Read Online The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan - Free Book Online Page B

through the shell. Easily enough done with a fist.’
    Chopra reflected on this. ‘You are saying that this crime was planned a long time ago.’
    â€˜No flies on you, I can see,’ McTavish said. ‘Come on.’
    He led Chopra next to the shattered display case in which the crown had been housed. ‘This is reinforced ballistic glass. You can bounce bullets off it. It’d take a sledgehammer to break through it, and I’m pretty sure there’s no’ enough space in that hole for one of those.’
    â€˜Then how did they do it?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Not yet, anyrood. To be frank I’m no’ so sure they
broke
the glass.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜I have a theory… but I need to conduct more tests first. Come on.’
    Chopra followed McTavish to the gallery’s rear door, where a swathe of debris was being hoovered up by a forensic technician. Looking through the gaping hole in the very centre of the door Chopra saw another technician out in the corridor, similarly vacuuming the floor. Noticing his gaze, McTavish said, ‘They used enough charge to blow that hole through, but not enough to damage anything else in the gallery. Standard plastic explosive, C4, packed inside a copper focuser. Detonator and blast-cap set-up. Professional work. There seems to have been a bit of blowback into the corridor.’
    â€˜Is that usual?’
    McTavish shrugged. ‘Well, explosions aren’t my speciality, but I believe so. Something to do with shock waves and negative-pressure blast winds.’ He scratched the back of his skull with a gloved finger. ‘At any rate, the current thinking is that our villains came up through the fire exit stairs, into yonder corridor, blew a hole through this sealed door and ducked straight into the gallery. They recovered the gas canisters from the statue, put everyone to sleep, smashed the display case, grabbed the crown and went back the way they came. The whole caper couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes from start to finish.’
    Chopra looked through the gaping hole again and into the marbled corridor that stretched from the Tata Gallery to the Jahangir Gallery on the east wing. He knew that the corridor had been off limits during the exhibition, another security precaution that had backfired as it now meant that there were no witnesses. Halfway along the corridor, double doors led onto the fire exit stairwell. The media had surmised that the thieves had used these stairs both to infiltrate the corridor and then later to make their escape.
    â€˜How did they get the plastic explosive into the building past the Force One Unit and the scanners?’ Chopra asked. ‘And if they had a way to do that why did they need to hide the gas canisters in the statue beforehand? Why didn’t they just bring them in on the day of the heist, like the explosive?’
    McTavish gave a wolfish grin. ‘Top marks, Chopra. Who says Indian polis cannae find their own bottoms without a map?’
    Chopra frowned. ‘I do not know. Who says this?’
    â€˜What?’ It was McTavish’s turn to frown.
    â€˜Who says this? About Indian officers and their bottoms?’
    McTavish opened his mouth, then closed it. ‘It’s just a saying. To answer your question: we might assume they hid the plastic explosive in another part of the museum, inside another statue perhaps, one accessible outside the Tata Gallery.’
    â€˜Did they?’
    â€˜Not a chance,’ replied the Scot briskly. ‘We’ve gone over everything. Every exhibit. Every nook and cranny. No sneaky hiding places. Nothing.’
    Chopra’s frown deepened.
    â€˜Little things, Chopra,’ continued McTavish. ‘You ever read that story about the princess and the pea?’
    â€˜What has that—?’
    â€˜There was this prince,’ interrupted McTavish, ‘on the lookout for a princess. Only he