set up the drone in a park nearby. The edge of it — a hedge and a metal fence with a gate in it — was about fifty metres from our target. This was where we were going to work from.

Alice launched the drone and had it hover high nearby. I was jealous because she could control it so easily, so naturally and so competently.

I took a deep breath. I had to hope the bomb worked and the timings I’d seen on videos were correct.

I poured the chlorine granules into the back of the remote-control dumper and covered these with brake fluid. I sprinted for the gate, stopped two feet from it and placed the vehicle on the ground under it. The car was parked not far from the entrance. Using a remote control, I directed my toy beneath it.

That was when the door opened.

A man appeared.

Our eyes met.

He reached for his inside pocket.

He pulled out a gun.

Alice shot him three times in the chest. A headshot would have been safer — there would have been no way for him to talk — but the distance was too great to take the risk with the gate in the way. We had to hope he wouldn’t live. The Company couldn’t know I was involved.

And then we turned and ran.

We sprinted back to the park, grabbed the screen and looked at it, panting. Nothing happened. The drone was hovering a hundred metres above the car.

‘It’s not working, Alice.’ I was panicking.

‘Don’t fret. It’s only been fifty-five seconds. I timed it. You were really quick.’

It seemed closer to ten minutes to me.

Thirty seconds more passed. ‘I’ve failed.’

‘Be patient, Sam. And keep an eye out for other people in the park. I can watch this.’

I looked around. There were few people and none taking any notice of us.

I couldn’t help it. I looked back at the screen.

Smoke. Then flames. Fireballs shot out of each side of the car. They only lasted for a few seconds but that was long enough. One of the windows shattered.

Alice focused the camera on the door. Three men appeared. They found the body. Fumbling for their guns, they spread out, searching the area in front of the house, keeping away from the car.

One of the men cautiously approached the car and peered underneath. My idea had been that the flames would shoot up, be reflected off the metal underneath the vehicle and burn up the dumper, which was mostly plastic anyway, leaving little trace of the cause. They would hardly suspect a remote-control toy.

I couldn’t tell for sure, but the size of the flames suggested there wouldn’t be much left.

‘I’m bringing it back,’ Alice said. ‘We’ve got what we want.’

She sent the drone north for a minute and east for two minutes before bringing it home. We didn’t want them tracing it back to us in the park. I didn’t think they’d seen or heard it, but there was no point taking the risk.

We strode out of the other side of the park.

I left the remote control for the dumper in a bin we walked past.

When we got home, I started on the second part of the plan. I downloaded the images to my laptop, chose several showing guns being wielded, and used two different programs to convert the pictures so the image information would be scrubbed from the files. Finally, I sent them to the police adding the earlier moniker EliminateTheCompany and the address of the house. They could tell the pictures were taken by a drone but not what brand and so wouldn’t be able to trace the purchaser, I hoped.

‘Do you think the man who saw me will talk, Alice?’

‘Three bullets an inch apart in his chest? He’s dead already, Sam. Also, I zoomed in on the body at one point. There was no movement.’

‘I didn’t see that video.’

‘That’s because there wasn’t one. I’d turned off record.’

‘But then we’ve left a body. The police will know there’s been a shooting.’

‘Don’t fret. The Company will dispose of it,’ Alice said.

The reaction was faster than I expected. Of course the police were interested in the address of three men carrying guns — the remotely controlled vehicle, the body and the fire were absent from the footage.

We watched the operation afterwards on TV.

A huge, armed-response group was formed. The place was surrounded and the area was stealthily evacuated and sealed off.

The police were reinforced by an SAS unit and armoured vehicles. No chances were taken.

It wasn’t a hostage situation. No one except the criminals was in any danger at all. Collateral damage wasn’t a consideration for the authorities. The prime minister has said it was shoot to kill.

‘Open the gates and come out with your hands in the air.’ The message from the loud hailer echoed ominously. There was no movement from inside the building.

‘If you do not come out within five minutes, we will use tear gas to drive you out.’

When the time limit expired and nobody had stirred from the building, an army officer signalled and an armour-plated Land Rover drove up to the gate. It stopped centimetres away. Advancing slowly, the driver touched the bumper bar against the metal entrance and inched forward. The gates bent, sprung open, bounced back, hit the Land Rover and came to rest ajar.

