October

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘Looks like all systems are go,’ I said.

  I stood outside, near the road, watching my friends—‘Oriana’ and ‘Cyril’—approach the steps of the bank. Winter walked with an odd gait, exactly like Oriana, and Boges lumbered beside her as Sumo, suitably hulking and menacing.

  They charged through the automatic doors, striding in as if they owned the bank. They walked straight past reception and the teller counter, heading towards the biometric scanner.

  I was tense and edgy, leaning on a bus stop bench, trying to look inconspicuous. I was constantly scanning the street for unexpected dangers.

  Boges’s voice in my ear made me jump.

  ‘So far, so good, dude,’ he whispered, his voice crackling just slightly. ‘We’re coming up to the first big hurdle.’

  From what I could see, nobody in the bank had given them a second look. They swept towards the furthest corner where the biometric scanner was.

  This was the moment. I could just make them out, pausing as they approached the scanner. Blood pumped in my temples.

  Right now, Winter would be steadily pressing her finger—with its tiny transparency over it—down onto the sensitive reader.

  I held my breath.

  I heard a dull beep and hoped it wasn’t an error reading.

  Boges swore in my ear.

  ‘Try again,’ I hissed, keeping my head down, pretending to talk on my mobile phone.

  The dull beep sounded again.

  ‘It’s not working!’ he said. I could hear the distress and despair in his voice. ‘I don’t know why, but it’s not working!’

  I turned away, closing my eyes in disbelief. We couldn’t let all our hard work go to waste. ‘Get out of there,’ I hissed. ‘All is not lost. You just have to make another fingerprint. We can do it again. Just get out of there before you blow your cover.’

  There was no answer. I looked back into the bank and blinked. I couldn’t see them. Had they been stopped? Were they being arrested?

  I ran up to the bank’s double doors, which parted as I approached.

  They were on the other side of the scanner! Quickly I retreated to the bus stop.

  ‘We’re through!’ came Boges’s voice, finally. ‘Took us three attempts—wow, that was intense! I thought the machine was going to swallow her finger or something! Like the ATM does to your bank card if you get the PIN wrong too many times!’

  On my portable radio I could hear their footsteps echoing on the hard surface of the floor. I pictured my friends on their way to the security boxes.

  ‘We’re walking along a wide, marble hallway,’ whispered Boges. ‘It’s incredible. On each side there are hundreds—maybe thousands—of safety deposit boxes. Big ones at floor level, smaller ones as you go up the wall to the ceiling. The first two numbers of the PIN—29—seem to refer to boxes—they’re all numbered. We’re trying to find box 29. We’re not game to ask anyone for—’

  Suddenly there was silence and my heart froze. What was happening?

  I could hear the sudden scuff of feet coming to a stop. I strained to listen harder.

  Winter’s voice screeched into my ear: ‘Watch where you’re going!’ she yelled at someone who must have bumped into her in the hallway.

  ‘Terribly sorry, Ma’am,’ came an unknown voice.

  I slumped with relief. That was exactly the sort of thing Oriana would have said to someone stepping in her way. Winter had nailed it, again.

  ‘Sorry about the interruption, dude,’ whispered Boges. ‘We’re still trying to find the box. There are guards patrolling up and down this corridor, but they don’t seem to be taking much notice of us. We’re approaching the lower numbers now. Box 29 shouldn’t be far away.’

  I could hear Boges, but his voice was breaking up. ‘We’ve … SDB … 29. She’s … key … numbers … now.’

  ‘Boges,’ I said, ‘there’s some kind of interference. I can’t hear you properly.’

  As I looked around, wondering what the interference might be, I got the shock of my life. The dark blue Mercedes screeched to a halt outside of the bank.

  It couldn’t be! But it was! The worst possible thing that could happen was actually happening! I scuttled out of sight.

  The real Oriana de la Force appeared, swinging her legs in their purple heels out of the car and onto the footpath. Cyril the Sumo, unapologetically parking in the No Standing zone in front of the bank, lurched out of his door, straightened his jacket, ran his fingers over his crew cut, and slammed the door of the car.

