She went back to the school at six PM, when the afternoon activities were winding down and the building was emptying out. The gap between teachers who stayed late for marking and the cleaning staff who came at seven — forty minutes during which the school had minimal people in it.
She had her access card. The classroom was empty. She closed the door behind her and turned on the light and went to the teacher's desk. She had sat at this desk every day for two weeks. She knew its surface — the arrangement of things on it, the grain of the wood. She knew everything about it except the locked bottom drawer on the left side, which was the only locked thing in the room.
She tried it. Locked, as Dev had said. A standard office cabinet lock — the key was small, the kind that came with the desk. Not a sophisticated lock. A desk lock, designed to keep students from casually accessing things.
She sat back. She was not going to break into a locked drawer at six PM. Beyond the professional complications, it was not who she was. She needed the key. The key was with Kavitha Rao, somewhere not at this school. Which meant the drawer was not accessible unless—
Unless there was a master key.
She went to the staffroom. The staffroom had a key board — a wooden board on the wall with hooks and labels. Most of the hooks had keys. Most were labeled: Art Room, Science Lab Storage, Sports Equipment, Library — Fiction, Library — Reference, Staff Toilet (Ground), Staff Toilet
