‘So what do we do now?’
‘We sit back and wait and hope that the password doesn’t begin with a “z”,’ I explained.
I pressed the enter key on my keyboard to start my file running. Immediately, the dictionary was shown on Gib’s PC and there the information began to scroll as each word was tried, just as I’d instructed in my command file.
‘How long will it take if the password is right down at the other end of the alphabet?’ Gib asked.
‘Ages. Longer than we’ve got tonight. So keep your fingers crossed.’
Gib’s frown was a reflection of my own.
‘Is that really the fastest way of doing it?’ he complained.
‘Unless you already know a user name and password on the live system,’ I stated.
‘What happens if we haven’t found the password by the time the class finishes?’ Gib said. ‘We’ve only got about an hour.’
‘Then we’ll just have to hang around the school and sneak back after everyone has gone,’ I said jauntily.
I looked at Gib, my head high, hoping he’d tell me I was nuts and there was no way he was going to hang around until possibly midnight, waiting for a password that might not appear in the first place.
‘All right then,’ Gib said at last.
My heart sank to my ankles. I reckoned Mr Guy was more than likely to make sure that this classroom in particular was locked shut once evening classes were over. After all, he didn’t want anyone running off with the school’s expensive PCs.
What should we do? Allow ourselves to be locked in the room? Then how would we get out? Deciding to follow in Gib’s footsteps, I decided we should wait to cross that bridge if and when we got to it. After all, we had every chance of getting a password that began with an ‘A’.
‘Stop looking on the pessimistic side,’ I said to Gib.
Rosa had started her class by this time. The room was about half full, and she was talking about the World Wide Web and how it worked. I knew all that already but I saw that Gib was paying attention whilst trying not to look like he was. Rosa wittered on and the minutes ticked by slowly until I was off daydreaming in a world of my own. Then a sharp jab in the ribs woke me up.
‘What d’you think you’re playing at?’ I said.
‘Shush!’ Gib looked around anxiously.
A few of the people towards the back of the class turned around to look at us.
‘Oooops! Sorry!’ I mouthed.
I turned to glare at Gib. He nodded towards my PC screen.
THE SYSTEM IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF UNIVERSAL BANK PERSONNEL. ANY UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO THIS ACCOUNT MAY LEAD TO PROSECUTION.
System>
I almost yelled out when I saw that. We were in! I double-checked this time to make sure I was on the live and not the development system.
‘What’s the last word to be read from your dictionary file?’ I asked Gib, leaning across to read his screen.
‘Cabbage?’ Gib replied doubtfully.
‘Cabbage! What a silly password!’ I smiled. ‘But remember that, Gib. We may need it again.’
Without wasting any more time, I tried to find the directory that contained the batch library file. In the end I did a global search over the whole system and I still couldn’t find it.
‘Maybe there isn’t one?’ Gib suggested, watching me closely.
‘Well, I can’t find it,’ I said, angry at myself.
‘What else do we need?’
‘The transaction log file for the night the money was put into Dad’s account,’ I answered. ‘I don’t need the whole lot, just all the transactions over nine hundred thousand and under two million quid. I can always extend it later if I need to.’
‘Go on then.’
This bit was easy. I’d seen Dad do it loads of times.
‘What was Thursday’s date?’ I asked.
Gib considered. ‘The 18th.’
SYSTEM>QUERY(*FROM TRANSACTIONS WHERE DATE=18MAY AND AMT>900000 AND AMT<2000000
The data I wanted appeared almost immediately. Once I was happy it was what I wanted, I hit the
A message came up to tell me that the printout had started on printer 4. Our school had five high-speed printers kept in the small storage room next door to the classroom we were in. I knew I had to work fast. The chances of being discovered on the live system were even greater than being found on the development system, especially since I was using the Systems Manager’s user account.
‘Hang on a minute.’ Gib frowned. ‘That money was put into Dad’s account in the early hours of yesterday morning.’
‘So?’
