Chapter Six
“Trying to sneak out without me?” Rafer asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“It didn’t work,” he said.
Gabriela cut her eyes to Harley. “What about you?”
“I thought you might need me. What I lack in empathy I make up for in charm. And besides, I’m freaked out over the possibility that someone will try to kidnap me again.”
“So, you feel insecure without big, strong Rafer protecting you,” Gabriela said.
“Mostly I’m counting on you,” Harley said. “I bet you’ve got weapons hidden all over you. Knives and guns. And you have black belts in three different kinds of self-defense. Rafer told me all about you.”
“Gabs,” Rafer said. “Are you holding out on me? Are you carrying concealed? That’s a big no-no in the UK.”
“I haven’t got a gun,” Gabriela said. “Maybe a knife or two.”
Rafer grabbed her and hugged her to him. “That’s my girl. How are we doing this? Where do we go from here?”
“I have a rental car.”
“You’re organized,” Rafer said. “When did this happen?”
“I was always organized.”
“Honey, you were always disorganized. You could never find your homework, your keys, your bra.”
“That’s because my bra was always in your pocket.”
“Yeah, those were good times,” Rafer said.
Ten minutes later they were on the street arguing over who was going to drive the Hyundai Accent.
“I have an international driver’s license,” Gabriela said to Rafer. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“This is ridiculous. I rented the car and I’m going to drive,” Gabriela said.
“That makes no sense,” Rafer said. “I’m the better driver.”
“The hell you are. You crashed your father’s car into old man Sokol’s chicken coop. It took days for him to round up all his chickens.”
“You ran your father’s truck into Daily’s Pond,” Rafer said.
“It wasn’t my fault. My flip-flop got caught under the brake pedal.”
“Where exactly is Brixton?” Rafer asked.
“It’s on the other side of the Thames,” Gabriela said.
“It’s been a couple years since I’ve been to London, but it seems to me you’re going to have to navigate Soho and then go around Trafalgar Square to get to one of the bridges,” Rafer said.
“And?”
“I changed my mind. You can drive. You got insurance with this rental, right?”
“What about you being the better driver?”
“You have more patience. I might get stuck in traffic and be tempted to pull some idiot out of his car by his necktie.”
Gabriela thought this was entirely possible.
“I’ve driven in Rome, New York City, Bangkok, and Tokyo,” she said. “London is congested, but it’s not totally insane.”
Gabriela inched her way through the Soho traffic, managed to get around Trafalgar Square, and drove through Westminster.
She took the bridge over the Thames and from there it was a straight shot on Lambeth Road.
She wandered through Brixton, following the GPS directions to a neighborhood of narrow, three-story row houses.
The Mackey house was in the middle of the block.
An oldish Citroen was parked in front of the house.
“What are your expectations?” Rafer asked.
Gabriela parked behind the Citroen. “It would be nice to discover a friendship with Leon Blake.”
They walked to the door and rang the bell. A woman answered. She looked neatly put together but tired and not at all excited over the prospect of company. She had brown hair cut short, and she had a small dog tucked under her arm.
“Yes?” she said.
Gabriela introduced herself as an investigator.
“Are you with the police?” Mrs. Mackey asked.
“I’m with a separate agency that works with the police,” Gabriela said.
“And what about those two?” Mrs. Mackey asked, looking at Harley and Rafer.
“They’re with me.”
The dog growled at Gabriela.
“Hush,” Mrs. Mackey said to the dog. “These people are with the police.” She turned her attention back to Gabriela. “Ordinarily I don’t let people into my house if Roger doesn’t like them, but since you’re with the police…”
Harley stepped forward and smiled at Mrs. Mackey and Roger. “What a great dog. I bet he’s part Chihuahua.”
“Chihuahua and Yorkshire terrier,” Mrs. Mackey said. “He’s a little feisty.”
Harley held his hand out to Roger, and Roger took a sniff.
“I had a little dog like this once,” Harley said. “Sweetest dog that ever lived.”
Gabriela knew this was a big fat lie. The only dog Harley ever had was an eighty-pound yellow Lab that was dumb as a box of rocks.
Harley scratched Roger behind his ear and Roger looked like he was going to explode with happiness.
“Goodness,” Mrs. Mackey said, “it usually takes Roger a while to warm up to people, but he’s really taken a liking to you.”
“I’m a dog person,” Harley said. “They always like me. I must send out some kind of good dog vibes.”
Rafer was back on his heels, grinning, watching Harley dump a load of baloney on Mrs. Mackey. He figured Roger had taken to Harley because Harley had just eaten breakfast and smelled like bacon.
“I was having tea,” Mrs. Mackey said. “Would you like some tea?”
Everyone followed Mrs. Mackey into the kitchen and sat at the round table by the window. She set Roger on the floor and brought tea and biscuits.
“I imagine this visit has to do with John,” she said. “I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
“The police report said John’s death was the result of a robbery,” Gabriela said. “Do you think that’s the way it happened?”
“I can’t imagine anything else,” Mrs. Mackey said. “Everyone liked John.”
“He had a lot of friends?” Gabriela asked.
“The usual amount, I suppose. Mickey and Scoot and Bill Barton. They all went to school together. And then there was a new person he met at the pub on the corner. They both worked at the museum. I never met him until John passed. John wasn’t one to bring people home with him.”
