The Crystal Code (3 page)

Chapter 3

T
he circus train of limousines pulled into the forecourt of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. From the warmth of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, Gerald saw his mother was already out of the lead vehicle and directing operations. A team of porters was jumping at her orders, hauling luggage from the back of a van. Mr Fry, wrapped in a thick overcoat, was at her elbow, checking items from a list on a clipboard. The rigours of an eleven-hour aeroplane flight were not apparent on Vi Wilkins as she snapped her fingers at anyone not moving fast enough.

‘I think my mother would have made a fair army general,' Gerald said, his breath fogging the inside of the car window.

‘The Colonel would be impressed,' Felicity said.

‘She certainly likes to take charge,' Ruby said.

Ruby had barely spoken during the flight. She seemed content to curl up in an armchair and read her book. While Felicity and Sam played marathon sessions of computer games, laughing themselves silly over the action in
Zombie Cookout IV
, Ruby had quietly turned pages, her legs tucked in under herself. Gerald had tried to strike up a conversation but he didn't get very far.

‘So what've you been up to?'

Ruby didn't look up from her book. ‘Not much. School. You know. Stuff.'

‘Uh-huh,' Gerald said. ‘I'm really looking forward to this ski trip. I've got a new snowboard I'm dying to try out.'

Ruby turned a page. ‘That's nice.'

‘Yeah. Yeah, really nice.' Gerald wracked his brain for a way to get a conversation going. ‘Uh, Felicity likes you.'

‘Mm-hmm.'

‘She's a lot of fun.'

‘Yes, I suppose so,' Ruby said. ‘Not at all sick-making.'

Gerald pressed his lips together. ‘Are you going to be like this the whole holiday?'

Ruby held up a finger as she finished reading a paragraph. She placed a bookmark between the pages, closed the book and stared hard at Gerald. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘Like what, exactly?'

Ruby's expression was painted on like a china doll's. They looked at each other for what seemed an age.

Gerald finally broke his gaze and jumped up. ‘I'm going to play
Mutant Unicorn Rangers
with Sam and Felicity,' he grumbled.

Ruby returned to her book. ‘That's nice,' she said to Gerald's back as he slouched off. ‘That sounds really nice.'

That was as far as Gerald had got with Ruby. Now that they had landed, things were just as bad. The rear door of the car was hauled open and Gerald stepped out into the freezing San Francisco afternoon. A uniformed doorman saluted with a finger to the brim of his cap as Sam, Felicity and Ruby followed Gerald into the cold. They gathered in a tight cluster under the hotel canopy. A convoy of cars pulled up and disgorged a stream of well-dressed occupants. There was Gerald's father and his golfing buddies, guffawing at some inappropriate joke. And Vi's giggling tennis friends—six women spray-tanned a deep mahogany in defiance of the season. Then there was the entire membership of the Chelsea Mahjong Club, still clutching champagne glasses from the aeroplane and lost in a fog of gossip.

Servants from Gerald's country estate in Somerset arrived in the final limo and headed straight to Mr Fry to help him and the porters with the luggage.

All around him, Gerald could see people thrilled about the prospect of Christmas on the ski slopes—it was hard not to get swept up in all the excitement. Then his eyes fell on Ruby, who stood to one side, her coat pulled tight across her chest, her chin braced against the collar.

Gerald was about to try talking to her again when he was distracted by a cry of delight.

‘Master Gerald!'

A stout woman with a loose bun of white hair grabbed hold of his hands and squeezed them tight. Then she held Gerald at arm's length for inspection.

‘Goodness, but you've grown!' she said. ‘But, have they been feeding you? Boarding school dining halls are no fit place to raise a young gentleman, pardon me for saying so.'

‘Mrs Rutherford!' The cry came from Gerald, Sam and Ruby at the same instant. They crowded in for a hug. It was the first time Gerald had seen his housekeeper since leaving for St Cuthbert's at the end of the summer. She seemed as happily batty as ever.

