Well, you’ll never make me cry again, I promised myself. Never. I crept down the stairs, making sure I didn’t step in the middle of any of them where they might creak. That took me ages, too. But it didn’t matter.
I was going to prove that Dad was innocent.
Chapter Four
IT WASN’T UNTIL I had closed the living-room door carefully behind me that I dared to relax slightly. I switched on the light. The sudden brightness dazzled me and for a split second I panicked, sure the light would wake up everyone in the house even though the door was shut.
As I booted up the PC and checked the Broadband connection, I wondered anxiously how Mum was coping. So much for not getting upset. I’d have to do all I could to make sure she was all right, and if Gib chose to call that crawling then that was his problem, not mine.
It took longer to make sure I had the settings right than anything else. If I didn’t have the right settings, then I’d never get connected to the computer at Universal Bank. I checked to make sure that the speaker volume was turned right down. Chewing nervously on my bottom lip, I clicked on the GIBSON LOGON icon which automatically went via the Internet to attach to the bank’s computer network. Dad had created the connect program to save typing in the same instructions over and over again every time he wanted to log on. The program meant that all he had to do was enter the bank’s network code and his password and the program did the rest.
I’d watched Dad go through the whole thing often enough to memorize the bank’s network code and password so that was no problem, but as I entered it, I still anxiously watched the screen. I didn’t dare breathe. Something was bound to go wrong. I was doing it, so it just had to!
Another worry I had was that a computer operator on night shift at the bank might discover I was logged on to the bank’s system. Still, I couldn’t let that stop me. As far as the bank was concerned, the million pounds was found in Dad’s account and that was all there was to it. I knew Dad didn’t do it because he would never do such a thing. I remembered that once he’d found a twenty-pound note in the street and he’d headed straight for the police station.
‘That could be some poor pensioner’s money,’ Dad told me.
Half of me admired him for being so honest, the other half thought Dad was a right mug!
‘Most people who found money in the street would keep it,’ I said.
‘But I’m not most people.’ Dad smiled.
And now he was locked up in a police cell somewhere. I tried to force that thought out of my head before the stinging in my eyes got any worse.
At last the PC was connected to the network at Universal Bank. On the screen it said:
UNIVERSAL BANK NETWORK SYSTEMS
Enter username: GIBSON
Enter password:
then appeared. I’d seen Dad type in the passwords to both of his accounts so that was easy, but I hesitated before typing it in. My stomach was dipping and diving. I couldn’t help feeling that I was doing something, if not wrong, then not quite right either. Dad didn’t know that I knew his passwords, and he’d hit the roof if he found out. And more than that, I’d never logged on to the bank’s computer by myself before. Dad usually did all this, only letting me do the basic, trivial stuff like typing and printing out files.
But now I was alone. And Dad needed my help. Swallowing down my nervousness, I typed in Dad’s password – VICRIC2.
ACCESS DENIED. PLEASE CONTACT SYSTEM MANAGER
I frowned at the screen. I’d seen Dad use this account plenty of times and I’d never seen that message before. Thinking that I must have typed in the password incorrectly, I tried it again, carefully pressing each key. V-I-C-R-I-C-2.
The same message appeared. I sat back in my chair, wondering what the matter was. I’d spelt the password right – I was sure I had. I leaned forward to try for a third time, just in case. The living-room door suddenly opened. I almost jumped out of my skin with fright. I turned my head, my finger ready on the PC’s ON/OFF button.
It was Gib.
We watched each other. Neither of us said a word. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t want to speak to him – not after what had happened earlier. Gib’s hair was sticking up in tufts. He’d obviously just got out of bed.
‘I couldn’t sleep. I came down for a glass of water,’ Gib said at last. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘None of your business,’ I replied. Not for the first time I wished I could think of something devastatingly cutting and witty to say. Turning back to the PC screen, I typed in the user name and password for the third time, aware that Gib had walked over to stand behind me.
Go away, I thought sullenly.
I hated people standing behind me and watching what I was doing at the best of times. And this certainly wasn’t the best of times.
ACCESS DENIED. PLEASE CONTACT SYSTEM MANAGER
I wasn’t really surprised to see that message a third time.
‘What’re you doing?’ Gib asked again.
Breathing deeply, I said, ‘I’m trying to find out what’s going on at Dad’s bank.’
That was all the encouragement Gib needed. He almost ran to get a chair from around the dinner table before bringing it over and placing it right next to mine. He sat down. I scowled at him, but he didn’t get the unsubtle hint. He didn’t move. He fidgeted on his chair and looked away from me to the PC, but he didn’t go away.
‘So how’s it going?’ he asked, reading the screen.
‘Not very well at the moment,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I’ve got as far as logging on to the bank’s network but I haven’t managed to log on to Dad’s account to do anything yet. And I’ve tried three times.’
‘So why can’t you log on?’ Gib asked.
‘I … I think they must’ve disabled Dad’s account. I couldn’t have got the password wrong three times in a row.’
‘Can’t you double-check what password you did type in, then?’ asked Gib.
