Twenty-two #2
‘Hang on. Could this be the reason Omar was framed for drug smuggling?’ Helen said. ‘If the local management are overpaying themselves and they thought Omar had discovered, or was about to discover, what they were doing, was that the reason they framed him, before he could expose them?’
Ivy wrinkled her nose. ‘That wouldn’t explain why Robby is so keen for him to return to Kabul.’
‘Keen? More like desperate.’ said Helen. ‘Why would the CEO protect someone in Kabul who was cooking the books to overpay themselves?’
Ivy exchanged a glance with Helen. ‘Why not ask him?’ she suggested and as she said it, she felt as though a part of herself had quietly returned and taken its place without asking permission.
Helen’s lips curved slightly. ‘I can’t. I’ve no reason to ask him.
But you used to do this all the time, Ivy,’ she said.
‘Work out who was hiding what, and how to get them to reveal their secrets.’
Ivy blinked. It was true. Before she retired, she’d been good at this, teasing apart a story thread by thread, making sense of tangled motives. She’d been sharp, incisive. It had felt like second nature, once.
Helen leaned in. ‘ ... how do we do this?’
Ivy exhaled slowly. Helen was right. She could still do this.
‘We don’t just ask Robby,’ she said, her voice steadier now.
‘We give him a reason to talk. If he’s being pressured, we need to find out by whom.
He won’t tell us outright, but he might react if we ask the right questions.
Robby must know what’s going on. He is our route to unravelling this mystery. ’
Trish sat forward. ‘So, how do we play this?’
Ivy thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘We make him feel like we already know more than we do. Just enough to make him slip up.’
The discussion flowed, punctuated by moments of heated debate and sudden ideas, most of which Helen dismissed as impractical.
Yet Ivy’s thoughts drifted repeatedly back to Fred.
She longed to share each new discovery with him, to see his reaction, convinced that once he realized how much progress the team was making, he would relent and get involved.
But each time she reached for her phone to text him, she hesitated.
‘Let’s keep digging,’ said Helen. ‘My hunch is that we’re on the cusp of figuring out what’s really going on behind training teachers.’
‘But knowing what’s going on isn’t enough, is it,’ said Trish. ‘We need hard evidence to convince the Charity Commission to investigate.’
‘One step at a time,’ replied Ivy.
‘Ivy, what’s really going on in that head of yours?’ asked Trish, giving her a sympathetic look. ‘You’re not just thinking about FF, are you?’
Ivy laughed softly, though the sound was tinged with sadness.
The next morning arrived draped in a white so brilliant that when Ivy opened the back door to let Jez out, she had to shield her eyes from the glare.
After breakfast, she wrapped herself up and stepped outside.
Clutching a crinkly rubbish bag, she set off down the path.
The world was silent except for the crunch of her boots on the freshly fallen snow and the occasional distant chirp of birds brave enough to sing in the cold.
As she reached the wheelie bin, a smack against her shoulder made her jump.
She spun around, startled, only to find Fred grinning from behind his own bin, a perfectly formed second snowball clutched in his hand.
‘Gotcha!’ Fred laughed. The sound was infectious, and she laughed in return.
For a heartbeat, she recalled the awkwardness from yesterday in the church.
But then his playful eyes met hers, and the tension melted away like ice cream in the sun.
Before she knew what she was doing, Ivy dropped the bin bag, dug her hands into the snow and scrunched together the first snowball she had made for over thirty years.
She took aim and hurled it at Fred’s grinning face.
He ducked, but it knocked his cap off, and Ivy felt a surge of pride.
Fred charged again. The sound of their laughter echoed off the cottage walls as they ducked behind bushes and wheelie bins, lobbing snow missiles at each other.
Ivy felt a spark, something wild and liberating that she hadn’t felt in decades.
The soft, powdery snow stung pleasantly against her cheeks, and every snowball carried with it the echo of long-forgotten, youthful glee.
As she paused to catch her breath, she put out a hand, balancing herself against the garden fence, her heart pounding and all her senses alight.
Fred’s eyes shone with mirth. The memory of that kiss still sent shivers down her spine.
The way his touch had ignited a fire inside her was impossible to forget.
Ivy scanned his face for clues to his thoughts but found none, only the pure delight of a man enjoying a winter’s game.
The absurdity of it all struck her: two adults, breathless and rosy-cheeked, their recent embarrassment dissolved into playful warfare.
Snow clung to his hair, transforming him into something boyish and carefree, so different from the guarded man who yesterday had stood awkwardly beside her in the church.
A realization settled over her. Fred made her feel more alive than she had in years. Not just in this moment of laughter and chaos, but in all the small ways he had quietly worked his way into her life.
She lowered her arm and the snowball she had been preparing crumbled through her fingers.
‘Surrender?’ he asked, his breath forming silver clouds in the crisp air.
‘Maybe,’ she said, but she was smiling now, really smiling, for the first time since that kiss.
He approached cautiously, as if she might launch another frozen missile at any moment.
They stood together, the silence between them no longer fraught but peaceful and she felt all the frozen places in her heart beginning to thaw.
‘I’ve brought a fresh bottle,’ announced Helen later that evening, plonking the wine down on the scarred wooden table in the corner of the Smuggler’s Inn. She sat beside Fred then leaned over, her eyes on Ivy and Trish who were sitting opposite.
‘You’ll both need it.’
Trish’s brow furrowed. ‘That bad?’
