The Secret Key

by Lena Jones

  ‘I guess, yeah.’ I look around the room. ‘I can’t quite believe this is you, Brianna.’

  She nods sadly – I’m confirming what she already knows.

  ‘I’m not like you, Agatha. I care what other people think.’

  ‘Well, you’re more like me than I’d ever have guessed,’ I say hesitantly.

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’ Brianna shrugs. ‘You’re so … good at being yourself. You don’t seem to care if people like you or not, but I’m not like that, Agatha. I just want to fit in … I’ve never even used any of this stuff before.’

  ‘What, you’ve never tried it out?’

  ‘Only at home – not to actually solve a crime or catch a criminal. I’ve never had a real adventure.’

  She says the word ‘adventure’ with a kind of longing that I know only too well. Suddenly I like Brianna Pike a whole lot more than I thought.

  ‘Fitting in is one thing.’ I incline my head. ‘It doesn’t mean you have to turn yourself into a Carbon Copy.’ I catch my tongue, realising I’ve used the secret name for the CCs. For a moment, I’m scared of her reaction. Then Brianna laughs.

  ‘Is that what people call us? It’s pretty good, actually.’

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  ‘They’re not so bad, you know, Sarah and Ruth,’ she says slowly, as though not quite believing her own words. ‘They just wouldn’t understand any of this.’

  ‘Well, I know this won’t change anything at school,’ I say, ‘but it’s good to know that there’s a like mind at St Regis.’

  She shrugs the compliment off. I’m prepared to like her, but there’s still one question that I need an answer to.

  ‘Brianna – what were you doing outside the hospital last night?’

  She looks guilty.

  ‘Honestly? You really want to know? I, uh … I was following you.’

  ‘Following me?’ And there I was thinking she might have had something more to do with it than I’d thought.

  Brianna holds up her hands defensively. ‘Yeah, but not, like, in a bad way! It’s just … well, I heard you talking to Liam in class about what happened in the park, to that old lady …’

  I nodded. ‘I guessed you must have heard that.’

  ‘And I dunno, I just felt like you were on to something – it seemed suspicious.’

  I sigh. ‘So why didn’t you just say something?’

  ‘Because …’ She starts, then shrugs and suddenly I understand – it wouldn’t be easy for one of the CCs to ask to join Agatha Oddlow’s geeky detective agency.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Can you forgive me?’ She holds her hand out awkwardly. After a second I take it.

  ‘Forgiven. Just stay away from my house with those night-vision goggles, OK?’

  ‘You have my promise.’ She laughs, crossing her heart. In spite of everything, I have to say that I trust her.

  ‘Well.’ I head towards the door. ‘I’d better get home then, before my dad realises I’m gone.’

  ‘I’ll get you a cab.’

  A cab?

  Brianna not only calls a cab, she pays the driver in advance, refusing to listen to my objections.

  ‘Drive safely,’ she tells him.

  ‘Will you be OK?’ I ask her, remembering what had been going on between her and Sarah Rathbone.

  ‘Me?’ She tosses her blonde hair back with customary confidence. ‘I’ll be fine. Stay safe.’

  ‘Stay safe, yourself.’

  Grinning, she waves from the pavement as the taxi driver speeds off.

  I sit in the back of the cab, mulling over the night’s events. My visit has raised far more questions than it answered, but I’m also grinning as I cross the lawns. I might just be one step closer to having another friend.

  As I get close to the house, I see a small yellow ribbon sticking out of a brick in the wall – Liam and my sign to each other.

  ‘Yes!’ I mutter under my breath. I crouch down and pull – the mortar there has come loose, and the brick comes away in my hand. In the darkness, you can’t see anything in the hole, but when I pull the ribbon, there’s a folded piece of paper attached. We came up with this hiding place for Liam to leave messages for me if I’m not at home and I have my phone switched off, as I usually do. I’m certain that the message must be something to do with Professor D’Oliveira’s tattoo. I could read the message here, but I don’t want to be seen and give away the location of our hiding place. So, I tuck the message into my pocket and replace the brick.

