Page 5 of Absent Remorse

“The guy who sent it to me … well, I’m not sure he even used his real name, but he called himself Robert Dudley, and he said that it was a puzzle.”

“It was a fake name,” Amber replied instantly. That obviously caught Joseph’s attention.

“You sound very sure.”

“The voyage of Robert Dudley to the West Indies was published in the late 16thcentury,” Amber explained. “It’s the first use we have in English of the word ‘puzzle’.”

Joseph looked impressed. “I guess that’s the kind of fact that sticks when you’re into puzzles. I thought that this would interest you.”

“So, it’s just a cube?” Amber asked.

Joseph nodded. “A smooth sided cube. The note that came with it said it was a puzzle no one would be able to solve.”

A puzzle no one would be able to solve. That caught Amber’s interest completely, so that she knew that if she didn’t get to see this cube, she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight because she would be so busy thinking about it. She might be in the process of becoming an FBI agent, but she was still a puzzler at heart, and a puzzle like this had to be investigated.

“What did you do with it?” Amber asked.

“I took it home with me. The guy might want me to write an article about it, but without understanding more about it, how am I meant to do that?”

Amber hesitated only a moment before she asked her next question. “Can I see it?”

***

Amber hadn’t been to Joseph’s apartment before. It was in an area of the city a little away from the main public buildings, where the rents were a little more affordable. It was on the top floor of an apartment building, accessed via an elevator that was so small it left her and Joseph almost pressed together for most of the journey up.

When they reached his apartment, it turned out to be a broad, open plan, loft space, with exposed brickwork and good views out over the city. The kind of place that suggested he must have been getting a good deal on somewhere rent controlled just to afford it. The furniture was modern and minimalist, the different areas of the apartment denoted by sections of old rugs laid down on the otherwise bare floorboards. There was a broad living room area, a kitchen space, and a bed off to one side that was still rumpled and unmade.

“This is my place,” Joseph said. He sounded excited to show Amber in. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Coffee would be good,” Amber said.

“Coffee, sure.” Joseph hurried to make it.

“This is a nice apartment,” Amber said.

“I’m glad you like it. Do you want to sit down?”

He gestured to a metal and leather couch with a couple of small tables in front of it. Amber took a seat next to Joseph. She could feel how close he was, sense how easy it would be to just turn towards him and …

“Where’s the cube?” Amber asked, trying to distract her own overactive imagination before it could take her too far.

“The cube? Oh, right, the cube.” Joseph got up hurriedly and started searching under a small side table.

He came up with a cube of what looked like metal, probably as big as Amber’s head. He set it down in front of Amber, and she found herself simply staring at it.

This was meant to be a puzzle? Yet, in some ways, what else could it be? A smooth metal cube like this didn’t have any obvious purpose. Amber found herself focusing closely on it, running her hands over it, trying to understand it.

The first thing that she noticed was that it wasn’t entirely smooth. There were ridges on one edge of it that Amber traced with her fingers, trying to get a better sense of them. Amber picked out what felt almost like letters, only they definitely weren’t in English. They felt almost like Greek.

Getting out her phone, Amber searched for the letters she could pick out by touch. She used it to translate.

Thermotita.Heat.

“Here’s your coffee,” Joseph said, passing her a mug. He was watching Amber closely, with an expression almost of anticipation on his face.

Amber was more interested in the coffee cup right then. Thehotcoffee cup. Amber placed it on the surface of the cube.

In response, letters that were more like hieroglyphs started to appear, spreading out in a corona of heat around the mug.

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