The Women Who Ran Away - Sheila O'Flanagan Page 0,41

sorry, I know who he is. Ken had an old copy of the book in his study.’ Grace nodded. ‘He thought it was brilliant.’

‘I know,’ Deira told her. ‘I remember one of his lectures on Cervantes in college. It was riveting.’ She twirled one of her curls around her finger and looked thoughtfully at Grace. ‘He loved Cervantes and he loved Ernest Hemingway and both of the towns they’re associated with are on your list.’ She continued to stare at the screen in front of her. ‘He liked classic science fiction too,’ she said slowly. ‘Ray Bradbury. Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick . . . and Jules Verne.’ She looked up at Grace. ‘Jules Verne was born here, in Nantes.’

‘Oh!’ Grace looked at her with excitement. ‘He always brought a Jules Verne when we came to France. The first password must have something to do with him, don’t you think?’

She used her phone to google Jules Verne.

‘The twenty-fourth of March 1905 is his birthday,’ she said. ‘Worth a try?’

Deira entered 2403 in the document labelled Nantes and got the ‘password incorrect’ message.

Then she typed in the year.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Bingo!’

‘Seriously?’ Grace looked at the screen and started to smile. ‘We did it,’ she said. ‘You did it! Thank you.’ She read through the document, then looked up at Deira. ‘But what the hell does any of this mean?’

‘It’s a clue to another password,’ replied Deira. ‘But as for what it means, I haven’t the faintest idea.’

Chapter 13

Loire-Atlantique, France: 47.1987°N 1.6537°W

Congratulations, Hippo! they read. You’re on your way. You’re not journeying to the centre of the earth for the next password but you’re heading down into the deep. How deep did he go – you only need the first number here. You’ll also need the number of portholes on the Atlantic (or should that be Atlantique); if you keep an eye out when you’re relaxing, you’ll find it. Finally, you have to take a photo of the door of his very own space and upload it to the link at the end. If you’ve got it right, you’ll be given the last number for the clue, as well as a letter to keep till the end. Think logically and you’ll find the answer. Don’t forget from here on your guesses are limited before you’re locked out. You have ten for this clue. Tread carefully.

‘Actually, I’ve only seven,’ said Grace. ‘I made some random guesses earlier and I got a message saying seven remaining. So I stopped.’

‘Right.’ Deira looked at the screen thoughtfully.

‘But what the hell is he on about?’ asked Grace. ‘Deep down where? Is the Atlantique a famous ship? Should I know how many portholes it has? And what space is he talking about? None of it makes sense.’

‘I’m sure it will if we think about it for long enough,’ said Deira. ‘Back when I was at college, Professor Harrington used to run literary treasure hunts for the students with clues like this. D’you remember them?’

‘I’ve no idea what he used to do, to be honest,’ said Grace. ‘We didn’t really talk about his work much. I only ever went to occasional events with him, and certainly nothing like a treasure hunt.’

‘They were like the literary pub crawls that tourists in Dublin do,’ said Deira. ‘Except we didn’t call in to a number of pubs; we’d just meet up in one at the end. We had to find clues along the way. All the clues together would give another clue to a book or an author or something on the literary scene. Any student who worked it out went into a draw for a signed copy of a book the professor liked. It was more social than serious, and it was good fun.’

‘Well, he’s certainly done the same thing here,’ agreed Grace. ‘But I don’t know how I’m supposed to work out any of the clues. Or if it matters in which order. I’m thinking it does because it’s the route I’m supposed to be taking. He pre-booked my hotels, which means I have to be in La Rochelle tomorrow night, so I only have tonight and tomorrow morning to find the door I’m supposed to be taking a photo of. It’s not a lot of time.’

‘In the treasure hunts he set for us you definitely had to do it in order, unless you made some very lucky guesses,’ said Deira. ‘When you solved one clue it gave you the password to the next one and so