‘Well, you see why this is interesting, Kendrick. Terrifically bad, technically, but interesting. Her heart wishes to reel like an eagle, she says’ – Ibrahim has sent Kendrick a copy of the text, and is reading from his own copy – ‘but two lines later that heart is “cleft in two ’round the wheel”.’
‘There are golden eagles and bald eagles, and black eagles,’ says Kendrick. ‘They eat mice. Do you know any other kinds of eagle? I don’t know any more.’
‘A goshawk is a type of eagle,’ says Ibrahim, and Kendrick writes this down.
‘Now I know four eagles,’ says Kendrick.
‘If you break a heart around a wheel,’ says Ibrahim, ‘and I’m just thinking out loud here, Kendrick, are we to take it that Heather Garbutt wants us to take an anagram of the word “heart” and combine it with another word for “wheel”?’
‘Maybe,’ says Kendrick. ‘Maybe she might do.’
‘Or,’ says Ibrahim, ‘if it is “cleft in two”, perhaps she wants us to place a word for “wheel” within the two broken parts of “heart”.’
‘Perhaps,’ nods Kendrick. ‘She has messy handwriting, doesn’t she? I have good handwriting, but only if I concentrate.’
‘We need another word for “wheel”,’ says Ibrahim. ‘As a noun we have “disc”, “hoop”, at a push, “circle”. As a verb –’
‘A verb is a doing word,’ says Kendrick.
‘Quite so,’ agrees Ibrahim. ‘Which would give us “rotate”, “revolve” and, again, “circle”, such are the joys of the English language.’
‘What’s a hundred, times a hundred, times a hundred?’ asks Kendrick.
‘A million,’ says Ibrahim, with a puff on his cigar. ‘Let’s say that an anagram of “heart” is “Ath er …” and we add a word for “wheel”, I wonder would “hoop” work here? We fold “Ath er” around “hoop” and we come up with the name “Ath Hooper”. Not a name, Kendrick. And the word “around” can often signify the letter c in a cryptic crossword, from the Latin circa.’
‘The gladiators spoke in Latin,’ says Kendrick. ‘And Julius Caesar.’
‘So we add the c to the front of our answer. I wonder if you might search the name “Cath Hooper” for me, and report back on anyone from either the Kent and Sussex area, or anyone with links to organized crime.’
Kendrick busies himself for a moment. ‘There’re about a thousand.’
‘Hmm – give me the top two,’ says Ibrahim.
‘OK,’ says Kendrick. ‘One is in Australia, and one is dead.’
‘Hmm,’ says Ibrahim again. ‘The dead one. Did she die recently? Was she murdered?’
Kendrick scrolls down his page. ‘She died in 1871. In Aberdeen. Where’s Aberdeen?’
‘Scotland,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Maybe that’s a clue?’
Ibrahim continues to read the poem, with the awful realization that perhaps it is just a poem. Then he sees it.
‘Did she write anything else?’ asks Kendrick. ‘Because this seems quite a hard one.’
‘She wrote a note, before she died,’ says Ibrahim, still looking over his new clue, testing it for strength.
‘A note?’
‘A note, yes,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Foretelling her death. But I don’t think your grandad would want me to show you it.’
‘Pleeeeease,’ says Kendrick. ‘I won’t tell Grandad.’
‘I don’t suppose it will do any harm,’ says Ibrahim. It’ll keep Kendrick occupied for a few moments while he cracks the code. He finds Chris’s original email and sends over the image of Heather Garbutt’s note. He then returns to the matter at hand, and begins to read out loud from the poem again.
I recall, as a child, in the brook where we played
When our secrets were kept, and our promises made
Where the sun never ceased, and the rain never fell
In the brook where we played, I remember it well.
‘“Where our secrets were kept”, well, that’s worth investigating. Repeat of “brook”, that suggests “Brooks” of course. And “Where the sun never ceased”, could that suggest the word “sun” without the n? So “Su”.’ Were they looking for someone called Su Brooks?
‘Kendrick, Google Su Broo–’
‘You played a trick on me, Uncle Ibrahim,’ says Kendrick.
‘A trick?’ says Ibrahim. Su Brooks. Su Brooks. Was she one of Heather’s fellow accountants perhaps? A pseudonym?
Kendrick looks up from the note. ‘Well, the handwriting is different, isn’t it? On the poem and on the note. The poem is so messy, and the note is so neat. So the note and the poem were written by different people.’
Ibrahim looks back and forth between the note and the poem. Yes. Well. It couldn’t have been much more obvious. Ibrahim was the only person who had seen both the note and the poem. But Ibrahim had seen things that were not there, instead of seeing what was right in front of him.
There was no secret message, there was just a lonely poem written by a woman who had given up hope. And a note, warning of death, appealing to Connie Johnson. Written by someone else entirely.
‘I’m glad you picked up on that, Kendrick,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I knew you would.’
‘It was just a test, I know,’ says Kendrick. ‘What did you want me to Google?’
Ibrahim hears Kendrick’s mum, Ron’s daughter, Suzi, calling him down for his tea. Su Brooks indeed. Ibrahim recognizes, not for the first time, that he is given to over-complicating things at times.
‘No need to Google anything. And maybe we keep the handwriting between ourselves for now,’ suggests Ibrahim.
‘Great, like a secret,’ agrees Kendrick. ‘Bye, Uncle Ibrahim, I love you.’
Kendrick’s screen goes blank. ‘I love you too,’ says Ibrahim. Kendrick was, once again, the right man for the job. If life ever seems too complicated, if you think no one can help, sometimes the right person to turn to is an eight-year-old.
Heather Garbutt had written the poem, of that there was little doubt: Connie had seen her write it. Which meant that Heather Garbutt had not written the note. So who had? And why?
Ibrahim will report his news to the gang immediately.
Though he might skip over a few details as to how his conclusion was reached.
44
‘You happy?’ asks Mike Waghorn. ‘You look great.’
‘Happy as I’ll ever be,’ says Donna, eyeing herself in the studio monitor. She doesn’t look bad. Pauline had insisted on coming in on her day off to do Donna’s make-up.
‘Two minutes on this VT,’ says the floor manager. South East Tonight is showing a report on a gluten-free bakery currently taking Folkestone by storm.
‘I’ll say, knife crime is on the up,’ Mike says to her. ‘You’ll say it isn’t as simple as that, Mike; I’ll say come off it, don’t give us that flannel; you’ll say something reassuring, and then we’ll play a VT of some people complaining in Fairhaven. Then I’ll ask if you have a message for those people, and you’ll say don’t have nightmares, or whatever comes to mind. You really look great, don’t be nervous.’
‘Thank you,’ says Donna. Is she nervous? She doesn’t feel nervous. Should she be? She looks around the small studio. The floor manager with her clipboard, the camera operator on Tinder, Carwyn, the producer, skulking, and, like a loyal hound, Chris, sitting and watching. This time he is giving her the thumbs-up. She returns it. If he is unhappy at being usurped, he is not showing it.
The floor manager has started a ten-second countdown. The camera operator reluctantly puts down her phone, mid-flirt.
‘You got anywhere with the Heather Garbutt thing?’ asks Mike, in a whisper this time.
‘Trying,’ says Donna. ‘Not really our case, but we’ve got a lead we’re working on.’ Donna has spent all morning looking through the vehicle registrations from Juniper Court.
‘It’s just –’ says Mike.
‘I know,’ says Donna. ‘I know what Bethany Waites meant to you.’
‘She was the real deal,’ says Mike. ‘Have you looked into –’