JAMES TWINING
The Gilded Seal

DEDICATION

To Amelia and Jemima

‘When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies’

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

This novel was inspired by the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 and its eventual recovery in 1913, an event which triggered one of the largest criminal investigations in history and to which the Mona Lisa owes much of her present-day fame.

All descriptions and background information provided on works of art, artists, thefts, forgery detection techniques and architecture are similarly accurate. Unfortunately, the Claremont Riding Academy, which is briefly featured in this novel, announced its closure shortly before publication, but the description was left unchanged as a tribute to the sad passing of a much loved New York landmark.

For more information on the author and on the fascinating history, people, places and artefacts that feature in The Gilded Seal and the other Tom Kirk novels, please visit www.jamestwining.com

EXCERPT

Extract from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects by Giorgio Vasari (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)

Leonardo undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife.

In this head, whoever wished to see how closely art could imitate nature, was able to comprehend it with ease; for in it were counterfeited all the minutenesses that with subtlety are able to be painted…

…The nose, with its beautiful nostrils, rosy and tender, appeared to be alive. The mouth, with its opening, and with its ends united by the red of the lips to the flesh-tints of the face, seemed, in truth, to be not colours but flesh. In the pit of the throat, if one gazed upon it intently, could be seen the beating of the pulse. And, indeed, it may be said that it was painted in such a manner as to make every valiant craftsman, be he who he may, tremble and lose heart.

And in this work of Leonardo’s there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold; and it was held to be something marvellous, since the reality was not more alive.

The Washington Post, 13th December 1913

Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s great painting, which was stolen from the Louvre, in Paris, more than two years ago, has been found [and a man arrested]. It is now in the hands of the Italian authorities and will be returned to France.

Mona Lisa or La Joconde as it is more properly known, the most celebrated portrait of a woman ever painted, has been the object of an exhaustive search in all quarters of the globe. The mystery of its abstraction from the Louvre, its great intrinsic value, and the fascination of the smile of the woman it portrayed … have combined to keep alive interest in its recovery.

On being interrogated, the prisoner said his real name is Vincenzo Peruggia…‘I was ashamed,’ he said ‘that for more than a century no Italian had thought of avenging the spoliation committed by Frenchmen under Napoléon when they carried off from the Italian museums and galleries, pictures, statues and treasures of all kinds by wagonloads, ancient manuscripts by thousands, and gold by sacks.’

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Historical Background

Excerpt

Prologue

Part I

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Part II

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Part III

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

Fifty-Eight

Fifty-Nine

Sixty

Sixty-One

Sixty-Two

Sixty-Three

Sixty-Four

Sixty-Five

Sixty-Six

Sixty-Seven

Sixty-Eight

Sixty-Nine

Seventy

Seventy-One

Seventy-Two

Seventy-Three

Seventy-Four

Seventy-Five

Seventy-Six

Seventy-Seven

Seventy-Eight

Seventy-Nine

Eighty

Eighty-One

Eighty-Two

Eighty-Three

Eighty-Four

Eighty-Five

Eighty-Six

Eighty-Seven

Eighty-Eight

Eighty-Nine

Epilogue

Note from the author

Website

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Other Works

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous

Napoléon I

PROLOGUE

Macarena, Seville, Spain

14th April (Holy Thursday) – 2.37 a.m.

It started with a whisper; a barely voiced tremor of suppressed anticipation that rippled gently through the expectant crowd.

‘Pronto. Pronto estará aquí.’ Soon. She’ll be here soon.

But the whisper evaporated almost as quickly as it had appeared. Snatched from their lips by a capricious wind, it was carried far above their heads into the warm night, only to be casually tossed between the swirling currents like autumn leaves being chased across a park.

It was replaced, instead, by the distant sound of a lone trumpet, its plaintive, almost feminine cry echoing down the winding, cobbled street. This time, people made no attempt to conceal their excitement, and their faces flushed with a strange inner glow.

‘Ahora viene. Viene La Macarena.’ She’s coming. La Macarena is coming.

The crowd, almost ten deep on both sides of the street, surged forward against the steel barriers that lined the route, straining to see. In between them, the dark cobblestones flowed like a black river, their rippled surface glinting occasionally in the flickering light.

The man allowed himself to be carried forward by the breathless host, sheltering in the warm comfort of the anonymity they provided. In the crowd, but not of it, his eyes skipped nervously over the faces of those around him rather than the approaching procession. Had he lost them? Surely they couldn’t find him now.

