by Ruby Loren
“On CrimeWatch it said you manage to convince people you’re a genuinely successful company. How?” I asked, wondering if I could play for time. Unfortunately, the zoo was busy, and technically, no one should be in here until around 10:30, which had been an hour or so away when Tiff and I had entered the staffroom.
“It’s very complicated,” Sara said, examining her manicured nails. She also seemed to know the time and that no one was likely to come this way anytime soon. “A marketing email gets sent out. When someone clicks the link in it, they’re taken to what looks like the official site of the events company we’re spoofing. Only, there’s an extra page added on that belongs to us, and it’s the only place where you can add your special money off discount code and sign up for a call with us.” She smiled. “It was an expensive piece of work developing what is essentially a computer virus that overlays certain website details with our own when activated, but it has certainly earned us our money back.”
“Surely if someone checked on a different computer, they’d realise,” I said, shocked that anyone would fall for it.
“It’s less likely than you think. Most people will go via the email link we sent them, as it’s the only way to access the secret discount. They’ll click it on the new device and hey presto, the virus is working again. If they don’t click the link, the extra page doesn’t come up. The customer thinks it’s because it’s only accessible with the newsletter. No one has noticed that the contact information also changes. Who really takes notice of whether there are dashes in an email address, or not, or remembers the telephone numbers listed? We piggyback on a company with a good reputation, charge a better than fair fee and land the job.”
“And then you persuade the business to let your company run all admissions and event transactions, before taking it all,” I concluded.
Sara laughed. “That’s it!”
“What about the staff? Are they all working for you?” I asked.
Barnaby smiled and suddenly he didn’t look like such a silver fox, more like a very sly one. “Events staff are a fascinating breed. They will work for a specified amount of time on the promise of a big bonus at the end, depending how much commission they earn. We haven’t paid anyone a penny yet. By the time they realise, we’ll be gone. All of the animal hire and props, we get that on credit, too. That way, we get to keep everything. No one ever realises until it’s too late. By then, we’re two different people running a brand new events company in a new part of the country. The police will never catch us because, for the most part, we work the same way most of the legitimate companies do! It’s a bad industry for the workers,” he said with a self-satisfied smile.
“It’s only bad when self-serving people like yourselves take advantage of the goodwill of others. You put family run attractions out of business. You ruin peoples’ dreams,” I said, stunned at how heartless the couple could be.
“We’re doing businesses a favour. You’d be amazed how much community support there is after we’ve hit a place. I swear some of them make an absolute killing when we’re gone,” he said, shaking his head
“That doesn’t justify what you do,” I told him.
Barnaby groaned in annoyance - a far cry from the attentive and kind man I’d thought I knew.
“I knew you were someone to keep an eye on. When I did all of my research about the zoo, I found out what happened here with the last owner.” He shook his head. “When I dug a little deeper, I also found out who it was who happened to catch the criminals in the act. The zoo has it’s own little Nancy Drew.” He smirked.
For a strange moment, I found I wished I had Lowell here with me. Now would have been the perfect time for him to burst into the room and distract the bad guys, the way I’d done when he’d been in trouble the time Barnaby was talking about.
“That’s how you knew about the poison,” I said, remembering that the cause of the serval’s death had landed in the press, resulting in the arrival of animal activists, both real and fake.
“We always make sure we plan for every eventuality, including a contingency plan if anything goes wrong. I really did send Jenna a marketing video to show to her interns when we were still ironing out the contract here. I had no idea CrimeWatch was going to run that feature, same as they tend to do every Christmas. It’s never bothered us before, as we always change our appearances so much, but after I came in to sign the contract, Jenna said hello. Then told me she knew who I really was and said she was able to prove it.”
“Why would she tell you?” I said, confused.
