Murder at the Museum Page 10

  ‘Well, Agatha Oddlow – you did it. You did it, child!’

  She puts her arms round me in a quick hug, and I can barely believe that I’m getting a hug from the professor. Not that she is cold or uncaring, but she is usually very … professional. Mostly I have to make do with a small smile, or a nod, or a pleased tone of voice. This is quite new. I’m not sure how comfortable I am with both the professor and Mr Zhang behaving differently from usual.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. It sounds a bit weak, but nothing could sum up the mixture of emotions I’m experiencing right now.

  She turns to the nurse who brought me in. Of course, I realise, this is not a nurse at all, but another Guild member in uniform.

  ‘Agatha, I’d like to introduce you to Sofia Solokov. Until a moment ago, she was the youngest member of the Guild, in its entire history. I’m afraid to say, Sofia, that your record has just been broken.’

  I turn to look at the girl who has stepped up beside me. She has long black hair tied back in a ponytail and is observing me out of dark, glittering eyes. She does not look pleased.

  ‘Congratulations.’ The word sounds anything but congratulatory.

  Sometimes you just know that you’re not going to get on with someone. I had this feeling immediately when I met Sarah Rathbone, before she’d even said anything. Although we’ve only been in each other’s presence for a few minutes, I already know that I’m not going to get on with Sofia Solokov.

  The professor continues. ‘Sofia is just nineteen, but she is a full agent already, as she’s completed her training. You still have to do that. So I think there could be no better role model for you than Sofia.’

  I mumble something in agreement, but I’m not ready for what comes next.

  ‘And that is why I have assigned the task of mentoring you to Sofia. She will be responsible for training you, looking after you, and inducting you into the Guild. If you have any questions, direct them to her first.’

  I freeze. This is not welcome news. I had assumed, since Professor D’Oliveira was my main contact for the Guild, the person who I always spoke to, that she would be my mentor. Not to mention the fact that she was my mother’s mentor. Why won’t she be training me? Before I can say anything, the professor picks up on the sense of surprise I can’t keep from crossing my face as I look between her and Sofia.

  ‘I am an old woman, Agatha. You need a more energetic mentor. Ms Solokov will be a much better match for you.’

  I can’t say I’m pleased with this turn of events, but I push it to the back of my mind. I’ve got the thing that I most wanted – access to the Guild’s file rooms in a secret bunker deep under London. Using that, I can find out all about Mum. It’s this that I address immediately.

  ‘Professor, I know that I only just passed; I know that there will be a lot of other things to do, but … is there any chance I can visit the file rooms?’

  The professor smiles a little sadly. ‘I am afraid, Agatha, that you are setting too much store by what is in your mother’s files. You will not bring her back by finding out more about her life in the Guild.’

  ‘I know that, but … maybe there’s something that will explain what happened to her?’ I look the professor in the eye. ‘You know she didn’t die in a bike accident, or her bike wouldn’t have been immaculate afterwards.’

  The professor blushes slightly. Then she nods. ‘You are right. You do understand, however, that anything you find in the files remains the property of the Gatekeeepers’ Guild?’

  ‘Of course – I promise not to take anything.’

  ‘Nor to share any information with anyone external to the Guild – even your father?’

  I hesitate, but my desire to know the truth wins out. ‘I promise.’

  There’s a noise from Sofia at my shoulder, a sort of ‘Hmph’.

  ‘Yes, Sofia? Do you have something to say?’

  ‘It’s just that, Professor, new recruits aren’t usually given the freedom of the file rooms …’

  My eyes snap round to look at Sofia, and I can’t keep the look of anger out of them.

  She narrows her eyes at me, as though in challenge.

  ‘No, you are right, Sofia, we do not normally give recruits the run of the file rooms,’ the professor says.

  My heart sinks and my hands clench involuntarily at my sides.

  ‘However,’ she goes on, ‘we are not allowing Agatha the freedom to wander willy-nilly through the file rooms – she will be chaperoned by the two of us.’

  I breathe a sigh of relief. The professor starts to walk, and I follow her. We go through a door at the back of the office, into a corridor, through several fire doors and into a part of the building that doesn’t seem to be maintained by anyone until we get to a small lift door set into a concrete wall. The professor fumbles around in her pockets for a minute, then pulls out a small key, which she inserts into a panel. When she turns it, a light comes on behind the down-arrow button. She presses the button, and there’s a gentle whirr from behind the door as the lift starts to ascend towards us.

  I want to say something, to have some sort of conversation, for politeness’ sake. But with Sofia there, and with my mind so fixed on where I’m about to go, I can’t think of a single thing to say. It would seem banal to talk about the weather as we’re set to descend into the secret depths of the Guild’s headquarters under London.

  The lift arrives, there’s a ping, and the metal doors slide open. The cubicle inside is dusty, and can scarcely have been used since it was installed. We step in, the doors close, and the lift begins what turns out to be a very long descent. I’ve read that there are some skyscrapers in the world, such as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai or the One World Trade Center in New York, that have such incredibly fast and efficient lifts that you’d barely know you’d travelled hundreds of metres in a matter of seconds.

