As soon as there was silence, Mr Ambrose sprang into action. Fishing two small pieces of metal out of his pockets, he bent down in front of the door of the wooden hut and began fumbling at the keyhole.
‘Where in God’s name do you have the keys for this place from?’ I hissed.
‘I don't,’ was his calm reply. ‘These are no keys. They are lock picks.’
‘Lock picks? What does a respectable gentleman want with lock picks?’
‘Nothing, probably.’ He threw me a cool glance. His fingers didn’t stop. They moved in an intricate dance, producing clicking noises from the lock. ‘But then, I never claimed to be respectable.’
He turned his eyes towards the lock again.
‘Listen closely now, Mr Linton. We have exactly twenty-six minutes and thirty-one seconds until the next shift of guards arrives - less even, if those two who just left should happen to meet Colonel Townsend and discuss with him our appearance here. I will need approximately another three minutes to open this lock, and there might be other, more complicated locks between us and the file inside the hut, so we will have to move fast. As soon as the file is in our possession, we will move to the tunnel at the end of the cave…’
‘What tunnel, Sir?’
‘Didn’t you see the tunnel at the other side of the cave as we came in?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Well, I did. As I passed it, I felt a breeze come up the tunnel. It smelled of sea air. There’s a direct connection to the coast through that tunnel. Judging from the general direction of the passage, it should come out somewhere near the harbour you told me about. If we go by that route, we might be able to make our escape before the soldiers realize they’ve been hoodwinked.’
‘And we might end up at a dead end and be trapped.’
‘We might. But better a risk in life than certain death, Mr Linton.’
I couldn’t argue with that.
‘What should I do?’ I ask him. ‘Can I help?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘Be quiet.’
I bit back a sharp reply. This time, his terseness might actually be more than simply annoyance at my presence and general feminine existence. I had no idea if one needed quiet to pick a lock; it might very well be.
‘And you can keep an eye on the stairs,’ he added in a voice that wasn’t quite as granite-hard as usual - rather more akin to slate, or sandstone. ‘Tell me immediately when somebody approaches, understood?’
For some reason, a smile appeared on my face. ‘Yes, Sir.’
I had been staring at the empty stairs for a few minutes when from behind me, I heard a click.
‘Done! Let’s go, Mr Linton.’
When I turned my head, I saw that the door was indeed standing open a crack.
‘What now?’ I whispered. ‘Should I stand guard outside while you go in and get the file?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don't want you to stay out here alone.’
He gave no more explanation, but silently beckoned me to follow him inside. I did so, feeling confused. What was that supposed to mean? That had sounded almost as if he wanted to keep me at his side because he cared more about my safety than about securing his precious secret file, the key to all his greatest dreams of wealth and power. But that couldn’t be the case, surely.
Compared to the distant, echoing hum of voices and clatter of cargo out in the cave, it was almost eerily quiet inside the hut. It was only a small, one-room building, made of wood, but still I felt as though I had entered a church, or a throne-room, or another place of majesty. And at the other end of the little room, only a few yards away from Mr Ambrose and me, stood the throne, the Holy Grail of this palace: a small, black safe, with a lock on its door that looked considerably more complicated than the one on the door outside.
Mr Ambrose took two quick steps towards the safe and bent forward to examine the lock. His eyes narrowed the faction of an inch.
‘Mr Linton?’
‘Yes?’
‘We might have a slight problem.’
‘Indeed, Sir?’
‘Yes. I calculate I will need about twenty minutes to open this lock.’
‘And how many minutes do we still have left until the guards appear, Sir?’
‘Twenty.’
‘Oh. That might be a problem Sir.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
Without another word, he shoved his lock picks into the lock and started fiddling. The sound of metal clinking and scraping was nerve-wracking, and after only a short time, I was hardly able to stay still. I started to walk up and down the hut, trying not to think of what would happen if the real guards walked in on us now. They probably wouldn’t look kindly on two of their supposed colleagues trying to crack Lord Dalgliesh’s safe.
‘Mr Linton?’ came a terse voice from floor level, in the direction of the safe.
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘Stop walking about. You are distracting me.’
I forced myself to stop, and instead leaned against the wall and started to nervously flex my fingers. I wouldn’t have thought anything could distract Mr Ambrose. But then, the prospect of being shot would probably even faze a stone statue such as he.
‘Mr Linton?’
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘Stop flexing your fingers. I can hear your knuckles cracking from over here.’
‘Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir.’
I clenched my hands into fists and folded my arms in front of my chest, just in case. I even tried to breathe more evenly so as not to disturb him. Please let him be quick, I prayed. Please!
Click.
‘Done!’ he exclaimed. Was that a tiny hint of excitement I heard in his voice? Whatever it was, it was gone immediately. He gripped the handle of the safe, and I launched myself forward, eagerly gazing over his shoulder. After weeks of searching, weeks of wondering what the bloody hell we were after, I was finally going to see the mysterious file. What would it look like? I imagined a black steel case, with the letters ‘top secret’ printed in dark red on the top, and a padlock on the side. Or maybe…
The door of the safe swung open. Inside lay a thin, beige envelope, about the size of a standard letter.
‘Yes!’ Mr Ambrose reached inside, grasped the envelope and flipped it open. Quickly, he skimmed through the contents. I saw dozens of sheets, covered with column upon column of numbers, and a few pieces of paper covered in a squiggly, foreign script I could not decipher.