The Heart of the Actuary by K T Bowes

Author:K T Bowes [Bowes, K T]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: K T Bowes
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Inclusive

“It started as a joke.” Regan’s hand shook as he poured boiling water onto a tea bag in the cup he’d designated for Emma. She inspected the rim and hoped it wasn’t second-hand. When he thumped the kettle back onto its stand and reached for a tiny pot of long-life milk, Emma shook her head.

“I don’t see many people laughing.”

“Yeah, well.” Regan didn’t finish his sentence. He watched her fingers as she took the mug of tea and peered inside it at the strange, floating bits dancing around its surface.

“Try to calm down and tell me everything you know.” She tilted her wrist to inspect her watch. “I must leave in fifteen minutes.”

Regan’s eyes widened. Terror turned his lips down in an unnatural likeness to a trout. “Why?” He bounced towards the door and ignored Emma’s warning about calming himself. “What’s happening in fifteen minutes?”

She gritted her teeth, giving her smile a manic quality. “I have a ten-minute drive back to the bungalow in Saxilby, by which time my daughter approaches hysteria for her overdue feed.”

“Oh.” Regan exhaled, and his backside contacted the mattress. “Okay.” He sat, rigid as a plank of wood, with his praying hands trapped between his thighs to disguise their perpetual tremor.

Emma held onto the mug, but didn’t sip the tea. She’d watched Regan make it, but actually drinking it seemed like a rookie mistake. If she wasn’t already nervous enough to vomit, the floaty bits discouraged her. “How did this start, what did you download and who else knows you did it?” She fired out the questions Frederik most wanted answered. And then one of her own. “Who else knows you’re here in this room?”

Regan swallowed and began his sorry tale. “I sniffed around the grey web for a joke with my friends. They got bored, but I didn’t. I discovered I could make money tweaking gaming programs. A guy working for a big company made some stupid mistakes, and I found them while beta testing. He asked me to correct them and then let the company think he fixed the code. I don’t think he really knew what he was doing.”

Emma cleared her throat. “Regan, I don’t mean to sound rude, but we don’t have time to pick through your life history. When did you do that for him, and how is it relevant to what’s happening now?”

Regan’s head bobbed on his neck as though he’d lost control of it. “It kinda is relevant. I’ve done jobs for him on and off since I was fourteen. Just gaming stuff mainly. He got paid well and he passed a decent chunk on to me in bitcoin.”

“Fourteen?” Emma released a groan of disbelief. She thought of her own wily son and mentally praised Christopher’s belt and braces approach to the Internet at Wingate Hall. Nicky wouldn’t get through the extensive firewall he’d set up, not without Christopher knowing. “Keep going,” she sighed.

“He helped me navigate the grey web at first. Then he introduced me to a forum he ran.

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