‘Maybe the rest of the money, the real money that Eric was after, hasn’t been transferred yet.’ Gib’s eyes sparkled.
‘Of course,’ I breathed. ‘If you can set up one time-trap, why not set up two? That way you get the bank chasing in the wrong direction until it’s too late.’
‘So Eric put the money in Dad’s account just to get the bank going round in circles.’
‘It’s more than that. I think he didn’t want Dad’s checking program to run either. He must’ve been afraid that it would pick up something.’
‘The way we did,’ Gib said.
I nodded.
‘So what about Eric and our proof?’ Gib asked.
‘I need a PC to find any,’ I sighed. ‘This is pure speculation. And if we did tell Dad and the bank, Eric could cover his tracks with no trouble at all. Then Dad would still be in trouble.’
‘Where are you going to find a PC?’ Gib asked. ‘The ones at school are out. The computer club is on tomorrow lunchtime and the computing evening classes will be running tomorrow night. Unless we try to get into the school in the early hours of the morning.’
‘I don’t fancy that much.’ I grimaced.
‘To tell the truth, neither do I,’ Gib admitted.
That made me feel a whole lot better.
‘So what do we do?’
Our heads in our hands, Gib and I gave it some serious thought. Then I had the best idea I’d had all year.
‘Gib, Aunt Beth’s got a PC – she can log onto the bank’s computer from home the same way Dad can.’ I sprang off the bed.
‘She’ll let us borrow it – no problems,’ Gib said enthusiastically.
‘But we can’t tell her why we want to use it,’ I said fiercely. ‘That’s between you and me until we have something Dad can take to the police about his so-called friend, Eric.’
I didn’t want Gib to get any funny ideas.
‘All right! Don’t take my head off,’ Gib protested. ‘When should we ask her?’
‘We’ll pop round tomorrow, after school,’ I said.
Gib frowned. ‘But aren’t she and Sebastian going to Rio the day after?’
‘So?’
‘They’ll be busy packing and stuff.’
‘They’re not going to pack the PC,’ I said. ‘And we’ll tell them we’ll be quick. We can use the same homework excuse you used with Rosa, the evening-class tutor.’
‘Yeah, it was good, wasn’t it!’ Gib said modestly.
I ducked down.
‘What’re you doing?’ Gib asked curiously.
‘Just trying to get out of the way of your big head,’ I told him.
Gib laughed. ‘You’re just jealous,’ he replied. ‘Right then. Let’s get this sorted. We’ll meet up at the school gates after school and go to Aunt Beth’s together.’
I grinned. ‘You’re on. Tomorrow night, we’re going to get Eric, good and proper. Once and for all!’
Chapter Eleven
‘ARE YOU GOING to be excluded then?’ Gib asked.
It was after school and Gib and I were walking to Aunt Beth’s house. It was a strange day – one of those days when it rained on and off. But that didn’t stop the sky from being mostly blue and the sun from shining anyway. I, for one, was glad school was over. Dad had embarrassed me something awful.
‘If my daughter said she didn’t do it, then she didn’t do it … are you accusing my daughter of telling lies …? Of course, Victoria’s calculator is programmable. I bought it for her myself … are you telling me what I should and shouldn’t buy my own daughter …?’ And all the time I’d just been sinking lower and lower into my chair. Miss Hiff made me show her how I’d worked out my program. Then she’d tried out the program on my calculator herself. After that, she looked like she wasn’t sure what to think. But that worked in my favour.
‘For your information,’ I told Gib loftily, ‘I got a week’s detention for writing a program to do what I should have worked out in my head.’
‘So she believed you?’ Gib said.
‘Of course. She had to. Dad wouldn’t let her do anything else.’
Gib smiled.
‘And I didn’t even have to drop Maggie in it,’ I went on.
‘Maggie?’ Gib frowned. ‘What’s Maggie got to do with this?’
I looked at Gib. ‘This is between you and me – right? Maggie’s the one who hacked into Mrs Bracken’s exam file to get the answers. She’s going through a lot at home right now and she didn’t have a chance to revise properly.’
‘That’s no excuse for dropping you in it,’ Gib said with gratifying indignation.
