Lena Jones - The Secret Key

I reach into my satchel and take out the phone. I press the ‘on’ button, but it seems to take forever to power up.

‘JP, could you go and see if there’s a warden nearby?’

JP makes off across the lawns, the sole of one shoe flapping as he runs.

I turn my attention back to the woman. She looks almost too peaceful, and for a second I’m worried that she might have died while I was distracted.

My phone finally powers up; I call nine-nine-nine and ask for an ambulance. The woman keeps me on the line at first, asks about the lady’s breathing and pulse. Her right arm is twisted oddly under her and looks broken. Carefully, I unbutton the cuff of her coat sleeve and find her wrist. Pressing my fingers to her skin, I find a regular – if rapid – pulse.

The woman on the end of the line hangs up, telling me the ambulance is about to arrive and I should make sure they can see me. Taking my hand away, I notice something unusual on the old lady’s wrist – a tattoo of a key.

It’s very simple – one long line and three short, like the teeth of an old deadlock. Dad has a dozen keys like that on a ring, which open the old iron gates and grilles in the park, but it seems a strange thing to have tattooed on your wrist, especially for an old lady. The handle of the tattoo key is a circle with a dot inside, a bit like an eye. It’s outlined in white ink, which shines silvery on her dark skin. I start to put her scattered things back in her handbag, hoping to find a next-of-kin contact. There’s lipstick, some mints in a tin, a pen, a large set of keys (none of which are deadlocks) and a purse.

There’s no perfume in the bag, though I can smell that she is wearing some. I sniff again – I can’t help it – it comes instinctively to me. A waft of vanilla, a hint of leather and carnation. Tabac Blond, first made by Caron in 1919. An expensive perfume.

Her clothes are plain, but her blouse has the feel of silk. The mother-of-pearl buttons might be plastic, but I’m not so sure. I look in the purse for a contact telephone number, but find nothing except several business cards.

Prof. Dorothy D’Oliveira

Senior Fellow, Hydrology Studies

Royal Geographical Society

Hydrology? What does that mean? ‘Hydro’ is from the Greek for ‘water’. So, she studies water? Out of ideas, I go back to making sure she’s comfortable. I don’t risk moving her right arm, though it looks uncomfortable bent beneath her. But, as I fold my blazer and place it under her head, I spot something in her left hand. I don’t know how I missed it at first. With a glance at her peaceful face, I gently prise her fingers open to find a piece of folded pink newspaper – a page from the Financial Times . Looking around to see if anyone is watching, I open it out.

It has the usual stories – mergers of electronics companies, CEOs getting millions of pounds in bonuses, a story about London pollution. Without thinking, I fold the paper and slip it into my blazer pocket. JP hasn’t returned yet, so I’m left alone to watch over the professor. Somewhere nearby, a siren starts wailing. I have an idea – opening my satchel, I take out a small brown bottle, unstopper it, and wave it under her nose.

It was insanely difficult to find smelling salts in London chemists. Finally, a pharmacy on Old Compton Street had agreed to sell me some, on the condition that I leave my name and address.

After a moment, the professor starts to take deeper breaths, and coughs twice. She opens her eyes and looks at me. The sound of the siren is much louder now, and I can see the ambulance racing across the lawns towards us, churning furrows into the dew-soft grass. Dad won’t be happy. It stops right next to us. The two paramedics jump out and start to tend to their patient.

‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ A paramedic points to the bottle I’m holding.

‘Sal volatile.’

He looks blank.

‘Spirit of hartshorn?’

‘What?’

I suspect the man of being a little slow.

‘Ammonium carbonate with lavender oil.’

‘Ah, aromatherapy . New age.’

I sigh. ‘If you say so.’

They check the woman’s pulse and breathing, and shine a light in her eyes to check for concussion. Then they apply a sling before loading her on to a stretcher. The one who called my smelling salts ‘new age’ asks me some questions about what happened.

‘Hit by a motorbike?’ He shares a look with his colleague. ‘She’s lucky not to be more seriously hurt.’

‘Pretty unlucky to get hit at this time of the day in a park, mind,’ says the other paramedic.

‘Luck has nothing to do with it,’ I say. ‘This was deliberate.’

I give the paramedics my home address and say I’m happy to talk to the police. I think about offering to ride with the professor to the hospital, but before I get the chance the ambulance leaves, and I stand there feeling as though I’ve woken from a dream. But this was no dream, and when I reach into my blazer pocket – yes! – there it is – the folded sheet of newspaper.

‘Thank goodness for that,’ I breathe. There is a strange tingle behind my eyes. In the spotless blue sky above me, clouds are starting to form. Not just any clouds – they are spelling out words.

The clouds form and dissolve away just as fast. My heart is racing. I pick up my satchel and start to walk, replaying the events in my mind, and several images refuse to fade.

I think of the biker, whose face was hidden by the dark helmet. I think about the business cards from the Royal Geographical Society. And, most of all, I think about the key tattoo, in its silvery ink. I’ve never seen that symbol before. I pause – or have I? There’s something at the back of my mind, just niggling away at me …

I stop, feeling frustrated.

I’m already late for school, so surely it can wait another minute. I sit down on a park bench and open my satchel, taking out my current casebook. I’m so excited; it might as well be the first one – this is a new beginning. I flip open the notebook to the opening page and cross out the details about the local shopkeeper’s parking violations. I write the heading: ‘Hit-and-Run – Hyde Park’, underlining it a couple of times. Then I jot down some quick notes –

1. Old lady knocked down in Hyde Park. The path was wide. Was this deliberate? What could the motive be?

2. Her perfume was expensive, and she had an unusual tattoo (sketch overleaf). Something seems odd here – what is her story?

3. Business card says she is a member of the Royal Geographical Society – do they know more about her?

I look over all those exciting question marks for a moment, puzzling it over.

Something is afoot, of that I am sure.

‘So, you saw an old lady knocked down in the park by a motorbike, and now you want us to investigate?’

Liam is staring down at my notebook and frowning. We’re in form class, before lessons. ‘Don’t people get knocked down all the time? What makes this one any different?’

I glance to the front . Mr Laskey is behind his desk, reading the newspaper, and it’s hard to tell whether he’s sleeping or not. The rest of 8C are chatting noisily, so there is little chance of our conversation being overheard. Still, there isn’t much time to tell Liam everything that has happened. Brianna Pike, one of the three CCs, is sitting on the desk next to us, but she’s too wrapped up with doing her make-up to pay us any attention.

‘Not just an old lady getting knocked down,’ I whisper. ‘There was something funny about it. This didn’t look like an accident. There were … unusual circumstances. Comprenez-vous ?’

‘You mean –’ he glances around at our classmates before continuing in a whisper – ‘you think someone might have targeted her?’ He sounds more excited than normal about one of my cases.