Secret Breakers: The Power of Three (27 page)

‘Hey. We’re all about the challenge.’ Hunter wiped the spilt ice cream with the back of his hand and then licked it. ‘What?’ he said in response to the dismissive frown from Tusia. ‘It’s Rocky Road. My favourite flavour. Shame to waste it.’

The feast over, Brodie stood with Tusia and Hunter in the doorway. ‘Amazing man, your granddad,’ offered Hunter.

‘We Brays like to find ways out of a puzzle.’

‘You did great earlier, by the way,’ Hunter added. ‘Your mum would be proud of her daughter as well as her dad.’

‘Don’t get me crying again,’ Brodie mumbled, pushing him so he hobbled on his heavily bandaged foot. ‘I only just stopped from earlier.’ For the third time that day she took hold of the locket round her neck.

‘You’ll definitely come back after the break, won’t you?’ asked Tusia in a way which suggested she’d beat either of them with her stress pig if they dared say no.

‘Well, my granddad has sold his house to buy the huts in this place so I’d be out of a home if I didn’t want to come back,’ Brodie laughed.

‘You try and stop me,’ added Hunter, ‘after all, my crumpled unicycle’s still waiting in the garage. It’s about time I got around to fixing it properly. Smithies was helpful but admits he’s better when a thing has two tyres. Anyway, with a billionaire on site I may be able to afford a new wheel.’

Brodie hit out playfully again and this time Hunter hobbled clear. Above them the moon shone brightly.

‘Seriously, though,’ said Hunter, lowering his voice. ‘This is all pretty scary. I mean working on something the government wants left alone. What sort of secrets are we going to uncover?’

Brodie frowned. ‘Ones people gave up their lives for?’

Hunter smiled and linked his arm through Tusia’s. ‘Hey, stop with the disgusted face,’ he snapped. ‘I’m injured and in need of support.’

‘Brodie can help you,’ Tusia replied.

‘I think it’s about time Brodie caught up with her granddad,’ Hunter said. ‘Poor old man’s been waiting to get a word in edgeways for hours.’

‘Well, you’re the one going on about the billionaire and the unicycle.’

‘You make it sound like the name of a song,’ said Hunter as Tusia led him away back towards the huts. ‘Or perhaps the name of a circus act which could appear alongside you and your whacky thai chi or whatever you call it.’

Brodie watched them move off, away from the mansion, the sound of their voices still lifting on the breeze as they walked.

Brodie’s granddad was sitting on a bench in front of the mansion, the broken-headed griffin lit by the moonlight behind him. ‘There’s so much to catch up on,’ he said.

‘I wish you’d told me about Mum and the accident,’ she said at last, without looking at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he sighed, without looking up. ‘We were never sure. Perhaps a part of me was frightened of the truth.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Look, Brodie. I shouldn’t have kept the truth from you. I shouldn’t have hidden what I know. But at the time it seemed best. You’d lost so much. I couldn’t face you losing more.’

She put her hand in his. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said. ‘Really glad. It’ll make everything nicer.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Looks to me as if you’ve formed a great little team.’ He glanced over into the distance where the figures of Hunter and Tusia could just be seen hobbling in the torchlight, towards his hut. They looked very much like a pair of delivery-men carrying an invisible, heavy load.

Brodie and her granddad sat for a moment staring in the direction of the lake. The moon showed only the water as it left the fountain. Darkness obscured where it fell.

‘I hope I’ve done the right thing, Brodie,’ Mr Bray said at last.

‘I think you have,’ she answered.

Mr Bray sighed. ‘Anyway, I think I’ve had enough excitement for one day. As Miss Tandari said, we’ll need a few weeks to get things in order. I suggest you go and get some sleep.’

Brodie’s brain was racing too quickly for sleep. ‘I’ll stay here for a while,’ she said. ‘I like the quiet.’

Mr Bray pushed himself up to stand. ‘Don’t expect you get much of that sharing a room with Tusia,’ he laughed.

‘Not much.’

‘Still, don’t stay up too long. You’ll need all the energy you can get. I’ll need help packing my rumba records for the move here and I have to admit I’ve added a little to my collection since you went away.’

Brodie was unsure how long she’d sat there alone before Friedman arrived. ‘May I?’ he said gesturing to the place beside her.

She moved up to let him sit down.

‘Quite a night, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘After quite a day.’