  Immediately, I turned away. I couldn’t run the risk of being recognised.

  ‘It’s working!’ I heard Winter’s excited voice come through my earpiece. ‘It’s working!’

  ‘It’s opening!’ I heard Boges say. ‘We have the box open!’

  ‘Guys!’ I hissed. ‘Get out of there! Grab the contents and get out of there!’

  ‘There’s a packet in here!’ Boges said, too distracted to hear my warning.

  I raised my voice, speaking between gritted teeth. ‘Listen to me! You’ve gotta get out right now!’ I commanded, desperation rising as I saw Oriana and Sumo scaling the bank stairs. ‘Grab the stuff and get out! Oriana and Sumo are outside! Any second now they’ll be walking into you!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me!’ I stared through the glass. The real Oriana and Sumo sauntered towards the scanner.

  I grasped the radio with clammy hands. If Winter and Boges walked out now, wearing their Oriana and Sumo outfits, they would practically collide with their real-life counterparts and all hell would break loose!

  Oriana and Sumo had stopped short of the door. They seemed to be deep in a massive argument. She turned to Sumo with one hand on her hip, and jabbed an accusing finger at him with the other. He was visibly upset, puffing up his chest and shouting back at her.

  I looked past them, through the glass windows, and saw Winter and Boges, still wearing their fake outfits, hurrying towards the entrance foyer. Any second now and they would walk straight into the two criminals they were impersonating!

  I snatched up the radio connector but didn’t have time to warn them again—they were already walking out.

  A few metres ahead of them, Oriana and Sumo were still arguing fiercely. Don’t turn around, I willed the feuding pair. Don’t look behind you!

  Rigid with tension I watched the scene unfold.

  Boges and Winter only hesitated a second before walking through the automatic doors. They looked horrified when they saw the two familiar figures just ahead of them, but they quickly veered to their right, out the doors, and scuttled away unseen.

  At that moment, Oriana and Sumo turned and walked into the bank.

  Winter ripped the red wig off as soon as she’d reached the side of the building. I took a deep breath of relief. Winter’s long, dark hair tumbled all over her shoulders, as she ran—barefoot now—down the street, with Boges close by her side.

  Suddenly the earpiece spluttered into life once more. ‘We’re out,’ said Boges, as he ran. ‘Any minute now the alarm is going to go off—once they realise that the safety deposit box is empty!’

  Almost as he said the words, the alarm from the bank started clanging. I ran after my friends. Within seconds, police cars were converging on the street.

  ‘That was way too close for comfort!’ said Boges, leaning over a chair and puffing.

  Winter shook her head as she pulled off her jacket and practically ripped off her stockings. ‘It was a close call,’ she said, ‘such a close call. But we did it! Can you believe it? It worked!’

  All three of us jumped up and high-fived each other.

  Boges threw himself on the couch, grinning. ‘After what we’ve had to do to get this far, getting to Ireland will be a cinch!’

  I didn’t exactly share Boges’s confidence, but at least we’d retrieved my family’s heirlooms. Our quest could start again!

  ‘Here,’ said Winter, passing me the packet from Oriana’s safety deposit bo
x. ‘You should be the one to open it!’

  Winter and Boges leaned forward as I emptied out the contents of the package on the table.

  The three of us stared in disbelief.

  ‘Huh?’ said Boges. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Winter cried in distress.

  Instead of the amazing, one-in-a-million Ormond Jewel, we were staring at an ordinary oval brooch with a polished grey stone in the middle. I grabbed up what I first thought was the Riddle, only to find that it, too, was a fake.

  ‘Look, all the edges are frayed,’ I said. ‘It’s a copy! It’s a good copy, but it’s a fake! The original has a clean cut at the bottom—it’s not frayed on that bottom edge like this one.’ Slowly, I sank against the counter, all the excitement and energy drained out of me.

  ‘They’re not here,’ said Winter. ‘I can’t believe this! After everything we’ve done—Boges, all your work on the fingerprint. Disguises. Getting the PIN. I can’t believe it.’

