To Catch a Sub (Club Alibi #1)

Chapter 6

The British Museum

Several years earlier

“Colette,” he repeated. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She used the French pronunciation of the name and he did the same. The first vowel was an “uh” sound rather than “o”, with the emphasis on the first syllable.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” she said.

“Thank you for the list.”

“You’re welcome. There’s a digital version too. Someone higher up than me will email it to you.”

“Higher up that you?”

“I’m just an intern. Technically a documentation assistant. I’m in university for gemology. And art history.” She paused, lips pursed. “And archaeology.”

He almost said “me, too,”—and he had studied archaeology—but he’d let himself get distracted from work enough for one day. He settled with saying, “Impressive.”

“Thank you.”

“Someone else is going to email me a copy, but you’re the one who actually put together the list.”

She hesitated. “Really, I just gathered the information and collated it.”

Sounded like she’d done the work, but someone else was going to claim the credit.

“I thought you might like a hard copy,” she finished. “To try and compare against the stuff in storage.”

“You’ve been in the storage areas?”

“Not all of them.” An almost sardonic expression crossed her face, at odds with the hapless person she’d been a moment before. Possibly she was just nervous and that was making her awkward. People acted odd around police.

“Honestly, I don’t think there’s a comprehensive list of storage areas either,” Colette whispered as if in confession. “I found a gold and sapphire necklace—huge smooth sapphires set in the center of gold flowers—in a wood box in a cabinet behind printer toner.”

Landon grimaced. He’d loved this museum since he was a child. Coming into London from the midlands was a once-or-twice a year trip for his family, but every time they came, he’d begged to go the museum. It was one of the reasons he’d studied archaeology in uni, earning a certificate in that, along with his political science degree.

This case was quickly destroying his childhood impression of the museum as a bastion of cultural and academic excellence.

Right now he had crews working the storage areas as if they were active crime scenes, but that was performative. The thefts had probably happened no sooner than six months ago, since that’s when the first taunting online action listing had gone up.

It was possible that the items listed on an online auction site had been missing for years or decades, and only now had the thief, or someone close to them, decided to start selling the pieces off. The real work of solving this case wouldn’t happen here in the museum, but with tedious hours of reading through records.

Given the volume of things missing, the most likely scenario was that they’d been stolen by an employee, piece by piece, over the course of years. That employee retired, didn’t like the pensioner lifestyle, and started selling the pieces for extra money. Once the optics of the operation allowed it, he’d glue himself to his desk and begin a detailed review of employment records for the past ten years.

Employee theft was a tidy, simple explanation, that fit the facts as he knew them.

And more than likely, it was a low-level employee with little to no knowledge about the items themselves. Pieces that were borderline priceless had been listed with starting bids of a tenner. That plus the fact that auction item descriptions mentioned the museum bordered on full-on stupid. Every employee he’d interviewed, even those who had no direct contact with the museum contents such as the cashier in the shop, or the dishwasher at the Great Court Restaurant, showed at least a rudimentary understanding of the value of even the smallest, plainest item in the museum.

That didn’t necessarily rule out the employee-thief scenario. If these items were stolen by someone who retired twenty years ago, and the employee culture back then was different…

Landon rubbed his face with his hands. His brain was going in circles.

“Are you all right?”

He dropped his hands to see Colette peering up at him. She was leaning forward and twisting to the side so she could see his face.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry, this must be hard.”

He considered her. “Did you already interview with one of the detectives?” He’d interviewed primarily admin, lead curators, and then a random selection of few lower-level employees. The secondary detectives handled everyone else.

“Yes, Detective Dalson, a few days ago.” Her eyes widened. “I hadn’t yet made the list. I wasn’t withholding information or anything.”

Landon smiled at her alarm. “I didn’t think you were. But do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Um, no. I mean, no.”

There was one question he’d asked everyone, and though the answer had always been “no,” he had a funny feeling that “no” had more to do with protecting their jobs, or the museum itself, than the truth.

He was sure, for an undefinable reason, that Colette would answer him honestly. “Can museum volunteers access the storage areas?”

Say no. For the sake of my fucking sanity, please say no.

“Yes.”

Fuck.

“Fuck.”

Colette let out a low, throaty laugh. Whoa. The sexy sound that made him want to nip at her throat to feel the vibrations of her amusement against his lips and teeth.

“Not the main, big ones,” she added. “Or the loading bays where traveling exhibits are brought in and stored.” She paused, seeming to consider him. “Want me to show you?”

Landon rose. “Please.”

Ten minutes later, they were in a nondescript corridor on the museum’s lower level, standing side-by-side in the open door of a large office. The office was cluttered with several desks, a wall of open cubbies stuffed with purses and bags, and cardboard boxes containing glossy pamphlets.

“This is the volunteer center,” Colette said. “Where people store things, or where volunteers help with admin tasks or event prep.”

No one had mentioned this place before now. Colette was a quiet wealth of knowledge, and Landon was starting to think meeting her was the best luck he’d had since being assigned to this case.

This particular corridor was accessed via a door tucked around the corner from the lower-level bathrooms. The door required keycard access, so volunteers had to ask to be let in by a security guard or staff member. He’d had a brief chat with the guard stationed in this area, and they’d gone over how the lower level was usually patrolled. Usually volunteers would simply wait at the door until the guard’s route brought him by, then he’d let the volunteer in and continue on his rounds.

“Were you a volunteer before you started working here?”

