Martin Edwards - The Cipher Garden

‘Perhaps I was too hasty with my ideas for a redesign. I’d hate to be accused of vandalism.’

‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘A long time ago, the garden at Tarn Cottage was well known in the valley. There was some sort of folk-tale attached to it. People called it the cipher garden.’

The Cessna 206 Turbo was small and uncomfortable. There was only room for six passengers, even with all seats except for the pilot’s removed. They were sitting on a mat with their backs to the pilot, legs splayed with a spectacular lack of dignity that provoked endless rude jokes. Kirsty’s companions were four men and one other woman, an anorexic redhead who was having an affair with the pilot. Their eyeline was below the level of the window, but through the clear plastic roller door she could see tiny farms and copses and a caravan park. Soon they would circle over the broad expanse of Morecambe Bay and its bright, treacherous sands.

The noise inside the plane was drowned by the thoughts roaring inside her head. Her first instructor had preached that three-quarters of skydiving took place on the ground. So much depended on how you prepared for the jump.

Flying to altitude would take twenty-five minutes. This was always a time she found peaceful, a time when everything else in her life meant nothing. She’d been taught to relax and visualise herself doing what she had set out to do. Yet whenever the pilot called two minutes, her nerves would fray and over and over again she played through the malfunction procedure in her head. Checking release pins, cut-away and reserve handles, and to make sure that bits of parachute were safely inside the rig. Everyone looked out for each other. If a pilot chute deployed inside the plane with the door open, it could tear off the wings and they would all be dead.

Fear. Skydiving was all about conquering fear. As a raw novice about to make her first jump, Kirsty had found her heart beating faster, she’d taken rapid shallow breaths. The irony was, her trainer said, that survival instinct made your muscles tighten when you needed to relax. Embrace the fear was his mantra, along with hips down, head up. You needed to contain the surge of adrenaline. Over time, she’d learned to focus. Leaving the plane remained the moment of deepest fear, but she would scream out, ‘Up, down, go!’, breaking the tension in her chest by forcing out the air. And then she would fall.

‘I was telling Daniel about the cipher garden,’ Peter Flint said.

Sam uttered an unintelligible grunt. Despite the heat, he was tucking into a ketchup-coated burger in a bap and plainly couldn’t be bothered with idle chit-chat.

‘What can you tell me about it?’

A shrug. ‘Not much to tell. I heard my dad speak about it once when I was a kid. That’s all.’

‘What did he say?’

They could hear the plane high above, heading towards the bay. Sam spat casually on the ground, then wiped his lips with the back of his sweatshirt sleeve. His breath smelled of fried onions.

‘Only that there used to be a cipher garden over at Tarn Fold in Brackdale.’

Peter Flint said, ‘He never mentioned it to me.’

‘You’re an off-comer,’ Sam said brutally. ‘This was just a local tale. A legend, like. He heard about it when he did a spot of work at Brack Hall.’

‘What was the legend?’ Daniel asked.

‘I dunno exactly. About why the people died, the people that owned the garden? Something like that.’

‘A family called Gilpin owned our cottage for years. Originally, it was built by a man called Quiller. In between, it kept changing hands.’

‘Maybe people were afraid there was a curse on it.’

Daniel stared. ‘A curse?’

‘The cipher was about death. There was a message in the garden, it was supposed to explain how the people who lived happened to die.’

‘Fascinating, don’t you think?’ Peter Flint asked. ‘And not a little spooky.’

‘What else do you know about the cipher?’ Daniel demanded.

The young man finished his bap. It was evidently more satisfying than the conversation. ‘That’s all. I never paid much heed.’

‘I’d like to take another look at your garden,’ Peter Flint said, ‘see if I can make out this cipher. Actually, Daniel, you have some pretty wicked plants growing around the tarn. Venomous plants are like weeds, you know. Give them time and they proliferate. I’m not just talking about all your foxgloves, or the belladonna. Hellebore is seriously toxic; the roots are poisonous as well as the leaves. Even its flowers strike me as sinister. As for mandrake…’

Sam bared his teeth. ‘Yeah. Mandrake is supposed to scream when you pull it out of the ground.’

‘Sorry I’m late.’ Nick was flushed after jogging over from where he’d parked, but Hannah thought he looked good in T-shirt and shorts. She liked his hairy arms and he had much better legs than Peter Flint. ‘The old lady who lives next door fainted as I was about to set off and I had to take her to Casualty. It’s the heat, none of us are used to it.’

‘Let’s cool down with a drink after Kirsty’s done her thing. Once I’ve had talked to her, you and I can have a word in private.’

‘Hey, someone’s waving at you. Don’t I know him?’

Hannah turned her head and saw a familiar face. Carefully, she said, ‘As a matter of fact, that’s Daniel. Ben Kind’s son.’

‘Of course. I’ve seen him on the box. Do you know the women with him?’

‘I’d hazard a guess at his partner Miranda and his sister. Let’s go and say hello.’

As they jostled through the crowd, Hannah caught Daniel’s eye. Impossible not to glow at the spontaneity of his smile. As introductions were performed, she considered the women in his life. Miranda was depressingly gorgeous; no longer did she find it so hard to understand why he’d thrown up his career to move to the Lakes with her. As for Louise, at first glance she didn’t look much like Daniel. But the resemblance was there if you set about looking for it — not least, she had her brother’s cool appraising stare. Ben Kind had had it too.

‘You look cheerful. I didn’t realise you were so keen on skydiving.’

He jerked a thumb in the direction of the plane circling overhead. ‘It’ll be interesting to watch. But there’s no way I’d go up there. A group of students tried to persuade us to book a tandem jump. We had to drag Miranda away.’

‘It must be so liberating,’ Miranda said dreamily. ‘Imagine floating through mid-air.’

Hannah caught Louise’s caustic glance. Not much love lost between those two, she guessed. Daniel noticed as well, and was quick to move the conversation on.

‘I’ve just had some exciting news. From Peter Flint and Sam Howe, of all people.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah spotted Nick’s brow furrowing. For once she could read his mind: how come Daniel Kind knows Peter Flint and Sam Howe? Perhaps she was taking more of a risk than Kirsty, up there in that little tin can, but she couldn’t just walk away.

‘Tell us.’

‘Ever heard of a cipher garden?’

When she shook her head, he told them what he’d learned. His animation amused her. He was so natural, not at all her idea of an Oxford don or someone who had presented a television series.

‘So what do you think the cipher represents?’

Miranda tugged at Daniel’s sleeve. ‘Look! They’re about to jump!’

They craned their necks. The plane was directly above the field that served as the dropzone. A microscopic figure, little more than a dot, had appeared at the door.

‘That’s Kirsty,’ Hannah said. ‘Her mother told me she’d be first to go.’

‘How high would you say they are?’ Louise asked.

Nick said, ‘Nine thousand feet, at a guess. Maybe ten.’