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by Jacqueline Harvey

  Mim had thrown her head back and laughed out loud. ‘Oh dear,’ she’d said, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘I’m afraid that some of the staff have an interesting way with words. I do believe that would have been old Shugs, and I understand he and Mr O’Leary were moving the straw mannequins from the walled field. The local archery club uses them for practice sessions and competitions on the grounds once a month. They would have been sodden from the rain and they weigh a tonne when they’re wet. Shugs and O’Leary were complaining to me about them yesterday and said that the club should do their own setting up and packing away from now on. Oh, darling girl, I’m so sorry they scared you.’

  Kensy had felt relieved and disappointed at the same time and a little bit miffed at the smug look on her brother’s face. Unfortunately, it all made sense – especially with the arrow in the tree. Just once, though, she wished her nose for trouble was right. Then again, she was glad they didn’t have murderers lurking about and that no poor souls had met an untimely demise.

  After dinner, the twins had snuck back to the library, where Max had shown his sister the handwritten code in the front of The Caesar Shift. Intrigued, Kensy challenged her brother to see who could solve it first. While she tried a few different tacks, giving up on each with an almighty harrumph, Max stuck to one strategy. He used a code Fitz had shown him not long ago. It was called the Caesar cipher, an encryption technique that involved each letter of the alphabet being substituted for another in a fixed pattern. Once Max had discovered that ‘A’ was substituted for ‘X’, he had it transcribed within five minutes. It read:

  To our beloved son EDS on the occasion of your thirteenth birthday.

  Welcome to the firm.

  With our unwavering love and affection, C & D

  It didn’t mean anything yet, although Max suspected the ‘C’ stood for Cordelia. They still hadn’t got to the bottom of what the woman did exactly – besides being a dame, of course. The twins had asked about her over dinner, but it seemed that Fitz and Mim were both experts at deflecting questions they didn’t want to answer.

  ‘What’s the name of the school we’re going to?’ Max asked, as he took in the sights and sounds of the city.

  ‘Central London Free School, on Erasmus Street,’ Fitz replied. ‘The headmaster is an old friend of mine, and it’s close to home.’

  ‘Sounds cheap,’ Kensy grumbled. She ignored the wry smile Fitz flashed her in the rear-vision mirror.

  Max quickly located it on his map. It suddenly occurred to the lad that he didn’t know where their new home was. Neither he nor Kensy had thought to ask about their living arrangements until now. There had been too many other thoughts to grapple with. ‘Where are we staying?’ Max asked, but before Fitz could reply, the boy spotted a landmark he knew. ‘Oh, wow. That’s Marble Arch,’ he declared, putting down the window.

  Kensy peered around her brother to see what he was looking at. ‘How do you even know that?’ she muttered.

  Max’s eyes widened as the car travelled through the roundabout. ‘And Oxford Street is where you’ll find the best shopping in London,’ he said, gesturing down the road.

  ‘You are correct, Master Maxim,’ Song said. ‘I myself am a big fan of Selfridges. Their kitchen department is excellent. They were the only store in the whole city who had a potato peeler in the right shade of crimson.’

  As the car continued along Park Lane, Max reeled off various other landmarks, including Hyde Park and the Wellington Arch.

  ‘Look!’ Kensy pointed excitedly at the cavalry of horses and riders in formation crossing the road ahead of them. She had clearly forgotten to be sullen – for the moment, at least – much to Fitz’s relief.

  ‘It’s the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace,’ Max told her. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was just after eleven in the morning and they’d been travelling since before dawn. ‘The palace is over there,’ he said.

  ‘I wonder if Dame Spencer has met the Queen,’ Kensy mused aloud. She began to imagine the two women having sleepovers in their mansions, curling each other’s hair and drinking tea while watching silly, old game shows.

  ‘Oh yes, Miss Kensington,’ Song answered. ‘They are good friends.’

  A smile tickled the girl’s lips. ‘Of course they are,’ she whispered to her brother.

  ‘Mum would love all this,’ the boy breathed.

  Kensy noticed the forlorn look on Max’s face and her smile evaporated. ‘They’re going to be okay,’ she said quietly, then raised her voice for everyone to hear. ‘I’m not worried, you know. There’s no point. Mum and Dad would be cross if they knew we were thinking the worst. Like you said, Fitz, they’re probably lying low until that rebel thingy is over.’

