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fiction

London: Two Months Later

Fyfe
Right. I’m not sure where to start. Your brother told me you have some unique skills.

Pleschette
I’m not sure what you mean.

Fyfe
I came across something yesterday at SB. Some Russian bloke’s going away for money laundering. Ten years. We fool around in the archives with personal effects. Auctions, lottery, grab bag, whatever. I got this bloke’s laptop. It’s brand new. Four thousand quid worth of software and hardware. Stuff I can’t even understand.

Pleschette
You want me to clean the hard drive?

Fyfe
No. The hard drive’s got one hundred gigs of … images and videos on it.

Pleschette
Is it children, mate? I’m not touching that stuff.

Fyfe
No. I saved them on these USB flash drives. Take a look. I recognise some of the people on here, but I can’t get my head around this.

Pleschette
Did you sweep this stuff for viruses? We sometimes use them to infect people’s machines.

Fyfe
He’s a techie. I used his fingerprints to access the laptop. Most of the files have got passwords.

Pleschette
Righteousness. Alright. Let us have a look. Holy … is that … ? That’s uhm, uhm… I don’t remember her name, but she’s always on the telly. Entertainment Tonight and them.

Fyfe
Exactly, right.

Pleschette
I know this one, and this one. She’s got one of those BAFTAs. I know her. She’s in the men’s mags. GQ. This is messed up, mate.

Fyfe
I put the laptop back but I broke the law opening that machine, much less possessing stolen images.

Pleschette
I feel you. So what you want me to do?

Fyfe
I want to see if we can, you know, sell them to the tabloids.

Pleschette
Ah. You want me to act like a broker? Sell them without revealing your identity?

Fyfe
Yes.

Pleschette
I’m not really into this scandal mag bullshit. I dunno how much you’re going to get. This isn’t black market contraband, mate. It’s junk. You could sell a bag of heroin faster than this shyte. Have you got any heroin? I’d make you one hundred thousand quid right quick.

Fyfe
No.

Pleschette
You could wank to it.

Fyfe
I know that. But this is like potentially… can we auction it off or …?

Pleschette
I dunno. I don’t think anyone is interested in some naked girls. Some of the shots are blurry and all. Let me ask around but I’m not making any promises.

Fyfe
Thanks.

Pleschette
Later.