Patience is a virtue

Chapter One

Five year old Xiaoxin stared out of her bedroom window into the darkness of the night patiently waiting for the lights of her father's car to cut through her tiny corner of the world currently engulfed in the shadow of darkness. Her little eyes drawing all the more heavy with every passing minute, her cause not helped by the lack of a fixed point to focus her attention on. At that moment everything outside the window was merely black but that didn't deter her determination. Every time the shutters rolled down she somehow managed to jolt herself awake. Children, as adults too often fail to recognise are truly resilient little creatures. The tantrums are a smokescreen to all parents alike to their true underlying capabilities and determination and will to succeed. Xiaoxin let out a huge yawn, one of a many growing number of yawns to now have escaped her tiny mouth. This was a battle she was starting to lose. Her chin had originally been resting upon her upturned palms but at some point her forearms had laid flat on the windowsill. Watching out into the darkness then became that little bit easier if she just lay her head down on her arm and kept her focus on the outside world from her new position. All too soon the darkness outside her window was no different to the darkness behind her now closed eyelids. 

She didn't remember the point at which her father must have found her asleep and lifted her off the chair and carried her into bed and tucked her in safely for the night. With the energy of a new day she jumped out of her bed, her tiny feet still making a loud thumping noise as she landed despite her diminutive size. It was the same every morning, bing, wide awake and full of energy. That same thumping noise morning after morning which made Winston the family dog bark downstairs incessantly which in turn would wake anyone else not already up much to their disgust. Xiaoxin would then exit stage left and make for the stairs which she'd then rush down far too quickly for her own good, a quick crescendo of 14 more loud bumps which would once more set Winston off barking. 

Having safely navigated the stairs without a tumble she'd rush into the kitchen, receive her first wash of the day with a big lick of Winston's coarse tongue and then get scooped up into her father's arms. She was the very definition of what they'd call a daddy's girl. Every day her father would remind her that her name in Chinese means a person who brings happiness and joy, like the dawn of a new day, an apt name if ever there was one. Winston wasn't given a Chinese name, he'd instead been afforded the luxury of an English name what with him being an English dog and all. It also spared the family the funny looks which would have no doubt occurred had he been given a Chinese name and needed to be called back in the park. Mandarin when shouted is like the rat-a-tat of Xiaoxin’s feet as she hurtles down the hallway stairs. It punches through the silence of any time of year, any type of weather and any time of day in fact. Oh and of course there are those who would say that an English dog couldn't understand Chinese which is of course utter nonsense. Winston knew well enough when he'd done wrong in whatever language he was shouted at. 

But enough of the talk about names, back to the early morning bounce of Xiaoxin as she charges into the kitchen looking to collect the first smile of the day from her father. Except that morning he wasn't stood in his normal position at the centre of the kitchen, inline with the door positioned ready with his giant arms to scoop her up, once Winston had gotten his hello in first of course, which he now did. Xiaoxin got more than she bargained for that morning as she'd turned her head at the moment Winston's tongue had embarked on its trajectory from the bottom to top of her face. Usually it was across her left cheek that took the brunt, this morning it was more chin upwards and upon reaching the nose had made her entire body wiggle and her head shake violently from side to side. “Yuck Winston!” She tells him, marking him with a fixed glare to emphasize the point. Winston got the point and sloped off back to his bed underneath the breakfast bar which is where her father was normally sat unbeknown to her. He just creates the illusion he's been standing patiently waiting for her to run through the door all the while waiting for her to wake up. He used to read the papers which helped especially with his English when he'd first come over in the early 90s and had soon discovered that the English taught in classes was nothing like the actual English spoken by the locals. 

Lately his mornings had been replaced by endless pacing between one side of the kitchen and the other. Had there been lino on the floor rather than floorboards he'd probably by now have etched a large groove into it. Her father had troubles of which Xiaoxin had not known of. All she'd known of her father since the day she'd come into the world was the way his face would light up every time he saw her no matter how bad he was feeling on the inside. Maybe if he'd seen his daughter's little face, the one so full of happiness and unconditional love for him moments before he stepped into the path of an oncoming heavy goods train hurtling its way through the English countryside he may have not taken the step. Sadly for Xiaoxin and the remaining members of her family he had done exactly that and she would never experience that smile created by his love for her ever again. 

Of course at the age of five it's hard for a child to comprehend what death really means. Often her mother would walk into her room at night to find her asleep in the same place she'd fallen asleep that night at her bedroom window clearly still convinced that no matter how many times she was told he wasn't coming back that they were wrong and that he father's car would turn into the drive. 