‘So yesterday was Friday, May the nineteenth, not the eighteenth.’
‘Why didn’t you say that before I started printing the file out?’ I asked, annoyed.
It was too late to stop the printout. I typed in the command again, this time specifying: WHERE DATE=19MAY.
‘I think I’ll print out the files for the whole of this week, starting from Monday,’ I said thoughtfully.
‘Why do you want to do that?’
‘It doesn’t hurt to be thorough, and I might as well. We might find something interesting.’
‘But it’s just more paper to wade through,’ Gib complained.
‘Then I’ll wade through it,’ I retorted. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘Keep your voice down. And I never said I wouldn’t,’ Gib said, ‘though it’ll probably be a complete waste of time.’
‘It can’t hurt though,’ I argued.
I printed out the full transaction log files for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as well, praying that I’d get a chance to finish all this before the class came to a halt.
My screen messages showed that my printouts had finished printing just as Rosa was finishing off her lesson. Her class began to pack up and wander out.
‘I’ll have to log off now,’ I whispered to Gib.
‘Did you do everything you wanted to do?’
‘Almost. I’ll have to ask Dad about the batch library file on the live system. I don’t understand why I couldn’t find it,’ I replied.
I logged off the bank’s system. Gib and I switched off our PCs and stood up.
‘Thank you very much,’ I said to Rosa as we made our way out of the classroom.
‘Yeah, thanks,’ Gib added.
‘Did you finish your homework?’ Rosa asked.
‘Oh yes, we did.’ Gib said quickly. ‘’Bye.’
He grabbed my arm and almost pulled me out of the room.
We stopped off in the storage-room for our listings. Each listing ran to several pages. We gathered them up and scarpered.
When we got home, I let Gib take the listings to his room. He took both the printout from the development system which we’d done the previous night and the new printouts from the live system. I let him. I wanted to read them but I knew I was too tired to make much sense of them. I went to bed after cleaning my teeth and fell asleep immediately.
* * *
‘Mum, do you want some help making lunch?’ I offered after Sunday breakfast.
It was the strangest breakfast we’d ever had in our house. No one had anything to say. Dad ate in virtual silence, smiling at me very occasionally (smiles that didn’t quite make it to his eyes), and Mum didn’t say much at all. ‘Do you want more bacon, Gib …? Pass the orange juice, Vicky …’ But not a lot else.
And as for Gib. He could hardly keep his eyes open. At one point, his head nodded so far forward I thought his nose would end up in his beans for sure.
‘We’re not having lunch here today,’ Mum replied. ‘Beth and Sebastian have invited us all round to their house for lunch.’
‘We’re not going, are we?’ I asked, dismayed.
‘Yes, we are,’ Mum said. ‘I think we could all stand a change of scene.’
‘Couldn’t we go
some other time?’
‘No, we couldn’t.’ Mum frowned. ‘Vicky, what’s got into you this weekend?’
‘Nothing.’
I thought of Dad and the maths test and the envelope in my jacket pocket that I still hadn’t given to Mum and Dad.
‘Hmm!’ Mum said.
We set off for Aunt Beth and Sebastian’s house at about one o’clock. Gib was just as reluctant to go as I was – we wanted to go through the listings – except he’d had more sense than to say so out loud.
‘Oh, I need to check something with you later,’ Gib said softly from next to me in the back of the car.
‘You two all right back there?’ Dad asked.
‘Fine, Dad.’
‘Yeah, of course.’
‘How are you feeling, dear?’ Dad smiled at Mum.
Mum didn’t return his smile. ‘Tired,’ she said, looking straight ahead.
Dad nodded. I looked out of the window.
We soon reached Aunt Beth’s. She and Sebastian lived in a semi-detached house with three bedrooms, just a few miles away from us.
‘Hi, everyone,’ Aunt Beth said, smiling, the moment she opened the door. ‘Come in, come in! I’d almost given up on you.’
