‘Shit,’ Tom swore as the camera skated past the hole again.
‘That well.’ She pulled a face.
‘Why don’t you try coming in from underneath?’ Archie suggested. ‘You might catch against the upper lip.’
‘I don’t see why that will…’ Tom glanced up at Archie with a sheepish smile. It had worked first time.
The screen now showed a fuzzy image of the lock mechanism-four wheels, each with a notch that had to be aligned so that the locking gate could fall into them.
‘Someone’s going to have to turn the dial for me,’ Tom said, carefully holding the cable in place so that it didn’t pop out. Allegra immediately stepped forward and crouched down to next to him.
‘Which way?’
‘Clockwise. You need to pick up all the wheels first.’
Allegra turned the lock, the picture showing the drive cam turning and then gathering up each of the four wheels one by one until they were all going round.
‘Slowly,’ Tom said, as he saw the notch on the first wheel at the bottom right of the screen moving upwards.
‘Stop!’ Archie called as the notch reached the twelve o’clock position. Fifteen. ‘Now back the other way.’
Allegra turned the dial back, again slowing as the notch appeared on the second wheel and then stopping when Archie called to her. Seventy-one. Then came sixteen.
‘The last number’s ten,’ Tom guessed.
‘How do you know?’ Dominique asked with a frown.
‘Fifteen seventy-one to sixteen ten,’ Tom explained with a smile. ‘Caravaggio’s dates.’
As Tom pulled the borescope out of the hole, Allegra turned the dial to the final number and then tried the gold-plated wheel in the middle of the door. It turned easily, the handle vibrating with a dull clunk as the bolts slid back. Standing up, she tugged on the door, the airtight seal at first resisting her until, with a swooshing noise, it swept open.
The safe had a red velour interior and four shelves containing an eclectic assortment of items that Faulks had presumably felt deserved the extra security-twenty or so antique dinner plates, a set of red figure vases, notebooks, some files, a few maps. And of course, the ivory mask.
Tom’s attention, however, was drawn to a rectangular black velvet box, monogrammed with a by now familiar symboclass="underline" the clenched fist and entwined snakes of the Delian League. It opened to reveal a cream silk interior moulded to house six watches. Two of the spaces were occupied.
‘Epsilon and zeta,’ Allegra said, taking them out and turning them over so that they could see the Greek letters engraved into their backs.
‘Which gives us the three we need,’ Tom said, sliding D’Arcy’s watch into place and then snapping the case shut. ‘Let’s just see if there’s anything in here that tells us where they’re meeting tonight.’
‘What about this?’ Archie asked, carefully sliding out the small packing crate containing the ivory mask, its delicate face cushioned by the straw that poked through its eyes and parted lips in a way that reminded Tom of the Napoleonic death mask he and Archie had discovered the previous year.
‘Leave it,’ Tom said with a shake of his head, glancing up from the handful of notes and maps he had pulled from the safe and was now leafing through.
‘Leave it? Are you joking? This thing’s worth a bloody fortune.’
‘Not to us, it isn’t. Besides, the less we take, the more chance that Faulks won’t even realise we’ve been here.’
SEVENTY-THREE
Free Port, Geneva
20th March-3.46 p.m.
Faulks’s initial shock had given way to a bewildered incredulity. It was impossible. The stock. His best stock. The documentation. The safe. Everything gone. Spirited away. Everything. Thousands of items. Tens of millions of dollars. How had they got in? How had they got away without being seen?
‘Earl, I don’t understand. What’s going on? What is this place?’ Verity sounded nervous, like someone who’d witnessed a gangland killing and was now worried about being dragged into testifying.
‘Did you tell anyone you were coming here?’ Faulks spun round to face her, jabbing his umbrella at her accusingly.
‘Of course not,’ she insisted hotly. ‘How could I? I’ve never been here before.’
He glared at her, his disbelief having slipped into anger, although not with her in particular. With everyone. With everything. She gave a sharp intake of breath, her eyes widening in understanding.
‘Oh my God, Earl, have you been robbed?’
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled and then opened them again, part of him almost expecting to find that everything was still there after all and that this had just been a terrible dream. Logan reappeared and jerked his head to indicate that they needed to talk. Alone.
‘Give me a minute, Verity,’ Faulks said, following Logan back out into the first room and closing the door behind him.
‘Well?’
‘The guard downstairs hasn’a seen nothing,’ Logan said in a low voice. ‘Nor had th’ one on the night shift when we called him.’
‘Not unless they’re both in on it together,’ Faulks pointed out.
‘Aye well, I’d know if he was.’ Logan gave him a tight smile.
Looking down, Faulks noticed that the Scotsman’s knuckles were grazed and that there was a faint spray of blood on his collar. He felt a little better.
‘What about the surveillance footage?’
‘Backed up remotely. I’ve asked for a copy. It’ll be here in an hour.’
‘Anyone else in the building?’
‘Just the people who moved in today.’
Faulks snorted.
‘Well, there you go then.’
‘There’s only four o’ them and they signed in at twelve thirty,’ Logan pointed out with a firm shake of his head. ‘Shiftin’ all tha’ would have tak’n them days.’
‘And he didn’t hear the alarm go off?’
‘No.’
‘Bastards must have disabled it,’ Faulks hissed, striding over to the control panel next to the main entrance and smacking it angrily, taking some pleasure in the sharp stab of pain as it spread across his palm. ‘What’s the point in paying for…’
He broke off as the keypad fell away from the wall and crashed on to the floor. Frowning, he bent down to pick it up, then noticed the two pieces of black tape that had been securing it to the wall.
‘Jesus,’ he swore, tossing the panel to Logan. ‘It’s a dummy. We’re in the wrong goddamned room.’
Turning, he limped back out on to the corridor. Ignoring the lift, he made his way to the fire escape and leaned over the banisters, following the staircase as it snaked its way down to the floor below and then…to the ground floor.
With Logan at his shoulder, Faulks climbed the staircase as fast as he could, then stepped out on to the empty corridor and turned towards his offices. Here the nature of the deception became abundantly clear -all the signs and door numbers were missing, having presumably been removed and re-attached on the floor below to confuse him.
He flung the door to his offices open. Apart from the cupboards down the right-hand wall, the room was empty and almost unrecognisable without its furniture, carpet or curtains.
And standing at its centre was a woman.
SEVENTY-FOUR
Free Port, Geneva
20th March-3.50 p.m.
‘Where’s Archie?’ Tom asked as he threw his bag into the boot and slammed it shut.
‘With Allegra,’ Dominique panted, sliding into the passenger seat next to him.
There was a brief lull as they waited, Tom tapping his fingers nervously on the window sill.
‘Did you sweep the safe clean?’
‘He won’t know we’ve been in there,’ she reassured him. ‘Not unless he moves the crates and sees where I’ve taped over the drill hole in the side.’
‘Good.’
‘So what now?’