1st May
There was a brief sound of breaking glass as Jenny used a centre punch to smash the glass away from an area near the window catch.
‘Won’t someone hear that?’ whispered Duck.
‘Possibly,’ said Jenny. ‘That’s why I make sure that all the glass I need to remove breaks away in one go. When most people hear an unusual noise at night, they listen for another. If nothing happens, they assume they misheard the first time or that it was just a cat knocking something over. If they hear a second suspicious crash, however, then they come to investigate.’
Jenny lifted the catch and carefully pulled the window open. ‘Mind the broken glass as you climb in,’ she said.
The head torches worn by Jenny and Duck illuminated the twelfth century vaulted roof which now formed part of the private cathedral offices of Bishop Julian Summerland.
‘At least the bishop isn’t going to walk in on us,’ said Jenny, recalling an earlier message from Joan confirming that Bishop Sutherland had just left England for a month long trip to visit Christian charity projects in Turkey.
Jenny located some filing cabinets along one wall and opened one with a lock pick. She began to look at the papers it contained.
Duck made a more generalised and systematic search of the room, looking for anything that might be of relevance.
Jenny glanced up from the paperwork to note that Duck was walking backwards and forwards over the same piece of carpet. ‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘Most of the cannabis chamber at the farm is under the big outhouse,’ Duck explained. ‘As you know, the main entrance is via the tunnel from the old stables, but there’s a trap door in the floor of the outhouse. No one would usually detect it, but when you walk over that bit of carpet often enough, you get to notice that it feels slightly different. I moved a work bench to cover it in the end.’ He pointed downwards at his feet. ‘It feels just like this piece of carpet here.’
Duck walked to the edge of the carpet and began to roll it up. The trap door was exactly where he had indicated.
They lifted the hinged cover to reveal a staircase that descended into a lower crypt.
Jenny and Duck carefully descended the steps.
At the bottom was a light switch, mounted on a column.
‘There are no windows down here,’ said Jenny, flicking the switch and illuminating the lower crypt. ‘We may as well have the lights on.’
The area in front of them looked quite different from the room above. In the upper room had been old tables, chairs and filing cabinets that you might associate with an administrative office in an ancient cathedral building. In this lower chamber was very stylish and modern furniture. There was a large, glass, boardroom-style table, supported by dark, square, wooden legs. The twelve chairs around the table were of matching design. A light blue, deep pile carpet covered the entire floor, and a large monitor screen was suspended from one wall.
Around the remaining walls, photographs hung. Duck inspected each with interest. ‘What on Earth are these?’ he said.
Jenny looked at the photographs. ‘I’ve seen some of them before,’ she replied. ‘They’re aircraft that were developed by the Americans. The ones I recognise aren’t secret any more but were black projects in their time.’ Jenny turned to Duck. ‘There must be another door to this room,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine that those who would meet in this kind of room would roll up the carpet to get in every time. Can you try to find it?’
Jenny pulled a camera from her pocket and photographed the room from various angles. She then withdrew a roll of tape from her pocket, together with some plastic bags and a pencil, and proceeded to stick a section of tape to the table in front of one of the chairs. She then peeled away the tape and placed it in a plastic bag.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Duck.
‘Fingerprints from the table,’ Jenny replied as she moved systematically to the next place.
‘I’ve found the door,’ called Duck from behind a curtain at the far end of the room.
‘Is it locked?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK, let’s leave that. While I’m finishing with the fingerprints, just take some measurements of the room size – including the locations of the trap door and the main door. We’ll be able to work out the ground plan later with reference to a map of the cathedral.’
Duck took the laser measuring device from his pocket, checked dimensions and noted the relevant figures on a pad.
Before they left, Jenny unscrewed one of the electrical sockets from the wall, connected a microphone to the earth lead and replaced the unit.
‘Will a radio microphone transmit from a cathedral crypt?’ asked Duck.
‘That’s why it’s connected to the earth wire,’ Helen replied. ‘The whole electrical system then acts as one big aerial.’
They turned off the lights, returned to the upper room and replaced everything as it had been.
‘What about the broken glass?’ Duck asked.
Jenny pulled some drawers from a desk and emptied the contents onto the floor. She then pushed papers from various surfaces to contribute to the mess. ‘They’ll think it was normal burglars,’ she said. ‘MI5 are normally tidier than this.’