The Medusa Curse Read online

  Jan Sheppard leaned back in her chair. ‘You’re free to go, Mr Lyons. It was just a chat.’ She stood up and ushered them to the door. ‘We’ll call if we need any more from you, Phoenix.’

  * * *

  Outside the police station, Jazz and Phoenix huddled on the footpath to compare notes. Jazz could hear her mother trying to make small talk with Mr Lyons, who looked desperate to be anywhere else.

  ‘Did you get the impression the police suspected us?’ asked Jazz.

  Phoenix nodded. ‘Dad almost had a coronary when he realised that’s where the interview was headed.’

  Jazz flashed a smile, but concern soon returned to her face. ‘It doesn’t look good though, does it? The external cameras were switched off by someone, so there’s no footage to reveal the model or registration of the car that did the ram raid.’ She paused and lowered her voice. ‘Did you say anything about Dr Zhang in your interview?’

  ‘Of course not,’ retorted Phoenix. ‘Have you heard from Mack this morning?’ Jazz had sent him a text on the way to the station so he knew about Mack’s request.

  Jazz gave a small shake of the head. ‘I tried calling her when I got up, but she didn’t answer. I’m worried.’ She hugged her arms across her chest. ‘What if Dr Zhang is still missing? We need to work out what we’re going to do next. On my way out I overheard the police talking about getting a warrant to search Dr Zhang’s office. We should try and get there first, just to look around.’

  They were interrupted by Mr Lyons marching over. ‘Phoenix, I have better things to do with my day than stand around in front of a police station. Shall we?’

  ‘I can run Phoenix home if you like,’ Mrs Mandell called. ‘I’m in no hurry.’

  Mr Lyons mumbled something as he climbed into the car and drove off with a curt wave.

  ‘Actually, Mum,’ said Jazz, ‘we might head round to Mack’s and see if we can help her with anything.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Jazz waited until her mum’s car was out of sight then pointed to a cafe across the road. ‘We can talk in there.’

  Phoenix hesitated at the kerb, looking up and down the street although there were few cars moving around.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I hate to say this, but I’m pretty sure someone was watching my house last night.’

  ‘What? You saw someone on the street?’

  ‘Someone in a van. Like the one Anika pointed out at the museum.’

  ‘Coincidence?’ asked Jazz with a frown. ‘I don’t know about you but I was pretty shaken up when I got home. Maybe now it’s you who is seeing crimes everywhere. Could have just been a regular car.’

  ‘Maybe,’ agreed Phoenix, flicking back his fringe. ‘Come on, I need a milkshake.’

  In the cafe, they had just ordered when Jazz’s phone buzzed. ‘Mack!’ she cried. ‘How are things this morning?

  Mack’s voice was thin, exhaustion and anxiety evident in every word. ‘Oh, Jazz, it’s awful. The police came back again this morning. Cooper knows something’s up so he hardly slept. Neither did Mum.’

  ‘So your dad . . .’ Jazz wasn’t sure how to finish her question.

  A great sniff came down the phone line. ‘We haven’t seen him and he’s not answering his phone. Have you found out anything yet?’

  Jazz looked at Phoenix and shook her head. Their worst fears were confirmed. If Dr Zhang hadn’t even contacted his family, something was very, very wrong.

  ‘Not yet. But we’ll find him,’ Jazz said.

  ‘The police are still talking like they think he’s behind the robbery.’ Wails reached Jazz’s ears from the other end of the phone. ‘I have to go get Cooper,’ said Mack. ‘Please, Jazz, do whatever you can to find my father.’

  Jazz ended the call, her mouth set in a determined line. ‘We have to work out what happened last night. Finding Dr Zhang has to be our priority, before his family is ruined.’

  Phoenix nodded. ‘And let’s hope he can lead us to Sapphire, before the wrong people do a lot of damage.’

  33:18

  ‘Where are we going to start?’ asked Phoenix. ‘No-one saw anything and all the security cameras were switched off! An unseen driver of an unseen car stole the world’s first quantum supercomputer and vanished without a trace. Where do we go from there? We’ve got nothing.’