  Back in my room, I take Liam’s folded message out of my pocket and read –

  I shake my head, not understanding why the symbol might be so hard for Liam to find. I feel sure I’ve seen it before – I felt it the moment I spotted it on the professor’s wrist. I search my memory, usually so reliable, but it’s like grasping in the dark – one minute I’m groping around and think I have something, and the next it’s gone in a whisper.

  I change into my pyjamas, lie down on the bed on top of my duvet, and try to cool myself using a paper fan. I should be exhausted. Instead, I’m buzzing with thoughts – the little grey cells are hard at work, but making little progress.

  I stare up at the deep-pink night clouds through my skylight and go over everything that has happened in the past couple of days. I’ve gone from Agatha the Invisible to somebody worth threatening. That means I’ve become a menace to someone in my own right. But who? Part of me relishes the idea that there is someone – perhaps more than one person – who believes I have the power to make a difference, to foil their plot or blow their cover, and part of me is just a little scared.

  Quickly, I write out the facts across two pages of my notebook, drawing arrows where I suspect events are linked. There’s the red slime, my assailant outside the RGS. Then there’s Professor D’Oliveira – an old woman with a strange tattoo – and her hit-and-run …

  Suddenly I jump, as a knock sounds on the front door downstairs. I glance at the clock; it’s almost eleven at night. Who would come this late? I hear Dad open the door and greet the visitor. So he must have been expecting them. I peer out from between my curtains, but catch only a glimpse of the person’s head as they walk in. I feel nervous. After my attack outside the RGS, I’m wary about anyone visiting Dad – how do I know they are who they say they are?

  I wait until I hear the door close and two pairs of feet make their way along the hall to the kitchen. Then I pull on my slippers to muffle my footsteps and creep downstairs. Oliver runs to me with a loud mewl halfway down. I freeze, convinced he has blown my cover. But there’s no break in the conversation drifting up from downstairs. The staircase is enclosed, with a wall either side, and a door at the bottom that leads out to the hall. I open this door slightly, so I can eavesdrop, then scoop Oliver up.

  We sit together, near the foot of the stairs, me trying to hear the conversation above Oliver’s loud purring as he slumps in feline bliss on my lap.

  I can only make out one side of the conversation. Dad’s voice is soft and doesn’t carry as well as the stranger’s, which is loud and booming. It’s a voice that is used to being listened to. There’s no doubt that they’re discussing the algae – the man’s speech is punctuated with words like ‘regeneration’, ‘abnormal growth rate’ and ‘unstable gas build-up’.

  Despite his apparent knowledge, he sounds like a man who works in the City, buying and selling shares, rather than a research scientist. Research scientists tend to be quiet types, with a distracted air, but this man has a confidence that makes me sure, without seeing him, that he is dressed in a sharp suit.

  I hear Dad say, ‘So what’s the verdict? How do we beat it, Mr, er … Davenport?’

  ‘Well, I think you have the right idea with your lab, Rufe!’

  ‘Nobody calls Dad “Rufe”,’ I whisper to Oliver. He stands on my lap and blows his salmony breath into my face, kneading my thighs with his sharp claws.

  The man, Davenport, goes on – ‘I’m sure you’ll
get somewhere if you keep selectively starving the samples.’

  ‘It would help if I knew what to starve them of,’ Dad points out.

  Davenport laughs. ‘Good point, old boy, good point!’

  I want to go and get a better look at this man. But, as I start to move, I hear Dad and the visitor come back out into the hall. I freeze on the bottom step, holding my breath and hope they won’t spot me through the crack in the door.

  I breathe out as Dad’s voice sounds out at the front door, saying goodbye. Before he shuts the door, I hear him call out a greeting to JP and JP says hello in return. What is he doing outside our house so late at night, instead of sitting safely under the weeping tree?

  My brain is racing. Images flash through my head as I try to process all the information. I’m suspecting everyone around me. The key’s outline keeps coming back to me – the key tattoo on the professor’s arm. There’s something about that key … If I could only just remember … As I stand there deep in thought, I hear Dad turn the key in the front door, and know I need to move.

