The passage on the far side of the crypt seemed much like the one leading down from the rear quarters of the Saracen’s Head, and here too there were hollowed-out chambers opening off it, although a quick glance indicated they were empty. We went on for perhaps twenty or thirty paces, I in the lead with my lantern, Theo behind me and Jarman in the rear. They had each picked up one of the cresset lamps, Theo remarking that he hadn’t seen one of those since his old great-grandmother died.
We went on for what felt like a long time. At first I counted my paces, but after a hundred it became too disturbing; I was already fighting the fear that this was all for nothing. The tunnel had been continuing straight and featureless for a long stretch when abruptly I was facing a dead end: there was a wall of stone right in front of me. I held up a hand. Theo and Jarman’s footsteps stopped.
‘What?’ growled Theo.
I was moving the lantern from side to side, trying to make out whether there was a way through. I saw, with considerable relief, that in fact there were three ways: there was an impossibly low opening like the mouth of a badger’s sett down to the right, a straight way that kinked round the stone wall and then went on beyond it in much the same direction, and on the left, a short length of passage terminating in a rock fall.
‘Straight on,’ said Theo.
‘Left?’ said Jarman at the same time. ‘Maybe that rock fall’s a blind, and we’ll get over it if we try.’
I couldn’t make up my mind. My thoughts started to run wild, and I could see arguments and counter-arguments for both options. But Theo and Jarman were both staring at me, and I guessed they were waiting for my casting vote.
With a great effort, I stilled my thoughts. Just for a moment, I felt calm. And I knew – I would have said somebody told me, except that was impossible – that we must take the right-hand tunnel.
‘It’s this way.’ I was already on my hands and knees, pushing at the sandy earth lying in a long, sloping heap. I thrust my head and shoulders through the opening, forcing a way, pushing on and trying not to breathe because the air was full of dust and soil and the roof was going to collapse and I would be buried under thousands of tons of rock and I’d never see Judyth again and …
And then I was through.
I turned, edged back the way I’d just come until I could see Theo’s anxious face. ‘This is the way,’ I said. ‘Pass me the lantern and come on through. It’s all right,’ I added with a smile, ‘I’ve opened the gap enough even for you.’
I went back into the smooth-floored, low-roofed tunnel that unwound beyond the obstruction. While I waited, I leaned against the wall, trying to breathe calmly. I wasn’t going to admit it to my companions, but pushing my way through had all but done for me.
We went on.
I was moving cautiously, warned by a change in the air – it was cooler, and I thought I sensed moisture on my face – when abruptly the ground dropped away in front of me. If I hadn’t slowed right down I’d have fallen badly, smashed my lantern and probably done myself serious damage, because the drop turned out to be an incredibly steep set of steps. Theo had bumped hard into me and, to judge by the cursing, Jarman had bumped into him, and the three of us jamming up together would have been comical if it hadn’t been so perilous.
‘Back!’ I yelled, as Theo, trying to dislodge Jarman, gave a violent lurch that almost had me over the edge. ‘Steps!’
We steadied ourselves, and, clutching each other, held out our lights and peered down into the darkness.
‘That’s not steps,’ Jarman said softly, ‘that’s a bloody ladder.’
He wasn’t far wrong. The steps went down what appeared to be a rock face, and the pitch was so steep that in places the descent was pretty near vertical. The only way to go down with any hope of a safe landing was backwards. I turned round and, my lantern in one hand, set off.
Theo waited until I was two body lengths down, then he followed. I heard a brief curse-laden muttering from Jarman, then he too started to clamber down.
The pitch began to increase when we were fifty steps down – I was keeping count, longing for the descent to be over – and after counting another fifty, I jumped off the final step and stood on level ground.
‘Where are we?’ Jarman whispered.
We held up our lamps and looked around. We were in a low tunnel, its roof a rough semicircle, its stone floor jagged and uneven. It went straight ahead for maybe ten paces, then began a slow curve away to the right.