‘Master Sam and Miss Ruby!' She held them tight. ‘So very good to see you again. And this must be Miss Felicity. How marvellous to meet you at last. Mrs Wilkins has told me so much about you.' Gerald glanced at Ruby—her face was inscrutable.

For the first time that day, Felicity couldn't get a word in. ‘You must catch me up on all your news,' Mrs Rutherford said as she conducted them into the hotel lobby. ‘I've been here a few days already, getting things ready and I've taken the liberty of preparing a little snack for your arrival. I'll leave Mr Fry to attend to the adults.' She looked both ways and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘The better grub is through this way.' She led them to a private dining room at the far end of the lobby and threw open the doors. Gerald, Sam, Ruby and Felicity crowded the entryway and peered inside.

‘Oh, Mrs Rutherford…' Sam said.

Set out before them, on a huge round table in the centre of the room, was a feast of truly epic proportions. Platters were piled with steaming pies and sausage rolls. A roast turkey with a mountain of stuffing lay carved and succulent and waiting. Bowls of mashed potatoes and mint peas and honeyed carrots and fresh salad were crammed next to plates of lamb, duck and beef. A carved ham, decorated with sprigs of holly, sat at one end of the table. A cooked goose, glazed in brandy butter, sat at the other. Gravy boats brimmed to the gunwales with juice-laden yumminess, steam curling up in siren fingers beckoned their easily tempted taste buds.

A crackling log fire filled a stone fireplace in one corner, and a colossal spruce, bedecked with tinsel and twinkling lights, filled another. Across from the mantle stood a dessert trolley, covered with pudding bowls of trifle, cake, mince pies, ice cream, custard and other sugary delights.

It was as if they'd stumbled into Santa's dining hall.

Sam pulled up a seat at the table. A waiter stepped forward to lay a linen napkin across his lap and start to load up his plate.

‘I must say the Americans are very fond of their food,' Mrs Rutherford said, filling glasses with home-made lemonade. ‘Even by my standards. Still, this should fuel you up after such a long flight.'

Sam bit into a turkey leg and glanced across to Felicity's plate. She was alternating slices of tomato and slices of goat's cheese across a bed of lettuce and baby spinach leaves. ‘You not having any food, then?' Sam said through a mouthful.

Felicity stabbed a carrot julienne with her fork and took a nibble. ‘Nothing in excess, Sam,' Felicity said. She sipped an iced tea, no sugar. ‘Gluttony is just filling a void in your life with food. I avoid voids.'

Sam pondered this and took another mouthful of turkey. ‘What's the opposite of void?' he asked Gerald.

Ruby took a look at Felicity's plate and then at her own. She put back two sausage rolls and added some salad. ‘So what's been happening, Mrs Rutherford?' she asked. ‘Anything interesting going on?'

The housekeeper was busy topping up Sam's glass when the pitcher slipped and spilled over the tablecloth. Sam leapt clear as lemonade cascaded onto his chair.

‘Oh, will you look at that,' Mrs Rutherford said. ‘What a muddle I've made.'

Gerald had never seen his housekeeper drop so much as a pea during a dinner service. He looked at her closely as the waiter helped mop up the mess. ‘Are you okay, Mrs Rutherford?' he said.

Mrs Rutherford brushed aside a wisp of hair that had fallen across her face. She looked up at the young billionaire and her veneer of unflappable calm dropped away. She slumped into a spare seat at the table and let out an enormous sob.

‘What is it, Mrs Rutherford?' Ruby asked. ‘Is everything all right?'

‘No, Miss Ruby,' the housekeeper said. ‘Everything is most decidedly not all right.'

‘Is it all the preparations for Christmas?' Ruby asked. ‘It must be a lot to organise for all those guests.'

‘Should Mr Fry be helping more?' Gerald asked. ‘I'll have a word with him.'

