The Messenger Bird

by Ruth Eastham

  The scaffolding moved to one side, then the other. I heard Sasha scream for real, the sound echoing round the walls.

  I did another shuffle. Then another. The dangling latch was almost within reach. I’d have to use my right hand, though. My arm felt like it was on fire as I stretched it out. My fingers closed around the latch. With a grunt I heaved it up and wrenched it back into the metal loop…

  The scaffolding shuddered to a stop.

  I leaned my head against the wall, panting. The room swayed and I balanced there, willing it to go still.

  “Thanks, Nathan,” Josh said quietly.

  “You go down,” I croaked across to them. “I’ll look around the design.”

  Sasha frowned. “No, we’ll help you—”

  “Please,” I interrupted, my face tight. “Just get down. Please.”

  They must have heard the edge in my voice and got the message. I watched them make their way carefully down the scaffolding to the ground; then I adjusted my head torch and fixed my eyes on the moon with its stretching beams.

  There was nothing obvious. I couldn’t see any stars in the ceiling design, or anywhere near. The touching-up paint was still sticky and I got gold on my fingertips as I felt around. I ran my hand along the wooden edges of the painted piece, but there was nothing. What was I expecting – a secret drawer pinging out; the ceiling sliding back to reveal a hidden compartment, like you see in films, and a nice fat file of papers with EVIDENCE stamped on it?

  I glanced down at Sasha and Josh. Bad idea. I took a few seconds to steady myself.

  Josh gave me a nod of encouragement and I searched the design some more. “How can there be anything hidden in that?” I muttered. I scraped at the plaster with my fingertips. They’ve all led you on a nutty wild goose chase after all, haven’t they, Nathan? A trail going nowhere. What are you going to do now, eh?

  I stood there on the top rung of the ladder, biting my lip. There had to be something up here. I’d find it. If I could just stop being too worried and too thick…

  Sasha looked up at me and her face was kind, but her head was shaking from side to side, and for the first time I saw doubt like a mask over her face. “Maybe it’s a dead end,” she said gently. “Or maybe someone got here before us. Maybe the painters found it when they were up there.”

  I let my arms slump to my sides. I dropped my head down to my chest. For a tiny moment the beam of my head torch lined up with the central beam from the moon on the ceiling…

  And that was when I saw it.

  18

  Star Gazing

  Along the moonbeam, the torchlight went, down the wood-covered wall, through the arch. “Look at that wooden panel!” I whispered in a frenzy, keeping my torch right on it like a searchlight. My arm ached like mad, but I didn’t care. “Look there!”

  “What?” Sasha gave me a funny look, then gasped and ran over to a panel at floor level. Josh knelt by Sasha. They’re stars, Nathan,” he said. “Stars!”

  I got off the platform and eased myself down the ladder. My legs still wobbly, I stumbled over to join the others.

  You wouldn’t see the stars unless they were pointed out. Even then, only if the light was at a certain angle and you looked at them a certain way. I ran my fingers over the large, smooth rectangle. In each of its four corners was a star, four wooden inlays of a slightly lighter colour to the rest, the only thing to mark the panel out from the hundreds of others.

  Josh pressed his ear against the wood and tapped along it with his knuckles. “It seems to be hollow inside!” He knocked on more wall. “I think the space goes back quite a long way.”

  I scraped at the panel with my fingertips. There was a tiny gap at the bottom of it and when I got my nails in there and pulled, it shifted just ever so slightly. Blood raced in my ears. “We need to open it,” I said, and we fiddled around to get a grip in the thin slit.

  I heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside. “Turn off the torches!” I said. “Now!” I ran across the ballroom floor, stumbling on the splatter sheets. I remembered the tools left by the workmen and went to grab a chisel. I sprinted back and dug the end in the crack to try and lever the panel up.

  There was no time to be scared; no time to bother about how sore my arm was. We knelt shoulder to shoulder, our fingertips wedged in the bottom crack, and together we pulled upwards.

  There was the definite sound of a door creaking open in a nearby room. Creeping footsteps.

