Notorious by John Jones (novel books to read txt) 📕

weeks. Weeks would turn to months. He knew he was a doormat, and could do nothing about it. He was just glad he could now afford it, so if they didn’t pay him back, it didn’t matter, he wouldn’t miss it.

 

He knew that most of the people that came back to him to ‘lend a tenner’, would be banging on the door should they be owed any money. Still, money was no concern for him now.

 

A long spell in prison was, however. The courts would grant him no favours, and probably give him the harshest sentence they could. Siphoning money from people’s accounts, and aiding in the closing of a company responsible for medical research. ‘Not only do you steal from the innocent, Mr Kendrick, but you may very well have cost more innocent people their lives because of your naivety and lack of understanding. I therefore find you guilty of these counts, and have no hesitation in sentencing you to 35 years in a maximum security prison, TAKE HIM DOWN!’. The judge slammed down his gavel in his mind, and Anthony jolted. He dry-washed his face with his hands, and wondered why he was parked outside a line of shops. He then saw a telephone box and remembered. A card stuck above the telephone read: ‘Shop a con. Call Crimespy anonymously’. Being a ‘grass’ was something he had never contemplated.

 

He knew that there were not many types of people hated more than grasses. Paedophiles, murderers and rapists would always be ahead, but a grass would always follow in their shadow. He didn’t want to do it, Tom was a good friend.

 

Yet, he knew that if Tom knew it was him that did it, and that was fairly probable, then he also would go down with him. They may very well end up in the same cell together, not friends though, not as they once were. It would be more trouble than it was worth, he thought, starting the engine. He pulled away from the kerb, and drove away.

 

Tom drank from bottled water, looking out of his bedroom window. He found himself mostly gazing at the reflection of his monitor which awaited his input. It was time to do it, he thought, time to begin the process of taking down the company responsible for the inhumane experiments inflicted upon animals. It was time to become the animal’s voice, assuming their reaction to be hostile to those who would use them as objects manipulated without choice.

 

He knew it would be easy, he thought, grinning slightly as he took another swig. It was simple. As they were still under construction, he guessed that they probably would not have their computer system fully up and running yet, but have the basics ready for installation.

 

Security would be down, and it would be easy to hack into the accounts database. He wanted the screen which basically gave him the overall total funds that the company had. It would be an ever changing number as costs were spent and funds were received. All he needed to do was copy the screen. He would then overlap the original, but alter the total, so it gradually reduced, so it would look like the company was losing money.

 

The fact that they were not was of no concern. He wanted the bosses to see and believe that their profits were falling. He would do it slowly, so as not to arouse suspicion. As the money decreased, people would lose their jobs. He hoped that the first to go would be the torturing scientists. As long as everybody profiting from the place lost their jobs, that was all that mattered. The managers and directors at the top would be running around in panic as their worst nightmares came true.

 

Goodbye profits, hello giro. He smiled at that prospect. He could imagine the absolute shame and humiliation of the bosses, walking into a jobcentre, their shoulders slumped, heads down.

‘I’ve come to make a claim’. Tom nodded, drank the rest of his water, and turned and crossed to his computer. He stretched, cracked his knuckles, and said quietly: ‘Right, let’s do this’.

 

After 10 minutes, he was finding it difficult in trying to find a backdoor server which would allow him access to the administrator record files and directories which in turn would link him directly to the salaries of all the employees and to the company finances.

 

A few more minutes went by before a message popped up: ‘Input system password:’. It needed the IP address of one of the computers connected to the internal server.

 

Usually Tom could easily evade passwords, but as he tried to bypass this one, it simply kept popping back up, no matter what he did. His face became more and more crimson each time it appeared. Eventually he slammed his palms down on the table.

“Shit, no!” he shouted, folding his arms. His mother looked around his bedroom door.

“Everything alright dear? Would you like a cup of tea?”.

 

Anthony was lying on his bed, channel surfing. All these channels and there’s nothing on, he thought. His mobile phone rang on his bedside table, and he picked it up and saw that it was Tom. He didn’t have time to acknowledge him before Tom spoke:

“Ant! Crisis! I can’t hack the mainframe. It needs an IP address of one of the computers in the building”.

“Ah, oh well, I thought it was a bit risky anyway”.

“No, I’m still doing it. I know you won’t help me with this one you big coward, but I’m breaking in. I just need to access one of the computers, get the address, and get out of there”.

“And maybe rescue a few animals while you’re there”.

“No, the place isn’t ready. They won’t have any animals there yet. They’ll be the last things to go in. Security will be low, so I’ve got to do it as soon as possible. I’m doing it tonight. I’ll tell you how it went tomorrow, anyway, catch you later”. He hung up, and Anthony sighed. He returned the phone and put his hands to his face.

