Crowns and Codebreakers (8 page)

‘What sort of a distraction?’ Andrew asked.

‘One that keeps Marcus from looking at me for about thirty seconds,’ Minnie replied.

Attracting the attention of adults was one of Andrew’s special skills. They seemed to notice him even when he wasn’t doing anything at all. At school the teachers would often ask what he was up to in suspicious voices when all he was doing was quietly doodling in his workbook or innocently staring out at seagulls.

He was pretty sure that he could get Marcus to watch him while Minnie did whatever it was that Minnie wanted to do.

Marcus was back in the room, carrying his neat little tray again.

Andrew was also sure that trays of drinks and expensive art didn’t go together.

He stepped forward eagerly. ‘Let me help you with that.’

‘No, it’s fine, I’ve got it.’

‘Please. You’ve been so nice. I’ll just take it and –’

‘No, honestly, it’s –’

‘Right. I’ve got it. Where should I put it? On this stand?’

‘No, no, Andrew, that’s a plinth. And it’s already got a sculpture on it.’

‘That’s all right. I can hold the tray with one hand and lift the statue off.’

‘No!’

‘Look, it comes right off. Should I put it on the floor, do you think? It’s quite heavy. What’s it made of? Pottery? We did pottery in school once. Well, not me. I just had to watch. I broke my pot right at the beginning and there wasn’t time to make a second one. This really
is
heavy. I wonder how long I can hold it in one hand.’

‘Andrew!’ Marcus yelled. ‘Put the statue back right this minute!’

‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry, you should have just said.’

Andrew put the ceramic head back exactly where he had found it. He eased it a millimetre to the left, then a hair’s breadth to the right. He held the tray all the while,
perfectly balanced, on his left hand. He’d had a lot of experience holding trays for Mum.

He glanced over at Minnie. She gave him a ghost of a nod.

Andrew held the tray with both hands and gave it back to Marcus. ‘Sorry, Marcus, I was just trying to help.’

Marcus’s cheeks were veined red and his eyes had a peculiar glassy sheen. It was a look Andrew had seen before on angry adults. Often.

Minnie edged across the room and took Andrew’s arm. ‘Sorry, but we’d better go,’ she said. ‘We didn’t mean to cause trouble. It just sort of happens sometimes. Thanks for having us.’

As she spoke, she steered Andrew towards the door. They both gave a quick wave to the now speechless Marcus.

‘What did you find?’ Andrew asked as soon as they were out in the street.

‘Let’s get the others and I’ll show you.’

Minnie beckoned to Piotr, who was still watching the dry cleaner’s. With her other hand she texted Flora. Her heart was beating fast. She wanted to get to the safety of the cafe. She kept expecting Marcus to call them back any second and demand to know what she was up to.

She broke into a sprint.

‘What is it?’ Andrew asked breathlessly.

‘Did you see the backyard?’ Piotr asked, running too.

‘I’ll explain when we’re away from here. Come on,’ Minnie insisted.

Inside the cafe, Minnie sat at the window and ducked down, watching the market to see that Marcus wasn’t coming after them. There was no sign of him bobbing through the stalls. She let herself breathe again.

‘Tell us what you saw,’ Andrew begged.

‘No, wait for Flora.’

They sat in an electric silence, looking out for the flash of red hair that meant Flora was running to meet them.

They didn’t have to wait long. Flora burst into the cafe, her face flushed, panting, stray strands of hair haloed around her face.

‘Did you bring it? Did it work?’ Minnie asked.

‘What are you talking about?’ Andrew whined. ‘The suspense is literally killing me.’

Minnie couldn’t help but grin: Andrew looked a long way from dead. ‘Marcus Mainwaring had a letter from Nigeria in his tray. While you distracted Marcus, I took the letter out of the envelope, photographed it and texted the photo to Flora.’

Flora unzipped her backpack and reached inside for her notebook. ‘It didn’t take long to print off the photo, scaled up to A4. I’ve brought it with me.’

‘With the postcard?’ Piotr asked.

‘With the postcard,’ Flora said.

She pulled two pieces of paper from her notebook. One was the replica postcard. The other, she unfolded and smoothed flat on the tabletop.

Minnie hadn’t had time in the gallery to read the letter. She’d had to work fast just to get the photo and put the letter back in place.

