After a time Loss clears his throat. ‘You didn’t have to send me home. I was completely fine.’
‘You looked as if you were about to collapse, sir.’
‘I admit I was tired, but a cup of coffee would have sorted me out.’
Stone snorts in derision.
‘A
skip
of coffee wouldn’t have sorted you out, sir. You were dead on your feet.’
‘I was fine.’
‘By the time the driver got in the car you were snoring.’
‘I was just resting my eyes.’
‘Asleep.’
‘Resting my eyes.’
They fall into a tense silence. Loss has the distinct impression that his partner is smirking, but does not turn his head to check. After a couple of minutes the door is opened and a thin woman walks in and shakes their hands. She has a firm grip and reminds Loss vaguely of his primary school teacher. She is wearing a smart two-piece skirt suit, and smells of old books.
‘Professor Mummer,’ the woman speaks in a clipped, RP voice. ‘Awfully sorry to have kept you waiting.’
‘No problem, professor. I understand you’ve been told why we’re here?’
‘Absolutely. I was informed last night. In fact, I half expected someone to come immediately, once I saw on the news what had happened.’
Stone winces at the waves of triumphant vindication washing over her from her boss’s direction.
‘Still, never mind. You’re here now. It gave me time to locate the items. Please, follow me.’
Loss and Stone follow Professor Mummer out of the room and through the corridor. Loss is surprised when, instead of entering the museum proper, the professor leads them to an ancient-looking lift, and presses the brass call button. There’s a clunk of machinery from somewhere within the building as the mechanism comes to life.
‘Actually, this is quite exciting for me. One gets so wrapped up in the day-to-day running of the museum that one forgets that it’s even there.’
The detectives have no idea what she is talking about, but aren’t worried by this. They are worried by the lift. It doesn’t have any doors, and they can see into the shaft, where the cables supporting the carriage are writhing like snakes. It seems so old that Stone suspects the museum was built around it. As the lift arrives they don’t feel any better. The contraption is made out of wood, and has a dim light protected by coarse meshing attached to its wall.
‘Isn’t it marvellous?’ Professor Mummer steps into the cab. As she walks in it dips slightly.
Tentatively, they enter. Stone is appalled to discover there are no buttons; just a large brass handle, with ‘up’ and down’ written either side of its ambit. Once inside, the professor beams at them, and then slams the handle into the ‘down’ position. There is a sickening lurch, and then the cab begins to descend with a worrying grating sound. It is a few moments before the detectives can take their eyes off the wall in front of them and pay attention to what the professor is saying.
‘I suppose it’s obvious, really. We get so many artefacts that we simply haven’t the room to display them all. Also, fashion being what it is, some things just go out of vogue, as it were.’
‘So they’re not just stored in some back-room?’ Stone asks.
‘Oh, goodness, no. These chaps are in the catacombs! Underneath the museum are several basements where we keep all the exhibits not currently needed. There are literally miles of tunnels down here.’
Something fires once more in Loss’s brain, but doesn’t catch. The wall in front of them disappears upwards, and is replaced by a dimly lit stone corridor, and the lift stops abruptly. As they all get out of the lift, Loss makes a private promise to himself never to get in it again.
‘In fact, many of these tunnels were here before the museum. As you know, London has been in existence for over a thousand years, building over and over itself. There are underground rivers, the Fleet, for instance, that were once above ground, and tunnels under London that were once streets.’
There is a small buzzing in the back of Loss’s brain, like a thought-mosquito, a relentless whine that is beginning to whirr its way forward. A short trill from his sergeant’s phone indicates that she has received a message.
‘How come your phone works down here?’ he asks.
‘Oh, the entire museum is Wi-Fi bubbled,’ the professor replies airily, before Stone can answer. ‘All the mod cons here.’
‘It’s the boss, sir,’ says Stone, an unconscious look of mild disgust on her face. ‘Apparently, he’s found some expert in gesture interpretation and,’ she squints at her phone, “emotion categorisation of the image”. Whatever that is. He wants us to go there once we have finished up here.’