Barnaby shot me a rueful grin. “I think she took a fancy to me. Perhaps she thought she could get a cut, or join us. Sorry to tell you this, but your friend wasn’t a saint. Or who knows? Maybe she wanted to give us a chance to hand ourselves in and thought she would be a hero. Some people watch too many films.” He shrugged. “I never found out what she wanted. We’d agreed to talk about it the day after the party.”
“You killed her before she could talk to you,” I said, feeling sick with fury.
“It was too easy to get her one last drink and slip the poison in. Even if it hadn’t been a blue drink, she was so drunk, she wouldn’t have noticed anyway. You made getting the poison a piece of cake, too. One of the first things I asked the caretaking team after I’d signed the contract and spoken to Jenna was where all of the heavy duty cleaning products and pest control items were kept, you know… for future reference. I knew if there was something useful, it would be kept there. ”
“Then you fixed the crime scene to make it look like her death had something to do with an annoyed lover, or an enraged partner,” I concluded.
Barnaby shrugged. “It worked. The same way that dropping those cigarettes was supposed to be a convenient end to that interferer O’Reilly and also a way to get rid of any inconvenient evidence that Jenna might have left lying around. Not that I thought she was smart enough to do that,” he said, disdainfully.
I bristled. Jenna had been smarter than any of us had given her credit for. She’d even hidden the evidence that would have acted as the safety policy on her life… had Barnaby not killed her first.
“Why try to kill Lawrence?” I asked, still confused by that part. Barnaby had called him ‘interfering’ but that had just been his way.
“The job’s not done when we’ve signed a contract. We always have to submit our finance reports and so on as we go along to whatever finance team an attraction has. Having a professional accountancy team is part of what we claim to have, but actually paying for one would be a nightmare. We have a set of templates we edit for every job. It slips straight by most people. They’re too impressed by the numbers at the bottom of the page. This time, we hit a snag. The old man had a lot of questions about the money we were making, and it got to the point where they were hard to answer. We’d have had to hire a crooked accountant, or get rid of the old man. I’m sure you can see which option was preferable, on our tight budget.”
I shook my head at him. Killing off an old man because it was convenient and might also help to tie up some other loose ends? It was just another show of how despicable these criminals were.
“Who knew that a small-time zoo like this one would have paid the extra for a fire-safe office suite?” Barnaby looked disgusted. “That’s a one in a million chance!” He looked at me with those warm eyes that had inspired what I’d thought was friendship. He’d seemed so likeable, but that was the whole point, right? The best conmen of all of were easy to like.
“Family run attractions have the potential to make more money than anyone ever expects. They have respected names, a good support base, and best of all, police who aren’t used to dealing with any criminals who aren’t bumbling fools. Who knows? They may even chalk it all up in your name and we’ll just be the scammers who got away…” He raised the blue packet. “It’s worth it for the millions we’re walking away with.”
“I’m not taking it, and good luck forcing me!” I said. I may be little but I was cert
ainly fierce and ready to fight tooth and nail.
“Barnaby, get on with it!” Sara said, suddenly deciding it was time to make an end.
That was when Tiff walked into the room, looking greener than ever.
“Madi, I think I might need to go home…” she started to say and then froze at the sight of Barnaby holding an axe above my head.
I knew an opportunity when I saw it.
I dived forwards across the coffee table, scattering magazines and half-empty mugs, before rolling across the floor and running at Sara. I heard Barnaby cry out in anger and something swooshed through the air. My legs pushed me to the right. There was a ‘thunk’ when the axe imbedded itself in the wall, just half a metre away from Sara’s head.
“Idiot!” she screamed and wrenched the axe free from the wall. Unfortunately, that meant the gatekeeper I had to get past was now armed.
“Tiff, they’re murderers!” I said, probably somewhat redundantly, considering Barnaby had just thrown an axe at my head.
My best friend wasted no time in picking up the mugs I’d scattered when I’d jumped across the table and flinging them at Barnaby. He grunted and covered his face with his arms, trying to get close to Tiff, so he could probably get rid of her, too.