Brodie waited. ‘I’m glad you’re part of the Group now,’ she said at last. ‘I think my mum would like that.’

Friedman sniffed. ‘You, your mum and Smithies. Probably the only people who’d be pleased about it.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I saw the way your granddad looked at me. Smithies warned me some people have long memories. It’s hard to shake off the “mantle of madness”, Brodie. People have a way of holding it against you.’

‘He’ll change his mind,’ she said, in a way she hoped sounded reassuring.

‘Hope you’re right.’ He turned to face her as if studying a portrait. ‘Your wonderful mother, Brodie … you look so much like her, you know.’

Brodie felt her cheeks colour.

Friedman’s eyes sparkled. It was then Brodie remembered where she’d seen his face before. In the yellowed photograph her granddad had shown her, months ago now, when all this first began. Friedman, and Smithies and her mother. When they were children here. Together. Working on the code. She looked up. It was as if Friedman was remembering too.

‘Was that locket hers?’ he asked slowly.

‘Granddad gave it to me just before I came here.’

‘He gave me something once too,’ Friedman said, reaching down the neck of his shirt and pulling out a thin chain with a tiny golden key.

‘Granddad gave that to you?’ Brodie said, trying to hide the surprise in her voice. ‘Really?’

Friedman laughed and lowered the chain so the key rested in the hollow at the base of his neck. ‘It was your mother’s too. Apparently she sent it to your grandfather along with a letter to pass on to me just before she died. Sent it from Belgium, before the accident. She sent something for Smithies, too. Some long strip of paper with holes punched in it. But to me, she sent a letter and this key.’

Brodie narrowed her eyes to concentrate.

‘I never got the letter. Your grandfather said there was some problem. But he gave me the key. Said your mother thought it was important for me to have it.’

Brodie felt the exhausted cogs in her mind begin to whirl. ‘Why was my mother in Belgium?’

‘Van der Essen,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘We were sure the Professor had known more about MS 408 and your mother went to check out his things. Spoke to his family.’

‘And the accident happened before she could tell you what she learnt?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the key came from Belgium?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you don’t know what the key’s for?’

‘Yes. No. I thought perhaps it was just a sign, you know.’ His face was colouring in the moonlight.

‘A sign of what?’ Brodie’s voice was rising.

‘Brodie. Things were complicated between – well, your mother and me. We had feelings for each other. But I had my difficulties. It wasn’t a good time for me. Being accused of madness isn’t an easy thing to bear.’

‘And you think the key was just a sort of symbol,’ she said, her heart racing now so her words fell over themselves. ‘That’s all?’

‘All?’ The man looked angry. Hurt even. ‘I don’t think you can talk so flippantly about things that don’t concern you. You’re too young to understand.’

‘That’s not fair! I’m part of this team aren’t I? I’m not asking about you and my mum! I’m asking about the key.’

‘What d’you mean?’

Brodie had jumped up, pacing about. ‘OK. OK. I’m thinking about the hidden clue in the box from the Pavilion.’

‘What clue? Come on, Brodie. What are you talking about?’

‘You were there. You heard Smithies read it.’

Friedman shook his head. ‘I came into Hut 11 and I told you the Director was coming. I heard nothing about another clue.’

‘But we talked about it as we ate?’

‘Still not there, Brodie. I needed air. Crowds unnerve me.’

Brodie could feel her frustration rising. ‘But you knew we were going on to try and read MS 408. Why do you think we weren’t stopping?’

Friedman laughed. ‘I don’t need to see another clue to decide to go on. I’ve never given up. Never. My whole life’s been about making sense of MS 408. I go on because that’s what I do. I don’t keep trying because it seems likely or because we’re getting closer. I keep going because I don’t know how to stop.’ He paused. ‘They don’t claim a man is mad for no reason,’ he said.

Brodie tucked her hair behind her ears.

Connections were firing in her mind. The Veritas logo and the symbol of an elephant holding a key. The importance of never forgetting. The value of the scabbard.

‘OK. I get it,’ she blurted. ‘You keep going whatever the odds. But what if I tell you there’s another clue? What if I tell you, we found more? I think the key round your neck, the one my mum gave you, is the answer!’

