“Important documents, usually,” Stevie said. “Records. Wills. Insurance. Passports. Important stuff. It’s a safe, basically, that keeps your papers safe in fires and floods.”
“I think she keeps all that kind of thing in her office. So what’s in this?”
“Unless we have the code, we won’t know.”
“People tend to use bad passwords and codes,” David said. “The password really is ‘password’ a disappointing number of times. What’s her birthday?”
“The ninth of February.”
“So, 0209,” Stevie said, putting in the digits.
“No. 0902. Other way around.”
Right. England. Many things were flipped here. She tried both versions. Neither worked.
“Birth year?”
Izzy counted back.
“1974.”
That didn’t work either.
“Okay,” Stevie said, standing up and making a circuit of the room, peering at the bookshelves. “She’s a historian. Loads of dates in history.”
“It’s pretty much all dates,” David pointed out.
“But she does Henry the Eighth a lot, right?”
“Her specialty is the Tudor period,” Izzy replied. “Which is . . .” Izzy consulted her phone for this information. “1485 until 1603.”
Those two dates were tried and did not work. Nor did the year Henry the Eighth became king, the beheading of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth the First becoming queen. Eventually they tried every number between 1485 and 1603.
“What about 1066?” Izzy said. “That’s the big year in English history. 1066 and All That.”
It was not 1066.
“This group,” Stevie said. “They’re called the Nine. Is it something to do with that?”
The only thing they could think of that would work was 9999, which did nothing. Nor did 1995, the year of their graduation and the event at Merryweather. For good measure, Stevie also tried the default 1234, just to make sure Angela hadn’t kept the factory setting. She had not. The box refused to divulge its secrets.
“Could we force it open?” David said.
Stevie shrugged to indicate this was worth a try. They looked around the flat for something to use to pry it open, finding a large flathead screwdriver in the utility closet. They all attempted it, but the box resisted.
“It’s pretty solid,” Stevie said. “It’s designed to take a beating.”
“What now?” Izzy said. Her frustration at not being able to open the box, at the sight of the house and the growing evidence that something was wrong—all of it was making her tearful.
“I think we take this with us,” Stevie said. “If she turns up, we just bring it back to her. But we keep trying to get it open. Is that okay?”
Izzy nodded emphatically.
“But there has to be more we can do,” she said. “I’m going to talk to the police tomorrow. I’ve walked around the area; I’ve even talked to some neighbors to see if they saw or heard anything, but no one did. What do I do now?”
She looked at Stevie with such an open, pleading expression. She needed help. She needed Stevie. Stevie had failed in the house, but Izzy had not given up on her. David was looking at her as well.
Think, Stevie. What do you do?
“She thinks one of her friends committed a murder,” Stevie said. “She texts those friends to say she wants to meet. She says something about a button, something about going to Merryweather. This is about the Nine. Do you know any of them?”
“A little,” Izzy said. “I’ve met Theo before. She came over several times after the surgery to check in. She’s a doctor. And the others have all been around. I don’t know them well, but I know them.”
“If Angela was talking to them that night, then we need to talk to them. They were the last people she was in touch with, and it sounds like she wants to see them. Are they around here?”
“Um . . .” Izzy considered. “Theo, yes. Sooz, yes. And Peter and Yash, I think they are too. Julian—I think he’s an MP in York or somewhere up north. Sebastian lives at Merryweather, which is up near Cheltenham. So, four of them are in London.”
“Okay . . .” Stevie scratched at her forehead in thought. “We need to talk to them. But . . . we need to do it now. Soon. Can you text them? Ask if we can meet with them. As soon as possible.”
“I can do that,” Izzy said, pulling out the tablet. She typed furiously for a moment. “Theo’s working twelve hours tomorrow,” she said. “Sooz . . . has a show in the evening. She can do the afternoon. And . . . Yash . . . Yash and Peter. They say they’ll go to Sooz’s house. We can meet them there. At two?”
She looked up hopefully.
Two was the middle of their carefully scheduled day. She would have to make it work.
“Two,” Stevie said. “Where do we go?”
EXCERPT FROM THE WITNESS STATEMENT OF THEODORA BAILEY
24 June 1995
Q: Can you walk us through the events of this morning, starting from the time you woke up?
A: Yes. I . . . I woke around eight thirty. I’d gone to sleep around three, so I was still quite tired, but . . . I can’t lie in. I went downstairs. I cleaned up the kitchen a bit. Then I started walking around the house to see if everyone was all right. Not sick, I mean.
Q: Where was everyone?
A: Angela, Yash, and Peter were in their rooms. Sebastian and Sooz were asleep in the sitting room. Julian was in the library.
Q: The aftermath of a party?
A: Exactly. And I kept looking, knocking on doors, checking all throughout the house for Rosie and Noel, but they were nowhere. And as everyone woke up and got hungry, I decided it was time someone went looking for them. They’d been out all night. I assumed they were passed out somewhere. I wanted to make sure they were . . . oh God . . . may I have some water, please?
Q: Are you all right to continue?
A: I’m all right now. I can continue. I went with Sebastian. It’s his house, and he looked like he could use some fresh air. We started by going down the front garden, up toward the folly, then we wound our way around the formal gardens on the orangery side, around the back, checked in the pavilion at the tennis court, then came around through the trees where the woodshed is.
Q: I’m sorry, but I must ask you to describe the scene as you came upon it.
A: I understand. I know. The woodshed is just beyond the drive, in the trees. There was a wheelbarrow. On the ground. In front of the woodshed. Tipped over in the mud. There was a bucket. And the door to the woodshed was open, about halfway open, so we could see a bit inside. And we could see the latch had been forced, the door was ripped open. It was clear someone had broken in. It was very wet inside, puddles of water on the floor. The woodpiles were knocked about into these odd stacks on the floor, these mounds . . . and at first it just seemed like someone had broken in and made a mess of the place . . . but then Sebastian had this odd look on his face, and then I saw what he saw. There was a boot under one of the mounds, and part of a leg, and . . . I thought . . . that’s odd. Someone is hiding under a pile of wood. But the leg was so still. I didn’t . . . I couldn’t make sense of it. It didn’t make sense. I went over and started moving some of the logs away and . . .