  This is not one of those lifts.

  It rumbles and rattles for a good thirty seconds before my ears pop once, then twice, and we keep going down, down, down. It’s weird to think I had no idea this was here – that I’ve passed by the blood donor centre a hundred times or more, without realising the building held this secret access to the world of the Gatekeepers.

  After about two minutes have passed, my ears pop one last time, then the lift seems to slow. It rattles, judders, and then comes to a bumpy stop.

  The doors open.

  We’re in a dimly lit corridor, recognisable to me as the work of the Guild, but not an area that I’ve visited before.

  ‘Come along then,’ the professor says, marching forward with her walking stick.

  Sofia and I walk deferentially behind her, and I catch Sofia glancing sideways at me. There’s something familiar about her, I realise now. I didn’t catch it when I first met her, dressed in her nurse’s uniform, and I didn’t catch it with the surprise of discovering that she was a Guild agent.

  But it’s something nevertheless.

  Have I met her before? Did she used to go to St Regis – someone I remember from my early days there? Or someone I might have seen in old photographs of the school? She looks like she might have been good at games – running and jumping, hitting balls with a stick across a field, and whacking people in the shins along the way. It’s not inconceivable that she might feature in some of the photographs of the lacrosse team from a few years ago, or else the polo team, galloping around the country to bring glory to St Regis.

  I file it away for now, because there are more important things afoot. We march down several corridors, and pass through several doors, each one of which the professor opens with a different key. Finally, she opens a door with her Guild key, and we step into a small corridor which smells of paraffin and grease. As we enter, Sofia closes the door behind us, and lights come on, stretching down the tunnel, and I can see what is in front of us.

  It’s a tiny miniature railway. I’ve ridden on these before – at fairs, when I was younger – but I didn’t expect to see one down here. It looks out of pl
ace in the sober concrete passage. The professor strides forward and, rather awkwardly, lowers herself until she is straddling the miniature steam engine, fiddling with the dials and valves until I see a blue flame erupt in the engine’s firebox, and steam start to wisp and curl from the funnel.

  Sofia marches over and sits down, astride one of the ‘carriages’, reeling in her long legs until her feet are perched neatly on the side plates.

  She gives me a hard stare, one eyebrow raised. ‘Are you always going to be this slow?’ she snipes. I purse my lips and stride over, swing my leg over the carriage two behind hers, and take hold.

  ‘Here we go!’ the professor calls as the engine chuffs into life and we start to move forward.

  It seems incredibly slow to begin with, and I wonder why on earth they bothered to put it here. Even at the professor’s slower pace, we could be walking faster than this. But then we start to pick up speed, more and more, and the acceleration goes on far longer than I could have anticipated.

  The rails underneath us – each of which is barely thicker than a chocolate bar – start to rattle in an alarming manner. The walls of the tunnel begin to blur, and air whips my hair around my face and stings my eyes. I grip on tightly to the carriage, trying to tuck myself down against the wind. I’m careful to pitch my body right or left as the engine hurtles forward, navigating bends. We go through a maze of winding tunnels, and, as uncomfortable as the ride is, I can’t deny the excitement of travelling at speed through this underground world. I think about how long it would have taken to travel this distance on foot.

  Finally, seeing a red light in the distance, the professor applies the brakes to begin our deceleration. There’s a screech of metal. The rattle of the rails gives one last kick, like the end of a spin cycle, and we coast to a stop in front of a set of broad stone steps leading up to an imposing door.

  The professor chuckles as she rises stiffly from her seat.

  ‘I always love doing that – to be honest, I only picked the donation centre as the solution so I could get a chance to drive the train.’

  She grins at me. And I grin back. I’m reminded that while I’ve become caught up in my need to learn the truth about Mum, there’s also a lot of fun to be had as a member of the Guild. I’m looking forward to getting to know all about it. Sofia doesn’t look quite so impressed.

  We step up to the door, which is big and black with a silver knocker set into the centre. It looks like the kind of entryway you might see in Downing Street or Buckingham Palace – an official, serious door. I won’t be surprised if there are armed guards positioned behind it.

  The professor doesn’t take out a key this time, but raps briskly on the silver knocker, steps back a pace, and waits. Though there’s no visible peephole, there must be some kind of CCTV watching us, because, after a moment’s wait, we hear the sound of bolts unlocking and bars sliding, and then the black portal opens, admitting a bright shaft of light into the tunnel. It momentarily dazzles me.

  I glance over to see the professor and Sofia holding their hands up to their eyes, shielding themselves from the glare.

  A voice comes from behind the door: ‘Good afternoon, Professor.’

  I take in the figure standing sentinel behind the door. I was quite right – the man has a service pistol and an extendable truncheon at his belt. Round his back, I glimpse what looks like a Taser and a canister of teargas.

  Much of the underground network that I’ve explored has been completely unprotected. I suppose it would be impractical to have someone patrolling every tunnel, every door, every lift shaft and staircase to the surface. Instead, they rely on solid doors, well-maintained locks, and keys like my own, which seem to hold some secret, because one very simple key unlocks an enormous array of doors. Liam says he thinks it has to do with some kind of microchip, and that we might find out more if we put it through an X-ray scanner, but I can’t bear the thought of damaging Mum’s key in any way, so we never have. In any case, this door is clearly too important not to be guarded.

