Andi shook her head. ‘No, and it’s got nothing to do with that. We’re here to keep out of the way, hopefully where those men won’t find us. This isn’t a holiday.’
‘Yeah, we got that impression. Can we go outside and look around?’
‘I’d prefer you stayed in.’ Sophie and Kristen pulled a face at each other. ‘Go on, get out, but don’t go far.’
The door banged, and she hurried over to the window to watch where they went.
‘I guess it was easier when they were babies,’ said Steven.
She hadn’t heard him come in. ‘I don’t want them away from me, but they’re so antsy already.’
He stood behind her, and put his arms around her. ‘I haven’t heard that word in years.’
‘Tom’s worried about this guy Dave, and someone called Mickey. He saw both of them in London, and he said Mickey looked vicious. I have this horrible feeling that whatever we do, it won’t be enough. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to them.’ She couldn’t stop herself from crying, and buried her face in Steven’s chest, glad of his warmth and strength.
She still had the after-tears headache when Tom rang. ‘Slow down, I can’t understand what you want. A book. Are you okay?’
Tom slowed down, although he still didn’t make much sense. It must be important.
‘It’s something to do with a letter Liam left Tom. Some code they used as kids. Tom thinks that’s what the numbers are at the bottom of the letter,’ she told Steven.
They found Barbara, and asked if the boys had a copy of Lord of the Flies. They searched through the bookshelves in the dining room, the ones in the boys’ rooms, and finally through a pile of boxes Martin and Barbara hadn’t yet unpacked. No book.
‘We could download a copy,’ suggested Martin.
For a second everyone felt hopeful.
‘You mentioned this code was numbers,’ said Steven.
‘Yes,’ said Andi. ‘At least I’m pretty sure it is. Tom gabbled a bit.’
‘If it’s numbers, then I’d guess it’s the type of thing where a number equals a page. There aren’t any pages in an electronic book.’
‘We’ll have to go to town,’ said Martin. ‘Either buy a copy, or get one from the library.’
‘Great,’ said Sophie. ‘We can do a bit of shopping.’
‘No.’ Andi was definite. ‘You can’t swan around the shops.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Martin.
‘How about we go,’ said Steven. Sophie and Kristen high-fived each other. ‘But you can’t look around the shops. We’ll go there, get the book and come straight back. At least you’ll be out for a while. That’s your best offer.’
Andi would have preferred to stay in the house, and let Martin go. Dave and his associates didn’t know Martin, but she understood Steven had tried to find some middle ground.
Steven drove them into Leesham, the nearest town. He dropped Andi outside the bookshop, and said he’d follow the signs for the car park. She searched along the shelves in the shop, but couldn’t find it. Two young assistants stood by the cash registers, giggling about something. One saw the annoyed stare she sent in their direction, and hurried over.
‘I need a copy of Lord of the Flies.’
‘I’m sure we have a copy, it’ll be over here.’ She took Andi to a different section, and pulled the book off the shelf.
‘Thanks.’ Andi now felt guilty for the bad-tempered look she’d given the girl.
When she reached the car park, she saw the others grouped by the car. As she hurried towards them, she held up the paper bag to show she’d been successful.
‘Barbara lent us her library card,’ said Steven. ‘Why don’t you get a copy from there as well?’
‘But we’ve got this one.’
He looked at the first few pages. ‘This is a new edition, the page layout might be different to the one Liam used.’
Andi kissed him.
‘Does this mean you’re back together now?’ asked Sophie.
Steven gave Andi a questioning look, and she smiled at him. ‘I think if we get through this, we’ll be able to work out anything. I’ll just dash round to the library. Be back in a minute.’
Andi found a hardback copy of the book, and fumbled through the self-checkout process, cursing under her breath. Outside, she ran across the road and along to the car park, but they weren’t there.
‘Steven.’ She spun round. Where were they? She’d only been away a few minutes. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw him, but there was no sign of the girls.
‘Sophie, Kristen. Where are they?’
‘Just there.’ He pointed to some children’s swings. ‘Sophie saw the little girl fall off. They went over to help her.’
She should be pleased the girls were caring and helpful, but at the moment, all she wanted was for them to be safely at Martin’s.
Chapter 23
Tom
‘You took your time,’ said Tom, when Andi rang him. ‘Sorry, I guess there wasn’t one in the house.’
‘No, we borrowed one from the library, but also bought one, in case there were differences. My phone was almost dead, so we drove back to use the landline.’
Tom gave her the first page number. He and Liam had used three sets of digits for each word: the first indicated the page number; the second represented the line, and the final digit for the position of the word. He read the numbers to Andi, and they worked on that initial premise for a while, but it didn’t make any sense.
‘Let’s try working backwards,’ he suggested, and started with the final numbers in the list.
‘That’s no good,’ said Andi, after a few minutes.
‘Bloody hell, this is so annoying. I really thought we had it.’
Andi flicked through the book. ‘Does it look like the codes you used?’