The four-wheel drive backed up two metres. It could be used to block any vehicle that tried to escape.

‘Move away from the windows,’ came the order.

Four pairs of soldiers wearing heavy body-armour moved up beside the Land Rover. Each pair had one person carrying a transparent shield to protect them both and one carrying a grenade launcher.

An order was given. Snipers located further away smashed the glass of six windows, two on each of the floors. Tear-gas canisters were shot through them using the grenade launchers.

The pairs retreated behind the Land Rover.

The front door opened. A heavily-built man holding a tea-towel over his mouth and a pistol in his hand staggered out. He only took two steps before he was shot. The orders were to shoot anyone carrying a gun without warning. These were known to be very dangerous people.

An unbroken window on the ground floor opened and a short man carrying a submachine gun dove out and hid behind a car. He stood and emptied his magazine impotently at the Land Rover and other imagined targets. Two shots from well-concealed snipers ended his bit of theatre.

He, however, had been part of a diversion. The other part, two men walking out the front door with their hands up, followed almost immediately.

At the same time, an older gentleman scuttled out the back door and through a hidden exit in the wall. He hoped to make it across a small section of communal area attached to some houses to a car parked nearby.

Although the police hadn’t actually spotted the exit, they were prepared for someone trying to escape over the wall. The man with watering eyes was nabbed immediately.

After waiting for ten minutes to see if anyone else emerged, a squad of soldiers wearing gas masks moved in. They didn’t find any more people but they did find guns, ammunition and drugs — enough to make sure survivors went to prison for a long time, even if they couldn’t be linked to other crimes.

Six eliminations. No casualties on our part. We were ecstatic. We were winning. They were losing.

We celebrated too early.

We don’t know how it happened. Frank just disappeared. He stopped answering his phone and didn’t respond to messages. We thought that perhaps he’d had enough and decided to run away, but the timing was wrong. If he was going to quit, it should have been earlier. The Company must have found him and dealt with the body afterwards. It wasn’t reported anywhere.

I wonder if he suffered.

I hadn’t known him except through text messages and emails. He seemed to want to keep Alice safe, despite what she said about everyone simply being paid to look after her. He’d texted her regularly congratulating her and encouraging her. I know I haven’t repeated them in this account — personal messages like that don’t mean a lot to other people — but he seemed to care.

I thought of him as one of the good guys. It was naivety. How could anyone in Alice’s world be classed as a ‘good guy’? I reckon that includes me now.

That left four of us.

20 If you’re hard enough

‘Alice, I’ve had an idea.’

We tagged it IfYou’reHardEnough. You had to prove how brave you were by pulling up the sleeve of someone else. If you exposed the tattoo of a gang member — other than The Company there were two smaller gangs that used tattoos in Manchester — you won two hundred pounds if you posted a picture of the person, their tattoo and one of yourself on my website.

I was prepared to pay much more than two hundred pounds but we needed to be able to post the money using an ordinary first class stamp. In the end we only actually sent out five envelopes. I set up a website where people could paste their pictures. When word got around the idea went viral.

I used a couple of photos taken with the drone. There was an image of one of them with his arm slightly exposed because he was pulling up his sleeve before getting down on the ground and peering under the charred car. It took me hours, and it looked as fake as a drawn on eyebrow (Why do girls do that?), but I had his mate pulling up his sleeve — one member of The Company exposing another. Did he ever see himself claiming to show off organised crime? I doubt it. He was in prison.

Using Don’tMissTheAction and EnglandForTheEnglish, I promoted the competition. I also sent out several fake messages about winning two hundred pounds. News of the competition spread faster than a picture of a celebrity accidently showing her knickers.

Of course, a few people got a tattoo so they could, with a friend, claim the two hundred pounds. The police did the rounds of the tattoo parlours and put a stop to that. We didn’t pay them anyway. What idiots.

