Tinytown

By Darby Gallagher

In a dystopian England in the 2050s, people who cannot pay size insurance are shrunk. Here Tom Flack finds himself fighting for the rights of the small.

But he has big enemies, including his ex-wife, Vanessa - TV's Tallulah Twinkleplum - and her grotesque brother Lloyd, a fat, sleazy sex pest who loves seared offal flavour snacks soaked in whale oil.

Tom also has a third enemy, Lloyd's crooked boss Moffat P Perculie. He is a fan of foxhunting and teenage stable girls, is burdened with a wife called Arabella Byng-Boyne and is inordinately proud of a Norman forebear who hid the halibut on the poop deck. The vain villains are fuelled by drink, drugs, greed and perversion.

On his travels, Tom discovers exactly what goes on at the illicit shrinxploitation events where shrinkees are made to perform for paying punters.

The London of Tinytown is scarred by gang warfare between the Happy Eaters and the Little Chefs, and features 12 new inhabited bridges on the river Thames. As well as people-shrinking, the year 2051 features butt chips - buttock borne implants that people use instead of cash - plus hovercopters and doubledecker cars.

The driving narrative features inventive language and savage humour – while drugs, sex, plastic surgery, horseboxes and hedgehogs abound.

The story also makes serious points – and the positing of a world where the big (rich) mistreat growing armies of small (poor) people can be seen as an allegory of the modern world.

Some reviewers' comments about Tinytown:

'It is Darby Gallagher's writing style that is the real winner here. The author simply writes so well making the whole book a real page-turner from start to finish ... the dialogue is brilliant, the characters really interesting and the general storyline fascinating'

'A completely brilliant novel! Inspired over the top comic futuristic sci-fi. I nearly walked into a lamp post while reading this ... Devilishly well observed characters; a crackingly good narrative, with astute political overtones ... made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe'

'A great read, had me hooked from page 1 and would make a great movie. The author has a great knack of keeping you on the edge of your seat and laughing all at the same time'

'Intriguing story about how Tom Flack gets shrunk and uncovers the secret of Tinytown ... a gripping read'

'I was worried when I read the first paragraph. There are plenty of books out there written in an "overly-clever" tone that gets old quick ... but fortunately for me, Darby Gallagher has the linguistic chops to pull it off all the way to the finishing line ... A fun adventure filled with playful language and a little food for thought. It reminds me of a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, except without the puns'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darby Gallagher
• Release date: Jul 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476468709

Darby Gallagher

Darby Gallagher lives in London, is married with two children and is a national newspaper journalist. Tinytown is his first novel.

Book preview

Chapter 1

June 1, 2051

Tom Flack lifted the torpedo-shaped bottle of Bismarck Bavarian Bier to his lips and transferred a consignment of its contents from its neck to his. Verdammt! That was good, though gassy. ‘Sink a Bismarck, the Big Gun of The Bar Room Battlefleet,’ was the legend on a sign behind the bar. ‘A Depth Charge for your Digestive System,’ it could have added, thought Tom, wincing as a salvo of small internal explosions buffeted him amidships.

He was sitting on a stool in Das Boot, a smart bar on October Bridge, one of the 12 new inhabited bridges on the River Thames. And he now caught sight of himself in a mirror. His straggly beard, overlong hair and crumpled, soggy clothes did not fit in with the swanky surroundings. He had flown into the country only a few hours ago and still had Nepalese mud on his boots.

His appearance had not been improved by the pint of cider spilled over him by the drunken, hefty girl in the Cowes Week 2050 T-shirt. Waves of laughter swelled out now from where she and her sailor friends were sitting. While they all fitted in with the bar’s nautical theme, Tom felt like a fish out of water.

Vanessa, Tom’s ex-wife, was late. It had been her idea to meet here. She needed to see him urgently, she said, to discuss their divorce settlement. The pub door opened and the warm air of a June night entered, followed by a young couple, but not by Vanessa. He kept his eye on the door for a moment, looking through its glass panels at the lights on September Bridge and in the overcrowded city beyond.

Now Mambo No 5 by Lou Vega began playing, to whoops from the yachting crowd behind him. The pop songs on the Nineties and Noughties jukebox had been released before most of the customers, including Tom, had been born.

