The Lost Years

by Colin Wade

  “Well, to be honest, he is a better hacker than me. This man is a genius. It took all his brain power but he has done it. He has mimicked the security controls of an internal bank employee meaning we can hack in and move around pretty much at will.”

  “Who is he? Can you trust him? Will he stitch us up and get us caught?”

  “I don’t know who he is. He is one of the members in our hackers’ community but I have worked with him for years now. He has never let me down.”

  “Hold on. So, you are trusting a person that you have never met, who could literally be anyone in the world. How the hell do you know he is not a police officer?”

  “We have a code. We trust each other because we share our resources. We help each other with hacks, we share intel. If he was a copper, I would know by now.”

  “Christ Clark, I have already moved so far out of my comfort zone and you are expecting me to trust a complete stranger with something like this?”

  Here they were again. At another of Rob’s moral crossroads. Clark had learned to let it rest. He got up and poured them both a coffee.

  Rob moved into the living room and sat down, lost in his thoughts. Lost in his anguish. Clark just waited.

  *

  Something was wrong. It was way past lunchtime and Rob had not returned to his car. He usually only visited for half a day and went home. Sundays were different but still, it seemed odd. He decided to risk going up to the ward to see if he could see Rob in the room. He went up the several flights of stairs that led to the back end of the floor that the ward was on. He peeked out of the door and the coast seemed clear. He walked quickly up to the ward door and peered in. He could see Anya lying in the bed. No Rob. He risked glancing further into the ward to see if he was talking to the nurses or doctors at the nurses’ station. Nothing. He dashed back down the stairs hoping they hadn’t crossed paths. Rob’s car was still there. What the hell was going on? Where was he? He decided to wait some more.

  *

  “Where should we start?”

  Clark was jolted out of his daydream. As usual Rob had just needed some time to process the latest in a long line of personal challenges.

  “Oh, umm. Well, let’s hack in and see if we can find the account that the statements came from. Can you hand me the printout on the desk?”

  Rob picked it up, glancing at Anya’s face on the board as he did. He knew she would expect him to do all he could. Soulmates for ever.

  Clark navigated his way to the main bank account and found the transaction history that matched the statements. So far so good. Snap’s protocols were holding. No security alerts. No one trying to stop them moving around. Yet.

  He clicked onto the account details. The account was registered to an FM Holdings PLC, registered in the Caymans.

  “Hmm. FM Holdings. Could that be Fairport Medical?”

  “I would think that is a pretty good bet,” mused Rob.

  Clark clicked on another screen to see whether there were any named directors of the company to which the account could be attributed.

  “Well, well, well. The account executive is listed as George Walker. We have the connection we were looking for.”

  “What about the Hardacres and Dr Normandy?”

  “No, interesting. They are not mentioned. Maybe George Walker is the money man and has been left to manage the accounts. Give me the numbers for the other numbered accounts on that statement printout. The ones where the money was transferred into. Let’s see if we can tie the others to those accounts.”

  Rob read out the numbers one at a time and Clark went to the transaction history to tally them up with the main account and looked at the relevant information.

  They started with the account that had the five payments of £200k, which they guessed was the doctor’s pot. The five payments were there and the two more recent payments of £225k. The information was exactly the same as the main account, registered to FM Holdings PLC with George Walker as the executive.

  “That is odd,” said Clark, “I was sure that each of these accounts would have a different name attached to them. Let’s look at the next one.”

  They looked at the account that had five payments of £50k. Again, they were there and two more recent payments of £100k. The account information was the same.

  They checked the third account, looking for the five original payments of £125k and two more recent ones of £175k. The transactions were there but also a number of smaller amounts of money going out, a few thousand at a time over quite a long period. The account information was the same.

  “This is not what I hoped for,” said Clark. “So far all these are registered to FM Holdings PLC with George Walker as the account executive. Now whilst that is good in linking him with the conspiracy, I was hoping to see the names of our other conspirators listed against the accounts. What is interesting though are these smaller transactions going out. I think this confirms that this is George Walker’s personal account and, if he is the fixer, he is using it to pay other people off, such as our cop Mr Chandra. I am guessing that he is managing all these accounts on behalf of our gang of criminals and must be giving them access through some other means.”

  “What about this last one?” said Rob.

  “Yes, this one should be interesting as I am guessing this could be the account the Hardacres are using as it has the biggest amounts in it.”

  Clark navigated to the account information and once again it was the same. No surprise. A look at the transaction history made curious reading.

  In the same period that the other accounts had five payments, this one only had four of £175k. There were two recent transactions of £225k. These did match the transactions listed on the main account. What piqued Clark’s interest though was a payment going out for £375k, which matched one of the payments into the main account.

  “What the hell is this?” said Clark.

  “What have you found?” replied Rob.

