The Magpie Trap: A Novel Read Free Page A

peak-capped man is standing, back-arched as
though forcing himself to replicate a ‘D’ shape with his belly. His hands are
gripping his belt as though grasping to hold on to dear life against this
monstrous belly. His mouth is moving though. Then suddenly, his posture
collapses as he starts laughing madly. In the background, you can see a stocky,
shaven-headed man standing on what looks like a massive pile of paper.
    Static again; and then
Stocky appears in front of the camera, live once more. He detaches the cable
between the camera and his laptop. He is alone in the room; peak-cap is nowhere
to be seen.
    Stocky is so close to
the lens that his breath is steaming itup, but
even through this fog, it is possible to make out the trails of sweat which are
flowing from his forehead. Behind his glasses, there is a steely resolve in his
eyes, but also something else… He gives the lens a quick wipe with his sleeve
and allows himself a small smile.
    ‘Job done?’
    Peak-cap is back. His
voice is gruffer than earlier; he’s maybe had some disappointing news.
    ‘Yes,’ replies Stocky.
‘I’ve done everything I needed to do.’
    He fishes a crumpled
job docket from his tool box and indicates that Peak-cap should sign as witness
to the fact that a routine maintenance visit has taken place. Without a
second’s thought, the big man scrawls his name and hands the paper back to
Stocky.
    Stocky signs his own
name now; Mark Birch. His is a simple, no-nonsense signature; one which
indicates that he hasn’t got time for the elaborate loops and curls of
self-promotion.

 
 
 
 
 
    Quick-Fix

 
    The road to the bookies was over-stocked with the
kind of billboards that drove Danny Morris into one of his perpetual bouts of
sneering. They must have been placed there on purpose in order to persuade the
hopeless gambler not to squander their family’s last remaining few quid on a
quick flutter.
                Start a Child Trust Fund, blared one
such advertisement. By putting away only
three pounds a week, you could ensure that your child can have a brighter
future.
                The
advert showed a sun-streaked university campus. In the foreground, a
spiky-haired young girl – probably a lesbian – was throwing her mortar board in
the air. In the background, a pathetic mother and father looked on through
teary eyes, thanking god that their miserable three quid a week had enabled
their daughter to buy her degree.
                Danny
walked on. He had a long, measured stride but one which was punctuated, every
few paces, by a bizarre little skip. Like a child, he seemed to be trying to
avoid cracks in the pavement.
                A
second poster; this time Danny couldn’t work out what the advertisers were
trying to sell him. This one showed another rosy-cheeked family unit, and this
time they were gathered around a computer screen. Two of the children were
laughing and pointing at something they’d seen, while the parents looked on,
looking pleased as punch that their hapless offspring even had the ability to
point and laugh.
    Was the advertisement
trying to sell him children? Was it being run by an adoption agency or
something? Evidently not, because written underneath the image in much too
small font read the caption, ‘The Intertel Shift; Helping your family into the
Digital Age.’
    Danny walked on and
shook his head, but couldn’t help himself grinning a little. As a security
systems salesman, the Intertel Shift was something that he knew all about. The
telecoms companies had swamped the media with their PR newspeak about all of
the benefits which would be felt from the switch from traditional analogue to
digital means of communication. Their loud voices had drowned out the almost
silent minority of doubters; those people that believed that the Shift would
not be as smooth and hassle-free as had been advertised. But after the
Millennium Bug fiasco, nobody wanted to hear about