There was a heraldic crest at the top of the page: a shield with a lion on either side. A motto was written in a scroll beneath the lions –
mens sana in corpore sano
– and below that ‘St Aloysius High School’ and a Lagos address. Typewritten text filled the rest of the page, which Flora read aloud:

Dear Mr Mainwaring,

I write to thank you for your continued support of St Aloysius School. Your kindness in sponsoring equipment here is reaping rewards.

Improvements have been incredible after the outbreak of flu, aggressive though it was. We have employed a permanent nurse to oversee the well-being of the children. Age seems no protection against ill health sadly.

While donations are always welcome, we are also working hard ourselves. Our 14th auction of arts is scheduled. Class G3 are upmost in their hopes of raising our highest total ever.

Together we will ensure a bright future for St Aloysius and our students.

Yours faithfully,

Hopeful Otlogetswe

Dean of School

On the face of it, it wasn’t quite the confession of a criminal gang that Minnie had been hoping for. But if they were right, if the postcard was a cipher, then this letter might have a lot more to tell them.

Flora lifted the postcard, laid it on top of the letter and drew it slowly down the page. As soon as each of the empty squares framed a section of the text beneath, she froze.

‘Write this down,’ she told Andrew. He reached for her pen and scribbled on a napkin as she read out the text: ‘le, ft, lu, gg, ag, e3, 14, au, g3, pm.’

‘Oh.’ Andrew sounded disappointed. ‘It’s just gibberish.’

Piotr grinned. ‘No! No, it isn’t. It’s just got the gaps in the wrong places. Look.’ Piotr drew his fingertip along the napkin as he read. ‘Left Luggage 3, 14 Aug, 3 p.m.’

Minnie collapsed back on her seat. It really was a secret message. They’d been right. It took her breath away worse than the sprint from the gallery. There was an actual criminal gang operating in town. This was the proof. But doing what? She thought again of the orange T-shirt and the scruffy teddy in the battered black suitcase. This was real. They had to find the boy and get him away from the criminals.

‘What’s Left Luggage?’ Andrew asked, bringing Minnie back to the moment.

‘It’s when you want to leave your luggage for a while,’ Flora explained. ‘Say you’ve got a few hours in a city and you don’t want to carry your case around: you leave it in a Left Luggage locker. We went to Zurich last year by train and had a few hours in Paris. We left our luggage and went to the Champs-Élysées for macarons.’

If it had been Sylvie who’d said that, Minnie might have been tempted to make a sarcastic remark. But it was Flora, and she was probably on to something. So Minnie kept her sarky comments to herself – with a bit of a struggle. ‘So you get Left Luggage at a railway station?’ Minnie asked.

Flora nodded eagerly.

‘Is there one at the railway station in town?’ Andrew asked.

There was a collective round of shrugging and head shaking – no one knew.

‘What’s the date today?’ Piotr asked. Without being at school, where the date would always be up on the whiteboard at the front of the class, they’d forgotten all about dates and days of the week.

Except Flora. ‘It’s the 13th today,’ she said.

‘Well, then,’ Piotr said. ‘Tomorrow we need to get to the train station and watch the gang. Whatever is in Left Luggage locker 3 will lead us to the criminals.’

‘I’m going to go and check out the railway station,’ Piotr said. ‘Just to make sure it has a Left Luggage locker number 3.’

Andrew was blocking Piotr’s way. But he didn’t move when Piotr made to leave. Instead, he planted his elbows heavily on the table and dropped his chin on to his palms.

‘What’s the matter?’ Piotr asked.

Andrew shrugged.

‘Go on. What?’

Andrew raised his head slowly. ‘Marcus,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe Marcus has anything to do with a criminal gang and a hidden message and the break-in. He was so
nice
he gave us
lemonade.
’

‘Even criminals have quality soft drinks,’ Minnie said. ‘In fact, criminals probably have nicer stuff than the rest of us. If not, what’s the point of being a criminal?’

‘But …’ Andrew tried again, ‘but he seemed so kind. Do you think maybe the letter wasn’t for him at all? That the hidden message was meant to be for Omar and the post office delivered it to the wrong address? Omar had the green T-shirt, after all.’

Minnie had to admit it was odd. The fact that the T-shirt was in the dry cleaner’s suggested that Omar was involved. But the letter with the hidden message had been in Marcus’s tray.

‘We don’t know who the gang are or what they’re up to,’ Minnie said. ‘But we’ll find out at the railway station tomorrow.’

As they left the cafe, Flora twitched Minnie’s sleeve. The boys went on ahead, but Minnie paused.