‘I don’t think she meant to. I just happened to be showing off that I’d finished the exam when Crackly Bracken was looking around to see who finished before everyone else.’
‘Even so …’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s sorted out now. I’m to get a week’s worth of detention and that’s it,’ I interrupted. ‘I’m just glad it’s over with. Now Maggie needn’t try to turn everyone against me.’
‘What d’you mean? Is that what she threatened you with if you told anyone?’
I nodded.
‘You wait. I’ll sort her out,’ Gib muttered.
I looked at Gib and laughed. ‘My hero!’ I teased.
The tips of Gib’s ears went bright red, which made me laugh even more. He’d never stuck up for me before. I kind of liked it!
‘Hi, Aunt Beth. How are you?’
‘Hello, Aunt Beth.’
‘Gib, Vicky, what on earth are you doing here?’
The puzzled frown on Aunt Beth’s face wasn’t very flattering, to say the least. In fact, she looked almost unwelcoming.
‘Can we use your PC for our computing homework?’ I asked. ‘Mum said that if you didn’t mind, then we could.’
‘Why didn’t you phone me first?’ Aunt Beth asked. There was no mistaking the impatient tone in her voice.
‘Er … we tried phoning you at lunchtime but your phone was engaged,’ Gib told her. ‘We thought we’d take the chance and come straight from school.’
Aunt Beth frowned down at both of us. She looked like she was sucking on a lemon.
‘I wish you hadn’t,’ she said bluntly. ‘We’re right in the middle of packing and the house is a mess. I don’t know whether I’m …’
‘Beth, who is it?’
Sebastian emerged from the shadows and foliage of the hall to stand behind Aunt Beth. His steel-blue eyes looked surprised then strangely guarded as he looked at us. When he wasn’t smiling he looked totally different. Very serious and reserved.
‘What brings you two here?’ he asked.
I was glad Gib was standing beside me. All of a sudden I felt very nervous.
‘Er … em … Sebastian, we were wondering if we could use your PC?’ Gib said. ‘It’s for our homework which has got to be in tomorrow. Dad doesn’t have a PC any more … It won’t take long. An hour at the most.’
‘We’re packing,’ Sebastian said.
‘We won’t disturb you,’ Gib persisted. ‘Honest we won’t.Please.’
‘And it’ll only take an hour?’ Aunt Beth said.
‘That’s right,’ we both said.
Aunt Beth and Sebastian looked at each other for several moments. I nudged Gib with my elbow. I didn’t like this. We were obviously intruding.
‘OK, you two can use it,’ Aunt Beth said, with a reluctant smile, ‘but I do wish you’d phoned first. Sebastian, why don’t you go upstairs and prepare it for them?’
‘That’s all right, Aunt Beth,’ I began. ‘We can do that.’
‘Oh no, I insist,’ Aunt Beth argued.
After directing an irritated look at Beth, Sebastian bounded up the stairs like some great, ungainly dog.
‘Come and have a drink first.’ Aunt Beth steered us into the hall and straight into the kitchen.
‘We don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ I said.
‘It’s no trouble,’ Aunt Beth repli
ed, her tone telling us that if that was our wish, then we had failed.
Aunt Beth poured out two glasses of milk. I ask you! Milk! After pulling a face at Gib, I pretended to sip at mine. The smell alone was enough to make me want to gag! We stood and sipped in silence. No one seemed to have anything to say.
‘I’m afraid we don’t have any fruit juice. Sebastian and I didn’t go shopping this week because we’re leaving for Rio tomorrow. The milk came from the shop around the corner.’
Don’t they sell fruit juice then? I thought without saying it.
‘How’s your dad?’ Aunt Beth asked after another pause.
I shrugged.
‘He’s fine,’ Gib replied.
‘Has anything turned up yet?’ Aunt Beth asked.
We both shook our heads.
‘Not yet,’ said Gib.
‘I’m sure it will,’ Aunt Beth smiled. ‘You’re not drinking, Vicky.’
‘I thought I’d save it for when I was working upstairs.’ I said the first thing that came into my head. Not bad! I thought.
‘You two can use the PC now.’
