Marcus was waiting outside the office door, knees knocking. “Excellent job,” she reassured him generously: “I’ll be sure to let HR know. I’m taking these,” she added. “You didn’t look at the contents of the disks, did you?”
“No, no, Miss!” The poor little rodent was eager to return to his cage.
“Excellent. You won’t speak of this to anyone. You can go home now—wherever you go when you’re not here, that is.”
Marcus was still babbling his thanks as she stalked back to the elevator. He’s good, but he’s much too talkative for comfort, she realized. I’ll have to reassign him. Once back at her desk with her office door locked, she checked that the disk image was bootable. Then she shredded the floppy disks and drafted a memo to Human Resources, asking them to put him on the next flight out to the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Research Station. Let him blab to the penguins: the birds weren’t about to bid on the book.
Eve smiled again. Then she picked up her phone and called her thief.
Imp and the gang stayed up late into the night, wasted on a never-ending roll-up and a periodically emptying jug of scrumpy (followed by Del’s distressingly crap stockpile of lager when the good stuff ran out). Eventually Game Boy staggered off to the games room, where he could cuddle up close to his PC and obsessively play KOF until he fell asleep. Some time later, Del announced she was going to the bathroom and never came back. That left Imp and Doc passing the guttering embers of a joint with which they exchanged sloppy blowbacks, too wasted to get properly amorous. “I’m drunk and you’re ugly,” Doc slurred, “but in the morning I’ll be hung-over and you’ll still be ugly.” He leaned sideways and kissed Imp deeply, his mouth smoky. But before Imp could get anything more than his hopes up, Doc stumbled to his feet and wandered towards the staircase.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” Imp called from his pit on the sofa. He yawned resentfully. “I dunno. Some people. Lightweights.” The room pancaked and wobbled around his head. Doc had a point, he had to admit, and whistled a few out-of-key bars of “Too Drunk to Fuck” by way of self-deprecatory comment. Then he lay on his back alone, his mind empty for once.
Then, for the first time in over a week, his phone rang.
“What the—what—fuck—” Imp sat bolt upright and flung out a hand in the direction of the device. It was thundering out the bass line of “Making Plans for Nigel” at audible-over-traffic volume, even though it was three in the bloody morning.
“He has his future in a British Steel—hello, who the fuck is this do you know what time it oh hello, sis, long time no see, really, you’re calling now? Who died and made you pope?”
“Are you drunk?” his sister accused.
He chuckled: “Maybe a little?”
“Listen carefully,” Imp’s sister said, enunciating each word with obsidian precision, sharp enough to slash his eardrums. “This is very important.”
Instant sobriety: “It’s not Mum, is it? Has she died?”
“No, she’s not dead. You’d know if you bothered to visit her.”
Imp bit back his instinctive response. “What is it, then?”
“I need a favor.”
Imp blinked at the ceiling, perplexed, and took stock of his surroundings. Nope, he hadn’t suddenly been transported to Neverland. He was lying on his back, holding his phone in one hand—it was his phone, it hadn’t magically metamorphosed into a rainbow chameleon baby while his attention was elsewhere—and yes, he was still lying in the carnivorous living room sofa, surrounded by discarded beer cans and overflowing ashtrays. He took stock. There was a chill of dampness in the air despite the oil-filled radiator running off the stolen electricity supply. It was December 2015, and he was drunk and stoned, and his sister, of all people, wanted a favor.
“You’re mad,” he said, and waited for the explosion.
There was no big sister detonation. Instead, something much more disturbing happened. She chuckled. Imp cringed: he knew that laugh, had known it since before he learned to walk, and it meant nothing good. She didn’t use it very often, but when she did … It was a laugh worthy of a young Shakespearian witch, a laugh destined to grow up to be a cackle of malice. Mischief was afoot. Oh fuck, he thought fuzzily. Stoned and drunk, Imp was no match for his big sister. He’d rather face a police raid or Game Boy’s tiger parents in full hue and corrupting-our-daughter cry. He’d even undergo a Work Capability Assessment, if it meant never again hearing that horrible ululation.
“Stop,” he implored, “please, just stop. It’s three in the fucking morning!”
“If I knew all I had to do was laugh at you I’d have phoned years ago.” She tittered briefly, sending chills scurrying up and down his spine. At three in the morning his sister could titter like a ghoul. “But I’m serious, Jeremy. I want you to do me a favor.”
“What’s in it for me?” he asked automatically, before his tongue caught up: “Don’t call me that!”
“I think I can make it worth your while.” Pause. “I know where you live.” Another pause. “I know who you live with. And I know
