The Baker Street Translation (24 page)

Buxton's chief of staff had said they had all vantage points covered. And as incompetent as they were, it should have been true. For the entire circumference of the park, there was no structure or foliage that anyone could have hidden behind to get across the Outer Circle road. For the kidnappers to have escaped the boundaries of Regent's Park as they did, Buxton's security team had to have been either blind or fools beyond belief.

Unless one of them was lying: a distinct possibility, which Reggie had not yet ruled out.

But another possibility had occurred to him. If there were sufficient time, there was no question he should check it out.

There was not sufficient time. He knew it.

But he pulled over anyway. He got out of the Jag and walked to the boathouse where Laura had embarked before to meet the kidnappers.

The boathouse was open. There was no queue, which was lucky.

“Can I rent a boat with a motor?” said Reggie to the attendant, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“No, sorry,” she said. “You can only rent a rowboat. Or a pedaler.”

“Oh,” said Reggie. “Didn't know. Someone told me they'd seen an outboard on the pond before.”

“The only outboard with access belongs to the Royal Parks Service,” said the young woman. “I'm afraid it's not for let. Only park rangers and water district workers can use it.”

“Fair enough,” said Reggie. And now he had to decide. This would take more time than he had hoped.

“I'll take one that rows, then,” he said.

Reggie paid for his boat and waited impatiently, staring out at the little island and checking his watch, as the attendant unlocked the boat from the rope.

Then Reggie got in and rowed as hard as he could.

This was a probably a wild-goose chase. So to speak. But he kept rowing.

Finally he bumped the bow of the boat up against the island mud. He got out into four inches of water and muck and hauled the boat onto the shore after him.

He dropped the boat, straightened up, and looked about.

It had not rained since Laura was there before. Reggie looked down at the mud, silty where she had dragged the boat up, but firmer approaching the shrub line on the shore—and there they were: Laura's footprints, where she had pursued the kidnappers into the trees. He even found one of her shoes.

Reggie followed that path. He pushed through a narrow gap in the bushes and entered a small clearing, roughly forty feet in circumference. It was flanked by trees on all sides, with shrubs and water reeds that would have provided sufficient concealment from anyone watching from the shore.

Reggie began to walk along the circumference of that area. In just a few moments, he reached the point where Laura had pursued someone across the island to the other side. Yes, there were her footprints again—and someone else's, as she had said.

Reggie looked at the prints and could make nothing of them. He had not made a science of this. They were shoe prints. A man's. No, two different men, given the different sizes. Any more information than that would require Wembley's forensics team, and there was no time for that.

But an identity from the prints wasn't what he was looking for.

Reggie stooped down and began to walk slowly along where the foot-high grass and weeds grew up against and between the shrubs.

He broke off a thin branch from a tree and began to prod the ground.

Mud. Mud. More mud.

And then something solid.

Reggie bent down for a closer look. He pushed aside the grass, which parted easily, as if someone had done this before and then pushed it back. He got down on his hands and knees and brushed aside some loose dirt.

And there it was: a rectangular brass plate, roughly twenty inches by thirty, set in a concrete casement. The letters forged in the top of the plate read
ROYAL PARKS WATER AND SEWER.

All of it was concealed from the casual observer—or even the halfway interested one—by the dirt and leaves and high grass that had been pushed over it.

And it was the only way Reggie could think of for anyone to have gotten off the island and out of Regent's Park unseen.

Forget the motorboat. That boat, in Reggie's opinion, had been a ruse. It might even have been empty.

What mattered was this sewer cover. Quite possibly the thing had been in place for the past forty or fifty years, untouched. And Reggie knew that if that were the case, he wouldn't be able to dislodge it now, for the first time in ages, without tools. Years of dirt and rust would have locked it in place.

He almost hoped that would be the case.

He got down on the muddy ground, put two fingers though a narrow horizontal opening at the top of the plate, and tried to lift it.

The plate moved. Not much—it had to weigh more than sixty pounds—but it did move.

So someone else had been here, and recently.

Reggie adjusted his position for a better grip and managed to slide the front of the plate forward onto the lip of the concrete.

Now he was able to get one hand on each side. He lifted again, got the entire plate clear of the concrete casement, and shoved it aside, into the damp grass.

“Bloody hell,” muttered Reggie.

He was looking down at the top of a series of iron bars, set in the concrete to serve as steps, leading straight down into a pitch-dark chamber.

He wished he had not been successful in prying the thing loose.

But he had done. He checked his watch. Forty-five minutes remained. And he still couldn't be really certain he was on the right track.

But he had come this far. There was no choice but to follow through. And if his hunch was right, he would get to the location at Hyde Park almost as quickly this way as he would driving in heavy traffic.

He took off his mac, tossed it across a tree branch, and began his descent.

Eight feet, straight down—and then he stepped into a chamber some ten feet in diameter, constructed of very old tan and red brick.

It could have been from the nineteenth century, or maybe the eighteenth—he wasn't sure. But the brick was old, and smooth, from years of water running over the fine edges of the brick, and slime accumulating on its surface.

There were two tunnels, both seven or eight feet high. One went north, the other south. It was an easy choice. The one headed south would lead to Hyde Park.

Unless he had the whole thing totally wrong.

Reggie stooped down at first to make sure he had cleared the tunnel ceiling, then began to slog.

The muck oozed over the tops of his shoes, soaked his socks, and got down in between his toes, and the scent of the place began to assault his senses.

So far, it was just the odor of old water, mud, and slime.

He hoped it would not turn into something worse. But he was almost sure it would.

34

In the refurbished commissary on the fourth floor of Scotland Yard, Nigel sat across a square glass café table from Sergeant Meachem and wondered whether the Yard was having trouble attracting qualified recruits.

