Page 107 of King’s Ransom

‘—that’s right, Prescott. Word is, they set him up for rape using his own fucking semen.’

‘It’s crime for hire?’ I said.

‘It’s not as straightforward as that. The guy behind it—no-one knows who he is—assesses your problem and then decides if he’ll work for you. Sometimes he says yes, other times he says no.

‘In one story I heard, Modern Alchemical Solutions got some cheating husband’s pubic hair from his bathroom floor and then went and placed it at the crime scene of a dead hooker. Like I said, they ruin people.’

‘Monty, can you look into Modern Alchemical Solutions for me? Poke around a little?’

Another silence.

‘I don’t know, Sam,’ the Tech Detect said. ‘You gotta remember, when you peer into the seamier corners of the darknet, you leave digital footprints, so the darknet is often watching you. And there are some folks there that you do not cross. Let me do some light searching. Some very light searching. I don’t want Modern Alchemical Solutions coming after me.’

‘Thanks, Monty.’

I hung up and went to bed.

SUPERPOWER

When the rich rob the poor, it’s called business.

When the poor fight back, it’s called violence.

– Mark Twain

Phelps Hospital Waiting Room

27 December

On December 27th, the funeral for Ajax King, the highest-profile victim of the events of December 21st, was held.

His memorial service took place at a church in Southampton.

I watched it from the waiting room of the hospital, having returned there to check on Audrey’s progress while I waited for Georgy to make his calls. (Audrey was still scheduled to be awoken from her coma the next day.)

It was impossible to miss the service.

All the broadcast and cable networks covered it, as did social media. The coverage played on the television mounted on the wall all morning.

Even though the actual funeral was held inside the church—meaning no TV cameras were allowed inside—that didn’t stop the news shows from filming Aristo King’s wealthy and famous friends arriving outside the church in the gently falling snow as if it were a royal wedding.

Business titans, movie stars, models, politicians.

Billionaires like Aristo King’s long-time friend and business partner, Allen Derrickson. He was there with his wife and pretty blonde daughter, Aristo’s goddaughter, Dede.

(Apparently, Dede was a world-class gymnast. The TV commentators gushed that ‘Dede-D’—as she was known to her many followers on TikTok—was on the shortlist to compete for America in the next Summer Olympic Games, even though she was only sixteen and still in high school.)

Cameras flashed as they strode inside.

While the guests made a show of shying bashfully away from the cameras, I noticed that they had all dressed in their most stylish black clothes and expensive sunglasses for the event.

Despite the banning of cameras inside the church, amateur footage of the service appeared on social media within minutes of it concluding. Some guests had filmed it on their phones.

Aristo King sat in the front row with his second ex-wife, Ajax’s mother, Shelby Cox—blonde hair, vivid blue eyes—and they both spoke movingly about their son.

(I noticed Merritt Garrett standing in a side aisle of the church a short distance from his new boss. He stood with King’s executive assistant, Mia Kimura. Gripping her iPad, she looked poised and svelte again, the traumas of December 21 seemingly behind her.)

Then it was over and all the rich and famous mourners retired to King’s home on Meadow Lane for a fully catered wake.