‘No idea,’ I said. Without another word, I walked on.
The tunnel stayed roughly level, apart from one shortish stretch where we went down and then almost immediately up again, but the inclines were not severe enough for more than a few shallow steps at the steepest places. I’d been aware for a while of a different smell to the air, and presently I stopped – Theo and Jarman managed not to barge into me this time – and said, ‘I can smell the sea.’
Neither man spoke for a moment. Then Jarman said, with the satisfied air of a man who has just been proved right, ‘I thought so.’
We waited for him to explain but he didn’t. ‘What?’ Theo demanded tetchily. I didn’t blame him for his ill humour; the passage, the perilously steep descent and now this low tunnel were hard enough on me – I couldn’t stand upright – but even harder on him. He was a big man, and I knew that bending over for any length of time gave him backache. And not very long ago I’d fallen over him and done considerable damage to his left shoulder.
‘Sorry, chief,’ Jarman said. He probably knew about the backache too. ‘I’ve been reckoning in my head since we left that underground room with the lad’s body, trying to keep an idea of where we’re going.’ Jarman was famous for his acute sense of direction; his colleagues said of him that you could dump him in a sack out in the wilds of the moor on a pitch-black night and he’d find his way home without even opening the bag, but I didn’t think anyone had ever put it to the test.
‘And?’ Theo sounded slightly less cross.
Jarman paused, then said, ‘The Saracen’s Head faces the inner harbour, and it’s on the eastern end of the quayside. To begin with we went to the rear of the old inn, that’s to say, roughly north. Then we turned to the right – east – down that bloody rabbit-hole, and then straight, maybe rightish a bit, and then after we came down that blasted ladder, we turned right again, so now we’re going south-east, maybe a tad more south. Then back there a way we went down and up again, and now we can smell the sea.’ He looked from one to the other of us, his eyes bright with expectation.
‘Er—’ Theo said.
‘Go on, Jarman, tell us,’ I said.
‘We’ve come under the River Plym, I reckon, and now we’re heading towards some inlet on the headland the far side,’ he said. ‘And although I’m not even going to guess what these here actors are up to right now, I know full well what these tunnels used to be for.’
‘So do I,’ Theo said.
As did I. As did anyone who was born and raised in the area. There were rumoured to be tunnels like this all around Plymouth, and no doubt everywhere else along the rocky, difficult, often unfrequented coastline of the long, thin peninsula that Devon shares with her neighbour Cornwall. It was said they went right back into antiquity, as long ago as man first had the desire to bring cargos ashore – food, drink, luxury goods, people – without making it widely known. And, of course, this long tunnel we had just traversed terminated beneath the Saracen’s Head, an inn which had stood there on the Plymouth waterfront for centuries. Coxton the innkeeper’s predecessors undoubtedly would have had access to a clandestine supply of French brandy and Spanish wine, and he probably did too.
‘Do either of you know the headland?’ Theo asked.
And, predictably, Jarman said, ‘Yes, chief.’
I stepped back to let him take the lead, and, squaring his shoulders, he set off on the last stretch of the tunnel.
It was so good to be in the open air again.
Theo was standing stretching his back, rubbing his left shoulder, groaning gently. Jarman was looking round, muttering to himself, frowning as he took his bearings. I was content just to stand on the shore, with the darkening sky above me glittering as the stars began to appear, and the lights of Plymouth shining out away to the north-west.
We were on a small beach, deserted, with not a habitation in sight. I was starting to wonder what whoever had been using the tunnel had wanted with this undistinguished stretch of shoreline when Jarman gave an exclamation and headed off towards where the land rose up gently to the south. Theo and I trudged after him, and as we scrambled up the slope, a small inlet came into view on the far side. There was a stone quay, and behind it, where a small stream wound its way down to the sea, a few hovels clung to the hillside. They looked deserted, and not one showed a light.