 

He knew his conscience was gearing up, ready to assault him. He couldn’t let this go without telling somebody.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15

 

 

Malcolm had decided that his university work was redeemable, that he could still pick up from where he had left off after the discovery of his father’s attack of insanity. He had guessed that he wasn’t going to find any answers, just mere speculation, no real facts. ‘My father killed my mother because…’ seemed unlikely would ever be completed, especially without assumption.

 

He had found himself thinking more about his work than his father, and this, he thought, was his mind’s way of accepting the fact that there wouldn’t be any answers, no real truths. He was in limbo, after the police having asked him all they needed for the time being, and the headaches regarding lack of wills and who now owned the house.

 

He wanted to ignore all of that, and had taken the landline off the hook. He had enough to think about. They had the killer, he committed suicide, just one of those things, case forgotten. He wondered if all the paperwork regarding it was now in a bottom drawer somewhere, amongst other old cases that had been solved.

 

Perhaps the police that were involved had already forgotten about it. Crimes were committed every second of every day, so their attention would be elsewhere, not on a past case that now didn’t warrant any thoughts by anybody except Malcolm, an only child. Even if somebody was to remind them about it, months later they would perhaps be hard pressed to remember.

“D’you remember that case where the husband strangled his wife, took her out in to a field and buried her?” The officer’s confused look would indicate no.

“Erm…Oh, hang on, is that the case that was solved by the psychic detective?” “Yep, that’s the one”. Malcolm wondered why they would even bother remembering it. It was not as if husbands killing wives was unique. Motivations however, were occasionally less understood, the murderers sometimes taking their reasons to the grave.

 

None of the neighbours had knocked yet to offer their condolences. Not even Mrs Byrne from around the corner, who was the hub of local gossip. He was in that limbo as well. The calm before the storm, before all the ‘sorry to hears’, and ‘deepest sympathies’. He wondered if he should leave the house, move somewhere else. The place still seemed to harbour his parent’s presence.

 

He was sat in his bedroom, at a table that had all of his work spread out. His assignment was to find an existing, successful website, and identify its targeted audience, its content, and its purpose. Of these, he had to make sub categories and write about them, such as sales and marketing.

 

He had borrowed books from the library, and was currently doing what a lot of students always did when taking notes, highlight certain sentences with a marker. Somebody had beaten him to it in all the books he’d taken out, but for a different task at a different time. As usual, there were not many books available for what he wanted, the closest being ‘Marketing your website, Millennium edition’, and that was dog-eared by students previous use. Pages had been folded over, and throughout, pink, green and yellow marker highlighted sentences. It had probably been used by those who were on the same course as Malcolm, but for a different task.

 

The tutors probably turned out the same tasks and assignments every term, until technology forced them to change. Malcolm neither knew, nor cared. He had to get on with it, had to show something for his efforts. He had a notepad, and was scribbling notes to take in to university to type out there.

“…of the customer, and their requirements are paramount. Potential sales may be lost if the site agenda does not give customer satisfaction, and this site, I believe, aims to do that, however, not at the cost of defective goods”. With his highlighter, he marked:

 

‘The product, or service must equal or exceed expectations if your business is to compete for the value of the customer’. He went back to his notepad:

 

‘If a customer does not value a service, then it will be more than likely that their requirements have been let down by the expectations of the service provider, and there will have been an inadequate understanding of the customers needs. If high standards are maintained, your dad’s a psychopath’. Malcolm stopped, then frowned. He was trying not to think of his father, but sometimes he simply failed, and his mind would run amok.

 

After a few moments, he began to write again:

 

‘Good business ventures will sustain profitability, especially when they are providing what could be deemed to be a necessary service. The site I have chosen can not be called unique, and the service it provides is not essential, but its profits and achievements are testament to the fact that your dad’s a lunatic, killed your mum, for no reason, damn psycho”. Malcolm sighed and put down his pen.

 

Why bother? he thought. All this for a better looking CV. Why not find a job now? He knew it was easier to find work when he had a job, so if he could get his foot in the door, it would probably be less difficult to climb the career ladder, instead of working at a subject, aspects of which did not interest him.

 

Yes, the internet is an interesting eighth wonder of the world, but who cared about mark-up languages and server concepts? Someone had to. Some people had to find them interesting, as without them, nothing would work properly.

 

Those people were the drivers behind the vast machine, people who showed an interest in things many people frowned upon. Rather like trainspotters. It would basically be a case of: ‘Yes, that was a nice train ride, but I couldn’t care less what its number is, who built it, and when’. Someone had to