Vanessa had insisted on seeing him straight away. He hoped that she was, finally, ready to offer a compromise on his alimony payments. She had sounded conciliatory on the phone. Their break-up 18 months ago had been financially, as well as emotionally, costly and she knew the court award was crippling him. Vanessa’ s lawyer – supplied by her brother Lloyd – had trounced Tom in court, convincing the judge that the marriage had cost her financially.

Tom had paid and paid since that day but still owed her £75,000. He had been a very successful photographer a few years ago – he first met Vanessa, then a model, on a shoot – but now he had to survive on sporadic freelance assignments. In fact, he was struggling to pay any bills, let alone the alimony.

The court hadn’t heard that he had paid for almost everything during their marriage, pumping cash into their joint account while she sluiced it out. A self-proclaimed ‘fashionista’, she had launched a boutique that she rarely bothered to open up. High rent and hopelessly over-ordered fashion oddities had ensured the shop made losses. The losses were Tom’s because he had bankrolled the venture, which finally folded shortly before she left him.

He tried to picture Vanessa’s face. The image that always came to him first was of her in the wedding photo that had been on display in the marital home. Her smile outside the Surrey church was real if over-practised, the rictus denoting her attainment of nuptial nirvana. She had been happy that day, really happy – as had he. But her joy had come from having a wedding, not a marriage. To her, the day was an end in itself, a victory parade. The union itself was an afterthought.

She had been glamorous, fun and wild but they had both been too young. He had got to know her well only after they married and hadn’t liked most of what he learned. Like how she yearned desperately for fame and how every conversation was an opportunity to talk about her own life. She religiously kept a diary so she could spend more time with herself. He began to suspect that she saw marriage as a career step, a shortcut to contact with the big names from the worlds of fashion and showbusiness with whom he sometimes worked.

She was a fame junkie and had been even before she attended stage school. She was one of the countless millions who profess from an early age that they just know they were born to be famous. Unfortunately, she and talent were strangers.

But she was prepared to do almost anything to gain a foothold on the periphery of the celebrity world. After her stint as a model, she had been an atonal singer, an inept DJ and a clueless presenter of a fashion show on an obscure cable channel. In the months before their marriage ended, she had done enough to feature regularly in the tabloid gossip pages.

It was at that time that she had again told Tom how badly she wanted to be famous.

‘But you are famous,’ Tom had assured her, truthfully.

‘No,’ she replied, ‘I mean really famous. I want to be discussed over the breakfast table in countries I’ve never even heard of.’

Now she was an actress, one only slightly less wooden than the Spruce Goose. But she had found paid employment in a theatrical role on television. It was not exactly what she had dreamt of but she did get to appear on screen every week.

When they had first met, she had seemed exciting. But the attraction waned as her shallowness slowly shone through and it became clear that she was not as pretty on the inside as out.

Back then, he had been earning well as a photographer to the stars. But, as his wife became more and more enamoured with the celebrity world, he became more and more disaffected. One day the inevitable happened – he was dropped by his agency. It happened after he insulted an important artiste, Jason Dawes, the presenter of a television home improvements show. After suffering a long day of complaints, Tom had reacted badly when Jason said the latest portraits made his skin look orange.

‘The reason you look orange is because you are orange,’ Tom had told him. ‘If you didn’t want to look like a satsuma you shouldn’t have gone for frequent flier points on the sunbed.’

‘You can’t talk to me like that...’

‘We’re finished here – and you can keep this,’ Tom had replied, throwing a white towel at Dawes, ‘your botox has leaked all over it.’

After that, Tom had not been trusted with celebrities so had switched to photographing food and consumer products.

Vanessa had been furious at his self-propelled exit from the showbiz world. He, by contrast, felt happy to be free. They had spent more time apart, with her determinedly doing laps of the celebrity circuit, her Geiger counter beeping whenever she neared anyone emitting trace radiation from the half-life of an ancient famous moment.

Since their split, she had become as close to fame as she’d ever been. As Tallulah Twinkleplum, she was a pre-school pin-up. The role involved animating a bulky, pink and yellow, foam rubber costume on a children’s television show. But to her dismay, no viewer ever saw her face on screen – hidden as it was by Tallulah’s foam features – and she hungered for bigger things.

