Page 164 of Perfect Strangers

rsed her lips, but thought better of telling him off; things were tense enough without adding petty squabbles to their problems. She followed Lana inside. It was basic, almost spartan, with a thin layer of dust on most surfaces and a cold, damp smell coming from the bones of the house. There were a few personal effects – books, old maps and dark oil paintings on the walls – but it didn’t look as if anyone had been there for a while.

‘Now where?’ said Lana. She looked wound up, on edge. Had her jibe about Nick betraying Lana to the Russians got to the woman? wondered Sophie.

‘There’s not much here, so check everything,’ said Josh, coming back from a quick look around. ‘Lana, you take the kitchen and living room. Sophie, you take the bedrooms upstairs. I’ll do everywhere else.’

There were three bedrooms on the first floor. Sophie took the largest one first, which at least looked as if someone had been in it within the last thirty years. There was a fishing rod in one corner, some leather-bound Dickens novels on the shelves, but not much else. So what exactly am I looking for? she wondered. If there was money hidden here, it would take up a lot of room, and even if Asner’s loot had been converted into diamonds or something else valuable, she was pretty certain it would be something of size. A suitcase, perhaps? she thought, looking under the bed. No. Not even a shoebox. In the corner of the room was a small built-in wardrobe, but there was nothing inside apart from a rather mildewed overcoat and a pile of equally mouldy linen. In the movies, the safe is always hidden behind a painting, she thought to herself, walking over to a picture above the washstand – and found herself looking at a photograph of a boat.

‘Iona,’ she gasped, recognising her father’s beloved boat. ‘So you were here.’

She stood there in shock for a moment. She had guessed that this had been her father’s place, had expected to find something of his here, in fact. But even so, she found her heart beating hard in her chest, knowing he had stood where she was, that he had slept in this bed and, after all the running and dead ends, that this was exactly where he had wanted her to come.

‘Where would you hide something, Daddy?’ she asked.

And then it came to her. At Wade House, her father had installed a wall safe in the back of a wardrobe; she could remember him on his knees with the drill. She stepped back over to the closet and pushed the overcoat and the mottled sheets out of the way. There it was, the same colour and shape as the safe they had at home, with a four-digit electronic PIN lock.

‘Josh! Lana!’ she shouted.

She heard Josh’s heavy footsteps coming up the stairs two at a time.

‘Good girl,’ he said when he saw the safe. ‘Have you tried to open it?’

‘Not yet,’ she said. She bent to tap in the combination of the safe they had at home. It beeped twice: wrong number.

Lana burst through the door.

‘Have you found it?’ she gasped.

Josh nodded to the safe. ‘Yes and no. We don’t have the code.’

‘Try the number from the book,’ said Lana.

Warily, Sophie pulled the paperback from the pocket of the waxed hunting jacket she had borrowed from the lodge that morning. She wanted to get inside, of course, but she didn’t like the feeling of having Lana hovering behind her.

She tried various combinations of the map co-ordinates, but still the safe door refused to budge.

‘This is ridiculous!’ said Lana. ‘Josh, do something.’

‘What do you expect me to do?’ he said. ‘Blow a hole in it? All I know about safe-cracking I got from The Italian Job.’

Tuning out their bickering, Sophie turned back to the first page of I Capture the Castle. Was there anything else on it except the name and co-ordinates?

Of course there was.

To my dearest S, read this and think of our castle. Happy birthday. All my love always, Daddy.

Her birthday. The fourth of September – it had to be. She bent over the panel and tapped in ‘0409’. There was a second’s pause, then the safe whined open. She could hear Lana gasp behind her. Sophie looked inside: it was empty. No, not quite: there was a plain Manila envelope sitting on the bottom. She opened it and pulled out a sheet of paper.

‘A certificate?’ she said, looking up at Josh.

She had been expecting bricks of bank notes or gold bars; at the very least a black velvet bag full of diamonds. This looked like a fancy version of the guarantee which came with a washing machine.

‘It’s a bearer share certificate,’ said Josh, taking it from her.

‘What’s that in English?’ said Sophie, standing up to get a better look.

‘Have you ever heard of bearer bonds?’

She nodded. ‘They’re what Hans Gruber was after in Die Hard, right?’