The Victoria Vanishes

∨ The Victoria Vanishes ∧

43

Beneath the Antiquities

The British Museum was the oldest public museum on the planet.

It had been built to house the purchases and gifts collected from around the world by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, items of such antiquity that appreciating the convoluted circumstances of their history had become a challenge in itself. Almost every exhibit told an extraordinary story, from the graceful Portland Vase, produced before the birth of Christ only to be smashed into two hundred pieces by a drunken sailor in 1845 and then painstakingly reassembled, to the Lindow Man, a two-thousand-year-old peasant preserved in the acids of a Cheshire peat bog.

It was not a particularly friendly or accessible museum. Artefacts withheld their secrets, and the weight of lost empires hung heavily about the remains. A mere stroll through chambers of glass cabinets taught little, and left no impression; the museum worked best when no more than half a dozen objects were examined at one time.

Janice Longbright and Jack Renfield had managed to get themselves admitted, but the girl who had opened the side door thought Masters had gone for the night, and went off to look for him in the direction of the Egyptian Hall.

“I’m not going to wait for her,” said Renfield. “She could be up to something dodgy. He’ll be out of the toilet window before we can grab hold of him.”

“He’s a senior curator and lecturer at one of the world’s most prestigious institutions,” said Longbright, studying the Grecian statues at the top of the stairs. “He doesn’t leap out of lavatory windows. You have a suspicious mind.”

“I’m a bloody copper. Come on, let’s have a shufti. You’re going to have trouble keeping up with me in those shoes. I can’t believe they let you get away with breach of uniform regulations like that.”

“I’ve always worn heels on duty; it’s my look. Mr Bryant says he believes in the foolishness of consistency.” Longbright reluctantly followed her opposite number up the south staircase. Dominating the entire landing was a white marble discus thrower, devoid of its correct setting, out of place and time.

“You don’t have to get all toffee-nosed about it, Janice. I know where you come from – you’re South London workingclass just like me. Either you want to catch a lawbreaker, in which case you do everything within your power to do so, or you’re happy to let him get away.”

“We don’t usually do a lot of running about,” she said lamely. Renfield made her realise how sheltered she had been at the PCU. There had been one hundred and eighty murders in the capital over the last year. Two and a half thousand reported rapes. Nearly two hundred thousand instances of violence against the person. And nearly one million men and women in the Met. Perhaps now she would have to go back into the force and deal with the crimes they faced every day of their working lives.

“Do you know what this bloke looks like, Janice?”

“I’d recognise him, but you’re going the wrong way. He’ll be in the basement at the back of the building, where the researchers’ offices are.” She hunted about for the correct avenue. “Down here.”

“This isn’t the way my old squad would have gone about it,” grumbled Renfield. “If she’s with Masters, do we take them both in for questioning? As far as I know, they haven’t broken any law.”

“We talk to them honestly, Renfield; that’s what the PCU does best. It’s not always about following rules.”

“Yeah, I figured that much out. This geezer’s not dangerous, is he?” Renfield tried the door opposite, but it was locked. “She’s not at risk? Not that I’m bothered. If we find ‘em and he cuts up rough we’ll be all right, ‘cause you’re big, I’m stocky and he’s just a bookworm. Now which way?”

“Left here.” Hopping to pull her shoe strap back in place, she led them along a harshly lit passage painted in searing stripes of cadmium yellow.

“How do you know where to go?”

“Mr Bryant has a lot of friends who use these offices. Restorers, engravers, historians.” She tried a heavy oak door as they passed, but it failed to open. “He sounded worried, and when he gets like that I know there’s something going on in his head that he hasn’t told us about. I think Masters should be in one of the chambers along here.”

“You all seem to have so much respect for him, but he doesn’t do a lot, does he, your Mr Bryant?”

“People either get him or they don’t; he’s old school. He does things quietly, in his own way. Doesn’t like to waste words or expend unnecessary energy. He believes in unfashionable concepts – grace, calm, gentility, tolerance, understatement.”

“Then he’s out of step with the world, and he’ll get trodden on.”

“I thought you were going to try to understand.”

“I’m still biting my tongue sometimes, okay? What are you doing?”

“I’m calling him.” She pressed an ear hard against her cell phone. “The reception’s terrible down here. Can you hear me? Yes, we’re there now, Masters is supposed to be somewhere nearby. What? We’ll try it, but you need to get here as soon as you can.”

“What did he say?” asked Renfield as Longbright closed her cell phone.

“He says we’re to try rooms twenty-one hundred to twenty-one forty.” Longbright pointed to the corridor ahead. “And he thinks Jackie Quinten’s life is in the balance.”