  Oliver has given up hope of using me as his armchair, and is curled up on the landing.

  I bend down to stroke him and an image flashes into my head.

  It’s just a snapshot, but I feel sure I’ve touched on it.

  Quickly, I think hard so that the image is beamed on to the landing wall by an old-fashioned film projector. A key sketched in pencil I press the rewind lever on the projector. With a click and a whirr, the film reels backwards. Images dance on the wall, too fast to see. I press the forward lever and the film plays again – a hand reaching up to a bookshelf my own hand

  Suddenly, the film jams in the projector and, a second later, catches fire against the hot bulb. There is no more – the memory is gone.

  But it doesn’t matter – I know where I need to look.

  I run up the stairs and go to the bookcase in my room. I scan the titles. There it is – an old copy of Agatha Christie’s Mysterious Affair at Styles. Mum’s book. I draw the novel from the shelf with shaking hands, and open the back cover. There it is – on the discoloured end page, a small sketch of the key. It’s a perfect match with the professor’s tattoo. Below the drawing of the key is a string of rough lines that look, at first glance, like something written in Viking runes …

  IVIVXIIVIIIXIIIVIIIXIIVII

  I’m breathless. Whatever is going on, Mum must have been involved, and she has left a message for me to find. I have seen this code in the back of the book before, when I was younger, but never thought much of it. The picture of the key was meaningless, just a doodle. The code seemed to mean nothing, but now I put all my effort into solving it. How could I have let a message from Mum sit on my shelf all these years?

  I grab my notebook and pen from by the bed and sit down on the rug.

  The first thing I note is that the string of Is, Vs and Xs can be broken down into Roman numerals –

  IV IV XII V III X II IV III X II VII

  Where to split some of the numbers is guesswork – the V and the III (five and three) could actually have been VIII (eight). But if I do it this way, there are twelve numbers, or three groups of four, which seems neat –

  (IV IV XII V) + (III X II IV) + (III X II VII)

  I wrack my brain – what kind of code would use sets of four? I’m blank for a second, but then it hits me – the object I’m holding is a book! The groups of four numbers could be references to chapters, pages, lines and words. And from words, you could make a message.

  Quickly, I flip to the fourth chapter, then the fourth page of the chapter, then run my finger down to the twelfth line, and along to the fifth word.

  ‘… the symptoms do not develop until early the next morning!’

  The next two references share a page, I realise, turning to the tenth page of chapter three. I run my finger along the second line, and discover the other two words in the same sentence …

  ‘I spent it in ransacking the library until I discovered a medical book, which gave me a description of strychnine poisoning.’

  That’s it, I have no more. The message is – ‘Develop In Library’. I stare at it for a moment, my heart sinking. The message seems like nonsense. For a second I had a glimmer of hope. Not just that the puzzle was about to be solved, but that, after all these years, I was going to get one last message from Mum.

  I slump back, my mind unfocused, letting disappointment flood in. Then, like a voice at the back of my head that won’t shut up, the phrase keeps repeating itself to me.

  Develop in library …

  Develop in library …

  Develop in library …

  I look up to a spot on one of the highest shelves. The books up there have spent many years unread – they are of no interest to me. There are catalogues of other books, or treatises on ‘information management’, whatever that is. Then I see it – right there, in the middle of the shelf, sits one of Mum’s old reference books – Developments in Librarianship, Vol. 18.

  Trembling slightly, I pull a chair over to the shelf, get up, and take down the heavy brown book. My hand pauses for a second over the cover, almost not wanting to open it, scared of finding nothing inside. Surely that is what awaits me – another disappointment. Well, better to get it over and done with.

  I open the book.

  A small slip of paper – an old bookmark – falls out.

  For a moment, I stop breathing altogether. There, in the middle of the book, is no page at all. Someone has hollowed out the book with a knife, making a small, rectangular compartment. And there, gleaming darkly in the light, is a key. A perfect physical copy of the drawing – the black lines translated into wrought iron.

