Paddy Bostock - Chosen

Faced with Dennis’s unempathetic response, Sophie cranked up the decibels.

“ WAH , WAH , WAH , WOOH , WOOH , WOOH ,” she went, until Vince nudged her and whispered, “Time to say something, Babes. If that’s Dennis you’re onto, crying’s not his bag. Should’ve warned you. Sorry.”

So, only microseconds before Dennis hit the Quit Call button, transferred all further incoming calls to NAT (the Nighttime Assist Team), and closed up the cop shop for the night, Sophie got the slimmest of windows to tell of her husband Jeremy’s disappearance.

Dennis sighed. “Go on then. But be quick about it.”

Which was when Sophie, resurrecting the (poor-going-on-zero) thespian skills she’d had before Jeremy Crawford lured her from a promising stage and TV career with his money, moved swiftly from the horrorshow to the blunt and pithy.

Dennis was stopped in his tracks.

“Say that again, missus.”

“I just told you, my banker husband went bonkers, lived in our barn with a pig called Pete for a bit, but… now… he’s… disapp ear ed.”

“Description?” said a newly interested Dennis, pulling a smartphone from his Kevlar vest and jabbing at it. For, yes, being a social media addict, the “megalomaniac bonkers banker” story resonated somewhere in the depths of Dennis’s normally switched-off mind. And, when Sophie gave Jeremy’s description and it matched exactly the pic of Jeremy Crawford Jackie Lamur had attached to Sir Magnus’s dictated post, little bells distantly chimed in Dennis’s otherwise blank mind and he became interested. Nothing Dennis would have liked better than a million quid bung in a brown envelope and promotion to D C for having cracked the case of the missing megalomaniac bonkers banker. Better not to tell Billy McCann anything about it, though. A million quid shared two ways was, after all, only five hundred thousand quid each.

“I’ll be right over,” he whispered, signalling to Billy it was time he packed his bags and went home.

Ron, Gloria, Vince, and Val breathed sighs of relief when Sophie passed back the phone to her father and announced her triumphant result.

“He’ll be right over,” she said.

It was only as the result of Barry’s interest in worldwide flora and fauna that he and Jeremy also became aware of the Jackie Lamur post. Philosophically, Barry had no time for social media, particularly given recent evidence of their pernicious effect on the erstwhile reliable processes of representative democracy. By “the moron” in the White House’s psychotic use of Twitter, he was particularly exercised. Outraged, in fact, especially once the addiction had spread to politicians across the globe. Even to those of his once beloved Labour Party, which he had recently quit in protest at its use of such tools as a means to achieve cult status for its leader. No, no, Barry was no fan of what he termed “technology for zombies.” Unlimited choice, sharing, openness and connectivity it seductively offered, but who was really doing the choosing? Especially given the recent revelations of Facebook’s collection of personal data and the way it had been used to sabotage elections.

Nonetheless, and despite these visceral misgivings, Barry remained a user, although no longer of Facebook. Why? Because he couldn’t bear to lose the remaining contacts he’d made all around the world as a compulsive photographer of local plants and animals using the latest Canon DLSR. Repulsive though the medium was, it had provided him with a unique means of sharing his pics with “friends” all around the globe and, in exchange, seeing theirs. His photo app was full to bursting with snaps taken by fellow enthusiasts from even the remotest of regions of the planet, regions Barry would never visit if he lived two hundred years. How he loved the insights he gleaned from these exchanges. And how proud he had been when his images of a badger sett in construction had won plaudits from even professionals in the field. In this regard, and this regard only , Barry found the activity an addition to his understanding of the aspects of life on earth that most interested him, his excuse being he chose it for specific benign purposes rather than it choosing him for random mal ign ones. And never had he posted personal information beyond the very basic requirements.

Even so, he couldn’t resist the odd peep at other folks’ pages, just in case there was anything he should know about. And Jackie Lamur was one of his favourites. A girl from Liverpool who could make him laugh even in some of his darkest moments, and Barry had had plenty of those.

“Hey, Jezza, take a look at this ,” he said, as the pair settled down to breakfast after returning to the Shepherd’s Hut from taking Pete and Shirley for their morning walkies.

“Bloody hell ,” said Jeremy, peering at the screen announcing the million pound reward for info on the whereabouts of the escaped megalomaniac bonkers banker. “That’s me ,” he added, with a sharp intake of breath, pointing at the picture clipped from the bank’s in-house “Top Troopers” page. “What the fuck ?”

Barry raised a perplexed eyebrow. “Hard to say, but there’re thirty-four thousand, eight-hundred and sixty-two hits already.”

(Including one from Dennis “Shorty” Dawkins using the sobriquet “Betty” and saying she was “on the case.”)

“According to this, you’ve already been sighted in Minsk, Sausalito, Prague, St Ives, Beijing, Mumbai, The Outer Hebrides, and…”

“ Christ . Any clue who posted this crap?”

“Jackie Lamur. She’s a regular.”

Jeremy blinked. “Jackie Lamur ?”

“You’ve read her too?” said Barry, surfing the site for more places Jeremy had been spotted—Helsinki, Cairo, Knotty Ash, Kansas City, Knotty Ash again…

Jeremy swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes. Her real name is Julie Mackintosh. Jackie Lamur is her alias.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because she’s PA to Sir Magnus fucking Montague, my ex-boss.”

“Ooops.”

Marie in Montmartre, Fritz on the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, Anon in Knotty Ash again , Salah in Cairo…

“Ooops is right. The old bastard has no idea how to use the Internet, so he must have got Julie to do it for him,” said Jeremy, calming a little. “No doubt his idea of a clever plan to scare me back onside after the shrink idea had failed and I’d scarpered. What he won’t understand is what ‘viral’ means and the can of worms that can open.”

Jaime in Barcelona, Norman in The Maldives, Gianfranco in Naples, Anon in Knotty Ash yet again .

“Still, at least we now have a clue as to who’s behind all this,” said Barry, still scrolling.

“For all the good it will do if I’m to become the subject of a million-pound manhunt. And now you’re sucked into this nonsense too.” Jeremy sighed. “I’m sorry. Maybe the ‘chosen’ business was just a piece of foolishness and I should have stayed put and got on with it.”

“I think not, old chap. ‘Should haves’ don’t count. The past is a foreign country and there’s no point in revisiting it and wondering how one might have behaved differently and to what end. The conditional perfect is a pointless tense and should be elided from grammar. We are where we are and that’s all that matters. No good trying to re-live what we have already lived and attempting somehow to rearrange it. That way only madness lies. And you are not mad. Remember?”

Jeremy smiled.