“But you met the new friend later?”
“At the service. He came back after for refreshments. Leon. I don’t remember much about him. I don’t remember much of anything from that day. It was terrible.”
“How are you doing now?” Gabriela asked.
“I’m okay,” Mrs. Mackey said. “Life goes on, doesn’t it. And I have Roger.” She looked down at Roger and gave him half of a ginger biscuit.
“Did John enjoy his job at the museum?” Gabriela asked.
“In the beginning, but then it became a job. Don’t get me wrong. It was a good job. There just wasn’t much opportunity for advancement.”
“And that bothered John?” Gabriela asked.
“He was a dreamer. Always chasing rainbows. Always had ideas about how to get rich. I was content with our little house here in Brixton, but John wanted a bigger house. He wanted one of those expensive Japanese toilets.” She gave up a sigh and stared into her teacup.
“He wanted the finer things, but that didn’t work out for him. ”
“I suppose we all would like a little bit more,” Gabriela said. “Thank you for your time. The tea and ginger biscuits were lovely.”
Gabriela, Rafer, and Harley left the Mackey house and got into the rental car. Gabriela drove three blocks, turned left, and stopped in front of a row house.
“According to Marcella, Blake was renting the top floor of this house, and the owner lives on the ground floor. Melvin Chessy. Age seventy-nine. Widowed.”
Gabriela pulled to the curb and parked. “Stay here. I’m going to see if someone is home.”
She went to the door, rang the bell, and knocked. No answer. She stepped off the stoop and looked in one of the front windows. Everything was tidy. No one was moving around. She returned to the car.
“There’s one door with two doorbells,” Gabriela said. “The names on the doorbells are Chessy and Tucker. I assume the door opens to a small foyer. And either Tucker is an AKA for Blake or else Blake has moved on and there’s a new tenant in the apartment.”
Gabriela’s phone buzzed. It was Kilchester.
“I thought you might want to join me for lunch,” he said.
“You do fast work,” Gabriela said.
“That’s because I’m a hero.”
“Same place?”
“Yes,” Kilchester said. “Noon.”
“I’m coming from Brixton. I’ll call if I’m going to be late.” She ended the call.
“It sounds like you have a date,” Rafer said. “Should I be jealous?”
“He has information for me. I’ll drop you off at the hotel. I’m meeting him at a pub by the museum.”
Gabriela found Kilchester waiting at the pub, and she thought if he got any more excited, his bow tie would begin spinning.
“Are you my hero?” she asked him.
“I am, indeed,” Kilchester said. “I didn’t want to take a chance on a phone conversation.”
“Understood,” Gabriela said.
They were seated, and the waiter came over and took their order. He left and they both leaned in to talk.
“Just as everyone suspected, someone hacked into the security system,” Kilchester said.
“At one a.m. the control room monitors were set to loop on the first floor, with the exception of Room Twenty-One, which houses the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos. And the alarm system for Room Four, the Egyptian gallery with the Rosetta Stone, was shut down at the same time. There were guards on the first floor, but they weren’t near Room Four.
They were all investigating a strange odor and green slime oozing out of the pedestal under Queen Artemisia II.
This was all very clever because nasty odors around the mausoleum exhibit had been previously reported, and anyone who’s seen Ghostbusters knows that green slime often accompanies smelly phenomena.
So, while someone was snatching the Rosetta Stone, the control room guards were communicating with the floor guards, trying to determine if maintenance needed to be called. Or maybe an exorcist.”
“I can see why this wasn’t made public knowledge,” Gabriela said.
“Yes. It’s a bit of an embarrassment.”
The waiter brought drinks, and Kilchester and Gabriela toasted to green slime.
“It’s believed that only twenty to twenty-five minutes elapsed between when the systems were hacked and when the guards resumed patrolling and discovered the Rosetta Stone was missing.
” Kilchester took another test drive on his Guinness and leaned back in.
“Can you imagine strolling into Room Four and there’s no Rosetta Stone?
It’s unthinkable. Probably the most heavily guarded rock in the world and someone walked off with it.
I heard one of the guards soiled his briefs, but that’s just rumor. ”
“That’s not a lot of time,” Gabriela said. “Twenty-five minutes. Is it known how the stone left the building? I’m sure there are exterior cameras. Were they disabled as well?”
“They weren’t disabled. It’s thought that the stone was hidden somewhere in the building, but the building has been searched and searched again, and the stone hasn’t been found.”
“I’d like to take another look at Room Four,” Gabriela said.
Ahmed watched the pub from across the street.
He was thinking that modern technology took some of the fun out of surveillance.
Drones and tracking devices made it possible to follow at a distance with less fear of being discovered.
Spycraft was changing, and making oneself invisible was a dying art.
From where he stood, he could see Gabriela Rose in the pub’s outdoor courtyard.
She was dining with Steven Kilchester. That was interesting.
He’d never had any personal interaction with Kilchester, but he knew he was curator of clocks and timepieces.
And he knew Kilchester had a reputation for knowing things he wasn’t supposed to know.
Kilchester and Rose were huddled over the table in a serious conversation.
Ahmed would be shocked if it was romantic.
He suspected the woman was capable of annihilating Kilchester figuratively and literally. This conversation had to be business.