The Great Escape (18 page)

Jake bounded to the door, seemingly recovered from the worst of his injuries already. ‘Come on up,’ he said happily. ‘Ben’s been awake since dawn. He could do with
someone else to talk to.’

‘How was the piano lesson?’ asked Max, as they traipsed into Ben’s room.

‘Awful,’ he said cheerfully. ‘And over for another week. I reckon my teacher’ll just take Mum to one side soon and explain to her that I’m pretty much tone deaf,
and then I’ll be free.’

Max nodded.

‘It’s a good strategy,’ added Jake. ‘I thought Dad might cry for a minute last night when you mangled that piece for what, the fortieth time?’

‘Forty-third,’ said Ben. ‘Yes, he did go a bit . . .’

‘Fragile,’ finished Jake. ‘Can’t say I blame him. He likes music,’ he explained to Millie and Max. ‘Ben’s killing him.’

‘Now,’ said Ben, ‘it’s time to get back to work, isn’t it? Have you had any more ideas about Celeste?’

Millie shook her head and explained where they had got to the previous evening, which was, she felt, precisely nowhere.

‘It’s a start,’ encouraged Jake. ‘You’ve ruled some things out, at least.’

‘We’ve ruled everything out,’ she sighed. ‘And we’re all out of ideas.’

‘Well, we’ll think of something,’ said Ben. ‘In the meantime, we should go back to the original plan – to damage Arthur Shepard’s credibility. And
Playmatic’s, too.’

‘But how?’ Jake was bemused. ‘We haven’t got any proof he’s involved – Millie and Max couldn’t get into Shepard’s office when they did the rescue.
I suppose we
could
introduce Max to the press,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Max is
not
going to become part of a media circus,’ Millie said, giving them a very stern look.

‘Or even a media pet shop,’ added Max, his mouth twitching a little.

‘Fair enough,’ said Jake. ‘It was just an idea. How
are
we going to tell people about all this, then?’

‘I don’t know,’ Millie muttered. ‘If only we’d been able to steal some paperwork or something.’

‘What kind of thing did you have in mind?’ asked Ben.

‘Oh, I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘We didn’t really know even when we were planning to get into Shepard’s office. I guess we were hoping for letters or emails
between him and his employers, or scientists, or something about the testing. Photographs of the cats squashed in those tiny cages would have been really good, but there was no time to take any
when we got into the lab. My camera was in my bag, and I was going to, but then Ariston told us that Shepard was moving them that night and we just panicked.’

‘With good reason,’ Max pointed out. ‘We only missed him by seconds. I think it was a dignified and well-timed retreat, rather than a panic.’

Millie smiled. ‘We were just too late,’ she said. ‘If he hadn’t been in his office, I suppose we could’ve found some documents that connected him to the
kitnapping.’

‘The what?’ asked Jake.

‘Cat-kidnapping.’

‘Oh.’

‘Well, you come up with a better word.’

‘No, that’s fine. Carry on.’

‘Well, that’s it, really. That’s the kind of thing we need,’ she said, shrugging.

‘Easy,’ said Ben.

‘How is it easy? Can you hack into his email and stuff?’ asked Jake.

‘Hmm – maybe. I think something else might be better . . .’ Ben cracked his knuckles.

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ winced Jake.

Ben had been muttering with Millie for several minutes, typing quickly as they spoke. One or other of them would look puzzled for a moment, then nod and suggest something.

‘It’s weird, seeing him with someone who understands him,’ whispered Jake to Max. ‘It’s like seeing monkeys talking to each other in a wildlife
documentary.’

Max agreed. ‘Do you think they will explain what they are doing sometime?’ he asked.

‘Sorry, yes,’ said Ben, overhearing. ‘Now, the things we know about Arthur Shepard are this. One, he gets paid lots of money by Playmatic, so he doesn’t want to upset
them. Two, he’s not crazy about computers.’

‘How do we know that?’ asked Max.

‘He doesn’t do his banking online. There was no provision set up when I hacked in yesterday. He doesn’t live anywhere near a branch of his bank – I found his address this
morning, by the way, from the bank’s records.’ All the while he was talking, Ben was flicking through pages he’d brought onto the screen – the bank home page; Arthur
Shepard’s bank account; a map of where Shepard lived; a list of banks in the area. ‘So it’s inconvenient for him not to use internet banking. We think he doesn’t use it
because he’s worried about security.’

