September

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘I’m just doing what you pay me for.’

  There was more splashing and muttering, as well as creaking from what I pictured was a porcelain tub as Oriana stood up to get out.

  ‘Wait in my office,’ she called. ‘I’ll be out in five minutes.’

  We heard the sound of the bathwater gurgling down the drain and Oriana moving around.

  ‘Explain yourself Cyril,’ she ordered. Her voice was suddenly loud and clear—she must have returned to the office, within close proximity to the bug we’d planted. ‘This had better be important.’

  ‘I suspect someone is stealing audio from this house.’

  ‘Stealing audio? From here? That’s impossible!’

  ‘I’ll rephrase that, then. Something is transmitting sound from this house.’

  Boges and I had been sprung! We stared at each other, trying to work out how Sumo had stumbled upon our tiny, hidden bug. We were both mentally preparing for a quick getaway.

  Oriana let out a fiery string of questions. ‘What do you mean—my place is bugged? How is that possible? How do you know this to be true? How could you let this happen?’ she demanded.

  Sumo was equally furious.

  ‘I was doing a routine security sweep around the premises with my scanner and I picked up the transmission. From this place. Your place. Don’t you dare try to tell me I’m not doing my job!’

  A scanner? I thought Sumo was clutching his mobile—or a gun—when I’d seen him in the yard earlier.

  ‘This is that repulsive criminal Vulkan Sligo’s doing! I’ll bet he’s behind it!’

  ‘No more names!’ Sumo’s voice cut across hers. ‘The bug!’ he reminded her.

  ‘Damn the bug! Everybody knows Vulkan Sligo is a criminal! Can you hear me, Sligo?’ she screeched. ‘You’re not going to get away with this!’

  ‘You’d better keep your mouth shut,’ Sumo threatened her.

  ‘Or it’s that slimy Sheldrake Rathbone!’ Oriana said, dismissing Sumo’s warning. ‘I couldn’t trust that scoundrel as far as I could throw him! If he thinks he—’

  We heard a crash as Oriana was suddenly silenced. There was a scuffle—we could hear things crashing to the floor, over the top of some grunting and troubled murmurs.

  Boges and I were wide eyed, trying to imagine what was happening. Had Sumo just pounced on Oriana, wrestled her down, hand over her mouth, in an attempt to shut her up?

  The scuffle stopped. Now we could hear panting.

  Oriana cleared her throat.

  ‘How do you expect me to react,’ she finally spoke again, her usually strong voice faltering, ‘if I can’t rely on you to keep this place clean?’

  If only she were talking about housework.

  She cleared her throat again.

  ‘You’d better find it then,’ she continued. ‘Call Kelvin. I want a complete security sweep—from the basement to the roof.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sumo. ‘I’ll use this. A more refined scanner. Might as well start with your office.’

  All of a sudden I noticed Boges packing up his things. ‘We’d better get out of here,’ he said, the panic clear on his face. ‘I’m serious,’ he added, pulling out his earpiece. ‘Quit listening. We have to go!’

  ‘I’m getting a very strong signal here,’ Sumo’s voice came through the earphone. ‘It’s got be up here somewhere, high on the wall.’

  ‘But there’s nothing there,’ I heard Oriana scoff, ‘except for that little moth.’ The sound of the chair scraping screeched into my ear.

  ‘You don’t mean to tell me that that’s the bug!’ she cried.

  There was a loud crash and the transmission suddenly ceased, shooting a painfully piercing noise directly into my eardrum.

  I grabbed the thin cord and ripped it out of my ear.

  ‘He stomped on it!’ I said, over the loud ringing in my head.

  Boges grabbed up the radio, pulled the two earpieces to him and scrambled to his feet. He swung the duffel bag with the rifle in it over his shoulder. ‘Let’s go!’ he said, before leaping off the roof and sliding down a pipe.

  I scrambled off the roof after him, but lost my footing and fell awkwardly all the way to the ground. I grabbed my back in pain.

  Boges ran to my side and wrenched me to my feet.

