The Hundred Year Wait (8 page)

“Where are you
going?” She asked as Sherlock headed towards the door.

“He has a network
of people who know how to blend in. If any of them has seen
anything we'll know soon,” Mycroft explained. She nodded and went
back to the maps, giving him the opportunity to slip her next
letter into her bag while his brother wouldn't notice.

Unless there was
more information from somewhere soon there was little point going
through the maps trying to guess at locations. But it was all they
could do at the moment, so he let them come up with a list of
likely targets and write them on the whiteboard.

He was just
deciding to leave his brother and Amelia to their task when she
yawned and checked the time.

“I ought to check
into my hotel room,” she said and gathered up her stuff, “I'm not
helping much here at the moment.”

“Brother of mine,
why don't you take Amelia over there and save her having to find a
taxi. There's no point either of you staying while there's so
little to go on and there's little left of today.” Sherlock smiled
at him while he glared back.

“I'm sure Mr
Holmes doesn't have the time to do that.” Amelia glanced at him and
went to leave. Before his brain could stop him he stepped forward
into her path.

“My car is just
outside.” Giving his brother another glare, he motioned for Amelia
to lead the way. She swayed down the stairs in front of him and
shook hands with Daniels as soon as she reached him.

“I'm enjoying the
book, Miss Jones. Could barely put it down,” Daniels said as he
opened the door for her and helped her inside. She broke into a
broad smile that was still there when Mycroft got in beside
her.

He couldn't quite
believe that he had her in the car with him for a second time. When
he'd agreed to her request he'd expected to keep her at a distance
but his brother just couldn't keep out of his affairs.

“Thank you for
this,” she said before he could speak.

“Blame my
brother.” As soon as he'd finished the sentence he wished he
hadn't. To move the conversation on he took her phone package out
of the briefcase he kept in the car.

“Use this to
communicate with me, and only me, and don't let anyone else know
you have it. Is that clear?” She nodded and took the offered
object. “You can use it to reply instead of having to write
messages and leave them in prearranged locations.”

“I take it you had
my response removed from my own pocket? And put the first letter in
my hotel room?” She asked the questions in an offhand manner but he
saw the tension in her hands, clasped over the phone box, and the
rigidness of her jaw. He'd frightened her with his actions and the
discovery pleased him. A little fear would keep her obedient in her
tasks.

“Yes, both were
me, and easy enough.” He watched her reactions with delight as she
took several deep breaths to try and keep herself calm. He
considered mentioning the photos and impressing the reach of his
control even further but given the implications of his other
actions he decided against it. He already appeared more interested
in her than he was, and he didn't want her to think there was any
romantic attachment, especially with the encouragement his own
brother was displaying.

“Are you enjoying
it?” she asked once she had her emotions under control again. It
surprised him and he had to think about his answer.

“Yes, I am so far.
I enjoyed watching you try and work out the first letter.” Before
he'd finished speaking she'd stopped watching them pass the London
streets by and fixed her gaze on him. Her mouth dropped open and he
chuckled.

“You were
there?”

“In the cafe and
the hotel canteen.” He nodded as he spoke.

“I didn't even
notice you.”

“I'm aware.”

“So is my every
move going to be watched from now on?” The sparkle in her eyes and
lopsided smile showed him that she wasn't entirely bothered by the
idea. He wondered what had conquered the fear she'd felt
earlier.

“Of course, but
you don't seem particularly bothered.”

“I've had a
stalker or two before. Although I've never had one sneak into my
hotel room while I slept just to leave me a letter. Most of them
would have other ideas if they found me in bed.”

“I can assure you
I'm not intending anything of that nature.”

She mock pouted
and he rolled his eyes in response. A second later she laughed.

“Thank you,
whatever the reason. I didn't think you'd say yes to my suggestion
but I'm very glad you did. I look forward to my next lesson,” she
said as the car came to a stop outside the hotel. He nodded but
kept his thoughts to himself. Her next lesson was already in her
bag waiting for her to notice it.

As he watched her
walk inside he realised he should have told her to stay somewhere
better and it reminded him to have her book sales stimulated. With
all the information he'd been given on her he knew even affording
to come to London and stay as often as she did was difficult.

Mycroft checked
his email as Daniels took him home but there was still no extra
information from the agents. All he could do was wait and try to
focus on other issues.

A young teenager
in the royal family was on holiday in Portugal and had upset the
hotel owner with his late night partying. Many of the guests had
complained and Mycroft was directing the process to smooth it all
over. The last thing they needed right now was bad press in
Europe.

As far as problems
went it wasn't particularly difficult, but it kept him busy while
he was waiting on Amelia to solve his most recent code, and for his
brother to get him solid information to act upon.

On the way to her
room Amelia couldn't help but bounce with excitement. The day had
been a rollercoaster of emotions but it was ending well. Mycroft
and his games were already dictating most of her mood swings. She'd
been nervous about finding the letter in her room and being
pickpocketed, but he'd made her feel more at ease when he'd told
her that both actions were his. At least he had been the one to see
her sleeping and vulnerable. Her long term plan was to seduce him
so it would be silly of her to be bothered by his actions,
especially as she'd been untouched and unharmed.

During the day her
biggest fear had been her reaction when he first saw her. She knew
she'd directed the translation of his terrorist message and
Sebastian had already told her that it hadn't delivered the right
result. She'd wondered if she would be reprimanded and dismissed
but he'd allowed her to continue helping. Then the conversation in
the car had made her excited about their future once more.

She fell backwards
onto the bed with a sigh of satisfaction. Even knowing there was an
undetected terrorist attack happening somewhere in the city
couldn't stop her feeling pleased with her day. If anything,
knowing danger could be close made her feel exhilarated.

