by H. L. Dennis
Tusia repeated the clue then placed the note back beneath the brick. ‘Everything back in its place,’ she said by way of explanation.
‘Return to the beginning,’ mumbled Brodie, a sense of panic rising again in her stomach. ‘What’s that mean?’
‘Back to the box of stopwatches?’ offered Hunter. ‘We searched that. There was nothing else.’
‘Maybe it just means the front door?’ offered Brodie hopefully. ‘That’s where we started. It was the beginning.’
Tusia was shaking her head. ‘I’ve banged on the door. There’s no bell. The door’s locked. There’s no way of getting in without a key.’
‘We have to look again,’ urged Hunter. ‘We’ve got six minutes.’
They ran to the front of the mansion. Brodie noticed the candle in the lantern had shrunk in size. It was as if it mocked them, burning relentlessly lower as they searched for answers. For the second time since she’d arrived, the idea she should remember something nagged at her mind.
Hunter steadied himself against the griffin.
‘I read a story once about a griffin,’ Brodie said, trying to move the game back on to ground she understood.
‘Really?’ Hunter didn’t seem surprised. ‘Stories are her thing,’ he said to Tusia, ‘like clambering all over things is obviously yours.’
‘Shape and space is my thing, thank you very much,’ Tusia snapped. ‘I have a highly developed sense of organisation of locations,’ she said.
‘Nice,’ mocked Hunter. ‘Must be so useful. We’ve got five minutes. How’s your shape and space thing working for you now?’
‘Actually—’
Brodie cut them off. ‘This story,’ she said. ‘The griffin in it was a guardian of light.’
‘Could he stretch time, this guardian of light?’ asked Hunter. ‘Four minutes now. We’re into our last four minutes!’
‘Shh,’ Brodie hissed in exasperation. Something about her memory of the story had sparked an idea and she was sure if she didn’t grasp hold of it, the thought would drift away like smoke.
‘You all right, B?’ Hunter said, lifting his head to look at her.
Brodie sheltered her eyes against the glare of the sun.
‘BB?’
‘At the end we must return to the beginning,’ Brodie said again.
The stopwatch said three minutes.
‘How d’you get your invite to this place?’ Brodie asked.
‘Birthday card,’ mused Hunter. ‘A hundred and seventeen days late.’
Tusia’s eyes widened. ‘I got a card too,’ she said. ‘And holes had been spaced under the letters to let light through the message.’
Brodie clapped her hands. ‘Exactly. That was the beginning. And then?’
‘Message in a lamppost.’ Hunter grinned, finally cottoning on.
‘So at the end we must return to the beginning,’ confirmed Brodie. ‘And at the beginning of all this was the light.’ Her pulse was racing. They had two minutes.
She looked up at the candle lantern.
Glinting in the glow of the single flame was something metal. Brodie peered into the light to see. It was a key!
‘I guess it’s time to use that ladder again!’ yelled Hunter.
Dust lifted from his feet as he ran and the end of the ladder carved a snaking line in the gravel on the forecourt.
‘One minute, Toots,’ he shouted as Tusia climbed the ladder. ‘Fifty-nine seconds. Come on!’
Brodie steadied the base of the ladder. She tried to steady her nerve. A bead of sweat trickled down Tusia’s neck and dripped on to the floor of the porch.
‘Twenty seconds. We have twenty seconds, Toots!’
The lantern cage swung open. The flame of the candle guttered in the breeze. The key tumbled into Brodie’s hand.
She slotted the key in the lock and turned.
An alarm on the stopwatches pierced the air.
But the door of Bletchley Park Mansion swung open wide. They were inside the Black Chamber.
‘There’s only three of them?’ Oscar Ingham spat the words out before moving back from the window of the ballroom. ‘All this preparation and there’s only three of them?’
Smithies tried hard not to panic.
‘How many did you ask?’ Ingham’s voice was sharp like a blade.
‘I asked those I thought would come.’
‘And all we have is three?’ Ingham spluttered into his hand and then, taking an asthma inhaler from his pocket, he pressed firmly on the trigger and inhaled deeply.