‘Well,’ Theo said after a moment or two, ‘those damned players must come here for something.’
And he strode off towards the little settlement, Jarman and I following.
It was not as far as it looked; the twilight was deceptive. We walked along the quay – it was in good repair, I noticed, and the water looked deep – and on to the track leading up the slope. The hovels were in poor condition, some with roofs half-off, some with doors hanging on hinges, revealing interiors bare but for sticks of crude and broken furniture and the general depressing detritus of the very poor.
But the fourth house along was different.
The door was not only intact but closed and, as we discovered when Theo tried it, locked. The single window was shuttered, and, although the wood of the shutters was warped and the paint long gone, they were sound. But the warping had made a gap between the two sides, and Theo leaned down to peer through it.
He stood staring in for some time. Then, once more with a hand to his lower back, he said, ‘Have a look.’
Jarman stood aside, and I went first.
The room was small, and a doorway in the far wall seemed to lead to a scullery. No stairs – the hovels were single-storey – and little in the way of furnishings.
But the floor space was packed tight with packs, bags, bedrolls and blankets.
I stepped away from the window and Jarman took his turn. He whistled softly, and, as he too straightened up, he said, ‘Either someone’s just arrived, or else they’re planning an imminent departure.’
Theo looked at me. ‘Is that little harbour behind us big enough for a ship?’
‘It depends on how big the ship is,’ I said automatically.
‘A coaster? A sea-going vessel?’ he demanded.
‘A coaster, yes. And the water looked to be deep, although I can’t say for sure in this light.’
‘Where are the Company going next?’ Jarman asked.
‘Exeter,’ I said.
‘Any advantage in sailing round the coast to Exmouth and shortening your overland journey?’ Theo mused.
‘They arrived from Barnstaple,’ I said. ‘Maybe they felt like a change from travelling by road?’
But Theo was shaking his head. ‘No, no, I don’t believe that’s it,’ he said. He looked at me, frowning. ‘Something very worrying has been happening here,’ he said softly, ‘and we’ve all felt it, that sense back there in the Saracen’s Head that they … that we … dear God, I don’t know how to begin to describe it!’ he exclaimed in frustration.
‘Don’t try,’ I said. ‘Take it that we understand.’
He nodded. ‘Thanks. And that’s even without the discovery of three – no, four – dead bodies,’ he went on. ‘These players have another, hidden reason for being here. Or, if not every last one of them, then a secret few.’
‘You’re thinking of that conversation you overheard,’ I said. ‘I fear for my life, poor dead Francis Heron said, and the death that stalked him was a particularly awful one.’
‘Yes, yes, and the other man – Daniel – said, he actually said, there were other reasons than the plague for a man to flee the capital!’ Theo sounded jubilant.
‘So?’ Jarman’s one, laconic syllable broke across the excitement. ‘We still have not the first idea what this other reason is, why it’s led to four men’s deaths and why some of the Company have stored their packed belongings in there – if the stuff in fact belongs to them and not someone else entirely – and what’s more, who’s to say there isn’t a perfectly good reason for them storing some of their baggage here, all ready for sailing along the coast to their next stop? The way I see it,’ he went on, almost crossly, ‘we’re grabbing at a very thin straw and putting two and two together to make six.’
‘Five,’ I muttered. Jarman gave me a look.
But while he’d been lecturing us, I’d been thinking. And I could see a very good answer to why the perfectly good reason theory wasn’t convincing.
‘I don’t agree,’ I said.
‘With which particular element?’ Theo asked, the sarcasm very evident.
‘If it’s all perfectly reasonable and above board, and they’re not working like fury to keep some dark secret they’ve fled with from London, why in heaven’s name are they acting so mysteriously? And why,’ I added, hoping very much it would be the final convincing factor, ‘why are four men dead?’
Jarman made a humph noise, but he didn’t come up with any argument against what I’d just said. Theo moved a few paces back down the track, staring out over the moonlit water.
