Fang arrived with a Yoda backpack, and North had a moment’s conscience. However fast she coded, as Honor said, she was only a child – her nails bitten to the quick. Would she understand what he needed? Because he wasn’t sure he did.
“Cute name,” said Jess and the younger girl scowled. But Jess was made of stern stuff. “What does it mean?”
“It mean…” Fangfang’s pigeon Chinese ticked like a home-made bomb North decided, “…moron-people who need big favour from smart people best not ask stupid question.”
As she pulled out her Macbook Air, she snapped her fingers in the direction of Jess. “Diet Coke. Ice. Crushed. Lime slice.”
She drew her chair into Stella’s desk, her eyes already focusing on the screen, and Jess’s mouth opened in protest, but her mother gestured for discretion.
Extracting a bottle from one of the boxes stacked around the walls, Stella poured out a lemonade. She set it down in front of Fang with a bright smile, before using her open palm to slap the top of the shining head. “On the house,” she said.
Jess smirked as a glaring Fang rubbed her head. North figured she got hit round the head more than most.
She pointed at the wall scrawled over with names and numbers and obscene art. “Old school, huh?” she said and snickered. “Chalk? I didn’t know they still made it.”
Stella looked as if she was contemplating slapping Fangfang harder this time.
“Fangfang,” North said in warning. He needed them all on the same side. “Jimmy the Sniff said the New Army took Peggy away.”
Fang’s eyes shrank down to black points at the mention of Peggy.
“But he’s dead and we have no proof.”
“Jimmy the Sniff was a liar and an addict, remember,” Stella said from the shadows where she’d retreated to a bentwood chair, her arms folded.
But the New Army was also the plaything of JP Armitage who was Peggy’s financial backer.
Plus, the New Army could accommodate, feed, guard and keep as many people as they wanted under lock and key. And the Board had to put the missing somewhere. They had to put Peggy somewhere. It was worth a shot.
Fangfang’s fingers hit the keyboard all in a rush. North glimpsed code, then a spinning globe, a blue ball bouncing from one city to the next – Newcastle to the Azores, onwards to Bogata, up to Sacramento, out to Christchurch and into the heart of the Ukraine. The girl sat back in her chair, the tips of her gold sparkling feet pushing against the floor this way and that, while she played Candy Crush on a mobile phone he hadn’t even seen appear. When the ball stopped bouncing, an IP address emerged on screen – North had to guess it was nowhere near the basement bar in Newcastle.
Fang pulled up her Tor browser, decoupling the searches from those curious enough to come looking for her, as North’s hand went to his jaw. The rasp of stubble, as she brought up map after map. Laying one over the other. Coming together to form the UK. Dots appearing across the country. Dozens of them. All of them New Army bases.
Stella was behind him.
“The Good Lord giveth and the Good Lord taketh away,” she said. She sounded cheerier than she had all morning.
Fang stared at the screen, flicking between the dots, the camps and headquarters, miles from each other.
“There’s more than a hundred,” said Fang, and for the first time she didn’t sound happy with her efforts. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Now we narrow it down, kiddo,” said North.
But they couldn’t.