left-hand door opened on to a warehouse accessed via an old spiral staircase while the right-hand door gave on to the office. The office was not a big room, perhaps fifteen feet square, the space dominated by the partners’ desk. There was a single, large window which looked out over the warehouse below, a low bookcase running underneath it. Two comfortable armchairs were positioned on the left-hand side of the room as you went in, the brown leather faded and soft with age. Most striking, though, was the wall space behind the desk, which was taken up with Tom’s glittering collection of safe plates – an assortment of brass and iron plaques in various shapes and sizes, some dating back to the late eighteenth century, each ornately engraved with the safe manufacturer’s name and crest.
‘How are you getting on with the crossword?’ she asked with a smile, peering down at the unfilled grid in front of him. ‘Any easier?’
‘Not really,’ he admitted. ‘I mean, take this: “Soldier got into cover for a spell.” Five letters.’ He shook his head. ‘I just don’t see it.’
‘Magic,’ she answered after a few seconds thought.
‘Magic,’ Tom repeated slowly. ‘Why magic?’
‘A soldier is a GI,’ she explained. ‘A cover is a Mac. Put GI into Mac to get a spell. Magic.’
She tapped her long, graceful finger playfully on the tip of Tom’s nose as if it was a wand.
‘I give up.’ Tom, defeated, threw his pen down on to the desk.
‘You just need to keep at it,’ she laughed. ‘One day it’ll all just click into place.’
‘So you keep saying.’ Frustrated, Tom changed the subject: ‘When’s Archie back?’
‘Tomorrow, I think.’ She picked at a frayed piece of cotton where her jeans were ripped across her left thigh.
‘That’s twice he’s been to the States in the last few weeks.’ Tom frowned. ‘For someone who claims to hate going abroad, he’s certainly putting himself about a bit.’
‘What’s he doing there?’
‘God knows. Sometimes he just seems to get an idea into his head and then he’s off.’
‘That reminds me – where did you put those newspapers that were on his desk?’
‘Where do you think? I threw them away along with all his other rubbish.’
‘You did what?’ she exclaimed. ‘They were mine. I’d been keeping them for a reason.’
‘Well, try the bottom left-hand drawer then,’ Tom suggested sheepishly. ‘I put a bunch of old papers in there.’
She slipped off the desk and opened the drawer.
‘Luckily for you, they’re here,’ she said with relief, pulling out a large pile of newspapers and placing them down in from of him.
‘What do you want with them anyway?’ Tom asked. ‘Are you collecting tokens or something?’
‘Do I look like I collect tokens?’ She grinned. ‘No, I wanted to show you something. Only you might not like it…’
‘What are you talking about?’ Tom frowned. ‘You can tell me anything, you know that.’
‘Even if it’s about Harry?’ she asked.
‘Harry?’ Tom sprang up.
Harry Renwick. The mere mention of his name was enough to make Tom’s heart rise into his throat. Harry Renwick had been his father’s best friend; a man Tom had known and loved since…well, since almost as long as he could remember.
That was until it transpired that dear old Uncle Harry had been living a double life. Operating under the name of Cassius, he had masterminded a ruthless art-crime syndicate that had robbed and murdered and extorted its way around the globe for decades. The betrayal still stung.
‘You told me he’d disappeared after what happened in Paris. After the –’
‘Yeah,’ Tom cut her off, not wanting to relive the details. ‘He just vanished.’
‘Well, wherever he’s gone, someone’s looking for him.’ Dominique unfolded the top newspaper, the previous day’s Herald Tribune. She turned to the Personals section and pointed at an ad she’d circled. Tom began to read the first paragraph.
‘Lions may awake any second. If this takes place alert me via existing number.’ He flashed her an amused glance. She indicated that he should read on. ‘If chimps stop their spelling test within one or so hours, reward through gift of eighty bananas.’ He laughed. ‘It’s nonsense.’
‘That’s what I thought when I first saw it, but you know how I like a challenge.’
‘Sure.’ Tom smiled. Amongst her many attributes, Dominique had an amazing aptitude for word games and other types of puzzles. Never one to be outdone, it was partly this which had driven Tom to attempt the crossword. Not that he was making much progress.
‘It only took me a few minutes. It’s a jump code.’
‘A what?’
‘A jump code. Jewish scholars have been finding them for years in the Torah. Did you know that if you take the first T in the Book of Genesis, then jump forty-nine places to the fiftieth letter, then another forty-nine places to the fiftieth letter after that, and so on, it spells a word?’
‘What?’
‘Torah. The book’s name is embedded in the text. The next three books do the same. Some say that the whole of the Old Testament is an encoded message that predicts the future.’
‘And this works in the same way?’
‘It’s a question of identifying the jump interval. In this case, it’s every eighth letter.’
‘Starting with the first letter?’
She nodded.
‘So that makes this L…’ Tom counted seven spaces, ‘then A…’ He grabbed a pen and began to write down each eighth letter: ‘Then S…then T. Last!’ he exclaimed triumphantly.
‘Last seen Copenhagen. Await next contact. I decoded it earlier.’
‘And there are others like this?’
‘After I found this, I looked back through earlier editions. There have been coded messages using the same methodology every few weeks for the last six months or so. I’ve written them out here –’
She handed Tom a piece of paper.
‘HK cold, try Tokyo,’ he read. ‘Focus search in Europe…DNA sample en route…Reported sighting in Vienna…’ He looked up at Dominique. ‘Okay, I agree that someone seems to be looking for someone or something. But there’s nothing to say it’s Harry.’
Dominique
