by Adam Blake
Kennedy nodded. She’d assumed as much.
‘Second, we want to know what, if anything, was actually taken. And if the answer is nothing, we want to know what the intruder was doing during his – or her – time on our premises. If something was vandalised or interfered with, that could be every bit as serious as a theft. Oh, and we’d like to know who was injured, of course,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘And third?’
‘We want you to find our intruder. And if appropriate, to secure an arrest.’
‘I’m not a police officer any more, Emil.’
‘I know that. Also, of course, I know why. We’d only ask you to put the full facts – the file, the evidence, everything you’ve found – into our hands. And then leave the rest to us. If we think it necessary, and desirable, we’ll put the matter in the hands of the police.’
‘Can I ask a stupid question?’
‘Always.’
‘Why aren’t the police on the case now?’
Gassan toyed with what was left of his cake. ‘This was a situation I inherited, obviously,’ he said carefully. ‘There was a police investigation, but it wasn’t considered to be very productive. Trespassing isn’t a crime unless actual damage is involved – and that was the only crime we could prove. The inquiry petered out, and the museum allowed it to do so. They’d already decided that it would be better to put the matter on a more discreet basis. Marilyn Milton was insistent that the museum’s trustees wanted me to deal with this matter personally – and that they wanted it done without any further recourse to official bodies or agencies.’
Kennedy had to smile. ‘So you thought of me?’
He returned the smile. ‘The most unofficial person I know.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m going to need to bring up the subject of money, because—’
‘Of course,’ Gassan exclaimed. ‘I apologise for not mentioning it sooner.’ He reached into his pocket, took out a piece of paper and handed it across the table to her. It was a cheque, already made out in her name, from the bank account of the Validus Trust. The figure, which was printed rather than handwritten, was twenty thousand pounds. Kennedy stared at the four identical zeros. The fact that they had another number in front of them immediately distinguished this job from her previous one.
‘Is that acceptable?’ Gassan asked.
‘Yes,’ she said bluntly. ‘Very. But I’d like a letter setting out the terms of my contract. No offence, but item three – finding your intruder – might turn out to be a tall order, if I can’t get any other leads on him. I don’t want to be working this case for ever. Or to have to give the money back.’
‘That’s perfectly reasonable. Marilyn indicated that this was a payment for four weeks of your time, on an exclusive basis insofar as that’s feasible. But if you have other cases—’
‘I don’t have any other cases. That was just bullshit.’
‘Oh. Well, you bullshit very well.’
‘Thank you. Who would I report to?’
‘You’ll report to me and I’ll report directly both to the museum board and to Validus. Their relationship to me is almost one of agency, in this respect – and the museum is very comfortable with that.
‘As to powers, I believe what I’m proposing to do is to deputise you. So you’ll be able to do anything that I could do. Talk to all of the staff. Have full run of the building. Full access to files and information.’
‘Consult other people outside the museum?’
The professor’s lips pursed slightly. ‘Where appropriate. And so long as absolute discretion is maintained. I think that’s a reasonable stipulation.’
‘Entirely. I’ll take the job.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it.’ Gassan threw his arms in the air and seemed almost to be about to lean over and hug her.
‘Okay,’ Kennedy said, forestalling that alarming possibility, ‘do you want to show me the scene of the crime?’
‘But of course.’
The professor stood and indicated with a sweep of his arm that Kennedy should follow him.
3
The picture of the museum’s storerooms that Kennedy had had in her mind was a very romantic one, she now realised. She’d imagined vast underground halls with Gothic arched ceilings but ultra-modern steel doors like the doors of bank vaults. Either that or the colossal warehouse of the first Indiana Jones movie, with endless wonders sealed and stacked in endless identical packing crates: an Aladdin’s Cave in camouflage colours.
