To read the story from the start go to: https://the-inkling.com/catch-up-with-the-inklings/
When D’arby went to make his breakfast on Wednesday morning he discovered John in the kitchen making toast.
“How did it go yesterday?” asked John.
“Not as good as I expected. Syafika and I only really managed to confirm what we already suspected – Anthony is a spy and that some other people Syafika works with are somehow involved. Syafika’s going out for dinner and a movie with Anthony tonight”
“That’s a pretty big deal!” said John. “Today Tim is going to bring me another transmitter like the one we used for Vincent. Do you want to use it tonight?” asked John, conveniently forgetting to mention what Tim had said about it being illegal to listen to other people without their permission.
“Wow. Yeah!” said D’arby.
“Come and collect it on your way – we’ll both be at the restaurant again tonight” said John.
D’arby enjoyed the chilly early morning air as he walked to work. He was a bit disappointed that he hadn’t learnt more about Anthony the day before, but was excited to hear what the rest of the team had been up to on Tuesday.
When D’arby arrived at the ‘official’ office Rudnika was there so they rode to the real office together. Rudnika told D’arby that everyone was arriving at 8am for a special meeting to decide what to do about Anthony. D’arby was disappointed because it meant that anything he and Syafika learnt that evening would be too late to contribute to their decision, but realised that leaving such an important decision until tomorrow may not leave enough time to take action.
When everyone had gathered for the meeting Rudnika looked at D’arby and suggested he report back first. D’arby could see that Valentine and Carol were looking forward to hearing what D’arby had been up to. After D’arby told everyone about what he’d done the day before and how Syafika was going to meet Anthony for dinner that night, he added that Fanta had seen Anthony delivering the letter yesterday morning and had asked D’arby what he was up to.
“Having to keep everything secret is really difficult” said D’arby. “Is it always going to be necessary?”
“Leopold has been having similar thoughts” said Rudnika. “Let’s discuss secrecy later. First I want to know what you think Anthony is up to”
“I think Anthony is a private spy – I think people pay him to spy for them. I think he is doing two spying jobs at once – spying on the people where Syafika works and spying on RenewBank. I think someone must have asked him to find out about RenewBank and for some reason Anthony decided he’d rather not tell his client what we are up, coming to us for payment instead” said D’arby.
“Why would he decide not to tell his client about RenewBank?” asked Leopold. “Have you considered that maybe he spies on organisations, hoping to discover something juicy so he can blackmail them? Maybe there never are any clients.”
“That would make sense!” realised D’arby. “Maybe Anthony found out that people were already spying on RenewBank and knew that we knew we were being spied on so decided to find out what those other spies were looking for.”
D’arby was quiet for the rest of the meeting. Valentine and Carol reported on their investigation into Anthony’s background. Anthony really was from Perth and his Mum really did still live there. Anthony had gone straight from university to working for the government, where he’d worked until going to prison the year before. Anthony had been convicted for having equipment designed to make forged documents – he’d been caught when he tried to use a fake ID.
Leopold had been investigating who Anthony could have been working for but hadn’t been able to connect him with anyone. D’arby could see now why Leopold suspected that Anthony was just working for himself.
“What about Anthony’s flat?” asked D’arby.
“We looked up who owned every flat in the building but none were owned by Anthony – at least not under his real name or any of the fake names we know about. We checked out a flat owned by someone called Anthony Harris, but he isn’t the Anthony we know” said Leopold. “It would help if we knew which flat Anthony lived in.”
“It would be good to know more but our investigation time has run out. We need to decide what to do” said Rudnika.
“If Anthony isn’t working for anyone, why do we need to pay him?” said Valentine.
“He could tell people the official office is fake,” said Leopold. “then those other people watching us will try to find this one”.
“What if we talk to Anthony?” suggested D’arby. “If we tell him we know what he’s up to it might scare him off. He’s already been to prison. I bet he doesn’t want to go back.”
“I like that idea” said Rudnika. “But I think we should talk about Leopold’s idea too. Leopold, you explain please.”
“What if we stop all the secrecy and announce what we are up to and just let everyone know. There’d be no point spying on us if we were open. It puts us right in the firing line, but we’ll have to be there one day. Being open means our enemies will attack but it also means that the people who agree with our ideas will be able to defend us. I think we should approach some groups who we know will support our idea and ask them to help us get support for it. People could even register in advance to be customers” said Leopold.
After discussing the ideas the team decided on a plan. First, D’arby would follow Syafika as she had dinner with Anthony and they’d try to find out which flat Anthony lived in. Then tomorrow D’arby would call Anthony to arrange a meeting. At the meeting D’arby would tell Anthony that RenewBank knew what he was up to and weren’t going to pay him. On Friday they’d stop trying to evade spies and start being open about what they were planning – trying to gather as much support as possible.
After the team meeting everyone was visibly happier. D’arby realised he could get back to his modelling now and was looking forward to Friday because then he could tell Syafika, John and Fanta what had really been going on.
The Inkling 