The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers: A novel

PROLOGUE

1991

LTARDBT ID IWT UTAADLHWXE DU EJOOATBPZTGH!

The shiny brass plaque affixed to the front door was plain gobbledygook to some, but for many who visited this grand house on the outskirts of Bedfordshire, and certainly for the people who resided here, it made perfect sense. It was a basic +11 Caesar shift. Nothing too fiendish at all:

WELCOME TO THE FELLOWSHIP OF PUZZLEMAKERS!

Beneath it, a laminated slip of paper read: Our buzzer is playing up. Press and hold it, else it sounds like Morse code. Better still, try the knocker. One of us is usually in. No junk mail, please!

Pippa Allsbrook stood with her back to the house and felt her entire weight collapse against the arched oaken door. She’d pulled it shut the moment she’d stepped outside and clocked the peculiar delivery on the front steps, which had appeared almost out of thin air.

A hatbox.

It looked just like any other with its black leather exterior, gold trim and the letters H.H. embossed in gold on the hexagonal lid. But it was the contents, or more specifically the noise coming from the thing, which really confounded her: an insistently high-pitched, piercing sound that, up close, really couldn’t be confused with anything else at all.

As Pippa removed the lid—which had been left deliberately unsecured—she was so overcome her legs started to buckle. She reached for the pillar of the porch to steady herself and folded her spare hand against her pounding chest, stealing another glimpse inside.

Surely not.

Tucked inside the flowery paper lining of the box, a beautiful little baby, presumably no more than a few days old, was swaddled in a custard yellow blanket, crying its heart out.

Oh, my darling. Where the devil have you come from?

The boy’s squalling briefly tempered as Pippa peered down at him, their eyes meeting.

"Aren’t you just the most beautiful little thing?"

She wasn’t used to throwing out such airy blandishments, but the tiny little person looking up at her—a boy if the blue of his romper suit was anything to go by—was perfect in every way imaginable. He had golden wisps of hair whipped on his head like spun sugar, cheeks as plump as a pudding and the palest blue eyes, so piercing they seemed to penetrate her own.

Pippa gathered up her tweed skirt and crouched down on the steps. She reached gingerly inside the box.

First, she wiped away the silvery trail of tears, then she stroked her thumb along the tiny boy’s nose, before bopping it once, twice, three times, as if checking he were real, that this wasn’t all a dream.

Boop! she heard herself say, in a light, sing-song voice. Boop…boop…boop!

The baby—soothed by the gesture—went very still for a moment.

She looked at him. He looked at her. She felt his tiny hands curl around her finger before his flailing arms suddenly shot upwards.

He was reaching out for her.

She tucked one hand carefully under his head and the other beneath his back without hesitating and hoisted him out of the box. Shh, now, she whispered gently in his ear. I’ve got you…I’ve got you.

He was so unbearably soft she couldn’t help but press their two faces together. With his velvety skin brushing against hers, Pippa issued a breath. She kissed him on the head, his nose, the tiny dimple of his chin. He smelled like the inside of a milk bottle, of freshly baked bread, and Imperial Leather.

It was only when she nestled the baby boy into the crook of her arm that she caught it. There, in the dense shrubbery either side of the long gravel drive, was a definite flash of something ahead of her. A scampering. It wasn’t the faint scuttle of an animal, nor the wind rustling the branches, but a human movement somewhere in the distance. She was certain of it. Someone was out there. Someone was watching.

Step forward, she wanted to say. Why are you leaving this baby with us? But just then, the baby’s tiny little fist reached out and wrapped around her middle finger and she knew in that moment that their fates were sealed.

That’s it, she murmured soothingly, gently rocking the boy from side to side in the dappled morning light. Their two pulses were beginning to settle into each other. You’re safe now.

For Pippa Allsbrook, in all her sixty-four years on this earth, there had never been a moment as miraculous, nor utterly fated, as this one. It was the solution she’d spent a lifetime searching for. The missing piece.

Chapter One

2016

Clayton Stumper was an enigma.

He always had been, and, now, standing just a few metres away from Pippa’s open coffin on the eve of her funeral, he feared he always would be.

He could barely bring himself to look.