  We pulled again and the panel jolted up, sliding semi-smoothly over the panel above it, leaving just enough room to get through. Without thinking, I shoved Josh in. Sasha went next. I followed.

  There was someone just outside the ballroom door. I saw their shadowy shape appear as I slid the panel quietly shut, trapping us behind it in total, utter darkness.

  19

  The Secret Room

  We crouched together in the dark, cold space, listening. I strained my ears for any sound, but there was none, just the three of us, struggling to control our breathing. Not even a chink of moonlight showed along the panel we’d come through. There was a dense smell of wood and stale air and it felt like being in a coffin. We waited and we listened, not daring to move. I heard Josh sneeze; Sasha coughed. I pressed my knees against my stomach, my arm tight with cramp.

  “Do you think they’ve gone?” I whispered at last, my voice sounding all muffled.

  “Think so,” said Sasha. “Hope so.”

  “If the light can’t get in,” mumbled Josh. “Then our light won’t get out.” I heard him nibbling at his nails. “This place must be totally sealed.”

  I reached for my forehead and turned on my torch with a click. “Where are we?” Grey specks swirled in the beam. The others put their torches on and we sat there in the middle of the floor, looking around in disbelief.

  We were in a tiny room with a bare wooden floor. It was more like a big box than a room, like a prison cell without any windows, with a reddish leathery covering on the walls, but with just about enough space to stand up in. Slowly, I got to my feet, shaking the pins and needles from my legs.

  “I think this place might be soundproof as well,” whispered Josh. He pressed the walls of the room and when I felt them, they were kind of spongy under my fingers, padded with something or other and nailed in place. “But best not to be too loud, just in case,” he said.

  I kept gazing around. Amazement pushed out my fear. We’d worked it out! This was where Lily’s trail had brought us, the end of the trail Dad had wanted me to follow. The evidence had to be in here, right?

  “A secret room slap bang in the middle of Bletchley Park,” said Josh, wiping a cobweb off his head where he’d brushed against the low ceiling. “It’s unbelievable!” He hopped about. “Imagine when I tell Percy. He’s bound to let us off stealing his keys, and maybe even breaking and entering!”

  We started to search, our torch beams crisscrossing over the squishy walls. My light came to rest on something in a corner. I went closer and knelt over it. It was a honey-coloured wooden box, about the size of a small suitcase, with a little metal latch on the lid to seal it closed. I tried to lift the whole thing, but it was heavier than I expected and there was no way I could with my bad arm. My throat pulsed as I pulled back the latch and opened the lid.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said.

  Sasha and Josh were crouched next to me in an instant. A silence fell over the three of us, as if the thing in the box were giving out some secret, hypnotic signal.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” said Sasha.

  “Lily never stole it,” I whispered. “It was here all along.”

  Josh just stared, his eyes wide and round.

  It was an Enigma Machine. An Enigma Machine like the one in the glass case in the exhibition centre, with the two keyboards and the three dials, and a window by each of the dials set to A—A—A.

  But how could an Enigma Machine be Dad’s evidence?

  “Help me che
ck the box,” I urged, and we bent over it, scanning its parts.

  Sasha lifted up a twisty wire attached to the back with an old-fashioned-looking plug on the end.

  “I don’t think this was Lily’s.” Josh lifted out a sheet of paper. There were words biroed across the top:

  Leon Vane was here – September 1971

  I grabbed the paper off him. “Dad was here … when he was thirteen!” My chest thudded as I scanned the page. It had a diagram of the Enigma Machine, with labels pointing to different bits of it. More writing said the settings when I found it, but there was no sign of any evidence. Where was it? I was about to shove Dad’s paper to one side when I noticed something on the diagram.

  “There’s a front part, remember!” I cried, forgetting to be quiet. “Open it! Open it!”

  We felt the wood at the front of the Enigma Machine and tugged and a piece creaked down to reveal a panel with all these holes marked with capital letters, and a couple of wires pegged in.

  And there was something wedged beside the pegs.

  I rushed to get it, but Sasha snatched it from the box before me and waved it in the air, smirking.

