‘He did try to drown us in person,’ Kai answered. ‘Isn’t that the sort of thing that people usually have their subordinates do?’
‘True, true.’ Vale’s frown lightened. ‘If that should be so, let us by all means take advantage of it. And if not, well, I believe we may have the advantage in that he will not be expecting us. In either case, surprise and speed are our best option.’ He looked around at the vast quantity of rather dull Romano-Celtic objects in the room, noting, ‘And I do believe we are almost there.’
‘We should clear the area,’ Kai said firmly.
‘We can’t without raising the alarm,’ Irene pointed out. If Alberich were in the immediate area, he’d react to something like fire alarms going off, security guards clearing the area, or any sort of disturbance involving people running round shrieking. And people always ended up running round shrieking. It was a law of nature or something. She wondered if she could use the Language to pre-warn them as to whether or not Alberich was in his office. Nothing came to mind. ‘I think we’ll just have to knock on the door and play innocent.’
‘Hm. I believe it might work,’ Vale agreed. ‘He has no reason to believe you have penetrated his imposture. I will hold back and be ready with my gun.’
Irene tried to think of how this plan might go wrong. Alberich couldn’t have laid any sort of kill-everyone-who-touches-the-door spell on his office door (assuming that such a spell existed, something about which she had no clue whatsoever). That would be too likely to slaughter innocent British Library staff and visiting children. So that was positive. What he might have done – what she would have done if she knew how – would be to set a ward against Language use. Again, she had no idea whether or not it was possible, but she would assume for the moment that it was. So she should avoid the Language for the moment.
This bit of paranoid planning had helped her stroll through a number of Dark Ages exhibits without looking as panicked as she felt. Now, at last, their goal was through some last cases, then directly on the left.
Irene took a deep breath. She gathered her determination, smiled blandly at Kai and Vale, then strolled forward. She tried to ignore the grandfather with a complaining brat to her right and the students over by the archway ahead. Possible witnesses also included the woman squinting near-sightedly at a display card, who did look vaguely familiar – maybe she’d seen her before when she came here last time – oh dear, she was procrastinating again, wasn’t she?
Why couldn’t this be the sort of story where she kicked the door down and burst in with a loaded gun? Probably because it was a heavy door, she was in long skirts, and she didn’t have a loaded gun.
Plastering her best look of sincere concern and gullibility on her face, she knocked on the door.
No answer.
She knocked again. A couple of the bystanders glanced across, then turned back to whatever they’d been doing.
Still no answer.
‘Cover me,’ Kai said in a low voice. He stepped forward, fishing a thin metal probe out of an inner pocket. He tapped it against the doorknob as Irene shielded him from view. She glanced around but nobody was paying them any attention – except for Vale, who was hanging back and ostensibly ignoring them.
The tapping having drawn no visible reaction, Kai tried the handle. It didn’t move, so he bent over and began picking the lock. Clearly his time as a juvenile criminal hadn’t been a total fiction.
Irene spread out her skirts, and turned to watch the room, a smile pinned to her face. No, nothing going on here, absolutely normal, my friend here likes to stare into locks and wiggle bits of metal round in them, he does it every day and twice on Sundays . . .
A moment later Kai was tapping her on the shoulder, with a cool look of superiority.
Irene gave him a nod and tried the door. It didn’t explode.
This is good. I’m already ahead of the game.
She turned the handle and walked into the room. A quick glance around showed that it looked just as they had left it the last time. No sign of anyone. Nobody hiding under tables. Nobody hiding behind the door. No Alberich.
She breathed out a sigh of relief which she hadn’t realized that she’d been holding, and stepped aside so that Kai could come in. Vale followed a few seconds later, closing the door behind him.
Irene cast around, looking for anything that resembled an in-tray. Score! There was a blatantly obvious one on Aubrey’s desk. She remembered it having been tidy when they first arrived, but it was now crowded with papers and oddments. She quickly sorted through it, and the packet with the Natural History Museum’s address on the back (return to sender) was the seventh item. It was an unobtrusive package in plain brown paper.
‘Paper knife,’ she said, extending one hand.