From the other side of the old billiard room, he caught a glimpse of her hair, a silver cloud of perfectly coiled perm, and clocked the padded shoulders of her favourite Givenchy dress protruding from the long pine box, which was lined with pink velvet and adorned with a bright display of purple and white gerberas. She had asked for the floral tribute on her coffin not to read MOTHER or FRIEND or PRESIDENT but TSILABREVICURC.

It had taken some explaining at the florist, but that was what she had requested, and Clayton was determined to follow her instructions. She was still challenging her friends even from beyond the grave.

The wake was being hosted in the largest and most formal room at the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers. There were mottled brass candelabras affixed to William Morris wallpaper and, along the long end of the room, two bay windows, encased with elaborate tasselled draperies, looking out over the parterre. Over the years, this was where the Fellowship had hosted all their formal events—puzzle tournaments, special lectures, product launches—but now the space looked more like the communal lounge of a nursing home. Where there was once immaculate decorative baroque furniture there were now reclining winged armchairs, jigsaw tables and crossword-setting boards, all angled towards the early evening.

Guests weren’t due for another hour, so Clayton had come to spend some time with Pippa. He didn’t like the idea of her being on her own. But instead of going straight over and keeping her company, he found himself hovering at a distance, trying to pluck up the courage.

All week he’d been putting on a brave face, pretending he was just fine, when really the bottom of his world had fallen out and he didn’t know where to turn.

It had started around the time Pippa had fallen ill. A new impulse had started to consume him: a compulsion to find out the truth. To discover exactly where he came from, who his biological birthparents were and why they’d chosen to leave him here, on the steps of the Fellowship, twenty-five years ago. It hadn’t felt as urgent before—he’d always had everything he needed here, had never gone without—but the moment he’d realised that Pippa, the woman who raised him as her own, wasn’t going to live forever, Clayton had started to feel untethered.

He distracted himself by sorting through the games cabinet in the corner of the room. This glass repository was where they kept their various puzzling consumables: compendiums, counters, marbles and ball bearings. Even though he’d stuck a notice on the door asking residents to return the items where they’d found them, nothing was ever in the correct place.

Beside this cluttered cabinet was a green-felt-lined mah-jong table, and next to that an enormous freestanding blackboard, which, if examined in the correct light and from the right angle, revealed half a century’s worth of chalked inscriptions: riddles and nonograms, patterns and grids. The faint scribblings of some of the sharpest, most brilliant minds in all the British Isles.

Clayton cleared his throat, tried to say hello to her, but couldn’t quite manage it.

The room was so unbearably quiet.

The only noise was of the colossal grandfather clock opposite, its swinging pendulum emitting a faint but authoritative tick, tick, tick. Clayton tried to block it out. He didn’t need to be reminded of the time, and how little was left for everyone here at the Fellowship. If only he could press pause, he thought, keep things exactly as they were forever.

As he reached the foot of the coffin, he took his first proper look at the woman inside.

Pippa Allsbrook.

—

The pioneering cruciverbalist. The polymath. President of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers and Chairwoman of the British Crossword League.

Clayton had to admit, even in death she looked quite spectacular. At the foot of the coffin were some of her most treasured personal effects: her favourite pearl-plated compact mirror, a battered, leather-bound copy of Sam Loyd’s Cyclopedia of Puzzles, and a bottle of her favourite Dom Pérignon, which she always kept a case of in the back of her wardrobe, ready to pop at special occasions.

She was eighty-nine at the end, as everyone kept reminding him. We shouldn’t mourn, we should celebrate. What a life, what a legacy! Of course, that was all true, but…for Clayton, it didn’t make her loss any less devastating.

He gripped the edge of the coffin and, before he could change his mind, leaned over so he was just inches from Pippa’s face.

Hey, Pip…

Silence.

It’s only me.

Her waxen skin wasn’t just pale but watery, almost see-through, like a sheet of gelatine. He could count the creases that sprang from the corner of her eyes like a sunburst, could see how the funeral directors had rouged her hollow cheeks, lined her lips, painted her eyelids—a darker shade than she would usually wear.

It took every effort to raise his other hand and reach inside the coffin properly, lifting Pippa’s frail wrist folded across her lap and inserting his hand gently under hers, but when he did, the weight of it lying on top of his, the coolness of it, felt familiar to him. It warmed him somehow.

