11
To our immense disappointment, we were unable to open the door on Sunday evening and find out what’s on the other side.
Just like a safe, the combination lock on the huge metal door has been secured, and, after a few attempts where Adam pretended to ‘listen’ to the lock like they do in movies to try to open it, we realised that without the right combination of numbers, there was no way the door was opening.
‘What do we do now?’ Adam asked as we sat on two full boxes of books, feeling deflated.
‘I don’t know.’ I felt immensely frustrated by this whole situation. ‘If we don’t have the combination, I can’t see how we’re ever going to get the door to open.’
‘I’m hoping to open this shop in a day or two – I can’t leave it like this with a great huge metal door in the middle of all the books. It’s hardly the aesthetic I was going for.’
‘But we can’t just cover it all up again. Then we’ll never find out what’s behind there.’
Eventually, with no permanent solution, we agreed to tidy the shop up a bit and sleep on it overnight.
Adam looked immensely relieved that at last he would be getting some rest as he headed up the stairs to his flat, while I went back to my own house, the mystery of the door still weighing heavily on my mind.
Now it’s bank holiday Monday and, as I wait for Barney to arrive at the shop so I can go next door and see Adam to discuss what we do next, I find myself thoughtfully munching on an apple while I think about the events of yesterday.
First, there was the missing building. Then the subsequent discovery of the metal door – which really could only be described as some sort of heavy-duty security door.
But a door securing or protecting what? It was approximately adjacent to where I had placed the grandfather clock in my shop – and then, annoyingly, I then made an unwelcome discovery about the clock.
I was going to call Freddy, my clockmaker friend, as planned, and ask him if he would come and take a look.
But when I opened the front door of the clock to find out some more information about the maker and model, I discovered that there was no mechanism inside. Instead it was completely hollow.
‘Great!’ I had told it, closing the door.
‘Presumably one of your previous owners used you for display purposes only and took your insides to use on another, more deserving model. Luckily for you, I have a soft spot for broken and unwanted things, so I won’t chuck you on the rubbish heap just yet!
’ And there the clock stayed – its time frozen at half past two.
Customers would occasionally look at it or ask the price, but when I told them it wasn’t working, they would quickly move on to something else.
So, it seemed for now that we were stuck with each other.
‘Morning,’ Barney says as he expertly wheels himself up and over the small ramp I have installed in the doorway of my shop. ‘How’s life with you today?’
‘Complicated,’ I reply honestly, throwing my apple core in the bin behind the shop counter. ‘Complicated and confusing.’
‘How so?’ Barney puts his rucksack out back and returns to the shop.
I tell him what had happened last night.
‘Ooh, the mystery deepens,’ he says. ‘People don’t put doors like that up unless they’ve got something extremely valuable behind it, or something they want to hide …’
‘I know, that’s what I thought. But what?
I don’t know much about tools of the past, but I’d definitely say the nails we pulled out of that wood were old, and the first layer of wallpaper was likely from the thirties, maybe forties.
It’s difficult to say when exactly, because nothing much changed in interiors during the war years. ’
‘So you just need to figure out the combination, then?’
‘If only it were that easy.’ I sigh. ‘Where do we even begin?’
Barney grins. ‘No offence to you, Eve, but you don’t really have a mathematical mind, do you?’
‘Whereas you do, I suppose? I thought science was your thing?’
‘Close enough.’ Barney shrugs.
‘So where would we start, then?’ I ask, half smiling at him.
I’ve adored Barney since the first time he wheeled himself boldly into my shop, asking me for a job before I even realised that I needed anyone.
There was no messing with him – he was matter-of-fact and he always told you the truth, even if you didn’t want to hear it.
He had a confidence about him that I envied and he never let his disability get in the way of anything he wanted to do.
‘We can’t just sit at the door trying all the combinations, can we?’ I tell him. ‘It would take for ever.’
‘You could. But you’re right, it would be a long and frustrating process. I guess you need to know something about the person who had the shop when the door was likely to have been installed. Maybe then you could figure out what combination they might have used.’
‘I only know of Gerald owning the bookshop before Adam. I’m not sure how long he’d been there, though. I wonder if Ben might know?’ I look across to his shop. ‘He’s been in Clockmaker Court longer than anyone else.’
‘Why don’t you go and ask him?’ Barney says. ‘He was in his shop when I came in just now.’
‘He said he wasn’t coming back until next week.’
‘You know Ben – he does things when he wants to. In Ben-time, not everyone else’s.’
‘That’s true. I’ll pop over and see him now, before I go and see Adam. You’ll be all right, will you?’
‘When am I not?’
‘I know, but I don’t want to keep leaving you here on your own on a bank holiday weekend.’