  ‘Come on!’ he yelled at me. ‘Run!’ He seized my arm, hauling me along behind him.

  101 days to go …

  Boges threw down his things and crashed on the small patch of grass near the lined-up rubbish bins. We’d ended up downstairs from Winter’s place. We were both totally wrecked.

  When Boges could finally speak, he sat up and shook his shaven head.

  ‘Zürich Bank … Dude, we’re stuffed.’

  That was not what I wanted to hear.

  ‘You don’t know those security accounts at Zürich Bank,’ he said before exhaling loudly. ‘The vaults are encased in concrete and steel. They’re bombproof, fireproof and earthquake proof. Plus they’re protected by biometric security. There’s no way in.’

  ‘Biometric security?’

  ‘That’s right. Fingerprint recognition and a PIN as well.’

  Steel and cement. Oriana’s fingerprint. Oriana’s secret PIN. All impossible obstacles.

  Solving the mystery of the Ormond Singularity was out of our reach.

  I turned to my friend. ‘So what do we do?’

  Before Boges had a chance to answer my question, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

  ‘How’s it going?’ asked Winter. ‘Any info yet?’

  ‘We’re downstairs,’ I admitted, grimly. ‘Explain when we come up?’

  I sat at Winter’s table, dejected. My elation over landing the bug in Oriana’s office had been brief—wrecked by the impossible information it had given us shortly after.

  Boges had decided against coming up, and instead made his way back home, air rifle in tow.

  Winter lifted her head from the table from where she’d flopped after hearing the news about Zürich Bank.

  ‘What about Repro?’ she asked, hopefully. ‘Can he help?’

  ‘I don’t even know where he is,’ I said, getting up and walking to the window. ‘Now that his hideout has been blown. But I don’t think this is the kind of safe he can help us with anyway.’

  ‘OK,’ said Winter jumping up from the table. ‘Let’s think about something else.’

  She went to her desk, pulled out a piece of paper from her drawer, and handed it to me.

  ‘Miss Sparks?’ I asked, assuming the new note had come from her tutor.

  Winter nodded. ‘That’s her translation. What do you think it means?’

  ‘Secret love. And the workings of that love, also have to be kept secret,’ I said, thinking it over in my head as I spoke. ‘What if it means secret letters? What if it means the Ormond Riddle? That’s completely concealed.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think that you are an intelligent life form after all,’ she said, playfully. ‘I like that idea. Maybe it’s a reference to the Ormond Singularity itself. Look how much trouble Black Tom—or someone—has gone to in order to hide it. All that elaborate double-key code business. You couldn’t get more hush-hush than that. In the days of Queen Elizabeth people lost their heads for saying or doing the wrong thing. That’s a good enough reason to keep certain things quiet. If only we knew what the certain things were.’

  Winter cocked her head to one side. ‘Mottos were very popular in medieval times—you know the sort of thing you see on coats of arms? Anyone who was anyone had a motto.’

  ‘But these words have been engraved very carefully inside the Ormond Jewel,’ I said. ‘They’re not in full view for everyone to see, like on a coat of arms. They’ve been kept hidden. For particular eyes only.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, slowly. ‘It’s the things that are hidden that are really big—really important.’ She pulled out another piece of paper and passed it to me. It was a printout from a web-page. ‘Read it,’ she said, ‘and you’ll
see another side of Black Tom Butler.’

  I skim-read the first few paragraphs, but my eyes were drawn to the final one. I looked up at Winter. ‘He had twelve illegitimate children?’

  She nodded. ‘He was a real ladies’ man!’

  ‘It’s crazy,’ I said, ‘calling kids illegitimate. Anyone who gets born has a legitimate right to be here.’

  Something sparkled in Winter’s dark eyes. ‘Maybe that’s what the motto is referring to!’ she cried. ‘All the works of love! All the extra kids!’

  The sparkle suddenly faded. ‘But that couldn’t be it,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing secret about them.’

  Winter yawned and flicked the kettle on.

  ‘Planning on going back to the car yard?’ I asked her, changing the subject.