Before he turned to leave, Clayton reached into his back pocket and took out that day’s Times crossword (No. 27,122), slipping it inside the velvet lining near her feet. He’d considered having a go at filling it in but couldn’t quite bring himself. The grief had left him groggy and, even at the best of times, the cryptics were usually beyond him.

He was not a puzzlemaker himself, of course. Unlike everyone else, he hadn’t chosen to live here; he had been gifted to the Fellowship by someone. There were so many questions now, so many things he’d wished he had quizzed Pippa on, but it was all too late for that.

Just like the unsolved grid he had just slipped inside the coffin, he was never going to get the answers he needed to fill himself in. To make himself complete.

Chapter Two

Downstairs

The Old Queen’s Head, Islington

TUESDAY, 7TH AUGUST, 1979

Pippa was dying for something bubbly.

Standing at the bar, she tried to catch the eye of the young barmaid who had a perfect swirl of platinum blonde hair on her head like ice cream on top of a cone. The woman was wearing the largest gold hoop earrings she had surely ever seen; three in each ear, they chimed like tiny church bells as she shambled up and down the line doing an excellent job of ignoring Pippa’s expectant gaze.

Next! the lady barked, looking straight past Pippa to the handsome young man who’d just appeared behind her. What can I get you, my darlin’?

Pippa sighed and tipped her head to the ceiling in despair as the man stepped round her.

Ever since she’d hit her half-century, Pippa was beginning to feel as if she were a figment of her own imagination. She was becoming invisible to the world.

May I order a drink, please? she asked. I can see you’re busy, but I’ve been waiting a little while now.

Be with you in a sec, doll, the woman responded, without even glancing up from the pump.

Pippa took a deep breath.

For the past ten minutes she had been keeping an anxious eye on the mirrored section of the bar in front of her. The door leading to the upstairs lounge was reflected in the space between a bottle of Bombay Dry and Bell’s. She’d caught at least ten people slipping through while she’d been waiting to be served. Each time, relief had flooded through her. Despite the initial wave of interest, she was worried about whether people would actually show their faces. That was the trouble with puzzledom—it did rather attract the introverted types.

UPSTAIRS FUNCTION ROOM

RESERVED FOR PRIVATE BOOKING.

7–TILL LAST ORDERS.

A landlord suddenly appeared beside the barmaid: a portly chap with a swollen gut like a giant marble, so perfectly contained, it appeared as if it might shoot down and pop out one of his trouser legs if he sneezed.

Pippa tried to catch his eye, lifting herself up on tiptoes to make herself even taller but he was focused on emptying a bag of halfpennies into the cashier tray, whistling the theme to Ski Sunday.

If I stood on this bar in just my undergarments, she wondered. If I removed every stitch of clothing, or, better still, dressed as a man, with a fake moustache and bowler hat, perhaps then I might get a bloody drink.

The only person who had acknowledged her presence was an older gentleman a few bar stools down.

He was immaculately dressed in a grey double-breasted pinstripe suit and a brown felt fedora hat, and was carrying a battered leather briefcase, pipe and paper. She’d been watching him out of the corner of her eye, plucking coins from a leather purse and lining them up along the bar as if preparing to play backgammon.

He ordered himself a barley wine and a packet of dry-roasted peanuts, the exact money—fifty-nine pennies—already counted out in front of him.

She couldn’t quite place him but was certain she recognised him from somewhere. His cologne—an assault of exotic spices and woods—seemed familiar too. It was Fabergé Brut. The same scent that Melvyn Prado-Lee, an editor she’d assisted at the Telegraph, would spritz himself liberally with, usually after heading out for a lunch meeting and coming back smelling of his mistress.

She’d been twenty-one years old, fresh out of Cambridge University with great prospects and even greater aspirations when she’d first met Melvyn—a man she would go on to encounter many times in her life—and she had yet to come across anyone she loathed more. She’d anagrammed his name once—something she liked to do when someone provoked a strong reaction in her. Some of her favourites over the years:

Eric Clapton. Narcoleptic.

Clint Eastwood. Old West Action.

Margaret Thatcher. That Great Charmer.

For Melvyn Prado-Lee, she’d conjured Pervy Old Man Eel. Couldn’t have been more apt.

