Mind the Gap

Harry said the Palace was an old nuclear shelter from the 1960s. There was a big steel door at the entrance that was wedged open, completely immovable. Inside were a series of rooms, a dozen in total, set in two levels around a round cen-tral space, which served as their main gathering area. The largest of these rooms was filled with a hundred shelves of inedible tinned and dried food. They'd opened a few of the tins out of curiosity and found a powdery substance inside, which perhaps had once been soup or beef stew or Spam. They hadn't tried any more.

Jazz wasn't convinced. Search though they had, they had not found any sign of a plant room to draw in or process fresh air. The atmosphere down here was heavy and damp at best, but surely in a nuclear war they'd rely on more than the depth of this place to ensure the air was uncontaminated? Neither was there a control or communications center, which she'd seen in documentaries about the shelters built by the govern-ment through the late fifties and sixties. She'd asked her mum about who would go down there if there was a war.

The government, she'd said. Politicians, their assistants, sol-diers to guard them, doctors to look after them. And the royals.

Lucky them, Jazz had said.

Her mother, in one of her darker but more humorous mo-ments, had laughed out loud and changed channels to The Simpsons. Yes, lucky them! Survive Armageddon, and when they come out there's no one to rule over, no one to canvass for votes, and no one to print stories about your latest indiscretion with your secretary!

Maybe it was a shelter of some sort, but Jazz believed it more of a retreat than anything else. It could have been gov-ernment, could have been private, but whatever the case one thing was sure: it was long forgotten now.

When she stepped through the rear entrance of the Palace and walked along the corridor into the central area, Stevie was already there. Damn, he was fast! They locked eyes, she frowned, he shook his head slightly. Good. He hadn't said a word.

"Jazz girl!" Harry gushed. He stood and came to her, wrapping his wounded arm around her shoulder. "It's good to see you safe and sound," he said, quieter. "So come and sit with us, have a drink and a bite, because now that you're back we're all together again. And I've got something to read to you all."

Jazz nodded greetings and took a cup of tea offered by Marco. Hattie brought a plate of sandwiches and a huge bag of potato chips, and Jazz helped herself to a generous portion. The shock of that morning and the effort of her descent had made her hungry, and they'd not had time for breakfast.

"So Gob was up early this morning, lifting wallets on Oxford Street, and, bless him, he knows how much I like to read a paper. He brought down the Times —the only true pa-per for a gentleman, as I'm sure you all know. And lo and be-hold, at the bottom of page eleven, we get a mention!"

Cadge! Jazz thought. But no, that was more than two weeks ago. His memory was precious, and she would not want it sullied by some impersonal newspaper report.

Bill tapped his plate with his mug and held his hands out, shoulder up. What is it? Nobody had ever heard him talk when he was awake. Sleeping, he sometimes cried out words that none of them could quite make out, as though he spoke in a long-forgotten language. And then only when he had nightmares. Jazz felt sorry for him, but she also couldn't help finding him a little spooky.

"Patience, Bill!" Harry said. He rustled the paper, trying to pretend it wasn't already open and folded at the correct page. He coughed several times, made himself comfortable on his chair, and began.

"Bromwell Crisis of Control is the headline. Piers Taylor, a longtime friend and supporter of London's Mayor Leslie Bromwell, has spoken out against the mayor at a vital point in his campaign for reelection. Taylor's London home was broken into ten days ago by a gang of professional thieves, who made away with family jewelry and an undisclosed sum of cash."

"They called us professional!" Hattie said.

"Of course, my girl!" Harry said. "We've got the talented Jazz on our team. There are cat burglars aplenty, but in just a couple of months she's become a shadow burglar, for sure. Got an aptitude for stealing and a heart for hiding. Now, listen: In a statement read by his public assistant, Taylor, an in-dustrialist who made his fortune in oil and diamond mining in South Africa, said, 'Mayor Bromwell's avowed aim is to clean up London's streets, ridding us of the plague of violent crime and rob-bery that blights this nation's proud capital. He has been less than efficient in succeeding in this task, which is self-evident from the number of burglaries and street crimes still reported every day. Even if I had not been a victim of such a crime, I would be speaking out now, because I believe the mayor is a man who has been dis-tracted from his path.' Asked by this reporter what the distraction entailed, Mr. Taylor's assistant refused to comment. Efforts to con-tact Mr. Taylor for an interview have met with silence, but it is telling that someone once so close to Mayor Bromwell is now speak-ing out against him. " Harry sat back in his chair, rested his head, and looked at the ceiling. "Ah, my pets, what a fine vin-tage is revenge."