The reality was much more mundane. The main storage facility wasn’t even on the museum site: it was an entirely separate building, Ryegate House, on St Peter’s Street in Islington, ten minutes away by cab. Kennedy wondered briefly why, in that case, Gassan had brought her to the British Museum at all, but the answer was obvious. He wanted to show off his good fortune, the prestige of his brand-new job, and he clearly felt that the Great Court made a better stage than the place they were now heading for.
He was right. The building in front of which the cab rolled to a stop was an anonymous brutalist block with a concrete façade only marginally enlivened by pebbledash. The effect might have been pleasant when the building was new: now, many of the rounded stones had fallen away, leaving recesses greened with moss. The effect was of a face pockmarked by disease.
Kennedy made some remark about the twelve-million-pound budget that Gassan had mentioned. It ought to run to a facelift, surely?
‘Oh, it does,’ the professor assured her earnestly. ‘But we don’t want to advertise what’s here. We’re very keen to be overlooked.’
He pointed to the sign beside the entrance. It simply read RYEGATE HOUSE, and it made no mention whatsoever of the British Museum. Yes, that had to count as effective camouflage.
Inside was a different story. The carpet in the foyer was deep and soft, and the doors were automatic, opening in front of them with a soft sigh of acquiescence. Kennedy could feel now how thick the concrete was under that erratic pebbledashing. It was there in the flatness of the acoustics, the instant deadening of all sounds both from within and from without.
The reception counter was the size of a small yacht. The woman on duty there was a stacked redhead whose white blouse was buttoned all the way up to the neck. She recognised Gassan and greeted him very civilly – even warmly – but she gave Kennedy a hesitant, searching look that bordered on open suspicion. Kennedy wondered whether the professor knew how big a hit he’d made in just one week. If the rest of the building was as keen on him as the reception desk was, he was sitting pretty.
Gassan introduced his guest with proprietorial pride. ‘This is Sergeant Kennedy, Lorraine. She’s here at the board’s request, to investigate the break-in. Could you please buzz Glyn Thornedyke and tell him we’ll need access to Room 37?’
They waited on the near side of a turnstile barrier. ‘Security falls to my brief,’ Gassan explained to Kennedy, ‘but Thornedyke coordinates the actual rota and superintends on a day-to-day basis, reporting directly to me.’ The speech seemed to Kennedy to be very much of a piece with Gassan introducing her as sergeant, despite the fact that she no longer had any rank at all: he liked to use the people around him as ramparts to build up his ego.
A door opened off to one side of them and a uniformed security guard appeared. He seemed to be barely out of his teens, with the overstretched rangy look that in girls is called coltish and in boys (if they’re lucky) is politely overlooked. His fair hair was worn in a severe military crew cut, but his blue eyes had a baby-doll clarity of colour that undercut the effect. He all but saluted as he presented himself to Gassan.
‘Rush, sir,’ he said. ‘Mr Thornedyke said you need me to open some doors.’
‘Actually,’ Kennedy said, ‘I think what I really need before anything else is a tour of the building. Would that be okay, Professor?’
‘By all means,’ Gassan said.
The young man looked doubtful. ‘I should be on the staff door,’ he said. ‘I
should probably check in with Mr Thornedyke before I—’
‘This is on my authority,’ Gassan huffed, dismissing the objection. ‘Sergeant Kennedy is a professional security consultant – an expert, with many years of police experience. We’re very lucky to have her and we need to facilitate her investigation in any way we can.’
The tour took a lot longer than Kennedy had expected. It seemed to cover all or most of the building, but it was hard to tell because the interior structure of Ryegate House was homogenous to the point of nightmare. It consisted of dozens of more or less identical rooms, high-ceilinged, cool, with energy-efficient lighting that came on as gradual as a sunrise; hundreds of yards of corridor with ID-swipe checkpoints at every turn and angle, and occasional fire doors that closed down the corridors into short stretches like narrower rooms. There was a subtle but pervasive smell that was hard to identify. It was a little like the passenger cabin of an aeroplane, Kennedy decided at last: like the air had been recycled many times, and was going to be recycled a few times more before being allowed to go about its business.
