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I wished I could share my own optimism. I had spent a lot of time at Gad’s Hill overseeing security arrangements, and I knew it was like the Bank of England. The people who did this were good. Really good. It also made it kind of personal. The interview ended and I ducked under a SpecOps DO NOT CROSS tape to where Boswell was waiting to meet me.
“This is one hell of a mess, Thursday. Turner, fill her in.”
Boswell left us to it and went off to find something to eat.
“If you can see how they pulled this one off,” murmured Paige who was a slightly older and female version of Boswell, “I’ll eat my boots, buckles and all.”
Both Turner and Boswell had been at the Litera Tec department when I turned up there, fresh from the military and a short career at the Swindon Police Department. Few people ever left the Litera Tec division; when you were in London you had pretty much reached the top of your profession. Promotion or death were the usual ways out; the saying was that a LiteraTec job wasn’t for Christmas—it was for life.
“Boswell likes you, Thursday.”
“In what sort of way?” I asked suspiciously.
“In the sort of way that he wants you in my shoes when I leave—I became engaged to a rather nice fellow from SO-3 at the weekend.”
I should have been more enthusiastic, but Turner had been engaged so many times she could have filled every finger and toe—twice.
“SO-3?” I queried, somewhat inquisitively. Being in SpecOps was no guarantee you would know which departments did what—Joe Public were probably better informed. The only SpecOps divisions I knew about for sure below SO-12 were SO-9, who were Antiterrorist, and SO-1, who were Internal Affairs—the SpecOps police; the people who made sure we didn’t step out of line.
“SO-3?” I repeated. “What do they do?”
“Weird Stuff.”
“I thought SO-2 did Weird Stuff?”
“SO-2 do Weirder Stuff. I asked him but he never got around to answering—we were kind of busy. Look at this.”
Turner had led me into the manuscript room. The glass case that had held the leather-bound manuscript was empty.
“Anything?” Paige asked one of the scene-of-c
rime officers.
“Nothing.”
“Gloves?” I asked.
The SOCO stood up and stretched her back; she hadn’t discovered a single print of any sort.
“No; and that’s what’s so bizarre. It doesn’t look like they touched the box at all; not with gloves, not a cloth—nothing. According to me this box hasn’t been opened and the manuscript is still inside!”
I looked at the glass case. It was still locked tight and none of the other exhibits had been touched. The keys were kept separately and were at this moment on their way from London.
“Hello, that’s odd—” I muttered, leaning closer.
“What do you see?” asked Paige anxiously.
I pointed to an area of glass on one of the side panels that undulated slightly. The area was roughly the size of the manuscript.
“I noticed that,” said Paige. “I thought it was a flaw in the glass.”
“Toughened bullet-proof glass?” I asked her. “No chance. And it wasn’t like this when I supervised the fitting, I can assure you of that.”
“What, then?”
I stroked the hard glass and felt the shiny surface ripple beneath my fingertips. A shiver ran up my back and I felt a curious sense of uncomfortable familiarity, the feeling you might get when a long-forgotten school bully hails you as an old friend.
“The work feels familiar, Paige. When I find the perpetrator, it’ll be someone I know.”