‘Ah, here we are!’ The professor opens a door, and the three of them enter another tunnel. Stone gives a low whistle. The tunnel walls are lined with grey metal storage cabinets crammed together with roller handles on the side, and the floor is trammed with rails to allow the cabinets to be separated, granting access to both sides.
‘Bloody hell, there’s thousands of them!’
‘Quite. We store them this way because it’s easier to catalogue. There are over a million individual items down here, from suits of armour to shrunken heads. Really, it’s a tribute to the archiving team that we haven’t lost anything. Ah! This is the one we want.’
They stop beside a cabinet, which is identical to all the other cabinets, bar the ID number on the front. The professor consults her clipboard, and then pulls open the second drawer down.
‘Well, would you look at that?’ Stone says quietly.
Inside the drawer are the two Burmese hand scythes that caused so much mayhem on the Underground. Resting between them on the green baize is a business card with the word ‘Tuesday’ written on it, and on top of the card is a glass specimen slide. Stone takes a pair of nitrile gloves out of her pocket and puts them on. Gingerly she lifts out the business card and turns it over. On the back is a hand-drawn smiley face. Next she lifts out the specimen slide. Even in the low-watt overhead light in the bunker basement of the museum, the whorls and friction ridges of the single fingerprint are visible.
A woman on the
World Service
is talking about earwigs. Apparently in French, they’re called ‘ear piercers’. Only in
French
, obviously. The reason they got their name was because people used to believe that they went in through the ear, burrowed through to the brain, and laid their eggs.
I fucking love the
World Service
. Here I am, living in the tunnels under the city, and I have a radio station that’s more bizarre than I am. One moment it will be talking about child soldiers in the Sudan, and the next it’s all about the earwig. Priceless.
I get up from my cot and swipe the keypad, silencing the radio, and tuning into what’s happening above.
London is a war zone.
All the rape machines are on the run, and victim-news has spread from the East End to the whole of London and beyond. All over the capital, gangs of young girls are roaming the streets armed with spray paint. It’s like slut-shaming in reverse. Names and dates are being painted on walls in letters of red four-feet high.
I love it.
If you fuck people over you’re going to get fucked over. Hard fact.
At least these girls have clawed back a little bit of respect. Now, what happened to them is not hidden. Now, they don’t think it’s their fault. It’s not going to make them better, nothing can do that. Once you’ve had your soul ripped out you can’t put it back in again.
But at least they might be able to live inside their own skins.
Start thinking of their bodies as their own again.
A drop in the ocean. But a drop.
I can’t even get that.
The bad people are going to start coming for me soon. I’ve fucked them up good and proper; embarrassed them in front of their peers. They’re going to start taking me seriously now. I’ve fucked up their business. I’ve scattered their worker drones. All in all, they’re not going to be happy bunnies.
They’ll get someone from outside. They’ll have to. Someone who is not connected.
Not connected to the man.
Not connected to the police the man must pay to let him stay in business.
Someone who takes murder seriously.
Someone like me, really.
‘Right. She’s just rubbing our noses in it now.’
‘I have absolutely no idea how this could have happened.’ Professor Mummer says, clearly upset.
After DS Stone placed the specimen slide in a plastic evidence bag, they put away the knives, ready to be picked up and catalogued in situ by the lab rats. As they walked out, they could clearly see another calling card blu-tacked to the inside of the door, with ‘Tuesday’ boldly embossed on it. Loss feels he is having the piss taken out of him.
‘And you’re telling me you have no CCTV down here whatsoever?’ he is incredulous.
‘I’m afraid not, Inspector.’
‘So anyone can come down here, take some of this stuff, and then just waltz out with no one being any the wiser?’
Professor Mummer looks shocked. ‘Absolutely not! The British Museum contains some of the rarest, and most valuable, artefacts from Britain’s past and across the world. Many of the exhibits are irreplaceable. All the staff are security-checked. There are guards on every exit, both electronic and human. On the floor above there are cameras just about everywhere. It would be absolutely impossible for someone to steal any of these items.’
The three of them stare at Tuesday’s calling card for an awkward moment, and then Stone says, ‘So who
does
have access down here?’
