Free The Shift of Numbers by David Warrington

living under o ur roof. Isn’t that… ”
    Before their mom could finish her sentence and start with another lecture , Tim had stood up from the table, almost on autopilot, and blurted out the truth. “She’s a prostitute. D on’t you get it?”
    Instantly , their father had ri se n from the table , grabbing Tim’s arm, dragging him into the hall, all the while shouting incoherently at him. Crying, Tim was sent to his room.
    He didn’t know what happened that night, or what was said, but the next day his sist er moved out of the family home and , to the best of his knowledge , his parents never spoke of her, or to her , ever again. Years later, while employed in his first job as a policeman , he found out about her. She had apparently never gone back to her previous line of work and lived in a dingy flat, finding employment as a hairdresser, dreaming all the while of travelling the world.  He found all this out – unbeknownst to his sister – by briefly dating her best friend. Born partly of guilt and , in no small part love, he had concocted a plan. With all the money he had saved and , taking a loan for the rest , he purchased an all- expenses paid trip round the world. Disguising it in such a way as to make it seem like she had won a competition, he sent the tickets to his sister. Watching her from a distance at the airport , he had never seen her smile so much in all his life. That was the last he ever saw of her.
     
    *
     
    On autopilot, Tim couldn’t remember firing the last 4 shots. Gazing down the range , he could see that the target’s head had several neat holes in its centre. A hand lightly touched Tim’s shoulder; he removed his ear protectors and holstered his gun before turning round to face the man who touched him.
    “Well done , sir. A perfect score.”
    “I thought I would be out of practice ,” s aid Tim , modestly.
    “It’s just like riding a bike. Y ou never lose the knack. I just wish they were all as competent as you.”
    “Are there any more tests?”
    “That was the last 1. I will send a copy of your renewed gun licence upstairs to personnel. Excuse me , sir . I think I hear the telephone.”
    While Tim admired his paper target with its neat cluster of bullet holes , the range master came back out of his office and walked quickly over to Tim. “That was the Director’ s office on the phone , sir. T hey want you up there as soon as possible.”
    Tim nodded and swiftly walked to the elevator. He hated talking to the Director but it did mean he was getting a new case, and that meant getting out of the office. 
    The elevator ride took Tim from basement level 2, the gun range , upwards past basement level 1. Only 2 people worked on this f loor: the engineers who looked after the computer containing the 2 most important numbers in the country. To the best of Tim’s knowledge the number had never been wrong since the system was put online about 20 years ago, when he had first joined the MSD and , with security laxer , he had snuck down to catch a glimpse of the computer. It was a shock; he had expected a whol e floor filled with computers. I n reality , it was just a large computer monitor attached to a wall in a smallish office. He watched the numbers for a while , mesmeri sed, expecting them to change. T he larger number did, but not by much.
    The 1 st floor contained the financial records of almost everyone in the country, either electronically stored or , for the older records , on paper . Every transaction, every tax receipt and more , stored for use in analysis and investigations. The majority of the MSD workforce were housed in this vast library, human ants stacking and restacking, collating and sorting vast quantities of numbers. The 2 nd floor held a ll the staff recreation facilities , the canteen, swimming pool and gym , etc. T he MSD didn’t want a high turnover of staff as t hat would encourage incompetenc e, so they paid well and had good benefits. The 3 rd and 4 th