There was still some time to kill before Kat was due to meet Safa, so she went home to do a little research.
First, she emptied the gravel from her pocket onto the desk, scooping it into a neat heap that would be difficult for anybody to miss. Then she dialled 999.
‘Which service do you require?’
‘Police,’ she said.
Silence, and then again. ‘Which service do you require?’
‘They’re turning my car into Swiss cheese!’ Kat shouted. ‘I need back up, now goddammit now!’
The call disconnected. As she had suspected, the automatic operator, like everybody else on this stupid planet, couldn’t hear her. She’d have to figure this one out by herself.
Next, she went online and looked up TrumourPixel. His Twitter account came up first, and Kat couldn’t help but laugh. His profile picture was him drawn as an anime character, muscles bulging out of a vest, wielding an axe bigger than his body. It was a well-worn tradition in troll accounts: anime avatars, or failing that no image at all. Certainly few of them were brave enough to reveal their true face.
She had seen his profile before, when he released the attack video against her. It had seemed innocent enough, as it did now – mostly links to his videos, screenshots from games, updates on what he was eating. There were only a few telltale signs: retweets from gaming outlets owned by right-wing media; an article about it being hypocritical to punch Nazis; frequent use of the green frog emoji.
‘Pepe the fucking Frog,’ Kat muttered to herself. It was hard to think of anything she hated more than the cartoon frog appropriated as a meme for Internet trolls and bigots.
She decided to delve deeper and check who he was following. Straight away she found more extreme accounts. Some were the usual suspects: prominent personalities who peddled hate while posing as film reviewers or video game streamers, always studiously avoiding saying anything too inflammatory. Others had blatant fascist imagery as profile pictures.
‘Nazis,’ Kat muttered. ‘I hate those guys.’
She clicked one and read its profile.
Fighting for the #truth against #whitegenocide. #AllLivesMatter #FeminismIsCancer #IslamIsCancer #Brexit #StandUpandFight. Finished with raised fist and English flag emojis. The account reposted news from thoroughly disreputable sources about anti-fascist protests turning violent, Muslim terror suspects being released from custody early, feminist critics rallying against a movie about zombie strippers.
Of course, TrumourPixel was also following Niko Denton. She clicked through to his profile and read his latest tweet. It was quoting a question somebody had asked him.
Should we take action against the women’s march in London tomorrow?
Niko’s response read: I don’t know, what do you think? It was finished with an emoji of somebody painting their nails.
It was a simple but effective trick: incite hatred and violence, but always in a way that would allow you to wash your hands of it.
This was who TrumourPixel was trying to impress with whatever he was planning. These were the people Kat had always wanted to fight. Maybe the fade meant she could.
Wesley knew he shouldn’t feel proud about his ability to wax cars, but he was definitely getting better at it. Every time Dave walked past and offered an impressed nod he couldn’t deny the surge of pleasure it gave him.
‘You’re a loser,’ he whispered to himself as he circled away the last smear of wax from his third car of the afternoon. The pleasure always quickly caved into shame.
At least it took his mind off what had happened earlier. The looks on their faces as he had run from the garage. Whether they were going to come after him or not. The fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about the reasons Tru had given him for everything in his life going wrong.
‘Take a break,’ said Dave, emerging from the back office to hand him a mug of tea. They leaned against one of the unwashed cars and sipped their drinks – not half enough sugar for Wesley’s taste – in silence for a few moments.
Dave sighed with pleasure and held his mug against his chest. ‘You’re a natural at this.’
‘It’s not exactly rocket science.’
‘Rocket scientists are too smug to polish their rockets.’
Wesley looked at him sideways. ‘I bet you’d never stop polishing your rocket if you had the chance.’
Dave lifted his mug, oblivious. ‘You’re not wrong.’
They both took a long draught of tea, Wesley using it to stifle his laughter, before exhaling contentedly together.
‘Was everything all right with your brother the other night?’
Wesley stiffened, defences automatically coming awake. ‘Yeah, nothing to worry about.’
‘That’s good.’ Dave turned to face him in a movement that was meant to be casual, but was clearly anything but. ‘I don’t need to worry about him, right?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Maybe it’s not my place to judge because I wasn’t around before, but from what your mum’s told me . . . I need to know Jordan can be trusted.’
Wesley put his mug on the roof of the car and turned to face him. ‘Or you’ll do what?’
Dave smiled unconvincingly. ‘It’s not like that. It’s my job to look after you both.’
‘It’s not your job. We were fine before you showed up.’
‘Hey, Wes, I didn’t mean—’
Wesley turned away and made for the office, satisfied that his shift was over. All at once he was desperate to be home. If there was any problem with Jordan, he would deal with it himself.