The old fellow beside her lifted his barley wine from the bar, and in doing so revealed a small blue badge pinned to his lapel. A globe emblem wrapped in a laurel wreath, topped with the Crown jewels and the letters GCHQ. She knew it was an honorary badge that the top-secret intelligence organisation gave to all retired personnel, which meant that its owner was none other than Sir Derek Wadlow, the legendary codebreaker and international chess master himself. She had been to a cryptology lecture he gave at the Savile Club years ago. He was part of the team that cracked the Enigma machine at Bletchley Park.

Derek—now surely in his mid-eighties—tramped away from the bar, shuffling at an inordinately slow pace, as if he had dropped something very small and was scanning the ground for it. When he eventually reached the back of the pub, he slipped through the door leading to the function room upstairs.

Pippa couldn’t quite believe it.

Sir Derek Wadlow wanted to join her puzzle club? He was a veteran of Bletchley Park, a man who’d helped decipher enemy code, surely one of the most acclaimed cryptologists in Britain, perhaps even in the world. What a coup, what a terrific endorsement, and before they’d even got going, too.

The ambition behind her society was simple: to bring together like-minded puzzlers—cruciverbalists, enigmatologists, logicians, trivialists, riddlers—for a regular meet-up in the pub. Not just professionals, for they were few and far between—but enthusiastic amateurs, anyone who revelled in, and had the mental capacity for, fiendish games and challenges.

Ever since she’d become a professional compiler, Pippa had developed quite a following. Or at least the alter-ego she’d created for herself had. These days, there were dozens who would write to Squire of Highbury Hill, London, enclosing clippings of grids torn from the paper, marked with start and end times to show their varied competencies. Sometimes they’d even post hand-drawn puzzles of their own with cryptic clues for her to appraise, enclosing stamped-addressed envelopes for her to autograph their work, like a royal seal of approval.

A few weeks ago, she had posted out a dozen invitations to a select circle of celebrated puzzlers to join the inaugural meeting of the society. She’d encouraged them all to share the word with their own contacts—everyone was welcome, she had insisted. Or rather, Squire of Highbury Hill had insisted.

Murray Salter—the crossword editor at the Express—responded by return, promising to circulate the details to all his freelance compilers; Clement Banks—UK Scrabble League Champion 1967–1972—said he’d be sure to get the details printed in the programme of the next tournament he was in. Before long the invite had made it into periodicals and journals across the country and the RSVPs were flooding in.

Have you seen all the oddballs heading upstairs? Pippa heard the barmaid mutter to the landlord. Who did you say they were?

The landlord shrugged. I just take the bookings, Pam.

Pippa coughed lightly into her fist.

But they’ve got a name, haven’t they? the barmaid went on, oblivious. The Federation of something or other.

Give me strength, Pippa thought. Or a glass of Asti Spumante at the very least.

And did you see that old boy counting out his coins just now? the barmaid continued. Looks like he’d been saving up for weeks.

He’s a millionaire, Pippa wanted to say. The man is a multimillionaire because he helped saved this country with his brain. One of his little toes is cleverer than you two twerps put together.

The landlord was squinting at the bookings sheet he’d lifted from beside the till. The Fellow…Ship…Of…Hang on, I need my readers.

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, Pippa snapped, and the two of them turned to regard her.

Suddenly they saw her. She gave a flash of her hand as if to say hello, here I am.

Sorry, what was that?

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, she reiterated. It’s my society. It’s our inaugural session. And it starts… She glanced at her wristwatch. "In two and a half minutes. Now, could I please trouble you for a glass of something? I really ought to shake a leg and get up there."

Pippa unclipped her bag and pulled out her purse. She hated to be ignored, worse still to be ridiculed, but it was her nerves that were also getting the better of her.

I didn’t mean no offence nor nothing, the barmaid said. We usually have darts on Tuesdays, that’s all.

This one’s on the house, ma’am—

"Miss…please, Pippa corrected before she could stop herself. And that’s very kind. Do you have anything sparkling?"

The barmaid lifted her soda gun and pointed it at her. I’ve got tonic or soda. Whatcha fancy?

Moments later, steeling herself at the foot of the narrow, carpeted staircase, clutching a complimentary Campari and soda she didn’t really fancy, Pippa Allsbrook lifted her flannel skirt and ploughed her way up the stairs and into the next chapter of her life.

