“Great. What was it you said, Control, Alt what?” queried Ali.
“Control, Alt, Delete, hold down the first two at the same time and press delete.”
“Won’t that delete something?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, you really are a beginner. No, it won’t delete anything, just do it,” replied his friend with more than a degree of irritation.
“Ehm? Which one is ‘control’?”
“My god, are you kidding me? It says C-T-R-L on it. How thick can you be?”
“All right, all right! Keep yer hair on. This is the first time it’s gone wrong. I knew we shouldn’t have got a laptop. See, I told you Dad, we should have got a proper desktop computer,” announced Ali as he turned round to his dad who had just entered the room with tea and toast.
“How the hell would I know? You decided, not me. If it was a kettle or toaster then I might have had an opinion. A bloody computer though, I don’t know why you waste your time with that muck. Anyway, here’s your tea and toast; come over to the table and eat it now,” replied Frank as he deposited the two plates and cups on a small table by the window, carelessly slopping the tea over the edges of the cups.
“Carter, I’m going to have to go, sorry.”
“Don’t worry, I can come over tomorrow night and fix it up. Leave it on until then,” replied his helpful friend.
“Did you hear that, Dad? We have to leave it on overnight. Then Carter’ll come and fix it tomorrow.”
“Okay, anything, if you just come over and eat your bloody toast. Get a cloth from the kitchen as well to mop this up,” exclaimed Frank, less than bothered about the situation.
“Listen, I’ll see you later, Carter. Thanks, man,” exclaimed Ali as he hung up before heading to the kitchen for a cloth and back over to the table.
“Thanks, Dad. He’ll sort it all out. He’s brilliant with all this stuff. He knows more than the teacher about computers in our computer class. I should get a bit more knowledgeable about it myself really. I feel so helpless when something goes wrong,” exclaimed Ali, as he tucked into his thickly sliced toast, covered in much too much butter.
“Whatever! Eat that and then we should leave to go to the match or we’ll be late. A win tonight and we go five points clear at the top of the table,” declared Frank, for the first time displaying a degree of enthusiasm in his voice.
“Hey, Basingstoke Town rule the world, ‘Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum’. Come on you Dragons,” exclaimed Ali excitedly before opening a drawer under the table, pulling out a blue and yellow scarf and tying it around his neck.
“What does that mean anyway, Dad? Why does everyone sing that?” queried the boy.
“Christ knows. Italian I think. Must be something to do with that bloody operatic twaddle they used as a theme tune for the World Cup. What a load of crap.”
With that, Frank pulled down a strikingly unattractive, Basingstoke FC bobble hat and forced it over his slightly fat head, down to, but not over the ears.
“We really need to leave it on do we, Ali? Are you sure it’s okay?” queried Frank, gesticulating towards the computer.
“It’ll be fine, Dad, and it takes hardly any juice. Let’s go to the match or we’ll be late. I’ll pop these into the kitchen,” proclaimed Ali confidently as he scooped up the cups and plates and made tracks towards the kitchen.
As if the hat and scarf were not enough, they soon both had garish bright and lurid yellow and blue jackets and were heading out of the front door.
“See you later, Smunky. Take it easy, furry fellow,” shouted the boy back into the living room before slamming the front door shut. He tinkered with numerous locks before heading down the garden path and out onto the pavement. Ed jumped up from his basket and onto the window ledge to see them both heading sluggishly along the road and away from the house.
Chapter 9
Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum
Right. This is my opportunity. Let’s see if I can do anything on the computer with these ridiculous paws, thought Ed, as he jumped down onto the frayed and tatty carpet, up onto the computer chair, and onto the desktop. Ed had never been much of a football fan, but knew that if they were at a match then he would have a two or three hour window to explore online and gather some deeper information about the circumstances around his death.
He stared at the glittering ocean screensaver splashing over the laptop screen, keen to entertain whoever would be bored enough to stare at it. He looked closer and could see it was certainly not state of the art, without a brand name or any logos anywhere on the black and silver plastic body.