The Eyre Affair

every finger and toe—twice.

‘SO-3?’ I queried, somewhat inquisitively. Being in SpecOps was no guarantee you would know which departments did what—Joe Public were probably better informed. The only SpecOps divisions I knew about for sure below SO-12 were SO-9, who were antiterrorist, and SO-1, who were Internal Affairs—the SpecOps police; the people who made sure we didn’t step out of line.

‘SO-3?’ I repeated. ‘What do they do?’

‘Weird Stuff.’

‘I thought SO-2 did Weird Stuff?’

‘SO-2 do Weirder Stuff. I asked him but he never got round to answering—we were kind of busy. Look at this.’

Turner had led me into the manuscript room. The glass case that had held the leather-bound manuscript was empty.

‘Anything?’ Paige asked one of the scene-of-crime officers.

‘Nothing.’

‘Gloves?’ I asked.

The SOCO stood up and stretched her back; she hadn’t discovered a single print of any sort.

‘No; and that’s what’s so bizarre. It doesn’t look like they touched the box at all; not with gloves, not a cloth—nothing. According to me this box hasn’t been opened and the manuscript is still inside!’ I looked at the glass case. It was still locked tight and none of the other exhibits had been touched. The keys were kept separately and were at this moment on their way from London.

‘Hello, that’s odd—‘ I muttered, leaning closer.

‘What do you see?’ asked Paige anxiously.

I pointed to an area of glass on one of the side panels that undulated slightly. The area was roughly the size of the manuscript.

‘I noticed that,’ said Paige. ‘I thought it was a flaw in the glass.’

‘Toughened bullet-proof glass?’ I asked her. ‘No chance. And it wasn’t like this when I supervised the fitting, I can assure you of that.’

‘What, then?’

I stroked the hard glass and felt the shiny surface ripple beneath my fingertips. A shiver ran up my back and I felt a curious sense of uncomfortable familiarity, the feeling you might get when a long-forgotten school bully hails you as an old friend.

‘The work feels familiar, Paige. When I find the perpetrator, it’ll be someone I know.’

‘You’ve been a LiteraTec for seven years, Thursday.’ I saw what she meant.

‘Eight years, and you’re right—you’ll probably know them too. Could Lamber Thwalts have done this?’

‘He could have, if he wasn’t still in hokey—four years still to go over that Love’s Labour’s Won scam.’

‘What about Keens? He could handle something as big as this.’

‘Milton’s no longer with us. Caught analepsy in the library at Parkhurst. Stone-cold dead in a fortnight.’

‘Hmm.’ I pointed at the two video cameras. ‘Who did they see?’

‘No one,’ replied Turner. ‘Not a dicky bird. I can play you the tapes but you’ll be none the wiser.’

She showed me what they had. The guard on duty was being interviewed back at the station. They were hoping it was an inside job but it didn’t look like it; the guard had been as devastated as any of them.

Turner shuttled the video back and pressed the Play button.

‘Watch carefully. The recorder rotates the five cameras and films five seconds of each.’

‘So the longest gap between cameras is twenty seconds?’

‘Got it. You watching? Okay, there’s the manuscript—‘ She pointed at the book, clearly visible in the frame as the VCR flicked to the camera at the front door. There was no movement. Then the inside door through which any burglar would have to come; all the other entrances were barred. Then came the corridor; then the lobby; then the machine flicked back to the manuscript room. Turner punched the Pause button and I leaned closer. The manuscript was gone.

‘Twenty seconds to get in, open the box, take Chuzzlewit and then leg it? It’s not possible.’

‘Believe you me, Thursday—it happened.’

The last remark came from Boswell, who had been looking over my shoulder.

‘I don’t know how they did it, but they did. I’ve had a call from Supreme Commander Gale on this one and he’s being leaned on by the Prime Minister. Questions have already been asked in the House and someone’s head is going to roll. Not mine, I assure you.’

He looked at us both rather pointedly, which made me feel especially ill at ease—I was the one who had advised the museum on its security arrangements.

‘We’ll be on to it straight away, sir,’ I replied, punching the Pause button and letting the video run on. The views of the building changed rhythmically, revealing nothing. I pulled up a chair, rewound the tape and looked again.

‘What are you hoping to find?’ asked Paige.

‘Anything.’

I didn’t find it.

3. Back at my desk

‘Funding for the Special Operations Network comes directly from the government. Most work is centralised, but all of the SpecOps divisions have local representatives to keep a watchful eye on any provincial problems. They are administered by local Commanders, who liaise with the national offices for information exchange, guidance and policy decisions. Like any other big government department, it looks good on paper but is an utter shambles. Petty in-fighting and political agendas, arrogance and sheer bloody-mindedness almost guarantees that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.’

Millon de Floss. A Short History of the Special Operations Network

Two days of fruitless hunting for Chuzzlewit had passed without even the slightest clue as to where it might be. There had been ‘whispers’ of reprimands, but only if we could figure out how the manuscript was taken. It would seem a bit ludicrous to be chastised for leaving a loophole in the security arrangements but not know what it was. Now slightly despondent, I was sitting at my desk back at the station. Recalling my conversation with Dad, I phoned my mother to ask her not to paint the bedroom mauve. The call backfired slightly as she thought this a grand idea and hung up before I could argue. I sighed and flipped through the telephone messages that had accumulated over the past two days. They were mostly from informers and concerned citizens who had been robbed or cheated and wanted to know if we had made any headway. It was all small beer compared to Chuzzlewit— there were a lot of gullible people out there buying first editions of Byronic verse at knock-down prices, then complaining bitterly when they found out they were fakes. Like most of the other operatives, I had a pretty good idea who was behind all of this, but we never caught the big fish—just the ‘utterers’, the dealers who sold it all on. It smacked of corruption in high places but we never had any proof. Usually I read my messages with interest, but today none of it seemed terribly important. After all, the verses of Byron, Keats or Poe are real whether they are in bootleg form or not. You can still read them for the same effect.

I opened the drawer of my desk and pulled out a small mirror. A woman with somewhat ordinary features stared back at me. Her hair was a plain mousey colour and of medium length, tied up rather hastily in a ponytail at