Hacker (19 page)

‘Where was she going?’ I asked eagerly.

‘I’m getting to that bit.’

Chaucy was being even more infuriating than usual. I had to breathe really deeply to control my temper.

‘Now what was I saying? Oh yeah! Beth walked for a couple of minutes and stopped off at some bank along the way. She was only in there for a few minutes. When she came out again she carried on walking, before turning right into some street called Hatton something. Then she walked into a jeweller’s shop.’

‘A jeweller’s?’ I said, puzzled.

‘Yep! The whole street was full of jewellery shops. Nothing but jewellery shops – and parking meters. I didn’t pass one cake or sandwich shop! Oh yes, there was this big white building called The London Diamond Club just up from the jeweller’s she went into.’

‘What was she doing in there?’ Gib asked.

‘I couldn’t exactly go in and ask, could I?’ Chaucy said. ‘I stood at the window and watched through the door. Beth spoke to some man behind the counter and handed him a piece of paper. He disappeared through a door at the back of the shop and came back a couple of minutes later, carrying a small blue box …’

‘Did you see …’

‘What was inside?’

Chaucy shook his head, regretfully. ‘I was too far away.’

‘How small was it? The size of a shoe box? The size of a matchbox?’ I asked.

‘About the size of my spider box,’ Chaucy replied after a think.

‘That doesn’t help me much,’ I pointed out. ‘I haven’t seen your spider box.’

I shivered at the thought of Chaucy keeping spiders in a box. No doubt he kept them in his bedroom. That was just the kind of nasty thing he would do, too.

‘It’s about that size.’ Gib put his thumbs and his index fingers together to form a rectangle.

‘Then what happened, Chaucy?’

‘Well … Beth opened the box.’ Chaucy shook his head with frustration. ‘If I could just have got a bit closer …’

‘You couldn’t see anything at all?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ Chaucy said sadly. ‘Then Beth came out of the jeweller’s with the box and hailed a taxi. Like I said, she asked to be taken somewhere but I didn’t catch the name.’

‘Hmm!’ Gib said.

We looked at each other, deep in thought.

‘Why would she go all the way into the city just to pick up some jewellery?’ Gib asked. ‘She could get jewellery anywhere around here.’ We walked in silence as we tried to figure it out.

‘Hatton Cross,’ Chaucy said suddenly. ‘That’s the name of the street.’

As if the name of the street would help us!

We were almost at the tube station when I remembered where I’d seen the name Hatton Cross before.

‘Chaucy, I thought you said you and Beth ended up in the city?’ I asked with a frown.

‘We did,’ Chaucy replied. ‘The street was just off Holborn Circus ’cause that’s where we walked down to afterwards before Beth caught a taxi.’

‘Don’t you mean Hatton
Garden
– pillock!’ I said. ‘Hatton Garden is in the city. Hatton Cross is out by Heathrow.’

‘That’s it!’ Chaucy pointed at me. ‘Hatton Garden!’

I shook my head. Really!

The sunlit platform was practically deserted. I hated travelling by tube. All those dark tunnels and being so far underground. Thank goodness this station was out in the open. Somehow the sunlight made things seem a little less desperate. I’d had enough of being cooped up to last me a lifetime. I looked around again. There was no one immediately near us, but I still eyed the two other travellers on the platform with suspicion.

‘Let’s go over this again,’ said Gib softly, even though we were alone. ‘Beth and Sebastian got seven million pounds from Universal Bank …’

‘Which is probably in that big suitcase you saw,’ I said.

Gib nodded before he went on. ‘And they’re about to skip to Rio with it. Why did they put that million pounds into Dad’s account? What was the point of it?’

‘To stop Dad’s checking program from being run,’ I said.

‘To get your dad out the way,’ said Chaucy.

‘To get everyone looking at Dad and away from them,’ said Gib.