  ‘You’re forgetting something,’ said Jazz. ‘Every criminal leaves a trace.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘It’s the founding principle of forensic science,’ Jazz explained. ‘From Edmund Locard, the Sherlock Holmes of France.’

  ‘So what’s your point?’

  ‘That there must be some evidence left behind that will point to the perpetrator! Remember Anika’s kidnapping? The kidnapper didn’t even seem to exist at first, but once we did a proper investigation we found the clues that helped us solve the mystery.’

  ‘Sure,’ grumbled Phoenix, ‘but aren’t you forgetting one really major problem?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The crime scene! We can’t get in there. The Velocity wing will be cordoned off by police.’

  ‘We’ll just have to work with what we’ve got then,’ said Jazz.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Photos. Last night I took photos of something I saw on the floor. I’ve started a new case file in CrimeSeen and added them as evidence. Look.’

  Phoenix peered at the pictures on her tablet with interest. ‘Where were these taken?’

  ‘Right next to Sapphire,’ said Jazz.

  Phoenix pulled his laptop out of his backpack. ‘I’ve got a neat bit of software called Jigsaw that might help.’

  ‘Are you playing games again?’ she teased.

  ‘Nope, not this time.’ Phoenix sent himself the images and loaded them up in his Jigsaw app. With a selection tool, he drew around the fragments and dragged them into a processing box. Then he clicked GO. ‘Sit back and watch the magic.’

  The program began to rotate each fragment. Slowly, matching sides of an object started to line up. Not all of the fragments fit together, but soon they had one completed image with a distinctive design.

  ‘It looks like a pitchfork in a circle,’ said Jazz, puzzled. ‘Could it be an ancient coin? Or broken pottery? Maybe other artefacts did get damaged in the ram raid.’

  Phoenix emailed her the completed image and ran a search for ‘pitchfork circle’. ‘Not much there,’ he said.

  ‘It’s still something,’ said Jazz, saving it to CrimeSeen.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Phoenix. ‘OK, now let’s think about Sapphire. First, who had access to it and where were they when it was stolen? Second, who else wants it?’

  Jazz crossed her arms and drummed her fingers. ‘Well, the first list is pretty short, and the second list is as long as you want. The only people with access to Sapphire last night were us, Dr Zhang, museum security and Sir Robert. And we know where they all were.’ Jazz felt Phoenix’s eyes on her. ‘What?’

  ‘We don’t though, do we? We don’t know where Dr Zhang was. And we still don’t.’

  ‘Let’s hold that thought for a moment. What about the second list, of people who had an interest in it.’

  ‘Big corporations, cyberterrorists, data miners, hackers, governments, you name it,’ rattled off Phoenix.

  ‘But how would they have known Sapphire would be there last night? Its delivery was top secret. And you don’t ram raid a building on the off-chance there’ll be something there. Whoever the thieves were, they knew.’

  ‘They also knew exactly where it would be displayed in the Velocity wing. Otherwise they might have driven straight in, destroying Sapphire in the process,’ Phoenix said, remembering how the tyre tracks had curved in an arc in front of the supercomputer.

  ‘True. They must have seen the display plan. Only someone close to the museum would have had access to that.’

  ‘What’s also puzzling is that they didn’t take Sir Robert. Without him the machine is useless, so althou
gh they knew something, they didn’t know enough.’ He finished his milkshake. ‘I wonder if Dr Zhang knew about FTTS?’

  ‘Phoenix, stop it! There is no way this robbery is Dr Zhang’s doing.’

  ‘I’m not saying it is. But he was acting strangely beforehand and no-one has seen him since.’

  ‘What about Sir Robert?’ Jazz asked. ‘Was he deliberately attacked?’

  ‘Or just in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

  ‘Maybe he recognised the ram-raiders. If he could identify them—’

  ‘It’s a good thought, but I doubt it,’ said Phoenix. He pointed to a breaking news alert on his phone.

  BILLIONAIRE STILL UNCONSCIOUS FOLLOWING THEFT

  ‘He’s not going to be talking to anyone yet.’

  They sat quietly for a few moments, thinking through what they knew.

  ‘We have to find Dr Zhang,’ Jazz declared, just as Phoenix said, ‘We have to find Sapphire.’

