‘Hurry, Patient chappy. There isn’t a moment to lose,’ said Ratty, gathering an armful of cleaning materials and handing the bundle to the Patient. ‘Start making a key now. You can refine it when we next receive a visitor.’
The Patient looked at the items in his hands. He spread them on the floor, then went to the door to study the keyhole more closely. It was an old door, contemporaneous with Dalí’s renovation of the original building in the Seventies. He could see the dimly lit hallway through the keyhole and was able to gauge the depth and likely width of the key.
‘Please hurry,’ repeated Ratty, jigging around and being generally restless and irritating.
‘Mathematical theory is no guarantee of reality,’ explained the Patient. ‘Please do not set your expectations so high. The fall will hurt you when it comes.’
‘Pain matters not a jot to me, old boy. After all I’ve been through I don’t think there’s anything that could hurt me now.’
‘If no one comes until morning there’s no way that I can progress my duplication of the key.’
‘I can’t wait that long, old chap. What other options do we have?’
‘From the shape of this room I would guess that we’re in the square turret. It has no windows. No apparent roof access. This is a very secure space. Our options are limited to our ability to penetrate the brick structure or to force the door open. With only a collection of cleaning items both procedures are unlikely to succeed.’
‘But I’ve seen the old films. We could build a glider. Dig three tunnels. Dress up as local peasants. Tie bedsheets together.’
‘Be patient,’ said the Patient. ‘I will make that key at the first opportunity. Now I think we should rest.’
‘No, I thought of something else,’ said Ratty. ‘We could send a message asking for help.’
‘Our phone was confiscated.’
‘What did people do before telephones? Simple. Message in a bottle.’
‘I don’t think messages in bottles were the primary means of communication in pre-telephonic times,’ said the Patient.
‘It doesn’t matter. If we can just get a written message out to the people on the street below, our problems will be over.’
‘I fear that any such missive will merely be mistaken for litter or for a joke and will be disposed of summarily.’
‘Must you obstruct every great idea that springs forth from my lips, Patient chappy?’
‘I was merely guilty of suggesting obstructions in the wrong order. I should have pointed out the impossibility of getting a piece of paper from here to the streets through solid walls, and even if the paper floated to the ground no one would pay it any attention.’
‘Patient chappy, you need to think in a more surrealist manner. What would Dalí have done in this situation?’
‘Nothing. He locked himself willingly into this place in the final years of his life.’
‘I mean he would release the message with a flourish. Those giant eggs on the roof. Punch a hole in one of those. Stick the message inside. Then push the egg off the roof so it smashes onto the pavement. That’s the surrealist way. That would get us the attention we need.’
‘That would still require roof access, however.’
‘Help me climb onto that metal picture transporter. I’m going to see what this ceiling is made of.’
***
With the site at Flushing Meadows screened from public view, Charlie had a spacious area in which to carry out his theft. He had paid for the vehicle operators to do the works for the first few days, and his plan was to relieve them of their duties on the final day. No one but himself would be permitted to witness the great discovery of the time capsule.
The quantity of soil brought to the surface by the tunnelling machine was staggering. It wasn’t enough just to let it pile up at the mouth of the hole: the space would soon have become overwhelmed with dirt if he’d done that. An annoyingly cheerful man in a mini-digger carried heaps at a time to the furthest corner of their screened zone and deposited the soil before driving back and forth over it, minimising the height of the hill. Another man, far less jolly than the first and therefore much more palatable to Charlie, clicked pre-fabricated tunnel walls into place, securing the passage as it progressed.
Charlie let the professionals do their thing while he wandered around the ruined pavilion, looking at the remains of the road map of America that had once graced the floor. He left the site a few times to buy coffee and donuts for the men, and tried to maintain his image as a knowledgeable surveyor, even though he had no knowledge of the subject whatsoever.
‘Hey, bud!’ called a voice from the site entrance.
Charlie waddled over to it. Dick English was standing there with a steaming coffee mug in his hand.
‘How’s it goin’, Dick?’ Charlie asked.
‘I’ve been thinking about this time capsule shit,’ said English. ‘All this need to know crap. It seems the higher you are in the food chain the more interesting stuff you’re allowed to know. There’s a whole lot of crap no one’s telling me because I’m at the bottom of the heap.’
Charlie looked at him blankly.
‘What I’m saying,’ continued the guard, ‘is I want to be like you. I’m sick of being told I’m not important enough to know what’s going down. I want to work at your level.’
‘My level?’
‘Do me a favour. Tell me how you got there.’
At first Charlie sensed a cunning ploy to wean information out of him that would prove his credentials false, but the guy seemed genuinely interested in working for whatever fictitious government agency Charlie had pretended to be from. And Charlie hadn’t researched or rehearsed anywhere near enough back story to be able to tell a convincing tale. He simply lacked the fundamental knowledge even to be able to try.
‘I’m sorry. I’d love to help, but what you’re asking me for is classified information.’
‘I’m asking about career paths. Qualifications. That kind of stuff isn’t classified.’
‘It is today. I mean it’s too long to tell right now. Let’s meet tomorrow and I’ll tell you what you need to do.’