Every time I went into their house I always noticed how quiet it was. And spotless. It was obvious they didn’t have any children. Not a magazine, not a piece of paper, not a book was out of place. There was no dust or dirt or grime anywhere and every free centimetre of space was filled with a plant of some kind. It was like wading through an equatorial rain forest.
Sebastian emerged from their sitting room, a smile on his face. He rounded up Gib to show him a model of some airplane he had just finished working on.
We’d barely been in the house ten minutes when Aunt Beth announced that lunch was ready. It was roast-lamb kebabs, rice and salad, followed by strawberries and vanilla ice-cream. One of the things I liked about Aunt Beth was that she could cook!
Gib and I didn’t say much throughout lunch. Mum and Dad and Sebastian and Aunt Beth wittered on about boring grown-up things, the price of food, the price of clothes, the price of houses, the price of everything. I kept waiting for them to ask Dad what had happened in court yesterday – I wanted to know that bit myself – but nothing doing. I think it was another of those ‘not in front of the children’ jobs. Really annoying! They talked about the forthcoming baby for a while which was a bit more interesting but nothing I hadn’t already heard before.
‘Babies are so expensive,’ Aunt Beth said. Sebastian and Aunt Beth didn’t have any children of their own so I wondered what they would know about it.
‘I know,’ Mum shrugged. ‘But David and I have wanted another child for a long while. I just wish being pregnant didn’t make me so tired all the time.’
‘Have you got all the baby’s things yet?’ smiled Aunt Beth.
‘Not yet.’
‘You don’t want to wait. The prices of prams and babies’ clothes and toys go up pretty regularly.’
‘It’s a shame your salary at the bank doesn’t go up as fast.’ Sebastian smiled at Aunt Beth.
Aunt Beth smiled back, like there was no one else in the room with them. Sebastian reached out for Aunt Beth’s hand. They were making goo-goo eyes at each other. Gib turned to me and pulled a face. I totally agreed! How wet could you get!
‘If we’re in the way just say so and we’ll leave!’ Dad teased.
Sebastian laughed and let go of Aunt Beth’s hand. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t forget, David,’ Aunt Beth grinned, ‘Sebastian is my second husband. We haven’t been married as long as you two old fossils.’
‘Fossil! I beg your pardon,’ Mum said with mock indignation. ‘Speak for yourself, Beth. You’re older than me.’
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ Aunt Beth replied.
The grown-ups were off! I faded out for a few minutes, like turning down the volume on a television, until I heard Sebastian say, ‘It’ll get sorted out, David, just you wait and see.’
‘I can’t exactly do anything else.’ Dad smiled slightly to take the sting out of his voice.
I looked at Gib. I’d missed what had brought this conversation up in the first place. I’d ask Gib later.
‘I can’t help thinking that it’d probably all be sorted out by now if they’d only run my weekend checking program,’ Dad sighed. ‘But Nicola, the General Manager, refuses to see past the nose on her face.’
‘What do you mean, David?’ Mum asked.
I wanted to know that too.
‘My checking program runs on both the development and the live system. It reads through all the relevant program files on the development system and checks the transaction files on the live system for any strange anomalies,’ Dad began. ‘But Nicola reckons that I put a time trap in my program and that’s how the million pounds got into my bank account in the first place, so she’s ordered that none of my programs should be run until further notice.’
‘What’s a time trap, Dad?’ I asked.
They all looked at me as if they’d forgotten Gib and I were at the table.
‘It’s a piece of code you write to only work on a certain day at a certain time,’ Dad replied, before turning back to Sebastian and Aunt Beth. ‘Now I reckon that if she’d just let my checking programs run on both systems, there’d be a report on all those things on the systems that need further investigation. And in one of those reports might have been a pointer to the person who really put the money in my account. Do you remember, Beth, how I caught you out a few weeks ago.’
Aunt Beth laughed. ‘I sure do. I’d specified an end-of-month date incorrectly in one of my programs. I had input a date for last year instead of this year and the acceptance testers didn’t spot the mistake.’
