Acts of Kindness

by Heather Barnett

  ‘Some of our clients, she told him, had asked AC to test their systems. Cybersecurity penetration tests, checking their firewalls and threat detection systems were fit for purpose, that kind of thing. She gave him a list of tests to carry out, telling him the clients were prepared and it was all a dry run. One of the tasks on his list was to see if he could hack their accounts and steal large sums of money. They all happened to bank at the same place, I don’t know if Isadora had some insider knowledge of a security issue at that particular bank but it seems possible.

  ‘Anyway, Teddy – who, remember, had worked alongside and trusted this woman for over twenty years – took the list away to his little cubbyhole office and got started. She’d given him the project in November but told him to spread the hits out. She sent him a spreadsheet of which accounts to take money from and where to transfer it to.

  ‘But you’ve already seen that spreadsheet so you know what I’m talking about.’

  Concentrating on the road was getting harder and harder. Bella saw a layby up ahead, indicated, and pulled into it.

  ‘I’ve seen a spreadsheet,’ she said, warily, when she’d brought the car to a stop. ‘It doesn’t prove what you’re saying or who’s behind it.’

  ‘No, okay. Well, I’ll come on to that. In the meantime, I had some suspicions about Isadora. Her behaviour and that of some in her inner circle was verging on obsession, and it worried me. I knew enough about OAK’s finances to be sceptical about her explanations of how we were funding the US expansion. So, I started doing some digging, and by pulling in a couple of favours I managed to access some very interesting files. And then I stumbled across what Teddy was doing.

  ‘I assumed he was a willing accomplice at the start, it seemed pretty incriminating. I thought he’d be easier to influence than Isadora and I sent him a message telling him to meet me, in the hope that I could persuade him to stop doing what he was doing.

  ‘For Teddy, that message was a wake-up call. He’s not a stupid man, but he is gullible. By this time, though, even for him questions had started to come up in his mind about why there were so many transactions, why the money was being transferred to different accounts, why he hadn’t yet been instructed to transfer it back. He couldn’t believe Isadora could be knowingly stealing from her clients, but he began to suspect something very wrong was happening. He copied evidence of what he’d been doing on to a data stick that he left with Maggie on the day he was due to come in for the meeting with me.’

  So far, so plausible, thought Bella. But Ben’s a clever man. Of course he’s got a believable story ready. He knows I’ve seen the USB, he had to have something prepared that would match what’s on there.

  ‘When I met Teddy that evening,’ Ben continued, ‘I expected to see a guilty man. But what I found was that as soon as I confirmed he’d actually been stealing money, rather than pretending to steal money, he was distraught. He couldn’t believe that Isadora could do such a thing but after I’d talked him through the circumstances leading up to it, he came to realise it was true. It was quite a blow for someone like Teddy, who thinks everyone is as honest as he is. The next thing to convince him of was that he was in danger. From what he told me of the amounts stolen, the cashflow shortfall had already been covered several times over. Isadora had realised there was an easy supply of money, and why should she stop because she’d solved her short-term issue? This money could fund an even greater expansion plan for OAK.’

  ‘You’re trying to make me believe,’ Bella said, ‘that Isadora has no moral compass? That the woman at the head of an organisation aimed at making the world a better place is no more than a petty thief?’

  ‘No. I’m trying to make you see that for Isadora, nothing is more important than OAK. What were those AC clients planning on doing with that money? Paying dividends to their shareholders? Investing it back into their mundane businesses? How much better could that money be used if it were diverted into OAK! That would be the way Isadora could reconcile herself to stealing it.’

  Bella ran a hand through her hair. She was struggling to see the fastidious, upstanding little woman who led OAK ordering someone to hack into banks and steal money.

  Ben carried on. ‘I needed to convince Teddy that Isadora would keep on making him steal. And that if he refused, he would become very dangerous to her. Because here was someone who could send her to prison and bring down OAK if he chose to speak out. I knew she’d never allow that. We had to make a plan then and there to get him out, I needed to send him somewhere no one would look until we’d worked out how to remove Isadora from the reins of OAK without bringing down the whole operation. I enlisted the help of a friend, James. I think you’ve met him.’