On Saturday morning I approached a bald-headed man with bare arms (I didn’t want someone who was part of organised crime.) near the centre of town, handed him an envelope with two hundred pounds in it and said, ‘Hey, mister. I was told to give you this. The bloke in the car over there pointed you out as a winner in the IfYou’reHardEnough competition and told me to give it to you.’ I pointed vaguely. The man opened the envelope and didn’t deny he was a valid recipient. I disappeared before he could ask me any questions. Alice took a photos of him opening the envelope and finding the money. I posted these on Don’tMissTheAction and EnglandForTheEnglish. (I know it was breaching GDPR, but I don’t care. There are worse crimes.)

In a nightclub that evening the police tried to arrest two people who had been exposed by “friends”. When they resisted, they were immediately tasered. The police were taking no chances.

Not only was the money appealing, it became a dare to expose someone’s arm. The attractiveness of this piece of bravado diminished after several people were stabbed for doing it. The police issued a warning against the practice. They’d caught eight criminals in all — four from The Company.

Alice was over the moon. ‘You’re such a star, Sam.’ She gave me a big hug. Then I was over the moon too.

21 The best deal in town

A week later I announced: ‘I’ve got another idea, Alice.’

‘How do you keep doing it, Sam?’

‘I’m what pretentious people call themselves: a creative.’

‘I don’t get that. Are you calling yourself pretentious?’

‘No.’ I sighed. ‘I was trying to be funny, but it didn’t work.’

We needed yet another mobile phone and it had to be a good one for the apps I wanted to use. I had to store messages and send them to multiple numbers instantly. Although Alice and I normally bought the cheapest bricks we could find, this was different. A shop that unlocks phones for a fee sold us one. We picked up a SIM card at the checkout at Tesco.

We also printed a hundred business cards using one of those machines where you insert five pounds, choose the layout, colours and font, and then type in the text you want. We put: ‘Pure heroin. The best price in Manchester. £5 per hit. 0779264211.’

On the phone we recorded the message: ‘Text this number and we’ll let you know where and when.’ I installed an app to grab each sender’s number ready to send out bulk replies.

With experience you can spot the right sort of punters easily. I’d walk up to one, sit down beside him or her, leave a small packet of heroin (one of the ones I’d picked up when I shot the dealer) with a business card and walk off. I felt only a little bit bad about giving people drugs. They were going to buy them anyway. In most instances, they were going to commit a crime to get the money. By giving them the drugs I was preventing an illegal action being performed. And, if my plan worked, I was keeping Alice safer.

Alice’s map of all the CCTV cameras covering the city centre meant we wandered in a strange circle. Once I ran out of packets of heroin, I placed the cards all over the place.

In case they hadn’t noticed, we emailed the police the phone number and sent them the message that everyone who texted us received: ‘The Trafford Centre. Car park E. 9.00 am Monday. Look for a black BMW. Check the hashtag TraffordCentrePleasureDeal on the day on social media for updates.’ (I think anyone driving a black BMW should be arrested on principle.)

On Monday morning we spent several hours setting up fake messages ready to send them: ‘Changed to a blue Audi.’ ‘Where are they?’ ‘Near the lamppost.’ ‘This is pure stuff.’ ‘How are they doing it for the price?’ ‘Where are they?’ ‘Are you blind?’ ‘How can they do this for five quid?’ etc. all using TraffordCentrePleasureDeal.

At nine o’clock I started sending the messages across multiple channels. I was staggered by the traffic I created.

We then sent another text: ‘No more. Crowd attracting the attention of the police. Tomorrow, 11 outside Central Library. See you there.’

‘Sam, are you sure this isn’t promoting drug taking?’

‘How could it be? While they’re trying to find us, they’re not visiting their regular dealer.’

‘Are you sure? You know I don’t like drugs, don’t you?’

‘Yes. You’ve made that abundantly clear.’ I put down my mug. We were sitting in a coffee shop in the Trafford Centre. We’d been able to see the crowd that gathered in Carpark E through a window.

‘As far as I can see, Alice, drugs are one of The Company’s staples. If we appear to offer a threat to that market, they’ll be interested.’

She didn’t disagree.

On Tuesday morning I posted a picture of one of the men caught by our drone operation and photos of the heroin packets. An hour before the selling was supposed to start, I posted the following message: ‘For today only, buy ten pounds worth, get ten pounds extra free.’

