Chapter 46
Interloping, as I may have said before, is largely an exercise in misdirection.
You’re managing the flow of people’s beliefs about you, in a direction very slightly different from the truth but which nevertheless ends up depositing them just where you need them to be.
And the other thing I’ve said before is that most people don’t need active deceiving; more often than not, they deceive themselves. Here’s why:
Occasionally, of course, these principles don’t apply, which is where my work gets harder.
And right now, I’m faced with Charli Harcourt and her human Rottweiler.
They don’t believe other humans are benevolent, they aren’t basically good themselves, and despite their busy schedules, they would gladly trot out of their way to tear my story apart.
Deceiving them would be impossible. Which is why I’m not going to even try.
‘It’s simple,’ I say. ‘You need three sets of numbers, yes? The sort code, the account number, and the string of digits to get you in.’
‘We don’t need the sort code and account number, idiot,’ says Charli. ‘I have those already. We just don’t have Davy’s personal access number.’
‘Can I tell my friends anyway? It took me ages to work it out, and I’m proud of it.’
‘Ugh.’ But Charli subsides momentarily and I keep talking.
‘Remember what Davy told us before he died?’
‘He said the money was in the outbuilding,’ says Elle.
‘Which doesn’t exist,’ says Em.
‘Exactly. But he stored the information somewhere on the premises. Because he wanted Lulu to get access to his serious money. Charli, I’m sure you’d guessed that already.
If Lulu had Davy’s code, plus the sort code and account number, she’d have half control of the whole account.
That’s why Davy was so keen to put her and Ben Westcott together.
And if you remember, Jonny found out that these accounts are so specialised, they’ll let you pick your own numbers for all three elements. ’
‘OK. So where’s the outbuilding?’
‘At the local planning office,’ I say, and draw out the wad of paper in my pocket (shuffling the sheet with IT WAS CONOR VANE written on it to the back).
‘Davy had lodged plans with the council to build a long, low shed in the field next door, a miniature barn. Look at the way the dimensions are written.’
‘08-12-68,’ Em reads. ‘Eight feet high, twelve across, and … sixty-eight deep? It’s written like that again here.’ She and Elle scan the document. ‘And here.’
‘Bingo. Davy had permission to build three years ago, but never bothered. He just kept renewing the permission. Building it wasn’t the point. The plans simply ensured it existed somewhere, in the hope that Lulu would work out that the dimensions were the sort code.’
‘What about the account number?’
‘Look at the front wall of the plan.’
The outbuilding is prettily designed. It has the name PENELOPE written above it.
‘Who’s Penelope?’
‘Lulu. It’s her middle name. Remember?’
‘He only ever called her Penny,’ says Charli. ‘Just to annoy me. And he’s still trying to annoy me in death. Stupid name. Old-fashioned. You ever see a model called Penelope?’
‘What about Penelope Cruz?’
‘She’s the exception.’
‘Penny Lancaster?’
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘Try typing the name “Penelope” on an old mobile phone,’ I say, ‘which was Davy’s preferred variety, and you get 73635673. Which is—’
‘The number he picked for the account, yes,’ Charli says. ‘You’ve taken about half an hour explaining two things I already know. Do you have his personal access code or not?’
‘I do. Em and Elle, do you remember going to the Bombardier in Putney a few days ago, and what they were actually up to?’
‘Yeah. The Fantasy Football thing.’
‘And do you recall why Davy had come last?’
Em doesn’t. But Elle does. ‘That man Westcott, Davy’s best man. He said that Davy picked players with the same shirt numbers every year.’
‘Which Jonny pointed out was insane for anyone actually trying to win a Fantasy Football tournament. But then I remembered just how much you, Charli, said you hated his Fantasy Football habit. And Ben Westcott is Lulu’s godfather, isn’t he?’
‘Not my choice,’ Charli murmurs. ‘Are you saying his stupid fake football numbers are the code?’
I turn over a sheet of paper. For the last twelve years, Ben Westcott has recorded the details of all the Fantasy Football teams of all five men. The shirt numbers picked by the other four are completely indiscriminate. Davy’s are a grid of the same numbers, in the same order, year after year.
‘Davy knew Lulu was allergic to football too. But he had one hope – that she would work out the truth about the outbuilding, that Ben Westcott would realise the football thing, and the two of them would piece it together without you knowing, Charli. That’s why he wanted Lulu to contact her godfather, and why he phoned her saying as much a few days before he died.
’ I lean into my bag and get out Davy’s laptop.
‘It didn’t work, of course. But that’s how we get into his account, and how we all get our money. ’
I say the last words with a flourish, and the audience react in four different ways.
Elle claps and gives me a thumbs-up. Em shakes her head, a bit grudging but basically impressed.
Charli looks furious, presumably that she didn’t work it out herself.
Alfie: no change. He’s still looking at me like he’s a Dobermann and I’m two pounds of wet offal.
‘Can I see that?’ Charli takes the sheet of paper with the football strip numbers on, and studies it, shaking her head. ‘Dave, Dave, Dave. You silly bastard. We needn’t have gone through any of this.’