  The moments ticked by with the three of us in stunned silence as we stared at the fakes in front of us. I tried to focus.

  Something occurred to me. ‘Oriana went to all the trouble of stashing them in the bank vault. Do you see what this means? Oriana doesn’t know these are fakes! Someone else has the real Jewel and the real Riddle!’

  Boges glared at me. ‘If she doesn’t have them, then who does?’

  I looked at Winter, who suddenly seemed uncomfortable.

  ‘It has to be Sligo,’ I said. ‘Somehow he must have intercepted my backpack at the funeral parlour and done the switcheroo. Oriana takes what she thinks is the original Ormond Riddle and Ormond Jewel and she stashes them in the bank for safekeeping, not realising that what she has is worthless. Worthless!’ I said, shoving the fakes off the table with a sweep of my arm. ‘Either there’s a third party involved in this—someone we’ve never heard of and don’t know about—or it has to be Sligo.’

  ‘But why would Sligo do a switcheroo?’ said Boges. ‘He’d just take them, wouldn’t he? Why go to the bother of replacing them with fakes?’

  ‘So that Oriana would believe that she had them,’ I said. ‘That gets her off his back. She thinks she’s sweet with the goods, leaving Sligo to relax and get on with the next part of his plan.’

  Winter, who’d been sitting on the floor quietly, piped up. ‘Or Rathbone has outsmarted them both,’ she said.

  ‘All my time spent in the fume cupboard in the science lab … all for nothing!’ shouted Boges. ‘And it worked, can you believe it? My fake print fooled Zürich Bank’s scanner! But what for?’ Boges stood up, shaking his head, and started pacing the room, tearing away all remnants from his Sumo outfit. ‘We have just over two months left to sort this all out, and we’re back to square one. Again!’

  Winter looked from Boges to me, her face concerned and serious. ‘What are we going to do now, Cal?’ she asked. ‘We can’t give up. We just can’t.’

  Disappointment seeped into every cell of my body. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Let’s think,’ she said. ‘We have to spy on everyone we suspect. I can increase my visits to Sligo’s place. The weather’s warming up, so I could start going round to use his pool. Maybe you two can watch Rathbone some more.’ Winter glanced up at Boges who had slowed his pacing. ‘You know what? Maybe we need to forget about this for a while,’ she said, waving her hands over Oriana’s fakes, ‘and focus back on old leads—the drawings, the words of the Riddle—things that we may have overlooked. We can’t give up. I won’t give up.’

  70 days to go …

  I figured I should give Winter a break, so I was back at St Johns Street. I felt helpless and angry, like I’d been kicked in the guts—except the kick kept on kicking. We were back at square one. Worse, if there was some third party we didn’t know about, we were seriously behind the eight ball.

  My phone started ringing.

  ‘Cal,’ Boges began, ‘I have some information for you. Can you meet me at Winter’s tonight? Bring everything you have—I think I know why your dad drew Caesar on the Sphinx drawing.’

  ‘Come on, Boges, don’t hold out on us,’ begged Winter. ‘Where does Caesar fit in?’

  ‘Patience, patience. All in good time.’

  Slowly he pulled out his notebook, snapping the rubber band that held it together a couple of times before finally opening it. He cleared his throat and began reading: ‘One of the simplest codes in the world is the Caesar shift—’

  ‘A code?’ I repeated. ‘There’s a code called the Caesar shift?’

  ‘You betcha.’ Boges snapped the notebook shut. ‘I won’t read the rest of it. Nobody really knows if Julius Caesar ever had anything to do with it, but anyway, that’s beside the point.’

  ‘Tell us how it works, already!’ said Winter.

  ‘It’s coming, it’s coming,’ said Boges, pulling out a large piece of butcher’s paper and picking up a pencil that was on the table. Very quickly, he wrote out the alphabet.

  ‘It works like this,’ he explained as he started writing the alphabet out again, but this time he began with the ‘A’ written directly under the ‘B’ of the previous line, writing the final ‘Z’ back under the ‘A’ in the top line of letters.

