Nobody Saw No One (26 page)

Keeping my eyeballs on the slow-moving queue, I casualize myself over to the Bentley, dig out my precious magic paperclip and begin to fidget with the lock of the boot.

That’s when the Sky News starts to hover lower. I swear I can feel the wind made by the coptor blades stirring the hairs on the back of my neck. The Digit hates to have an audience. Don’t film
me
; film the mad psychopath! That’s what your viewers want.

I drop the paperclip.

Can you believe it? I’m on my hands and knees trying to spot where it fell with a live audience getting an aerial view of my clumsy butt. And
now
the copter blades are sending a strew of litter across the forecourt. My paperclip’ll be blown to Stationery Limbo.

Jackson’s reached the front of the queue. I surrender. Leap to my feet, bounce up and down, throw my arms in the air like a waving Mexican. All right already, the whole world is watching me, I might as well make use of it. So I’m sweeping my arms in the direction of the shop, gesticulating and pointing, trying to force the media chopper to focus on Banks – like I’m a bonkers farmer trying to herd clouds.

Dunno if they see him, but he sees
them
all right. I’ve never seen him jump before, but he leaps right up in the air like a frog poked with a stick. The roar of the copter is all anybody can hear now, and it’s not just JB caught by its noisy windstorm. Everyone else is looking up and pointing too. What’s the point in my even trying?
Hello, everybody? Don’t look at the chopper – look at the maniac. Over there!
I take my life in my hands and step towards the garage, still pointing and waving at JB, but not a soul is interested.

It’s lucky for me that JB is focused on the chopper now too. He falls into a total panic station, the like of which the Digit has never seen. First thing, without taking his eyes off the sky, he makes a mad dash – and runs straight into a trucker eating a sandwich. Sandwich goes flying, but before the trucker can respond, Banks gives him such a look – like he’s going to rip his head off – that the bloke backs off.

I hurtle back to his car, gesticulating at the boot where Alfi’s locked in. Jumping up and down for the camera, making big arrow signs with my arms and hands. Could I make myself any clearer?

People are noticing Banks now though. They’re backing away from him. And he’s backing away from them. He looks worse than cornered. You can fight your corner. Here, he’s exposed.

He punches himself in the face. Uh-ho. That’s how he gathers his wits. He’s refocusing himself – staring back at the car. Right where I’m stood.

I duck round the side. There’s nowhere for me to go. If he sees me, I’m dead. I’m out of view, but that ain’t going to last for long.

I hear JB coming. He’s jibber-jabbering like a zombie giving a speech.

Under the car I slide, sandwiched between the tarmac and the frame. I see his boots, stampy-stompy, two feet from my face. He opens the door.

Alfi, I’m sorry.

Jackson laughs, or cries, and slams the door. He starts the engine, stalls it, smashes his fists –
bam! bam! 
– against the roof of the car, starts the engine again and roars off.

For half a mo, I’m on a hot beach, lying on the tarmac staring up at the sky blue. Citizen Digit reckons he could stay like this for quite a while, in restfulness. Golden sands. Sky News up above, taking pics. Holiday snaps for the folks back home.

’Cept I ain’t on holiday yet. Up I leap and wave my arms to all my adoring fans. If I’m going to be Hi-Vis, I might as well be Maxi-Hi Vis. Being in the company of Alfi Spar-Face has finally made me surrender the last of my power of invisibility. Thanks, pal; the whole world is Googling me now.

So I do the Digit Dance across the forecourt –let’s be worth seeing. Lookie here, viewers! See the Good Citizen dance!

Ten spins, a shuffle and a bow-wow later, I look up to see Sky News is joined by passing friends. Heli-Cops. Two of them. Circling overhead like vultures over roadkill.

Peeps pointing, and I see a Traffic Sherlock gawping my way, chinwagging his radio.

I make straight for my own wheels. I leap in, hotwire the engine and I’m away. Two Sherlockmobiles pull into the forecourt behind me. As I whizz away, their lights start to flash. I accelerate, and they accelerate, and JB on the motoroad ahead accelerates, and the Heli-Cops buzz down low, tracking the both of us. The game has reached the Highest Level.

Now the Digit has to really put his foot down. One hundred and twenty mph and rising, rising, rising. I could smash right into the back of Jackson’s boot, if it wasn’t filled with a skinny, all-too-snappable Spar-Boy.

