Read Online Angel on the Inside by Mike Ripley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mike Ripley
Tags: Fiction, detective, Crime, Mystery, series, Humour, Gangster, funny, Novel, angel, Comedy, stalking, Welsh, mike ripley, comic crime, crime writers, fresh blood, lovejoy, critic, birmingham post, essex book festival, secretive, private, amusing
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downloaded Ry Cooder on the speakers â I began to wonder where Amy was.
I could have phoned her, of course, though that would have put me on the back foot immediately.
Where were you last night?
Where were you all day yesterday when I was trying to get hold of you to tell you I had to fly to Tierra del Fuego at really short notice?
I was ministering to an injured cat.
Yeah, right.
No. Too weak.
So I did what any caring, sharing partner would do: I hacked into her computer.
Or rather, took a deep breath and tried to.
Iâve seen computer buffs who carry cans of compressed air in specially made holsters on their belt, and when all else fails, they will do a quick draw and shoot a couple of blasts into the keyboard. In my opinion, thatâs simply not punishment enough â in fact, I think the computers quite like it. My instinct, when I lose my temper, is to go for a fast southpaw combination of feint then slap to the monitor followed by the heel of the hand on the processor bit that goes beep when you turn it on.
Actually, I have learned that one beep when you switch on is good. Three rapid beeps means trouble ahead, somethingâs about to go wrong. When that has happened in the past, it hasnât been unknown for a pint of Guinness to end up in the keyboard. But I hadnât lost my temper just yet, so I stuck to my Rule of Life Number 106: Never let machinery know youâre in a hurry.
Up came the screensaver, a favourite download of Amyâs of the Mr Burns character from The Simpsons saying âExcellentâ, and then the icon thingies started to appear to the theme from Mission Impossible .
And then it stopped burping and bleeping and just hummed at me, daring me to make the next move.
I stared back at it. I knew what some of the icons meant â the one for the internet, the one for e-mails and the most important one, for âGAMESâ â but what the hell was a WinZip? Who needed an acrobatic reader or a comet cursor? And why was there a picture of Harry Potter made out of Lego building bricks? Of the others, at least 20 in number, most were art or design programs, but I suspected the really interesting ones were the ones that looked like briefcases, and they would be password-protected, wouldnât they? Even the one marked âDIARYâ in big flashing letters.
I clicked on it and it opened immediately.
This computer-hacking business was very overrated.
Â
There was only one entry for that day, Wednesday, in Amyâs spreadsheet diary. In fact it was the only entry for the whole week, and it simply said: âWELFASH FINALS â CARD U.â
I was no wiser. It meant absolutely nothing to me. I couldnât remember Amy having said anything that remotely resembled it, and no matter how long I stared at the screen, it wouldnât tell me anything else.
There was something it could tell me, though.
I shrank the diary window and inserted a floppy disk. I know, I know, I was just working out how to use them as they became obsolete, but I firmly believe that they will make a comeback, like vinyl did, or eight-track car stereos or Betamax videos. Well, okay, not those last two.
On the disk, I opened up a new spreadsheet, called it âDIARYâ and typed in a couple of boxes of gobbledygook, then tried to transfer it to Amyâs version. The usual window came up asking if I wanted my âDIARYâ to replace the version last modified ...
The day before at 11:32:08, just about the time I was talking to Duncan the Drunken, give or take eight seconds, and I thought she was at her office.
Of course I couldnât be sure that was when sheâd put in the reference, though the computer would probably tell me if I asked it the right way. Approached in the right way, anyone will tell you anything, and it will usually be true. (Rule of Life Number 83.) But that applies only to people. You canât make eye contact with â or buy a drink
I could have phoned her, of course, though that would have put me on the back foot immediately.
Where were you last night?
Where were you all day yesterday when I was trying to get hold of you to tell you I had to fly to Tierra del Fuego at really short notice?
I was ministering to an injured cat.
Yeah, right.
No. Too weak.
So I did what any caring, sharing partner would do: I hacked into her computer.
Or rather, took a deep breath and tried to.
Iâve seen computer buffs who carry cans of compressed air in specially made holsters on their belt, and when all else fails, they will do a quick draw and shoot a couple of blasts into the keyboard. In my opinion, thatâs simply not punishment enough â in fact, I think the computers quite like it. My instinct, when I lose my temper, is to go for a fast southpaw combination of feint then slap to the monitor followed by the heel of the hand on the processor bit that goes beep when you turn it on.
Actually, I have learned that one beep when you switch on is good. Three rapid beeps means trouble ahead, somethingâs about to go wrong. When that has happened in the past, it hasnât been unknown for a pint of Guinness to end up in the keyboard. But I hadnât lost my temper just yet, so I stuck to my Rule of Life Number 106: Never let machinery know youâre in a hurry.
Up came the screensaver, a favourite download of Amyâs of the Mr Burns character from The Simpsons saying âExcellentâ, and then the icon thingies started to appear to the theme from Mission Impossible .
And then it stopped burping and bleeping and just hummed at me, daring me to make the next move.
I stared back at it. I knew what some of the icons meant â the one for the internet, the one for e-mails and the most important one, for âGAMESâ â but what the hell was a WinZip? Who needed an acrobatic reader or a comet cursor? And why was there a picture of Harry Potter made out of Lego building bricks? Of the others, at least 20 in number, most were art or design programs, but I suspected the really interesting ones were the ones that looked like briefcases, and they would be password-protected, wouldnât they? Even the one marked âDIARYâ in big flashing letters.
I clicked on it and it opened immediately.
This computer-hacking business was very overrated.
Â
There was only one entry for that day, Wednesday, in Amyâs spreadsheet diary. In fact it was the only entry for the whole week, and it simply said: âWELFASH FINALS â CARD U.â
I was no wiser. It meant absolutely nothing to me. I couldnât remember Amy having said anything that remotely resembled it, and no matter how long I stared at the screen, it wouldnât tell me anything else.
There was something it could tell me, though.
I shrank the diary window and inserted a floppy disk. I know, I know, I was just working out how to use them as they became obsolete, but I firmly believe that they will make a comeback, like vinyl did, or eight-track car stereos or Betamax videos. Well, okay, not those last two.
On the disk, I opened up a new spreadsheet, called it âDIARYâ and typed in a couple of boxes of gobbledygook, then tried to transfer it to Amyâs version. The usual window came up asking if I wanted my âDIARYâ to replace the version last modified ...
The day before at 11:32:08, just about the time I was talking to Duncan the Drunken, give or take eight seconds, and I thought she was at her office.
Of course I couldnât be sure that was when sheâd put in the reference, though the computer would probably tell me if I asked it the right way. Approached in the right way, anyone will tell you anything, and it will usually be true. (Rule of Life Number 83.) But that applies only to people. You canât make eye contact with â or buy a drink
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