by Lena Jones
I decide to ask Bai about it. Cradling the paper creation gently in my palm, I walk through the strip curtain to the restaurant. Bai is perched on a bar stool, making notes from a textbook. She looks up as I approach.
‘What have you got there?’ Her face brightens as she sees the origami. ‘Oh! It’s lovely!’
‘You didn’t make it then?’
She looks astonished. ‘Me? I don’t know how to do origami.’
‘Let me take a look.’ We both turn to see Mr Zhang. He is adept at moving silently, and we haven’t noticed him arriving upstairs. I hold out the flower for his inspection.
‘This is very advanced origami,’ he says.
I nod. ‘Who do you think left it here?’
‘You found this here?’ He thinks for a moment, and I think I see a slight twitch of understanding move the features of his usually inscrutable face. ‘Does it have any words on it?’
‘Only on the inside, where I can’t get at them.’ I stare at the bud again and spot a tiny inked symbol on one of the petals. ‘There is something here, though – is it a Chinese character?’
Bai takes the flower from me and says, ‘It’s the character for water’.
‘Fetch her a bowl of water then,’ says her grandfather, in an uncharacteristically impatient tone. I decide that now wouldn’t be a good time to quote his own saying about patience back at him.
Bai fills a china bowl at the bar sink and places it on the counter. Mr Zhang nods at me to float the bud on it, but I hesitate. What if all the ink runs, and I can never read the hidden message? But my mentor is waiting, so I take a deep breath and gently set the closed flower on the surface of the water.
We all watch. For a moment, nothing happens. Then, a single petal opens slowly. There is another pause, and then the next petal begins to unfurl, followed by another, until they have all opened and the tight bud has transformed into a beautiful flower. There is classical music playing in the restaurant and it feels as if the bloom’s unfurling is part of the symphony. It reminds me of those documentaries that use time-lapse photography, missing out whole chunks of time, so that a shoot emerges from the earth and a flower blooms, all in the blink of an eye.
On a flat plane at the centre of the flower there are some words, in tiny writing, as if a fairy has dipped a wren’s feather in ink. Above the message, there is an outline: the key symbol of the Gatekeepers’ Guild. My hands are shaking now. It has to be the start of the Trial! This must be the first of the three tests … and I’m not … I’m not prepared. Call yourself a detective, Agatha Oddlow? I think to myself.
We all lean over the bowl and I read aloud:
‘“Come visit me, in these Dutch gardens.”’
Beneath this, still in the tiny writing, is a stream of … gobbledygook, which I don’t even attempt to read aloud:
CHOO-CHOO RIBBIT PLOP OINK JANGLE PLOP CHEEP KERPLUNK VROOM WHIZZ OINK WHIZZ BELCH CHOO-CHOO JANGLE OINK JANGLE BRRING BELCH THWACK CHOO-CHOO HONK HONK BELCH JANGLE MOO GUFFAW CHOO-CHOO RIBBIT PLOP OINK JANGLE BELCH THWACK PLOP JANGLE MOO CHOO-CHOO PLOP HONK WHIZZ ACHOO JANGLE BUZZ BELCH BELCH THWACK PLOP BANG THWACK GUFFAW WHIZZ OINK BEEP BANG THWACK PLOP MOO PLOP BRRING JANGLE MOO PLOP JANGLE BRRING CHOO-CHOO BELCH CHOO-CHOO BELCH HONK DING BUZZ HONK BELCH WHIZZ BELCH THWACK CHOO-CHOO OINK QUACK – BELCH THWACK WHIZZ BELCH THWACK WHIZZ KERPLUNK KERPLUNK PLOP OINK PLOP BEEP
‘What is that?’ asks Bai. I shrug, but I can feel excitement kicking in. It’s a coded message. At last, an opportunity to put my code-cracking skills to the test!
‘A cipher?’ asks Mr Zhang, and I nod. ‘Let’s bring the girl some more tea and leave her to work.’
I set myself up at the bar, on a high stool, with my pencil case set before me and my notebook open at the next blank page. The restaurant isn’t due to open for another couple of hours and Mr Zhang and his granddaughter leave me in peace to work. I Change Channel and access the part of my brain that shuts out the world, allowing me to focus on the task at hand. I believe it’s the same state as in hypnotherapy – a semi-trance.