Chapter Three

An hour into Pippa’s wake and Clayton could honestly say he’d never seen the place so full. Amongst the melee were all eight of the current residents: Geoff Stirrup—their lead arithmetician—was showing Jean Watkins, Top Trivialist, and Earl Vosey, Chief Mazemaker, something out of his portfolio. It was a battered tan leather thing that he carried everywhere and contained all his latest mathematical musings, scrawled hastily on slips of green-gridded paper, which he would stuff inside in a very haphazard fashion. Clayton would occasionally find these little notes dotted about the house, covered in numbers, arrows, blank boxes and barely intelligible instructions. They made little sense to him but usually they’d end up appearing in one of the Fellowship’s quarterly pamphlets, on their blog, or in the external publications Geoff regularly contributed to. People seemed to go mad for them.

Both Jean and Earl looked totally nonplussed at whatever Geoff was demonstrating but were nodding vacantly. It was sometimes best to play along, otherwise you could get stuck with him for hours.

Dotted about the rest of the room were the others: Eric, Nigel, Martin and Hector—all chatting to the various guests. They included several illustrious puzzle champions, former Mensa committee members, clients, sponsors, cleaners, gardeners.

They’d all come to pay their respects, to honour the woman who’d established this society and turned it into a thriving commune where, in its heyday, it had been the biggest independent producer and distributor of puzzles anywhere in Europe.

Everyone seemed to have a glass in their hand, so Clayton was happy enough. So long as they were all enjoying themselves.

He pressed his back against the swinging service door into the scullery and re-emerged moments later bearing a silver tray of hors d’oeuvres: stuffed celery sticks, crab filo cups, cheese and pickled onion sticks.

Everyone had insisted they should get caterers in, but he wouldn’t hear of it. It had been a welcome distraction, if he was honest, pulling the spread together.

He placed the tray on the ottoman and poured himself a sherry from the trolley—a good one, not his usual Harveys Bristol Cream—then slid a cube of Cheddar from its cocktail stick and chewed the warm, moist chunk of cheese until it coated the insides of his mouth.

Hey, came a voice behind him.

Clayton turned to regard a young woman who had wedged herself into the corner of the room. Her face was faintly illuminated by the phone in her hand.

Oh, hello there, Clayton replied, lifting a finger and wagging it quizzically at her. It’s Amy, isn’t it?

Amber, she corrected.

He snapped his fingers in defeat. Almost got it. I’ve always been dreadful with names. Forgive me.

The young lady gave a tight grin.

She was wearing a black T-shirt with the words Hotel California emblazoned on the front and jeans slashed, presumably fashionably, at the knees.

Clayton had overheard the girl, who was granddaughter to Eric Stoppard—the wooden-puzzle master—explaining to someone earlier how she’d just got back from a year backpacking in Australia. She’d been working on fruit farms and at a surfing school and getting blind drunk almost every night. He couldn’t think of anything worse.

Standing in the corner, the two of them were, by at least fifty years, the youngest people in the room.

Eric Stoppard lived on the top floor of the Fellowship and largely kept himself to himself. He was a former mechanical engineer—sharp as they come—and a fine creator of all their wooden interlocking puzzles that always did particularly well at Christmas. The perfect gift for an uncle you barely knew.

At seventy-nine years of age, Eric had only recently been assigned the role of Minister for Mechanical Puzzles, when Tony Hargreaves, the previous occupier of the position, had moved to a luxury retirement home on the Costa del Sol. Tony still sent postcards monthly, much to everyone’s dismay.

It must be kinda weird, Amber announced, sipping from a bottle of Babycham and pulling a face as if it were poison. Living here with everyone at your age.

Not really, Clayton shot back. What would be weird about it?

Well… she began, casting her eye over his shoulder, gesturing to the scene going on behind them. A small group had congregated around the chesterfield, playing a lively round of Fictionary—one of Clayton’s favourite parlour games—while her grandad Eric had his head out the window, smoking a cigar.

I guess it depends what you consider weird, he replied, with a shrug. It’s perfectly normal to me, and everyone else who lives here.

"But aren’t you, like…young?"

Clayton gathered the edges of his jacket, secured a button into the wrong hole. I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything.

The girl shrugged. No reason, I suppose.