He caught his own reflection in the polished rim of a lantern being carried by a woman in front of him. His leathered skin, dark eyes glowing like hot coals, the steep cliff of his jaw, the ruby-coloured razor slash of his lips, his wild mane of white hair. The unmistakeable mask of despair. He had a sudden vision of an ageing lion, standing on some high promontory, taking one last look at his territory stretching towards the horizon and at his pride, lazing beneath him in the setting sun’s orange-fingered embrace, before heading quietly into the bush to die.

A cheer drew his gaze. The first nazarenos had swung into view. Sinister in their matching purple cloaks and long pointed hats, they trooped silently past, their faces masked with only narrow slits for eyes, a black candle grasped solemnly in one hand. Behind them, a marching band dictated a steady pace.

‘¡Está aquí! ¡Está aquí!’ She’s here! She’s here! A small boy with long golden hair had fought his way through to where he was standing and was jumping to try and get a better look. The man smiled at his eagerness, at his uncomplicated and breathless excitement and, for a moment, forgot his fear.

‘Todavía no. ¿Ves?’ Not yet. See? He swept the boy off the ground and lifted him above his shoulders to show him how far the procession still had to run before the solid silver float containing the statue of the Virgen de la Esperanza Macarena would appear.

‘Gracias, Señor.’ The boy gave him a faint kiss on the cheek before diving through the legs of the people in front with a snatched wave.

The first flower-strewn float shuffled past – the sentencing of Christ by Pontius Pilate. The faint aroma of incense and orange blossom drifted to him on a mournful sigh of wind and he breathed in deeply, the smells blending harmoniously at the back of his throat like cognac fumes. How had it come to this? It had all happened so long ago now. Forgotten.

He looked back to the procession and saw that the nazarenos had given way, temporarily at least, to two rows of penitentes – those who sought to repent of their sins by walking the processional route barefoot and with heavy wooden crosses slung over their shoulders. He smiled ruefully at the sight of their bruised and bloodied feet, part of him wanting to take his place alongside them, the other knowing it was too late.

A sudden break in their sombre ranks afforded him a clear view right through to the other side of the street. There several monaguillos, children dressed as priests, were handing out sweets to the people standing in the front row. They were all smiling, the peal of their laughter filling the air. All apart from one man who, his phone pressed to his ear, was staring straight at him.

‘They’re here,’ he breathed. ‘They’ve found me.’

He turned away, instinctively heading against the flow of the procession to make it harder for anyone to follow him. Elbowing his way through the crush, he came to a narrow street and darted up it, past a drunk pissing in one doorway and some kids making out in another, the boy’s hand shoved awkwardly up the girl’s top. Halfway along, he veered right down a side alley where bright banners and wilting flowers hung lazily from low, sagging balconies.

He skidded to a halt outside a large wooden gate. The sign nailed to it indicated that the building was currently being renovated by Construción Pedro Alvarez. That meant it was empty.

It only took him a couple of seconds to spring the padlock open. He stepped inside and carefully closed the gate behind him, finding himself in a small courtyard littered with paint-spattered tools and broken terracotta tiles. A dog had fouled the large pile of sand immediately to his left.

In the middle stood a well. He made his way to it. It was disused, a black grille over the opening rendering the bucket suspended above it purely ornamental. This was as good a place as any.

A match flared in the darkness and he held it to his small notebook. The dry paper clutched at the flame, drawing it in like water, the fire gnawing hungrily at the pages’ pale skin until only the charred spine remained. He glanced towards the gate. He still had time. Time to leave some clue as to what he had discovered before it was too late.

The knife bit into his palm, the blood welling up through the deep gash and then oozing through his fingers, sticky and warm. He had barely finished when the gate burst open.

‘Está allí. Te dijé que le iba a encontrar. ¡Venga! ¡Venga! Antes de que se vaya.’ He’s in here. I told you I’d find him. Quick! Quick! Before he gets away.

He looked up and recognised the little boy he had lifted above the crowd earlier pointing triumphantly towards him, a cruel look in his eyes, blond hair shimmering like flames in the darkness.

Five men shot through the doorway, two of them overpowering him instantly by bending his right arm up behind his back and forcing him to his knees.

‘Did you really think you could hide from us, Rafael?’ came a voice from behind him.

He didn’t answer, knowing it was pointless.

‘Get him up.’

The grip on his arm relaxed slightly and he was dragged to his feet. A cold, blinding light snapped on. Rafael held his other hand up to his face, shielding his eyes. A video camera. The sick putas were filming this. They were filming the whole thing.