‘Oh. Well, the back-room staff, of course. The people who take the material from front of house to storage. And the cleaners need to keep things dust-free. Make sure there’s no mould and whatnot. Security personnel, I imagine.’
‘Quite a lot, then.’
‘I suppose. The Museum is a small village, really.’
Loss is growing tired. More tired. Stone puts on another pair of nitrile gloves, carefully removes the calling card from the door, and places it with the other in the evidence bag.
‘Well, would it be OK if we called in
our
back-room staff? You know, just to search for prints, check for magic dust. See if
Mission Impossible
paid a visit.’
‘There’s no need for sarcasm,’ says Professor Mummer, her lips straightening in disapproval. ‘Judging by the news, you don’t seem to be doing too well yourself!’
Loss sighs. ‘Point taken.’ They begin to walk back through the dim corridors. The professor mutters to herself. Loss doesn’t blame her; her castle has been breached and she has no explanation how. He knows how she feels.
With a jolt he bumps into Stone, who has stopped abruptly.
‘I thought you said you didn’t have any CCTV down here?’ she says.
‘We don’t.’
‘What’s that then?’ Loss looks to where she is pointing. Hidden in a dark well of shadow, angled at a dull grey metal door, is a tiny security camera, its red ‘active’ light glowing. There’s no wire leading from it, so he guesses it’s the type that relays its information wirelessly. He looks at the door. Although it’s battered and looks as if it hasn’t been used for years, it has been fitted with a brand-new mortice lock.
‘Tell me, professor, if the goods lift is the only way in or out of here, where does this door lead to?’
‘Ah! Well, that’s very interesting. Did you know that the British Museum used to have its very own tube station?’
Click. And a light goes on in DI Loss’s brain.
The world is moving too fast for Lily-Rose, but that’s ok.
She is curled up on the sofa with her mum, watching TV. Watching programmes on an actual television is quite a novel experience for her. She is used to consuming media on her phone, or on her laptop or tablet. Having to sit in one place, watching TV adds a level of oddness that fits her present state of mind.
Between them is a large bowl of ‘skinny popcorn’; popcorn with no sugar or fat in it. Just salt. They are both drinking Pepsi Max.
Every talk show. Every news and current affairs programme headlines the consequences of what they are calling the ‘victims reclaiming of the city’. On the digital news channels it isn’t just the bulletins, it’s the entire news. Nothing else. Just a rolling programme showing the same footage over and over again. Interviewing more and more people. And they’re all asking the same questions.
How could this have happened?
Where were the parents, the grandparents?
Where was the church, the mosque, the synagogue?
Where were the schools, the social services?
The government?
London is in a fire-storm. The gang-bangers are getting thrown out of their homes, barred from shops. Their names are all over the media, with blacked-out faces and dark hints of gangland atrocities.
The schools are ghost buildings; parents keeping their children away, saying that they’re not safe. That their children are at risk.
Lily-Rose and her mother watch as borough after borough starts to join in the movement. Images of young girls marching down the street armed with spray cans. Names tagged on school walls. On the side of bridges.
And then there are the homeless.
Not the mad drunks. Not the confused ranters or the bag ladies that smell of urine. Not the ones the media portray as a different species, and so don’t feel morally responsible for, but the kids. The runaways. The grifters. The lost boys and girls. The media is all over them. They are interviewed at night in underpasses, with stuttering neon street light scattering their expressions. They are interviewed in midnight cafes, where the smoking ban never happened, and the only purpose of the food is to remind you not to eat. They are interviewed in abandoned barges-cum-dosshouses, the waves from the Thames
snuckin
g hollowly against the metal hull.
And they are made to look almost attractive, these homeless. These children, with their faces in half darkness, and their streetwise looks: a secret society that sees everything happening on the street that we don’t. The media loves these children. It makes them out to be extras from Oliver! Happy Baker Street irregulars. It doesn’t mention the home abuse or the frostbite from a winter on concrete. It doesn’t mention the reek of trench foot, or the casual brutality that happens in the hostels. It makes them look like they want to be there. As if they are what they are on purpose.