  A phone. It was a phone.

  I caught my breath.

  I’d know it anywhere.

  Dad’s

  mobile

  phone.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I heard Mr Edwards in his office. If we find the evidence, it could prove Leon’s innocence.

  Dad’s phone!

  Sasha gave it to me and I cradled it against my coat. I sat there a moment with my eyes closed, my back flat against the squashy wall, clutching it in my two hands.

  “It’s the snazzy new thing he showed us that time, right?” cried Sasha. “A touch screen with all the apps.”

  “Turn it on! Turn it on!” urged Josh, and I scrambled to find the power button.

  The screen glowed into life. Icons peppered the screen. I tapped Stored Files and held my breath. A list flashed up – I scrolled down, blinking – a very long list. There were documents and audio files and images and video footage, and the stored stuff had names like suspect3_meets_buyer and suspect1_phone_call and shredded_memo and evidence_13d!

  I laughed out loud. This was it. This was definitely it! Everything we needed to get Dad off – not a shadow of a doubt!

  I felt dizzy with relief. We’d done it. We’d really done it.

  “Nathan.” Sasha’s arm was round me. Josh was sitting close.

  “Thanks, guys,” I managed. “Thanks.”

  We sat like that a while, and then Sasha spoke. “So, then. What do we do now?”

  I looked at her. I’d been so busy thinking about finding the evidence, I hadn’t really thought what we were supposed to do with the evidence when we found it.

  I thought of Mr Edwards’s business card in my pocket; the private number to ring him on. Whose side was he really one? Mr Edwards and Dad had been at school together, I couldn’t help thinking; that meant something, didn’t it? He’d warned me about his office and my house being bugged.

  “We could phone Dad’s solicitor,” I said uncertainly.

  “But we think he was got at, remember?” cried Josh. “They threatened his kids!”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” I said. “Besides, I really don’t know who else we can go to. We can’t wait around in here for ever, but if we leave this room…”

  The three of us stared at the panel we’d rushed in through, and Josh went an ashy colour. Who knew what was waiting for us out there.

  I pummelled a bit of wall in frustration, then chewed my knuckles. Dad should have told me what to do with the phone when I found it! Surely he must have thought that through. I dredged back through my last conversation with him. Was there anything else he’d said? Could there have been more to his message? I remembered his edgy question: Have I been in the papers? Then: The press have the story already…

  I sprang up. Dad had told me what to do with the evidence! Soon they’ll all have the whole story, Nathan. He wanted me to take it to the papers!

  “Of course!” said Josh when I told them. “The papers will blow this thing wide open! We should have thought of that. I know – we can email the evidence to them from here – send all the files electronically!” He took Dad’s phone from me. “All we have to do is use this to get on the Internet and find the emails for the editors of all the main newspapers and then…”

  He stopped; tapped at the screen; rotated the whole thing one way, then the other. “It’s gone off, Nathan,” he said, his voice all small. “The battery’s totally flat.”

  “That’s decided, then,” said Sasha dryly.

  I took a breath. “Mr Edwards,” I said. It had to be.

  “We know I can’t use my phone, though.” I pulled out the business card he’d slipped me, and we huddled together in the greenish light of Sasha’s mobile while I dialled the number.

  It rang a while, then Mr Edwards came on the line, his voice all strained and tired. “Nathan?” He was suddenly alert as he realised it was me. I put him on speaker so Sasha and Josh could hear as well. I quickly filled him in. He gasped, then paused, then spoke without stopping.

  “The ballroom, you say? It seems beyond belief! A panel lifts up? We can’t talk long. They could be tracing the call my end. This is very tricky. I have to tread very carefully, you understand. I can’t be seen to be involved in any unorthodox practice – I wouldn’t want to compromise your father’s case. Listen, hold on until morning. There’s people in the force I trust. I’ll send people to get you out first thing in the morning as soon as Bletchley Park opens – you’re there illegally, remember. If we mess up now, the evidence on the phone could be inadmissible and you can say goodbye to your dad going free. Stay where you are. Don’t move from there! I’ll get help to you first thing in the morning.” The line went dead.