And one of the Sherlocks is on my own tail, threatening my very own booty. Oh, you want a race, do you? Formula 140. Second Sherlockmobile drawing up alongside, and passenger Sherlock actually pointing a camera my way. Smile, please! I give ’em my cheesiest.

Two more Sherlocks revving up behind us. The speed dial goes where it’s never gone before, and the steering wheel starts to vibrate like the ferocity is threatening to make the whole car go BANG!

The Sky copter is so low it looks like it’s trying to land on JB’s roof rack. The other side of the motoroad is suddenly empty, like the Sherlocks have blocked all the traffic, and sure enough our own three lanes are filled with nothing but flashing cop cars.

All of a sud, Jackson swerves left, ramming the Sherlocks, sending their wheels skidoodling over the hard shoulder and whizzbanging onto the soft verge.

But then another Sherlockmobile comes up and rams Jackson’s car, and he rams it back and it all goes a bit
biff baff boom
. I wish they’d have a care, on account of the flesh-and-blood luggage in the boot. Best I can do is tail close as I can, so the Sherlocks can’t squeeze in behind JB and give Alfi an ugly shunting.

Ooof!
Now it’s
me
who’s getting rammed. Not having that, am I? So I ram ’em straight back.

Jackson Banks knows he can’t escape. He can torch his own HQ, try and cremate Grace out of evidence’s way. He can give Virus the kind of sending-off he don’t actually deserve. And he thinks he can bundle Alfi back to Tenderness House, where he’ll be locked up and Jimmyfied. But none of this is of any use when he’s surrounded by Traffic Sherlocks with a Heli-Cop –
two
Heli-Cops now – dropping on his bonce.

I pull up alongside. I toot my horn and turn my head. Jackson looks at me and his jaw drops. I am dead. I am the Avenger Angel.
You thought you killed me?
I am back, for my sisters, and for Grace.

The colour fades from his face as he sees me, his unholy ghost. He frowns, puzzling it. He puts his head back, and opens his mouth and lets loose his terror.

He is finished.

So what does he do? He floors it. He zooms forward, swerves the Bentley left, edging tight into the hard shoulder, notches up the speed, and swerves back right. He’s heading straight for the central crash barrier. He’s planning to break through into Southbound.

And just like that, the chase stops.

I didn’t think it through.

Jackson’s car smashes up off the barrier, rolls, over and over, crumples and smokes. He has a tank full of fuel. Two hundred metres down the other side of the road, it comes to a wrecked, awful, stop. For a second, it sits there.

Then, it explodes.

Ain’t nobody surviving a fireball like that.

I pull up. I get out. All the Sherlocks in their cars do the same. The Heli-Cops land on the other carriageway. We all stand there and stare at the flames.

The car and everything in it, incinerating up into the blue sky. It’s a media free-for-all. Cameramen crawling out of the roadworks. It’s time for the Citizen to disappear again.

I zombie-walk over to the hard shoulder, clamber the barrier and slip down the embankment. Out of Sherlock view, I walk on for twenty minutes or so, then I make my way west, through a farmer’s field. This territory is beginning to feel familiar. I ghost onwards, and after a while I come to a village. Villages are quiet, peaceful. I always used to wonder what people did all day. Now I get it. They don’t do nothing. They just
be
. I suppose, right now, there’s a certain appeal. I’m so tired all of a sud.

Alfi lived in a village, once. He had a happy foster family, and he used to do nothing as well. He liked that, just being. He told me he used to bake cakes.

So very, very tired. But Citizen Digit is not finished yet. Not quite. There’s a bike leaning outside the village shop. It’s chained, but it’s the sort of lock the Digit can open just by staring at it. Thirty seconds later I’m pedalling away up the road.

I never thought I’d find myself voluntarily going back to Tenderness House. But this time, before he does a stretch in a Relaxation Room of his own, I want to give Norman Newton a
talking to
. Let my fingers do the talking. I’m normally a passive-fist, but my fingers are itching, just this once, to have a pop at his nosebone, knowing I’ve got Long Arms a stretch or two behind me. I’m all a-clench, thinking of the
crack
as his hooter snaps out of shape.

I stop at the perimeter fence and let the bike fall to the ground. I glance at the driveway. No police cars, so I guess they’re yet to arrive. Suits me. Once I find my way in, I’m heading straight for Call-Me’s office. Going to shove his face full of Bourbons.