‘I don’t think we should panic,’ offered Tandi. ‘I mean there’s still a chance some have been delayed, isn’t there, Smithies?’
‘Not really.’
‘Oh.’
‘So this is it then?’ Ingham stood up from the chair, his pyjamas held up today by a vivid red necktie which almost matched the patchy skin of his hands and arms. ‘Just three children.’ He coughed into his balled fist.
‘True. True,’ replied Smithies, in a voice he hoped sounded self-assured and confident. ‘I agree I’d hoped for more. I can’t pretend not to be disappointed. But it’s the calibre of the children we’ve got that’ll matter. The strength of their aptitude for the code and their love of a challenge that’ll make all the difference. After all, it’s our job to teach them while they’re here.’
‘They nearly failed against the clock to get inside.’
‘But they didn’t.’
‘So what about these children makes them worthy candidates?’ Tandi asked in an obvious attempt to be encouraging.
‘Well, let’s see. The boy on the unicycle, he has a way with numbers and his parents both lecture at Oxford so I’m sure we’re on to a winner there.’
‘He was reluctant to open the box, though. Till the girl arrived.’
‘So, he’s not a natural leader,’ said Smithies, ‘but we’ve time to work on that.’
‘And the girl on the roof ? We’ve time to instil some sense of safety in her, do we?’ mumbled Ingham, sipping at a mug of now very cold tea which he seemed reluctant to put down on the table.
‘She was a local chess master at ten,’ said Smithies, trying to sound impressive.
‘And the other one? She was quick to think she was beaten.’
‘Alex’s girl,’ said Smithies gently.
No one spoke for a while.
‘You think that’s wise, Smithies? After all that happened?’ Ingham was speaking but his voice was softer now.
Smithies refused to answer but walked instead towards the door.
Ingham coughed into his hand again before he spoke. ‘You still haven’t told us, Smithies, how this set-up will work with just three candidates. Do we tell them, what they’re up against? What they’re really involved in?’
Smithies looked at the ground. How could they with only three children? Explain everything and they could lose them all.
‘We tell them only what they need to know,’ Smithies called over his shoulder. ‘It’ll work.’ He added the last part in a voice that could barely be heard. ‘It’ll have to.’
‘Welcome. Welcome. So glad you enjoyed our little game.’
Brodie wasn’t sure ‘enjoyed’ was the best word to describe the panic of the last thirty minutes, but she said nothing.
The man before them wore a smart three-piece suit and a small pair of glasses bizarrely propped above his eyes on his forehead. ‘I’m Smithies,’ he said, ‘and this is Miss Tandari. She’ll be one of your teachers here.’
He gestured to a tall black woman standing to his left. She wore a floaty coral blue blouse and silver bangles which shimmered brightly against her skin.
‘Welcome to Station X,’ she said in a voice that was light and airy.
‘Let’s take you inside. Tandi, if you’d lead the way.’
A door opened into a small ante-porch and then out on to a wide corridor. Smithies stopped for a moment, pointing out to them an intricate tapestry hung on the wall. ‘Made by one who was her
e before you,’ he said, ‘it’s a map of the place as it was just after the war.’ A twinkle flashed in his eye. Brodie continued walking and could see an impressive wooden stairway sweeping up to the right.
‘We’ve basically adapted the inside of the house to meet our needs,’ Miss Tandari explained as she walked. ‘You’ll see most of the rooms’ve been made into study spaces, except the music room which it seemed a shame to clutter up.’ She led them to a large room with a massively high stained-glass ceiling covered with pictures of flowers. At the end was a tall stone fireplace with a bust of Winston Churchill on top. Miss Tandari patted the bust affectionately on his bald head. ‘Obviously a great fan of Bletchley,’ she said.
‘You must remember,’ Smithies added rather sombrely, ‘this is a country home. It was never built to be a “Code and Cipher School” or “Black Chamber”. Yet that’s what it became just before World War Two and we’re thrilled to say it’s become so again.’
Miss Tandari led on. ‘This is where your secret breaking adventure will begin. A place for you to use your power as you did in order to get yourself inside.’