The seasons passed and winter gave way to spring and the flowers began their bloom but as pretty as they were they couldn't fill the emptiness in Xiaoxin’s heart. The jumping lambs would cause her to forget for a few moments that her father was no longer there but the pain soon returned. 

Change is never easy at any age. First came the loss of her father, months later the loss of their family home, repossessed by the mortgage company which had been coupled with the knowledge that the family had also been left penniless. The cause; the shame of a sure thing having not been so sure after all. Sure things rarely are, I'm afraid. I'm sure there's an equivalent in Mandarin of if it seems too good to be true then it usually is but if someone had told him it in English when he'd been alive he'd clearly not taken the time to learn it's meaning. 

Part of Xiaoxin died that day too. A light in her heart went out that could never be turned back on. No longer did she rush out of bed first thing in the mornings. Her mother had stood in the same spot when they'd still been in the family home and tried to recreate the same magical morning welcome but even at the tender age of five she knew it didn't feel right, that it was all a charade. Real life wasn't like a Disney cartoon and besides there were no Disney's princesses that looked like her anyway. 

Chapter Two

Xiaoxin had long ceased to be that happy go lucky 5 year old without a care in the world. Only family members now called her by her real name. Her peers called her X, largely because of a succession of ignorant English children who could never say her name correctly or grasp the concept that her name doesn't even start with a sound that starts like the English pronunciation of X or frankly they just didn't care. In the end Xiaoxin had no fight left in her for such trivial matters. That's not to say she hadn't tried to correct people, teach them how to say it, suggested they call her Xi, but every attempt proved fruitless and eventually she stopped caring. Her name like everything else in her life was pretty much deemed worthless so what did it really matter? Now 17 years of age she was still full of resentment at that night 12 years ago when her father had taken his own life and left her wishing that she'd taken hers too. In many ways it would have been the less cruel option than leaving the apple of his eye without its tree to hang on for support and nurture. At least losing Winston to old age has been a more compassionate way for him to exit her life.

 

Most of the world had figured out it was best to leave X to her own devices as you never knew what mood you'd encounter her in but you could usually be sure it wasn't an approachable one. The isolation this brought her meant time to learn things that other typical 17 year olds weren't learning. Other 17 year olds, well a large section of English ones anyway were busy trying to get off their faces on anything they could get their hands on be that in liquid or medicinal form. When I say medicinal form, that's if you count weed, coke and Molly as the drugs of choice as being medicinal. Xiaoxin spent a large portion of her time online. Not gaming either I hasten to add. She had become an autodidact and her thirst was quenched by knowledge and not half a bottle of vodka snatched from a parents collection or a two litre bottle of cider purchased with the help of some dodgy fake ID. Ever since she'd learned the truth as to why her father had taken his own life she'd been hell bent on revenge. Let's say her favourite past times were no more legal than the other kids busy getting off their faces. 

Her family weren't aware she'd dropped out of her college course barely weeks into her first term. She still left the house every morning under the pretence that was exactly where she was heading, the college lanyard around her neck complete with her photo in passport size which had allowed her to purchase an annual train ticket at a hugely discounted student rate. She still boarded the train every week day morning but by that point her lanyard has disappeared into her trusty rucksack. She'd find a quiet spot amongst the affluent travellers far from the kids her own age who'd congregate like herding sheep all bleating away to each other and she'd fold down the tray in front on which she'd place her £200 phone charging cable. A £200 cable that looks to the untrained eye exactly the same as any £9.99 cable you'd find for purchase. You plugged one end into the USB port found on trains and the other end into the phone and just like your standard cable your phone lit up and it began to charge. The difference with this cable was the tiny processor and transmitter embedded into the end that an unsuspecting victim had just connected into their phone. The technology had originally been pioneered by the American secret service and their version was sold to other intelligence agencies for twenty times the price. Then,  as is so often the case, the Chinese had gotten their hands on the technology, reverse engineered it and made their own versions available for sale. The scam was easy. She just needed someone to ask to borrow her charger. All Xiaoxin then needed was for them to unlock their phones with their password and she'd take out her own phone, click on an app and start the data transfer and whatever part of your life was stored on your phone was now hers. All your stored passwords, access to banking accounts, the whole nine yards, all neatly stored in data packets if you knew where to look, which she did. You'd be amazed at how many people would ask her that simple question, all absolutely none the wiser. Why would you be either? Another unsuspecting victim innocently asking the question would you mind if I borrowed your charger? A nod of the head would suffice, then the game was on. If the victim tries to engage her in conversation she puts her hand up, the universally accepted instruction for please wait, opens an app on her phone and in perfect Mandarin says something incomprehensible, presses a button and holds the phone up to her fellow passenger and the voice or a well spoken English lady then relays the translation I'm sorry but I don't understand what you're saying. Most people at that point will say oh OK or sorry or give a thumbs up or two thumbs up if they're really impressed by the app and some frantic approving nods of the head. If they're extra nice and make her feel guilty it might only cost the victim the price of a coffee. For the businessmen, and it was usually businessmen who muttered words like fucking Chinky under their breaths there was no feeling of guilt. 

