Being Arcadia

by Simon Chesterman

  Praise for the first two books in the trilogy:

  “In…Chesterman’s gripping young adult trilogy, 16-year-old genius Arcadia Greentree must follow a string of clues and puzzles to Oxford University to find the person responsible for the tragedy that tore her family apart ... Peppered with codes, puzzles and shocking twists.”

  The Straits Times

  “A 16-year-old girl detective stars in a mystery paying tribute to Sherlock Holmes… This series opener is pleasurably packed with clever, solvable, well-explained puzzles; hits the spot for a mystery lover.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “First-time novelist Chesterman creates an engrossing story that keeps readers chasing the truth. … Fans of quirky protagonists, puzzling mysteries, and spy craft will enjoy this.”

  School Library Journal

  “It was intoxicating to have such a strong character use intellect rather than supernatural abilities or weaponry to solve the minor puzzles … and the more sinister mystery twists that ultimately shake Arcadia’s trust in family and identity.”

  Glee Books

  “In prose so still and measured, Chesterman methodically uncovers Arcadia’s world. Beneath this astonishing portrait of a family is an invisible intellectual machinery at work that will intrigue readers at every turn. I am already impatient for the next book.”

  Leeya Mehta, author of The Towers of Silence

  “She’s Harry Potter without a wand; Katniss Everdeen without a quiver. It’s the world against Arcadia, armed only with her fabulous, prodigious, logical mind. A super impressive debut.”

  Tony Wilson, author of Stuff Happens: Jack

  “Chesterman’s compelling creation of Arcadia, a preternaturally precocious sleuth with an unsettlingly clear-sighted and plain-spoken manner, is matched by the twists and turns of a devious plot, making for a true page-turner.”

  Philip Jeyaretnam, S.C., lawyer and author of Abraham’s Promise

  “Packed with intellectual puzzles, the taut chain of events invites the reader’s participation every step of the way. This subtle, intriguing novel raises the bar for young adult contemporary fiction. When we enter the world of our brilliant teenage protagonist with all its attendant mysteries—who is Arcadia? Who is our killer?—we are reminded that the present, viewed keenly, holds all the keys to the past. This book is impossible to put down.”

  Michelle Martin, radio personality and host of Talking Books

  “Raising Arcadia is a pacy mystery novel that has, at its centre, the irrepressible (and perhaps sociopathic) heroine Arcadia, a sixteen-year-old searching for her place in the adult world. Stuffed with intrigue and mystery, it will be adored by young adults and by adults who prize curiosity and challenge. Read it—and then read it again, to see if you noticed all the clues.”

  Adrian Tan, lawyer and author of The Teenage Textbook

  © 2018 Simon Chesterman

  Cover design by Cover Kitchen

  Illustrations by Ashley Penney

  Book design by Benson Tan

  Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions

  An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

  All rights reserved

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  The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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  National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Names: Chesterman, Simon.

  Title: Being Arcadia / Simon Chesterman.

  Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, [2017] | Series: Raising Arcadia ; book 3.

  Identifiers: OCN 993102385 | eISBN: 978 981 4751 81 0

  Subjects: LCSH: High school girls--Fiction. | England--Fiction. | Detective and mystery stories.

  Classification: DDC 828.99343--dc23

  Printed in Singapore by Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd

  For N

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1 Escape

  2 Lost

  3 Found

  4 Misdirection

  5 Raven

  6 Discipline

  7 Punishment

  8 Captive

  9 Identity

  10 Crisis

  11 Requiem

  12 Farewell

  Author’s Note

  PROLOGUE

  It begins as a flicker.

  Light dances with the shadows, moving as I move. There is no sound, no crackling. No smoke.

  I turn in slow motion, a duet with the orange tongues that now lap at my dress. Stop, drop, and roll? I am—I appear disoriented. Wandering this way and that, I only fan the tendrils that now climb up my back.

  Hands over my face. Protecting it from heat but only delaying the inevitable. Still I move, unable to escape the incandescence that trails me like an aura. It is terrible; it is beautiful.

  Until at last a primal scream erupts from my lips as the flames engulf me.

  1

  ESCAPE

  “We don’t have much time,” says Henry—wasting some.

  On the screen, numbers count down. One minute, thirteen seconds. Twelve seconds.

  No wires to cut, no cheery ringtones today. The cylinder resembles a torpedo but lacks a propeller. Welded to the outside is a simple laptop, the liquid crystal display of which shows the task and the time remaining.

  Not exactly what she has prepared for. But perhaps that is the point?

  The screen also shows an icon in the shape of a trefoil—a stylised three-leaf clover. Similar to the one painted on the brushed steel of the cylinder, it is trimmed so that, instead of leaves, three equally-spaced wedges extend from a central circle. Black on yellow, it is the international symbol for a radiation hazard.