As they trekked through the storage facility, Rush extolled its wonders. Kennedy felt that he was trying for the casual assurance of an old hand, but it sounded as though he were parroting stuff from an orientation lecture. The security systems were really good, he said. In most respects, state-of-the-art. There were pressure and breach alarms on all external doors and windows, movement sensors in most rooms and at nodal points throughout the building, full electronic records of every key usage and every entry and exit.
‘CCTV?’ Kennedy asked – she hadn’t seen any cameras yet.
‘Oh yeah, everywhere,’ Rush assured her. ‘But if you’re looking for the cameras, you won’t see them. They’re built into corners, angles, mouldings and stuff. We use a system called CPTED, Sergeant Kennedy – Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. It’s like, you show people where your cameras are if you want to regulate behaviour in a big public space, right? In a shopping centre, say, or a multistorey car park. Big Brother is watching you, sort of thing. But we camouflage our cameras, because this is a sealed facility. Nobody unauthorised is going to come through here unless they’ve broken in. So the CCTV is meant to catch criminals in the act.’
Including your own employees, Kennedy thought. Because conspicuous cameras would do both things – deter criminals and catch transgressions. What they wouldn’t do was regulate the behaviour of people who worked with the collection on a day-to-day basis. This was a system that forestalled unpleasant surprises by treating everyone as the enemy.
What Rush never bothered to mention in the midst of all of these technological wonders was the collection itself; but as they moved from room to room, Kennedy couldn’t keep her gaze from wandering, drawn by massive sculptures, Native American totem poles, bark canoes, suits of armour. The smaller items, as she’d expected, were safely stored in packing cases that lined the walls of the rooms or were neatly stacked in miles of grey-steel shelving. The big, uncompromising things were sitting right out in the open.
Room 37 was one of the least remarkable in this respect. It was full of shelf units and boxes and nothing else. They glanced inside but didn’t go in, because Kennedy wasn’t ready to focus in on it yet. She wanted to get a decent overview of the place first.
‘Our environmental control is also state-of-the-art,’ Gassan said, as they walked on. ‘Temperature, humidity, light – they’re all regulated and monitored in real time.’
‘What are these?’ Kennedy asked. She pointed to a grey box on the wall, right next to the more familiar red box that was the fire alarm. It was identical in size and shape, but was labelled SECURITY where the other was labelled FIRE. Like the fire alarm, it had a rectangular glass insert, bearing the words PRESS HERE.
‘That’s another security feature,’ Gassan said. ‘Installed by my predecessor, Dr Leopold. Breaking the glass or pressing the button triggers a lockdown. All internal doors are deactivated. External doors and windows lock, and security shutters are lowered. It turns the building into a jailhouse, essentially.’
Rush was standing several yards further on, holding a door open for them. He fell in next to Kennedy, after Gassan had gone through. ‘Not all that much use,’ he told her, in a confidential murmur.
She looked at him. ‘How come?’
‘Well, it’s manually operated, for starters. It’s not tied to the movement sensors or the cameras. There’s no automatic triggering.’
Sotto voce or not, Professor Gassan had overheard them. ‘Because of the risk of injury to an intruder,’ he said, giving Rush a look of schoolmasterly disapproval before he turned his attention back to Kennedy. ‘We have legal and ethical responsibilities.’
‘The alarm is linked to a local police station, sir,’ Rush pointed out. ‘And the average response time is twelve minutes.’
‘The liability would still be ours,’ said Gassan.
Rush walked on ahead again. He knew when he was beaten.
He rounded off the tour by taking them up onto the roof. He pointed out the pressure and movement alarms, CCTV rigs and the grid of outward-tilted razor wire around the whole roofspace to a height of five feet.
‘This is all new,’ Rush told Kennedy. ‘We used to be pretty vulnerable up here. Now we’re …’ He hesitated.
‘State-of-the-art?’ she hazarded.
‘Yeah, really. It’s pretty amazing.’
