Lena Jones - Murder at the Museum

For a moment, my thoughts turn back to the Guild – and, more importantly, the Trial. I’ve been thinking about it all summer, like a song I can’t get out of my head. It makes me nervous, knowing that the first challenge could begin at any moment, even in the middle of the night, and I have to be ready for it. I guess that’s the whole point – if you can’t be ready at any moment, to act without warning, then you can’t be a member of the Guild. But I do wish they’d get it over with.

I take off my red beret – my best-loved item of clothing – and place it carefully in its box. Then I go over to my two rails, where I keep all my clothes and costumes, and start to rummage for the items I need.

Luckily for me, I’ve already made some notes in my head on the British Museum from my previous visits there. I close my eyes and Change Channel to reach the area where the relevant information is stored. It looks like a series of old-fashioned filing cabinets. I access the one for uniforms and flip through the handwritten cards inside, until I reach M, for ‘Museum’ – then I select subcategory B, for ‘British’. All the British Museum uniforms I’ve observed have been filed away here, each as an imaginary photograph. I want to get in as an attendant – it’s the most convincing role for someone of my age – and the uniform I call up is a simple one: black trousers with a white shirt.

Flicking through the garments hanging from my clothes rail, I pick out a suitable shirt and some trousers. From a box underneath I take a black faux-leather belt and a pair of Doc Martens boots with thick rubber soles that give me a few extra centimetres. They were a brilliant find in a charity shop and I love them. I get changed quickly, removing my knee-length red gingham shirt dress (one of my favourites, also from a charity shop) before pulling on the trousers and shirt. Accessories come next – a work pass on an extendable lanyard which I attach to my belt, and a very basic work badge to pin to my chest, which claims that my name is ‘Felicity’. This is the name I use on social media – after detective Hercule Poirot’s secretary, Felicity Lemon. Finally, I tie my hair back in a bun, and for extra camouflage add a pair of thick-rimmed glasses (which are stored in a chest of drawers full of similar accessories – false eyelashes, sunglasses, headscarves, fake scars, bushy eyebrows …). I slip the keys into my pocket, along with a small notebook and pen, an LED head torch, a lock-picking kit, and a plastic vial containing a clean cotton bud – an essential part of any detective’s kit. My pocket is now bulging, but I don’t want to complicate things by taking a bag with me that I might have to abandon somewhere.

Everything done, I look myself over in the mirror.

Pretty convincing.

I don a long plastic mac over my outfit to keep it clean. This monstrosity – the sort of shapeless cover-up sold to tourists who arrive in Britain unprepared for the rain – is not an item I would ever normally wear in public. But needs must.

‘See you later, Mum,’ I tell the photo of my mother that I keep by my bed. She’s wearing a long, flowing skirt, big sunglasses and a floppy hat. I like her style – comfortable but chic. She’s standing astride her bike, which is piled high with books, as usual. The police said it was the books that made her bike difficult to steer – and that was why she’d lost control in an accident with a car and died. But I don’t believe that. For a start, I found her bike, and it didn’t have a scratch on it. If I can join the Gatekeepers’ Guild, maybe I can find out what she was investigating when she died, and it might give me some answers.

Deep breath now – here comes the difficult bit.

I turn my bedroom lights off. If Dad comes up to see what I’m doing, I don’t want him to think I’m awake. Then, making my way across the cluttered room by memory, I climb on to my bed. The evening sky is overcast, but there’s just enough light for me to make out the rectangle of my skylight. I open this now, grab on to the edge, and haul myself up and out, so that I’m sitting on the roof, straddling the ridge.

I wait for a moment. I like it up here – there’s a gentle breeze stirring and, now that summer’s coming to a close, the night is neither too warm nor too cold. Off in the distance, at the edge of the park, I can see the twinkling lights of Kensington. I divide the mission up into phases in my mind: stage one – get away from the house undetected by Dad; stage two – crawl through a long, uncomfortable passage; and stage three – gain entry to the museum. I take a deep breath.

Right: it’s time to go.

I ease myself off the ridge and slide down the tiles to the edge, where I cautiously stick my right foot out into space until it makes contact with the nearest branch of the ancient oak tree. The left foot joins it. Next comes the scariest moment, when I push off from the roof and have to trust the rest of my body will get across safely … It does, of course – I’ve been climbing up and down this tree since I was ten. With my arms round the trunk, I feel for my next foothold and make my way down to the ground. I’m glad I thought to wear the raincoat, or my clean white shirt would be covered in moss and lichen by now.

I jump down on to Dad’s immaculately maintained lawn, keeping the oak tree between me and the kitchen window. Dad mustn’t see me. Then, taking a deep breath, I run through our gate and off across the park, into the night.

Stage one – complete.

To reach the underground passageways governed by the Gatekeepers’ Guild, first I have to open a grating beside the Serpentine. I step down the short ramp that leads to the dark, caged-off hole and, when I reach the grating, I fish out Dad’s keys and select the correct one. I insert it into the lock – but for some reason I can’t get it to fit neatly and turn. I struggle with it for a while before giving up and sitting down on the dewy ground. What now?

I hear Hercule Poirot’s voice in my head, with its familiar Belgian accent: ‘ Venez , Mademoiselle Oddlow, we won’t let un petit lock stop us at the first ’urdle, n’est-ce pas ?’

Poirot may be a fictional detective, but he’s my inspiration. Why won’t the key turn? Maybe something’s stuck in the mechanism. I get up and inspect the padlock. Sure enough, there’s a pine needle jammed inside. I form pincers with my thumb and forefinger and manage to remove the tiny obstruction. Then I try the key again. This time it turns, and I swing the grating open and crawl through, pulling it shut behind me.

I shiver, remembering the last time I was down in this dank passageway. The tunnel had been full of toxic red algae, so Liam and I had worn face coverings to filter out the fumes. Even without the stinking slime, it isn’t exactly welcoming.

I take the head torch from my pocket, turn it on and slide the harness over my head. The bright bulb illuminates a dirty concrete path. There’s a crumbling brick roof that’s far too low for comfort, even for a thirteen-year-old of average height, and I have to crouch. I sigh and begin my uncomfortable passage through the long tunnel. It stretches downwards, taking me ever deeper beneath the ground.

Despite the vast amount of earth above my head, I divert my thoughts away from images of the ceiling caving in. My palms and knuckles keep scraping on the stone and brick, and my neck aches badly from having to keep my head bent at an awkward angle. My progress is further hampered because I have to stop every so often to rub my aching leg muscles, which aren’t used to staying bent for so long.