The Girl in the Mirror

by Philip J. Gould

  “How generous,” said George sarcastically.

  “You’re welcome,” not taking the bait.

  “Once you’re in possession of the diamond, call this number.” Dominic handed George a scrap of paper with a mobile number scrawled across it. It was barely legible due to the creases. It looked like it had gone through the wash and been tumble dried. “I’ll let you know where to meet me.”

  “Will we do an exchange for my wife then?” George pocketed the scrap of paper.

  “In good time we’ll talk about that. First you need to get my diamond.” With that, Dominic turned to go.

  “Where are you going?” George enquired.

  Dominic didn’t stop or give a reply. He just gave a slight wave of his hand, his back to George, dismissive and disinterested.

  Dominic had been gone less than ten minutes when Sophie deemed the coast was clear and sat next to her father. He had remained on the park bench that Dominic had vacated; a waste bin in close proximity and a bed of flowers behind providing enough of an attraction to ensure a dozen wasps buzzed threateningly nearby. George hated wasps with a passion. Bees he could live with; they had a purpose pollinating the flora and producing honey. But wasps? What use did they have other than be a menace to society?

  “So we ARE going to go through with this?” she asked in disbelief. The voice seemed to come from thin air, startling George. He’d been a world away for a few minutes, daydreaming about happier times, of his family. He wondered if there would ever be happier times again. Sophie was invisible (as he’d expected) and having left the glasses that enabled him to see her back in the car, he was oblivious to her whereabouts. He looked about him nonetheless.

  “I guess we are,” George sighed, his voice barely a whisper, glancing at his watch. No more than five minutes had gone by since he’d last checked the time. He sighed again, shaking his head as if he were trying to clear fuzziness, almost cartoonlike, as though he’d been bumped on the head and he was trying to rid the birds flying about it. He stood up and grabbed the newspaper lying by his side. “I guess we are,” he repeated, a little firmer, beginning to walk towards the Royal Hospital Chelsea within which Masterpiece London was in full swing and the Whisper of Persia diamond, quite literally the jewel in the exhibit’s crown, was on grand display, a throng of visitors milling about for a glimpse of one of the world’s largest cut diamonds.

  Sophie pushed herself reluctantly to her feet and followed her father, jogging for five yards to close the gap. “So, how is this going to work exactly?”

  George stopped and turned to where he heard Sophie’s voice. Shrugging without commitment, he tried to reassure Sophie with a soft smile. “It should be simple. You go and do your thing and enter the exhibition hall unseen. Think of it as a test. The diamond is on display in a secure glass case in the exhibit marked ‘A5’ on this floor plan,” George held out a folded pamphlet to his daughter, who snatched it. Almost immediately upon taking hold of the leaflet, the document vanished. “There are two guards close by,” George continued. “Try not to engage them where possible.”

  “And how, dare I ask, do I get the diamond out of the glass case?”

  “Smash and grab. The alarm that sounds should offer enough chaos to enable you to escape without much of an issue – your invisibility will do the rest. Here,” George removed an object from the inside of the folded newspaper he was carrying. The blade was folded within the handle but Sophie instantly knew what it was.

  “A knife?”

  “Glass breaker,” he said matter-of-factly. “Use it to break in to the glass case.” The knife vanished in much the same way as the floor plan had. George looked about nervously to check that no one had been watching or close enough to hear him talking seemingly to himself.

  Sophie studied the weapon-cum-glass-breaker with her fingers as she walked alongside her father. “Neat,” she said, measuring it out within the palm of her invisible hand. “I like the weight.”

  “Just use it for breaking the glass. Nothing more,” George muttered.

  “Yes dad,” she replied mordantly.

  George ignored her. “Come, let’s get this done with.”

  At precisely 4:00 p.m. George was standing a short distance from the entrance to the austere Masterpiece London Art and Antiques Fair. Sophie, close by, had said very little for the ten or so minutes they’d walked from Chelsea Embankment Gardens. Because she was invisible, George found himself asking: Are you there? countless times, just for reassurance. After the first half a dozen times of giving verbal responses, Sophie had resorted to punching her father in the arm.

  “Okay, be careful. No fancy stuff, just go in, smash the glass, grab the diamond, then get out.”

  “Dad, I know what to do. You’ve already told me the plan. TWICE! This will be a breeze. Too easy in fact. Maybe you should do it!”

  “Don’t be cocky!” George admonished. “Remember; don’t engage with the security guards, they’re only salaried. And don’t get greedy. It’s just the diamond we want. Nothing else.”

  “Dad!”

  “Okay, okay! I’m just saying. I’m going now.” George felt invisible arms wrap around his neck and the lithe, athletic body of his teenage daughter press up against him in an embrace.

  “I’ll meet you back at the gardens.”

  “I love you Daddy,” she whispered before pulling away.

  “I love you too,” he said. But she was already gone.