‘But my program did,’ Dad said stonily.
Aunt Beth nodded.
‘Well, there’s no point going on about it,’ Dad sighed. ‘If they didn’t run it, they didn’t run it. I’ll just have to wait for my innocence to be proved another way.’
‘And it will, David.’ Mum smiled at Dad.
‘It’s a shame I’m on holiday for two weeks, David,’ Aunt Beth frowned, ‘otherwise I’m sure I could get Nicola to run your program. Mind you, as soon as I get back I’ll ask her. I’ve already asked Eric to make sure that all the transaction logs and system changes are copied onto back-up media while I’m away, so that I can analyse them when I get back.’
‘It’s very good of you, Beth,’ Dad said gratefully.
‘Nonsense.’
‘And if I can help in any way …’ Sebastian left the rest unsaid.
I glanced at Gib and coughed, nodding towards the door. Gib frowned at me and carried on eating. The dimwit didn’t get the hint at all. But I reckoned I was on to something.
Chapter Eight
I STOOD UP.
Mum asked, ‘Where are you going?’
‘The loo!’ I replied.
Mum and Dad exchanged a look and I walked to the door. I turned back to try and catch Gib’s eye, but he was deeply involved with his roast lamb. I ran upstairs to the bathroom. Another good thing about Aunt Beth’s house was that Gib and I could run everywhere and the sound would be muffled by their pile carpet so we never got bellowed at to ‘Walk, don’t run!’ They had the same mid-grey carpet throughout the entire house and it looked really good.
Once in the bathroom, I locked the door and leaned against it. I knew why that money had been put in Dad’s account. I was sure I was right. What had Dad said? Running his security program every Friday or Saturday was standard procedure? So the person who put that money in Dad’s account must have done it to make sure that Dad’s checking program didn’t run. Whoever it was must have known that with Dad accused of taking all that money, no way would his programs be allowed to run on the computer. The question was, why the need to stop Dad’s program from running in the first place? It must have been because the checking program would have revealed something. Something big. S
omething someone didn’t want revealed.
But what?
And that still didn’t tell me who was responsible for all this. But I was closer. I could feel it.
When Gib and I got home, we’d have to sit down and work through all those printouts we’d got from the bank’s live system. If they didn’t hold the answers then I’d just have to figure out what other files I should print out from the bank. The trouble was, each time I logged on to the bank’s computer, I knew I stood a greater chance of getting caught. This was getting more and more dangerous.
I left the bathroom and was about to go downstairs again when I noticed one of the bedroom doors was slightly open. Being naturally interested in everything around me (in other words – nosy!), I tiptoed into the room. It was full of bookcases crammed with books. Books covered the floor in neatly stacked piles. Against one wall was a PC, exactly the same as the one Universal Bank had given Dad – before they took it away again.
The room was lovely. Just the sort of room I wanted when I got my own house one day. I tiptoed out.
It’s all right for some, I thought enviously.
Soon Gib or I would be sharing our room with a new brother or sister. And here Aunt Beth and Sebastian could devote one whole room to nothing but books. I tiptoed past the bathroom to the back room. It had a small double bed in it and a dressing table and that was it. Closing the door, I crept to the main bedroom at the front of the house. Wincing as the door handle made a noise as I turned it, I stepped inside.
Wow! Talk about luxury! Aunt Beth and Sebastian had the biggest bed I’d ever seen. Fitted wardrobes with mirrored fronts stood against one whole wall and a dressing table like something out of a magazine stood to the right of the window. I walked over to it. It was brilliant! Dark red-brown wood, with lots of drawers and covered with lotions and potions and bottles and jars. In the middle of the table was an open jewellery box, the prettiest I’d ever seen. Not that there was much jewellery inside. In fact, there was just a delicate gold bracelet. It looked like if you sneezed on it, it would disintegrate. Aunt Beth seemed to like that kind of very simple jewellery.
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