I open Davy’s laptop, but Charli interrupts: ‘Ah-ah. No thank you. The last thing I want is you draining the account God knows where and then us having to kill you and find the money all over again. You just give the laptop to Alfie here, there’s a good boy.’
Reluctantly, I agree. Alfie takes it off me as Charli opens her own tablet. Then he looks over his employer’s shoulder and pecks the address of the Dubai banking portal into Davy’s laptop.
‘All right. Pop that down just next to me. Thank you, dear.’
First, Charli enters her own three strings of numbers on her tablet: the sort code, account number and her private PIN. I can see on the screen that the account details appear in grey.
I pipe up. ‘How much is in there, if you don’t mind me asking?’
She swivels the screen round. I read out the number, slowly and carefully: ‘￡34,287,961.’
‘Bloody hell,’ says Em.
Next, Charli grabs Davy’s laptop and puts in the same sort code and account number, then consults the sheet Ben Westcott sent me and enters Davy’s code.
We hear a little blip noise, a friendly one. She’s in on both devices and they’ve lit up – one knows she’s Charli, one thinks she’s Davy. Now she can transfer the money anywhere she likes. Open Sesame. She gives a sigh of revolting satisfaction.
‘Ten years of work, of course, ten years of sucking up to proper scumbags, but it’s a decent amount.’
‘And twenty per cent of that is … nearly seven million quid,’ Em says.
Charli looks blank. ‘So what?’
‘We’re splitting the money eighty–twenty.’
‘Ah. Yes. Probably a slight tweak in that plan, now that I’m in.’ Charli smiles.
‘Oh, what a surprise,’ says Em. Charli merely shrugs.
I have one more question I need to hear Charli answer. ‘Was it worth it?’
‘Was what worth it?’
‘Killing your husband.’
‘Ex-husband. And for this amount of money? I’d have been mad not to. Frankly, I’d have done it pro bono, but earning a lifetime of comfort makes it the single best decision of my life so far. Yes, it’s worth it.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘It’s about to be worth killing the three of you, too. Gun, Alfie.’
Alfie looks a bit baffled. ‘I thought you said we weren’t—’
‘Gun.’
He digs in his holster and hands over the pistol. This one isn’t the kind of antiquated revolver Davy was waggling around from the corner armchair a week or two ago. This one is snub-nosed but massive, and looks like it’ll be a lot better at finding our vital organs.
‘Cute move filming us as we arrived,’ says Charli, ‘but it won’t do you any good.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ll be out of the country before anyone sees the footage.
When the police get here, within about half an hour, they’re going to find a house full of wonders.
They’ll find me shrieking on the gravel because I walked in on a scene of total carnage.
They’ll find your bodies, the dreadful squatters who killed my darling husband and stayed squatting here after the police left.
Last of all, they’ll find Alfie, my faithful bodyguard, who went in first to secure the place and was overpowered by you thugs. ’
‘What?’ This is the first full sentence Alfie has said for a while. It’s also the last thing he says, because Charli levels the pistol at him and pulls the trigger.
Alfie falls backwards, into a reproduction bust of a different Caesar, which shatters beneath him, and slumps to the ground, propped up by the wall. He looks down at his chest, then up at her, with a little outrage.
‘Sorry, Alf. You’d have done the same to me within about twenty minutes of the money transferring.’ Charli covers the three of us with the gun.
‘And now the three of you, who attacked my poor innocent security man as he swept the premises. He fired, but even after he wounded you, you wrestled the gun off him and killed him before succumbing to your injuries. Or maybe you turned on each other. It’s going to be a dreadfully unpleasant room to walk into.
But privacy has its costs. And when my funds are all safely in my own …
’ Here Charli glances at the laptop. ‘Wait, what?’
From where I’m sitting, I can just about see Davy’s screen, where the value on the account has changed. The top line now reads: ACC BALANCE: ￡0.11 GBP.
Charli’s head swivels round. ‘What have you done?’
Then it changes again: ACC BALANCE: ￡265,754,932 GBP.
Her face is now as grey as Alfie’s.
The balance disappears, and then new text appears over the top in jerky type: ACC BALANCE: TOMATOES. HELLO CHARLI.
‘What the fuck have you done?’
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘But our friend Jonny might have created a spoof version of the portal that only works on Davy’s laptop.’
‘So when you logged in with the correct details, it looked like it was letting you in, but actually you got bounced to a site he created,’ says Em.
‘One that activates the computer’s webcam and microphone,’ adds Elle.
‘And because you showed us how much was on the screen in the real account, I was able to read it out loud, meaning he could listen in and replicate it exactly in the few seconds it took you to log in,’ I explain.
‘He’s very clever, our friend Jonny,’ says Em.
‘And,’ I say, as I hear footsteps crunching on gravel, and the shouts of enthusiastic armed response teams running towards the room from either side, and the crackles of Tasers itching to bite someone, ‘he has a great sense of timing, too.’