"Ten days ago," Jazz said. "That was the first house we did."

"The first," Harry said. "The one with the fancy topiary and swimming pool in the garden."

"What about the second?" she asked. "The one we did five days ago?"

"No mention yet." Harry stood and dropped the paper. "But it was well chosen, Jazz. Well chosen by me."

"And what about the third?" Stevie Sharpe asked. Jazz could have hugged him. One day soon, she promised herself there and then, she would.

All eyes turned to her.

"Yes, Jazz girl," Harry said. "What about the third?"

"Tomorrow morning," she said. "Easy. But we need to plan."

Harry grinned, bowing to Jazz like a performer at the end of a play. "Then plan we shall."

Chapter Eleven

thieving the thief

Jazz chose her moment well. Between traffic passing along the street, front doors closing, curtains being drawn open, the postman passing by, and pedestrians clicking their expen-sive shoes and high heels as they hurried to work, she walked across the street from the park, through the front gate, and down the several steps to the house's basement entrance.

She looked back across the street at Switch. He was read-ing on a bench in the park, and though he had his back to her and the house, she knew he'd been watching her. If there was any sign that she'd been seen, he'd let her know.

He turned a page, rubbed a hand through his hair, and carried on reading.

Jazz checked her watch. Five minutes. She was hidden from the road by the bulk of the steps leading up to the main door, and the basement door was set into the steps' side wall. The only way she would be seen was if Mort decided to visit his basement in the few minutes before leaving.

They'd decided that Jazz would be the only one to go in-side. Too many cooks, Harry had said, and he was right. The more who went in, the greater the chance of being caught. But the others were here, providing what Harry had called protection and distraction. Switch sat reading in the park, Gob and Hattie walked up and down a neighboring street, Marco did as his namesake and explored alleys, back streets, and service roads in the area. Stevie had taken one of the most dangerous jobs —scruffing himself up and sitting at the corner of Mort's street, begging. They all knew that he'd be moved on by the police soon, but that was one more distrac-tion for the local beat bobbies while Jazz did her thing.

Switch looked at his watch and closed his book. That was the signal that the time had come. Jazz had already inserted the skeleton key into the door's lock, and now she started turning and probing, feeling the tumblers click back as the key found its way in. Still listening for the sound of the front door opening above her, she concentrated hard.

If Mort opened the door, set the alarm, and came out be-fore she had this one open, it was all over.

Even if he didn't see her —and the chance of him missing her was close to zero, by her estimation—they would have missed their best opportunity to get inside. There were other ways, of course, but with an alarm system like this, it was best to fool it right at the start.

There! The lock snicked open and she grabbed the han-dle, ready to go inside.

The front door opened above her. She turned the han-dle, pushed the basement door open, and started counting.

One, two...

She slipped through, turned, and pushed the door shut behind her. She eased the handle closed with her hand, not wanting to risk its springs snapping it back into place. She had no idea of the layout of the house, no inkling of how sound could carry.

Three, four...

Jazz paused for a heartbeat to get her bearings. The basement had once been a well-appointed room, perhaps a separate dwelling in its own right, but now it was crammed full of old furniture, boxes sealed with packing tape, and a huge bookcase packed solid with old hardback books. Her route across this space would be slow, and the far door was closed, perhaps locked.

Five, six...

There was a motion detector in one corner of the room, flashing red where it was fixed just below the ceiling. Once the alarm was set and the flashing stopped, it would be active.

Jazz moved. Over an old sofa, clouds of dust puffing up around her and tickling her nose. Through a forest of dining chairs, upright and upside down, and her rucksack caught on one of the legs. She paused and spun around, catching the chair just before it hit the ground.

Seven, eight...