He was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Amber was looking at him in the way a historian might study an old coin, examining every inch, from Brylcreem to brogues.

Thanks for coming anyway, he said, keen to get on. Lovely to see you, Amy.

Amber.

Amber, sorry, yes. Take care now, won’t you.

As he made his way over to his friend Earl, he passed the Fictionary group. Someone shrieked out the word coddiwomple but he couldn’t make out the rest, and while he’d usually be the first to join in, he wasn’t in the mood for games today. As he made his way past the group, he saw the middle-aged lady, whom he didn’t recognise, but who had been staring at him all evening, perched on the arm of the sofa. On the top of her head was a black hat that looked a bit like the tyre of a small car. As he glanced back at her, their eyes briefly locked before she looked away again.

When he reached Earl, he muttered quietly into his ear, Who’s that woman back there? The one with the hat on, over my right shoulder?

Earl turned very deliberately in his seat, lifting the spectacles off his head to inspect the row behind.

"Don’t make it too obvious, Earl."

Earl flashed his hand at the lady. When he turned round, he was beaming. That’s Nance! Smart as a whip that one. She’s looking well.

But who is she?

Nancy? She lived with us for years, right up until… He closed his eyes briefly. Oh, must have been shortly before you turned up.

Clayton felt himself sit more upright. They were close? Pip and her?

Earl scoffed. Thick as thieves.

And what was her name again?

Nancy Stone. They used to call her the Queen of Quizzes.

Clayton glanced behind but their view was now obscured. Someone had started clinking a glass as if to make a speech, and the congregation of Puzzlemakers were starting to huddle round their former president in her velvet-lined box.

He wondered if he might catch Mrs. Stone afterwards, if it was worth seeing if she remembered hearing anything about the day he’d arrived at the Fellowship. It couldn’t hurt to try.

As he approached the coffin, he was pleased to see his friends holding a coupe of champagne in one hand and an egg-custard tart folded into a napkin in the other. Those were Pippa’s favourites.

We’re falling like dominoes, aren’t we? Hector quipped, gesturing his orange juice towards the casket and splashing some inadvertently on the body inside.

This one’s really knocked me for six, Earl added, still by Clayton’s side. It’s hard to comprehend, isn’t it?

Hector Haywood puffed out his cheeks in response. Another one bites the dust. The man was barely five feet tall and had a thick military moustache under his nose like a strip of Velcro. He would usually be wearing a paint-splattered flannel work-shirt and pair of slacks, but that evening he’d opted for a tatty charcoal suit.

Not just another one, though, is it? Clayton heard himself say.

Everyone turned in his direction, shuffling to allow him to enter their circle.

What’s that supposed to mean? Hector asked.

Well… Clayton began, feeling himself colour. If it wasn’t for Pip, none of us would be here, would we?

Jean and Earl—two of his closest comrades in the house—looked kindly towards him, lifting their drinks in agreement, but Clayton noticed Hector quietly scoff to himself, arching his fierce white brows to the ceiling.

The funny thing about Hector Haywood was that he wasn’t a puzzlemaker at all, not in the purest sense. He was an artist. His extensive range of jigsaws were, to several fellow residents’ great frustration, the Fellowship’s best-selling line to date. These technicolor paintings depicting coastal village scenes, baskets of yarn-tied kittens and kitsch corner shops had been reproduced on millions of jigsaw pieces and were mostly sitting unsolved in the back of wardrobes all over Britain. But while Hector’s jigsaws were always cheery, the man himself was the biggest misery going. He was permanently irritated by something or other, his conversational patter limited to an endless stream of negativity. In the last few weeks, following Pippa’s death, Clayton had started to find the man almost insufferable.

Well, while I’ve got everyone… Hector began again. We do have to start thinking about what’s next for the Fellowship. He leaned on his lacquered cane, drawing himself up to his full height. I know there’s talk of cancelling our spring fayre, but I really think we should press ahead.

For a while no one issued a word. Instead they dipped their heads and stood together in considered silence around the coffin.

A frail hand Clayton recognised as Jean’s curled around his side, pulled him into an embrace, and he could almost taste the Elnett hairspray as she rested her head briefly on his shoulder.

—

Jean Watkins was Chief Trivialist, had a plaque on her bedroom door upstairs saying so. She looked after all trivia-based products, was as