I scan the message. The code is a basic cipher. I underline each word that repeats frequently – these probably represent vowels or common letters, such as T or S. Then I underline pairs of the same word, which could be L, P or T, as these letters frequently double up in words (yellow, letter, swallow, matter, pepper …).
I’m soon working it out … WHIZZ = A and PLOP = E. One by one, the other letters fall into place, and the words begin to reveal themselves to me – the, I’ve, of. I’ve decoded A, T, H, E, O, F, N, D, S and W. The rest of the letters now swiftly offer up their identity – it’s like a game of hangman, filling in the blanks.
The finished message reads as follows:
I’ve no explanation of this story. I’ve no theories about the why and wherefore of it. It’s just a thing – that happened.
I recognise it at once as the opening sentence of Agatha Christie’s ‘In a Glass Darkly’, a short story from a collection of Miss Marple’s final cases. Mum used to read it to me when I was little. I’ve always had a taste older than my age when it comes to books. But what’s the connection now? I look back at the first part of the riddle – ‘Come visit me, in these Dutch gardens.’ Why does that ring a bell …? Of course! I’ve seen an English Heritage blue plaque dedicated to Agatha Christie on the house where she lived, at 58 Sheffield Terrace – in Holland Park!
I go in search of Bai and Mr Zhang and find them bent over a game of cards at one of the restaurant tables. Bai looks at me shyly.
‘I should really be helping in the kitchen,’ she says, ‘but I have a bet going with Grandfather.’
‘What kind of bet?’ I ask.
‘That he will lend me his car on Saturday night, if I beat him.’
‘Go for it!’ I tell her.
Mr Zhang looks up from the game. ‘She will not beat me,’ he says, calmly. He studies me for a moment. ‘You are going?’
‘Yes. Thank you for everything.’
‘You got … what you needed?’
‘I did.’
He smiles and winks (honestly, winks – he never ceases to surprise me) and I head out of the restaurant.
I have to catch the Central line from Oxford Circus to Notting Hill Gate. There’s then a nine-minute walk to Sheffield Terrace, according to Google Maps. I make it in seven and a half.
Number 58 is a grand, white, four-storey townhouse with a set of steps up to the entrance. I feel a thrill of excitement at the thought that Agatha Christie lived here. I can’t resist standing on the pavement and closing my eyes to Change Channel. I can see two maids coming down a back staircase, carrying bedpans and dirty linen. Agatha is sitting in a back room, overlooking the gardens. She’s at the Remington portable typewriter that she used to work on, composing the crime that will befall her next unwitting victim.
I come back to the present and focus on the test I’ve been set. All the buildings on this side of the street are fronted by a tall wall, and the blue plaque is high up on the house, beside a first-floor window, which means I can’t get a good enough view from the pavement.
However, the door in the wall from the street is open and there’s a smartly dressed man on the doorstep of the house (dark suit and tie, white shirt, neat hair, polished shoes – a doorman?).
I call out, ‘Please can I come closer?’
When he smiles and nods, I walk through the archway and get as close as I can to the blue disc – but I can’t see anything from the foot of the house that I couldn’t make out from the pavement. There’s nothing extraordinary about the blue plaque; nothing that appears newly added or freshly painted.
I’m so engrossed in looking at it that I forget all about the man I thought was the doorman. I jump when he says, ‘Are you looking for something in particular?’
I smile. ‘Sorry – I’m just a big fan …’
‘Miss Oddlow?’ he enquires, and I stare.
‘Er, yes …’
‘Do you have a title for
me?’ he asks.
I frown, until I understand. ‘“In a Glass Darkly”,’ I reply.
He nods and takes a small envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘Your mother was a wonderful woman,’ he murmurs.
‘You knew my mum?’
But he just nods to me once again – in farewell – before striding down the steps and away. So, not a doorman but … an agent for the Gatekeepers. An agent who knew my mum.
My hand is shaking as I glance at the envelope in my hand. It’s not addressed – just a blank, white rectangle of thick, high-quality paper. I’m dying to open it, but this is far too public a place. With regret, I slip it inside my backpack and head home, reflecting on the encounter. That man had known my mum. I wish I’d run after him, instead of just standing there, clutching the envelope he’d given me.
