The Banker's Holiday

Day 42

IT HAD been a crazy week.
Felicity had spent an awful lot of it on the phone. A new phone of course, she'd bought new ones for herself and Erica, the others apparently couldn't be trusted even if the operating system was reinstalled. Not from home either, not with all the cameras and microphones.

How could you feel comfortable knowing that you might still be being spied on?

There was no way to know if Sam and Ray and Russell were still listening and watching, or somebody else. They hadn't said if the operation against David was complete.

They'd been lucky to get to the country house okay to pick up some things. So far the press hadn't worked out that house, but a couple of reporters were camped outside their London home. They'd gone to her parents place, but Felicity knew that the press would figure that out too sooner or later.

She'd been right. The press was all over the story, in the financial and business press, the tech press, as well as the general news outlets. Daily she watched as they added little morsels to the story, fleshing it out and usually prompting a flurry of more phone calls.

There were all sorts of rumours about David, from sexual misconduct to fraud. On the latter she had no idea, she couldn't make head nor tail of the accusations in the big envelope she'd been given, it was all a bit too technical. But she'd certainly been interested in the several hundred thousand pounds David had stashed away in various accounts. So were Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs it seemed.

Her first priority had been to sort out Erica. They had had another really good long chat, and she'd told Erica she was leaving her father amongst things. She seemed pretty sanguine about it. The next was a solicitor and she kept him busy, with organising the divorce and finding out what was going on with the bank, David and everything else.

Videos of David were surfacing on the Internet, which was hardly a surprise. She was sure they'd been leaked deliberately. There was one of her too, probably the first of many. Thankfully none of Erica. The solicitor had been busy with that as well, trying to get the videos removed and, being a minor, they had threatened to sue the pants off any paper or service that showed anything about Erica. So far it had worked.

The solicitor had also suggested taking action for both of them for posting revenge porn, but somehow Felicity knew the police wouldn't get very far with finding out who was behind it.

After two days she'd decamped to a London hotel, it was anonymous and nearer the action and where she needed to be. There were daily trips to the solicitor. The bank, quite understandably, were furious. Not just at David and the web site, but all the publicity. She'd wanted to see David's boss or one of the directors to apologise and explain, but the solicitor had advised against it. He'd conveyed her sentiments to them with an offer of full co-operation. That was easy, she knew next to nothing. Needless to say they had fired David.

It had developed hugely. There were loads of #MeToo comments flying around, not just about David, but many of the other people at the bank. Then it had spread to other banks. It was endemic in the business, evidently. Needless to say there was a shitstorm on social media, and an absolute feeding frenzy with the mainstream media, especially the tabloids.

There had been her parents and friends to square, which had been awkward, but had to be done. Then her and Erica's online accounts to close and delete, but once more the solicitor was engaged on that. He was going to make a fortune out of this.

The police too of course. Yet more lucrative hours for the solicitor. They were investigating the web site breach, and checking to see what else had been hacked and compromised, along with the financial misconduct accusations against David, and the revenge porn. She was interviewed by three separate specialist units. They'd taken away their phones, computers and drives from the houses, along with paperwork, and were dismantling carefully all the hidden cameras.