Rest of Tenderness House is in afternoon lessons, which is just how I like it. I’m planning to surprise him. Go round the back, slip through his Party Lounge, sneak up through the adjoining corridor, pounce like a cat on a rat.

Alfi told me about the escape hole he made in the fence when he liberated himself. I hunt around, find it. I squeeze through. It’s a tight fit. I guess I must be growing big.

Growing. Something that Alfi Spar is never going to do.

My trouser pocket snags on a loose wire, and I’m having to wiggle to get myself free.

“Citizen Digit,” says a voice, up above me. “I should have guessed.”

I feel the car slowing to a halt and then the engine stop. Where are we? Door opens and I hear the petrol cap pop. He’s filling up – it’s a petrol station. Yes! He’ll have to go and pay. It’s now or never. Digit reckoned I’m totally useless in any kind o’ dangerous situation, but what he never knew is that Alfi Spar’s got some skills of his own. What’d he think I did wi’ me life when he wan’t around to muck it up for us?

Digit, you’d be impressed wi’ this, you would. This Great Escape is for you. First up, unzipping the gym bag is a doddle. You just need that little gap where it zips up, waggle your finger in, then, slowly slowly, tooth by tooth, ease it open. Once you can get a hand out it’s just a case o’ feeling round and finding the outside zipper, and then you’re free.

Did you know, Didge, that the bit between a boot and the back seat of a car is – with a bit of elbow grease – completely removable?

Ladles and Gentlespoons, applause, please.

Obnob’s been snuffling and whining in the back seat, and Jackson Banks probably reckons he’d have me nose off as soon as I stick me head through.

But it’s Banks who’d bite a chunk out o’ me face if he found us.

Don’t care. Stick me head out o’ the bag anyway.

Free.

Straight away the dog starts yapping with excitement. It’s a giveaway. Me legs go rubber and I’m gonna mess me pants. Clamber back. Faint. Go under. Shut your eyes. Curl up.

Digit ’ud be rolling his eyes. He never had no fear. I’ve
got
to. I’ve got to do it, for him, and for Grace.

So I stick me head through to the seats. Instead o’ biting me ears off like Jackson planned, Obnob starts licking me face.

I look through the window and see Jackson Banks walking towards the service-station shop. I slump again, wi’ relief.

Rouse yourself, Blabber-Boy!

Split-second decision. Take Obnob with us. He shun’t be with an animal like Jackson Banks. I put the seat back, open the door and the two of us go for it.

We run, fast as we can, to the back part o’ the services. Push on. Sorry, Didge, I en’t stopping for no bragging about me skills or displays of invisibility. I en’t an entertainer like you was. I’m running for me life. Me and Obnob, straight round the back, away from that killer before he gets back and finds me and his dog gone.

Back road at the services turns into a country lane, dunno where to, dunno how long, but we run and we run, as fast and as far away as possible. Lane is going up a hill, and it’s good, is that. Me and Obnob stretch our legs, fill our lungs, leaving the car fumes behind. We run and we puff and our blood pumps. Up and up, and when we get to the top, we stop, and I turn round and I look back down.

No one after us. Obnob lies down, getting back his breath. Me too, great lungfuls of it. I can taste the countryside.

Obnob spots summat and gives a bark. A humming noise gets louder and I see it’s a helicopter, and another helicopter, and they’re hovering low, over the services. Were they there all the time? Squinting me eyes, I think I can spot Jackson Banks’s car, speeding off, and I watch as it all unfolds.

It en’t real. It’s a proper high-speed chase, wi’ the motorway shut down and flashing lights and sirens blaring. Somehow or other, they’ve cottoned on to the psycho-man, and they’re after him, a zillion police cars. Me and Obnob have a bird’s-eye view.

It should be peaceful up here, but there’s nowt but sirens and helicopters and beeping horns, and all of a sudden there’s a giant bang, and a great fireball and a whole load o’ smoke. It’s Jackson Banks’s car, flipped, exploded.

Everything stops still and it’s quiet again, just smoke rising up into the clouds, and a load o’ police, standing and watching.

He can’t hurt us any more, can he? He can’t, can he?

It’s all so dumb.

But I’m glad me and Obnob got out o’ that car. We’ve got stuff to do with our lives.
I
have, leastways. I put me hand down, tickle the back o’ the dog’s neck. He were watching the fireball down below, like he were trying to figure out what it meant to
him.
When me fingers touch his fur, it’s like me fingertips are passing on the understanding to him. He knows. His old master is dead. He’s a free dog.