Two hours before the events outside the hotel, Beverly sat in her car near the school. She’d been the last to leave the evening before at eight o’clock, even spending fifteen minutes setting the alarm as Conway told her to, and now she was the first there at six-thirty. It had been a productive night in formulating her plan. The staff database turned out to be more interesting than she’d expected. The entry for Conway, detailing her address and financial situation, was highly informative.
She stepped out of the car and left the grounds. Her destination was a couple of minutes away. The early morning breeze brushed against her cheek and into her hair. She shouldn’t have been surprised to discover Conway lived close to the school she viewed as her personal fiefdom. With this information, Beverly realised she could finish Conway once and for all.
Beverly strode out of the gates and turned right. There was a narrow path leading down the front of the building, which then took a sharp left. When she reached the end, she saw four large houses surrounded by rows of trees.
Once she’d seen the address in the database, she’d gone home to do research on her secure computer. The houses were originally built and owned by four brothers at the start of the twentieth century. Each house had stayed within the family for a hundred years until a set of disastrous financial decisions had led to their enforced sale over five years. Conway’s husband had bought one not long after leaving the military, and then the property fell to his widow when he died a decade later.
Beverly found the house and walked between the large billowing trees which hid the front from the rest of the street. It was perfect for what she had in mind. She strolled up the steps and rang the bell. It was six forty-five in the morning.
Birdsong littered the air as the door opened. Conway stared right through Beverly, and the Principal’s clean white shirt shimmered as the wind whistled across the front step.
‘Are you lost, Shaw?’
Beverly ignored the sarcasm. ‘I’m sorry to appear at your house like this, Principal. I found something important in the staff database, which I thought you should know as soon as possible.’
Conway’s eyes narrowed, her gaze continuing to cut right through Beverly. ‘Come in, then.’
As her arm trembled, Beverly stepped inside and marvelled at the luxury around her. A vast staircase from an old Hollywood movie loomed ahead, while doors on either side of her must have led, she assumed, to the main rooms and kitchen on the ground floor. She also guessed there’d be a bathroom with a toilet there. The thought of it made her legs ache, and she wondered if she’d need to take a leak soon. She shouldn’t have had those two cups of coffee before leaving.
‘Go into the first room on your right,’ Conway instructed her. Beverly did as she was told, catching a glimpse of an extravagant chandelier in the entrance as she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Against her better judgement, she gasped. The place was big enough for a basketball court, the floor covered with a thick Persian carpet. A large fireplace took up space against the far wall, while rows of dark wood shelving clung to the room’s edges. Bunches of antiques, porcelain figurines, and other curios filled the shelves. She seemed to be standing inside an expensive junk shop.
To her right was a bright velvet sofa, on which sat the two whitest cats she’d ever seen. Their fur was thick, like balls of wool. Both animals glared at her.
‘So, Bev, what’s so important you had to come to my house this early in the morning?’ Conway marched past her and stroked each of the moggies in turn under their snow-white chins. They continued to peer at Beverly as they purred.
She was desperate to sit down, her legs ready to spill all over the floor. She placed the fingers of her hand into her wrist and pushed down. Even though she’d done her research, the size of the house had thrown her plans out of whack. She didn’t know if she could go through with it now.
‘Shaw, are you listening to me?’ It wasn’t a shout, but she’d raised her voice enough to shock Beverly back into reality. She lifted her hand to her face and pushed a flopped hair out of the way.
‘I’m sorry, Principal Conway.’ She gathered her thoughts and remembered the speech she’d spent hours preparing. ‘When I went through the staff database, I noticed some of the personal information appeared to have been duplicated.’
Conway picked up one of the cats and scrutinised Beverly. ‘All the files on the school’s system are backed up and copied each night for security purposes.’
Yes, I know. I’m not an idiot. I’ve forgotten more about computer security than you’ll ever know.
‘What I discovered was different.’ In reality, she’d found nothing. This was all a ploy to get into the house. ‘It appears some data has been copied to an external drive and transferred off the system.’
Conway’s eyes took on the appearance of black holes. She gripped on to the cat so hard, it squirmed from her hands and dropped to the carpet with a squeal.
‘I thought that was impossible with the security we have in place?’
Beverly presented her best look of disbelief. ‘Nothing is foolproof where computers are concerned.’
‘Do you know which data has been copied?’
Well, none of it, but this is the lie I’ll tell you.
‘It’s the financial details the school uses to pay salaries into staff bank accounts.’
Conway’s expression never changed, her face resembling a blank wall in the desert.
‘Only one person has access to the database apart from me.’
‘I see.’ Beverly didn’t care since it wasn’t true.
‘And you found this out last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time did you leave work?’
‘About seven.’ She coughed and scratched at her throat as if she needed a drink.
Conway stared at her. ‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘No.’ And she never would. She coughed again.
‘You must double-check everything today. I’m out of school at a conference. I won’t be back until after eleven tonight. I want you to call me then and give me a report.’
‘Yes, Principal.’ She coughed louder this time.
‘Do you need water, Shaw?’ Conway reached for her jacket and car keys as she spoke.
‘Yes, please.’
‘The kitchen is across the way. Get a drink, and then meet me at the front door. We’ll leave together.’
Beverly nodded and left. She was out of the room and running across the corridor in an instant. She burst into the kitchen and ignored everything but the backdoor. She hoped it wasn’t like a modern house with numerous locks and bolts and a state of the art security system. She sprinted towards it, thankful it was only a door with a single lock and key. She removed the key and slipped it into her pocket.
‘Are you finished, Shaw?’ Conway’s voice was close by. Beverly moved to the sink and turned on the tap. There was a glass on the side. She picked it up and thrust it under the flowing water as Conway entered the kitchen. ‘Come on. We haven’t got all day.’
She switched off the tap and drank the water in one go, realising she’d turned on the hot tap by mistake. The liquid burnt her throat as she followed Conway out. Her mouth throbbed and she wanted to throw up as the two of them exited the house, her face turning red.
Conway looked at her suspiciously. The key felt like an exploding rocket inside her pocket.
‘Did you walk to here from school?’ Beverly nodded, afraid to speak in case hot water erupted from her mouth. Conway took one final look at her before heading to the car. ‘Ever since you stepped into the playground as an eleven-year-old, I’ve known you were weird, Shaw.’
With a hand on her trembling throat, Beverly watched Conway walk away in the knowledge the next time they met, it would be their last.