Barney waves his hand at me. ‘Just go. I know you, Eve – you won’t settle when something is on your mind or there’s a mystery to solve.’
‘Ben?’ I call as I push open the door of his shop and step inside. The Closed sign is still turned on the door, so I’m not sure if he’s actually open or not. His back is to me as I enter the shop.
‘Hello, Eve,’ he says, turning around. ‘How nice to see you again.’
‘I didn’t think you were opening up until after the weekend?’
‘I’m not. I just popped in to sort some stock out. What can I do for you?’
‘I was wondering if you knew anything about some of the past owners of the shops here – particularly the bookshop next door to mine.’
‘Why in particular that one?’
I begin to tell him the story of what happened over the weekend.
Ben simply nods as I talk. Not seeming particularly shocked by anything I tell him.
‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ he says when I’ve finished. ‘This court has been here so long, it was bound to have secrets somewhere within it.’
‘Do you have any idea who might have owned that shop back in the thirties or the forties?’
Ben thinks. ‘Hmm … I was actually around in the forties, although I was just a young boy back then. But I remember the court well.’ He nods thoughtfully.
‘I think it was around the early forties that the bookshop changed hands. I know that because we used to buy our comics there – the Beano , the Dandy , that sort of thing. But the new owner started to get some American imports in too, like Marvel comics – where he got them from, I’m not sure, maybe one or two of the GIs stationed here in Cambridge during the war would bring them over for him.
’ Ben pauses to think for a moment. ‘But as young boys back then, we were very excited to see them. I still have some of those comics, I bet they’re worth a bit now. Maybe I should fish them out sometime?’
‘Yes, you probably should. Barney is into all that stuff – you should speak to him about them. But the owner, Ben,’ I say, prompting him. ‘You said the shop changed hands. Do you remember who owned it back then?’
‘Oh, yes, of course I do – the second owner, anyway – it was Archie.’
‘Archie? Wait, do you mean the same Archie that’s Adam’s great-grandfather?’
Ben nods. ‘Yes, that’s partly how I got to know George.
He used to hang around the shop. Archie didn’t run the shop as such – he just owned it.
Someone else ran it for him – it was Gerald’s father, Oswald, Ozzie, we used to call him.
Gerald took over from him when he passed away, and I think he might have took over the ownership then too?
Anyway, I digress. I’m not sure if it was Archie that got the comics or Ozzie?
But we were happy – Ozzie would let us read them before they were sold …
We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. ’
While Ben reminisces about his past, my mind is racing. Did Archie and this Ozzie put that door in, or did the previous owner? Suddenly this was incredibly important.
‘They sound like happy times for you,’ I say gently, bringing him back to the present once more.
‘There were indeed,’ Ben says, smiling. ‘Very happy.’
‘The shop sounds wonderful, I can just imagine you and George happily reading comics together. But I don’t suppose you have any recollection of the door being put in, do you? Was it Archie who installed it?’
Ben thinks. ‘I don’t remember seeing it when I used to go there with George as a young boy. But you said it was hidden, so I suppose I wouldn’t have noticed it, really.’
‘That’s true. I hoped that if I could find out something about the owner around that time, it might help us to figure out the combination to open the door. I wonder if there’s anything actually behind there? I mean, there must be, or why would someone put up something akin to a vault door?’
‘There is something behind there,’ Ben says to my surprise.
‘Don’t get too excited, though,’ he adds, seeing my face light up.
‘I don’t know if there’s anything hidden there – but you were right when you first mentioned a building was missing from the court.
There used to be a building between your antiques shop and Adam’s bookshop originally. That’s your missing number seven.’
‘How do you know – do you remember it?’
‘Oh, no, I’m sure it was removed before my time. But I do have a really old plan of Clockmaker Court, and on it you can see all the original buildings.’
‘Can I see?’
‘Of course.’ Ben looks vaguely towards the back of the shop. ‘You’ll have to give me a little time to locate it, but I know it’s here somewhere.’
I leave Ben in his shop about to begin his search and I head over to see Adam. I feel I’ve got so much to tell him already.
‘Adam!’ I call, knocking on the door. I wait for a bit, then I try again. ‘Adam! Are you in there?’
Eventually, Adam appears. He waves as he comes towards the door and as he unlocks and unbolts it, I notice he’s wearing pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt.
‘Why are you all locked up this morning?’ I ask. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘Yes, everything is fine. I slept a bit late, that’s all.’
‘Oh. OK. Look, I’ve got something really exciting things to tell you. It’s about Archie.’
Adam looks at me with a puzzled expression. ‘That’s odd. Because I’ve got some rather interesting things to tell you too – funnily enough, also about my great-grandfather.’