Kennedy took a little wander, looking for any points of entry. There were air-conditioning ducts big enough to take a human body, but their mouths were covered by heavy metal grilles, riveted into place, and there was no sign that any of them had been touched. The door by which they’d accessed the roof was plate steel, with a combination lock, a key lock and three padlock-secured bolts. There wasn’t even a handle on this side.
The two men were waiting patiently for her to complete her inspection. Kennedy walked to the edge of the roof, scanned the ground below and the approaches. The building had no near neighbours. It stood on its own ground, with at least six feet of clearance on all sides. No trees or telegraph poles or lamp stanchions for an intruder to shinny up. Drainpipes, obviously, but at intervals along their length Kennedy could see the spiky crowns of anti-climb brackets. She could also see the cameras swivelling back and forth on their mounts, quartering the landscape below them.
She went back to Rush and Gassan. ‘You didn’t catch anything on these, I assume?’ she said, pointing at the cameras.
‘From the night of the break-in, you mean?’ Rush shook his head. ‘No. We went through all the outside footage, right from when we locked the doors the night before. Nothing. Not a dicky bird.’
‘Okay,’ Kennedy said. ‘I’m done up here. Thanks for waiting.’
‘So did you figure anything out yet?’ Rush asked her, almost shyly.
His faith in the detective’s art was touching. ‘Not yet,’ Kennedy said. ‘But I’d like to see the CCTV footage from Room 37 – the segment where your intruder shows up on camera. And then I’d like to go back in and take a proper look at the room itself.’
They went to the surveillance room, which was about the size of a broom closet. Rush opened up a locked steel cupboard and selected a disc from a hundred or so that were racked there.
There was only one seat, which Gassan insisted Kennedy take, even though this meant Rush having to squat to operate the DVD playback. He slid the disc into a reader that was a blank steel slab without controls, opened up an interface window on the computer right next to it and typed in a time signature. A second window popped open on the screen: the camera playback, delivered in an area about the size of a credit card.
As the image resolved, Kennedy found herself looking at a space that could have been any one of the dozens of rooms she’d just walked through.
‘Room 37,’ Rush said, with just a hint of melodrama. ‘Night of Monday the twenty-fourth.’
The point of view was from up near the ceiling. A shelving unit
bisected the field of vision, so that they were looking down two parallel aisles. Everything was so still, the image might have been a freeze-frame except for the numbers of the time stamp cycling at top left.
‘Can you make this any bigger?’ Kennedy asked.
Rush fiddled with drop-down menus, but nothing happened. ‘Sorry. I don’t know the system that well.’
A figure came abruptly into view. Dressed from head to foot in black, with a black balaclava, it was the stereotype special ops agent of popular fiction. The eerie incongruity raised a slight prickle on Kennedy’s scalp. Despite what Gassan had said earlier, it was impossible to tell whether she was looking at a man or a woman – although whoever it was must be young and strong. The figure scaled the shelf unit as though it were a ladder, pushed at something that was off-screen and then hauled itself through, out of sight.
The whole sequence covered no more than twenty seconds.
Rush rewound to the moment when the figure disappeared off the top of the screen, and froze the image.
‘Ceiling panel,’ he said, tapping the monitor. ‘He went up into the drop ceiling.’
‘And then?’
‘No idea. We looked up there, but there was nothing, no trace of him.’
‘And has anyone been allowed into the room since the break-in?’ Kennedy asked.
‘Well, we went in. The security team, I mean. Right after we saw the camera footage. Then the police came and made a search of the room. And while the police were still here, some clericals did a count to see if anything was missing – but that was under police supervision. Since then the room has been permanently off-limits.’
‘Okay,’ said Kennedy. ‘Then I guess that’s where we go next.’
4
It was at this point that Gassan peeled off, with apologies, to deal with some other work he had to finish before he left for the evening. He asked Kennedy to drop in on him when she was done with her inspection – an injunction that Kennedy pretended not to hear.