A few minutes
later her stomach rumbled to let her know she hadn't eaten anything
but a few snacks since breakfast and it was now past her usual time
for an evening meal. She grabbed her handbag off the floor and
headed for the canteen. Hopefully they served dinner as well as
breakfast.

Relief flooded
through her when she found the room open and several other hotel
guests sitting in there eating. It wouldn't have been good to miss
out on another meal in so short a space of time when it was likely
she wouldn't eat much the following day either.

Her meal passed in
peace, although she scanned the canteen several times for signs of
Myron. As she pulled her purse from her handbag to pay, her fingers
brushed up against something she wasn't expecting. When she glanced
at it she realised she had an envelope with her name and address
on. She gasped as she pulled it out, momentarily forgetting about
the cashier waiting for her to pay. He coughed, dragging her eyes
from the unexpected communication.

As soon as she
could get away she rushed back to her own room and tore the
envelope open. A piece of card with her name on fell out with a
much shorter message than the previous time written on it. She
stared at it for several minutes, knowing it was going to be
significantly harder to work out than the first letter.

Realising she
needed to learn more about ciphers and how to use them, Amelia
fetched her laptop from her small suitcase and curled up on the bed
with it to do research. An hour later she stopped trawling through
the search information on classic cyphers and re-focused on the
letter.

Based on the
previous letter she was sure it began and ended in a similar manner
with 'Miss Jones' being before the comma and 'Regards, Your Tutor'
finishing the letter off. As she wrote these in underneath she
realised not all of the letters had been changed. The M in 'Miss'
and the ON in her surname were still part of the coded message.
Also the GA in 'regards', OU in 'your', and the last OR were all
the same and each pair of identical letters had exactly four in
between.

In pencil she
wrote these pairs underneath to help form the basis of her
translation so far.

Miss Jones,

--th---- I w----n't
----al-- --re- -- - ch---- in ----s I ----gn--- -ou- ---nt -- --in-
- --ns---- on-. -- -uc- - --al- ---nt ---- re----t. I ---- no----
yo- -- - ch---- to ---- ou- ---an----nt. ---- th-- --al ---- yo- --
-it--?

Regards, Your Tutor

Based on the
information she'd just learnt on cyphers that were encrypted
differently for each letter, she knew there needed to be a codeword
that would match the pattern she'd already noticed. Given the
pattern she also knew it must begin and end with the same letter or
number and be six figures long. She'd worked out the affect the
first and last had on the coded message, so she just needed to work
out the others.

After scanning
through what she had a couple more times she noticed the third word
was likely to be 'wouldn't' and that the A needed to become an O.
The process to get between these letters also needed to match up
with the I in 'Miss' coming from the U and getting from a Q to an E
six letters later. As soon as she wrote them out she realised they
were all 14 letters apart if the alphabet started again when it
finished. She then repeated the same logic on the next three
letters. When she'd finished she realised she had a sort of reverse
keyword to get from the encrypted letter to what it originally said
using the numbers 0,14,4,11,8, & 0 and then repeating them
throughout the message. She quickly worked her way through the rest
of the letter filling in all the blanks.

Miss Jones,

Although I wouldn't
normally agree to a change in rules I recognise your point as being
a sensible one. As such I shall grant your request. I will notify
you if I choose to stop our arrangement. Does this deal make you my
bitch?

Regards, Your
Tutor.

Amelia almost
dropped the paper in shock at Myron's closing sentence. He'd been
so prim and proper with her, often making a point that there was
nothing more going on between them than a teacher student
relationship that was very much on his terms. Yet here was a
sentence that might imply a bit more, and he'd also now given her a
phone to talk to him directly. If she hadn't been told nothing
would happen, she'd be under the impression he was interested in
more, and she knew anyone who found these letters might read more
into them.

A few seconds
later it occurred to her this might be his plan. He was so
secretive about his involvement and helping her, he might be trying
to make it look like they had a relationship contract and he was
some sort of sugar-daddy she'd got herself involved with.

She supposed it
could also relate to her suggestion of being his pet. Ever since
she'd used those words to describe what she wanted she'd wondered
if it had been a big mistake, but they might have had the impact
she desired. After all, a female dog was a bitch and Myron was
unlikely to use it as a slang term alone. She decided there was
only one way to find out and got up to fetch the phone from her
handbag.

As she moved she
saw something flutter to the floor and stopped to pick it up. It
was the small piece of card with Amelia written on it. She stared
at it for a moment puzzled before she realised it began and ended
in the same letter and was six letters long.

Counting on her
fingers, she worked out that every letter was 1 more than the
numbers she'd used in her reverse keyword. She laughed aloud. Myron
had given her the keyword after all, she'd just forgotten about it.
If she hadn't noticed the pattern she'd have been stuck for hours
trying to figure out what to do.

Despite wanting to
kick herself she sat back down on the bed with the phone she'd been
given and turned it on. The battery was almost fully charged but
nothing was on the phone except a single number in the contacts
list. She pulled up the messaging service to send Myron a text.

This deal is on your
terms, so I suppose it's up to you. Am I your pet?

As soon as she'd
sent it she wondered if she ought to have worded it differently,
and then she noticed the time. It was already the following day and
she wasn't sure whether she could expect a reply.

She decided to
brush her teeth and change into her nightwear while she waited but
she'd barely taken two steps to the small ensuite bathroom when she
heard the chime of a reply. Instantly she rushed back and picked
the phone up.

It was your suggestion.
If you're my bitch it's entirely because you want to be. And do I
not get any gratitude for the alteration to our little game's
rules?