We take a cab to the end of the Shaftesbury Avenue, the street of which the postcode on the receipt told us that Eddie Van Coon ate on the day he died, then we begin to walk down the road towards the shop.
"So you bought your lunch from here en route to the station, but where were you headed from?" Dad asks himself out load. I look down the road and see the entrance to China Town, and my mind begins to find links. "Where did the taxi drop you ...?" He begins to spin around as he walks, taking in a full 360 of the streets surrounding this one. Almost immediately and completely predicatbley, he bumps into someone who was approaching from behind, and who seems too engrossed in a book to look where he's going. Dad grunts as they collide, and John looks up, suprised to see us here.
"Right," John begins, ready to explain, but dad begins to quick fire.
"Eddie Van Coon brought a package here the day he died – whatever was hidden inside that case. We've managed to piece together a picture using scraps of information ..."
"Sherlock ..." John says, attemepting to inturupt.
" … credit card bills, receipts," dad continues, blanking John out. "He flew back from China, then he came here."
"Sherlock ..."John tries again, unsucessfully.
"Somewhere in this street; somewhere near. I don't know where, but ..." John gives me a pointed look, and I nudge dad in the ribs as John points to the other side of the road.
"That shop over there." Dad and I look over to the shop he's pointing to then look back to John, frowning. It could work, as my theory is working out.
"How can you tell?" Dad challenges.
"Lukis' diary, " John explains showing us the diary entry. "He was here too. He wrote down the address." How helpfull of him. John turns and heads towards the shop, leaving us confused by such a simple answer.
"Oh," dad mutters, before we follow John into a tourist type shop which consists of mainly decorative cats, hence the name 'Lucky Cat' as the name of the store. Most of the cats are sitting up on their hind legs, one front paw raised in greetings, but some of them have their paws waving back and forth. I frown in confusion of why someone like Lukis would come here after a trip aborad, and I can't even fathom the idea of Eddie doing it. Unless...
The female Chinese shop keeper holds up one of the cats as we pretend to look. "You want lucky cat?
"No," John says polietly, smiling slightly, "thanks. No." Dad looks around at him and smirks.
"Ten pound. Ten pound!" The shop keeper cries, in a feeble attempt for us to buy something that is well overpriced.
"No," John repeats, smiling awkwardly at the woman.
"I think your wife, she will like!" she continues to persuade, and I exchange looks of badly disguised amusemant with dad.
"No, thank you," John repeats firmly, not denying the fact that he has a wife in an attempt to lead everyone away from believing that dad and him are in a realationship."
"I think your daughter, she would like one!" she persists, gesturing to me and my intrest in a set of miniature cats by the window. I turn one over to see the price, and narrow my eyes in disbelief. John looks to me with a look of betrayal and I shrug my shoulders, smiling slyly. He hands the woman the ten pound note from his pocket and tosses the cat my way. I catch it easily and smile fakely at him.
"Thank youdaddy," I laugh. Dad spins around to face me and gives a half smile, before turning back to the clay statues on a rack in the corner. John picks up a small ceramic handle-less cup and turns it over to see the price as I slip the cat into my bag. His hand begins to tremble as he too spots the symbol on the underside of the cup, and going by his expression, it's probably one of the ciphers that we've already seen.
"Sherlock," John mutters, drawing dad over. "The label there."
"Yes, I see it," dad murmers in reply as I walk over to the pair.
"Exactly the same as the cipher," he points out unnecesserally, clearing his throat awkwardly and putting the cup back. Something in dads mind clicks into place, and he lifts his head in awareness and walks out of the shop and down the street.
"It's an ancient number system!" Dad says in frustration of not realising it before. "Hangzhou." I groan in annoyance and rub my temples, matching the name with the symbols. "These days, only street traders use it. Those were numbers written on the wall at the bank and at the library." He walks over to a greengrocer's and looks at the produce outside which is displayed in boxes. Dad picks up various signs, checking the symbols against the English. "Numbers written in an ancient Chinese dialect." I follow him over to check the hand written signs for myself, and see one which matches the graffiti. John sees it too.
"It's a fifteen!" John cries. "What we thought was the artist's tag – it's a number fifteen."
"And the blindfold – the horizontal line?" Dad questions, looking around. "That was a number as well." He shows us a price tag which has the same almost-horizontal line at the top and '£1' written below it. "The Chinese number one, John," he grins triumphantly.
"We've found it!" John says in disbelief and smiles. Dad turns and walks away, but as I turn to walk with him, I see the same Chinese woman who was outside 221B the other day. She lifts up her camera and takes a photo in our direction, then someone walks inbetween us, obscuring her from view for a second. By the time he's past, she's gone. Coincedince? Or are we being followed?
We cross over into a restaurant oppositeThe Lucky Cat and take a seat by the window inside. I take a paper napkin from the end of the table and begin to jot down the Hangzhou number alongside the English equivalents. Dad copies me, probably noting down someextra notes which will lead us to the answer as John sits opposite us, writinghis own notes into a small notebook.