While she always looked glamorous and appeared confident off-screen, Tom knew the projected image hid a tangle of insecurities. The knockbacks she had taken over the years had scarred her self-image. For every high she experienced, there was a more forceful low and even during their marriage she had been overusing antidepressants. Prozac was not the only drug she took. In fact, Tom doubted there was a drug on the planet she hadn’t taken – and he feared that a lot of the alimony he paid had gone up her nose.

In a last, unlikely, attempt to make their faltering marriage work, they had bought a fitted kitchen for their old flat – as if Corian worktops could save a balsa wood relationship. Weeks later, they parted. She had kept the apartment and everything in it, including the kitchen and its shiny appliances. He had loved that kitchen, but the only thing he had taken from it was the toaster – and that only because Vanessa had a wheat allergy and feared contamination from its cache of crumbs. Now every time the toaster popped, it reminded him of her.

He wondered what Holly’s kitchen looked. Wait a minute – what did Holly look like? His tired state, the scant time they had spent together and the weeks that had passed since he had last seen her had all conspired to blur his memory.

They had met at a party a month ago and hit it off. Predictably, she was the opposite of Vanessa. Her hair was as dark as his ex-wife’s was blonde and she had never heard of Jason Dawes. He pictured her as she appeared that night, a confluence of curves in puppyfoam trousers, her face a holy oval with smiling eyes. Memories trickled back – the languorous walk, the way she smoothed her trousers before sitting, the half-closed lids that failed to disguise the fact she was alert to everything.

He had seen her just once more after that night. Then – disaster. The assignment in Nepal was offered to him at short notice and his shoddy finances demanded he took it. He tried, but failed, to contact Holly to explain. Finally, calling from the airport, he reached her flatmate and left a message. In Nepal, he bought a postcard – all blue sky and mountains – but realised he didn’t even know Holly’s address. But he did know where she worked – at Sizewise, the company that ran Tinytown, where, by coincidence, Vanessa’s brother was also employed. So he sent the card there, explaining his disappearance and promising his return.

He would call her tomorrow, he decided. That was the future – but right now he had to deal with his past, which was currently standing outside the pub, checking her reflection in a plate glass window.

Vanessa entered, pausing in the doorway so the pub’s occupants could survey her majesty. She looked polished and highly-maintained and was carrying a large Gucci bag. Her sculpted hair was still yellow but a new, wholly unnatural, shade. And she was dressed to maim in a short skirt, high heels and a tight, zip-up top displaying an impressive cleavage that owed nothing to nature.

Tom saw her before she saw him. He also noted many of the customers registering the presence of a faintly famous face. Now Vanessa saw Tom and walked jauntily towards him, with her shining face inclined upwards, like a Hitler Youth jungfrau marching past the Fuhrer’s dais.

He saw now that her face was more deeply tanned and burnished than ever before. As she neared him, she parted her collagenically-enhanced lips and smiled coyly with blue-white teeth. She shrugged off her jacket and adjusted the strap of a bra that was geo-stabilising several pounds of weapons grade silicone, a recent addition to her sexual armoury. Tom bought her a vodka and Coke and told her she looked well.

Tom never felt any enmity toward her when she was clean. And it seemed that the palatable version of Vanessa had turned up tonight.

‘That’s some outfit,’ he said, trying to sound polite but not disapproving.

‘You don’ t like it?’ she replied, defensively.

‘No, no – you look great.’

She did look amazing, although less than real.

‘Well, at least one of us made an effort,’ Vanessa said, her eyes flicking over Tom’s case-creased clothing. ‘You look rubbish,’ she added, unnecessarily.

‘I know, I feel it too.’ That was true.

‘Those jeans – they must be five years old!’

Tom shrugged. Her clothes were much more interesting than his.

‘Designer gear?’ he asked.

‘Naturally. This,’ she said, spreading her arms wide, ‘is a Flage Merkovia high-thigh beltskirt. The top is Kika Virnu slink-shrink and the shoes are stab-stitch, shovel-toe, panther heels from Juan Zadune.’

‘Impressive,’ said Tom, ‘as is your hair.’

‘Andy did it today. Andy Andre – you’ve heard of him?’

Tom nodded. He had indeed heard of the fashionable, pound-per-follicle hairdresser.

‘It’s a layered, feathered, gel-strafed, buzz-buffed shunk.’

‘You’ve come up in the world.’