The minute I step inside Groundskeeper’s Cottage, I take the envelope from my backpack and tear it open. Inside I find a single, small square of paper, bearing simply the letter A. I reflect on the possibilities – A is for … so many things! Agatha, of course – Christie and Oddlow. Then there’s ‘agent’ and ‘accident’ and ‘alibi’ …
There’s little point in attempting to solve this clue until I have more information. I’m sure it’s one part of a message that will become clear with the next two tests of my Trial. I’ve finished the first test – I’ve cracked the code, I’ve got the letter A, and I’m on target. I’m on my way to becoming a fully fledged Gatekeeper!
I wander through to the kitchen, where Dad is in his dressing gown and cooking chips and fish fingers – I can tell by the smell.
‘How come you’re in your pyjamas?’ I ask, going over to kiss his cheek.
‘Hi, Aggie. Oh, I didn’t want to get anything on my best suit.’
‘Actually, a bit of decoration might improve it …’
‘Ouch! Are you being rude about my clothes again?’
‘Dad, if you would only let me take you shopping—’
‘But I like my wardrobe!’
‘I’d just like to see you in something more flattering.’ Dad is powerfully built – tall and broad-shouldered – so he should wear clothes that complement this. ‘Anyway, give me a chance. All I want is to dress you more tastefully … and a little less like someone from an old gangster movie.’
‘A gangster movie? Really?’ He looks worried.
‘Are you wearing aftershave?’ I ask him. It’s a rhetorical question. He reeks of the stuff.
‘Maybe a little.’
‘A little? You’ve piled it on so thick it’s practically becoming an organism in its own right. Any minute now it’s going to grow legs and walk out of here.’
He pulls a face at me. I notice, though, that he doesn’t offer any explanation for his sudden interest in smelling good (or his version of it). I’m still elated at solving the first part of the Guild Trial and I’m willing to let it go – after all, Dad has his secrets, and I have mine.
But when we sit down together to eat dinner, I see how distracted he is. Watching him push his food around the plate and forget to put it in his mouth, I can’t help wondering whether he’s found a girlfriend. Is he about to replace Mum? The thought creates an actual stab of pain in my chest.
‘Are you all right, love?’
‘Yeah, just a bit of heartburn.’ I lie. At the end of the day, who am I to deny my own father happiness?
‘So … back to school tomorrow,’ he says.
‘Yep.’
‘Are you looking forward to seeing your friends?’
I pull a face. ‘My friends are mainly just Liam and Brianna – and I’ve been seeing them all summer anyway.’
‘Be good to put those “leetle grey cells” back to use,’ he says, doing a bad impression of Inspector Poirot’s Belgian accent. I groan and he laughs. ‘Come on – you go and rest – I’ll clear up here.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’
I give him a kiss on the cheek then go up to my room, where I take out my school uniform, laying the blazer over the back of my bedside chair, with the skirt, shirt and tie on top. Rummaging through my underwear, I find a pair of navy tights and add them to the pile. Then I line up my school shoes underneath. The clothes are so drab that I feel my heart sink. Time to customise the outfit …
I flick through the scarves that are knotted along one of my two clothes rails and select a square one with a vibrant print of birds and flowers – it’s by the designer Mary Quant, from the 1960s. It’s not regulation uniform, so I won’t get away with wearing it for long in school, but at least I can brighten up my walk over there.
For the rest of the evening, I indulge myself by re-reading a collection of Hercule Poirot stories, while musing on the significance of the letter A. I fall asleep, running through the possibilities in my mind. A is for apple; A is for aardvark; A is for algebra. A is for … Alabama. A is for abracadabra; A is for … aconitum … A is for … arsenic …
I wake up far too early. The sun is streaming through my skylight. First day back. At least there are only two days to get through before the weekend. They’re breaking us in gently.
I leave in good time, my scarf neatly knotted round my neck. As I walk to school, through the park and along pavements not yet crowded with tourists, I mull over that letter A from the first test. After a while, I return to my original theory that it must be the first letter in a word. Hopefully, the second test will point me in a specific direction.