  Hazard only means risk. Similar signs appear on x-ray machines around the world. Used properly, they are film-safe and person-safe. This device, however, if used properly would destroy most of Oxford.

  She looks again at the puzzle on the screen.

  16, 06, 68, 88, __, 98

  A number sequence problem, but not necessarily an arithmetic one. Minus ten, plus sixty-two, plus twenty, then what?

  Based on 1940s technology, nuclear weapons are physics at its highest and its lowest. A chain reaction is the breakup of matter itself, heavier atoms like uranium decaying into lighter elements. As the bonds that once held the uranium together are broken, Einstein’s famous equation comes to life as some of that mass becomes energy.

  Why “06”? If it is read as “zero-six” it has three syllables, as do all the others except sixteen. Six-and-ten? Not specific enough; there are do
zens of two-digit numbers with three syllables. Sixty-six, to be precise.

  E=mc2. Though the amount of mass lost is tiny, when multiplied by the square of the speed of light it tends to add up. Just one gram of mass is equivalent to around ninety thousand billion joules of energy—what twenty-five thousand homes might use in a year. The release of energy here would be in fractions of a second, however. A better measure is the destruction caused by the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. That blast was the result of a mass-energy conversion of seven-tenths of one gram, about the weight of a raisin.

  Could it have something to do with spelling? Each number uses the vowels “i” and “e”.

  “Should we just split the difference and put 93?”

  Henry is trying to be helpful but she wrinkles her nose. Guessing offends her. “You’re right that any answer is better than nothing,” she says, “but this isn’t meant to be chance. There is a correct answer if we can find it.”

  Thirty-seven seconds.

  If a chain reaction represents the highest form of physics, getting it started is the lowest: critical mass is a fancy term for squashing the uranium into a ball dense enough that the splitting of one atom causes the breakup of another and so on. This can be done by positioning explosives around it, or simply ramming one piece of nuclear material into another. Compress the atoms enough and the chain reaction begins.

  She looks more closely at the laptop. The keys have barely been used. Some fingerprints on the screen, but no hints there. The locked closet within which the bomb was hidden opened with a key they had retrieved from a drain using a flexible magnet. The magnet had in turn been found in a safe opened with a password generated by the page number of a Bible passage. And so on. Is this the last test? No, for the door of the hotel room remains locked.

  “Come on, Arcadia,” Henry is speaking again, “we have to try something.”

  She refuses to admit defeat. Try something, try anything. Sixteen, zero-six…

  “I thought you could do this sort of thing standing on your head.”

  She tries to shut out his voice as the seconds tick down, clearing her mind for one last attempt to view the problem from every angle, when she sees her mistake.

  “Once again, Henry”—she smiles for the first time—“you have saved our lives.”

  On the laptop keyboard she taps an “L” and then an “8”. The timer stops at six seconds.

  Henry looks at the screen, then her, in confusion. “What does that even mean?”

  Above them she hears footsteps, leather-soled shoes on metal. “Nicely done, Miss Arcadia.” Dr. Joseph Bell steps forward on the elevated walkway that runs the length of the fake hotel room. “You’ve made it further than anyone else today. Let’s see if you can get past the final test.”

  It is the first time she has been back to Oxford in a year. Her previous visit also featured a bomb—in that case a real one that threatened the John Radcliffe Hospital, which serves as the university’s medical school.

  That was when she first met Dr. Bell, while searching for information about her birth. Her medical records show that she was born at the John Radcliffe, second child of Euphemia and John Hebron. A month later, the couple died in a car crash. She was adopted by the same family that had taken in their first child, her brother Magnus, seven years earlier.

  Yet the Hebrons’ own paper records make clear that they died childless. Dr. Bell himself signed the death certificates. When she discovered this, a phone call brought her to Dr. Bell’s office; there she found him strapped to a bomb large enough to kill them both and destroy the hospital—removing any evidence of the deception and the only two people who knew about it.

  And yet. That bomb was also a test, a means of evaluating her for—for what?

  On this occasion, the “bomb” is the coda to a day of more subtle evaluation. Admission to Oxford University is notoriously opaque. Past and anticipated grades are considered, a personal statement is thrown in, but central to the alchemy is an interview with fellows of the college to which one applies. She once dined with some of those fellows and has yet to conclude whether that is an advantage or not. Having observed their alcohol-infused discussions at close range makes it difficult to maintain the proper reverence when being asked why she should be admitted into the hallowed halls.