Two hundred people texted us. It was success beyond anything I’d imagined. Because we’d kept them in the loop, the police were there, out of sight, in numbers.

At exactly eleven o’clock I sent the message: ‘Panic. Police everywhere trying to bust organised crime. Pull up your sleeves to show you aren’t a criminal.’

The police aren’t stupid. They arrested everyone in the vicinity who didn’t pull up his or her sleeves. Three of The Company were found looking on.

Obviously, the police tried to contact us through the phone and we knew they might somehow be able to locate it. Alice dropped it into the canal as we walked over the bridge near the cathedral. Water tends to wash off DNA and other identifying evidence.

Alice was sitting looking at her phone when she stiffened, drew breath and opened her eyes so widely I thought they were going to pop out. It was the first week of March.

‘What’s wrong?’

She didn’t say anything.

‘Is it bad news?’

She sat there biting her lip.

‘What’s up? Why don’t you tell me?’

‘I don’t want to lie to you.’

‘Well then don’t. Just tell me.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Tell me what was on your phone. You may as well do it now because you’re going to have to eventually.’

‘I got a message: “Father has developed a cocaine habit.”’

I looked at her confused. Okay, he had a drug addiction. There were worse things, weren’t there?

‘You don’t understand, do you, Sam?’

I shrugged. How could I?

‘A cocaine habit costs between one and three hundred pounds a day, usually. He’d have to pay the higher level because of The Company and keeping safe.’

‘So?’ I considered his income and the amounts she was suggesting.

‘On ten thousand pounds a month he’s going to need more cash. He lives an expensive lifestyle as it is. The drug habit isn’t sustainable. I don’t know what side interests he’s developed but looking after me isn’t going to be good enough.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘As well, he has to be dealing with someone outside the four of us. That’s a risk.’

I tried to process this. Alice started to cry.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’d meant to tell you, Sam, because I don’t want to have any secrets from you. But I didn’t know how to say it to you: I thought you might be angry with me. I haven’t told you that Father demanded I send him two bitcoins.’

I calculated the value: somewhere between ten and twenty thousand pounds. ‘What for?’

‘That’s the problem. He won’t say. Always, in the past he’s said what the money is for. This time he won’t. It’s the first time I’ve heard from him in ages. Now he keeps sending me messages. I don’t know what to do. Should I pay it?’

I needed to take control. However, I could see the future. ‘Pay it but ask what it’s for. If he fobs you off, say you’re going to want specific details before you hand over further money. If he asks for more, do the same.’ I had used ‘if’ twice while believing it would be ‘when’.

‘Just keep paying?’

‘Yes, but make it difficult each time: delay, ask questions, change your mind.’

‘But how does it end?’

‘I don’t know but you can’t have Father as an enemy.’

How could I tell Alice I had a premonition it was going to turn extremely ugly? I ground my teeth. I didn’t like hiding things from her, but I didn’t know how to tell her either. I understood how she felt and why she’d hidden it from me. We’d promised not to lie to each other, but saying nothing had to be an option sometimes, surely.

I insisted on takeaway for dinner. There was a vegetarian place nearby selling food that was barely edible (Alice liked it) and I said I’d go on my own. I needed to think. How I was going to tell Alice what I’d realised?

22 The numbers didn’t add up

We were superficially jolly as we chewed our way through a lentil, kale and bean salad with caramelised-onion humus. (I could be making that up. Whatever, it wasn’t my idea of tasty. I was tempted to eat the box it came in instead.) We cleared up and pretended that we were going to do something fun after dinner: Alice would beat me at a computer game, we would watch a film, or we would read a book. (Yes, we did do that. We read to each other while we were doing things like packing the dishwasher. You should try it. It’s lots of fun.)

That night was different. There was tension in the air. I had to break it.

‘Alice, I think there are some things we need to talk about.’

‘And what are they?’ Alice said.

‘I know I don’t understand your world but I can count.’

‘Really, Sam? Past a hundred?’ We both gave a fake laugh. ‘What is it you’ve been counting?’