‘I guess so. It was over twenty years ago, and we only did it a few times. We found the word we wanted on a page, and then wrote down the page, line and word number for the clue.’ He switched the phone to his other ear, and glanced at the battery indicator. Thank goodness he’d charged it before he went to bed. He picked up the letter from Liam again. As children they’d always kept their clues fairly short, mainly because they got bored if they spent too much time on the code. There were many more numbers on the sheet of paper than he remembered from their childhood attempts, but what if the message wasn’t any longer – what if the words Liam needed weren’t in the book?
‘Andi, I’ve just had a thought. Let’s start this again.’
Finally he had the message. Liam used the code to point him to individual letters, rather than words. It gave an address in Geneva.
He rang Vivienne and left a message to say he had to leave unexpectedly, but he would be back.
He only had five days before the threats became reality. His concern had to be for the living, not the dead.
*
Tom decided to drive to Geneva. He wasn’t sure if it was quicker, but there couldn’t be much in it, and he’d be mobile as soon as he arrived in the city. He used the main roads to avoid getting lost. He would probably manage that when he reached Geneva.
A Swiss bank? It was a cliché, but one that would appeal to Liam. Perhaps he’d chosen Geneva rather than Zurich for his individual touch, or he might just have been in Geneva at the time.
Tom bought a drink and some food, but he didn’t want to waste time, and ate as he drove. It was now late, and he yawned. As houses, and then offices and stores appeared, he decided to stop at the first hotel he saw. He’d find the address in the morning. If it was a bank, he’d have to wait until business hours anyway.
He was tired after the drive and the emotion of the past days, but he only dozed, and woke long before it was light. Please don’t let this be a dead end, or a waste of time. Please let this be a solution to get Dave and his boss out of their lives. He’d never prayed before, but he did now, in his own fashion, to whatever was out there.
In his haste
to leave the hotel, he forgot to ask for directions. The only thing he knew about Geneva was the lake. He saw it, and the water spout, from more angles and directions than he thought possible, as he searched for the address. Old buildings rubbed shoulders with newer office blocks, and he sighed as he passed the lake, yet again. He pulled in next to a group of taxi drivers, and showed them the address. They gave him directions, with a lot of gesticulating and friendly arguments between themselves as to the quickest route. Tom didn’t care about the merits of each one; he just wanted to get there.
He finally found the road, a narrow lane of ancient buildings, and parked a few streets away. The street numbering wasn’t always consecutive, and some buildings weren’t numbered. Tom walked along both sides before he saw a small brass plate which discreetly displayed the name of a bank.
His guess had been correct. It was obvious, but until then nothing else had been. He had the address, but no account number.
Liam said the trail ended with the note from Vivienne. If he planned this, then he must already have given Tom the account number.
Tom hurried back to the car and pulled his laptop out of the boot. He noticed a café nearby, and went there. Great, they had free Wi-Fi for customers. He ordered a drink, and then started up his laptop. He found the file from Liam’s USB drive, and navigated to the online email account. His hands hovered over the keyboard as he looked at the password box and the flashing cursor.
Liam’s cryptic message about long-ago summers came to mind, and he tried the word Kricken. The familiar message appeared. Username or password is incorrect. He swore softly under his breath.
What the hell was the password? He and Andi had already tried every combination of birth dates, and family and pet names they could think of.
The waitress brought his drink. He thanked her, and idly stirred the coffee while his brain churned over anything they might have forgotten. The street outside was quiet, and few people walked past.
What could Liam have used?
Long-ago summers. He tried every word he could think of to do with summer, whether or not he associated it with Liam and their childhood. Nothing worked. In exasperation, he tried some of the password ideas they’d already checked. What the hell was this password? There was no point to this if he couldn’t get into the email account.
A waitress picked up his empty cup, and he nodded when she asked if he wanted another drink. He stared out of the window. Liam always had to be too clever. He was in Geneva. Outside the bank. His chest tightened, as frustration and anger flooded him. He wanted to hurl the laptop through the café window.
Two young boys wandered along the pavement. They were arguing over a toy, both of them tugged at it. The summer Liam was ten. He was pretty sure they’d devised Kricken that year. An idea came to him. So simple. Maybe too simple for Liam. He typed in Liam’s Kricken name and saw the now familiar message – failed again. His heart thumped down into his stomach. He wasn’t smart enough for this.
What about him? Tom typed in his Kricken name. The screen flickered, and then an empty inbox appeared.
Empty. After all that effort.
He stared at the expanse of blankness, and felt sick. Surely it should be easier than this. He reached out to close the laptop lid, and then he saw the bolded number in brackets next to the Drafts folder. His hand trembled as he clicked the folder icon.
Two emails.
He opened the first, and stared at the series of numbers he’d received from Vivienne. He pulled out the letter and checked. Yes, they were the same.
The second email consisted of a dozen or so numbers. A bank account?
He stared at the figures, hardly daring to believe what he saw. So much fear and worry. Could this be the answer?
Before he lost his nerve, he scribbled the numbers onto a piece of paper and closed his laptop. He shoved it into the car boot, and went to the bank.
As the door closed, silence settled on him. It didn’t look like a bank. There were no tellers or customers, just a smartly dressed, middle-aged woman seated at a highly polished wood desk.
‘How can I help you, sir?’
He was so surprised she realised he was English he couldn’t think what to say.