  We step forward, into the light, and our feet sink into a plush carpet. Stretching out in front of us is a corridor lined with the same elaborately woven floral carpet. There are chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and down each side of the corridor are a number of doors, each set in an ornate frame.

  I can’t believe I’m back here at last – in the hallowed headquarters of the Gatekeepers’ Guild. My mum was here. I picture her striding along the wood-panelled passageway. That is how I remember her – purposeful and focused. And laughing – she laughed a lot. Whatever is hidden in those files, it must take me at least a step closer to understanding how and why she died. What was she working on that got her into such terrible trouble?

  The door closes behind us, and I jerk out of my reverie. I notice that the guard who let us in has a counterpart on the other side of the doorframe too. He doesn’t say anything to us, but Dorothy and Sofia hand over identification cards, and Dorothy explains that I’m attending as her guest. The second guard, the one who hasn’t spoken, escorts us down the corridor, past the dozen or so unmarked doors, until we get to the right one, and are shown into another grand corridor.

  In yet more silence we walk through a maze of these corridors, and, after a while, I wonder how anyone can possibly know which way they’re going. All the way, I’m drawing a map in my head, to call up again later, but it would only take me along the route that we’ve taken – there are countless other doors and corridors leading in all directions.

  Left, left, right, left, right, right, left, straight ahead, left again …

  I notice the professor glancing sideways at me, with something of a smile on her face, judging my reaction to all of this. She must realise how overwhelming it is. Of course, I know that the organisation’s agents are codebreakers and lovers of puzzles in general, so in a way all of this makes sense. Having an exceptional, even photographic, memory, is almost a prerequisite for a Gatekeeper.

  At last, still in complete silence, we arrive at our destination – a door unlike the myriad others we’ve already passed. It’s bigger, for a start, and has an elaborate locking system on it, controlled by some sort of panel with switches to the right of the door. There are two more guards on this door, more heavily armed than the ones we’ve seen so far, and another guard sits at the console, presumably operating the locks.

  Except for the guards, we’ve seen nobody in this labyrinth up till now, but here there’s a small queue waiting to enter. We have to leave our bags in lockers and then walk through scanners to make sure we aren’t carrying phones or cameras. The guards check the identification cards of everyone in the queue, taking particular care to verify the professor’s story about me – and then, upon some sort of signal to the guard at the console, the door is unlocked with a mechanical whirring sound and a click. It hinges open and we all walk inside the astonishing file rooms.

  The first time I glimpsed the Guild archives was also the first time I had really explored underground. I’d taken a bike ride under the capital with Liam, exploring the maze of tunnels in our quest to discover what was causing the plague of red slime that was coming out of the taps all over London. We’d spied these massive rooms filled with files, and had stood for a while in awe, watching men and women going about their daily jobs in complete secrecy.

  Even though I knew this room existed, there is something completely bizarre about the situation. How can all these people act like it’s perfectly normal to be all the way down here beneath London? What do they tell their families about what they do and where they work? It’s nearly midnight, but they’re all behaving as if it’s just an ordinary library in the middle of the day.

  They scurry between the record files, flicking through cabinets filled with meticulously labelled brown folders. They take some out, they replace others, they carry files and individual pieces of paper off to one of the little low-walled cubicles at the side of the room, where there’s a desk, a green glass reading lamp and a wooden
chair. If you want to examine the files, it seems, you have to do so in the room, and in plain view of everyone else.

  Another glance at the ceiling confirms my suspicion that the whole place is under CCTV surveillance. The professor, Sofia and I walk into the room, along with a small group of people who were waiting at the door with us. The others go off into the stacks, bearing notes, so that they can find the files they need. Clearly all of them already know what they’re looking for, and are familiar with the geography of the room.

  The professor takes us over to a desk where several archive assitants are seated at computer terminals. The computers look too modern in a room where everything has been typed and filed the old-fashioned way. Why haven’t they filed their archives electronically? I wonder whether they feel it’s too easy to hack the firewall of a computer system and much harder to infiltrate a physical file room that has real-life armed guards outside?

  The professor addresses one of the archive assistants: ‘Hello, yes, I would like to find a particular file …’

  The assistant, a girl not much older than Sofia, wearing dangling, sparkly earrings and enormous half-moon glasses, smiles brightly at the professor.

  ‘Well, that’s what I’m here for!’ She beams. ‘Which file do you need?’

  ‘I want to access the material on one of our previous agents.’

  The girl types something at her computer terminal, then asks: ‘And which agent is it?’

  ‘Clara Oddlow.’

  The girl looks up sharply, and all trace of her smile has been wiped from her face. She glances from the professor to me, and some sort of understanding seems to dawn in her expression.

  ‘Oh, right, y-yes …’ she stammers, typing the words on her keypad.

  There’s a lump in my throat which stops me from saying anything. The archive assistant swallows, looking at her screen, then takes a slip of paper from a stack at her desk and notes down a file reference, which she hands to the professor.