  ‘You are wise beyond your years, Miss Kensington,’ Song said with a nod. ‘Fretting about things that are outside our control is a waste of good energy. It is of far greater use to have a positive attitude.’

  ‘Well, I’m not worried either,’ Max piped up.

  Song turned to look at the children in the back seat. ‘Confucius says you must hold tightly to your hope like a man holds tightly to the rope on a flapping duck’s leg in a wild wind.’

  Fitz and Max burst out laughing. ‘I bet he didn’t,’ the boy said.

  ‘Yeah, Confucius didn’t say that at all,’ Kensy agreed, catching on. A smile crept back across her face. ‘You just made that up.’

  Song pouted. ‘I am sure if he were here today he would have said it.’

  And with that admission, the four of them rollicked with laughter. It seemed Song’s wise words had an uplifting effect on everyone – Kensy included.

  Kensy leaned against the window and wrinkled her nose. ‘Is this it?’ she asked, as Fitz pulled into the kerb. To say she was underwhelmed was putting it lightly.

  ‘Sure is,’ Fitz replied, hopping out of the Range Rover. He had arranged for Song to take the car and meet them at the townhouse after their appointment. ‘Come on, we don’t want to keep Magoo waiting.’

  ‘Magoo?’ Kensy suppressed the urge to say the name again and much, much louder.

  ‘Don’t worry – I’m sure there’s not a joke in the world your new headmaster hasn’t heard before,’ Fitz said with a grin. He buzzed the gate and spoke into a small intercom. With a noisy click, they were through to the other side.

  ‘I think this place might actually be a prison,’ Kensy whispered to her brother. The presence of security cameras, and grilles on all the windows, didn’t help to dispel her theory. ‘Maybe Fitz has gone rogue and he’s planning to leave us here.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Max said, pointing to a small sign. It said Central London Free School. ‘Glad it’s free, though, because you definitely wouldn’t want parents paying for their kids to come here.’ The squat double-storey building had all the character of a brown house brick.

  Fitz hit another buzzer and was admitted through a steel-framed door into a reception area. A woman wearing thick black-rimmed glasses and a grey cardigan that looked as if it had been made from a Persian cat sat at a desk in the middle of a small glassed-in room. She had short chestnut hair and long manicured fingernails painted a soft mauve. She stood up and walked to the counter.

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ she trilled, her face lighting up the otherwise glum space. ‘If you could be so kind as to write your names in here,’ she said, indicating to a ledger, ‘Mr MacGregor will be with you shortly.’

  Fitz entered his name first, then the children’s. ‘Thank you,’ he said, glancing at the woman’s badge, ‘Mrs Potts.’

  The woman smiled and motioned to a row of beige vinyl chairs on the opposite wall. ‘Please take a seat.’

  Kensy could feel a piece of torn fabric poking into her leg and began picking at it until Fitz cleared his throat. ‘I think they need some new furniture,’ the girl remarked quietly.

  She and Max looked around the room. There was a poster about bullying and another advertising a bake sale stuck up on the glas
s that enclosed Mrs Potts’s office. On the far wall above a set of double doors with glass in the top of them was an honour roll dedicated to the school’s head prefects.

  One of the doors flew open and a tall lad with wild curly hair thundered through, struggling to balance a huge backpack, a sports bag and a cello case.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Alfie?’ Mrs Potts called after him.

  The boy, who was halfway out the door, skidded to a halt and hurried back. ‘Sorry, Mrs P. I’ve got a dentist appointment, and if I miss it I’m a dead man.’ He scribbled his name in the ledger, then waved with his free hand and ran out the door.

  ‘What a giant,’ Max gulped. The boy named Alfie looked like he could have done with a shave. ‘He must be the biggest primary school-kid I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Oh no, dear, Alfie’s in Lower Sixth,’ Mrs Potts assured him. ‘Our school caters for students from juniors right through to A levels.’

  Max raised his eyebrows at Kensy. This was going to be different.