  ‘At his “parents’” drinks party, yes. Although I expect they’re not his parents?’

  ‘No,’ Ben confirmed. ‘David and Pauline are field agents. It was a convenient way for James and Lauren to meet up.’

  ‘Oh yes, Lauren,’ said Bella. ‘I also saw you, James and Lauren together in The Royal Oak that time. How’s Lauren involved in all this?’

  She heard exasperation slip into his tone as he replied. ‘I’ll fill you in on all the details when we’ve more time, Bella. For now, I need to tell you enough about what happened that you’ll know you can trust me.

  ‘James and I persuaded Teddy we needed to hide him somewhere. He wasn’t happy about it, he wanted to get a message to Maggie but we couldn’t risk that. We didn’t want to leave any trace for Isadora, Catherine or Finn to find. We staged a disappearance, hiding his car at the barns where you found me the other night and smuggling Teddy out to Le Chêne. Where he stayed hidden until our trip out there.’

  Bella’s phone beeped and she looked at the screen. Incoming call from Catherine. They must be wondering where she was.

  ‘Is this going to take much longer?’ she asked. ‘Because I’m expected somewhere.’

  ‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ he said, coldly. ‘I thought you might be interested in what happened to Teddy.’

  ‘I’m interested in the truth,’ she snapped back.

  Ben pressed on. ‘Somehow when we were on Le Chêne, Teddy was discovered. I think Catherine might have stumbled across him.’

  Bella had a sudden flashback to Catherine in the bunker, the noise in the ‘cupboard’ they’d both dismissed. Only maybe Catherine hadn’t dismissed it, maybe she’d gone investigating… No, it was too preposterous, surely?

  ‘I don’t know what happened next,’ Ben was saying, ‘but I think Catherine must have let Isadora know and they sent The Librarian out there. Perhaps to kill Teddy, perhaps to bring him back so Isadora could force him to continue the hacking.’

  Bella remembered Teddy’s unconscious form, the blood on the floor. ‘It didn’t look like he was being gently persuaded to return.’

  ‘No, well, that could have been The Librarian being ham-fisted about the job, which wouldn’t surprise me.’

  Bella almost laughed. ‘For God’s sake, Ben! What are you trying to get me to believe here? I know Isadora, remember. And I know Catherine. They’re good people. I’ve seen nothing in them to make me suspect otherwise. You, however… you’re a different story.’

  ‘Let me finish, Bella, and you’ll understand what’s really happening here,’ he was getting angry now, she could hear it in his voice. He was fighting to keep calm, she was glad she was on the other end of a phone, not in the same room.

  ‘I think you disturbed The Librarian on Le Chêne,’ he continued. ‘My guess is after you screamed, he heard me coming into the building and had to dump Teddy in a side room and escape. When you woke up and told me to go and look for Teddy, I found him on the floor of a bathroom on the first floor. He was coming round. I put pressure on his wound and called Theresa, who came straight away and took him to be treated by a doctor we could trust to keep it quiet.’

  ‘Theresa!’ Bella scoffed. ‘You’re trying to tell me she’s on your side too, now?’

  Ben ignored thi
s. ‘Although there was a lot of blood on the floor,’ he continued, ‘and The Librarian had knocked him out, the wound was superficial and Teddy recovered quickly. He was on the plane with all of us when we flew back from Le Chêne, hidden in one of the crew’s sleeping areas. I got a message to James back home and told him to abduct Isadora.’

  Finally. He was admitting the truth, that he was behind the kidnapping. That right at this moment he was holding her captive.

  ‘Hang on,’ Bella interjected. ‘Are you trying to say the reason you took Isadora was to rescue Teddy? If I asked you, hand on heart, if you abducted her so you could get your hands on OAK and run it yourself, could you say no?’

  Of course, he’ll lie, she thought. And then he surprised her.