Sergeant Meachem was simply dense. There was no other way to describe him.

Well, physically, Nigel would have said Meachem was tall, narrow-shouldered, and the typical age for someone fresh out of the Metropolitan Police training school, in his mid- or late twenties.

Mentally—which was all that mattered—the man was dense.

Nigel had been tracking Meachem down through the corridors at Scotland Yard for the past half hour. Detective Inspector Wembley, according to the desk sergeant, was already out with most of his team on the detail that was protecting the prince's international dinner at Clarence House. Meachem was the contact everyone in the building kept referring Nigel to in Wembley's stead, but Meachem always seemed one step beyond wherever the last person said he was supposed to be.

Nigel followed doggedly, and now he had finally cornered the man, just steps away from the commissary coffee urn.

“I don't think you fully understand what I'm telling you,” said Nigel. He held the little computer chip up within inches of Meachem's face, so close that Meachem should have felt obliged to push it away. “I think this is a detonator,” said Nigel for at least the third time.

Meachem was apparently not easily provoked. He stirred his coffee before responding.

“And you found it inside a plastic duck,” said Meachem, as if that settled the matter.

“Yes,” said Nigel. “A plastic duck like the one my brother said you brought from a crime scene at a Docklands warehouse to the analysis lab here at the Yard. Detective Inspector Wembley told you to do that, did he not?”

Nigel was overstepping his bounds in the way he said this, and he knew it, but observing the proprieties was getting him nowhere.

Meachem looked away for a moment, nodded, and then looked directly back at Nigel, his eyes narrowing and lines suddenly appearing in his smooth forehead.

“Yes,” said Meachem. “Your brother was at that crime scene. And he intruded himself at an earlier one, as well. Some other people here at the Yard apparently feel that he is entitled to special privileges. Perhaps because of that thing with the Black Cab case a while back. But I, for one, do not see it.”

“The duck,” said Nigel, holding up the microchip. “Can we get back to this and the duck?”

Meachem's forehead got even more severe.

“I did deliver the plastic duck to the lab, as Detective Inspector Wembley requested that I do, and not because you or your brother have any say in the matter. When the lab has finished its work, they will notify me. But they have not yet done so.”

Meachem stood now, and he forced a slight smile, in a falsely apologetic, public-relations sort of way.

“Now I'm afraid I must attend to my other duties. Thank you for your interest. Scotland Yard is always open to input from the public and we thank you for your comments. Please pay for your own coffee on the way out, and bear in mind that you have only a visitor's pass and you are not entitled to the police officer's discount.”

Meachem turned on his heel and walked toward the exit from the commissary, heading to the interior corridors of the building.

Nigel was furious at the intransigence, but he restrained himself. With the large plastic visitor's pass hanging from his neck, he stopped at the cashier and paid for his coffee, and considered what to do.

First, he decided, get rid of the visitor's pass. He tucked it inside his shirt as soon as he got into the corridor. Better to be showing no ID, and let someone wonder and ask, than to be advertising that he had no official capacity.

Second: bypass Meachem and go directly to the lab.

Nigel took the stairs down to the second floor. He walked comfortably down the corridor as though he belonged, and he reached the glass door to the lab without being challenged.

But now there was a problem: The entrance to the analysis lab was always locked; it required an identity card key for entry, and Nigel, of course, did not have one.

Nigel stepped back from the door; the only thing to do would be to lurk inconspicuously at the corridor drinking fountain, wait for someone else to enter the lab, and tailgate in—with luck.

Then he paused. Peering through the glass entrance, he had a clear view of the center portion of the lab, all the way back to the far exit. At the moment, no lab workers were visible. But he did not have a clear view of the evidence lockers on the left side of the room, and now, from that side, Meachem had stepped into the line of sight. He had something in his arms.

This was odd. Scotland Yard had its procedures, many of them. Sergeant Meachem had access to the lab, but once evidence was delivered there, he had no business touching it in any way without a lab operative present.

Nigel saw Meachem glance up, as if that very thought had just occurred to him, as well.

Nigel shrank back against the wall, barely out of Meachem's line of sight, waited a moment, and then peeked past the door again to watch.

Apparently satisfied that he was alone, Meachem was now placing the object he had taken from the evidence lockers onto a long steel lab table.

Nigel could see the object clearly now, the white-and-yellow plastic reflecting on the shining metal: It was the duck.

Now Meachem took a large plastic evidence bag from a drawer beneath the table; he put the duck inside, closed the bag, and with one more cautious glance around, he headed for the exit at the far end. Nigel saw the automatically locking door close behind him.

Nigel took a breath. So Meachem was not dense. He was something worse.

Meachem had to be heading for the car park. He wouldn't likely take a chance on going out the front door. He had only a slight head start, and he didn't know that he had been seen, so at least that much was in Nigel's favor.

Nigel turned and ran back down the corridor. He took the stairs, allowing his visitor's badge to flap back and forth in front of him as he ran.

He reached the ground floor. He looked out through the front window toward the exit gate for the car park. The gate was still closed; no one had just gone through. That meant there was still time.

Nigel ran through the main exit.

A public-minded officer on his way in started to ask if something was wrong as Nigel passed by, but there was no time to explain.

“Been lovely,” Nigel shouted back, not pausing. “Don't want to miss tea.”

At the front entrance on Broadway, the contemporary cube sign announcing New Scotland Yard was slowly turning. Directly beneath it was the gate for the car park, always kept closed until a car approached with a valid pass.

Nigel ran to the gate; just as he reached it, it began to open, in response to someone punching in from the car park.

Nigel stood in the middle of the exit as the gate arms raised; he pivoted and looked back in the direction of the car park. An older-model Saab was coming directly toward him.

And behind the wheel was Meachem.