“No. And my internship is almost up. But I spend all my time either here or in class, so I got to know a lot of volunteers.”

“When did you start your internship?”

She gave him a date two months after the first auction listing had been posted. He was vaguely ashamed that he’d even entertained the idea that she was the thief. Suspecting everyone was part of his job, but the feelings of familiarity, and yes, lust, he felt for her made the rightful suspicion uncomfortable.

Landon looked up and down the hall. “All these doors have electronic locks, and even if one were left open, these are primarily administrative offices and meeting rooms. No artifact storage.” He glanced at Colette, raising one brow. “Right?”

A small smiled played at the corner of her mouth. The nervous awkwardness was gone, and he had the oddest feeling that they were playing a fun little game together, like kids on a scavenger hunt.

“You’d think so, but follow me.”

He did, wishing her boxy jacket didn’t come down low enough to mostly obscure her ass.

The corridor made a sharp left, and the environment changed from modern office to historic building. The entire museum complex was a melding of new and old, and in most places they blended seamlessly. Here it was abrupt, from concrete to wood floors, and modern white walls to yellowed plaster with electrical conduit running along the ceiling and floor, occasionally branching up or down for a plug box or round light switch. It needed a coat of paint, and the carpet runner was threadbare, but there was a security camera several meters down, so it wasn’t entirely neglected.

Colette stopped by a heavy wood door. There was a black rectangle of a keycard reader mounted above the knob. She raised her own badge, which was clipped to her jacket, and the light flashed red.

“I don’t rank high enough to have access.”

“I see that.”

“But some of these older doors don’t fit in their frames quite right, and the digital locks don’t work because of it. I heard that sometimes even people with access can’t get them open.”

Landon groaned. “So they leave them unlocked?” He reached for the round brass knob. It turned in his hand, but the door didn’t open.

“No. Not unlocked.” Colette crouched, and he followed suit.

Hidden in the shadow of the bulky black box of the reader was a keyhole.

“Easy to pick,” he said, examining the old-style lock.

“I don’t know about that, but…” Colette reached down and tugged up the edge of the carpet runner, revealing a key.

Landon leaned to the side and thunked his head against the wall several times.

Colette let out that wonderful throaty laugh. Keeping his head against the wall, he turned to look at her.

Her lips twitched, but she cleared her throat and got her expression under control, picking the key up and offering it to him.

“I can’t bear to do it,” he groaned, earning another laugh.

Colette fitted the key in the lock and twisted. The keycard reader hampered the turn radius a little, and she had to twist and wiggle the key, but after a moment she got it unlocked.

She twisted the knob, and leaned into the door to push it open.

Landon rose, checked his urge to be a gentleman and let her enter first, and went inside.

Floor to ceiling metal shelving lined all four walls. A long metal table, looking almost like an autopsy table, ran the center of the room. A large frame was suspended above the table, cables leading to a computer on a small desk. The desk sat perpendicular to the work table, creating an L. In the open space below the table, bankers boxes were stacked, their white sides labeled with a diversity of methods, from things scribbled in pen to neatly printed labels.

He examined the expensive-looking digital SLR camera mounted to the frame above the table and pointed straight down. A bin of neatly folded fabrics in shades of white and black sat next to the computer, and on the floor was a large container of acrylic stands and blocks.

There was a box of gloves on the shelf by the door, and Landon grabbed a few, putting them on before pulling a clear plastic bin carefully off the shelf and setting it on the table. He removed the lid, and used the tip of a pen to lift the thick layer of cushion.

Several small worn rectangles rested on a layer of padding. Each was about half the size of a deck of cards, and looked to be sculpted from some dark, almost black clay. The largest and best preserved one was in the middle. He could make out what looked a large human figure, possibly with multiple arms, standing in the air above a lion.

“Kali?” he guessed.

Colette joined him, peering into the box. “Hmm, no, I’d go older. That’s probably copper, so Babylonian or Assyrian. Looks like she’s standing on a lion, so maybe Ishtar, or Inanna, depending on when and where it’s actually from.”

“Does either of those goddesses have multiple arms?”

“I don’t know. This is not even close to my area of specialty.”

“What is?”

“Gems and jewelry.”

“Right, you said you were studying gems.” Landon pushed the top layer of padding back into place and put the box back on the shelf.

He looked around once more. “This is a photography studio.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m guessing all these boxes are full of items waiting to be photographed.”

“That’s what I’ve heard, though artifact photography isn’t one of my skills. I’d like to learn though.”

“Are these items already listed on an inventory, or is this part of the museum’s cataloguing efforts the director mentioned?”

“Um, I’m just an intern. I don’t know.”

“Right, sorry. You’re not the one I need to ask these questions of.”

“I wish I had answers for you,” she said softly.

“You’ve already been more of a help than anyone else.”

“That’s…bad.”

Landon laughed sadly. “It is.” He wandered the shelves, looking at the various boxes, even poking into a few. Many were carefully packed, with custom fitted padding. But an equal number of boxes were simple cardboard and filled with a jumble of artifacts wrapped in paper or sealed up in sandwich bags.

“And any volunteer who knew about the door problem, and the hidden key situation, could have come in here and pocketed a small item.” Landon pantomimed sliding something into his breast pocket.

Colette looked at her feet. “Yes. I’m so sorry.”

Landon stripped off his gloves as he walked back to the door, where Colette hovered. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t steal them.”