  I take the key from the book. It is cold, heavy and real. It had belonged to my mother and, after many years, she has given it to me. I have no idea where it came from, or what it is supposed to open. But it is mine.

  I take the key and get into bed, exhausted now.

  I gaze at the puzzle one more time before switching off the lamp.

  Despite the baking heat in my little attic room, I fall asleep in a matter of seconds, the strange key grasped in my hand.

  It’s Saturday, but I still wake before eight. I’m exhausted and groggy from the night before. But I wake with the key still cradled in my palm, and that makes me stop and think. Even though I don’t know its purpose, the key is precious. I can’t bring myself to put it down. I rummage through my jewellery box – a beautiful old Chinese box with an embroidered lid that belonged to Mum – and find one of Mum’s silver chains, which I thread through the key and fasten round my neck.

  I turn my radio on and listen to the news –

  ‘… further outbreaks of looting and rioting across London, as the water shortage worsens. Police have been called to an unplanned demonstration on Old Kent Road which is blocking traffic. Fire crews attending a blaze in Putney have been struggling to control the flames at a carpet warehouse with the limited water supplies …’

  I shut it off, a hollow feeling in my stomach. The next thing I do is to send a message to Liam. I might not use my phone much, but Liam has to be alerted immediately. I send the words ‘Custard Cream’ – our standard code for an urgent rendezvous – and the number 12, which tells him that he needs to come to my house at noon.

  I go downstairs and make some toast, and am walking back through to the living room when I see a note on the doormat. It’s a plain envelope, without an address. All it says on the front is ‘Agatha’. I pick it up, noting that there is something inside. Maybe I should go and put gloves and goggles on before opening it. But I can’t wait.

  I pull out a handwritten note, and something else falls to the floor. The note reads –

  You shouldn’t spy on people.

  My heart is racing. Someone is trying to scare me off. I look down at what has fallen out – it’s a wilted white flower. I look at it carefully, trying to understand what it means. Dad is the expert on flowers, not me, but I know the name of thi
s one – clematis. It’s the plant that is growing up the back wall of our house, underneath my window. I run through the kitchen, open the back door and go out into the garden.

  There, under my window, the grass is covered in dozens of white flowers – each and every one of them has been cut away from the plant. Dozens of dead flowers, drying in the sun. Who would have done this? I shiver – whoever I’m dealing with, they know how to creep me out.

  I think about the message – ‘You shouldn’t spy on people’. I remember hearing JP’s voice, calling out to my dad. He’s always been so friendly and unassuming, just living in the park. But could this be something to do with him? I realise how little I know about the mystery man. He came to live in the park a few months ago, and introduced himself to me. Dad went and talked to him and decided he was all right. But what did Dad know about him? What if JP has been spying on us all along?

  I put the letter and the flower in evidence bags and put those up in my room. Then I clear up the flowers on the lawn – hopefully with everything going on, Dad won’t notice that someone has decapitated his plant. I brush my hands off and take a deep breath. I’m not going to be intimidated – I have to get to the bottom of what is going on.

  I’m just coming in through the back door when Dad shambles into the kitchen, still wearing his pyjamas (which is unusual for him, even at the weekend).

  ‘Late night?’ I ask, putting on the kettle.

  ‘It –’ Dad pauses for a big yawn – ‘was.’

  ‘You had a visitor?’ I ask, trying not to sound too interested as I take two mugs from the cupboard and two teabags from the jar.

  ‘Mmph.’ Dad nods, sitting heavily at the table. ‘Just some bloke from the Environment Agency, wanting to know how the park is getting on in the drought.’

  ‘Oh, right. Did you tell him about your experiments?’ The kettle clicks and I pour it out (NO. 1 DAD mug for him and an Eiffel Tower souvenir mug for me).

  ‘Yeah, but there wasn’t much to say. It’s not like I know anything the Environment Agency doesn’t. We ended up talking about you, actually.’