‘Yes I have,’ she said emphatically, sensing a reproach. ‘I move in different circles now. I mix with top quality people. No disrespect Thomas, but they’re out of your league.’

He was thrown by her venom and couldn’t help responding.

‘Vanessa, not everyone measures people’s worth by their fame or wealth.’

‘Oh, piss off Tom,’ she said, her face darkening further. ‘Tell me, how are things in the baked bean world? Had a hissy fit with any of those bad little beans lately? Told any of them that they look too orange?’

Tom changed the subject, trying to avoid further acrimony.

‘Let’s talk about something else. How’s Vittorio?’

Vittorio Lorenzo was an Italian professional footballer who played for Fulham. He and Vanessa had been a much-photographed couple over the past few months since they had met at an audience with septuagenarian singer Geri Halliwell. The newspapers had written that Vanessa had stolen Vittorio from his previous girlfriend, a topless model.

Tom soon wished he hadn’t asked about Vittorio, as Vanessa gushed on and on. She paused to pull from her bag today’s London Daily News – featuring pictures of her and the Italian at a film premiere the previous evening – then continued her encomium.

Finally, she was spent and a grateful Tom had a chance to enquire why she had asked to meet him here tonight.

‘Oh, that. That can wait,’ said Vanessa. ‘First, tell me about Nepal.’

Her tone had softened alarmingly. Perhaps thinking and talking about Vittorio had filled her heart with joy.

‘Well I didn’t see much – inside of a hotel, inside of a tent, inside of an edit trailer.’

‘So what was the product? Anything I might like?’

‘An air freshener called High Heaven. A new launch this autumn.’

‘Ooh, I bet you’ve got samples at home. Maybe I should come round and have a sniff.’

Was she flirting with him? How peculiar. What is she up to? He was beginning to get annoyed.

‘Vanessa, I’m sorry but I’m really tired. Can we just get down to business?’

‘Yes, I suppose it’s about time we did – but I just need to pay a visit first,’ she said, as she slid off her stool and headed for the ladies’.

Tom picked up Vanessa’s newspaper and flicked through the pages. His eye stopped on an article about Tinytown. Sizewise was pressing ahead with plans to open a second compound, he read. He thought of Holly again. When they had first met he had told her he didn’t agree with the concept of shrinking people against their will and had voted against it in the referendum. She had surprised him by agreeing, despite the fact she worked for Sizewise. She was on a year’s work experience there, she said, as part of her law degree, and was using the placement to get to know the enemy.

Vanessa had been gone for a while. Maybe she had bumped into someone she knew. He decided to investigate and, scanning faces as he went, took a slow walk that led him past the washrooms and, unwittingly, into a dead-end alcove. He headed back to his stool. Historically, bathrooms had a strong pull for Vanessa. First there were the large mirrors where she could retouch her face. And then there were the cubicles where she could hoover powder up her nose. He guessed she was still using. He began to get worried – what if she had passed out?

He caught sight of himself in a mirror. God I look a mess. I wouldn’t want Holly to see me looking like this.

‘Holly!’

His face was two inches from hers now and she looked as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

The sarcasm was heavy and her tone of voice was not warm.

‘Did you get my messages? And my postcard? I’ve just got back...’

She looked at him blankly.

‘From Nepal.’

‘No. No messages,’ she said, her eyes impassive and her body language stiff. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been busy anyway.’

Tom explained about his short-notice trip and the message he had left with her flatmate Laura. Holly showed signs of thawing, admitting that Laura often failed to pass on messages. But she seemed unconvinced.

‘Tom, I’m glad I met you when I did. It was fun. But we can leave it there. There’s no need for excuses...’

‘Holly, hold on. I’m not lying you know. The job came up and I had to take it.’

‘Okay, okay, I believe you. So what was that about a postcard?’

‘I fired it off as soon as I got to Nepal. It had mountains and some blue sky. I had to send it to your office though – I still don’t know your home address.’

‘The office?’ she inquired, incredulous.

‘Yes, I know... but it’s the only address I had. I’m sorry. I’ve always been crappy at communication. Maybe we can start again?’

‘I don’t know, maybe things have changed since you’ve been away,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder. ‘As it happens, I’m here on a date.’

She let her words sink in before continuing.

‘It’s a set-up, a double date with Melissa and her boyfriend. Dale’s his best friend.’