‘What are you thinking?’ I asked him, going to stand beside him.
‘I’m thinking that Jarman and I heard people approaching that underground chamber, just before you came crashing along and scared them off. They must have come out of the tunnel just where we did, but they didn’t come on to this little house, if we’re even right about it being where they were bound, so maybe they guessed we’d come after them and had the sense to go somewhere else, where they’ll lie low till we’ve gone.’ He paused, glancing up into the sky. ‘I’m thinking it’s getting late, and there isn’t much more we can do tonight, so we may as well head for home. And finally, I’m thinking that the one thing I’m not prepared to do is return to the Saracen’s Head the way we came out, particularly as it means climbing up a near-vertical set of steps, and the only alternative is to walk up this side of the estuary till we reach the crossing and return to Plymouth on the far side, and that’s got to be four miles or more, and I’m tired out and ravenously hungry already.’ He was glaring at me, but, just man that he was, he must have realized it wasn’t my fault. His face relaxed into a smile, and he reached out and thumped my shoulder. ‘Come on. The sooner we set out, the sooner we’ll all be home.’
He beckoned to Jarman, and the three of us fell into step and set off along the track.
In the little vestry of St Luke’s Church, Celia and Jonathan had covered several sheets of old scrap paper with notes and experimental solutions to the code. They had given up on the pages of writing at the front of the book and now were concentrating on the lists of short words at the back. Jonathan kept saying he knew they were near, and Celia, picking up his certainty, was restless with tension, constantly making yet another attempt, trying one more variation.
‘There has to be one element which, once we’ve found what it is, reveals the solution to the whole thing,’ she said, by no means for the first time.
Jonathan had stood up and was walking round the tiny space afforded by the small room, stretching his back, rolling his shoulders. She watched him, sensing the energy flowing through him. He was still vibrant and fresh, even though they had been working for hours and it was getting very late. As if he sensed her eyes on him, he turned to look at her. ‘Let’s have another go at one of the repeated series of symbols,’ he suggested. ‘But first,’ he added, ‘I’m going to make us a hot drink.’
‘I’m not cold!’ Celia said. ‘You’ve kept the fire going well, and it’s lovely and warm in here.’
He smiled. ‘Actually, I was thinking more of stimulating our brains than warming us,’ he admitted. ‘I’m going to prepare a couple of mugs of my special mulled ale.’
‘Oh, good,’ she said brightly.
Then she returned to the code.
‘Look at this series,’ she said to him when he was back beside her and they had raised their mugs and drunk a toast to success. ‘It’s all in groups of five with odd ones, twos, threes or fours following, and here the two fives are followed by a two, and this same series of twelve symbols appears …’ – she counted under her breath – ‘four, no, five times in the first three pages. The second symbol of the first word and the last one of the second are the same, and there’s one other repeat, the fourth letter of the first words and the last letter of all, at the end of the odd pair.’
‘The first repeat looks like a bird with a big pointed beak,’ Jonathan said. ‘What does that suggest?’
‘Beaks … stabbing, picking worms out of the ground – no, that would be an open beak not a closed one – fighting other birds, pecking, drilling—’
‘Drilling?’
‘Like a woodpecker does! That drrrrrr sound you hear when they’re boring into a tree.’
And, as one, they turned to stare at each other. ‘Drrrrrr,’ he repeated. ‘D, then – no, it’s r. Try r.’
Carefully she drew twelve dashes, five, five, two, and entered r in the relevant places. Then she nudged him, and said excitedly, ‘Come on, then! What does this other repeat symbol suggest?’
Jonathan stared hard at it, as if the intensity of his gaze might make it reveal itself. ‘It looks like an eye,’ he said after a moment. ‘An oval eye shape, and the two rows of lashes along the bottom lid mean it’s a closed eye.’
‘Winking?’ she suggested. She wrote the letter w over the two dashes, but very lightly. ‘I’m not convinced. What else?’