‘With all his bank account details, not to mention an aerial map of his home, on the desktop of a nine-year-old boy, he may have a point,’ said Jake. ‘I hope you don’t do
this to people who
aren’t
international animal smugglers, thieves and crooks.’

‘No, no, no,’ cooed Ben. ‘Of course not. I’m not sure Mum and Dad can afford to take us on holiday at Christmas, by the way.’

‘Ben,’ said Jake, warning him.

‘Just kidding,’ said Ben innocently.

‘He’s not kidding,’ said Max.

‘I know,’ muttered Jake. ‘He’ll either be running the country by the time he’s sixteen or in prison for life at the hands of the CIA. It could really go either way
at the moment.’

Max nodded. Millie grinned.

‘So,’ she said, ‘if Shepard’s nervous about computers, it’s probably because he doesn’t know all that much about them.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Jake.

‘Which will, in turn, make it much easier to steal the documents we need,’ said Ben.

‘
Steal?
’ said Jake, his voice reaching a higher pitch than he had expected. ‘I mean, steal?’ he tried again, in a lower tone.

‘Well, not steal exactly,’ said Millie. ‘And we wouldn’t do it if we could stop him any other way.’

‘We aren’t going to take them off him by force,’ said Ben cheerily. ‘He’s going to hand them over, any minute. Just wait and see.’

‘I think I’m confused,’ said Max. ‘Why would he do such a thing?’

‘Because we asked him to,’ said Ben.

‘Yes, I am confused,’ said Max. ‘Tell me again, but with different words, and more information.’

‘Playmatic has a website,’ said Millie, ‘which is Playmatic dot com. We’ve checked the contact details of their staff, and their email addresses are all first name dot
second name at Playmatic dot com.’

Max looked confused. A trilingual cat doesn’t necessarily have a good grasp of electronic mail systems.

‘So, if I worked there, I’d be Millie dot Raven at Playmatic dot com,’ said Millie.

‘Ah,’ said the cat. ‘It is clear.’

‘All the emails to that address go through a server – this one.’ Ben pulled up another page. ‘They rent their web space and stuff from here.’

‘Very well,’ said Max. ‘This is like the postal delivery man, yes?’

‘Exactly,’ said Millie.

‘My head hurts,’ added Jake.

‘It’s really not complicated,’ said Ben. ‘I’ve just hacked into the server and told them to send any mail to Nicky Browne – with an e – at the Playmatic
address to me.’

‘Who’s Nicky Browne?’ Max asked.

‘We made her up,’ said Millie. ‘But Nicky Brown, without the e, is the secretary of the man who sends Arthur Shepard all that money every month.’

‘What are the chances that Arthur Shepard has ever noticed what her name is?’ asked Ben.

‘Virtually none. Ask me another easy one,’ said Jake promptly.

‘That’s right,’ Ben replied. ‘So, we just sent Arthur Shepard a mail from her, asking for copies of all earlier correspondence between Playmatic and him, as there’s
a problem with their mainframe today.’

‘Their what?’ asked Max, sounding a little faint.

‘The thing that holds all the computers in their office together,’ said Ben. ‘I was hoping to hack the emails off there, but they don’t store them on the server once
they’ve been downloaded to a hard drive. More security fears, I suppose.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘It’s stupid, though, because you have no back-ups if the hard drive is
damaged.’

‘They probably don’t want back-ups of this stuff,’ Millie reasoned. ‘It is illegal, after all.’

‘So you think he’ll send you everything, just because you asked?’ said Jake, trying to get to grips with what was actually happening, rather than what
should
happen in
Ben’s ideal world. He was now sounding a little faint himself.

‘Yup,’ said Ben. ‘We don’t reckon he’s told them about the break-out yet. He’s not had much time to, after all, and he’s still got Celeste, which is
probably enough. I think he’ll do whatever they ask to try and keep them happy, so they don’t ask him anything difficult.’

‘Like, “Where are all those cats we paid you to steal and torture?”’ asked Jake.

‘Something like that,’ Millie agreed.

‘You don’t think he’ll be a bit suspicious?’ said Jake.

