‘Nicky?’

‘Yeah. I’m thinking.’ He tried to clear his head. He reeled off everything he knew about Fisher. He went through his address, his sister’s name, his mum’s name. He actually knew his birthday as it was only three weeks previously and his dad had bought him one of those quad bikes and he’d smashed it up within a week.

Mr Nicholls kept tapping away. ‘Nope. Nope. Come on. There must be something else. What music does he like? What team does he support? Oh, look – he’s got a hotmail address. Great – we can put that in.’

Nicky told him everything he knew. Nothing worked. And then he had a sudden thought. ‘Tulisa. He’s got a thing about Tulisa. The singer.’

Mr Nicholls tapped away at his keyboard, then shook his head.

‘Try Tulisa’s Arse,’ Nicky said.

Mr Nicholls typed. ‘Nope.’

‘IShaggedTulisa. All one word.’

‘Nope.’

‘Tulisa Fisher.’

‘Mmm. Nope. Nice try, though.’

They sat there, thinking.

‘You could just try his name,’ said Nicky.

Mr Nicholls shook his head. ‘Nobody’s stupid enough to use their name as their password.’

Nicky looked at him. Mr Nicholls typed a few letters then stared at the screen. ‘Well what do you know?’ he said, and leant back in his seat. ‘You’re a natural.’

‘So what are you doing?’

‘We’re just going to have a little play with Jason Fisher’s Facebook page. Actually, I’m not going to do it. I’m … uh … I can’t really risk anything on my IP address right now. But I know someone who can.’ He dialled a number.

‘But won’t he know it’s down to me?’

‘How? We’re basically him right now. There’ll be nothing tracing this to you. He probably won’t even notice. Hang on. Jez? … Hey. It’s Ed … Yeah. Yeah, I’m just under the radar for a bit. I need you to do me a favour. It’ll take five minutes.’

Nicky listened as he told ‘Jez’ Jason Fisher’s password and email address. He said that Fisher had been ‘creating a few difficulties’ for a friend. He looked at Nicky sideways as he said this. ‘Just have a bit of fun with it, yeah? Read through his stuff. You’ll get the picture. I’d do it myself but I’ve got to keep my hands super-clean right now … Yeah … Yeah, I’ll explain when I see you. Appreciate it.’

He couldn’t believe it was so easy. ‘Won’t he hack me back, though?’

Mr Nicholls put down his phone. ‘I’m going to take a punt here. But a boy who can’t think further than his own name for a password is not really overflowing with computer skills.’

They sat there in the car and waited, refreshing Jason Fisher’s Facebook page again and again. And, like magic, things began to change. Man, Fisher was such a douche. His wall was full of how he was going to ‘do’ this girl or that girl from school, or how so-and-so was a slag and how he’d battered pretty much everyone outside his crew. His messages were much the same. Nicky glimpsed one message that had his name in it, but Mr Nicholls read it really fast and just said, ‘Yeah. You don’t need to see that one,’ and scrolled up. The only time he didn’t sound like a douche was when he messaged Chrissie Taylor and told her that he really liked her and did she want to come round his house? She didn’t sound too keen, but he kept messaging her. He said he’d take her out somewhere ‘really dope’ and that he could borrow his dad’s car (he couldn’t – he was under-age). He told her she was the prettiest girl in school and that she was doing his head in and that if his mates knew she’d made him like this they’d think he was ‘a mentalist’.

‘Who says romance is dead?’ Mr Nicholls murmured.

And so it began. Jez messaged two of Fisher’s friends and told them that he had decided he was anti-violence, and didn’t want to hang out with them any more. He messaged Chrissie and told her that he still liked her but he had to get himself sorted out before he went out with her because he’d ‘picked up some stupid infection what the doctor says I need to get medicine for. I’ll be nice and clean when we get together though, eh?’

‘Oh, man.’ Nicky was laughing so much that his ribs hurt. ‘Oh, man.’

‘Jason’ told another girl called Stacy that he really liked her and that his mum had picked out some really nice clothes for him if she ever wanted to go out, and the same thing to a girl called Angela in his year whom he had once called a scuzz. And Jez deleted a new message from Danny Kane, who had tickets for some big football match and said Jason could have one but he’d have to let him know by the end of the day. Which was today.

He changed Fisher’s profile picture for an image of a braying donkey. And then Mr Nicholls stared at the screen, thinking, and picked up his mobile. ‘Actually, I think we should leave it there, mate, just for now,’ he to told Jez.

‘Why?’ said Nicky, when he put down the phone. The donkey thing was kind of excellent.

‘Because it’s better to be subtle. If we just stick to his private messages for now it’s entirely likely that he won’t even spot them. We send them, then delete them at this end. We’ll turn off his email notifications. And so his friends, and this girl, will just think he’s become even more of an idiot. And he won’t have a clue why. Which is kind of the point.’