Tom now looked where Holly had looked before and saw two men and a woman at a table. He recognised Melissa, a work colleague of Holly’s.

‘Dale’s the one with the jaw is he?’

‘Yes, and the muscles. Actually, I’m glad for any excuse to be away from the table,’ she added confidingly.

‘I’m an excuse, am I?’ asked Tom, sensing a renewed rapport.

‘Well, you’re a poor excuse for a boyfriend...’

Being referred to as a boyfriend had to be a good sign.

‘Look,’ Tom said, ‘can you get away from him? We could meet later.’

‘I suppose I could – but I won’t. It would be impolite. I need to see it through for Melissa’s sake.’

Holly asked Tom why he was out on the town when he’d only just flown back in. He explained about Vanessa and how she had disappeared 20 minutes ago.

As he finished speaking, the door of the ladies’ burst open and through it marched Vanessa, her eyes shining with a chemical gleam.

Vanessa was upon them now, smiling with her mouth.

‘Holly, this is Vanessa. Vanessa, Holly.’

‘We’ve sort of met,’ said Holly. ‘Your brother Lloyd is my boss.’

‘That’s right,’ said Vanessa. ‘Lloyd likes you. He’s always talking about you.’

‘Oh...’

‘Anyway, I don’t mean to be rude,’ Vanessa said icily, grabbing one of Tom’s arms and kissing him on the cheek, ‘but I need to talk to my husband now.’

‘The ex, I’m the ex,’ said Tom.

‘Yeah, x-rated,’ said Vanessa, cartoon-sexily.

Oh no. Tom realised he was in the presence of a version of Vanessa he rightly distrusted – an artificial construct built on substance-fuelled hubris.

He took Holly aside. ‘This is embarrassing. She’s wired. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?’

‘If you want,’ said Holly, casually. ‘Nice seeing you again,’ she said to Vanessa, whose only response was a tight-lipped smirk.

Tom and Vanessa walked back to their barstools.

‘You were a bit rude to me back there,’ she said.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said distractedly. As Vanessa ordered more drinks for them both, Tom watched Holly return to her table. Vanessa handed him a Bismarck and started to speak then stopped mid-sentence, aware that he wasn’t focusing on her. She followed his gaze to Holly’s table.

‘Attractive girl, very popular,’ she said.

‘With your brother for instance?’

‘Yep. He’s been chasing her for weeks, and he usually gets what he wants. It runs in the family you know.’

Tom was silent. So Lloyd, a married man with a sleazy reputation, was a love rival.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Vanessa. ‘Did you know she was going to be here tonight. Was this all planned?’

‘Hardly – she’s here on a double date.’

Tom changed the subject. ‘Let’s talk about the divorce settlement. You said we could come to an arrangement?’

‘Oh, must we talk about that boring stuff? By the way, I’m sorry I said you looked rough earlier. You’re still a very sexy man you know...’

‘Vanessa, the divorce?’

‘We don’t want to talk about that, not now,’ she said, pulling the zip at her neckline down an inch. ‘Maybe over breakfast at my place?’

‘Who-oah...’ Tom began.

‘You don’t want whatshername Tommy,’ she continued swiftly, flicking a glance in Holly’s direction. ‘Tonight you can have me! We had a lot of fun together in the old days, didn’t we?’

Vanessa leant toward him, her chin thrust forward and her lips configured for imminent impact. Tom wasn’t interested in her mouth unless it was talking. He recoiled and she was left pouting in midair, with nowhere to place her kiss. She sat back on her stool and looked at him with naked loathing.

‘You and me, it’s a not a good idea,’ he said.

‘Oh, you’re an arse Tom. You don’t really think I would have shagged you, do you? You always were a loser and, boy, are you losing big tonight.’

‘Calm down Vanessa...’

His ex-wife didn’t let him speak. With wild eyes and her knuckles showing white where they held the vodka glass, she launched into a rant.

‘Stow it Tom. You want to know the real reason you’re here tonight? So the bailiffs can empty your flat in peace. And it worked didn’t it? Here you are and there they are and God knows where your possessions are.’

Tom stared at her, dumbstruck.

‘Your face, it’s so funny,’ she said, laughing. ‘At last I’m having some fun tonight.’