  ‘No, I couldn’t. But—’

  She ended the call before he could finish his sentence. Scrolling through her recent call history she pressed Catherine’s number.

  The call was answered before she even heard it ring.

  ‘Bella? Where are you?’ Catherine sounded frantic.

  ‘Sorry. Ben called to “explain” everything. It took a while.’

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. And then, ‘Bella, why did you give him a hearing? The man’s a psychopath!’

  ‘I wanted to hear how he would explain himself. But you were right. He’s got Isadora. Of course he’s blaming all the stuff on the USB on her, he’s not stupid. But it’s as thin as air, his story. He’s desperate to find a way to get hold of that evidence, he’s trying everything he can.’ She released the handbrake. ‘I called to tell you not to worry, I’m on my way.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  If she put her foot down it would take less than five minutes to reach the AC gates. Almost as soon as she’d pulled out of the layby back onto the road her phone rang.

  She groaned in annoyance. The screen showed an unknown number. Ordinarily, she’d ignore it on the assumption it was someone wanting to chat about an accident she might have been involved in that wasn’t her fault. But as it was… She accepted the call.

  ‘Bella.’ Ben’s voice. ‘Don’t hang up. I know you don’t believe me, but there’s someone here you might find more convincing.’ There was some rustling around and then she heard a familiar voice in the background saying, ‘What is it you want me to do? Who?’ And then much more audibly as if the person had taken the phone and was speaking into the receiver, Bella heard Maggie’s voice say, ‘Hello, dear?’

  A car beeped and Bella realised she’d veered over the middle line, dangerously close to oncoming traffic. She swerved back onto her side of the road and braked hard, earning herself another beep – from the car behind her this time – and pulled into the verge, putting her hazard lights on.

  ‘Maggie?’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘Maggie, are you okay?’

  ‘I’ve not had my bacon buttie, since you ask. I like to have a bacon buttie first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Is he… Is Ben holding you hostage? Has he hurt you?’

  There was a peal of laughter. Bella heard her say to someone away from the phone, ‘She wants to know if Ben’s holding us hostage!’ A male voice could be heard laughing. Maggie moved her mouth back to the receiver and said to Bella, ‘I don’t know what gave you that idea, sweetheart. Living in London all that time, I expect. Made you suspicious.’

  ‘But, Maggie,’ Bella insisted, ‘I don’t understand. Why are you with Ben?’

  ‘Well it’s safest, you see,’ she explained. ‘I wasn’t keen at first. He found me walking home from your house through the village and wanted to pick me up in his car. I thought, I know your game, you’re from Acorns, you’re up to no good. But then he explained about my Teddy and everything and asked if I’d like to see him. So, of course I said yes. And here we are.’

  ‘Here… you are? You and Teddy?’

  ‘Yes, and,’ her voice turning into a hiss, ‘that woman from Acorns. But my Teddy and I don’t speak to her.’

  ‘And Teddy’s okay?’

  ‘He’s not been eating well. No one knows how to make his sandwiches the way he likes them except me, you see. But he’s not too bad, considering.’

  Bella heard muffled talking in the background, then Maggie said, ‘What I’m supposed to be telling you, Teddy says, is that you can trust Ben. He saved Teddy on that nasty island and brought him home. To me.’

  Her voice was replaced by Ben’s. ‘We can tell you all about it in person, Bella. You need to come here. Don’t go to OAK, don’t give Catherine the USB. Where are you now?’

  ‘About half a mile from AC, pulled up at the side of the road.’

  ‘Lock your doors and get back on the road as soon as you can, they might be out looking for you. You need to come here to the farm; do you remember where it is?’

  ‘I’ve got it in my satnav.’

  ‘Okay. So, you’ll come?’

  Her brain was grappling with the screeching U-turn it was having to negotiate. But there didn’t seem to be any doubt.

  ‘Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  Bella reached the dirt track to the barns without incident, glancing every minute in her rear-view mirror to check she wasn’t being followed. Bumping down the rutted road, she remembered the last time she’d visited that isolated spot. Ben had been so convincing then that she hadn’t even given a cursory glance into the other buildings. If she had, how differently would everything have panned out? Ben had tricked her that time, could it be that he was pulling the wool over her eyes again now?