Helen grimaced. ‘I have disturbing news. Unusual banking activity. ’
Across from her, Ivy saw Fred roll his eyes. He spoke tersely. ‘Why not take a night off?’
Ivy ignored him. ‘What do you mean, Helen?’ she asked.
Helen pulled out a laptop. ‘I’ve been going through more of those documents from Hazim.’
‘And?’ prompted Ivy.
‘First, it’s the number of bank accounts.’ Helen pulled up a spreadsheet. ‘Look at this copy of the cash account. Fifteen accounts with small transfers bouncing between them almost daily.’
Trish squinted at the screen. ‘Could be nothing. Different departments have different budgets.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Helen said, taking a sip of her drink. ‘Until I saw these.’ She switched tabs. ‘Large cash withdrawals in Turkey and Greece. Why? The website claims their activities are mostly in Afghanistan.’
Trish gave a low whistle. ‘Ivy, the documents we looked at were expense claims from those countries too. Does FF have branches in Greece and Turkey?’
Helen shrugged. ‘Not mentioned anywhere, but it gets worse.’ Helen’s voice dropped.
She pulled up scans of paperwork. ‘Look at these descriptions: Transportation services; relocation assistance; secure passage coordination. All with massive payments. Why? This charity is supposed to be training teachers in Afghanistan. Maybe there’s the odd shipment of supplies, but that wouldn’t explain all this. ’
‘What are they transporting?’ Trish muttered, her drink untouched.
‘Tell us what you think is really going on,’ added Ivy.
‘It’s methodical,’ Helen said. ‘The multiple bank accounts fragment the money trail into small, less noticeable amounts, and the invoices justify it all.’
Fred’s face went pale, and Ivy felt a tingle of unease – he understood accounts. ‘For what purpose?’ asked Trish. ‘What are you saying?’
Helen closed the laptop, meeting their eyes. ‘Fraud.’
Ivy felt an icy rush of fear. Fraud? Whoever was behind this would go to considerable lengths to hide their crime. ‘ Damn it!’ she said, her jaw tightening, ‘That’s what Omar uncovered, but he didn’t realize what he’d stumbled across.’
‘He could see the payments weren’t for real supplies, but he didn’t uncover the whole picture,’ said Helen.
‘Why would he ask? It’s bad enough that the charity was paying for things that didn’t exist. No wonder they wanted him out,’ murmured Ivy. ‘But there could be a less sinister explanation surely?’
Helen let out a soft chuckle. ‘ Ivy, you are such a good woman. But no. I’ve seen it before.’ She raised her voice, as if rallying the team. ‘What we need to decide is what do we do with this information.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ snapped Fred, flapping his hands at Helen. He looked around furtively as if checking that no one suspicious was sitting close by, then lowered his voice to a hiss. ‘ Do you even know what you’ve done here, Helen? If they find out ...’
Helen cut him off. ‘They won’t. How could they know what we’re doing?’
Ivy spoke in a hushed tone. ‘ We take this to the police.’
Helen shook her head. ‘I think we go to the Charity Commission, when we’ve uncovered enough evidence.’
For a moment, no one spoke, the weight of it settling in. Then Trish let out a breathless laugh. ‘Wow. I can’t believe it. This is huge – exciting but also terrifying.’
A pulse of unease passed between the group.
Helen was an investigative journalist, not a detective.
Her proof might be enough to convince an editor to print a carefully worded story, but was it enough to convince the authorities to act?
Or was it just enough to land everyone in hot water if the culprits discovered what they knew?
‘I agree with Helen. We need to be smart about this,’ Trish muttered. ‘Gather more proof. Make sure it’s watertight.’
Fred sat back, shaking his head. ‘If this is true, we’re not just talking about clearing Omar’s name. This could bring down some serious people.’
Outside, the bell ringers’ practice session echoed across the harbour, the melodic peals mixing with the background chatter and laughter of the pub.
The contrast was almost surreal. While the world carried on with festive cheer, they were holding on to something dangerous.
Helen folded away her laptop and stowed it in her bag.
‘I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s Christingle service,’ she said. ‘I’ve not been to one before.’
Trish took a sip of her drink. ‘I love seeing the kids’ faces when they hear the stories – properly hear them – not just words, but the meaning behind them.’
Buoyed by two glasses of wine and the hum of villagers enjoying a night out in their local pub, Ivy let herself sink into the moment, feeling safe, feeling sure.
Across from her, Fred’s eyes twitched nervously, his fingers drumming restlessly against his thigh as he seemed lost in his own thoughts.
Ivy weighed up the risk of reaching out a hand and taking one of his.
She didn’t. She couldn’t. One wrong move could unravel their fragile truce, sealed by a spontaneous snowball fight that had broken through their awkwardness.
She loved him. The admission was simple, stark. But love wasn’t always something you could act on, especially when the alternative was losing the friendship they’d carefully built.
Everything would fall into place; she could almost see it.
Fred beside her, a partner in her life, little Jezreel darting between their feet, and Omar, exonerated at last. The worries that had weighed her down – job hunting, Omar threatening to leave, the gnawing fear of time stretching out for decades – felt distant, inconsequential.
Just background noise to the glow of what was coming.
It would all work out, she knew it, in the way you sometimes just know – like the promise of snow in the air or the certainty that Christmas morning would always feel a little bit magical.
And that was when Ivy took a decision. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became. After the Christingle service tomorrow, she would invite Fred to walk back with her and she would say, ‘I love you’. Everything felt possible now. Everything felt right.