‘Mind you,’ Smithies reminded them, calling over his shoulder, ‘if you’d remembered our little clue from the very first piece of information you could’ve saved yourself a lot of time and got in rather more quickly. “Light is knowledge” after all.’
Brodie felt the colour rush across her face, straight to the roots of her hair. An awkward memory of a lamp on a bridge and a candle lantern burning brightly in the daytime stirred in her mind. She determined not to miss clues like that again.
They’d reached a large ballroom where several chairs were laid out boardroom style. Seated behind the table was a man who appeared to be wearing a pair of pyjama trousers and a rather crumpled shirt. He lifted his hand and tidied his unruly eyebrows with the heel of his thumb before offering a scowl in their direction.
‘So,’ said Smithies with a flourish. ‘Now we’re all here, let’s get started.’
‘All.’ Brodie played the word over in her mind. All didn’t seem to be very many. It was not stretching things to suggest this wasn’t really what she’d expected but she sat down on the chair offered to her and tried her best to pay attention.
‘I’d like to begin by thanking you for responding to our call for help,’ began Smithies. ‘We’ve invited you here with two very clear purposes,’ he said deliberately. ‘Our first task is to train you. To make you masters of code and ciphers. To teach you all we know.
‘Our second task is to test you.’
Brodie felt a little sick.
‘To choose members for a Black Chamber Study Group entitled Veritas,’ continued Smithies, ‘who’ll be given classified and highly confidential new information which will be used to work on a code that’s baffled minds for centuries. A book of secrets. It’s our serious hope to choose a team of people able to read it.’
Brodie felt the strange bubbling sensation in her stomach she’d got used to feeling now every time the unreadable book was mentioned. A chance to be in a team. She’d never been in a team before. She’d tried out once for the netball team. The teacher felt so sorry for her, she’d got the job of cutting up the oranges for half-time. But this was a real chance. To be part of a real team. At something she might actually be good at. She was surprised how much she wanted that now she was here.
‘Now,’ Smithies continued, as if speaking to a much bigger crowd. ‘Although we’d like to include you all in the Study Group we’ll need to be sure you’re worthy of your place in the team. Myself, Miss Tandari and our learned colleague Oscar Ingham will be your teachers here.’ He gestured to the man in the pyjama trousers then began to collect together some papers and notes from the table in front of him.
‘So there’s a chance we still might not make it, then?’ hissed Hunter. ‘Another chance we could get sent home.’ This thought clearly worried him immensely. ‘And the old geezer in pyjamas. What the crab apple’s that all about?’
Tusia hissed back along the line. ‘Maybe he just can’t bring himself to get ready to face the day.’
‘That’s stupid.’
‘Perhaps he thinks if he doesn’t get dressed properly then the day hasn’t really started.’
Brodie mulled this over and looked at Tusia with a deepening respect. ‘You see all that because he’s wearing pyjamas?’ She hoped any tests they had wouldn’t focus on working out things like that.
Tusia shrugged. ‘Lots of people can’t face the day,’ she said knowingly. ‘They just go about showing it in different ways.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘Anyway, you can’t blame the old guy if he’s realised he has to try and teach him,’ she added venomously, pointing along the line.
Hunter glowered and raised his hand attempting to hide the fact he was whispering again, but Brodie batted his hand away. ‘Shh,’ she hissed. ‘They’ll hear. And we’re supposed to be making a good impression.’
‘Fair point,’ winced Hunter.
Smithies had organised the papers and cleared his throat to speak again. ‘Enough of the formalities. You’ll be tired and hungry, and I for one have an appointment to keep.’ He smiled and Brodie felt reassured. ‘Take your time to make yourselves at home. Rest well. There’s plenty of time to prepare for testing.’
‘You’ll be in Hut 8,’ Miss Tandari explained, as Brodie began her private tour. ‘Smithies lives off site in the village but you can always find me as I’m based in the mansion. Here’s a map to refer to and I’ll help you get your bearings.’