She stepped around a pile of small sealed boxes, wonder-ing what they contained.

Footsteps came from above as Mort hurried along his hallway, needing to set the alarm and close the front door by the count of thirty. After that, he'd set it off himself and have to explain to the police what had happened.

Nine, ten...

From her rucksack, she pulled a canvas cozy Hattie had made, elastic band sewn into the edges.

Stretching it with her fingers, she slipped it over the motion detector, let it snap into place, and then ran on.

Thirteen, fourteen...

She made the far door and tried the handle. She sighed when it opened, then stepped out into a dimly lit corridor, the only light bleeding through a glass-block wall at one end. There were two doors on each side, and any one of them could be the one leading upstairs.

A motion detector watched the corridor as well. This house was well protected.

Seventeen, eighteen...

She snapped another cozy over the detector in the hall. When the alarm activated, the motion detector would be ef-fectively blind. She tried the door five steps along from the basement door. It opened onto a blank space, a basement that had never been completed. Bare concrete walls and ex-posed ceiling joists were swathed in spiderwebs and dust. She closed it and crossed the corridor to the door immediately opposite.

Twenty-two, twenty-three...

Last chance. She'd have to stop soon, because she couldn't trust counting in her head. Three seconds off and everything would be ruined.

I'm in his house! I'm in Mort's house, and if the alarm goes and he comes in, catches me, he could kill me here and now. Or knock me out, tell the police it was a false alarm became he didn't set it in time, see them on their way with a cup of tea and a friendly wave, come back down to where he left me, slit my throat. Kill me when I'm unconscious.

Twenty-five, twenty-six...

Jazz opened the door and saw the short staircase leading up. Here, too, a motion detector flashed its readiness. She closed the door gently behind her, hurried to the top step, and pressed her ear against the door. A third canvas cozy was clutched in her right hand.

Twenty-eight.. .

She heard hurried footsteps, the front door slamming shut, and then a few seconds later the alarm let out one long beep. That was it. Set.

Jazz froze. She turned her eyes up and to the side and saw the steady LED of the motion detector.

Now was when the long, slow, fun part began. She'd hoped to avoid it, but no such luck.

Harry had told her that motion detectors used in domes-tic house alarms were only so sensitive. They could be fooled, but it took someone with a steady nerve and grace of movement to do so. He'd said that if Jazz moved as slowly as she could, she would be able to cross a room covered by a de-tector. It would take a while. And any slight jerk, sneeze, or slip could set it off. But it was possible.

Jazz reached up slowly and closed her hand around the door handle. She shut her eyes —slowly—and willed it to be unlocked.

It was an old-fashioned round brass handle, similar to those on the basement doors, and she had to grip it tight to provide enough friction to turn it. She moved her hand clockwise, hearing the lock squeal slightly, amazed at how tensed her muscles had become in her efforts not to move.

She was crouched on the top step and her right leg was below her, already aching and burning where it took her weight.

She could not ease up, stretch her leg, or shift position. Every movement now had to be relevant and necessary. Surely only the main corridors would have motion sensors, and even then perhaps only on the lower floors.

It was going to be a long, slow journey through the house, but she had all day.

The handle slipped in her palm, all the way back to the closed position.

"Shit!" Tempted though she was to slap the door, she could not.

She turned her eyes again, looking up at the red eye of the motion detector and silently cursing its electrical pa-tience.

It turned off.

Jazz gasped. It was no trick of the light or a fault of her eyes. Did this happen once the alarm system was set? It had been maybe five minutes. Did all the detectors sud-denly switch off the LEDs even though they were still ac-tive? She thought it unlikely —they were there for a reason, after all, and it seemed strange that they would no longer dis-play their alertness.

She heard a sound beyond the door. It was a light metal-lic click, like a tool snapping shut or a door latch finding its home.

Mort! He hadn't gone to work after all. He must have forgotten something, returned home, and...

But she had not heard the front door open, nor the beep-ing of the alarm that would count down the period he had to get inside, enter the code, and disable it. She'd have heard all that. She had been concentrating on the handle, true, and the beaded sweat on her forehead attested to that. But she would have heard Mort coming home.