  Jazz sighed. ‘OK, our motives and suspicions might be slightly different, but our aim is the same. We find Dr Zhang, we find Sapphire and we get this exhibition back on.’ She checked her watch: 10.16 am. The first 48 HOURS were ticking away. ‘We’ll need to speak to people at the museum, see if anyone saw Dr Zhang leave. The first 48 HOURS is still fresh—we have to get back to the Point Last Seen.’

  ‘It’s cordoned off, remember?’

  ‘Can you stop thinking about the supercomputer for a second? What about the point where Dr Zhang was last seen? We have to search his office before the police get their warrant.’

  ‘How do you plan on getting in?’

  Jazz fished her pass out of her bag. ‘Staff access, remember?’

  32:02

  They got off the tram at the stop nearest the museum and walked up the footpath towards the building. Now it was light, they could see the grass slope leading from the road up to the Velocity wing was a mess of muddy tyre marks. The smashed glass wall had been covered with thick plastic sheeting and the whole area was sealed off with crisscrossed yellow and black police tape. A couple of officers were stationed there, talking with Sammy and Gustav.

  The rest of the museum seemed to be open for business, so Jazz and Phoenix walked around to the main entrance. They hovered outside for a few moments, unsure of how to proceed.

  ‘If everything that happened last night hadn’t happened,’ said Jazz, ‘we’d be able to walk straight past the front desk into the admin wing without even thinking about it.’

  ‘Let’s do that then,’ replied Phoenix. ‘Now, while Sammy and Gustav are out of the way. Acting normally will draw the least attention.’

  They entered the lobby and strode confidently through the heavy double doors of the security office. The monitors were on this time, but the office was empty. They went up to the locked entrance to the staff-only corridor and swiped their key passes. The door slid open.

  ‘It’s this bit I’m worried about,’ whispered Phoenix as they entered.

  ‘The coast looks clear,’ said Jazz.

  They looked each way as if they were crossing a busy road. Seeing that nobody was watching them, they walked straight into Dr Zhang’s office. Jazz locked the door behind them, using a napkin she’d taken from the cafe to cover her hand and avoid leaving prints.

  ‘So far so good,’ said Phoenix.

  They looked around. The office was a medium-sized room with a large sliding glass door that opened onto a small courtyard. To the right of the courtyard door stood Dr Zhang’s large desk and chair.

  ‘We should be fine as long as nobody wants to come in here,’ said Jazz. ‘Let’s be quick, though; I don’t know how long it will take for the police to get that warrant. They could be on their way here now.’

  It was clear that Dr Zhang was running out of room because several stacks of books towered precariously in front of the bookshelves that lined the walls. The desk itself was piled high with papers and, in the corner behind his leather chair, more papers were stacked on top of a filing cabinet.

  On a shelf near the doorway stood several ancient figurines with handwritten labels: the marble head of a Roman matron with a chipped nose, a Chinese horse from the Tang Dynasty and a figurine of the Greek god Pan. He had goat’s hindquarters and was holding a pipe.

  ‘There’s that Pan statue again. He must have been popular,’ said Jazz. ‘It’s just like the one I almost knocked over last night.’ She turned her attention to the books and papers on the desk. ‘OK, where do we start?’

  ‘I’ll take the shelves and the piles of books on the floor.’ Phoenix opened his bag and drew out some disposable gloves. He tossed a pair to Jazz and put some on himself.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jazz. ‘I’ll do the desk and the filing cabinet. Remember, we’re looking for anything unusual. Anything that hints at where Dr Zhang might be . . .’

  * * *

  Despite being on edge, they settled into a routine. While Phoenix checked the books, flipping through each volume in case something was hidden inside, Jazz methodically went through each drawer in the filing cabinet before moving to the paper stacks. The minutes ticked by as they searched and Jazz listened anxiously near the door whenever footsteps passed in the corridor. Soon Phoenix was on the last level of the bookcase. Jazz had moved onto the desk and was now opening the drawers on either side.

  ‘Phoenix,’ she said, ‘I can’t open this bottom drawer. It’s locked.’

  The sound of voices outside the door made them freeze—a conversation in low tones, not quite loud enough for every word to be heard clearly.