Never before had I so badly wished that someone would skive off for an early coffee break…
Sara swung the hand axe straight at my head. I ducked. Luck was on my side. Sara was only ever supposed to play the part of the events overseer. She didn’t have much experience of doing anything with an axe. I watched as her swing carried on, leaving her off balance.
A quick trip and a push sent her sprawling across the floor.
“Come on, Tiff!” I shouted, just as she threw the last mug.
Barnaby ducked it and ran towards her, his hands aiming for her throat.
I abandoned my escape and ran towards him, grabbing a wooden stool on the way. It was too late. I could see Barnaby was about to throttle Tiff before I could even get close!
Suddenly, her face turned even more green and she was sick… all over Barnaby.
“Sorry,” Tiff said, British manners getting the better of her and forcing her to apologise to the man trying to murder her.
Fortunately, I was not crippled by politeness. Whilst Barnaby was still looking down at the chunks of half-digested mince pie in horror, I swung the stool. Tiff’s eyes widened for a moment. He turned slightly before the stool clocked him right on the back of his head.
He collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
There was no time for me to admire my film-worthy heroics, Sara was probably about to swing the axe again!
I spun round and discovered she was gone. The door was open, but there was no sign of the other con artist.
“She’s running!” I said, noting that she’d taken the axe with her.
What happened next could only be karma in action. I heard Harry’s voice shout Tiff’s name in rage. The next moment, there was an ‘ooph’ that sounded awfully like two people colliding at high speed.
Tiff and I rushed around the corner to find Harry rubbing his head and Sara barely moving on the floor, the axe on the floor, a little way down the corridor.
Trust Harry to be thickheaded enough to be fine after that! I privately thought.
“Make sure she doesn’t move, and I guarantee you’ll be a hero in the police’s eyes,” I told him, thinking fast.
I pulled out my phone and dialled 999, just as Harry started to demand to know what was going on.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! If you want to have a shot at getting Julia to forgive you for being such an ass, make sure she doesn’t get away. Being a hero will give you major Brownie points!” I shouted at him in-between telling the police to get here right now because we’d caught some high level con artists who had also turned out to be the murderers and arsonists they were searching for.
Harry obediently sat on Sara, who tried to get out from beneath his weight for a moment and then gave up.
I hung up the phone, and Tiff came to stand next to me.
“Do you know what? I’m feeling much better now,” she said.
Epilogue
The police arrived and only needed a moderate amount of convincing to arrest the still-unconscious Barnaby and the half-squashed Sara instead of the person responsible for knocking Barnaby out. The handy bag of poison swung it, and as soon as I showed them the CrimeWatch film I’d found on Jenna’s hard drive, and told them to look really carefully at the redheaded couple, they’d realised I was telling the truth.
Even better, two days later, we’d received the news that all of the funds the zoo had made so far from the Winter Wonderland were safe in a brand new business bank account. As part of the ruse, the scammers gave genuine earning figures to the attractions they were working with, so there would be absolutely no chance of them working out a scam was going on… until one day, the scammers disappeared with all of the money. If that wasn’t enough good news, with Barnaby and Sara under arrest, all Winter Wonderland responsibilities reverted to Avery Zoo. There were still the trees and the hire of the animals to pay for, as well as the staff who’d been promised wages they were now going to receive, but it still left Avery Zoo with a lot more money than expected, when they’d still been paying a flat fee and the company’s commission.
Auryn had thanked me for saving the zoo from disaster and had then asked if I wouldn’t mind overseeing the wonderland, as he needed someone reliable and trustworthy to finish the job. I’d told him it wasn’t a problem, just so long as Tiff could help me out with it. She was the one with the commercial experience. Auryn had been thrilled to learn that Tiff and I were friends again and that the past had been swept away. He’d promised us big fat Christmas bonuses and his undying gratitude, which I thought both Tiff and I valued more than the extra money.