Sebastian’s voice from the kitchen door made me jump. I hadn’t even heard him come downstairs. He seemed to fill the whole doorway, lengthways that is. He was as skinny as a piece of string but really tall. I could only vaguely remember Aunt Beth’s first husband and Sebastian was nothing like him.
‘Come on, Vicky.’ Gib grabbed me by the arm. ‘Thanks, Aunt Beth. It’s really kind of you.’
‘Yeah, thanks,’ I repeated.
‘You can use the PC room and the bathroom – and that’s it,’ Sebastian said as we passed him. ‘The other rooms are tips and I don’t want them disturbed until our packing is finished.’
I turned round to frown at him. ‘We weren’t going to go anywhere else.’
‘Fair enough,’ Sebastian replied with a smile.
I followed Gib out into the hall.
‘Here! Hold that, Gib.’ I gave him my glass of milk. Then I took off my jacket and hung it up over the banisters.
Gib handed my milk back to me and we both walked upstairs. The back bedroom with the PC in it was the only upstairs room which had the door open. All the other bedroom doors were closed – obviously deliberately.
‘Does he think we’re going to run off with his wardrobe or something?’ I whispered to Gib.
‘Come on. We’re obviously interrupting them so the sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish,’ Gib whispered back.
I sat down at the PC and switched it on. Whatever it was that Sebastian had been preparing upstairs, it certainly hadn’t been the computer.
‘Here, Gib, could you chuck this away for me?’ I asked, handing him my milk.
While Gib went to the bathroom with his glass and mine, I fished Dad’s memory stick out of my school bag and started running the comms program. By the time Gib came back I was through to the Universal Bank network system.
‘I don’t suppose you could do me another favour?’ I asked Gib hopefully.
‘What?’
‘That milk has left a nasty taste in my mouth,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you could pop to the shop around the corner and get me a fruit smoothie or a ginger beer or something? Anything but cola.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Gib said reluctantly.
It was just as well I was sitting down! I gawped at Gib. ‘You mean you’re going to do it!’
‘Just this once,’ Gib said firmly. ‘So don’t push your luck.’
I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to spoil it. He was actually going to do it. If I’d had a diary I would have noted this day down for sure.
Once Gib left I tried logging on to the System Manager’s user account on the development machine, hoping it’d have the same ‘cabbage’ password it had on the live system. I was in luck. It did. Suddenly everything was going right.
‘I’m just going to the shop at the bottom of the road,’ I heard Gib tell Aunt Beth downstairs.
I frowned at the PC screen. Something was bothering me and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was. I wanted to type out the staff file again, just to make sure that we hadn’t missed anything. Then I needed to double-check the ejones account. I wanted to make sure there’d be no holes in the proof Gib and I presented to Dad and the police. No way was Eric going to wriggle his way out of this one. I typed out the staff file, stopping the screen when it got to the Js.
Then I knew what had been troubling me.
Eric’s account was the Systems Manager’s account. The user name for that account was SYSTEM not ejones. He must have set up the ejones account on the sly. Better and better. If he had, then it’d be easier to prove that he and only he could have changed the TIMETRV program. So now to check the ejones account.
I typed:
SYSTEM>DISPLAYSTAFFILE/BRIEF/USER NAME=EJONES
Then ejones appeared on the screen.
‘Yes!’ I clenched my fists and punched the air above my head. Closer and closer … But I needed more than just the user name played back to me. I chewed on my bottom lip until I realized what I’d done wrong. I typed:
>DISPLAY STAFFILE/FULL/USERNAME=EJONES
I decided I might as well get a list of all the privileges Eric had assigned himself, as well as his full system name and a summary of all the other information held for his account. I pressed the enter key and the information I wanted appeared on the screen. Unable to believe my eyes, I stared at it. I thought I was going crazy. I had to be going crazy. But there it was in big, pixellated letters. There were about five lines of data but all I was interested in were the top two. I checked, double-checked and triple-checked the lines to make sure I’d typed in the user name correctly.