‘Any or all of those reasons,’ I said. ‘If Beth knew she was going to write a program to nick some money then she’d have to test her program at some point and she’d have to plan when she was going to take out the money and how she was going to get at it and all sorts of other things. It’s not the kind of thing you can do overnight.’

‘What I don’t get is why Universal Bank don’t know about the seven million yet,’ Gib said. ‘They knew the next day that that one million had gone missing.’

‘Are you sure they don’t know?’ Chaucy asked.

Gib nodded. ‘Eric from the bank would’ve phoned Dad straightaway if the bank had lost more money. When we went home this morning, there was no message on the answering machine. Unless … unless Beth and Sebastian are taking the money out
today
.’

‘Of course!’ I breathed. ‘That must be it. Maybe that large suitcase that Sebastian had was
empty
. Maybe he was going to pick up the money.’

‘That makes sense.’ Chaucy sounded surprised. ‘If I was about to skip the country, I wouldn’t take the money out until the last possible moment, in case something went wrong.’

‘Besides which, they
couldn’t
take it out any sooner,’ I said. ‘The bank would’ve been on to them. But if they got the money transferred immediately after this morning’s batch job had finished, the bank wouldn’t find out that something was wrong until after
tonight’s
batch-job run.’

‘So you really believe they’re going to leave the country with all that money?’ asked Chaucy. ‘I mean, that’s an awful lot of money to carry.’

I had to admit, Chaucy had a point.

If only there was someone we could tell,’ Gib said with a sudden burst of anger. ‘They
mustn’t
get away with it.’

‘But we’ve still got no real proof – only the listing and the
ejones
name against the
TIMETRV
program in the batch library listing. By the time we get someone to listen to us and check it out, Beth and Sebastian’s plane will be on its way
back
from Rio. Without proof – like the money they’ve stolen – no one will believe us. Not against two grown-ups. I mean, who’s going to believe us if we say Beth, of all people, is running off with seven million of the bank’s money?’ I said glumly.

‘Then let’s work out what we should do next,’ Gib said. ‘And we’d better think fast. We haven’t much time.’

‘We’ve
got
to stop Sebastian and Beth from getting on their plane,’ Chaucy said.

I sighed. Gib and Chaucy sighed with me.

‘Chaucy … maybe you’ve done enough. You don’t have to come with us. In fact, maybe you shouldn’t get any more involved in case something goes wrong,’ I said.

‘But I’m already involved,’ Chaucy said firmly. ‘I want to help.’

I smiled at him. He was all right!

‘OK, we know what time they’re leaving and the airport,’ Gib began. ‘The next step must be to …’

‘What terminal?’ Chaucy butted in.

‘Pardon?’

‘What terminal are they flying from? Heathrow has got five,’ Chaucy said.

I hadn’t a clue and my horror-stricken face told him as much.

‘I didn’t see that bit on their tickets,’ I whispered.

Gib glanced up at the train indicator board. ‘Quick! We’ve still got four minutes before the train arrives. We’ll phone the airport and find out.’

Gib fished his phone out of his pocket.

‘Hurry up, Gib,’ I urged.

‘Phone directory enquiries to get the number,’ Chaucy piped up.

‘What should I ask for?’ Gib asked doubtfully.

‘Airport information?’ I suggested. ‘I know, just google it. Search for Heathrow Airport information.’

Gib did just that.

‘Which airline?’ Gib asked as he tapped at the screen on his phone.

‘Er … Air France,’ I whispered.

‘Air France,’ Gib repeated.

It took less than a minute to learn that Air France had four flights to Rio leaving that day. Apart from one at silly o’clock in the morning, they left at four o’clock, six o’clock and ten minutes past eight. Each flight stopped off in Paris, and each left from Terminal Four.

By this time our train had pulled into the station. We raced onto the platform. Chaucy leaped onto the train just as the doors were closing. Using his body to keep the doors apart, he pushed at one of them, allowing Gib and me to duck under his arm to get on. Chaucy sprang towards us and the doors immediately smacked shut behind him.