‘There were forty-three. We eliminated two in the car. The police got three at the factory. We accounted for two more with the drug deal because one is in prison. We did Kenneth Sylvania. That’s makes twenty-nine. Richard, by himself, did three. Then Richard, with a bit of help from us, did four. Frank and Phillip did two. Twenty. Paul did Megan Whaites. We did Jed Flack. Six were arrested by the police at the industrial estate. Six more were eliminated with the drone. Twelve left. We eliminated another three with the heroin and four more with IfYou’reHardEnough. That leaves five.’

I stopped. I couldn’t say what was on my mind.

‘Father hasn’t eliminated anyone. I know.’ She looked at the floor. ‘There’s a contract out on him and so he’s being careful, Sam. How would you react?’

‘There has been a contract out on him since he left The Company. I got in touch with Phillip and had him search. There’s no new money being offered.’

‘It can’t be true. I won’t believe it. How would Phillip know the right places to search? Father can’t have been doing nothing …’

‘I’m sure there’s a good reason,’ I said, actually believing there was. ‘He must have a plan that he’s working on to end it all. We need to think that the final scene is about to be performed. We’re actors but I hope not star-crossed lovers in a tragic climax.’

‘You think he’s been working on a plan to finish it?’

‘Of course. He hardly gains if we lose. The Company’s got to be terminated. He can keep his income, but only if you stay alive.’ My statements were rational and logical. They fitted in with the known facts. We had to work with them as certainties. They were wrong.

Phillip’s story made us sick. The details are sketchy: what we know came from the news. A couple in their car witnessed it and were all too ready to tell all.

It happened on a Saturday night. Phillip had gone out to his car. He’d been about to get in but had instead gently pushed the door closed while jumping back.

The explosion didn’t kill him. The two men waiting in a vehicle nearby were intent on doing so. One had a pistol. That other had a shotgun. They knew where Phillip lived.

How did they know? Who had given them the information?

The two Company men had been caught unprepared: they expected the bomb to kill Phillip. He was wounded. He needed to be finished off.

‘Shoot his legs first, Clive,’ the one with the pistol said. ‘We can make him suffer.’

Clive fired, pumped another cartridge into the chamber and fired again. He knew he’d hit Phillip. He was surprised when his enemy clutched his chest and fell to the ground.

‘He’s not moving,’ Clive said.

‘I told you to aim for the legs.’

‘I did.’ They two of them walked towards Phillip.

‘You must have missed. Put another shot into his head.’

Clive raised his gun to do so.

Phillip rolled over, flung the grenade he had just pulled the pin out of and laughed. (Many people have idiosyncrasies about weapons: Phillip’s was that he always carried a grenade with him.)

Of course Phillip was mutilated by the blast but so were his two attackers.

There were now three of them and three of us. Phillip had levelled the odds. I didn’t know how to thank him, or remember him, or grieve for him. He was another victim of The Company.

23 The end of it all

Alice put down her phone. She looked devastated. When she saw the concern on my face, she tried to perk up but couldn’t.

‘Father wants me to meet him at a warehouse this afternoon. He thinks this will be the end of it all.’ She stopped. She was hiding something.

‘And?’

‘He says I should go unarmed.’ The words hung in the air like a death sentence being pronounced by a judge.

‘That’s lunacy. What possible reason does he give?’ I said.

‘He said it’s a negotiation and they won’t trust us if I’m carrying a gun.’

I couldn’t think of anything to say so I asked, ‘When do we leave?’

‘Not “we”, “me”. He said I had to go. He didn’t mention you.’

‘So? I’m not letting you go alone.’ It would have been cruel to say she couldn’t: agoraphobia isn’t something to be proud of.

‘But it may be dangerous and this isn’t your fight,’ Alice said.

‘Of course it is. Mum, Ben and Beth: it’s my fight too.’

‘I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you,’ she said.

‘I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.’ I took her hand in mine. ‘You’re all I’ve got.’

Alice disappeared into her bedroom for the next five minutes. She was hiding her gun.

A few days after we had moved into the flat, Alice had insisted on buying a hi-fi system. We had trawled around three shops before she found the one she wanted. It had big, fat speakers. She’d also bought five, pop CDs. I couldn’t understand it: she didn’t listen to music often, she only played classical music on the piano and our flat was too small for thirty-centimetre high speakers.

She set it up in her room, tuned it to the radio stations, opened all the CDs and placed one in the player. She saw my look of astonishment. ‘It has to work. Otherwise, the police will know straight away.’