  ‘Quick, hide!’ Jazz scrambled under the wide desk and Phoenix flattened himself against the wall beside the door, thinking that as soon as it opened, he’d bolt out.

  Under the desk, it was uncomfortably squashy. Jazz heard the voices start to move away. Whoever it was had just been walking past.

  ‘I think its alright,’ said Phoenix. ‘But that was close. We need an escape plan. If we hear someone coming in, go out into the courtyard, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Jazz said. She started to wriggle and crawl out of her hiding place. As she did so, some strands of her hair caught on something and pulled painfully. Awkwardly, she turned her head to see a key taped on the underside of the desk. ‘Hey! There’s a key stuck here!’

  She crawled out and then felt around with her hand under the desk until she found the adhesive tape that was holding the key in place. After making sure none of her hair was stuck to the tape, she removed the key and applied it to the locked bottom drawer. ‘Now, let’s see what’s hidden inside!’

  As Jazz opened the drawer, Phoenix peered over her shoulder. ‘It looks like an accounts book,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s why it was locked away?’

  ‘I was hoping for something more exciting,’ said Jazz.

  She straightened up and put the book on the desk, opening it. The page in front of them was divided into columns. ‘It’s a list of artefacts,’ said Jazz. She read out some of entries.

  Phoenix examined the dates. ‘Maybe it’s a record of when the different pieces were bought?’

  Jazz shook her head. ‘That doesn’t make sense. These are all recent dates; even I know those pieces have been here for years.’

  Phoenix frowned. ‘This can’t be the formal list of everything in the museum. It’s not long enough, and Dr Zhang wouldn’t write it all out by hand. There’d be a computer catalogue for sure.’

  Jazz looked more closely at the page. ‘You know what this reminds me of? When I was in primary school I used to be in charge of the classroom library and I had a list like this. When a book went out of the classroom library I’d record the “borrow” date. Then when the book came back, I’d write down the “return” date.’

  ‘You’re right. Two sets of dates next to each piece. And they’re all about the same amount of time, with about three weeks between them.’ Phoenix flicked through some more pages then let out a low whistle. ‘This is interesting,’ he said, stopping on a page covered in calculatio
ns. ‘A set of financial figures. “Expected return over one year: one hundred and twenty thousand.”,’ he read out.

  ‘What could that mean? It’s a huge amount of money. Expected return on what?’ Jazz asked.

  ‘And all locked away in the bottom drawer, as if it were hidden,’ said Phoenix.

  ‘Could it be some kind of top-secret project?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Phoenix said. ‘Or something he’s ashamed of? Something that shouldn’t be there? Something illegal?’

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Jazz.

  ‘My feeling is that this page is very important.’

  ‘You think Dr Zhang is mixed up in something he shouldn’t be?’

  ‘Think about what you said before, that this looks like a library borrowing record. But for artworks.’ Phoenix looked hard at Jazz, waiting for her to make the same connections he had.

  ‘You think Dr Zhang was running some kind of lending library . . . except instead of books, he was lending out antiquities?’

  ‘Yep,’ he said, pointing at the page of figures. ‘It’s a money-maker,’ he said. ‘There are people who would pay for this kind of loan. Rich people.’

  ‘They’d love it,’ said Jazz slowly. ‘Showing off 3000-year-old sculptures to their friends at dinner parties to prove how cultured and wealthy they are.’

  ‘If it were me, I’d just get a nice shiny new one.’

  Jazz rolled her eyes. ‘To prove how uncultured you are? They’re antiquities! That’s the point!’

  Phoenix grinned. He turned the pages back to the list of artefacts and his expression became thoughtful. ‘The library idea makes sense of that phone call we overheard too. It sounded like Dr Zhang wanted to stop whatever he’d been doing. Maybe he wanted to stop lending stuff.’

  ‘I don’t know, Phoenix,’ said Jazz warily. ‘Dr Zhang might have been lending out antiquities, but that’s not illegal, is it?’

  Phoenix paused, choosing his next words carefully. ‘No, not technically. But why hide the ledger? The fact is, your friend’s dad needs money: for the cash-strapped museum and his wife’s illness. He’s got secrets. There must be something going on.’