When I arrive at St Regis, ready to start the new school year, the playground is already buzzing. There’s a whiff of excitement in the air; it’s not only a new term, but we’re also skiing down the slope towards the season of presents. There are a lot of different religions at the school – kids come from all over the world to enjoy its ‘rarefied atmosphere’, to quote the prospectus (‘rarefied atmosphere’, aka snobbery and elitism), but they all seem to exchange gifts at Christmastime. It’s a great unifier.
Anyway, here we are, at the start of the school year. Students stand in clumps, catching up on gossip. Students who haven’t seen each other for a few weeks are keen to catch up, wanting to share what’s happened to them and find out what their friends have been up to. Of course, most of them have posted their entire six weeks in stylish Instagram pictures – posing with handsome family members on yachts or outside luxurious holiday homes. Around half the students have been home to Africa, India, Malaysia or China. The rest have been swanning around with the ‘It’ crowd in French or Swiss resorts, or lazing on Caribbean islands. It’s only those students like Liam and Brianna, whose parents seem to have forgotten they have kids, or me, whose dad can’t afford a luxury holiday, who have simply been hanging out together in London for the best part of the whole holiday.
Of course, the excitement of the new school year will have fizzled out by about two thirty, with the realisation that a whole new term of work is ahead of us. They’ll have told all the jokes they’d saved up, and there will be double physics to get through before home time.
But, for now, the new term is crisp and fresh. Like everyone else, I cast my eyes around the playground for my group. My friend-set is not as big as some, perhaps. There are groups that have ten or more key people in them, plus others who come and go. In a far corner of the playground, I spot Liam and Brianna, standing together. Liam spots me, says something to Brianna, and they both look towards me, smiling as I approach.
‘Agatha!’ Brianna shoots me a grin.
‘Hiya,’ I say, smiling back. ‘You look better: did you get a lot of sleep after we left?’
‘I slept like a baby.’ She beams.
‘But do babies actually sleep well?’ says Liam doubtfully. ‘My aunt has a baby, and he screams all night. She’s permanently exhausted. Oh … here.’ He hands me my morning paper, which he always pinches after his guardian has finished with it each morning.
‘Thanks,’ I say, and I scan the headlines. Nothing of immediate intere
st, but I’ll read it properly later, to check.
‘How are you?’ Liam asks. He looks at me searchingly.
He’s talking about the Guild Trial, of course, but doesn’t want to say so in front of Brianna.
I smile, and nod, to let him know it’s started, at last. He grins back, understanding how important this is to me.
Brianna glances around to see if anyone is close enough to overhear. Then she leans towards me. ‘I analysed that swab you left for me …’ she says.
‘Great! And …?’
‘Well, I could be wrong … I mean, I’m not a professional …’
I can feel a tingle of excitement. I know what Brianna is about to say.
‘Yes, but …?’
‘OK … I think there were blood traces in that swab.’
I take a deep breath. My suspicions have been confirmed – the murder probably took place in that basement. As only the corner near the old boiler and the opening was bleached clean, it’s likely that the tunnel is an important part of the puzzle. Had the attendant stumbled on something he shouldn’t have seen? Had he been done away with for knowing too much? I shiver for a moment, realising he might have crawled through the same entrance as I had – and only a short time before me, wanting to find out what the crawl-hole was doing there. I’d been fortunate enough to get away with my investigating, but he hadn’t.
‘You OK?’ Brianna asks.
‘Yeah …’ I’m about to thank her for her work when a shrill voice interrupts me—
‘Hey there, supergeeks!’
It’s Sarah Rathbone. I haven’t seen her for several weeks (unless you count her Instagram updates), but – apart from a tan – she hasn’t changed much. She still has the same sheen of blonde hair (how come she never has a strand out of place?), the same manicured nails, the same subtle but expensive jewellery. But then why would she change, when she’s already put so much effort into perfecting this look? Of course, it used to be Brianna’s style as well; she used to be perfectly primped and preened, with her own curtain of blonde hair.
I haven’t forgotten some of the things Brianna said and did to me when she was Sarah Rathbone’s friend, nor all the things she did to other people too, but I have forgiven her. People can change. And, in the case of Brianna, with her half-shaved, all-blue hairstyle and her battered leather jacket from Camden Market (and goodness knows what Dr Hargrave, our headmaster, is going to say about those), the change is very evident—