‘Of course it has to work,’ I said. ‘But, why did you buy one that big? And what do the police have to do with it?’

‘Watch. You notice I had to find particular speakers. I wanted large ones that you could remove the screws from without it showing.’

She got a Phillips-head screwdriver and took the back off the brand new speaker. Was she trying to ruin it on the first day?

Alice took some foam packaging and a sponge. She wrapped the box of spare ammunition and placed it into the back of the speaker. She jammed in the sponge to hold everything tight before replacing the panel. Picking up the speaker, she gave it a shake to see if it rattled. It didn’t. She put it down, turned on some music and checked the sound wasn’t affected. Then she smiled, satisfied. It was a secure hiding place in case our flat was searched.

At two o’clock we set out. We took a bus out beyond the ring road and then walked north. We found ourselves in an industrial complex. There were weeds growing through the tarmac, the paint on the buildings was flaking, windows were broken and there was graffiti everywhere. Fear and dread were my unpleasant companions.

‘I don’t like this,’ I said. ‘What’s Father thinking bringing you here?’

‘He insisted I needed to meet them. It was the only way to broker a deal.’

‘But that’s so risky. Why take chances like that?’

Twenty metres from the warehouse Alice stopped. ‘Wait for me here, outside. If I’m not out in thirty minutes, leave.’

‘No.’

‘What do mean “No”?’

‘I mean I’m not going to wait out here for you. I’m coming with you. You’re not going to argue about it. That’s the way it is.’ I was determined.

She sighed. ‘All right, but stay in the background. Try not to stand out. And don’t speak.’

An unlocked door let us into a delivery bay. Father was standing in the centre. He was gaunt and pale — not the fit, young man I had seen in Devon. Alice walked towards him. She stopped a couple of metres short. She didn’t hug him or shake hands. I stayed near the door.

‘You’re late, Sasha,’ Father said.

‘I couldn’t get a bus. I came as quickly as I could.’

He gestured at me. ‘Why did you bring him?’

‘I couldn’t leave him behind. He can’t manage by himself. He’s harmless.’

Father wasn’t happy but let it go. ‘Have you got your gun?’

‘You told me not to bring it. Why, by the way?’

‘Harry, did you hear that?’ Father shouted.

A solid man with a bald head, red stubble on his face and a gun in his hand stepped out from behind some boxes. He was flanked on his left by two other men, both armed and mean. ‘Search her,’ he ordered.

Father, to my amazement, stepped forward and frisked Alice roughly. When he found the memory stick, he smiled before pocketing it.

He stepped back and Harry moved close to Alice. His two accomplices went and stood on either side behind her. He kept his gun pointed at her. ‘So, Sasha, we meet again.’ He licked his lips. ‘You always were good-looking. How old are you now?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘I thought that’s what you were. Do you remember our last meeting?’

‘Yes.’

‘So do I.’ He looked her up and down and licked his lips again. ‘What the hell are you? Father tells me you’ve almost single-handedly eliminated nearly thirty grown men. How? Are you a devil?’

Alice didn’t answer. What could she say? She turned her head to Father.

‘Why did you betray me, Father?’ Alice said.

‘What do you mean, why? It’s obvious, isn’t it? I reckon you might have the key to fifty million quid on this memory stick. No one’s life is worth that much. Of course it would be useless without the password but that’s one area where you were always careless. You used your parents’ names and the date they died. Stupid sentimentality.’

He’d sold Alice out. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to kill him. But what could I do?

‘I’ve kept my side of the bargain,’ Father said. ‘You keep yours.’

Harry barely glanced at Father. Instead, he continued to stare at Alice, hate contorting his features.

Harry’s gun was pointed directly at Alice. He squinted, taking aim at her head. Suddenly, he swung the gun left and fired, and then right and fired again. His two off-siders were dead before they hit the ground. He walked around and checked for signs of life. With bullet holes two centimetres above their noses, I don’t know why he bothered.

He kicked one. ‘You worthless turds. You won’t mess with my woman again.’

He turned his attention to Alice.

