iBoy

would I know someone like that?'

'I don't know ... I just thought you might have heard of him, that's all. I mean, you've lived here a long time, you know a lot of people, you hear a lot of stuff ...' I shrugged again. 'It doesn't matter, Gram. It's not impor­tant or anything. I was only asking ...'

She nodded again, her eyes fixed on mine, and for a moment I thought that she was going to tell me some­ thing, that she wanted to tell me something ... something really important...

But I was wrong.

She just glanced at her watch and said, 'You'd better get off to bed now. It's getting late. I'll see you in the morn­ing, all right?'

A few minutes later, as I was closing the door to my room, I looked back down the hallway and saw Gram sitting bolt upright on the settee. She was perfectly still, her hands laid flat on her knees, and she was staring straight ahead, staring at nothing. She looked as if she'd just seen a ghost.

1111

The Devil tempts that he may ruin and destroy ...

Saint Ambrose

If you know where to look, and how to look, and if you have the ability to look wherever you want, the cyber-world is full of places where you can find out all kinds of things about all kinds of people. There's the National DNA database, the General Register Office (births, marriages, deaths), the national identity register, the NHS detailed care record, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Identity and Passport Service ... the list is almost endless. And if, like me, you can hack into these places without any problems at all, it's not too difficult to find out all there is to find out about someone.

But that night, as I lay on my bed in the darkness, searching through every search engine and hacking into every database that I could think of, I couldn't find any current information about Howard Ellman at all. At least, not the Howard Ellman that I was looking for. There was a Howard Ellman in San Francisco, a lawyer; another one who'd written a book called Arthroscopic Shoulder Surgery; another one who was 'an accomplished designer and licensed architect'... there were hundreds of Howard Ellmans all over the world, but none of them had any links with Crow Town. I scanned millions of emails, billions of texts ... nothing. I checked telephone records, council tax, gas and electric, the electoral roll, bank and credit card accounts ... nothing. Even when I tried differ­ent spellings of the surname — Elman, Elmann, Ellmann — I still couldn't find anything. Nothing current, anyway.

It was only when I hacked into the Police National Computer (PNC) and accessed Ellman's criminal record that I finally found out something about him. The infor­mation wasn't exactly up to date — the last entry was dated July 2002 — and it wasn't particularly detailed either ... but it was detailed enough to convince me that Davey hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said that Ellman was 'a really bad guy'.

Name: Howard Ellman

Ethnic type: Caucasian

Height: 1.85m

Weight: 83 kg

Eye colour: Pale blue

Distinguishing marks/tattoos, etc.: None

Address: Unknown

Date of birth: 1o/o1/1971

Place of birth: Addington House, Crow Lane Estate,

London SE 15 6cd Occupation: Unknown

Registered vehicles: None

Convictions/Cautions/Arrests: Arrested Sept 1989, March 1990, April 1992 for aggravated assault, all charges subsequently dropped. Arrested March 1993, Oct 1995, July 2002 for sexual assault, complaints withdrawn, charges dropped.

Additional comments: Suspected involvement in funding/import/supply Class A drugs, as yet unproved. Also possible involvement in organized prostitution, arms smuggling, illegal money lending, people trafficking. Known variously as 'The Devil', 'Hellman', or 'Hell-Man', this individual is highly dangerous and should be approached with extreme caution at all times.

There were no photographs in the PNC file, but there was a link to the computerized custody records at South- wark Borough Police Station, and when I accessed these I found a JPEG image of a mug shot of Ellman which I guessed had been taken when he was in his early twen­ties. It showed an angular-faced man with a thin mouth, a shaved head, and staring, soulless eyes. There was no trace of emotion in his face: no fear, no anger ... nothing at all. It was the face of a man who could take a life as easily as taking a breath.

In the darkness of my room, in the light of the dark­ness inside my head, I studied that face for a long time. And the more I stared at it, the more I wondered how much Howard Ellman had to answer for, how much pain he'd caused, how much suffering ...

I remembered Lucy's anguished words: They ruined me, Tom. They totally fucking ruined me.

And I wondered how many other lives Ellman was responsible for ruining.

It was 03:34:42 when I left the flat and quietly closed the door. I tiptoed down the corridor, paused to put my shoes back on, then carried on down to the lift. My iSkin was glowing. My hood was up. My heart was stone cold.

10000

'The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end!'

Leon Trotsky

The estate was unusually quiet as I crossed the stretch of grass between Compton House and Crow Lane. The towers, the streets, the empty black sky ... everything was bathed in that dead-of-night silence that makes you feel like you're the only living thing in the world.

The night was cold. My breath was misting in the air, my hands were icy, and I could feel the soft crunch of frost beneath my feet.

But I didn't care.

Hot or cold ... it didn't make any difference to me. I was in that state of controlled brutality again — in control of being out of control — and the only thing I could feel was an overriding and irresistible sense of purpose. Get there, find them, find him ... get there, find them, find him ... get there, find them, find him ...

I walked on — across the grass, through the gate in the railings, along Crow Lane — and as I approached the entrance to Baldwin House, the sound of voices began to break through the darkened silence. Raised voices, laughter, the soft rumble of an idling car engine ...