Mrs Rutherford sat back and fanned herself with a napkin. ‘Thank you for your concern, Master Gerald, but Mr Fry is doing quite enough. You don't need to take my word for it. He'll tell you that himself. And Miss Ruby, I could prepare Christmas dinner for the Coldstream Guards without raising a sweat. That's not what's weighing on my mind.'

‘Then what is it?' Sam asked, still clutching a turkey leg in his hand.

‘You can't have heard,' Mrs Rutherford said. ‘And it's not really my place to be telling you.'

‘Telling us what?' Gerald asked.

The housekeeper took in a deep breath. ‘Sir Mason Green has escaped from the prison in Athens,' she said. ‘It was on the news last night.'

‘
What
?' Gerald couldn't believe what he was hearing.

The man who had ordered the murder of his great aunt, who had tried to kill Gerald and the Valentine twins on more than one occasion, was free?

‘They're saying he had outside help. They have no idea where he is,' Mrs Rutherford sobbed. ‘I am so sorry, Master Gerald.'

Gerald stared at the plate of food in front of him. He put his fork down beside it. His appetite had suddenly deserted him.

Mason Green.

Free from jail.

Gerald pulled the dry-cleaning ticket from his pocket and stared at it.

‘Anyone feel like a walk?' he asked.

Chapter 4

T
he cable car strained up the hill in the grey afternoon. It was still an hour until sunset, but the day had slipped into the slow decline towards a winter's evening.

Gerald stood on the runner boards at the rear of the cable car, clutching a pole for support as the pavement slid away beneath his feet. Sam and Felicity had run to jump aboard at the last minute and were squeezed inside at the front. Ruby was standing next to Gerald, her gloved hands wrapped around the pole between them. She stared out at the buildings as the cable car climbed the hill. The clickety-clack of the cable running under the street played a wistful serenade.

Gerald shivered. There were only a few stops until they reached the dry cleaners. He decided to have another attempt at making peace with Ruby.

‘What's the matter?' Gerald asked in as polite a tone as possible. ‘What have I done wrong?'

Ruby pulled her gaze away from the streetscape to look at Gerald. Her eyes were red. From the cold, Gerald thought. Or not.

‘It's different now,' she said, simply. The words floated in the air for a moment before the wind swept them down the street, along with the litter and leaves.

The brake man pulled back on the long metal handle. The cable car juddered forward, jostling Gerald into Ruby's shoulder.

‘Is it Felicity?' Gerald asked. ‘Is that the problem?'

Ruby blinked against the wind. ‘That's not a bad place to start,' she said. She pressed her lips together.

‘I don't understand.'

‘I know you don't. I wrote to you every week during term. Every week at that fancy-pants school of yours. I told you what I'd been doing, what Sam had been up to.' She paused for a breath. ‘How I missed you…'

Gerald looked on, silent.

‘And you didn't respond. Not once.' She shook her head. ‘After everything we said to each other after Delphi. Nothing, for four months.'

Gerald swallowed. He struggled to think of what to say. ‘I was…uh…busy,' he mumbled. ‘New school. And all that.'

‘Nothing to do with the fact you'd found yourself a new girlfriend?' Ruby glared at him. ‘You must think the sun shines out of your backside, Gerald.'

Gerald shifted uncomfortably as the cable car broached the hill and started down. He shot a glance inside to Felicity—she was laughing at something Sam had said. ‘We just saw a couple of movies together,' Gerald said in a flat voice. ‘She's not really my girlfriend.'

‘Oh really?' Ruby said. ‘Well you better let her know that, because that's exactly what she thinks she is.' Ruby flared her nostrils and moved in closer. ‘I don't get it, Gerald. Is it a billionaire thing? Why settle with having one girlfriend when you can have two?'

‘That's not fair,' Gerald mumbled.

‘Or is it like all those houses you own? One for the country and one for town? Well, guess what, Mister Billionaire, Felicity is a really nice person. I like her, despite you and everything you've done. And neither of us is some piece of property that you can jet between on holidays.' She jabbed a finger into Gerald's chest. ‘You need to sort this before Felicity finds out the type of person you really are. I don't want her thinking I'm so shallow that I once had someone like you as a friend.'