‘This is it,’ Gib said quietly as the train began to move. ‘If we mess this up, we’re not going to get another chance.’ Which didn’t make any of us feel better.

‘Don’t worry, you two,’ Chaucy said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘We’ll stop them, no bother.’

I looked from Chaucy to Gib and back again. They both looked worried.

Do I look like them? I wondered. I must do.

‘We’ll do all right,’ Gib said firmly.

I wished I could be sure.

WE SAT IN
silence for the last two tube stops before Heathrow, Terminal 4. My stomach was rocking inside me. The tube was stuffy and smelly and now jam-packed full of people. I would never have guessed that there’d be so many wanting to go to Heathrow in the afternoon, but in our carriage it was standing room only.

I couldn’t wait to get off. Yet I knew that once we got out it would be all up to us. And that thought was so scary. If the plan Chaucy, Gib and I had come up with didn’t work then all the work we’d done so far would be for nothing. Sebastian and Beth would get away scot free. And worst of all, by far, Dad might end up in prison.

S
o this was it
.

Now I wished we’d told someone, tried to get some help. But who would believe us? Adults tended to stick together over things they considered important – like money. And the lies we’d told to get this far! By the time Mum and Dad knew the whole truth we’d have
stopped
Sebastian and Beth taking all that money out of the country. We’d have proved that Dad was innocent. So the theory was that our parents wouldn’t be too angry.

I looked at Gib and he looked at me. Neither of us said a word. Gib’s lips were set in a frown. He looked like he never wanted to smile again. I glanced down at my watch for the umpteenth time in about thirty seconds.

‘Vicky, we’re here.’ Chaucy nudged my arm as at last we reached the stop for Heathrow, Terminal 4.

We travelled along the long, grey corridor with painted abstracts on each wall, then up in one of the lifts to the departure level – all in total silence. If I thought the tube was bad then the airport terminal was far, far worse. I’d never seen so many people milling about. The whole place was huge. There were queues and check-in counters and noise everywhere. And as I gawped, two policemen strolled by carrying guns! It was so strange to see armed police just wandering around, mingling with the tourists..

I’d been to the airport before but I’d been a lot younger then and I could hardly remember anything about it. And, of course, that had been with Mum and Dad. My heart was jumping about all over my body now. I was terrified. I felt minuscule amongst all these people and all this bustle and jumble and noise. I looked at Gib and Chaucy. Thankfully, they both looked how I felt – nervous, to say the least.

‘Where’s the information about when the planes leave?’ Gib asked.

I pointed. A number of TV monitors were suspended from the ceiling with departure information on them. All three of us walked over to the closest monitor and stared up at it. The Rio flight wasn’t on it.

‘That’s a fat lot of good,’ Gib said with disgust.

We walked around, waiting for more flight information to be displayed and wondering if our plan stood any chance at all of working.

In the centre of the hall, we noticed more monitors.

‘Rio … Rio …’ Gib muttered as we each scanned down them.

‘It isn’t there!’ Chaucy said dejectedly. ‘The only Air France flight I can see is going to Paris.’

I looked up at the monitor, and suddenly something clicked in my brain. Something from when I was looking at the airline tickets. Flight AF2581 … at 1600 … to Paris. That must be it!

I tore over to the Air France desk and practically launched myself at the smiling, blonde woman in a smart uniform.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘Your flight to Rio – do you have to get on a flight to Paris first?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ she replied. ‘We don’t fly direct from London to Rio. First you have to fly to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, and then change planes. The next flight is AF2581 – I can check you and your parents in here if you like?’

‘No, that’s OK, thanks. I was just checking!’

I legged it back to Gib and Chaucy.

‘That’s it!’ I pointed at the monitor. ‘AF2581 to Paris, taking off at sixteen-hundred hours. That’s the first leg of the trip to Rio!’

Almost directly opposite the monitors was a sign which said:

PASSPORT HOLDERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT

‘Do you think they’ve already gone through?’ Gib said what I was reluctantly thinking.