‘You wish to see someone about your account, or to open one?’ she asked.
He certainly didn’t want to open one. Tom showed the woman the numbers he’d written down. This had to be it. The cold, sick sensation in his stomach had become horribly familiar.
‘I will get someone to see you about your account.’
He felt a brief surge of euphoria, before he realised this would be where it all fell apart. He didn’t have an account. Liam obviously had one, but he was dead, as was Chris Toogood. How to explain this to a stranger? They wouldn’t care. It wasn’t their place to care. Why had he even bothered to come here?
The woman spoke briefly on the phone, and then took Tom to a meeting room. ‘Monsieur Dupree will be with you directly.’
As if her words had conjured him out of nowhere, a thin man in a dark suit appeared behind her.
‘Good day, Mr Trethowan,’ he said, and shook hands. ‘I understand you wish to discuss your account.’
‘Yes,’ said Tom. How could he explain this?
‘Before we proceed any further, I will need to see identification.’ The man made an apologetic movement with his hands, but his professionally impassive expression didn’t change.
‘Well…’ began Tom, and then he thought of the two driving licences in Liam’s bureau. One in Chris Toogood’s name, and the other in his name. There must be a reason for that.
Tom pulled out his own driving licence and passport, and handed them to Monsieur Dupree. His chest hurt as his heart thumped. Had he guessed correctly, or did they have a photo of Liam in their records?
The banker checked the driving licence and passport, glanced at Tom, and then waved him to a seat on one side of the desk. He gave Tom the documents and sat opposite him, a keyboard and monitor on his side of the desk. ‘That all seems to be in order. How can I help you?’
‘I’d like to check what’s in the account.’
Monsieur Dupree nodded, as if he had seen and heard everything. He turned to the computer and tapped on the keyboard for a moment. A printer on the shelf behind him whirred into life, and produced a single sheet of paper. Monsieur Dupree handed it to Tom.
‘I will leave you to your deliberations. Just press the button,’ he pointed to a discreet button on the light switch console, ‘and I will return.’
The column headings were similar to the ones Tom saw on his own bank account, but the figure in the right hand column made him stare. Just over three million – Tom’s breath caught in his throat. He never thought he would see such a figure so close to his own name.
Time passed, and still he stared at the sheet of paper, lines furrowed his forehead. If he had ever doubted Janine, he now had proof. This account was in his name, somewhere there must be an account in Chris Toogood’s name. There were probably accounts in other names. They would never be accessed now.
He reached over to the light console and pressed the button. A minute later, Monsieur Dupree opened the door.
‘I assume I can take money out of this account? In cash?’
The banker nodded.
‘And I can arrange for money to be transferred from this account to another one?’
‘But of course,’ said the banker. ‘I will get the information you need.’
When had Liam opened these accounts? Probably while still in London. He could easily have flown to Geneva and organised it, or more likely conducted the business over the phone or online. These institutions were renowned for privacy.
Tom looked at the sheet again. There were just two transactions. An initial deposit of one million, and a second credit transfer which took the account to its present balance. Liam arranged that while staying with Vivienne.
He could take this money and disappear. That’s what Liam would do. It
was exactly what Liam had done. He could see Andi and the twins, and behind her Janine, but he didn’t need those images. He couldn’t do something like that. He wasn’t Liam, and he wanted this to be over. He glanced again at the figure in the balance column. Exactly the amount he needed for Dave’s boss, and the discrepancies Janine had discovered.
Liam understood him much better than he’d ever known Liam.
He grinned at the irony.
Janine could submit her report. Thornley Trust wouldn’t want to publicise that Liam had used their own lack of processes to make so much money. They’d be happy to get it back and not take matters any further, especially as he now had proof Liam was dead.
But his priority was to get Dave and his employer out of their lives. Whatever the rights or wrongs of gambling and the debts, the threat to Andi and the twins was too real. How to get this money back to Dave’s boss?
He could imagine Liam’s laughter.
Monsieur Dupree tapped on the door and came in. ‘Here are the details you need to transfer money from your account. Do you wish to withdraw cash now?’
Dave’s boss probably wasn’t into bank transfers. ‘Yes, I do.’
The banker inclined his head in a minimalistic nod.
‘I will get a form for you to complete.’
Damn, this could be awkward. More than awkward. This could be when the whole thing fell apart. He hadn’t thought it through. Liam must have signed a form to open the account. He should have known this was too easy. They would check his signature against one they held on file.
He was Tom Trethowan, the person he claimed to be, that was the irony. But he wasn’t the person who opened the account. Would the bank call the police? His heart hammered against his ribs. Visions of Swiss prisons filled his head. He’d never heard about them, but he guessed the Swiss had prisons. Should he just leave and say he didn’t have time.
Monsieur Dupree put a form down in front of him. Tom pulled his shoulders back and filled in the form for £800,000. He paused briefly, and then signed on the grey line at the bottom of the sheet. What excuse could he give for the difference? Too late now to think about a bandage for his hand, and claim he’d injured it. Monsieur Dupree frowned as he looked at the form. He glanced at his screen, and then at Tom.
Lies of the Dead Page 16