“I’m sure he thought it would help him prove to Mrs. Winslow that his translation and printout were correct,” said Reggie. “But I think it would have shown just the opposite. We’ll know as soon as we press the beak.”
“Press the beak?” said Laura.
“I think the duck will say one thing,” said Reggie, “and Mr. Liu’s printout will show something else.”
“Okay, press it,” said Nigel. “I’ll compare it to the document from Mr. Liu.”
Laura pressed the beak.
“One, two, buckle my shoe,” said the duck.
“Bu that’s not what Mr. Liu’s document says,” said Nigel. “It’s ‘One, two, unbuckle my shoe.’”
“Well that’s just wrong,” said Laura. “It’s not how the rhyme goes.”
“Exactly,” said Nigel. “All right, press it again.”
Laura pressed the beak again.
“Three, four, shut the door,” said the duck.
“That one’s correct,” said Nigel. “The document is the same as what the duck says. Press it again.”
“Five, six, pick up sticks,” said the duck.
“The document is wrong again,” said Nigel. “It says ‘throw down sticks.”
“The opposite of what it is supposed to say,” said Reggie. “Mrs. Winslow said there are errors like that throughout.”
“Then it’s a bloody code,” said Nigel. “And the cipher is based on the errors. During Word War Two, the allies did something very similar with crossword puzzles published in The Sunday Times. They put in deliberate errors in the answers, and each incorrect answer conveyed information about the coming invasion in Normandy. This is like that, and there’s a reason why we’re seeing exact opposites in rhymes that have numbers in them. If the line is the opposite of what it is supposed to be, then the numbers in that line get included in your password, or phone number, or whatever the hell the thing is that is being conveyed. Someone was supposed to go to the souvenir store, buy one of these ducks, and look at the errors in the printout to see the numbers that matter. And if you have any doubt about what the line is supposed to be, all you have to do is press the duck’s beak to confirm.”
“Someone did buy one,” said Reggie. “Mr. Liu bought one, and then he was killed for it.”
“We don’t have time for all this beak pressing,” said Laura. “Let me see the document. I know my rhymes: ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’—says it doesn’t have any wool, but that’s completely wrong. It has three bags full, so we include the number three. Is that how this works?”
“Exactly,” said Nigel.
“All right, then,” said Laura after a short moment. “I’ve circled them all. These are the numbers we get from the lines with obvious errors.”
She handed the sheet back to Nigel.
“Seven digits,” said Nigel. “Could be a phone number.”
Laura, with the plastic duck still in her lap, looked from Nigel to Reggie.
“Well,” she said. “What do we do? Do we call it?”
“Let’s,” said Nigel. He took out his mobile and started to punch in the numbers.
“No, wait,” said Reggie.
Nigel stopped, three digits short.
“What?” said Nigel.
“What?” said Laura. “We’re finally getting somewhere. And we don’t have much time.”
“If we ring that number and it is the kidnappers, they’ll know that we know that what they wanted all along was just this one document.”
“You mean that they’ll know we know they wanted a translation sheet for a talking duck?” said Nigel. “That’s bloody all we know.”
“At this point,” said Laura. “Maybe it would be good if they think we do know something. Certainly it will make me feel better.”
Reggie considered that.
“All right, then,” said Reggie.
Nigel began to punch the numbers in again.
“No, wait,” said Reggie.
Nigel stopped, two digits short this time.
“What?” said Nigel
“There was something that happened at the warehouse. Something we were doing—me, Wembley, or his assistant—kept setting the duck off.”
“Yes?” said Laura.
“Probably doesn’t matter,” said Reggie. But then he stood and took the duck out of Laura’s lap. He set it on the desk and stared at it.
“Now?” said Nigel.
“No, wait,” said Reggie. Nigel, Laura, and Lois all gave Reggie puzzled looks.
“Sorry,” said Reggie. “Just bear with me.”
