Page 36 of The Secret Christmas Library
At first he obviously couldn’t find anything, and, as they watched, Mirren worried again that they were on a wild goose chase, a pointless exercise designed as a last laugh from a troubled old man. But after what felt like the longest time, Theo’s deep handsome face took on a set of concentration and stillness, which was not, Mirren couldn’t help reflecting, entirely unattractive to witness, in the flickering lowlights of the room – and finally, with a steady hand, like a particularly tricky gameof Operation, he pulled out a tiny, tightly folded piece of paper. As he held it up, it became apparent that it was in the shape of an origami swan, small and intricate. And it was equally clear that the paper had writing on it, in a tiny, cramped hand.
21
Jamie whistled.
‘What is it?’ said Mirren in excitement.
They decamped to the nearest desk, an ancient wooden thing with drawers all over it, stuffed with feathers, thimbles, old fountain pens, blotting paper.
This time Jamie, the tallest, held his phone torch overhead, as Theo carefully unfolded the object.
Flat out, the swan was a square of ancient heavy paper. It was completely covered in tiny letters, separated, in pale blue fountain pen ink. Theo took out a pair of black-rimmed glasses and put them on.
‘Hmm,’ he said.
‘Is that your professional opinion?’ asked Mirren.
She looked more closely at it. In fact, they were not letters. They were minute, and each figure was either a zero or a one.
‘Oh,what?’ she said.
‘Binary?’ said Jamie.
Mirren screwed up her face. ‘I don’t understand. He wrote computer code? But this . . . this looks really old. Like, before computers? Or did he work in early computers?’
Theo shook his head. ‘No, binary is a code that computers use, but they didn’t invent it.’
‘It looks likeThe Matrix,’ said Mirren.
‘It does,’ said Theo. ‘But it’s ancient. We’ll need to type it in to a computer. And not get any of it wrong.’
Jamie nodded. Suddenly, surprising two of them, a bell sounded, a deep clanging, somewhere far away. ‘This seems,’ he said, ‘like a job for tomorrow.’
Mirren looked at her watch and was surprised to see it was six-thirty. It had been dark for so long she’d lost track of time. And she was, after hours in the book stacks, completely and utterly filthy.
‘Shall we dress for dinner? And meet in the Chinois . . . that room we were in before?’ said Jamie.
‘Oh, you are kidding me,’ said Mirren. ‘I don’t have any more dresses! This is meant to be a work trip!’
Jamie shrugged. ‘Check the wardrobes. You never know.’ He turned to Theo. ‘You alright?’
Theo nodded. Well, he would be, thought Mirren.
‘Okay, well, good luck with the hot water,’ said Jamie, then, as they left the room, ‘Don’t . . . don’t mention this to Esme. Please. I’m not trying to cheat anybody, but . . . who even knows what this is? If it’s even anything?’
‘It would seem a lot of trouble to go to for nothing,’ said Theo.
‘You could probably say that about this whole house,’ said Jamie.
Mirren finally found her way back to the bedroom. Second floor, east side, she told herself. It was easy to remember it was east, because it looked out over the cliff, on to where, somewhere out in the dark, the freezing North Sea was pounding, far below at the bottom of the dramatic cliffs. She was expecting the room to be freezing but to her absolute delight, Bonnie, true to her word, had been in and lit a fire. There was a pile oflogs next to it too; tentatively she put one on it and it caught in an incredibly satisfying way. She smiled and nearly clapped her hands together. The lights buzzed, ominously, but she was growing used to that.
Mirren glanced at the window. The snow was still swirling, in a way that now seemed more threatening than charming; Esme had already implied that the roads were impassable, and that was a couple of hours ago. And she’d been in a big car. Mirren wished she could phone her mum and let her know she was okay. Not that her mother would necessarily notice that she hadn’t been in touch for a couple of days – in fact, she’d be horrified if Mirren rang her up out of the blue, and would assume something terrible had happened. Nora wasn’t entirely convinced that Mirren qualified for adulthood, at thirty-one. Or ever would.
As she turned back from the window, she realised something amazing. A tin bath was set up in front of the fire, the metal warmed by the flames. There was a rough bar of soap, a flannel and a large fluffy towel. The water was scorching.
You couldn’t lie in it or even properly sit down, but Mirren managed a surprisingly adequate bath crouching in the hot water, scrubbing herself down with the warm flannel and drying herself off with the huge, washed-soft towel. Flushed from her unusual ablutions, she glanced around at the room. Indeed there was a wardrobe there. Jamie had told her to help herself . . . she couldn’t help being curious as to what on earth was inside.
With the towel wrapped around her, she sidled over, her cheeks flushed from the hot water. It was one big wardrobe, the type that had a mirror in the door. Mirren tried the handle. She was quite sure it would be locked, and was surprised when it opened easily, and two mothballs fell out.
