A dark blur slipped along the top of the wall facing the river. It seemed to cling to the edges and veer around like a candlelight shadow in a breeze, flickering and dodging. It hesitated, then continued, tracking along the wall, then hesitating.
"She's looking for a way out," said the tech.
"She?" said Garvin.
The shadow slipped along the wall to a gate structure, flanked by square towers.
"Traitor's Gate," said the Scot. "Quite appropriate in the circumstances."
The tech continued. He seemed "The water gate itself is wood reinforced with iron. It's old and not really intended as an effective barrier. On the other side of it, though, the entrance to the Thames has been bricked up and there's a significant barrier. The Thames is high, as you can see, but the water doesn't enter the tower itself. The water behind the wall is quite shallow — a few inches only. The tide turned twenty-three minutes before this and is on the ebb. The current is downstream towards the estuary."
He panned across the wall where the gate had been sealed. "According to witnesses there was no splash or ripple, and they initially discounted the water as an exit route. It's not as easy a way out as it appears and has trapped the unwary before. Instead they focused their attentions on the parapet and any attempt to abseil or scale down the wall. Only when the water started to move did they realise where's she'd gone."
"That's the second time you've used a female pronoun," said Garvin.
"The wave oscillated three times, initially moderately but with increasing force. On the third oscillation the gate is forced open. That's when the outer wall starts to collapse. Within moments there's water flooding through. A section of the wall collapses and the Thames is through."
He looked up at them.
"The wall was inspected a month before. There was no sign of any weakness then, though subsequent inspection shows water damage to be the cause. We're at a loss to explain it. That would have been it," said the tech, "except that there are cameras under the bridge which monitor boats passing underneath. One of them caught this image…
The screen changed to a black view with a small white spot in it. He zoomed into the spot until it resolved into a face in the water. The girl had her eyes closed, arms extended, carried by the strong current downstream. It was Alex.
Garvin and I exchanged glances.
"Good," said the Scot. "I thought you'd recognise her."
Garvin interlaced his fingers on the table. "We are not unaware of this individual's activities."
"Excellent," said the Scot, opening a file in front of him. "The girl has been identified as Alexandra Dobson, nee Petersen, daughter of Katherine Dobson and Niall Petersen, who, if I'm no mistaken, is about three feet to your right at the moment. Any comment?"
"We are not currently aware of her whereabouts," said Garvin quietly.
"Not currently aware? Is that shorthand for you've fucking lost her?"
"You try my patience," said Garvin.
"We're not talking a bit of mindless vandalism here. These are the crown jewels. They are a symbol of this country's integrity and lawfulness. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if we'd had them stolen?"
"About as embarrassing as having it discovered that you're conducting illegal and immoral experiments on human beings?" said Garvin.
"They weren't human," said the Scot.
"That's an interesting point of view," I said, earning a sharp look from Garvin.
"Nothing human can do that!" the Scot said, pointing at the screen.
I was standing before I knew it, the power boiling up inside me, aching to be released. Garvin was up beside me, pressing down on my shoulder, making me sit, pushing me back down, and the power with it. If we hadn't been surrounded by the dampening effect of the horse shoes, I don't think I could have contained it. I allowed myself to be re-seated, slowly and carefully, acutely conscious of how close I'd come to killing him.
The Scot was elated that he'd provoked a reaction. "You're on every alert list we have, Petersen," he said. "The only thing missing is a bounty on your head."
"Are you threatening me?" My voice was low and level, but far from how I felt.
"Enough," said Garvin. "Niall, hold your tongue. You're not helping and there's more at stake here than you're dignity."
"It's not my…"
"Enough!" Garvin stared me down. When I looked away he turned to the Scot. "You've already admitted they didn't take anything. I'll ask you again, is there any point to this exhibition?"
"I didn't say they didn't take anything," said the Scot. "I said they didn't get the jewels"
"So what did they get?" he asked.
"Will you stop pacing up and down?" said Blackbird, "You're distracting the baby."
I looked down at our son, resting in Blackbird's arms and watching me rather than latching on to her to feed.
"Sorry." I sat down, but that just provoked a bout of wriggling and tipping his head back until he could reach a position where he could see me again. He was developing fast, and had become much more aware of his surroundings in the last few days.
"Here, you take him for a moment. It's you he wants to see anyway. You might as well hold him."
I took him from her and he kicked his legs while I manoeuvred him into a comfortable position resting on my forearm. He waved his arms around until I gave him a finger to hold, at which point he promptly pulled it to his mouth and started to suck and gum it.
"You see?" I said to him. "You were hungry after all, and you're not going to get much out of that, are you?" He continued sucking my finger, despite my advice. Sometimes children just don't listen.
Blackbird stacked up some pillows on the bed, made herself comfortable and then offered her arms. "Shall we try again poppet, and your father can sit down and keep still this time."
I passed him back to her and in a moment he got the idea and settled down to sucking noisily.
"So what exactly are they accused of taking?" she asked me.
"Alex was identified by one of the Yeoman Warders as the girl in the aviary. They're trying to establish whether she can be tried for treason for interfering with the ravens, assuming they can catch her. According to the man responsible, one of the ravens has a tail feather missing and Alex is being blamed for it."
"I wouldn't fancy taking a tail feather from a raven. They're big birds and they tend to put up a fight. Maybe it fell out on its own," she suggested. "Proving any of this is irrelevant anyway, it's never going to come to court."
"Maybe not a human court. I don't know what the Feyre courts are going to think of this. At the very least it's an embarrassing incident, and at worst a treaty violation. Who knows what Kimlesh will say."
"Alex isn't part of the courts. She never joined, and therefore she's not anyone's responsibility. Unfortunately she doesn't have any of the court's protection either. If she's caught, she could just be killed without a hearing."
"That's comforting," I remarked.
"Sorry, Niall, I didn't mean it like that, and it's not like she's stolen anything of national importance. It's a feather for goodness sake. The bird can grow another one."
"That doesn't apply to the other item that was stolen," I said.
"Oh?"
"Supposedly the Queen's keys are stored in the gatehouse and used to lock up the Tower of London at night, but not all the keys fit the locks."
"And why would that be?" asked Blackbird, shifting our son from one breast to the other in a nifty move that was too quick for him to wail before another breast was presented. There was some wriggling and waving of arms, and then he settled again.
"One of the keys was a gift to the crown, found as part of a treasure trove in long barrow in East Anglia, buried with a Angle nobleman."
"The Sutton Hoo burial?" asked Blackbird.
"No, a smaller horde, but in some ways more significant. Some of the items were hard to identify — the key was out of time. The metallurgy was too sophisticated for the period and therefore the key was thought to have contaminated the find at some later point and somehow been included with the horde as a less valuable item."