Chapter 98
‘Wellit’s nothing obvious,’ Poe said. ‘I knew it wouldn’t be.’
Bradshaw rolled her eyes. She was on her hands and knees examining the books on the lower shelf of the Murphy door. Tai-young Lee was standing on the library ladder, pulling out and replacing books on the top shelf. Poe had given up on the idea that the code had been slipped between the pages of a book. He was back behind Elcid Doyle’s desk.
‘Are you comfortable there, Poe?’ Lee said. ‘I can’t get you a cup of tea or something?’
‘Elcid Doyle will have split his day between his desk and the armchair by the fire,’ he said. ‘If there’s something in the study to remind him of the code, he’d have been able to see it from here’ – he pointed to the fireplace – ‘or from over there.’
‘But we’ve looked, there’s nothing.’
‘We’re overthinking it then. Tilly, you know about PINs – other than the most predictable ones, which you’ve already checked, what else do people tend to use?’
‘Birthdays,’ she said straight away. ‘But I’ve tried Elcid’s and I’ve tried Estelle’s and I’ve tried his late wife’s.’
‘What else do people use?’
‘Birth years. And I’ve tried them.’
‘What’s next?’
‘Anniversaries.’
‘When did he get married?’
‘June ninth 1977.’
‘Did you try that?’
‘I did, Poe.’
‘What about the day his wife died?’
‘Herdeathday? That’s sick, Poe.’
‘Try it anyway.’
‘I already have.’
‘You’re a monster,’ Poe said.
‘We’re on to something here,’ Lee said, climbing down the library ladder. ‘Keep going, Tilly. What other numbers do people use?’
‘Two-five-eight-zero.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, from top to bottom, they appear in a single column on a phone or a keypad. And I’ve tried it.’
‘Anything else?’
‘The next group of numbers people tend to use are dates that mean something to them personally, but that aren’t included in the ones we’ve already been through.’
Poe considered that. ‘The date I bought Herdwick Croft, for example,’ he said.
‘The day I passed my driving test,’ Lee added. ‘The day my parents landed in the UK.’
‘Things like that, yes,’ Bradshaw agreed. ‘But without knowing what Elcid Doyle knew, we can’t know what was personally significant to him.’