English seemed satisfied, and Charlie had some breathing space. If he spent the whole night on the Internet researching how to become what he had pretended to be, he could probably pull off this next level of the deception.
‘Hey, Charlie!’ called the irritating man in the digging machine. For the first time, the mindless grin was absent from his face. ‘Big problem. We’ve hit water.’
***
‘Do you have any thoughts as to why the old chap has a bit of a beef about the baby boom generation?’ asked Ratty as he clung precariously to the ceiling, held up by the metal picture trolley and a broom.
‘There are those who say the boom generation benefited from a prosperity that has been denied to their children,’ replied the Patient. ‘When a population bubble retires, all expecting their pension payouts at the same time and ceasing to contribute to the economy, it falls upon the shoulders of the young to pay their way. That is the fundamental cause of the recent recession, according to the writings of some economists. Those still in work may work longer for a smaller pension than their parents enjoyed. But that doesn’t explain the position of the old man, since he is clearly of the generation for which prosperity blossomed.’
‘Indeed. Pass me a paintbrush, old boy.’
The Patient handed a brush up to Ratty.
‘Are you sure you’re safe up there?’
Ratty turned the brush back to front, so that he gripped its wooden handle in his palm like a knife. He stabbed it at the ceiling repeatedly. Chunks of white plaster rained down upon his hair and shoulders. He blinked as the dust gathered in his eyes.
‘The fellow clearly has issues. Says he wants to change the world for the better but won’t explain why that should require our incarceration, nor will he reveal his knowledge as to the fate of my mother.’
He dropped the brush
and braced himself so that he could use the broom handle to continue chipping away at the small hole he had already made with the brush.
‘It is the custom in these parts to construct ceilings from concrete beams and brick infills,’ said the Patient. ‘Unfortunately plasterboard is rarely used, and therefore I suspect you will have difficulty in making a significant impression.’
‘The rotters,’ said Ratty. ‘Perhaps a substantial hammer of some sort would be more effective?’
‘The only item in this room capable of providing the leverage and momentum required is the steelwork in the trolley, but the metal sections of the trolley are bolted together and we would need spanners to separate them.’
‘Perhaps the old fellow has a psychological disorder, something that makes him hate everyone of a certain age and their progeny. We’re not baby boomers ourselves, so I can’t see why he has it in for us.’
‘It is possible, though such a psychosis has never been recorded in any scientific papers.’
Ratty climbed down and examined the metal framework of the trolley. He picked up a bottle of brass polish and studied its metallic cap.
‘What do you say, Patient chappy? Think we could mould this little wotsit to fit those nuts?’
‘It’s conceivable, though whether it would survive the newtons needed to make a nut turn remains to be seen.’
‘Do your best, my friend. I’m getting out of here today. I’m going to find what that old man did to my mother.’
‘Have you considered the possibility that you do not need to get out of here in order to discover more about your mother’s fate?’
‘Of course not, old potato.’
‘Are we of the opinion that the person responsible for our current predicament is the same one who somehow prevented your mother from returning home in 1975?’
‘The old man, yes.’
‘And what did he choose to do with us?’
‘Locked us up in this turret above the museum.’
‘Do you have any reason to believe that he would have done anything different with your mother?’
‘Not particularly. Gosh, you’re not saying that she might have been kept in this room, are you? How frightfully rotten for her.’
‘I am saying precisely that. We must entertain the theory, at the very least. And what do we also know about your mother’s behaviour when in a sticky situation?’
‘Hansel and Gretel,’ said Ratty.
‘The fairy tale?’
‘She tended to leave a trail behind her. Hoping to be rescued and wotnot.’
‘So perhaps instead of attempting to leave this room by means that are at best optimistic and at worst dangerous, we should give it closer examination?’
The two men slowly spun around, conducting a quick survey of their surroundings, no longer looking for the means of escape but for the kind of clue that Lady Ballashiels had cleverly left at Stiperstones. The room didn’t have much to offer, but Ratty knew from his experience with the empty room at Stiperstones that his mother could be most ingenious.
‘No fireplace. And no books. So where do we start, Patient chappy?’
‘We should look for marks on the walls. Signs that an area has been painted over. And if there is no fireplace, we must tap the walls to deduce if there ever was one here.’
Ratty tapped the walls at the level of his knees, hoping for the hollow thump that might indicate a boarded up fireplace. All of the walls were as solid as the floor and the ceiling.
‘It’s no use, old sleuth, this place is a sealed box.’
‘Then we must examine the items within it,’ said the Patient, tipping up the trolley to look beneath it for signs of tampering or writing. Ratty did likewise with all of the smaller items in the room, but there was nothing to indicate the former presence of his mother.
‘What is there in this room that hasn’t changed in the past few decades?’ asked the Patient.
‘Only my haircut,’ confessed Ratty. ‘And the floor.’ He looked down at the tiles beneath his feet. Dark terracotta squares with wide grout lines blackened by ingrained dirt. ‘These tiles look as if they’ve been here for a few decades.’
‘It would be hard to inscribe a message in the surface of the tiles themselves, but grout lines are softer,’ said the Patient.