  The headmaster’s door opened and a tall, broad-shouldered man in a smart pinstriped suit walked out. He had a pelt of unruly snow-white hair and a tanned complexion, as if he’d just spent a week on a sunny ski slope. Fitz stood up and the two men greeted one another more heartily than the children expected.

  The headmaster shook Fitz’s hand then slapped him on the back. ‘It’s good to see you, old boy.’

  ‘Magoo, how long has it been? Gosh, you’re looking fit,’ Fitz said. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Spent the summer in the Azores and acquired a perma-tan,’ the man replied with a grin.

  Kensy and Max pulled faces at each other.

  The headmaster turned his attention to the children. ‘Now, who do we have here?’

  ‘This is Max and his twin sister, Kensy,’ Fitz said, nodding at them both.

  The children stopped gawping and got to their feet, exchanging small hellos and shaking the man’s hand one after the other.

  ‘Well, come through and let’s have a chat, then we’ll have you suited and booted, ready to start tomorrow morning,’ the burly man said. He led the way into his surprisingly well-decorated office that, oddly enough, wouldn’t have looked out of place at Alexandria.

  ‘So how do you know Magoo?’ Kensy asked, as the children tripped along beside Fitz on the way home.

  The man yawned and let out an uncharacteristic sigh. His mind was all over the place and it took him a couple of seconds to realise that Kensy was speaking to him. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, what did you say?’

  ‘Magoo – how do you know him? It’s like you’re best buddies,’ the girl said.

  ‘We went to school together,’ Fitz replied. ‘He was always an interesting chap. And it’s Mr MacGregor to you – get caught calling him Magoo and I suspect you’ll be in detention for a month.’

  ‘Interesting’s one word for him,’ Max said. The fellow had asked the most random interview questions of any principal the children had ever met. Given the number of schools they’d attended, that was something of a prize. There was none of the regular ‘What’s your favourite subject?’ or ‘What do you like to read?’ Instead, Mr MacGregor had asked Max if he’d ever had the pleasure of swimming with whale sharks, and had inquired after Kensy’s preferred choice of winter pudding. The man then went on to share that he was partial to sticky date but only if the butterscotch sauce was piping hot and there was vanilla-bean ice-cream to go with it.

  True to the headmaster’s word, following on from their meeting, the twins had been immediately ushered to a small room just off the school’s entrance foyer and, with Mrs Potts’s help, were fully kitted out with uniforms, books and stationery. Strangely, the clothing all fitted perfectly too, which seemed odd considering Kensy always had to have the hems of her dresses adjusted and Max’s trousers were never the right length either. It was as if they’d been tailor-made.

  ‘How far is it to the house?’ Kensy asked, looking around at the neighbourhood. It was a hotchpotch of old and very old buildings. An estate of brown-brick flats took up a block on the left, while opposite – in every sense of the word – was a row of pretty Victorian terraces.

  ‘Not far at all.’ Fitz glanced at the roadway and headed across. ‘We’re at thirteen Ponsonby Terrace, which is one street after Ponsonby Place. This area is called Millbank and it’s just a left, right, then second left from school to home.’

  A newsagency stood on the corner of a little strip of shops which wrapped around from Ponsonby Place, along John Islip Street to Ponsonby Terrace. Three women huddled together on the footpath outside. One was stooped and holding a cane. Her grey hair had a purplish tinge and she looked to be in her late seventies while the other two were younger. Smoke rose from a cigarette the roundest of the three women was holding in her left hand. Her lips bore the wrinkles of a lifetime habit. The third woman had curly brown hair and was dressed in a uniform of an orange shirt and black trousers. They were talking quietly until the woman with the stoop suddenly raised her cane in the air.

  ‘I’m not ’avin’ that!’ she declared loudly. ‘It’s one in, all in, or else no one’s in – that’s what I say!’

  ‘Keep your hair on, Esme,’ the woman wearing the uniform retorted. ‘And pipe down! Do you want to tell the whole bleedin’ neighbourhood our business?’

  Kensy and Max smiled at each other the way they did when they were sharing the same thought. ‘Too late – I think she just did,’ Max whispered.

  ‘Afternoon, ladies,’ Fitz said as they walked past. He flashed them a good-natured smile.