‘Yes, possibly,’ acknowledged Ben. ‘We should be emailing his secretary, really, only we don’t know her full name. But the request is coming from a web address he
recognises. It’s a name I’m sure he’ll have seen before. The only thing that’s different is the spelling, and we’re hoping he won’t notice that. If he does,
we’ll need another plan. But I’ve already tried hacking into his computer and it’s a no-go. I think he keeps it off-line, and dials up. We can try to get stuff that way, but
it’ll take ages. That’s why we’re hoping this will work.’

‘So, do we just sit here and wait?’ Max asked.

‘Yes,’ said Millie.

They didn’t have to wait very long, however. A quarter of an hour later, a mail came through to Nicky Browne.

‘Here we go,’ said Ben, clicking on the email. He read:

‘Open the attachment,’ said Jake. Max stared at him, looking surprised and not a little betrayed. ‘Well, I know
some
computer things.’ Jake flushed.

Ben clicked again on the inviting paperclip icon, and pages and pages of emails came up. Ben began to print them out, so they could all read them through quickly. After another forty minutes had
passed, they had two piles of mail – one which proved nothing, and was therefore useless, and another which was very useful indeed.

‘So, they all knew,’ said Millie, who had been making lists on a notepad as she read. ‘Anthony Marsden, the new director of Playmatic and his board, which is’ – she
consulted her list – ‘seven people, plus Arthur Shepard, and the lab workers. They were all in it together. The idea came from Marsden originally – he consulted Shepard, and then
persuaded the board to fund the research. We have copies of all those mails, plus reports on how many cats were used, how many died.’ She pressed her lips together and carried on. ‘How
much they were paying and on which date the initial research stage came to an end.’

They all nodded.

‘So, when we publish these, we’re going to take Marsden and his board down as well,’ said Millie.

They all nodded again.

‘Good,’ she said briskly. ‘Now, what else do we need?’

On the other side of Haverham, at the lab, Arthur Shepard was pacing urgently up and down. He had kept Playmatic in the dark so far about the break-in and theft of his cats,
responding to their usual day-to-day queries with prompt answers so they couldn’t suspect anything was amiss. But what was he going to do? Tell them what had happened? If he did, there would
be all hell to pay about the security breach, and he didn’t like the sound of that at all. But if he
didn’t
tell them, then surely they would soon find out anyway. The cats had
been stolen, all but one of the damned things – the thieves would sell them to a journalist, no doubt.

He did have one small ray of hope – could it be that the animal rights lunatics had been the ones who’d broken in? That the intruders had not stolen the cats for financial benefit,
but simply to set them free? His brain could barely countenance this suggestion, as it was inconceivable to Arthur Shepard that people would do anything for any reason other than money. Also, would
the cats talk of their own accord? How stupid were they? Would they know where they had been kept? In other words, could they lead anyone back to him, or was it just the thieves that knew of his
involvement? He took a deep breath and sat down at his large, walnut desk. He had a plan. He would say nothing incriminating to Playmatic, but would stall them for a few more days. He would get
hold of his chief scientist, Dr Hunt, who was currently, infuriatingly, out of the country at some conference. He still had the one cat, stashed away safely at Elaine’s. Thank God she
didn’t have any prying children to spoil things. Dr Hunt and he would soon have a new facility set up, and they would invite Playmatic to view their handiwork in a week or two, by which time
they would have a few more cats in full working order.

If things went less well, and the thieves
did
go to the media, or the cats talked and the press got hold of the story, well, the worst-case scenario was that he would have to go abroad
for a while, so he should probably buy an open-return ticket to somewhere pleasant, just in case. In the meantime, he needed to make sure no one could connect him directly with the project.
Certainly none of the cats knew his name. He realised he needed to destroy everything on the hard drive of his computer. The research papers were all archived at Playmatic anyway, and Dr Hunt had
them too, so he wasn’t destroying information which he would need in the future, if the project could be picked up again as he hoped. He telephoned down to Ray, and instructed him to come to
the office and to bring with him a large buzz saw. In ten minutes’ time, there would be no hard drive to search.

‘What do you mean, what else do we need?’ asked Ben.

‘Well, we need to expose them for what they’ve done. Do we have enough with these emails? Is there any other information we could try to get from Arthur Shepard?’ Millie
said.