  “There is an anomaly on this account. I remember thinking this was odd when I first found the statements. If this is the Hardacres’ pot of money, they seem to have received one less payment than all the others but have made a payment back into the main account.”

  Rob and Clark looked at each other, searching for inspiration to explain this anomaly. Suddenly Clark’s face changed.

  “Oh, my fuck!”

  “What is it?”

  “Jesus, if I am right, this puts a whole different complexion on this conspiracy.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “I think the Hardacres might be one of Dr Normandy’s customers.”

  54

  Rob and Clark stopped and made some more coffee, trying to take in what they thought they had found. Could it be true? Could the Hardacres be customers of the doctor? It might explain why James’ name was copied into the original email. The problem was, apart from Snap’s brief online profiling and this one email, the Hardacres’ involvement was pure conjecture. The evidence was flimsy at best. What was it about this conspiracy that made it feel right that the Hardacres were involved?

  It was now late afternoon and they needed to make a decision about what to do next. They decided to order Chinese and crack on. Rob would take out a mortgage to pay the hospital car-parking fee, but it would be worth it if they could find some more details today.

  After wolfing down the Chinese and trying to process all this new information, they settled back down to finding more evidence. They decided to look at the detailed transaction history of the amounts coming into the main Cayman Island account. If they could track these payments back to the UK bank accounts, they could really open up this conspiracy.

  “Now this should be much easier,” said Clark. “If we can find the UK sort code and account number against each transaction, I have a hacked list that will basically give me the account holders from any ban
k in the UK.”

  “I am really not going to ask how you got that,” said Rob wearily. He tried to ignore how complicit he was now being in each act of criminal behaviour that investigating this conspiracy was forcing them to undertake.

  Clark smiled inwardly. There was no turning back now.

  Having conjectured that the Hardacres had made one of the five original payments, they looked at the other four.

  They drilled behind the payment details of the first payment and for once found a nice, neat trail. The sort code and account number were present. It was from a Barclays account in London. Clark went to his hacked information and found it belonged to a Mr Arthur Baltimore. He immediately switched to his search engine to find out who this man was. Rob watched on with anticipation.

  “Right, our Mr Baltimore is a property developer, thirty-two years of age, a portfolio of London properties. Seriously rich. Lives in Holland Park with his wife and three-year-old son and… very interesting, a major donor to James Hardacre’s leadership bid.”

  They looked at the next one. This one was from Coutts in London. That rather told them before they looked what sort of person this was going to be. The account holder was a Geoffrey Pottinger. Again, they searched the web.

  “Geoffrey Pottinger is thirty-six, a CEO of a major chain of luxury hotels across the UK. He lives in Kensington with his wife and three-year-old daughter. He seems to be rich, well connected, particularly with William Hardacre. There are lots of photos of them together at various swanky functions in Mayfair and Park Lane.”

  “So, more evidence of the Hardacres’ involvement?”

  “Well, their associations are interesting but all the evidence is still circumstantial. James Hardacre’s name on one email is still not going to be enough. We need more.”

  They looked at the last two of the original payments. The first one was from another Coutts account and belonged to a Rupert Blakeney-Smyth. He was thirty, a merchant banker, living in Surrey with his wife and three-year-old daughter. No obvious links with the Hardacres but working in the type of environment that would almost certainly expose him to the rich crowd.

  They started looking at the last one and as Clark flicked to the account details, he froze.

  “What is it?” said Rob.

  Clark looked at him with disbelief.

  “Would you believe our last payment came from Hassan Chandra.”

  55

  He was now really pissed off. Rob’s car was still in the car park and he had sat around almost all day waiting for him to return. He had no idea where he had gone and was worried that Rob was somehow onto him and had deliberately given him the slip. He would have to return at some point as the car park didn’t allow overnight parking.

  Fuck this. I am not wasting any more time. I am going home.

  As he drove home he got a call from his father.

  “Have you made any progress?”

  He didn’t really want to tell his father about the day’s events. He would only give him more grief.

  “No, still doing my same old boring routine. Nothing new.”

  “Well it is a good job that one of us is doing something useful. The people monitoring Rob’s phone calls have highlighted another problem.”

  “What?”

  “They say that over the last week he has received four phone calls from different mobile numbers, each of which can be traced back to a police officer involved in the investigations of the girls’ accidents. Our police contact has checked with his contacts in each force and whilst none of these officers are on our payroll he has been able to glean that they were asked to phone Rob and provide details of the status of the investigations. Rather regrettably it seems each of these officers told Rob outright, or let it slip, that the cases had been handed over to our contact and his agency.”

  “Oh, that is a problem.”

  “Too right. He is spitting chips and wants this dealt with. However, if we kill Rob we lose all possibility of finding out for sure whether he is getting help. This is getting alarmingly out of control and I really don’t have time to be dealing with this. I will give some thought to our next steps and call you. In the meantime, keep tracking him and see if you can find anything else. I want results!”

