Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(90)

“Brilliant,” said Kate. When she closed the cabinet, she caught sight of their reflections, their faces in the shadow of her phone light. Scared. They came back out to the door with the padlock.

“Does this really work?” whispered Tristan as she knelt down and straightened one of the bobby pins out.

“Yes. When I was a PC, or WPC as they called us back then, we had training with a locksmith and lock picker—an ex-con. They used a padlock made of clear plastic for training. It showed how the lock works inside. There’s a row of pins inside the padlock that all need to be lined up level. That’s what the key does when you push it in, and when you turn it, it opens the lock mechanism . . .”

There was a bang, which made them both jump, and then the drone of a car engine.

“Shit,” said Tristan.

“Just a car backfiring,” said Kate. She could feel sweat starting to trickle down her back. “Here, hold the light on the lock.”

Tristan trained her mobile phone screen onto the padlock. She put the first pin in the padlock, pushing it to the bottom of the lock, and then she opened another bobby pin, straightened it out, and bent the tip of one end slightly. She slipped it into the lock above the other pin and started to push it in and jiggle it up and down.

“I wish I could see if the pins were lifting up . . .” She kept jiggling and pushed it all the way in. “Okay. Here we go.” She turned the pins, and the padlock sprang open.

“Nice one!” said Tristan, a little too loudly. “Sorry.”

Kate unhooked the padlock, pocketed it, and opened the door.

The room inside was bathed in shadow. They closed the door behind them and switched on the lights on their phones. On one side the room was filled with junk—old branding signs for sun cream and makeup—there were chairs stacked, and in the corner sat the huge old photo-processing machine, which was covered in junk. The walls were all lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves, and on each shelf were scores of box files.

On the back wall there was a thick velvet curtain that was grubby and dusty.

“Bloody hell,” said Tristan. “Look at all this.”

The box files were all labeled with TAX, INVOICES, CONFERENCE WORK, STAFF, PAYROLL.

“What about those right up there?” said Kate, pointing to a row of ancient-looking files up by the ceiling. They looked around. There were no ladders.

“The printing machine—it’s on wheels,” said Tristan. They went to it and managed to pull it out and push it to the opposite corner. Tristan climbed up and starting pulling down the old box files and handing them to Kate, and she piled them on the floor. She opened each one, the dust from them billowing up around the room. The first two were filled with old paperwork and bank statements, but the next had packets of photos.

There were actors’ headshots and corporate modeling shots. Kate could see dates written on the packets. She took some more box files from Tristan and hurriedly looked through and found photo packets from 1989 to 1991. The first couple of packets were actors’ headshots, but then there were photos of two young girls in school uniforms, posing in a sunny bedroom. As the photos progressed, the girls took their clothes off, and then they were naked.

“How are you getting on? Oh Jesus,” said Tristan, climbing down and joining her. There were six or seven box files left to look through, and he opened them.

“I’ve got photo packs dated 1990 and 1991,” he said. “Mostly teenage girls . . . And there’s more.”

“What was that?” said Kate. They froze at the sound of a car pulling up outside. There was silence, and then they heard a door slam.

“People live here. There are those terraced houses opposite,” she said. “Bag these up. I saw a pile of old promotional tote bags over there.”

She went to the velvet curtain and pulled it back a little. There was a small window, and she could see Paul Adler, dressed in jeans and a jacket, with Tina, the young girl who worked for him. She had on a short dress and was tottering on high heels, holding on to his arm. Tina was laughing, and they were making their way along to the front of the shop.

“Shit. We need to move, now,” said Kate, her heart hammering in her chest. She saw Tristan had tipped out the photo packets into an Oil of Olay–branded giveaway tote bag, and he was on top of the photo machine with the box files.

“Pass the rest up!” he said. Kate picked them up and gave them to him, then went to the door and opened it a crack. There was a slow whirring sound, and she could see the metal security grille covering the shop front windows was rising. Tina’s and Paul’s feet were visible and then their legs as it slowly rose up.

She turned, Tristan jumped down from the printing machine, and they rolled it back in place.

“Run for it! Take the bag!” she hissed. She pushed him through the door and followed him out. She took the padlock from her pocket just as the security grille cleared the door. Kate knelt down and went to hook the padlock back onto the door, but she dropped it.

“Hurry! He’s coming in!” said Tristan.

“Go, just go,” said Kate. She scrabbled around on the floor in the dark. She could hear a key being pushed into the lock in the front door. Her hand closed over the padlock, and she picked it up, hooked it back in the door, and clicked the lock shut. They heard the second lock turn in the front door, and as it opened Kate and Tristan ran for it, down the corridor and into the staff room. Kate closed the door as softly as she could. Tristan got the back door open, and Kate closed it behind her, and they ran out into the loading bay. Kate closed the gate behind them, and they didn’t stop running until they emerged out onto a side street.