  ‘That’s a one-letter Caesar shift. So using the code, DBU becomes CAT. Get it? You can move it along as many places as you like. For instance, you could move the code along ten places and start your new Caesar code alphabet underneath the letter K of the original alphabet.’

  Again, Boges wrote out the alphabet, placing the A underneath K. ‘Now,’ he demonstrated, ‘CAT becomes SQJ.’

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ asked Winter, excitedly. ‘Let’s try it! Let’s apply the Caesar shift to the Riddle. But do we try a one-letter shift, or two, or three? And where do we start? Do we apply it to every word?’

  ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘We should try every word and every shift—all twenty-six combinations.’

  ‘I could probably design a program to work it out for us,’ Boges said. ‘It could take a little while, but once it’s done, it’ll crunch the combinations in no time. Then we can search through the results for another message within the Riddle. For information embedded in it.’

  ‘What if,’ I asked, ‘the embedded information is in the last two missing lines?’

  Boges shrugged. ‘Could be. You know what we have to do …’

  ‘Go to Ireland?’ I asked.

  ‘Go to Ireland,’ Boges repeated. ‘We need to talk to the Keeper of Rare Books, find out whether he really has information on the last two lines. Time’s running out, we can’t wait around for answers to fall into our laps.’

  I looked around at the drawings. We’d finally discovered the existence of the Caesar shift—but was that what Dad was trying to tell me about? And Winter had matched the drawing of the little monkey with the painting of the young Queen Elizabeth—but was the Queen what Dad was trying to show us? Or did the monkey have more meaning?

  ‘By the way,’ said Boges. ‘Gabbi told me that they were all going away this morning—Rafe and your mum have taken her down to Treachery Bay for a couple of days. For a break from the city …’

  ‘Really?’ Immediately I was interested—Rafe’s house was where I’d first seen the scribbled note about the Ormond Riddle. ‘That could be a perfect opportunity,’ I said, ‘for a thorough search of the place. Rafe could have information that we don’t know about. Even Mum might have something incidental of Dad’s that could mean a lot to us.’

  ‘You took the words right out of my mouth. I’m in,’ said Boges. ‘I guessed you might want to check it out, so I already told Gabbi—our new little spy—that we might “pop in” in their absence. She’s so cool,’ he said. ‘Straight away she switched into top-secret mode. She’s left the key out for us and she said she’d turn off the CCTV system and sensor lights. We just need to remember to turn it all back on again before we leave.’

  I grinned. I was so proud of my siste
r. She was turning into a handy ally.

  Boges and I ducked into the front garden, crept around the side of the house and onto the back patio, where we found the key Gabbi had left us under the barbecue. The night was dark and an eerie wind was blowing, but knowing the house was empty had made us both pretty relaxed about breaking in.

  Next door’s cat, who’d saved me last time I was here, rubbed our legs as we unlocked the back door.

  I was ready. We were looking for anything—anything at all—that might give us more information about the DMO, and even if we didn’t find anything, we’d at least be sure that we’d eliminated every possibility from the ‘home’ quarter.

  We stepped through the double doors with torches that we kept low, directed to the floor. I hesitated once I stepped inside. A lamp had been left on and, somewhere, a radio chattered softly. Mum had always done that when we went away, to make it seem like the house wasn’t empty.

  ‘What is it?’ Boges asked.

  ‘Not sure,’ I said, slowly walking into the living area. ‘I can smell Mum’s perfume, I think.’ I spotted some familiar cushions and a rug from our old house. ‘Maybe it’s just Mum’s stuff.’

  The scent of perfume got to me. It was making my chest ache, reminding me of happy, easy times. Times when I felt safe.

  ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ I asked, realising Boges had asked me something, twice.

  ‘Is that the smell you remembered catching a whiff of?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The scent you caught a whiff of before you were attacked at the funeral parlour—you said it was a familiar smell.’

  ‘No,’ I said, firmly.

  Boges didn’t look convinced. What was he trying to say?

  ‘It wasn’t this smell, OK?’

  ‘OK. So where should we start? Here in the kitchen?’