The cable car hauled to a stop.

‘Mason and Green!' the brakeman called.

Gerald's fist slid down the pole and brushed Ruby's glove. She snatched her hand away. ‘This is where we get off,' she said. She jumped onto the road and jogged to the opposite footpath.

Gerald sighed. How had he managed to stuff things up so royally? He was tempted to stay onboard and ride the cable car into the sunset. Or, preferably, the bay. He looked up to see that Felicity was already by Ruby's side and was beckoning him across. He stepped off as the cable car lurched down the hill.

They stood at the crossroads.

A street sign showed Mason and Green.

‘So our man is on the loose again,' Sam said. ‘Do you really think Mason Green is a fake name?'

Gerald had lost all enthusiasm for the expedition. He looked across the intersection to a green shopfront with ‘Dry Cleaner' painted above the door. ‘Come on,' he said. ‘Let's see what dirty laundry we can find.'

A fug of cleaning fumes assaulted them as they walked inside. Suits and dresses in clear plastic bags hung from a conveyor system that disappeared into a dark back room. Price lists, yellowed with age, were pinned to the walls. A woman sat at a counter, sewing a button onto a shirt.

‘Hello,' Gerald said, holding out the dry-cleaning ticket. ‘I'm just collecting this.' He was surprised to find that his hand was shaking. What if the cleaner knew Green by sight? How would Gerald explain his way around that? Or worse, the woman knew where Green was hiding and alerted him that Gerald was trying to steal his cleaning. He wished he'd thought it through properly, but the whole Ruby disaster meant he couldn't think straight.

The woman looked closely at the four faces on the other side of the counter, and took the ticket. ‘This has been a long time,' she said. ‘Another week and I would have sent it to charity.'

She turned in her seat and flicked a switch, sending the racks of garments along the track suspended from the ceiling. She switched the conveyor off and removed a black dinner jacket covered in its thin plastic bag. She laid it across the counter and nodded at the hanger. ‘Some things were left in the pockets. They're in that envelope.'

Gerald went to pick up the jacket. The woman clamped a heavy hand over his, pinning it to the counter.

‘I think you've forgotten something,' she said, staring hard into Gerald's eyes.

Gerald's pulse tripled. What was she talking about? Was there some sort of code word?

‘Uh, Mason Green,' Gerald babbled. ‘Oracle. Delphi. Rattigan.'

The woman's face creased into a scowl. ‘What are you talking about? Twenty-five dollars.'

‘Huh?'

‘Twenty-five dollars. For the cleaning.'

‘Oh, right. Of course.' Gerald pulled out his wallet. The woman's eyes bulged at the bankroll.

‘Can you change a hundred?' asked Gerald.

On the footpath outside, Gerald tore off the plastic wrap and pulled a bespoke Saville Row dinner jacket off the hanger. It was lined in a deep-purple silk.

‘What's in the envelope?' Sam asked.

‘Ooh, let me,' Felicity said. She took the envelope from Gerald and tore it open. She pulled out a set of keys on a large silver fob. There was ornate engraving on one side.

‘The Palladium Apartments,' Felicity read. She tossed the keys to Gerald.

Ruby clicked her tongue. ‘An old jacket and some house keys. Well, that's cracked the case wide open.'

Gerald held the jacket up and looked at Ruby. She glared back at him.

‘Here, Felicity,' he said. ‘Try it on for size.'

Felicity slid her arms inside the sleeves and wrapped the pure merino warmth around her. ‘Oh, this is so cosy,' she said, smiling brightly. She folded up the cuffs to above her wrists. ‘Thank you, Gerald.'

Ruby narrowed her eyes.

Gerald glared straight back at her. ‘The least I could do,' he said. ‘For my girlfriend.'

If the temperature around Ruby had dropped any lower it would have started to snow.