"Two men travel back from China," John begins, starting to form a timeline in his head and voicing it."Both head straight for the Lucky Cat emporium. What did they see?"
"It's not what they saw," dad corrects him,"it's what they both brought back in those suitcases."
"And you don't mean duty free," Johnjokes dryly as ayoungChinese waitress brings over a plate of food for John."Thank you," he mutters in thanks.
"So what did they bring back?" I murmur as the girl walks away."Somethingof value? A heist maybe?" Isuggest.
"Unlikely," dad says thoughtfully, "but something along those lines maybe.Think about what Sebastian told us; about Van Coon – about how he stayed afloat in the market."
"Lost five million ..." John says in realisation.
"... made it back in a week," dad finishes.
"Mmm," John agrees, beginning onhis food.
"That's how he made such easy money," dad continues.
"He was a smuggler," John says in realisation, scooping up another forkfull. "Mmm."
"A guy like him – it would have been perfect," dad states. "A business man making frequent trips to Asia. And Lukis was the same. A journalist writing about China."
"Mmm," John murmers to show he's still listening.
"Both of them smuggled stuff out, and the Lucky Cat was their drop-off."
"But why did they die?" John questions, voicing my own thoughts."I mean, it doesn't make sense. If they both turn up at the shop and deliver the goods, why would someone threaten them and kill them after the event, after they'd finished the job?" Dad pauses thoughtfully for a few seconds, and I try to pick the question apart. There's no feesable reason of why a gang which contracted smugglers would threaten and then kill two of their workers unless they had taken something which wasn't theirs to take. Either one of the men could have that item, but the gang doesn't know who, so they kill them both. Dad smiles, obviously finding the same answer for himself.
"What if one of them was light-fingered?" Dad suggests.
"How d'you mean?" John questions.
"Stole something; something from the hoard."
"And the killer doesn't know which of them took it, so he threatens them both," John says in realisation."Right." Dad looks out of the window and towards the shop opposite, then his gaze lowers to the ground. I follow his line of sight down and narrow my eyes as I see something out of place.
"Remind me: when was the last time that it rained?" Without waiting for a reply, he gets up and leaves the restaurent. A few moments later, I stand up and following him out, leaving John to chose between his almost untouche meal and us. "Sophie, weather forcast for the week."
"It hasn't rained since Monday," I say, without looking down at my phone. "The Yellow Pages was sent out the same day." Dad nods thoughtfully as John joins my side, and he runs a finger along the sodden pages of the book. The plastic wrapper is torn at the top, and small droplets of water trickle down the smooth surface.
"It's been here since Monday," Dad repeats my words for Johns benefit, before standing back up and pressing the doorbell of the flat. The name tag above tells us that the owner of this place is a young female called Soo Lin Yao, but inhabitant doesn't reply. Dad spots something to the right, and heads towards it, dissapearing into a small alleyway beside the flat. I follow behind dad and we look up at the windows, looking for a way to get in.
"No-one's been in that flat for at least three days," dad states, again, for Johns benefit.
"Could've gone on holiday," John suggests and I roll my eyes at his lack of obsevational skills.
"D'youleave your windows open when you go on holiday?" Dad remarks, looking up again and seeong a cantilevered metal fire escape above us. I step back as dad does a short run at it, and he sucessfully grabs hold of it on his jump, pulling it down towards us until it reaches the ground. I follow quickly behind him as we sprint up the steps and towards the open window. As we reach the top, the stairs swing back to its orignal position, and John realises that he's missed his opportunity and is too small to reach to pull down the stairs and calls after us. Ignoring him, I wait for dad to get through the window but he gives a muffled cry of alarm as he reaches the other side. I prepare myself for the worst, readying myself in a defensive stance. "Someone else has been here," dad calls out of the window and I relax a little, beginning to climb through the window. He holds a vase in one hand, and helps me through withthe other before putting thevase backonto the table. I look down to the place where the vase would have landed, and see a wet patch where the lastperson knocked thevase over. "Somebody else broke into the flat and knocked over the vase just like I did," dad continues,quieter than before. I look around the roomto look for anysigns of disturbance whilst dadopens and sifts through the washing machine, looking for anothersign of time. Downstairs, the doorbell rings and, like before, we ignore it. Dad closes the washing machine and reaches for a towel whilst I step forward into another room. The bathroom is pretty basic, but it also contains a shelf of disturbed shampoo bottles. The door slams shut behind me, blocking out the only light source in the windowless room. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I realise I'm not alone. We never were, from the moment we entered this house. We were being followed. That's why the window was open. That's why Soo Lin Yao isn't here. Because the killer never left. I prepare myself for the attack, but a hand covered with a soft hankercheif type material clamped my mouth, leaving me unable to shout out. He, going by the strength and the size of the hands, holds my arms behind my back as I squim about, then shoots a cold liquid into my neck. My eyes close. My heart stops. I drop to the floor, lifeless.