‘Not only my whole family but all my associates are dead or in jail because of you and your parents. You’ve caused me so much pain. You’re going to die, but you’re going to suffer first. There’re only three of The Company left now: you, me and Father. Soon, but not too soon, there’ll only be two of us.’

He raised his gun again. ‘I reckon I’ll start the torture now.’

A bullet ripped through Alice’s thigh. Determined not to scream, she clutched at the wound. Blood oozed around her fingers. She looked at Father. ‘How do you know he won’t shoot you?’

‘I’m not stupid, Sasha. We met a week ago and — ’

‘Before Frank and Phillip were lost?’ Alice interrupted, incredulous. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You betrayed them.’

Father shrugged. ‘It had to come to an end. We couldn’t go on forever. Harry and I agreed a deal: he kills his off-siders and you. I get the money and pay him ten million pounds. There are only the two of us left and so we aren’t a danger to each other. Sasha, I had to put myself first.’

What a selfish bastard? I wanted to murder him.

‘You couldn’t live on your wage anymore because of the cocaine.’ It was a statement from Alice not a question.

He didn’t reply. Alice couldn’t help slumping to the ground; her leg gave out.

‘Harry isn’t going to shoot me,’ Father said. ‘We made a pact whereby we both deposited information with a solicitor. If either of us doesn’t ring him by six o’clock this evening, he’ll reveal locations and incriminating information about the other. Harry wouldn’t dare shoot me.’

Shifting his hate-twisted gaze from Alice to Father, Harry shrugged. ‘As of one o’clock this afternoon, that solicitor’s in my sole employment. And you just told me the password.’ Like a lizard’s tongue, his gun flicked a bullet in Father’s direction and spat death. Father’s grapple for his weapon was replaced by a clutch at his guts. Amazement filled his face as he looked from his wound to Harry.

‘You betrayed me. Why?’ I don’t think Father realised the irony of that statement.

A bullet in his forehead toppled him backwards, dead. I didn’t feel sorry for him.

The man called Harry walked over to Father, reached down and took the memory stick. He turned to Alice. ‘I knew your parents. I thought, for a time, they were decent people. You know, your birth changed them, ruined them.’

He walked around in front of her again. ‘I don’t understand. What are you? How can you eliminate so many people? You’re a little girl. You’re a child.’

When she didn’t answer, he slapped her across the face. Rage had its bit in his mouth.

‘I should have killed you when we had you. Do you remember that night? I bet you do.’ He leered at her and then slapped her again.

‘Now there are just two of us, two out of over fifty. You’ve caused me so much grief. I’m going to kill you slowly. Hold out your left hand.’

Alice didn’t move. Her left hand was clutching her bleeding thigh.

‘Hold out your left hand!’ he screeched. He grabbed her wrist, held it up and fired a bullet right through her palm. Alice couldn’t help but cry out.

I couldn’t help but react.

He hadn’t noticed me, didn’t see me take my pistol from my pocket — Alice had been told to come unarmed, not me. Harry didn’t see me switch on my laser sight, fix the red dot on his chest and flick off the safety catch with my thumb. Harry didn’t see me fire and fire again. Instead, he died without knowing I was a threat.

I emptied the magazine into his body. I wanted to be certain and hoping he might feel some pain. If I could have, I would have revived him and tortured him until he died again.

Then I rushed to Alice and grabbed her in my arms. As I looked at the pain she was suffering, as I saw her blood staining her clothes, as I thought about all that had happened — Mum, Ben, Beth, Frank, Richard, Phillip, Father, everything — I wished I’d never seen her face. Why did I have to watch her suffer?

Regret was replaced with pragmatism. ‘We need to get out of here.’

‘Leave me, Sam. Get away. Save yourself.’

‘No, Alice. I won’t do that.’ I let her go. Quick, decisive action was needed. Otherwise she could bleed to death. There would be time for emotion later. It was time for unclouded, undistorted thought.

I removed my hoodie and grabbed the knife I always had strapped to my calf. Alice had said that sometimes a gun wasn’t the best option and I’d listened to her. I cut four strips of cloth. The first I tied around Alice’s thigh. An artery hadn’t been hit but the wound was still bleeding. The bullet had gone straight through. I wrapped a second piece around her left hand and made her clutch it with her fingers.