‘And completely obscured by filth,’ added Ratty. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting that we clean all the grout on the floor?’
‘It is a long shot, but we need to eliminate the possibility of a message in the floor.’
‘You know I’m not really an expert in the cleaning department,’ whispered Ratty, shamefully.
‘We have everything we need in this room. Abrasive pads and cleaning solutions. They are most likely for the maintenance of picture frames, and may even be for the restoration of paintings. I think they will be perfect for our endeavours, being gentle enough to remove only the top layer without harming any possible carved lettering or printed writing on the grout beneath.’
Ratty picked up a selection of bottles and sponges. He gazed at the Patient with the look of one who was lost. The Patient sighed and took the items from his friend’s hand, sprayed a sponge with detergent and began scrubbing the grout lines on the floor. Ratty clumsily copied, starting on the opposite side of the room, and soon the black lines began to turn pale grey.
‘Anything to report, Patient chappy?’ Ratty asked, as he paused for breath having cleaned ten tiles.
‘Nothing here. We must scrub every centimetre of these lines.’
‘Inches, please,’ puffed Ratty. ‘No need for that continental nonsense.’
The cleaning continued, both men on their hands and knees, following an ever-shrinking circumference. The room became noticeably brighter, but remained devoid of hidden messages. Ratty and the Patient reached the last tile together. It marked the centre point of the room. Ratty stood up to let his friend have the honour of cleaning the final section of grout. He didn’t even bother to watch. It seemed to be just a floor. A very clean floor.
‘O,’ said the Patient.
‘Oh what?’ asked Ratty.
‘There is an “O”,’ explained the Patient. ‘Carved into the grout at the corner of this tile.’
‘Could be anything,’ said Ratty. ‘Tiler probably dropped a coin on the wet grout. Hardly sufficient to constitute a coherent message.’
The Patient skipped a section and went to the next corner.
‘R,’ he said, wiping the damp dirt away. ‘It’s been scraped by hand using a simple tool such as a piece of cutlery.’
Ratty’s face lit brightly. This was familiar territory.
‘Orwell?’ he suggested. ‘Do you think she’s marked Georgie’s name again to prove she was here?’ He placed his face next to the floor and scanned the areas already cleaned in case the other letters had been missed.
The Patient went to the next corner of the centre tile and scrubbed it free of grime.
‘D,’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Ratty as he scanned the grout lines. ‘You can’t spell Orwell with a “D”.’
The final corner had already been revealed before Ratty had finished speaking.
‘O,’ the Patient stated, plainly.
‘ORDO? What kind of a clue is that? Or is it RODO? Or DORO? Or ROOD, perhaps?’
‘I think the letters spell DOOR,’ explained the Patient.
‘Door? You think this tile in the middle is a trap door? Doesn’t look big enough to squeeze through.’
Ratty stamped on the tile in question. He danced a jig, then bent down to grab its edges with his fingers. It was stuck down as solidly as all the others.
‘There is another door, Ratty.’
The Patient put down his cleaning materials and walked to the only entrance to the room. Ratty abandoned the floor tile and followed him.
‘The door looks original,’ Ratty admitted, tapping it lightly to determine if it was hollow. ‘Sounds solid, too.’
‘How
would you inscribe a message on a door in such a way that it would remain undetected?’ asked the Patient.
‘Tough one. Along the top edge, I suppose. The only place no one ever looks, and rarely gets repainted up there. But she would have needed the door to be open to write a message up there, and we can’t get it open to read it.’
‘Equally, she would not have had the opportunity to open the door sufficiently to write directly upon its top edge. But even with the door closed it would be possible to write on a strip of paper, apply some glue from the picture repair materials stored here and slide it into the tight gap at the top. It would remain out of sight and attached to the door indefinitely. Why don’t you take a look?’
Ratty hopped in an effort to see the top edge of the door, but couldn’t discern anything in particular.
‘Try scraping it with something,’ the Patient suggested. ‘Do you possess any of those plastic cards?’
‘Credit cards? Hardly. Not exactly credit-worthy, am I? I’ll try the membership card of my London club.’
He pulled out the card from his wallet and ran it slowly along the top of the door. Halfway along it met with some slight resistance.
‘I think I’ve hit something.’
‘Careful. It will be fragile.’
With a hand that shook with excitement, Ratty dislodged a piece of paper from the top of the door. It fluttered to the ground. Less than half the size of a credit card, it appeared to be folded once along an edge that was brittle with age. When he unfolded it the seam split, but the two separate pieces were clearly legible and the implied message was unambiguous.
***
Charlie’s first entry into his own tunnel felt like a oneway journey to the mouth of Hell. Claustrophobia began to overwhelm him. The walls were sturdy, but they were so close to his stomach and his face that he doubted whether he would have the dexterity to turn around and get out again. His safety back-up was a rope tethered to his waist, the other end of which was held by one of the burlier workers up at ground level. The torch in his hand bounced reflections off the water that sat below him, at a depth of about fifteen feet.
The water table was higher than it was supposed to be at this time of year. He was going to have to bring in the pumping equipment sooner than planned.
The Dali Diaries (The Ballashiels Mysteries Book 2) Page 17