Reggie picked up the duck and walked some ten paces down the corridor, to the far corner. He set the duck down, then returned to the desk with everyone else.
“All right,” said Reggie. “Now.”
Nigel began to punch in numbers again.
“Wait,” said Laura.
“Now what?” said Nigel, stopping just short of the final digit.
“When a kidnapper answers—if a kidnapper answers—I do the talking,” said Laura. “Agreed?”
Reggie and Nigel both nodded.
“Of course,” said Reggie.
“All right, then,” said Laura. “Now.”
Nigel picked up the phone again and quickly punched in six digits.
Then he paused before the final digit and looked at both Reggie and Laura.
They both nodded.
Nigel punched in the last digit.
Two seconds of silence crawled by. Reggie looked in the direction of the duck.
“It’s ringing, “said Nigel. “Once. Twice. Third ring. Now the line’s dead.”
“Try it again,” said Reggie.
Nigel punched in the numbers, and they all waited through the sequence of rings again. Reggie still looked in the duck’s direction.
Again, nothing.
Reggie let out a huge sigh of relief.
“What did you think it was going to do,” asked Nigel. “Explode?”
Reggie’s look back at Nigel and Laura said yes.
“Why would anyone put a bomb in a plastic duck?” asked Lois. “It would be so silly. Might as well put one in your knickers.”
Nigel went and got the duck and brought it back to the desk.
“Huh,” said Nigel. “I didn’t notice these green eyes before. Did you?”
“No,” said Laura. “I don’t think they were lit before.”
“Then the coded number did have an effect,” said Reggie.
“Booted it up, like a computer,” said Nigel.
“Or armed it,” said Reggie.
Nigel placed the toy duck on Lois’s desk, as if preparing it for surgery. He took a letter opener from the desk drawer, located a plastic panel on the bottom of the duck, and pried it open.
“It was too light to have an explosive in it,” said Nigel. “I mean, not yet at least.” He lifted the duck up and peered into the shadowy plastic cavern inside.
“There’s enough room for it, though. And it does already have something that normal ducks—I mean, normal plastic ducks—do not have.”
Nigel pried farther inside the duck with the letter opener. A thin brown electrical component board, no more than an inch square, dropped out onto the desk.
“I’m no expert on this, but it looks to me like there are two receivers on this chip,” said Nigel. “One of them gets the coded signal that we just dialed from a mobile phone. The coded signal prepares something on this chip to happen, in advance. When the time comes, something else has to communicate with the other receiver to make the thing happen in real time.”
As Nigel pushed the component back into the duck, Lois tried to peer into it from the other side of the desk.
“Where’s the part that makes the duck talk?” she asked.
“There’s a little speaker board attached,” said Nigel. “That part, I’m sure of. It’s just like what you see in those greeting cards that sing happy birthday to you.”
As Nigel closed the duck back up, Reggie reach
ed into the inside pocket of his mac and pulled out the greeting card that he’d taken from the warehouse.
“One of these kinds of cards?” said Reggie. “There was a box of these at the warehouse, brought in by Elgar Imports, just like the duck.”
Reggie put the card on the desk for everyone to see. It was unopened; it still had a seal on the edges.
“One more test,” said Reggie.
“So you think this one will do more than play ‘Happy Birthday’?” asked Laura.
“Let’s find out,” said Reggie, and he prepared to open the card.
“No, wait,” said Nigel.
Nigel picked up the duck and carried it over to the same far wall where Reggie had taken it moments before. Then he returned to the desk.
“Better safe than sorry,” said Nigel.
Reggie nodded. Then he broke the seal and opened the card.
“Happy Birthday” played from the card.
“Humpty Dumpty took a great fall,” said the duck, and it began to waddle toward them.
Reggie closed the card.
“Happy Birthday” stopped. And so did the duck.