  Two days ago, her mathematics teacher, Mr. Aveling, was tasked with speaking to the Priory School’s upper sixth students who had been selected for Oxford interviews. After some notes on practicalities and personal hygiene, his advice boiled down to two things: be brilliant—and don’t let the school down.

  And so on Tuesday she, Henry, and five other upper sixth students arrived at Oxford with overnight bags. Only she and Henry had applied to Magdalen College and were dropped off first when the school minibus pulled into the High Street. From the Porter’s Lodge they were directed to small bedrooms on separate floors. A quick inspection revealed hers to have been abandoned hastily by an undergraduate student sent home at the end of term. He or she—from the state of the basin, definitely he—could do with some tips on personal hygiene.

  Henry continues to think that he has a chance of being admitted into Oxford only because of his parents’ money, an underestimation of his intellect that she finds endearing. Of more concern is that he might be applying to Magdalen only because that is where she applied. She avoids social media, but this is an occasion where the simple status update “it’s complicated” might be apt. Set that thought aside for later consideration.

  For her part, she has decided on Oxford because it is not Cambridge, where her brother spent so many years. Magnus has at last graduated and assumed a government position about which he takes undue pleasure in being mysterious. But the impression he left on Cambridge—metaphorical and literal—is significant; she has no desire to be seen in his plus-size shadow.

  If she is honest with herself, the choice of Oxford was also partly due to Dr. Bell’s advice. Having nearly been blown up together forged a bond of a kind; he also tried to help her find out the truth about her parents. They have not seen each other since then, but six months ago he wrote her a letter in precise longhand, inquiring after her studies and suggesting that she consider Oxford in general and his college, Magdalen, in particular.

  Why his advice resonated with her is unclear. It was more than the shared experience of the bomb, more than his help. Set that thought aside also for the time being.

  After settling into their rooms they were given a tour of the college and then invited to dinner at Hall. On her previous visit she dined at High Table as a guest of Dr. Bell. Last night’s fare was simpler: a mix of proteins, starches, and vegetables all apparently chosen for their different shades of yellow. She sat with Henry as other students milled about, sizing each other up and making half-hearted attempts at conversation that tended to focus on the public school one attended, with occasional gasps at encountering someone from a comprehensive.

  The next morning two interviews were scheduled with tutors at the college. An ageless woman in a shapeless sweater asked her about organic chemistry. Then Lucian Smythe, one of the younger fellows whom she met on her previous visit, gave her a simple problem to solve concerning seven pirates who were to divide up gold according to some unlikely “pirate rules”.

  Each discussion was moderately interesting, yet she had begun to reconsider whether the intellectual stimulation of an Oxford education was quite worth the hassle of its peculiar institutions and individuals. It was towards the end of lunch—the colour palette now extending to include orange—that Dr. Bell approached and asked if she and her friend might be willing to take part in an optional component of admissions that the college was trying out.

  Refusal seemed churlish, so she and Henry accompanied him through the cloisters and onto a lawn on which a marquee had been erected.

  “We are preparing for a Gaudy next week—a kind of party for former students of the college,” Dr. Bell explained. �
��There is a feast and dancing in Hall, but there are also games, magic shows and so on and so forth.”

  He led them into the marquee, within which a stage had been built. But it was a stage without space for an audience, four walls enclosing a box in the middle of the oversized tent. A cheery sign on the only door read: “Welcome to the Hotel California”. They stepped inside. It had indeed been decorated as a hotel room, approximately four metres square, complete with bed, closet, and washbasin. There was no ceiling, presumably the better to observe participants from the elevated walkway that ran along the top of one wall, reached via steps from outside the room.

  “It’s called an ‘Escape Room’,” Dr. Bell said at the time. “Apparently they’re quite the thing in America these days. One has a certain amount of time and must solve puzzles and so on to escape, as it were. Some of our graduate students requested it for the Gaudy and then one bright spark asked if we could use it for admissions.”

  Dr. Bell sniffed. “I confess that I doubted whether it would be particularly useful as an admissions exercise, but we’ve had a handful of candidates try it out. Most fared rather poorly, I fear—I suspect the lateral thinking demanded throws off many of our narrower candidates.”

  The basin was not connected to a water supply, she observed. A picture hung on the wall too upright, probably hinged and possibly with a safe behind it. Symbols had been drawn on the plasterboard above the bed; the bed itself was covered with a quilt whose patchwork followed a complex sequence. Pi, as she later confirmed. There was an odd, sweet smell in the room.

  “And then I recalled”—Dr. Bell was still speaking—“that you were rather good at puzzles. So would you be willing to give it a shot?”

  “How is ‘L-8’ even an answer?” Henry protests.

  She is already onto the next problem, but the fact that they are in this together suggests that teamwork is part of the “test”. So she pauses to explain.