‘You’re joking, right?’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve missed a bunch of alimony payments – and I need the money. I know you’ve got the cash or the assets. Pay what you owe and you can have your stuff back. Otherwise they’ll sell it all, including the flat, and I’ll get the proceeds.’

Tom had stopped listening and was heading for the exit. Wait, he had to tell Holly he was going. He turned to face her table and saw the four chairs were empty. She had gone without saying goodbye? He didn’t have time to seek her – he had to go home. As he stepped out on to the bridge, he became aware of the jukebox and heard Beck sing: ‘I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me.’ They were playing his song.

Fifteen minutes later, a cab deposited Tom outside his Kentish Town flat. The bailiffs had done their work, removing everything of value that he owned – including all his photographic equipment. Vanessa had obviously been waiting until he had returned from Nepal with his cameras. Taped to his front door was a notice detailing what they had taken and telling him that his bank accounts had been frozen. If, the notice said, the confiscated property and cash in the accounts did not cover his outstanding alimony, the apartment would have to be sold. Tom slid to the floor, his back to the door. He knew his assets wouldn’t cover his debts.

With his head in his hands, and his eyes focused on the welcome mat he was sitting on, he now heard a car door open. A man and a woman wearing vaguely familiar black uniforms walked toward him, stopping two yards away.

‘Tom Flack?’ the woman asked.

He knew who they were...

‘We’ve been trying to catch up with you for weeks. It’s about an unpaid size fee.’

... Blackhats, the nickname given to Sizewise police officers. Damn. He knew he’d missed a payment – or maybe it was two. But he really had planned to pay that fee before any other debts – just as soon as the cheque for the Nepal job came through.

The man explained that Tom could escape sanction by paying what he owed now.

‘We can debit your account right away.’ He showed Tom a portable butt-chip reader. ‘Just turn round and I’ll swipe you with this.’

Tom told him he could not pay – his bank accounts were empty and frozen.

‘Why frozen?’

Tom explained about the bailiffs.

‘In that case, sir, you’re going to have to come with us.’ As he spoke, he put Tom’s wrists in plasticuffs.

Tom exhaled. I’m a loser baby, so why don’ t you kill me.

‘Let’s go,’ the woman said, having finished typing on a laptop. ‘Yippee. We’re escaping Kentish Town. No offence mate, but I’ve seen enough of this street since we’ve been looking for you.’

‘It’s just a pity you didn’t find me before the bailiffs. I would’ve paid you before them.’

‘It doesn’t work that way,’ she said. ‘It’s the law. You have to pay the alimony because the courts said so. The size fee is optional – you need not pay it if you don’t mind getting shrunk.’

As the Sizewise enforcers led Tom to their car, Vanessa stepped out of a cab and approached.

‘What’s going on? Tom! I can’t believe you haven’t paid your size fee either.’

Tom looked to the sky.

‘I’ll phone Lloyd,’ Vanessa continued. ‘He’ll spring you in no time. Then you’ll have to sell the apartment to meet your debts – it’s the only way.’

They were at the car now and it was time for Tom to be taken away.

‘Vanessa,’ he said. ‘I can’t sell it. Since the last crash I owe much more on the mortgage than the flat is worth.’

Chapter 2

Lloyd Vincent, Deputy Director of Sizewise, licked his lips before launching them at his third K-K-Krunch King doughnut. Two bites later it was gone. Again he employed his morbidly obese, lollygagging tongue to collect the sugary fragments around his mouth. More crumbs had fallen on to the handmade, patterned shirt that contained his heaving paunch and these he brushed swiftly to the ash-spattered carpet.

A glance at his chunky gold watch told him it was 8.05am. It was the start of what would be a very busy Thursday after a very busy Wednesday night. He swallowed the dregs of his disappointing caramel latte. It lacked oomph. He wouldn’t limit himself to just seven sugars next time.

Lloyd shook a cigarette – the last one – from the pack of Grantchester Insult Strength kingsize on his desk and lit it. He spun on his swivel chair until he faced out over the hinterland of east London through the apex formed by twin windows that joined in a v-shape. As always, he felt as though he was behind the prow of a glass ship.

He sucked down the nitro-nicotine until he felt the heat sear his lungs, then exhaled a cloud of iron filings. The particles fought briefly before heading up to the stained brown ceiling.