  She looked over at me, her face serious. ‘Do you know what I like most about you? I’ll tell you,’ she said without pausing for an answer. ‘It’s your determination. I like the way you don’t give up. We both have that passion to set things right, no matter what. I’m definitely going back to the car yard. I knew I’d find the car there, and now I have to go back and check over every bit of it, and find out once and for all exactly what happened. No matter what.’

  ‘I’m here to help,’ I offered.

  ‘There’s something else I have to do, too.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘I need to find my parents’ wills. I want to see their instructions and their signatures for myself. I want to see with my own eyes that they really did leave their estate and most of their money to Vulkan Sligo. See, I keep asking myself … what if the will was a forgery? What if Vulkan forged my parents’ signatures? He was a trusted manager. He managed their properties, handled their money, all those kinds of things. It wouldn’t have been that difficult. Cal, we both know what greed can do to people.’

  This changed everything—I hadn’t realised how much wealth Sligo had gained from Winter’s parents’ deaths.

  ‘Do you think he played a part in the accident?’ I asked bluntly.

  The kettle started whistling. Winter reached into the high cupboard for a couple of tea bags. I hoped she wouldn’t ignore my question.

  ‘That’s the hypothesis I’ve been testing out for the last year or so,’ she admitted, matter-of-factly. ‘That’s why I wanted to find the car. I want to see for myself that there was nothing wrong with it. Inside. That nothing had been tampered with. That it really was … just an accident. Until I see that everything’s in order, I won’t be satisfied.’

  Biometric security. I woke on Winter’s couch with those two words ringing in my ears.

  I crept out of the flat to get some fresh air. Overhead, a jet roared through a pale blue sky streaked with silvery clouds. Even though it was early, the city was waking up.

  Back inside, I sat on the couch with my phone plugged into its charger, and started searching for information.

  It seemed hopeless. Sure, some genius technical people had been able to fool the fingerprint scanner, in one case by making a mould from a fingerprint left on some executive’s stress ball—that plasticine-like stuff people squeeze while they’re thinking.

  It wasn’t until I came to a small section on latent fingerprints, and how they could be made visible in a fume cupboard, that I started to see a possibility. But I needed to check it out with Boges.

  Finally he answered his phone.

  ‘You want to hack Oriana’s fingerprint? What are you going to do? Excuse me, Ms de la Force, but can we please chop off your index finger? Dude, get real.’

  ‘I’ve been researching it. It can be done,’ I said, ‘without her losing any of her digits. It’s pretty complicated, but not impossible.’

  ‘OK, even if we can somehow hack her fingerprint, without actually hacking off her finger, have you forgotten the matter of the PIN—the secret number of the safety deposit box?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten that. But one thing at a time. If I can get a good fingerprint from Oriana,’ I said, ‘on something I can take away with me easily, I can use superglue to create a reaction with the natural oils on the fingerprint.’

  ‘Respect, dude. I didn’t realise you were such a scientist.’ Boges was quiet for a moment, thinking. ‘So this residue leaves a build-up. That means that the patterns in the ridges of the fingerprint are higher than the other parts?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I can make a print from that. But it’s a mirror image. So I have to turn it around again.’

  ‘Like making a negative and then printing a positive from that,’ said Boges. ‘You make a negative of the fingerprint?’

  ‘Correct. By repeating the exact same process, I’ll end up with the right imprint. I hope.’

  ‘Then you attach the film to the top of your finger and fool the scanner?’

  ‘That’s the theory,’ I said. ‘That will give us a good fingerprint which I can use to access the scanner at the bank. Well, not me actually. I was thinking of Winter. Can’t you imagine her wearing a big red wig, purple sunglasses, high heels and a long leopard-skin print scarf?’

  ‘In theory it sounds good … but I really don’t know if it can be pulled off. How are you going to get her fingerprint?’

  ‘I need to follow her, and I need to borrow your bike again.’

  ‘OK. Look I’ve gotta go, Mum’s calling out to me. Let’s figure this out later?’

  97 days to go …

  Boges had found me a place to stay for a few nights, in between staying at Winter’s.