‘It’s Sylvie,’ Flora said sadly. ‘She still wouldn’t come when you texted me.’

Minnie gave a shrug. She didn’t care what Sylvie did.

‘Will you at least think about making it up with her?’ Flora asked.

‘I’m not going to say sorry. I’ve got nothing to be sorry for,’ Minnie said hotly.

Flora didn’t reply straight away. Minnie got the impression
that she was choosing her words very carefully. ‘Will you just think about it?’ Flora asked.

Minnie tilted her head. It wasn’t a yes; it wasn’t a no. It was the best Flora was going to get.

It left Minnie feeling a bit crotchety. She gave them all a short wave and went, alone, through the salon and up to the flat.

She glanced into her room. Gran wasn’t there, but she had made a start on the rearranging she’d threatened – one of the beds was angled awkwardly, but at least it was possible to open the wardrobe door now.

‘Minnie? Is that you?’ Gran’s voice came from the kitchen. Minnie went in. There was an untouched plate of biscuits on the kitchen table, a pot of tea and two empty cups. Gran hadn’t poured the tea.

‘Is it ready?’ Minnie said, gesturing at the teapot.

‘It was ready an hour ago,’ Gran said. ‘I expect it is cold now.’

Minnie slid into the chair opposite Gran. ‘What’s the matter?’

All the battleship confidence seemed to have left Gran. It was as though she’d run aground on the rocks. ‘I got this ready’ – Gran waved at the tea things – ‘because I thought your Special Constable Wright might take me
seriously. I thought he might listen. But there’s been no sign of him.’

‘Nothing? He hasn’t even called?’

Gran looked at the cold teapot. ‘I was promised a swift response. Action. But promises here seem to be as breakable as thread.’

‘That’s not true! Jimmy’s nice!’

Gran didn’t reply.

Jimmy wouldn’t let them down, would he? Perhaps he was working undercover or was chasing down criminals right now. It couldn’t be that he didn’t care, surely? Minnie took the teapot to the sink and poured away the cold tea, splashing it up the sides and on the taps. She crammed the biscuits back in the biscuit tin.

She dropped a quick kiss on the top of Gran’s head and left the room. She had to: she was way too cross to stay.

If Jimmy wasn’t going to fix things, then she and the others would.

Gran didn’t eat much that evening. Although the sizzling sound of frying vegetables and the smell of the okra alone had made Minnie’s mouth water, Gran just pushed her food around her plate.

‘Is everything all right?’ Mum asked.

‘The food is wonderful, Taiwo, really. I’m just bone-tired. I think I’ll go to bed.’ Gran heaved herself up and shuffled out towards the bedroom.

Mum caught Dad’s eye. Dad speared a piece of food and ate it.

‘Your mother,’ Mum said quietly.

‘What? What about her?’ Dad said.

Minnie shook more salt on to her food and chewed in silence.

‘Calm down. I was just going to say that I don’t think your mother is settling in well.’

‘She’s overwhelmed, that is all,’ Dad said. The tines of his fork grated across the china plate.

‘Yes. I am agreeing with you, Joseph. We are in agreement.’

‘Are we?’

‘We are. I wonder if we can find something for her to do in the day? Perhaps a club or an activity.’

‘You want her out of the house?’

‘No! I want her to make friends, meet people.’

‘She can help around the flat. She’d like that.’

‘She’s not a maid! She’s our guest.’

‘Guest?’

They stared at each other. Minnie had never seen Mum and Dad like this. Usually they moved and laughed together. They never snapped like dry twigs.

‘You should go to bed too, Minnie,’ Mum said finally.

Minnie didn’t argue. She was happy to get out of there.

In the bedroom, Minnie didn’t want to turn on the light. She didn’t want to wake Gran. She could see the lump of Gran’s body under the covers, the weird head on the window sill with Gran’s wig balanced on top. The room smelled different now, of spice and flowers – Gran’s body mist.

Home felt funny.

Outside felt dangerous.

And Jimmy had done nothing to help them.

Minnie didn’t sleep well. Gran snored a little bit, but it wasn’t that. It was the snappy, crotchety way that Mum and Dad had talked to each other. They were never, ever like that. As she lay in the dark staring up at the chewing-gum grey ceiling, Minnie knew the criminals were to blame. Gran didn’t feel safe, so she couldn’t feel comfortable. And because Gran wasn’t comfortable, Mum and Dad were arguing. Well, no criminal gang was going to upset her gran and get away with it.