Very few people can tell you their bank balance at anyone time and if you go through someone's monthly statement you'll find the majority of people are creatures of habit. If and when you ever do check your statement are you going to remember if you had an extra coffee at Costa during the day two weeks ago? 

The thing about train companies modernising is they're all in a hurry to get rid of humans. You take your valid ticket and go through the barriers, but on the train itself you're only then asked for your ticket in the morning or late afternoon / early evening. You can in effect ride off peak for the time in between just never leaving stations and travelling up and down lines, sometimes having to go a few extra stops to ensure you've got all the data transferred. Occasionally you'll get asked for a ticket at which point talking in mandarin and looking blank is usually enough to deter most conductors who smile and move quickly on their way. For really persistent conductors who don't take mandarin in lieu of no for an answer you can see if you've stolen an e ticket or two already on your travels and show them that and tell them man told me in a stereotypical Chinese accent and point in the direction the train is travelling from. In really tricky situations the get out of jail free card is to exclaim in a loud voice so all the passengers around hear you wacist. No one has yet failed to understand the perceived inability to pronounce the letter r in the same way people chose to call her X. You be vely solly. England or course whilst being a nation of racists doesn't like it so much when people point it out, especially when it's done by foreign nationals. The pièce de résistance is to shout a single random word in Cantonese which quite frankly could be any word. No one in ear shot will have a clue what it means and acts as a good reminder as to why the family faithful companion was named Winston.

 

Data extraction when sitting next to someone is incredibly easy when you've got the right piece of kit. Afterwards it's like gently creeping on creaking floorboards if you want to avoid getting caught. The game is to not flag yourself in any way with what you take. You dine and water yourself on someone else's money for the day and the world moves on none the wiser. You go home and pretend you've been to college and then go upstairs to study. Except Xiaoxin isn't studying for college, she's now studying how to hack remotely. Every day she's one step closer to her end goal of revenge. She uploads the details of the businessmen who called her a fucking Chinky onto the dark web where contacts forged in who knows where in the world gladly pay her a small commission which enables her to fund her extra curricular activities. It's the modern circle of life. Everyone is busy feasting on someone else at some level or another. 

Chapter three 

Xiaoxin now 22 has spent the better part of five years perfecting her craft. She no longer catches the train pretending to be off to college. She achieved the grades at college her mother had wanted by calling in a favour with a dark web contact who'd hacked into college network and confirmed her attendance for the majority of the previous two years having missed the odd day or two for what were now marked down as female issues in the notes. Her email address was embedded into past emails sent by lecturers and other emails on the servers changed to look like they'd been sent from her email address. Low level stuff which would flag easily enough if you knew what you were looking for but you had to have known you were looking for it in the first place to find them. Then came the national examination board and that hadn't been much of a muchness either and with a few clicks of a keyboard from someone else, she'd gained her qualifications without having to do any of the hard work. 

She'd left home, found a flat and claimed to have a steady income with a job in the city. Her mother had been disappointed she hadn't gone to university but had accepted that if it wasn't for her daughter then maybe that was OK after all. She would always be that little lost five year old heartbroken girl to whom the world had been so cruel and treacherous to. Except she was no longer five, she was a grown up woman hell bent on revenge against the man that had conned her father out of his life savings, who'd encouraged him to take a second mortgage out on the house on the sure thing that was never a sure thing. It was a con which cost one man his life and that man's child a broken heart and now that man was going to pay the debt he owed. It wasn't just going to be a financial settlement, she was about to deconstruct his life piece by piece. All she'd needed was an in and she found it in the perfect place, Anna Collins the 24 year old daughter of Alan Collins, the man behind the con that had forced her father to take his own life. 