Nigel exhaled. “All right, then. Seems to me we armed it by phone with a secret code. And then we activated it by opening a birthday card. I suppose there might be several innocent scenarios where you want that kind of sequence. Right now, I can’t think of a single one, but then, I’m no expert.”
“Scotland Yard is,” said Reggie. “And they already have one of these bloody things. Wembley had his assistant take it from the warehouse for analysis.”
“Then they should already know if—”
“They were treating it as just an ordinary crime scene. They probably haven’t even gotten to this thing yet.”
Nigel stood and put the computer chips in his pocket. “Someone should go to the Yard and give them a nudge.”
“Perhaps it would help if we knew whose birthday it is,” said Laura. She took the greeting card from Reggie and opened it.
“Happy Birthday” played again as Laura read the printed inscription on the inside of the card. This time, they let the song run all the way through to the end: “Happy birthday dear Lady Ashton-Tate,” sang the card. “Happy birthday to you.”
“Oh dear God,” said Laura. “The Lady Ashton-Tate birthday party. That little bash is today.”
“Oh yes,” said Lois. “I have it right here in my newspaper: ‘Lady Ashton-Tate Birthday Bash to Support Red Squirrels.’ The procession starts from her home in Hampstead and goes to Serpentine Lake at Hyde Park, where one of the lesser dukes joins her with his own procession, everyone sings ‘Happy Birthday,’ and then they all go on a jog around the park to celebrate the lady’s efforts on behalf of the endangered red squirrel. It’s supposed to happen at noon.”
All eyes turned to the clock.
It was quarter of eleven.
Laura hid her head in her hands and said, “Tea at noon, detonation code courtesy of Laura Rankin.”
“It’s not even eleven yet,” said Reggie, trying to sound upbeat. “We’ve got a solid hour and fifteen minutes before the lady opens her birthday card.”
Nigel nodded. “No worries.”
Reggie picked up a phone. “I’ll call Wembley. He’ll get right on the bomb thing, cancel the event, and then I think it’s time we let him know about Buxton. I mean, assuming he is still—well, point is, whether or not they’ve done anything to him—”
“Reggie,” said Laura, as plaintive as he had ever heard her. “Please, just call.”
Reggie rang the detective inspector.
As they all waited for someone to pick up, Nigel said, “How are they getting the bomb into the event? Security will be everywhere.”
“Some, but not so much as you’d think,” said Laura. “Most of the focus will be on the Prince of Wales’s dinner with foreign dignitaries across town. Our event is just the duke, Lady Ashton-Tate, and assorted celebrities in trainers.”
“Yes, but how do they do it? Is someone going to walk in carrying a plastic duck under his arm? And why a duck in the first place? Why not a red squirrel or something?”
“Ducks float?” said Laura.
“Well, yes, but you’d still have to get it onto the lake somehow. Surely it will be cordoned off. So how do they get it in?”
“I’ve got someone,” said Reggie. “No, damn it, bloody hell—just another recording.”
“We can’t wait,” said Laura. “I’ll go to Ashton-Tate’s estate and see if I can stop the procession from departing. Apparently I wasn’t on the invite list, but I know some of these people.”
Reggie nodded. “I’ll go direct to Hyde Park. If you can’t stop the procession from embarking, maybe I can find someone to turn it back when it arrives. Lois can keep trying Wembley’s number from here while Nigel goes to the Yard.”
Now there was the tiny, innocent sound of Lois’s clock chiming. They all looked at the clock, and then at one another.
“Good news,” said Nigel. “We’ve still got a full hour.”
Laura picked up the plastic duck.
“You’re taking it with you?” asked Nigel.
“I work better with a prop.”
“What will you tell the procession?”
“‘Beware the damn duck,’ I suppose.”
33
Reggie drove from Baker Street onto Park Road, intending to turn south onto Gloucester Place, toward Hyde Park. But he paused at the intersection. Just one block north, at Regent’s Park, was the duck pond where Laura had met with the kidnappers.