  “You heard what he said.” I put Sasha’s phone in my coat pocket and pulled out the chocolate bars I’d brought and shared them out. “We have to wait, so here’s some emergency rations.”

  “I’m not very good with patience,” said Josh, unwrapping his and taking a huge bite. I saw one of his hands was shaking.

  It was a lot colder in the secret room now, and we huddled together for warmth as we munched. I noticed how much dimmer my head torch was. I thought about Dad’s dead phone. “Best save the batteries,” I said. I imagined sitting for hours in the pitch black and it wasn’t a nice thought. “Only keep one on at a time.”

  All we heard was our breathing. No sounds came from outside the secret room, nothing, but somehow it was worse, that silence. Josh’s leg twitched. All this waiting, waiting. I turned Dad’s phone in my hand, thinking about all that vital evidence stored up in such a small thing. The only thing that could save him.

  I looked at my watch. Twenty past two.

  “Mr Edwards will come and help us, won’t he, Nathan?” whispered Josh, his face scrunched up with anxiety.

  I nodded sheepishly. Yes. Mr Edwards will come with help, I told myself. He will.

  Old doubts sprang up about the solicitor – why hadn’t Dad just told him where the evidence was? Everything would have been so much easier if he had. Mr Edwards will come with help, I told myself again, stop worrying, but I suddenly couldn’t help thinking I’d just made a mistake. A very bad mistake.

  “When will he be here?” said Josh. “I’ll need to get out of here soon! If those corrupt staff find us here…” His eyes rolled in terror. All those hours of television, finally having their effect.

  “It’s OK, Josh,” I said. “We have to sit tight.” Now definitely wasn’t the time to get claustrophobic.

  Josh sat there mumbling to himself. Sasha stroked his arm, raising her eyebrows at me. I had to get his mind on something else; get him sidetracked, stop him freaking out. Stop all of us freaking out.

  I jabbed a thumb at the Enigma Machine in its box. “So Lily never stole it after all, eh, Josh?”

  “Yeah, Jos
h,” said Sasha, catching on. “It was in here all along, hey? Right under their noses!”

  Josh gave a weak smile and nodded.

  We shuffled him over to it and Sasha ran her fingers over the keys. “Lily just hid it here, do you reckon, so she could carry on working on the codes? They wouldn’t let her do extra shifts, remember? But how did she even know this place existed, do you think?”

  “A lot of old mansion houses have a secret room,” said Josh quietly. “Maybe Lily came across it by accident; I saw a film with that in once.” He gazed around. “But I’ve no idea how she smuggled the Enigma Machine in here, or how she got in and out from the panel without anyone seeing.”

  “But you can’t really blame her for taking it, can you?” said Sasha. “I mean, her dad was the only family she had left. She was desperate to crack the codes in time, and if they stopped her from working longer hours…”

  “Why didn’t she admit it was here, though, when she was arrested?” Josh said. He was getting all agitated again. “That’s the part I still don’t understand. They wouldn’t have called her a traitor if they knew what she was really using the Enigma Machine for.” His voice went a pitch higher. “So why not tell them?”

  “I don’t know, Josh.” Sasha nibbled the last of her chocolate bar, eyeing him. “But do you think Nathan’s dad knows anything about the Coventry side of the story?” she added quickly. She pulled her hat lower and blew on her gloves. “Think about it – maybe as far as he’s concerned, finding the Enigma Machine in here proved Lily was guilty.”

  I nodded. Maybe Dad had assumed Lily was a traitor.

  “I’m cold,” complained Josh suddenly, and he started walking about, blowing on his hands, wrapped up tight in his scarf. In a few strides he was across the room and his face was almost pressed against the padded wall. Then he swivelled round and paced back. Up he went, down he went. Up, down, up, down, pacing the room as much as you can when it’s the size of a large crate.

  “Nathan.” Sasha shot an alarmed look at me. “If we don’t calm him down soon, he could go into a right panic.”