Chapter Seven
“What’s below us?” Gabriela asked.
“Storage, mechanicals, some areas dedicated to restoration.”
“I assume these areas have been searched.”
“Thoroughly,” Kilchester said.
“There’s a grate in the floor at the far end of the gallery. What is its purpose?”
“There are grates throughout. They’re part of the HVAC system.”
Gabriela walked to the end of the gallery and stared down at the grate. “This is different from the others. It’s a little larger, and the grate has a different design.”
“I never noticed,” Kilchester said.
Gabriela went down to one knee and used the flashlight function on her smartphone to look into the grate.
“This looks like an air shaft,” she said. “I can’t see very far with this light, but it looks like there are ladder rungs attached to the shaft wall. I don’t think this is part of the HVAC system.”
“At one time a rail link ran under the museum,” Kilchester said.
“It opened in 1900 and was closed in 1933. During the war, part of the tunnel was used as an air raid shelter. I suppose this could be part of that rail tunnel. The tunnel is supposed to be quite deep underground. At least that’s what I’ve been told.
I don’t know anyone who’s actually been down there. ”
“How do I access this tunnel?”
Kilchester looked down at the grate. “I guess this would be one way. As far as I know the next nearest access might be the original station on High Holborn. Or not.”
“What is the original station used for now?”
“I’m not sure. It’s in an area of multiuse buildings.
Offices, small businesses, fast-food vendors.
It’s less than a hundred yards away from the Holborn tube station that replaced it.
At one time the lines might even have intersected.
I don’t know all of its history. Do you think they could have taken the stone out this way?
” Kilchester asked. “It would have been a tight squeeze and a long drop down for a very heavy object.”
“I need a measuring tape, a flashlight, and a crowbar,” Gabriela said.
Thirty minutes later, Kilchester rolled a privacy screen up to the grate and handed Gabriela the tape measure, the flashlight, and the crowbar.
“I’ve secured special permission from security for you to investigate this shaft. I don’t want to go into the details, but I might have improvised a bit on your need to go down there.”
“Thanks. Appreciate your help.” Gabriela measured the grate. “The stone would have had six inches’ clearance.” She used the crowbar to pry the grate up. “I’m not having any trouble lifting this. After years of just sitting here, I would expect it to be stuck. There should be some grime around it.”
“Are we thinking that it has been recently used?”
“We are,” Gabriela said. “I’m going down.”
“I’m going with you,” Kilchester said. “If I get fired for this, it will have been worth it. I’m in full-on hero mode.”
Gabriela took stock of Kilchester and herself.
Not exactly dressed for an underground adventure.
She was wearing skinny jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt, and a blazer.
Her outfit was accessorized by a Fendi Baguette mini bag that held her essentials.
Kilchester was dressed like Kilchester. Button-down shirt, bow tie, dress slacks, tweed jacket, stylish cap-toe brown oxfords. Taking him down with her was risky.
“I need you to stay here,” she said to Kilchester. “You have to get the grate back in place, and you have to stay here in case I need to use this as an exit.”
She moved the grate to the side and flashed the light around the shaft.
The ladder rungs looked like they were still in good shape.
Difficult to estimate the distance to the bottom.
She shoved the flashlight under the waistband of her slacks, went over the edge, and moved rung by rung into the darkness.
She counted off fifty rungs, stopped, and flashed the light around.
She estimated that she wasn’t quite halfway, but it was easier to see the bottom now.
It appeared to be cement. No rat eyes glaring back at her.
No bats clinging to the sides of the air shaft.
She was relieved when the shaft ended and her feet were on solid ground.
She was a runner. She did weight training.
She had superior reflexes. She had more than enough muscle and stamina to manage the deep shaft.
Her ungloved hands were a whole other story.
They were torn and bleeding by the time she got to the bottom.
The narrow shaft had opened into a tunnel that was high enough and wide enough to accommodate two trains running side by side with narrow platforms on each side of the tunnel.
Gabriela played the light first to the left and then to the right.