  The call was abruptly ended. He put his foot down on the accelerator and tried to control his rage.

  I’m done.

  56

  What is the definition of obsession?

  ‘The state of being obsessed with someone or something. An idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind.’

  Yep. Clark was there all right. His dad’s picture a constant reminder of what was driving him. His lively relationship with Rob, spurring him on as each day they found more and more.

  We are going to do this, Dad. We are going to crack this conspiracy. I can feel it.

  He couldn’t wait for Rob to turn up again. He wanted to crack on with the bank now he had free access and Snap’s protocols seemed to be holding.

  Right, let’s have a look at the two new transactions.

  Clark went into the main Cayman Island account and found the UK sort code and account number for the first of the recent payments. The account was Lloyds Bank, Windsor and belonged to a Charles McKenna. A search of his online records identified him as fifty-five years old, living in Windsor with his wife. He seemed to have two grown-up children and had a number of chairperson and non-executive director roles, including one of the companies owned by William Hardacre and the Berkshire General Hospital.

  Clark was not surprised to find the Hardacre connection but the hospital one worried him. Was this a happy coincidence for the conspirators that Anya happened to be in the hospital where Mr McKenna was a non-executive director? Could he be keeping an eye on Anya’s progress and feeding updates to them?

  He looked at the final payment. It was from a Barclays account in London and belonged to a Castro Popadopalous. His online records identified him as a twenty-four-year-old city trader. He was of Greek origin, living with his partner in a swanky apartment complex in Battersea. No children. There were no obvious connections to the Hardacres but he was an active member of the local political party. Could he be linked with the local MP… George Walker?

  He added the client names to the ever-expanding murder board. It was good. They did have something. Clear evidence of big amounts of money changing hands and, he was sure, people being murdered to protect the secrets. God though, it was frustrating because Clark knew that a good lawyer could probably knock down everything they had found with some clever words.

  Clark stewed on it some more. What had they found? A clear money trail, six clients plus maybe the Hardacres, but paying for what? The evidence trails clearly implicated Dr Normandy and George Walker but the Hardacre links, whilst prevalent, were still circumstantial.

  He agonised. Would the bank transactions be enough to implicate and prosecute the ‘clients’?

  Clark knew the answers to these questions… no… they needed more. They needed to get in the clinic. Maybe that was the only way they could prove what was going on. Catch the bastards red handed.

  He had a break and tried to clear his mind. He played a bit of FIFA 18, won as usual, against some online opponent called MessyRunaldo… oh dear, what a lame arse.

  Come on brain. Get yourself sorted. What can I do next?

  Clark looked again at the board. The clinic? What about the stuff that Janice had told Rob? His vigour was back.

  OK Janice, let’s see if what you told us can help. Now, where can I find the plans to this place?

  Clark searched the public records and found the basic internal and external plans of the Loughborough Clinic. He downloaded the plans and studied the layout.

  The plans showed the main clinic layout, the outside space and the secure perimeter. Janice had said there was a priv
ate clinic, well away from the main clinic, towards the back of the site. The plans showed a large area that seemed to have a number of rooms within an enclosed area. The detail was a little light and Clark couldn’t conclusively confirm that this was the area Janice was talking about, but it seemed a pretty good bet. There seemed to be access routes from the main clinic to this area, which meant it wasn’t a separate secure location.

  Clark decided to have a bit of fun and hacked back into the Fairport Medical servers. He found the CCTV feeds and discreetly piggybacked onto their live CCTV management system. He used the plans to navigate between the different camera feeds to try to orientate himself with what he was seeing.

  There were camera feeds at the main entrance, the ones that would have picked up Anya and Rob on their failed attempt to get in. There were feeds around the perimeter, in the main reception and along all the main corridors. There were a couple in what looked like treatment clinics but, cross referencing with the plans, it was clear that not all rooms were covered by CCTV. Critically there did not seem to be any cameras in the private clinic.

  Clark looked again at all the corridor cameras and managed to navigate his way from the main clinic to the area where he thought the private clinic should be. Sure enough there seemed to be relatively free access along these routes, only broken by normal fobbed security doors that he could see staff going through relatively unrestricted. He stopped on the camera that was in the corridor that the plans said skirted the private clinic. The images were sharp but still inconclusive. He couldn’t work out whether there was an entrance door along this corridor and, as no one was allowed in the clinic, there was no real traffic at this end of the building.

  He was just about to give up this little ruse when a figure appeared from behind a small alcove along the corridor.

  Shit. That’s Dr Normandy.

  The CCTV camera was not picking up the door that he had come out of, because of the alcove being set back from the line of the main wall, but Clark was sure this was the entrance.