  A long red carpet was laid out ahead of the entrance and leading around the front of the building, black velvet roped queue barriers lined either side, a further one in the middle splitting the area in two, a barricade that pretended to give order to the assembled throng entering or leaving, shepherding the masses who paid the exhibition a visit in either direction. Currently a large mass of people were shuffling a couple of inches forwards every few seconds as attendants dressed in matching black suits allowed admittance after giving each patron a cursory security check. One waved a hand-held metal detector about each person before stepping aside. Forgiving the obvious security delays, Dominic had been right about one thing. It definitely got busier after 3:00 p.m.

  Sophie bypassed the regular order of things and the ninety or so people waiting patiently in line, the great British pastime, making her way to the front of the building walking alongside the red carpet and queue barrier, and crouching beneath the roped cordon just before the large entrance doors. She pushed past one or two startled guests at the head of the throng, knocking one who had been clutching a champagne flute, to the ground. Cries of alarm and shock filled the air but none were the wiser to the cause of the disturbance.

  “How rude!” exclaimed one (a friend to the one who’d fallen), a woman in her mid-fifties, deathly thin, her skin hanging off her bones like a baggy dress on a hanger, her head jerking round to face the offending culprit who’d barged her and her friend – only to face absolute nothing. The attendant manning the door nearest looked her way to see what the bother was, at first puzzled but then slightly concerned. He started to weigh up whether he should allow this woman entry in view of her bizarre behaviour. He glanced across to a second attendant on the other side of the large double doors (the attendants stood sentinel on either side of them) and gave a signal with a glance and a slight turn of his head. The other attendant nodded his head in affirmation. An unsaid decision had been communicated. Mid-fifties woman and her friend’s day out was about to be curtailed.

  As Sophie walked past the two attendants through the large gulf the open double doors afforded, she stepped into the vast opulent room that was filled with over 150 exhibits and four exclusive restaurant areas. Behind her began an argument between the women she’d regretfully pushed aside and the two attendants, both of whom had stepped in front of the two women, the victim of the fall was a slightly younger, terribly officious woman
wearing a leopard print dress that ill-fitted her ample, unattractive body.

  “…I’ve NOT been drinking. I hardly took a sip from the champagne you know…” The shrill voice of the woman began to fade behind Sophie as she walked deeper into the exhibition hall, now passing the information desk situated first and foremost in the room; the bright lighting above, although soft, gave the place an almost ethereal feel to it – it was how she imagined the reception to heaven would feel if she believed in such places.

  Unfolding the pamphlet her father had given her, Sophie placed the printed matter onto an empty seat (allowing it to reappear) and studied the floor plan of the exhibition centre, an invisible finger tracing a line to the location of most interest: Exhibit A5. To get to the Whisper of Persia, Sophie needed to walk to the centre of the vast room and pass two corridors, from which four rows of galleries (or streets, as they looked like a row of shop fronts) and exhibitions showcasing art, antiquities and jewellery of varying age, branched off. With the information desk directly in front of her, Sophie glanced to her left. Each gallery front had lighted signage above the threshold, the name of its benefactor and its exhibit number clearly marked. The first row correlated with Sophie’s floor plan and the numbers were prefixed with the letter “C”, starting with C1. Like a residential street, the galleries were started with odd numbers one side and even numbers the next. Although she could see that within each individual unit unique works of art were on display, Sophie held very little interest. The paintings, the statues, the ancient tomes and the modern art, meant little or nothing to the young woman.

  There were many people milling around – too many – and despite the camouflage of invisibility, she felt out of place and almost naked within their company. They were all well-to-do, avant-garde types; men in suits, women in cocktail dresses. All talking in stilted tones, lips and noses turned upwards.

  Sophie retrieved and refolded the floor plan, making it vanish once again. She moved on, passing the information desk and heading towards Scott’s Seafood and Champagne bar directly ahead. She walked alongside the restaurant towards the next corridor of ‘street fronts’ that were identified with numbers starting with C29, and opposite C30. Like before, showcased within each gallery were art and antiques. Sophie paid no further notice than she would have had they contained garden tools or spare motor parts and moved on deeper still. According to the map, she needed to take the next corridor on her left. ‘A5’ was the third gallery along on the ‘odds’ side.

  Before turning, nerves hit her hard and she faltered at the junction, her body twitching to go back. It was a relief knowing that no one could see her indecision or the look of guilt that she knew was etched across her face. In such circumstances others would steel themselves with a stiff drink, a drop of ‘Dutch courage’, but she wasn’t others and had no experience of intoxicating liquors. Instead she calmed herself by way of concentration and a form of meditation. She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. A couple of minutes did the trick. She forced herself forward.

  As Dominic had informed George, who had then imparted the information crucially to Sophie, there were indeed two security guards standing close within the unit identified as A5.

  It didn’t take many seconds for her to see the glass case within which the yellow diamond was being displayed. In fact, it wasn’t the display itself that had drawn her attention, rather the horde of people flitting around it, like ants atop a sugary treat. Four or five people were looking at the item admiringly from around the glass case that took up a square meter of space at the centre of the small gallery. No one was showing any interest in the other items situated around the room. It occurred to Sophie that most of the items placed were just ‘gap fillers’ so that the gallery didn’t look so cold and bare.