  The car hit a large pothole, jolting her head back against the headrest.

  The difference was, Ben alone hadn’t convinced her this time, it had been the reassurance provided by Maggie and the fact that Teddy was with her. That was a piece of evidence that should put her mind at rest.

  The dirt track petered out by a large area of cracked concrete bordering the nearest barn. Bella pulled up onto it and switched off the engine. She sat with her hands on the steering wheel, all energy gone. How long was it since she’d last eaten? Or slept properly? Exhaustion was fuelling her paranoia about Ben and who to trust. Catherine had made so much sense on the phone, she was such an implausible criminal. She’d never seen Catherine so much as put a bit of rubbish in the wrong recycling bin. Come on, Bella, she chided herself. Pull yourself together. There’ll be time to collapse in a heap when Oscar’s safe and this whole OAK mess has been sorted out.

  There was a thud against the passenger window and she leapt out of her seat, banging her head on her window as she threw herself in the opposite direction. For a second all she could see was glasses and a haystack of blonde hair, and then the door was yanked open and Maggie was crawling across the seat towards her, pulling her in for an awkward hug with one arm.

  ‘There you are! Thank goodness Acorns didn’t get you!’ She was half-sitting on the passenger seat now, one knee pressed into the gearstick, pulling a stunned Bella towards her. ‘I knew I was right to ask you to help when I came to your house. Thank you for saving my Teddy.’

  ‘I didn’t…’ Bella tried to extricate herself, patting the other woman’s arm and pulling away. ‘I didn’t save him.’

  Maggie wagged a finger in her face. ‘Don’t be a silly billy. If you hadn’t told Ben to find him, my Teddy might not be here today.’

  A shadow fell across Bella’s side of the car and she looked up to see Ben opening her door.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here, Bella. We need to move your car though, to make sure it can’t be seen from the road.’

  After they’d persuaded Maggie to get out and the Alfa had been re-parked under a lean-to next to Ben’s Aston Martin, Bella got out and looked around her. The three large barns that she’d seen before seemed as unused and deserted as the last time she’d been there. Open fields stretched in every direction, dotted with the occasional tree. The early sun was sparkling in drops of dew in the grass at her feet.

  ‘Come on,’ Ben invited her. �
��We should all get inside out of sight. OAK’s eyes are everywhere, despite our best efforts with the systems.’

  As he strode ahead, dragging open the door of one of the barns, she ran to catch up. When they were all inside Bella helped him push the heavy tractor-sized door closed.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, as he led the way between a tractor and pick-up truck to the back of the barn. ‘Catherine’s got Lauren and Oscar. Cupuli caught them at my house, and when she called me, Catherine said Oscar wasn’t well. She wouldn’t let me speak to him. If Catherine and Isadora are as fanatical as you say I’m worried about what’ll happen to them.’

  Ben was opening the front cover of a fuse box on the wall. The false front flipped open and behind it were concealed a couple of switches. He reached for the top one. ‘You should be. We all should be.’

  He motioned for her to step back and the area of floor where she’d been standing slid aside as he flicked the switch, revealing a concrete shaft which had a metal ladder screwed to its side. Maggie was surprisingly gung-ho; the sound of her brogues rang out against the rungs as she scampered down. Bella had one last moment of doubt before taking a deep breath and following her.

  She stepped off the bottom rung onto the floor of a small square lobby lit by fluorescent lights, one solitary door facing the ladder. Ben joined them, pressed a button in the wall and the trapdoor slid shut. At the touch of another button the door opened.

  Bella found herself in a large, well-lit bunker. To her right was a control panel with a bank of screens, over towards the far wall was an area with tables and chairs and an open door into what looked like a kitchenette, from what she could see of a worktop and sink through the gap. On the other side of a glass partition she could see a row of camp beds and to her left were several closed doors, one of which had a clear panel through which could be seen racks of guns.