His office was on the top floor, the 50th, of Sizewise’s opulent HQ – the Wedge building. The glass and steel structure was well-named. It looked just like a wedge of cheese standing on its end, like New York’s Flatiron building, only bigger and with sharper angles. Lloyd occupied a triangular space in the very point of the Wedge. ‘The sharp end,’ he would tell people, although others knew it better as ‘the thin end’.

Looking down on the city below, he thought about all the women out there who he had yet to have. Plenty of time – he was only 42.

Divorced and recently remarried, he was already enthusiastically cheating on wife No 2, Tamsin, a criminal barrister. She was 36, striking and an elegant dresser, her flattened curves usually clad in dark two-piece suits. Though combative in court, she was pliant at home. Lloyd cared for her but couldn’t be faithful to her. Last night he had enjoyed the pleasures provided by the lapdancers at Luigi’s. He was addicted to the thrills of illicit sex, fast cars, gambling, drugs and drinking. These were all expensive habits. His drinking had threatened to become his most expensive weakness – it had almost cost him his career twice in the past three years. But since the last time he had lain off the absinthe, and thus avoided the days-long benders. It was these – causing unexplained absences from the office and insanely reckless behaviour – that had got him into trouble at work. He was more sensible now, though still a long way from a life of domesticity. He and Tamsin spent little time together. Even when he was home, she was often working and they mostly communicated through messages left with one of the nannies. Day and night, the nannies cared for the twins, Maximus and Jacqueline – known as Max and Jax – who were born three years ago, soon after Lloyd and Tamsin had got together. Lloyandra, his daughter from his first marriage, was at boarding school and wanted for nothing.

Lloyd reached for his pack of Grantchesters, before remembering he had smoked them all. He usually had extra supplies in his briefcase. He flipped it open and rummaged through the contents – three family packs of Soakers, three mobile phones, two betting slips scarred with multiple zeroes, a small bag of white powder and a bottle of aftershave. But no cigarettes. He would have to go to the mall beneath the Wedge to buy some. First he would freshen up, he thought, grabbing the bottle of Bulstrode Evince and splashing an expensive handful on to his face, where it emulsified the animal fats oozing from his pores.

He plodded heavily towards the lifts, his bespoke shoes passing from plush carpet to rubberised walkway, his eyes flicking from blond wood and corduroy wall coverings to the smattering of support workers arriving at their desks.

A messenger boy stood back deferentially to let him through, fear showing in the eyes that would not meet Lloyd’s. Some people said he was arrogant and a bully. He was just confident and had an iron will. Yes he was ruthless and good at sacking people. That was why he had become a highly-paid, high-achiever first in the police and, now, here at Sizewise. No, he didn’t suffer fools gladly – but why were there so many fools in the world? He didn’t mind being thought hard – he was hard! Nothing scared him, he told himself, apart from the boll weevil, of which he had had an irrational fear since childhood.

He pressed a button to summon the lift to take him downstairs. As he waited, his eyes were drawn to the brass nameplate on the wall. Sizewise. A good name, he had always thought. He had been with the company since the start six years ago, a couple of years after matter miniaturisation had been invented by a team of scientists at Umist. Sizewise had won the Government contract to set up and run Tinytown, more properly known as Homuncularium – from the Latin word homunculus – and was now halfway through the initial nine-year term.

The application of shrinking technology had changed life in Britain. Everyone in the country had to pay a size protection fee to guard his or her right to remain a full-size human. Non-payers were shrunk to a fifth of their normal size and incarcerated in a specially-created compound, where all the streets and buildings were in proportion.

Shrinktech had been a great boon to the Government. It was serendipity that it was invented at a time when it was so sorely needed, with the population having grown by 50 per cent in 30 years. The increase had made Britain overcrowded to the point where the infrastructure could not cope. Shrinking allowed the landmass to physically contain more people. The compound was also used to separate those with money from those without. Now the middle classes could walk the streets without having to see the poor. The poor are always with us? Not any more.

Most white collar or skilled jobs came with size fees paid as part of the benefits package. Blue collar and unskilled workers were shrunk unless they needed to stay big for their jobs, in which case their employers had to pay their size fee. Companies had been encouraged to set up operations within Tinytown. All the costs there were much lower, including the cheap-to-hire workforce. A minority of Tinytowners were dormitoried: grown to full size each morning and taken to work in the big world, then shrunk again in the evening and returned to the compound to sleep.