The next step was the hardest. I took the knife and grabbed her forearm ready.

‘What are you doing, Sam?’

‘Cutting away your past. This is going to hurt but the stiller you can stay, the less I’ll have to cut out.

‘We have to escape from The Company. We can’t while you’re still wearing this tattoo. When asked, say they cut you to torture you. I’m sorry it’ll hurt.’

She bit her lip as I sliced at the skin where her tattoo was. I did it in sections, trying not to cut more than needed but knowing that time was short. Tears ran down Alice’s face but she didn’t complain or cry out. She was one tough person.

I wrapped the third bit of make-shift bandage around the wound. She pleaded again for me to leave her. I didn’t bother refusing. I had too many difficult things to do.

Bending over one of the offsiders, I wiped the knife on his sleeve to associate Alice’s blood with him and then clutched his hand around it.

I picked up the spent cartridges from shooting Harry and threw them near Father. Taking Father’s gun I tossed it on the ground near the others. I splashed a tin of liquid that looked flammable around. Harry had been a smoker and so I searched him for his lighter.

‘What are you doing, Sam? Get out of here!’ Alice screamed.

I knew she was losing blood. I hoped it wasn’t too quickly. I needed her to hang on for a bit longer. Death had to be satiated for the moment.

Finally, I removed my gloves, took my gun and placed it in Father’s hand, wrapping his fingers around it.

‘What are you doing, Sam?’

‘I’m preparing things before I call the police and the ambulance. We have to get you to a hospital.’

‘You can’t call the police. You’ll be arrested. You’ll be charged with murder.’

I was deaf to her entreaties.

‘You’ll go to jail, Sam. Run. Leave me. Call the ambulance when you’re well away. I’m not worth it.’

‘Stop it, Alice. I’m not leaving you. We’re minors. We can’t be sent to prison. We keep close to the truth saying we were lured here. You were shot. They tortured you by slicing you with a knife and shooting you. There was a gunfight when all the others were killed.’ I paused. ‘And they shot me in the hand like they shot you.’

I grasped my gun in Father’s hand. I was going to miss it. It had been part of me. I held it up to my hand.

‘Don’t, Sam. I’m not worth it.’

‘Of course you are. But I need to share your pain to provide a cover story. The gun used to shoot Harry also shoots me. They would never guess a teenager would shoot himself.’

I pulled the trigger. The pain … it was indescribable. I screamed. I wept. How had Alice endured it so easily? She was strong and I was weak.

I wrapped the fourth piece of bandage around my hand. Would I ever be able to use it properly again?

‘Sam, are you all right?’

‘No,’ I said through tears. ‘But I’ll manage. We’ll need to get to the door in a minute.’

‘Why? What are you going to do?’

‘Get rid of incriminating evidence.’

I took the lighter, flicked it and held it to the liquid I had splashed about. A small flame. It spread quickly.

Supporting Alice, I made my way towards the door. ‘Remember, if they threaten to separate us at any time, we tell them we’ll disappear again. You’re still Alice Green. I’m still your brother. If we stick to that story, we’ll be fine.’

‘Do you think it’s really possible?’ Alice said. ‘Can we avoid arrest?’

‘If we work together it is.’

We made it outside. I called for the fire brigade, an ambulance and the police. We collapsed on a patch of grass. The pain in my hand was distorting my vision and other senses. How could Alice endure gunshots to the thigh and hand? She was one tough cookie. I sat, trying to focus on a story that would get us out of the mess we were in. I changed my mind and was going to use my real name. Alice had found me homeless, had recognised my name from the news and had taken me in. I repeated the details to Alice. Talking kept my mind off the pain.

How did Alice tolerate it so well? It was part of her growing up, I suppose.

‘Also, Alice, you’re going to be completely traumatised and so won’t be able to say what happened. I’ll do all the talking.’

‘But Sam, why are you doing this? Why don’t you leave me?’

‘Because I love you, Alice, and I always will. I can’t help it.’

The sirens of the various emergency services blended into one. There were people in uniforms rushing everywhere.

Soon after climbing into the ambulance I drifted into unconsciousness, but not before I whispered to Alice: ‘We’ve won. We’ve eliminated The Company.’