I shook my head. ‘When you type in a password, it doesn’t show on the screen. Passwords are supposed to be secret. They wouldn’t be very secret if anyone walking past your screen could see your password every time you logged on.’
‘So what’re you going to do now?’
‘Why the sudden interest?’ I couldn’t help asking.
There was a pause before Gib answered.
‘I want to find out what’s going on just as much as you do. I want to help too,’ Gib said, looking down at the carpet.
Yeah, but when I try to help, you call it crawling, I thought.
All of a sudden my eyes were stinging again. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes wide, and the stinging faded. When I was sure I wouldn’t embarrass myself, I said, ‘I’ll log on to the computer using Dad’s second account – his TEST account. He uses it for checking and testing programs. Let’s hope this works.’
This time I clicked on the TEST LOGON icon.
Enter username: TEST
Enter password:
‘Cross your fingers,’ I said to Gib. My hands hovered over the keyboard. Please let this work, I thought desperately. If this didn’t work then I’d be stuck.
I typed in the password – JABBERWOCKY44. The screen cleared. Then:
UNIVERSAL BANK DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM
THIS SYSTEM IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF UNIVERSAL BANK PERSONNEL. ANY UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO THIS ACCOUNT MAY LEAD TO PROSECUTION.
You have 3 new mail messages
test>
appeared on the screen.
‘Yeah! I’m in!’ I yelled, before I remembered that Mum was upstairs.
‘Shush!’ Gib said urgently.
We both looked up at the ceiling. Mum and Dad’s bedroom was directly above us. Anxious seconds passed as we waited. Nothing. From the sound of it, I’d got away with my outburst. There was only one explanation.
‘Mum must’ve taken a sleeping pill.’ I frowned.
‘I was just about to say that,’ said Gib.
I looked a
t Gib. He smiled at me with relief. I smiled back. Then we both remembered the evening and our smiles faded. An uncomfortable silence settled around us. I looked up at the ceiling again. Mum must have been feeling really bad to resort to taking a sleeping pill.
‘Tell me what you’re going to do now? Do you want me to do anything?’ Gib asked.
‘Er … I don’t think so,’ I replied. I turned on the printer and made sure there was plenty of paper in its paper feeder. ‘Gib, you’d better make sure the door is shut properly,’ I said. ‘I want to print off all the information I can, so this might get noisy.’
‘Noisy enough to wake Mum up?’ Gib asked.
I nodded. ‘You’ve got to make sure that she doesn’t hear.’
‘And just how do I do that?’
‘I don’t know. Think of something.’
Gib went to check the door, then came back to stand before the printer.
‘How about if I put the printer on the floor?’ Gib suggested. ‘The carpet might muffle the sound.’
‘It’s worth a try.’ I shrugged.
As he fiddled about with the printer, I tried to figure out what I should do next.
‘I want to print out some of the staff files first. That will show us who was capable of putting the money in Dad’s account,’ I said. ‘Then I suppose we should look at the transaction log file for yesterday …’
‘What’s in the staff file?’ Gib asked, crawling under the table with the printer.
‘Dad said it contains a complete description of everyone who works at the bank – their names, addresses, telephone numbers, employee numbers, departments, job descriptions and such like,’ I replied. ‘But I don’t need all that blurb. I know what sort of person I’m looking for.’
‘And what sort of person is that?’ Gib asked.
‘Someone who’s a cashier. A cashier is the only person who could … No … that can’t be right …’ I frowned.
‘What’s wrong now?’ asked Gib.
‘Dad told me that it takes two cashiers to put money into and take money out of a bank employee’s account.’
‘Why two people?’
‘One cashier enters all the details of a transaction, but then one of the cashier supervisors has to make sure all the details are correct before it can go any further.’
‘So the same cashier can’t enter the details and then double-check them?’ Gib said.
‘That’s right.’ I nodded. ‘So if all that money was put into Dad’s account by a cashier, then a cashier supervisor must have been in on it too.’
‘Couldn’t one cashier have done it on his or her own when no one else was looking?’ Gib said.
I shook my head. ‘Nope. The data entry account and the validation account are totally separate with two different user names and two different passwords. And Dad told me the bank has a strict policy – no one’s allowed to tell anyone else their password.’
‘And what exactly is this transaction log file you were talking about before?’
‘Just a record of all the money coming into and going out of the bank, like Aunt Beth said. There’s a new log created each night,’ I replied.
‘OK. Print out the staff file first and we’ll do the other one after,’ Gib suggested. ‘
Are you ready?’ I asked. ‘I’m going to display it on the screen first to make sure I can access it.’
Gib got out from under the table.
‘Go ahead,’ he said.
Thinking hard first, I then typed:
SHOW STAFFFILE: STAFFNAME,ADDRESS,PHONE,JOBDESCRIPTION,USERNAME/SORT BY STAFFNAME
‘What does that mean?’ Gib asked, peering over my shoulder.
‘It’s a database query that will display each employee’s name, address, telephone number, job description and user name. If I didn’t ask it for just the information I want, it would show me everything in the file and we’d be here until Christmas,’ I said. The information I wanted started to appear on the screen.