All criminals were also sent to Tinytown – to Gaggle Ridge, a vast prison within the compound. Immigrants, too, were shrunk as a matter of policy. Britain now actively encouraged immigration, with the Government getting paid per head by the UN.

The operation was running fairly smoothly now although, at the start, it hadn’t been easy to persuade voters to approve the huge social change the opening of Tinytown entailed. But the economic crash had been so ruinous, and the country’s crisis so severe, that the State had been able to assume emergency powers and nullify the arguments of campaigners for human rights and wildlife protection. Apocalyptic panic allied with a carefully-worded ballot paper had ensured a Government victory, albeit narrow, in the ensuing Homuncularium Initiation Referendum. The new status quo was likely to continue, thanks to the provision that Tinytown inmates could not vote in any future elections. The inarguable position now was this: in size matters, size matters.

With the principle of human shrinking established, the mechanics of implementation followed. Sizewise had won the contract and Lloyd oversaw the building of the compound on swathes of land in Essex. The compulsory purchase of abandoned farmland had been quite straightforward. With cereals, vegetables and meat now cheaper to buy from overseas, much arable land was under-utilised.

This year the task occupying most of Lloyd’s energies was the creation of a second compound, Tinytown North, in Yorkshire. The extra capacity provided would allow the size fee to be increased so that more of the population would find it financially impossible to stay full-size. Sizewise was also negotiating to sell Shrinktech to other countries, with the revenue from this to be split between the company and the Government. These operations were being overseen by the one person in the corporation more senior than Lloyd – Moffat P Perculie, Director of Sizewise.

The lift doors opened and Lloyd stepped in and pressed G. The car was empty so he had a welcome opportunity to check his appearance in the mirrored interior. Who was that handsome devil? Over 6ft tall and of a sturdy build, he looked majestic in his chalkstripe Armani suit. It felt just great on his shoulders. Okay, he had a bit of a paunch – but his flamboyant wide ties helped to hide that. The few extra pounds he was carrying were nothing his large frame couldn’t support. As he shifted his weight, the spotlights caught the yellow metal of his spectacle frames and wristwatch. His gold accessories complemented his impressive tan, which had been recently bolstered by an epidermis-exuviating family holiday to Barbados. He patted his hair back into position where it covered the tops of his ears – the features he thought were his worst. He moved close to the corner of the elevator, where mirrored walls met at a right angle, so he could see where his hair brushed his collar at the back of his head. Further examination of his matt-black mane assured him that no grey was visible.

The lift had completed its descent. Lloyd stepped through the doors, bludgeoning a path through the just-arrived office workers, and trundled off to the cigarette shop.

A few minutes later he was back behind his desk, lost in a cloud of Grantchester fumes. Thank God Britain’s ridiculous smoking ban was a thing of the past. As he extinguished the cigarette, he wondered what to put in his mouth next. He could chew a biro or his nails. No, he had a better idea – the Soakers in his briefcase. He pulled out a packet of the deep-fried, potato-based snacks and used his stubby fingers to rip it open, exposing the egg, bacon and bean aroma to his oscillating nostrils. Choice! His mouth could wait no longer so he dug in, chomping each crisp with swift, precise bites in an unvarying rhythm.

He was mid-bite when the phone on his desk rang. He grabbed greasily at the handset with fragment-festooned fingers and barked his own name into the mouthpiece.

‘Lloyd?’ the female voice said. ‘It’s Vanessa – I need to talk to... it’s about last...’

The line went dead. He knew his sister would redial so he upped his chomp’n’swallow speed in order to finish the Soakers before the phone rang again.

Vanessa was 14 years younger than Lloyd and had been only a year old when their parents moved to England from New Zealand. As a result, her accent was completely native and had none of the antipodean inflections and vowel sounds that Lloyd’s voice still bore.

He could guess what she was phoning about – he had helped her to arrange the bailiffs’ visit to her ex-husband’s home scheduled for last night. Lloyd had had little to do with Tom Flack during his short marriage to Vanessa. They just had nothing in common. Lloyd had helped his sister to secure a beneficial divorce settlement, thanks to his lawyer friends, but he had been motivated more by family loyalty than malice. Of course, the outcome had been unfair, but that was the price you paid if you didn’t get the