Starting beside Block B, Brodie could see a series of huts of different sizes and ages. Some were newly painted, but some were rather shabby. On the outside of each one was a number marked on the centre of a thick black name-plate. ‘These huts were the heart of Bletchley,’ Miss Tandari explained. ‘In the war code-breakers were allocated to one particular hut. You worked there all the time. Each hut was responsible for different types of code-breaking.’ Brodie nodded. ‘They’re all different. They’ve all got their own histories. Huts 3, 4, 6 and 8 are the most famous ones,’ she continued. ‘Your grandfather worked in Hut 3. The work which happened there changed the course of the whole war.’
Brodie imagined her granddad, young and excited, working inside the hut. She wished she’d had longer to ask him what code-cracking was really like. She reached up to the locket that hung around her neck and cradled it in her hand.
‘Beautiful necklace,’ said Miss Tandari brightly.
As they walked, Miss Tandari pointed out the tennis court and the ornamental lake. In the centre a rather crooked fountain shot water in great jets up into the air. ‘We haven’t got the water pressure quite right yet,’ she said apologetically over her shoulder as a cloud of droplets blew in their direction making Brodie’s feet wet.
As they rounded the corner, Miss Tandari waved towards the Ice House. The building was shaped like a hexagon and Miss Tandari was keen to point out the pigeon loft built into the pointed roof. She explained the building had been used to store ice and keep food from going bad before fridges had been invented. Such a large place to keep ice in seemed a weird idea to Brodie. She stared hard and watched a group of white birds circle above them then land on the roof.
‘So Hut 8 then?’ Miss Tandari said marching on, looking away from the pigeons. ‘You’ll find everything you need inside,’ she added, and Brodie was not entirely sure she didn’t see Miss Tandari wink, although on reflection it may have been a trick of the light.
She opened the door to the hut and entered a narrow corridor. She followed it until she found the room number marked at the top of her map. Room seven. She paused for a moment, unsure whether she should knock, and then thinking better of it, she swung the door wide and stepped in.
In retrospect it may have been better to knock.
Seated on a rush mat spread on the floor in the centre of the room, her legs crossed and her hands stretched up towards the ceiling, was Tusia. Her eyes were firmly closed and she was hu
mming. From a CD player, balanced precariously in the corner, came the sound of songbirds and ocean waves and on the window sill a candle smelling strongly of lavender was burning.
Brodie coughed gently to announce her arrival.
Tusia didn’t move.
‘Hello again,’ Brodie whispered nervously.
Tusia opened one eye.
‘Looks like I’m your new room-mate.’
Tusia kept one eye firmly closed. ‘One moment,’ she said.
Brodie moved awkwardly from foot to foot as the sounds on the CD reached a crescendo and then died away. Tusia sighed deeply, opened her eyes and jumped to her feet.
‘Great we’re together, don’t you think? After all the fun we had earlier. Did you enjoy your tour? I’d memorised the location of the buildings already so mine didn’t take long. I’ve rearranged things here a bit though. Pulled the beds out to balance the shui in the room. The way it was all set out, our luck would’ve left the room before nightfall.’
Brodie knew she looked confused again. ‘Shui?’
‘Positivity. My mother swears by feng shui. We had a specialist over and he reordered the whole house. Had to knock down a chimney in my brother’s room and turn the staircase round but Mum said it’s worth every penny.’ She patted the end of the unit. ‘Anyway, this way you get a good view of the lake, but if you’d prefer the other bed, then I really don’t mind.’
Brodie sat down on the end of the duvet.
‘Here,’ Tusia said, turning to a chest of drawers beneath the window. ‘Apple and mango juice with omega three. Very restoring.’
Brodie thanked Tusia enthusiastically, although as she gulped the drink down she was sure there was the faintest taste of fish.
She put her half-full glass down on the bedside table. ‘So, anyway. Great place, isn’t it?’
‘Less rugged than I’m used to,’ Tusia said. ‘I live in Cornwall. They offered to fly me in but my family are against any form of air travel unless it’s absolutely necessary. Kills the environment.’
Brodie smiled weakly.
‘My father’s fitted a catalytic converter to our camper van that allows it to drive using vegetable oil. It means the van can’t go above forty miles an hour, and it smells a bit like a chip shop, but it got us here eventually.’
