The cops didn’t come.
Men in black didn’t burst through his window.
Dani Cumali didn’t laugh like a banshee as they dragged him down, pointing and howling with mirth at the lie that only she could have broken.
Nothing changed, so Theo did his job.
This is the daily diet on which Theo Miller is fed:
murder
theft
fraud
burglary
rape
Guidelines on rape vary depending on whether it is felt that the woman may have dressed in a provocative manner or appeared to be sexually enthusiastic prior to the act of penetration. A woman who does not dress modestly is more likely to be a victim of crime and as a consequence we recommend indemnity in the low-to-mid £30,000 as a starting point for assessing the…
corporate espionage
libel
slander
assault on a corporation
anti-corporate profit activity
By acting against corporate interests, individuals show a complete disregard for society and are harming all, not merely a few. Starting indemnities of £400,000 are a viable place to commence negotiation…
riot
trespass
protest
Once he heard the minister for social responsibility explain: “Crime has huge financial cost on our communities. It is only right that we acknowledge its economic impact in a blue-skies thought-dynamic way that puts society back in the driving seat.”
Theo remembered that phrase clearly—“put society back in the driving seat”—because he found it inherently confusing.
“It is time to hero the narrative of personal responsibility!”
The Criminal Audit Office had emerged some seven or so years before human rights were judged passé, from the outdated monolith of the Crown Prosecution Service. This was when the Company was still trading under many different names, a mess of loans and investments, debts and boards, but after they’d started investing in security. Prison was a deeply inefficient way of rehabilitating criminals, especially given how many were clearly irredeemable, and despite privatisation efficiencies overcrowding and reoffending were a perennial problem. Rehabilitation through work was an excellent and scientifically provable way of instilling good societal values. The first Commercial Reform Institute was opened when Theo was seven years old, and made meat patties for hamburgers.
Shall we go, shall we go to the patty line?
I kissed my love, she swore she was mine,
But they took me to the patty line.
Theo hums a half-remembered tune from his childhood under his breath, doesn’t notice, reads a report.
Semen was discovered but the victim was unwilling to pay £315 for the DNA test and thus we are unable to say whether the semen came from the accused. In light of this we would suggest a reduced charge of sexual harassment.
Theo checked the database. Sexual harassment had various subcategories, but the most he could levy was £780 for a first-time offence.
At first a lot of people had been excited by the indemnity system, until it emerged that the profits raised from prosecuting crimes were almost entirely eaten up by administrative costs from the various companies contracted to manage the cases.
Corporate Police, much more reliable than the tiny rump of Civic Police accessible by the uninsured or through NGO charity funding, had shareholders to consider when they invoiced for an investigation. The TV always showed the glamour, never the paperwork—forensics was expensive, best deployed only on really profitable cases.
Corporate rehabilitation centres had a similar problem. As corporations bought up local communities, transforming towns into Winchester by Visit the Soul or Bath Spa Deluxe Healthy Living, local judiciary fell under their purview and great savings were made all round and there was much rejoicing, except for the scroungers who were unable to pay their corporate community tax, clearly weren’t contributing to society and thus couldn’t ask society to support them.
Raising the price of manslaughter in line with inflation…
…a deduction in lieu of a promising corporate career…
Added fees: £480 for putting down victim’s cat.
£48,912 for the first offence, reduced to £38,750 for prompt payment…
The victim transpired to be illegally resident on a student visa, and thus the indemnity must be reduced by £4500 to reflect that it was assault on an alien, rather than a UK citizen.
Impaled on a garden fork added hospital costs of…
Theo audited the cost of murder, mayhem and destruction, and when 5.15 p.m. came, he cycled home as the sun went down, made macaroni cheese, and ate it in his room and listened to Marvin’s drum and bass through the wall, and waited for the men to come to take him away.
And no one came.
After the first three days, the failure of the powers-that-be to swoop down and arrest him left Theo slightly annoyed. The least you can ask when your life is about to be ripped apart is to get on with these things, rather than be left in suspense.
And no one came.
And a week became two.
And two weeks became three.
And for a moment Theo permitted himself to think that he’d imagined seeing Dani Cumali at all.
And at the end of the fourth week he was intellectually certain that it would be fine, absolutely fine because that was how these things were, and on the Tuesday of the fifth week, she found him.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Dani.”
They stood in the place behind the building where they chained the bicycles. Once he’d seen a rat scamper between the bins at the back. One early evening in summer he’d met a fox. The fox had sat and watched him, and he’d watched it, and neither had moved for a long time. Neither had been afraid. They had simply looked, to learn the nature of the other’s gaze. And when the fox got bored, it stood up and walked briskly away, and there was nothing more to it.
She was waiting by his bicycle. He saw her too late to pretend he hadn’t seen her, but didn’t want to leave the bike, thought it would be stupid to just run away.
Going to the bicycle forced him to stand a little closer than he would have wanted, face angled away from the security camera, one hand resting on the seat protectively. She wore a faded blue raincoat, white cloth shoes, a tiny moonlight smile.
“So.” This word seemed to take some thinking about, a gathering of the weight of the world, a slow orbit round the burning centre of the universe. “So,” she repeated, trying out new ideas, studying his face. “It’s Theo now?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.”
They stood a while, and Theo remembered the fox and felt almost relieved that all this would soon be over.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and he huddled against a wall, and for nearly a minute they were silent. Then she said, “I saw you at that party. Or whatever it was.”
“Team bonding experience.”
“Right. Well. There.”
They wavered, avoiding each other’s gaze. Finally Theo mumbled, looking at some place a few hundred miles above and a little to the left of her forehead, “Are you…”
“Catering.”
“Right.”
“The catering company bought my parole.”