  I’d been spending my days trailing Oriana on Boges’s bike, trying to find information, and trying to come up with an idea on how to get hold of her fingerprint. Whenever she went out in her dark blue Mercedes, I would emerge from my hiding place in the garden across the road, jump on Boges’s bike, and follow her, keeping my distance. Once she was on foot it was easier. Her thick, red hair and her swaying way of walking in her high heels made her stand out in almost any crowd. The purple suit and leopard-print scarf fluttering in the breeze helped, too. Sometimes she’d go to Estelle’s Hair Salon, sometimes to her city office, sometimes on business lunches with clients, sometimes it was a trip to the shops. And sometimes I lost sight of her car in seconds, missing my chance altogether.

  Another problem was that Sumo was never very far away.

  94 days to go …

  ‘You’re back,’ she said, letting me into her flat. I could feel a smile growing on my face, especially at the excitement in her voice. She’d phoned to tell me she had news that couldn’t wait. ‘Quick, sit down.’

  She hopped down, cross-legged on the couch beside me, her computer in her lap. Sparkles in her long, wild hair flashed—something I hadn’t seen in a while—and the turquoise eye shadow she was wearing made her dark brown eyes look softer, lighter.

  ‘I have something to show you,’ she said. ‘Take a look at this.’

  I watched her while she pulled up a website and opened it, clicking on images. I leaned closer to see that the screen was filled with thumbnails of Queen Elizabeth the First. Winter enlarged one of them and pushed the laptop in my direction. Her face was flushed with excitement.

  It was a portrait of a girl—the Queen—with red-gold hair streaming over her shoulders, wearing a dark blue dress covered in tiny roses. I reckoned she must have been about my age.

  Around her neck were several strings of pearls, while pearls also hung from her ears.

  But it wasn’t the jewellery Winter wanted me to see.

  In the crook of the girl’s arm, looking up at her with its small, cute, almost human face was a white monkey with a golden collar, holding a tiny golden ball. He was just like the animal Dad had drawn!

  ‘It’s the monkey!’ I said. ‘You found him!’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said, smiling proudly. ‘It’s the young Elizabeth,’ Winter explained, ‘before she became the queen. See—“Portrait of Princess Elizabeth, 1547”,’ she read.

  In her right hand, the princess held a
white- and-gold covered book, embroidered with a decorative ‘E’ while her left hand held an enamelled and jewelled locket. Winter heard my sharp intake of breath as I focused on this—the long white fingers gracefully cradling a locket decorated with a rose, just like the Ormond Jewel.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said again, nodding. ‘It’s the same as the reverse side of the Ormond Jewel. A rose. Like the boy is holding in your dad’s other drawing.’

  ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘I knew it was familiar, somehow. But I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it—the white monkey, I mean. Then it finally came to me. I’d seen it in an art catalogue.

  ‘From time to time one of the great houses belonging to the English nobility has to sell some of its artworks to help pay taxes and upkeep. Sligo’s been receiving catalogues from these high-end auctioneers—lately, he’s become very interested in art.’

  She must have noticed the dubious look on my face. ‘Not in art itself,’ she said, ‘but in its value. Actually, I think he’s already “acquired” some valuable paintings.’

  ‘Acquired?’

  ‘Stolen, probably. I called in to see him the other night and all these paintings were being carried in the back. It must have been almost midnight. What sort of people deliver paintings at that hour?’

  I couldn’t help but feel weird about her being at Sligo’s place at that time of night and I tried to work out when it might have been.

  Winter continued. ‘Anyway, I love looking through the auction catalogues—there are some incredible paintings in there—and I must have seen this one and then forgotten about it. I went back in search of it and read that it came onto the market about a year ago. Until then, hardly anybody knew of its existence.’

  I studied the portrait of the girl again. What was she telling us? What was Dad trying to tell me in his drawing of the boy and the rose?

  ‘I wish we had the Jewel here,’ I said. ‘The locket she’s holding in the painting looks the same. The same gold around the edges, the same shape and size.’