  With a steady flow of visitors going to and from the exhibition, Sophie started to wonder how on earth she was going to be able to get close enough to the diamond without having to trample, jostle or hurt someone.

  Then, without much thought, it occurred to her.

  She needed a diversion.

  But without her father on hand to help, and no others party to the plan, the only option was for Sophie to cause a disturbance herself, something close by – enough of a distraction that would give her the space needed to do what was necessary and enough of an attraction to clear the room of as many bystanders as possible.

  The gallery on the other side to A5 (A6), was home to an exhibition of eighteenth and early nineteenth Century English furniture and Asian and Continental decorative arts. Sophie walked over to the gallery and looked at a table upon which a large Ming vase was on show. She looked about her, worried that she could be seen despite knowing that she was invisible, and without thinking further, picked the vase up and hurled it across the gallery against a far wall.

  The vase, worth several thousand pounds, shattered into two dozen pieces and brought cries of shock and alarm from those in the small room. Others passing close by joined in on the act of being surprised.

  Turning to go, Sophie gasped, momentarily frozen – a pair of George II period Chinese Chippendale carved gilt wood mirrors adorned the wall – her reflection was blatantly staring back at her from within the wooden framed looking glasses.

  Behind her, people had come out of A5 (as she’d hoped) and had started to crowd round the opening to the adjacent gallery, curious to what the fuss was. Taking the opportunity, Sophie started to leave, only to hear a lone voice cut through the babble of noise that you’d expect with a gathering crowd.

  “In the mirror? Did you see her? A ghost…” It was a man, in his sixties, pointing wildly towards the twin mirrors, a look of sheer terror upon his wrinkly face, the glare of the overhead fluorescents shining from his bald head.

  Sophie did not hang about and fled, barging people out of her way and running into the almost deserted gallery opposite (the two guards remained in close proximity to the object of interest, constantly professional). She withdrew the glass breaking knife from inside her trouser’ pocket as she went, moving swiftly to the glass cabinet and swinging a hefty blow to its furthest side, not stopping to catch a breath, barely keeping herself from falling over, off balanced.

  Sophie expected the glass to shatter on impact and thought she would be able to just stick her hand into the case and retrieve the diamond effortlessly, like she were helping herself to a friend’s punnet of popcorn at the cinema.

  This most definitely wasn’t the case.

  Instead, the glass breaker bounced harmlessly off the glass as though it were merely made from rubber, and her closely following hand, prematurely making for the diamond, cracked painfully against the toughened clear surface, sending a bolt of agony shooting up her arm and a sharp spasm to her elbow.

  “Sh…!” she started to curse, biting back the expletive. Because of the brouhaha her smashing the Ming vase next door had caused, her attempt at breaking into the glass case with the Whisper of Persia displayed had miraculously gone unheard. Although the pair of security guards were still close at hand, their interest was directed to the throng massing across the way, their attention momentarily curbed. One spoke into a mouthpiece alerting other security members, calling for backup.

  “It’s absolute pandemonium...” Sophie overheard him say. She tore her focus back to her objective. Recovering herself despite the pain in her hand and wrist, she prepared to aim a second, harder blow against the glass. This time, she intended to strike it like a hammer against a nail, designing a quick follow-up whack, hoping sustained force would shatter the clear obstacle where a single strike had failed. A quick, nervous glance around reassured her that attention from those in the gallery was still directed elsewhere, that the window of opportunity was still open; she followed through with her plan.

  The carefully directed blow glanced off the glass in much the same way as the first attempt, but th
e second caused a slight chip in its surface, just a tiny dot of a hole; a third hammer strike caused the glass to crack in a spider web but still remained intact, the diamond secure within. Buoyed by the signs of success her fourth (and final) aim was more forceful and decidedly, as Sophie half-expected, smashing the entire glass wall of the case, the glass imploding in a shower of barbed shards to fall around the Whisper of Persia that sat, undisturbed, on a velvet pillow that helped transcend the diamond’s unquestionable beauty.

  Immediately on shattering, the alarmed display case set off a shrill, strident ringing sound that alerted everyone near (and far) of an assault on the contents within gallery A5. The two security guards in close proximity turned their heads to the place where the alarm blared, expecting to see a thief (or thieves) in the act of robbery but instead puzzled to see the area around the display case was still empty. Where the diamond had been placed, visually pleasing to the many thousands who’d entered the gallery that week, there was nothing but the velvet pillow, the slight indentation from where the Whisper of Persia had been placed, and a surprising amount of broken glass (more than seemingly possible from just one broken side panel) strewn dangerously about the case like stalagmites in an ancient cave, razor-sharp points and barbed edges looking to cut or slice any who dared to poke a hand in.

  “What’s going on?!” Security guard number one shouted to his colleague who was momentarily stunned, like a transfixed animal in the path of an oncoming vehicle. He needed to raise his voice to be heard over the din of the alarm, deafening in its urgency, and the renewed excitement amongst the ever-expanding group of visitors, voyeurs eager to see what the commotion was all about, not realising that their absolute presence aided the perpetrator’s cause and escape.