Xiaoxin had known exactly who she was but the same couldn't have been said for Anna who thought she'd found a new friend as they bonded one night over Margaretta’s and what she thought was a shared experienced of dating a string of appalling boys and then atrocious men. She'd let Xin sleep on her sofa that night. The night had started with the correct pronunciation of Xiaoxin but the more the alcohol took effect the more difficult it became and eventually she said “would you mind awfully if I call you Xin instead, I'll understand if you say no,” and Xiaoxin replied.

“Of course not, people called me X for years because they couldn't be bothered to learn my name. You've been saying it perfectly all night and I'm so grateful that after 22 years someone other than my mother and father can say it correctly in this country. 22 years! Imagine that!”

Anna had sat in silence not sure what the correct thing was to say at that point. Should she apologise on behalf of the nation? Instead she let out a nervous laugh which made Xin laugh and they then laughed in unison to the point everyone around them were now busy starting wondering what they were laughing at. 

They'd laughed for the remainder of the evening; in the bar, in the Uber en route home, at the struggle to get the keys in the front door, trying to make a cup of coffee to try sober up before they went to sleep. Anna took herself off to bed and had she not only just met Xin she'd have happily let her share the space of the King size bed, not in a sexual way, just in the way that girlfriends do without it ever being an issue. A mere practicality and never a matter of worrying about such formalities. 

Whilst Anna dreamt, Xin was busy helping herself with access to Anna's phone which she'd helpfully left charging in the kitchen. Accessing it would have been tricky if not for the last four margaritas that had now rendered her unconscious with her arm hanging from the edge of the bed. She didn't even flicker as Xin held the phone up to her finger to bypass the modern security feature and unlock the phone. Thankfully it wasn't set to a retinal scan but Xin reasoned in that state she could have probably lifted an eyelid and Anna would have been none the wiser. 

Five minutes later and some digging through her email account she knew the style of email she communicated with her father using. Anna wasn't adverse to sending her father links for things she'd like brought. It appears in the same way Xiaoxin was the quintessential daddy's girl at 5, Anna was still very much one at 24. It wouldn't take anything to get him to click on a link that sent him no where but gave her the access she needed to his computer network. With that access over the course of several months she'd put her plan into action. 

The only online presence Xiaoxin had ever had was on the dark web. No Facebook account, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn profile… Her name has only been in the paper once in her life as a byline in the death notice placed on the family's behalf by the local undertaker to confirm the date and time of her father's funeral. Her mobile whilst state of the art was nothing more than a burner phone. She exited Anna's life as quickly as she'd entered it but Anna had no way of knowing that until it happened. They promised each other they'd meet up for drinks soon, kissed each other on both cheeks and then ended with a hug which had left Xiaoxin with the memory of her father's arms around her and spurred her on even more to get her revenge on the father of the unsuspecting Anna. 

The thing about most people is even if they think they're quite tech savvy, they're not really. If you want to hide money you have to pay someone to do it on your behalf and you have to trust that they know what they're doing. When you spend a large part of your life studying things you shouldn't be studying on the dark web you can learn and incredible amount of useful skills for not much more than the price of your average family weekly shop. Having learned how to phish, Xiaoxin had taught herself a Swiss Army knife set of extra curricular skills, from creating shell companies to where to move money around the world so it stays well hidden from investigating authorities. 

The thing to remember about phishing scams to gain access to data is that the channel used to extract can also be used to embed. For months Xiaoxin would use her backdoor entrance into Alan's computers after he'd dutifully clicked on the link provided in that supposed email sent by daddy's little girl. Xiaoxin had subsequently figured out where his money was kept offshore and more importantly how to gain access to those accounts. All the while she would be hiding folders of dodgy images on his personal computer waiting for the day the police would be tipped off to his cyber activities and come knocking at his door. Whilst that was going on his personal fortune hidden away from the world would vanish whilst he was protesting his innocence. It's doubtful he'd be able to find out the money had gone that easily from the inside of a prison cell doing a long stretch. Even if he did, who was he going to complain to? The police? I'm sorry officer but the money I've spent years scamming from victims and hiding offshore illegally in a series of shell companies has been stolen from me, would you mind awfully helping me get it back again?

Finally everything was in place. Months of work in the small hours of the morning fuelled by caffeine and hatred. One phone call and one final click of a mouse button and it was done. With that she took herself off to her bedroom window. She sat down on the chair that constantly remained in situ in the same spot, put her elbows down on the windowsill and rested her head on her palms and gazed across the city that stretched out now before her, part of her still secretly hoping that one day maybe she'd spot her father's car headlights driving towards the car park below.