The tunnel extended in both directions with no end in sight.
The tracks were still in place but clearly were in disrepair and nonfunctioning.
Gabriela walked a few feet to the left and then to the right, studying the tunnel floor for signs of recent foot traffic.
Jackpot to the right. There were faint scuff marks and what looked like tire tracks.
She walked in the direction of the scuff marks and after a quarter mile the train tracks disappeared under chunks of cement and stone.
She continued walking and the cement chunks and stone gave way to a solid cement floor.
Another fifty feet and the subterranean platform became an almost impassable junkyard.
A dumping ground for out-of-use equipment and discarded spare parts, Gabriela thought.
A train rumbled through the tube somewhere in front of her.
The train passed and there was silence again.
There was a small offshoot tunnel to her right.
Scaled for a human. Not for a train. The floor was packed dirt and gravel.
The ceiling was only a couple feet above Gabriela’s head.
The dirt and gravel looked like it had recently been disturbed.
She walked a short distance down the offshoot and her Spidey Sense kicked in.
The air in the offshoot smelled funky. Something was dead ahead.
She hoped it was a rat. She didn’t have a lot of cozy feelings for rats.
A cat would be more difficult. She liked cats.
A putrid human would be the worst. She would have to report a putrid human.
She followed a curve in the tunnel, and the beam from her Maglite flashed onto a body.
Crap. He’d been on the ground for a while, she thought.
The fluids had long ago leaked out and nature was at work returning the body to primitive elements.
Dust to dust. Or at this stage, flesh to maggots.
It was a man. He was on his back. Bullet holes in what was left of his face.
The body was badly decomposed. His clothes were still mostly intact.
Black hoodie sweatshirt. Jeans. Nike running shoes.
He was a big man with big feet, she thought.
If she were better prepared, she would search pockets for ID.
Since she didn’t have gloves, she would leave the search for the authorities.
She took photos of the body, stepped away, and scanned the rest of the offshoot.
It continued for maybe fifty feet, ending at a crude cement wall.
There were rungs embedded in the wall, and the rungs disappeared into a shaft that was similar to the air shaft in the British Museum.
A four-wheeled dolly was parked in front of the wall.
The Rosetta Stone would have fit nicely on the dolly, she thought.
A couple lengths of thick nylon rope and the remains of a simple pulley system lay next to the dolly.
Gabriela took a couple photos of the dolly and rope.
The thieves were in a hurry, she thought.
They didn’t waste time disposing of the body.
And they just dumped the rope and pulley into the shaft when the job was complete.
She was anxious to get to the surface. She wanted to see where the thieves exited the train tube.
Her best guess was that she’d walked slightly less than a half mile from the museum.
Curiosity sent her climbing hand over hand, up the shaft.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going, she told herself.
She was pretty sure no one had ever died from blisters.
She would bandage herself up, take some antibiotics, and grow new skin.
She was soaked in sweat and her arms and legs ached when she reached the trapdoor at the top.
She pushed against it with a bleeding hand but couldn’t get it to move.
She took a quick look down the shaft. She couldn’t see the bottom.
She hadn’t counted steps, but she suspected this shaft was even longer than the one in the museum.
There was no going back. Halfway down she’d pass out and drop like a rock to the bottom.
They brought the stone through this trapdoor a month ago, she told herself.
It has to open. She went up a rung and used one hand and her head to push against the door.
The door banged open, and a small, weathered Asian man looked in at her.
His age was somewhere between forty and eighty.
He was wearing a stained white apron. He had a gold front tooth.
And his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head.
“What?” he said. “What this?”
Gabriela pulled herself up through the opening and went on all fours for a moment to collect herself. “Sorry for the intrusion,” she said, getting to her feet. “I took a wrong turn down there.”
She looked around and realized she was in a storeroom of sorts. There were sacks of rice, bags of flour, paper products, and giant tins of cooking oil. The stench of death was replaced with the smell of garlic and cumin, which was so strong she thought she might prefer the rotting corpse.
“Where am I?” Gabriela asked.