Something about that first meeting still bothered him. It still didn’t feel right. And although there was very little time, the road along Regent’s Park would be a very short detour.
Reggie took the turn. He drove slowly along the road that paralleled the duck pond. He stared across at the little island where Laura had had her encounter.
There was not much to the strip of land; it really had no more right to be called an island than the pond had to be called the boating lake. The perimeter was lined with trees and shrubs, though, and there was indeed enough cover for someone to hide—temporarily—from the sight of people on the shore.
Buxton’s chief of staff had said they had all vantage points covered. And as incompetent as they were, it should have been true. For the entire circumference of the park, there was no structure or foliage that anyone could have hidden behind to get across the Outer Circle road. For the kidnappers to have escaped the boundaries of Regent’s Park as they did, Buxton’s security team had to have been either blind or fools beyond belief.
Unless one of them was lying: a distinct possibility, which Reggie had not yet ruled out.
But another possibility had occurred to him. If there were sufficient time, there was no question he should check it out.
There was not sufficient time. He knew it.
But he pulled over anyway. He got out of the Jag and walked to the boathouse where Laura had embarked before to meet the kidnappers.
The boathouse was open. There was no queue, which was lucky.
“Can I rent a boat with a motor?” said Reggie to the attendant, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.
“No, sorry,” she said. “You can only rent a rowboat. Or a pedaler.”
“Oh,” said Reggie. “Didn’t know. Someone told me they’d seen an outboard on the pond before.”
“The only outboard with access belongs to the Royal Parks Service,” said the young woman. “I’m afraid it’s not for let. Only park rangers and water district workers can use it.”
“Fair enough,” said Reggie. And now he had to decide. This would take more time than he had hoped.
“I’ll take one that rows, then,” he said.
Reggie paid for his boat and waited impatiently, staring out at the little island and checking his watch, as the attendant unlocked the boat from the rope.
Then Reggie got in and rowed as hard as he could.
This was a probabl
y a wild-goose chase. So to speak. But he kept rowing.
Finally he bumped the bow of the boat up against the island mud. He got out into four inches of water and muck and hauled the boat onto the shore after him.
He dropped the boat, straightened up, and looked about.
It had not rained since Laura was there before. Reggie looked down at the mud, silty where she had dragged the boat up, but firmer approaching the shrub line on the shore—and there they were: Laura’s footprints, where she had pursued the kidnappers into the trees. He even found one of her shoes.
Reggie followed that path. He pushed through a narrow gap in the bushes and entered a small clearing, roughly forty feet in circumference. It was flanked by trees on all sides, with shrubs and water reeds that would have provided sufficient concealment from anyone watching from the shore.
Reggie began to walk along the circumference of that area. In just a few moments, he reached the point where Laura had pursued someone across the island to the other side. Yes, there were her footprints again—and someone else’s, as she had said.
Reggie looked at the prints and could make nothing of them. He had not made a science of this. They were shoe prints. A man’s. No, two different men, given the different sizes. Any more information than that would require Wembley’s forensics team, and there was no time for that.
But an identity from the prints wasn’t what he was looking for.
Reggie stooped down and began to walk slowly along where the foot-high grass and weeds grew up against and between the shrubs.
He broke off a thin branch from a tree and began to prod the ground.
Mud. Mud. More mud.
And then something solid.
Reggie bent down for a closer look. He pushed aside the grass, which parted easily, as if someone had done this before and then pushed it back. He got down on his hands and knees and brushed aside some loose dirt.
And there it was: a rectangular brass plate, roughly twenty inches by thirty, set in a concrete casement. The letters forged in the top of the plate read ROYAL PARKS WATER AND SEWER.
All of it was concealed from the casual observer—or even the halfway interested one—by the dirt and leaves and high grass that had been pushed over it.
And it was the only way Reggie could think of for anyone to have gotten off the island and out of Regent’s Park unseen.
The Baker Street Translation Page 18