  The three of them looked up at the same time. ‘Well, ’ello there, lovely,’ the round woman said. She grinned and raised her eyebrows.

  Kensy and Max grimaced at one another.

  Fitz and the children weren’t more than a few metres past them when the women began to cluck like chickens.

  ‘Gee, Fitz, maybe you actually do have a way with the ladies.’ Max stifled a laugh before copping a half-hearted elbow to the ribs.

  ‘There’s no harm being friendly,’ Fitz chided. It had been a long time since he’d wandered these streets and he couldn’t help thinking that nothing much had changed in the intervening years. There was something comforting about it. His mind ticked over with all the things he had to do. At least he knew Kensy and Max would be in safe hands with Song.

  Giggling, Kensy glanced back at the women who had resumed their huddle. She noticed the one with the cigarette pull two envelopes from her pocket and pass one to the lady called Esme and one to the woman in uniform. Wrinkled Lips caught sight of Kensy looking at them and sneered, causing the girl to quickly turn away. Kensy felt a hot flush of guilt – her mother often told her it was bad manners to mind other people’s business, but she liked to think of it as being observant rather than nosy. Anyway, those women were up to something. She could sense it.

  Fitz and the children turned left into Ponsonby Terrace, where elegant rows of terraced houses were joined together like postage stamps. Some looked to have been converted into flats, with an entrance at street level and another down a flight of stairs into the basement. Up ahead, Kensy spied the Range Rover parked outside a house with a black door. She wondered if that was where they were staying, although the parking didn’t appear to be allocated at all.

  Max looked towards the river, which was just on the other side of the busy road at the end of the street. ‘I know that place across there,’ he said, jiggling about excitedly. An enormous stone-and-glass building with a curved central facade stood proudly on the opposite side of the Thames. It resembled something a five-year-old might create out of building blocks.

  His sister scoffed. ‘Of course you do, Max. What is it then? The headquarters of some insurance company?’

  ‘For your information, that’s MI6,’ the boy said.

  ‘Really?’ Kensy was actually impressed.

  Max nodded. ‘I looked it up after I saw it in a movie. I don’t know why you’d
tell the whole world the exact location of your national spy organisation. Seems quite dumb to me.’

  Fitz supressed the urge to laugh. ‘Your brother’s right.’

  Max dusted his knuckles against his chest then blew on them. Kensy just rolled her eyes.

  ‘Here we are – number thirteen.’ Fitz stopped outside another black door a short distance past the Range Rover. He pulled a set of keys from his trouser pocket and let them inside.

  ‘Whose house is this?’ Kensy asked, stepping into a wide entrance foyer. It was elegantly decorated in creams and beiges, with a parquet floor and a huge painting of a stag on the wall ahead. There was something lovely and homely about it, and the air was filled with the delicious smell of baking. Kensy felt a pang of guilt even thinking that – home was with her mum and dad and Fitz and Max, and two out of the five of them weren’t there.

  ‘It belongs to Dame Spencer,’ the man replied.

  ‘Will she be staying too?’ Kensy asked, alarmed at the thought. She had concocted such a formidable image of the woman from the bits and pieces of information she had gleaned over the past couple of days that Kensy wasn’t sure she ever wanted to meet her.

  Fitz shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the end of a row of coat hooks by the front door. ‘No, she doesn’t live here. It’s a guesthouse of sorts, for Song or any other staff member who visits London from Alexandria.’

  ‘Imagine being so filthy rich that you can have an empty townhouse in London,’ Kensy said. ‘That’s mad. And I still can’t believe that you have never once mentioned your mother, Fitz. That’s a pretty big secret you’ve been keeping from us. We could have had amazing holidays here and in North Yorkshire, but no, you let a silly argument get in the way of all that.’

  Fitz grinned. He walked into the sitting room and flipped open a small timber box on a table beside the sofa, shaking his head as he discovered that, even after all these years, some things never change. ‘Sorry, Kens. I’ve had to make some big personal sacrifices to stop the two of you from turning into spoilt brats,’ the man teased, earning an eyeroll from Kensy. ‘Would you like a chocolate frog?’ He didn’t wait for the children to answer and threw them two of the foil-covered treats which he’d procured from the box.