>EJONES: JONES, ELIZABETH JANINE: SYSTEM:
ACCOUNT_LINK=CARTER, BETH
Elizabeth Janine Jones? The account link was to Aunt Beth’s user account. That meant once Aunt Beth had logged on using her ‘Beth Carter’ account, she could then log on again as ejones. And hers was the only account link. The ejones account had to belong to Aunt Beth.
But it couldn’t. I didn’t understand at all.
All at once, the hairs on my nape started to tickle and prickle. I rubbed the back of my neck but the feeling wouldn’t go away. Then my blood turned ice cold. I turned quickly – and there was Sebastian, standing right behind me.
Chapter Twelve
‘I JUST KNEW we shouldn’t have let you in here.’
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even blink. I just stared up at Sebastian, horrified.
‘I knew you were up to something.’ Sebastian scowled at me. ‘What kid is that keen to do their homework? But Beth wouldn’t listen to me, would she. Now what are we going to do with you?’
And the look on his face clinched it. There was no mistake.
‘Aunt Beth and ejones are one and the same person … You’re the ones who did this to Dad …’ I whispered. Even though I knew it was true, I still couldn’t believe it. ‘You just wait till I tell Mum and Dad. You rotten, stinking …’
‘So they don’t know yet …’ Sebastian smiled at me. A smile that made my whole body tremble.
I could’ve bitten off my tongue. My mouth was the size of the Channel Tunnel at the best of times, but now I’d really surpassed myself. Aunt Beth and Sebastian …
‘Why Jones? I don’t understand that bit,’ I said.
Stay calm and keep talking, Victoria, I told myself. I had to figure a way out of this.
‘So you don’t know everything, you egg-headed little snoop.’ Sebastian folded his arms across his chest.
‘I know you and Aunt Beth set up my dad,’ I said furiously, all my thoughts about keeping calm flying out of the window. ‘I know Aunt Beth doctored the TIMETRV file to put one million pounds in Dad’s account, and I know she’s probably transferring money into one of your accounts tonight, ready for skipping off to Rio tomorrow. I’m not stupid, you know.’
‘No, you’re not, are you? In fact, you’re too cl
ever for your own good, Victoria,’ Sebastian said softly.
I was in deep, deep trouble.
‘So why Jones?’ I asked again, desperate to keep Sebastian talking while I worked out my escape route.
‘Jones was Beth’s maiden name before she married,’ Sebastian said. ‘The bank’s previous Systems Manager decided it would be easier to create a new user account for Beth when she married for the first time, instead of modifying the old one. We discovered the old account by accident. It came in very useful, very useful indeed. And no one knew about it – until now.’
The doorbell rang. I made a break for the stairs.
‘Gib! GIB!’ I screamed.
A warm, sweaty hand was clamped over my mouth. I was lifted off the ground. I kicked and punched and scratched at Sebastian’s arms but he wouldn’t let me go. He carried me out on to the landing.
‘Sebastian, what’s going on?’ Aunt Beth was at the top of the stairs. The doorbell rang again.
‘She knows,’ Sebastian said.
Aunt Beth looked from Sebastian to me and back again. Her eyes narrowed and turned stone cold, stone hard. I tried to bite Sebastian’s fingers which were still over my mouth, but I couldn’t get a grip.
‘Gi … mmm … Gi …’ My shout was totally muffled by Sebastian’s fingers.
‘Beth, do something. They could ruin everything. You’ve got to get rid of her brother,’ Sebastian hissed.
‘How do I do that?’ Aunt Beth said urgently.
‘Think of something,’ snapped Sebastian.
‘Gi … Gi …’
Her forehead furrowed, Aunt Beth went back downstairs. Sebastian dragged me back into the bedroom with the PC. I kicked and struggled furiously every millimetre of the way, but it was no good.
‘Hiya, Aunt Beth. I …’
‘Oh! Hello, Gib.’ Aunt Beth sounded surprised. ‘Didn’t you pass Vicky on your way back here?’
‘Pass her?’
‘She didn’t feel well all of a sudden, so she decided to go home.’
‘I didn’t see her,’ I heard Gib say.
Frantically, I struggled as Sebastian held me, but I couldn’t get him to let me go. His hand clamped even tighter over my mouth. I was burning hot and I could hardly breathe.