The biggest surprise had come a day after the press had heard about the two big-time scammers who had finally been caught. CrimeWatch had turned up with a reward for me, Tiff, and Harry. Julia had decided to forgive Harry in the light of his criminal-catching heroics, and the wedding was back on, with a little extra money to spend on it, too.
With all of the added press attention on the zoo, (which actually resulted in even more visitors to the wonderland!) it should have come as no surprise that Diane would turn up again, shouting about her lineage and her right to everything the press saw before them. Fortunately, before she could become a quirky news story, the police arrested her on the grounds of property damage and causing a public nuisance. They were petty charges, but it was enough to hold her whilst some proper investigating was done. I suspected that the police had done it as a way to make amends for putting so much pressure on various members of the zoo to confess to Jenna’s murder. What they managed to turn up was interesting. According to Auryn, his grandad had been friendly with Diane’s mother, and there were even records of him sending money to her… but it had been as an additional pension after her husband had died, and she’d been forced to retire from working at the local post office to look after Diane. Diane had been born when her father had still been very much alive, and there had never been any doubt of her true parentage.
From what the police had dug up, it sounded like a case of Charles Avery being charitable. However, even if Diane had turned out to be his illegitimate child, the payments he’d given to her mother equated to more than any child support payment would have been. Beyond that, there wasn’t any doubt over who owned everything. Charles Avery had changed his will prior to his death, writing out his son and specifying that absolutely everything was passed onto Auryn instead. Illegitimate or not, the zoo had skipped a generation.
Unsurprisingly, when Diane had been presented with all of the facts, she’d dropped her claim and was never seen at Avery Zoo again.
Now the truth was out in the zoo about who was responsible for the awful crimes of the past few weeks, and that the criminals had got what they deserved, the Christmas spirit was starting to app
ear. There was the ill-organised Christmas party to look forward to tonight (those plans hadn’t been on the hard drive, so we could only assume Jenna had been going to plan it at the last minute) and everyone was thrilled that the zoo was very obviously back in the black. Jobs were safe and Christmas cheer was everywhere.
I walked up to Auryn’s office but met Claudia halfway up the stairs.
“Well done for catching those crooks, Madi. I can’t tell you how stupid I feel for not asking them the right questions. I guess because I was new to this job and didn’t want to rock any boats, I was less inquisitive than I should have been. I even pushed Auryn into saying yes because I thought it was a good offer! My grandfather may have been mean, but at least he was starting to figure out something was wrong with the events team. I would never have had a clue. I can’t believe that I actually…” She trailed off and I knew she was thinking about Barnaby.
I smiled at her. “He was easy to like. That was a big part of why the pair were so successful. Jenna’s the one we owe for figuring everything out. If she hadn’t hidden the hard drive, the scammers would have got away with it.”
“How did you know where to look?” Claudia asked, curious.
I thought back to the events of a rather dramatic Valentine’s Day almost two years ago. “It’s a long story. Let’s just say, I don’t think it was the first time she used that particular spot to hide a secret.”
I shook my head. “Do you know what’s ironic about the whole thing? Their fake events company did a better job than all of the real ones I’ve seen in action. If they’d stayed the course and had just taken what they were owed, they could have had a real successful business, without the crime.”
Claudia’s mouth twisted. “It would have made them some money, but less than you think. The offer was a bit too good to be true, looking back. The unexpected success of the zoo would have helped boost profits, but once you take into account the staff and the high quality of the Christmas trees, Father Christmas actor, and the animals they hired, there wasn’t that much profit left over.” She shook her head. “I should have figured that out, but the totals looked so big! I think that’s what Grandfather might have been getting at, and I just ignored him.” She frowned. “I thought he was just trying to be difficult. The same way he was when he asked me to persuade Auryn to buy the estate’s guard-peacocks that he’d purchased the other year. He grew bored when they learned that visiting family weren’t strangers and stopped going after them. He knew full well that they were unsuitable for the zoo! They’ve been specially trained to attack anyone they don’t know.”