Abbott, Julie: 15 Pillder Gardens: 045 2950:
cashier Grade 2: jabbott
Amritraj, Vidal: 2 Branstep Road: 045 2379:
programmer Grade 4: vamritraj
Andrews, Steven: 290 Eyeley Road: 056 7892:
cashier grade 3: sandrews
I only caught the first three rows of information before it scrolled off the screen. The file was being displayed so quickly that several screens’ worth had appeared before I thought to press the
test>
appeared again.
‘Right. I’m going to print all this off now,’ I said. I typed:
>CREATE KEY BRIEF=STAFFNAME,ADDRESS,PHONE, JOBDESCRIPTION/SORT BY STAFFNAME
>PRINT STAFFFILE/KEY=BRIEF
Immediately, the printer under the table started to rumble as the paper moved through it. Then it started to make an awful turbo-charged wheezy, screaming noise. It was really loud!
‘Gib, do something!’ I implored.
I looked up at the ceiling. Sleeping pill or no sleeping pill, with all this racket Mum might still come thundering down the stairs. Gib dived back under the table. He crouched over the printer, covering it with his body. It did help to muffle the sound, but the printer was still making a horrible noise.
‘How long is this file?’ Gib hissed.
‘I don’t know. But it contains the names of every person in the same office as Dad at Universal Bank so it might take a couple of minutes,’ I replied.
‘Minutes!’ Gib protested.
He looked down at the paper coming out of the printer.
‘Oh well! It’s started now. We might as well leave it printing until the last possible second.’
I watched the ceiling apprehensively but there wasn’t a sound from Mum and Dad’s bedroom. After what seemed like three hours rather than three minutes, the printer finally stopped.
‘You don’t have to print anything else, do you?’ Gib said.
‘Just some details from the transaction log,’ I answered.
Gib groaned. ‘Get on with it then. I’m getting pins and needles.’
‘Stop moaning!’ I snapped. ‘I’d rather be in bed too, you know.’ I glanced across to the LED clock display on our DVD player. One-thirty in the morning!
‘Do you think this transformers log file will tell us who put that money in Dad’s bank account?’ Gib asked, still crouching over the printer.
‘Transaction log file, not transformers log file, you pillock!’ I corrected.
‘Whatever,’ Gib dismissed. ‘So will the file give us the info we need or not?’
I thought for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ I said slowly. ‘The bank must already have checked that before Dad was arrested. The file probably says Dad put all that money in his account himself. But there might be some other clue in the file, that’s why I want to see exactly what it says. There might be something in it that the bank has forgotten or overlooked.’
‘Like what?’
‘Now how should I know that?’ I asked.
‘It’s a bit unlikely,’ Gib sighed.
‘I’ve got to start somewhere,’ I replied, annoyed. I was getting precious little encouragement.
‘Get on with it then.’ Gib came out from under the table and shook out his arms and legs. ‘My legs are going to sleep. I’ll crouch over the printer when you’re ready to print something.’
‘All right then. Now, let me think. I want to make sure I get this right.’ I was talking more to myself than to Gib. ‘Besides the cashiers, who else could have put that money in Dad’s account …?’
‘From the way Dad’s always going on, I would have thought anyone who was a good enough programmer could write a program to do it,’ Gib said, sitting down in his chair again. ‘Isn’t that why he’s always talking about how difficult his job is?’
‘Hhmm!’ I mused. ‘The thing is, if you write a new program or m
odify an old one, it’s supposed to be compiled, linked and tested by someone else, someone different, to make sure that you aren’t putting cons and tricks into it. Dad said programs only get added to the overnight batch job after they’ve been thoroughly tested. And then there’s Dad’s special checking program.’
‘Checking program?’
‘Dad wrote most of it himself. It runs at the start of every weekend. It adds about two hours to the time it takes for the batch job to run, so they only run it on Fridays or Saturdays,’ I said. ‘It checks to make sure that nothing strange has happened to the batch programs during the week. Dad said nothing could get past that.’
‘So what other way could it have been done?’ Gib said.
‘There is no other way. Either the money was transferred by two of the cashiers or someone wrote a program to transfer the money, which somehow got through the system without being detected,’ I said. ‘But if someone did write a program, why did they put the money into Dad’s account? Why not their own?’
‘How can we check to make sure it wasn’t a program?’ Gib said.
‘I could print off the details of each program in the batch-job library file, I suppose,’ I said doubtfully. ‘That’s where the details of all the programs are stored. That would tell us if any batch programs had been changed or added recently.’
‘How many batch programs are there?’ asked Gib.
‘I think Dad said between one hundred and fifty and two hundred,’ I replied with a grimace.
Gib stared at me. ‘How on earth are you going to check all those? You can’t know all the file names?’
I was tempted not to tell him the truth. He looked so impressed. But in the end I couldn’t be bothered to wind him up.
‘I don’t have to know all the file names. The batch library file works just like a real library. It keeps a record of all the batch programs. It tells you when they were compiled, who changed the program and when, and some other stuff. And it keeps a record of the latest version number of each program.’
‘Are you going to print out the programs as well or just what’s in the batch library?’
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