‘Your eyes are closed when you’re dead,’ he said. She frowned at him and he smiled. ‘Sorry. I do see quite a lot of dead people, it’s what occurred to me first.’
After a moment she said softly, ‘Sleep. You close your eyes when you’re asleep.’
‘A, then? S?’
‘Nodding off,’ she said firmly. ‘You say people nod off, and a row of little ns in a sketch means someone’s asleep.’ Now she wrote n on the two dashes.
There was only one other symbol among the twelve that was a little picture and not a letter, and it was a stylized drawing of a snake. ‘That must be s,’ Jonathan said. Celia wrote it in.
The remaining seven symbols were all letters. Three of them appeared frequently throughout the pages of text, two more than the third.
‘The most common letter in written English is e,’ Jonathan said, ‘followed by a. The other vowels, i, o and u, are progressively less common, in that order.’
Yes. He had told her as they began that he knew quite a lot about codes. Swiftly Celia tried the letters in the appropriate places, changing them around so often that she filled yet another sheet of paper. It took a long time.
Then, breaking a long silence heavy with their joint concentration, Jonathan said slowly, ‘Supposing it’s someone’s name?’
She raised her head, staring at him. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘It’s a long word – twelve letters. How many twelve-letter words crop up so regularly?’
And he said, ‘We don’t know the name of the man who died in the barn, in whose pack this book was found. But we know the name of the man who died with him.’
‘Daniel only has six letters,’ she pointed out.
‘The other six could be his surname.’
They tried, but either the coded name wasn’t Daniel or their hypothesis was wrong.
Then suddenly, making Jonathan jump, Celia grabbed at the paper, filled her nib and began writing so fast that the letters blurred and smudged. But she didn’t stop, she didn’t care, because suddenly she knew she was right.
She threw down the quill and turned to Jonathan, the thrill of discovery racing through her and making her heart beat fast. ‘There’s another name!’ she cried. ‘Think, Jonathan! Whose bag did this book come from?’
And, peering down at the scrawl of her writing, running a finger beneath the smudges and the blots, Jonathan stared down at the letters now filling in each of the twelve spaces, properly laid out at last.
Francis Heron.
He turned to stare at her.
She felt the impulse in him, recognized it because it was in her too: the urge to fling her arms round him, shout for joy because together they had taken this puzzle apart, worked on it without giving up and now they had a solution.
They sat very still, and neither looked away.
In that long, slow, deep look, something changed. She wasn’t sure, couldn’t swear to it, but she thought that, just before he lowered his eyes, almost imperceptibly he nodded.
And Jonathan, staring down at his boots but with the afterimage of her excited, happy expression still vivid in his mind, had also felt the change.
‘Of course,’ he said, aware of how crushing he sounded, ‘it actually tells us very little, since we already have our link between the man in the barn and Francis Heron, since the barn man had one of Francis’s books in his pack, and—’
She grabbed at his sleeve and shook it. ‘But it does!’ she protested hotly. ‘Don’t you see? Oh, of course you do, you must, you know all about codes! Decoding Francis Heron’s name is immaterial. It didn’t matter which word or name we revealed, we just needed something, anything, to give us a way in, because now that we have ten translated letters – or symbols, it doesn’t matter – we can decode the rest!’
As he looked into her lovely face, he thought, I did know that. And, as she just said, as I told her at the start of this wonderful evening, I do indeed know all about codes, because spies are taught to code and decode and I was once part of the Queen’s spy network.
He knew, too, why it was that such an unforgettable, deep-seated element of his past1 – for it had been terrible – had momentarily slipped his mind.
It was because of her.
‘Celia,’ he began, ‘you’re quite right, and—’
He wasn’t sure what he was going to say; the words were still forming. But just then they heard the sound of the church’s heavy outer door opening, and, as they sat stone-still, absolutely silent, straining to hear, stealthily being closed again.