The Director closed the door to his office and flicked the latch. He removed his jacket and placed it carefully over the back of the chair, smoothing the creases in the sleeves. Next he loosened his tie, slipping the opened knot over his head and laying the silk strand across the arm of the suit. Then he removed his cuff links and put them in the silver tray to the left of his desk. They rattled as they rocked across the silver, the engraving on their surface flashing in the light of the neon strip above them.

Finally, the Director rolled up his sleeves.

Seated on the leather chair, just beside the window, the Director picked up the phone and paged through to his secretary. ‘I’d like to use the private line,’ he said in a voice warmed a little by the cheap wine he’d drunk on the train back from Bletchley.

‘Certainly, sir. Is there anyone I can connect you to?’

‘No. Just ensure the line’s secure.’

He waited for a moment until he dialled. Then he spoke very clearly so his words could not be in any way misheard. ‘They are more inventive than we feared. And their commitment seems absolute.’

‘So. Are you telling me it’s time for direct action?’

The Director waited before he answered.

‘Yes. The time has come.’

‘This’d better be good, Brodie,’ Hunter yawned from behind the sleeve of his rather large dressing-gown. ‘I was having a wonderful dream where the water in the fountain in the middle of the lake had turned to chocolate.’

Tusia mumbled something which Brodie couldn’t quite hear but she thought she included the words ‘typical’ and ‘drowning’.

They met in the music room. Hut 11 still had memories of the Director’s rant about legalities and legal injunctions and was too far to go in the dark.

‘So,’ said Smithies, stifling a yawn himself. ‘Are you two going to explain what all this is about?’ He held the metal phoenix box in his hands as Brodie had insisted he went to get it. The rest of Veritas stood round the edges of the room, although Mr Bray had made use of a chair in the corner and was rubbing his feet in an attempt to bring feeling back to them. Ingham was offering him some painkillers, but Mr Bray refused. The only member of the group who didn’t appear to be suffering from extreme exhaustion was Fabyan, who announced happily he was still running on Illinois time and was ready for anything.

‘OK,’ said Brodie, taking the box from Smithies. ‘Stick with this. It’s going to be good.’

‘Better be worth giving up a dream about a lake of chocolate,’ mumbled Hunter.

Brodie ploughed on. ‘OK. Listen. I think Van der Essen hid us a new clue in the phoenix box. It’s that phrase hidden in the hinge. Those words “
The Key to your protection
”.’

‘Anyone else having a burst of déjà vu?’asked Hunter, who was soundly struck by Tusia on the arm.

‘Now,’ persisted Brodie, ‘all the codes Van der Essen left us are about King Arthur. Yes?’

The Study Group mumbled in agreement and Mr Bray tried his best to look as if he knew what his granddaughter was talking about. Miss Tandari began to whisper in his ear, but Brodie only allowed her a little time to help him catch up.

‘And all the time we’ve been looking at the scabbard and not the sword. Arthur’s scabbard. Remember?’

Tusia said something about how they could hardly forget as they’d spent the whole day running away from the authorities because of that clue and Ingham agreed, looking strangely usual in his pyjamas amongst a crowd of others, most of whom were also dressed for bed.

‘So,’ went on Brodie, gaining confidence as everyone began to look more awake. ‘I don’t think Van der Essen was hiding a code-book in the Pavilion. I don’t think it was about what was inside the box. The ash was put there from the beginning. But that’s not the point. It was not the
sword
we were after. It was the
means of protection
. Ultimate protection. The scabbard.’

‘So?’ said Ingham.

‘So I think the
box
is the important thing.’

‘But we’ve been all through this,’ Hunter said, sounding exasperated. ‘Going back to the box led us to the extra clue.’

‘Yes,’ Brodie blurted. ‘And it should take us back to the box again.’

‘I’m not following,’ said Miss Tandari, her forehead furrowed in an obvious attempt to pay attention. Mr Bray began shaking his head beside her.

‘The box is it. It’s the final clue. Not a message
hidden
in the box. But the box
itself
.’

‘I see.’ It was perfectly obvious from Tusia’s comment that she didn’t see but had felt the need to say something that’d be considered as supportive.

‘It’s the box we need to look at,’ Brodie said again. ‘That’ll give us what we need. The box is
the protection
.’

‘So what we need then is
the key
?’ said Smithies slowly, as if awakening from a dream.

‘Exactly,’ said Brodie, turning the box in her hand. ‘And here, look, in the side of the box, is a hole for a key.’