A shape materialised in front of him, a solid black outline silhouetted against the white light’s searing canvas, the world suddenly drained of all colour. The figure had a hammer in one hand and two six-inch masonry nails in the other that he had scooped up off the floor. A kaleidoscopic undershirt of tattoos disappeared up each sleeve and formed a rounded collar where they reappeared just below the neck line of his unbuttoned shirt.

Rafael felt himself being lifted so that his wrists were pressed flat against the wall either side of an open doorway. The video operator took up a position so he could get both men in shot.

‘Ready?’

Outside, Rafael heard muffled cheering and the faint sound of women wailing and crying. He knew then that La Macarena had finally appeared on the adjacent street, glass tears of grief at the loss of her only son frozen on to the delicate ecstasy of her carved face.

She was here. She was here for him.

PART ONE

Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him; a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure.

Ecclesiasticus 9:10

ONE

Drumlanrig Castle, Scotland

18th April – 11.58 a.m.

As the car drew up, a shaft of light appeared through a break in the brooding sky. The castle’s sandstone walls glowed under its gentle touch, an unexpected shock of pink against the ancient greens of the surrounding hills and woodlands.

Tom Kirk stepped out and drew his dark overcoat around him with a shiver, turning the black velvet collar up so it hugged the circle of his neck. Ahead of him, blue-and-white police tape snapped in the icy wind where it had been strung across the opposing steps that curved up to the main entrance. Six feet tall, slim and square shouldered, Tom had an athletic although not obviously muscular build, his careful gestures and the precise way he moved hinting at a deliberate, controlled strength that was strangely compelling to watch.

It was his eyes that were most striking, though, an intense pale blue that suggested both a calm intelligence and an unflinching resolve. These were set into a handsome, angular face, his thick arching eyebrows matching the colour of his short brown hair, the firm line of his jaw echoing the sharp edge of his cheekbones and lending an air of measured self-confidence. The only jarring note came from the series of small fighting scars that flecked his knuckles, tiny white lines that joined and bisected each other like animal tracks across the savanna.

Looking up, he was suddenly struck by the almost deliberate extravagance of the castle’s elaborate Renaissance splendour compared to the artisinal, grey functionality of the neighbouring village he had just passed through. No doubt when it had been built that had been precisely the point, the building a crushing reminder to the local population of their lowly status. Now, however, the castle looked slightly out of place, as if it had emerged blinking into the new century, uncertain of its role and perhaps even slightly embarrassed by its outmoded finery.

In the distance, a police helicopter made a low pass over the neighbouring forest, the chop of its rotors muffled by the steady buzz of the radios carried by the twenty or so officers swarming purposefully around him. Tom shivered again, although this time it wasn’t the cold. This many cops always made him nervous.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ A policeman on the other side of the tape shouted over the noise. At the sound of his voice the thick curtain of cloud drew shut once again, and the castle faded back into its grey slumber.

‘It’s okay, Constable. He’s with me.’

Mark Dorling had appeared at the top of the left-hand staircase, a tall man wearing a dark blue double-breasted suit and a striped regimental tie. He waved him forward impatiently, Tom recognising in Dorling’s ever so slightly proprietary manner evidence, perhaps, of weekends spent visiting friends with houses of a similar size and stature.

The policeman nodded and Tom stooped under the tape and made his way up the shallow and worn steps to where Dorling was waiting for him, shoulders back, chin raised, fists balanced on each hip like a big game hunter posing over his kill. Oxford had been full of people like Dorling, Tom reflected. It was the eyes that gave them away, the look of scornful indifference tinged with contempt with which they surveyed the world, as if partly removed from it. At first Tom had been offended by this, resenting what appeared to be an instinctive disdain for anyone who didn’t share their privileged background or gilded future. But he had soon come to understand that behind those dead eyes lurked a cold fury at a world where the odds had so clearly been stacked in their favour, that their lives had been robbed of any sense of mystery or adventure. Far from contempt, therefore, what their expression actually revealed was a deep self-loathing, maybe even jealousy.

‘I wasn’t expecting you until later.’ Dorling welcomed him with a tight smile. Tom wasn’t offended by his accusing tone. People like Dorling didn’t like surprises. It disturbed the illusion of order and control they worked so hard to conjure up around themselves.

‘I thought you said you were in Milan?’ he continued, sweeping a quiff of thinning blond hair back off his forehead, a large gold signet ring gleaming on the little finger of his left hand.

‘I was,’ said Tom. ‘I got the early flight. It sounded important.’

‘It is,’ Dorling confirmed, his pale green eyes narrowing momentarily, his jaw stiffening. ‘It’s the Leonardo.’ A pause. ‘I’m glad you’re here Tom.’

Dorling gripped his hand unnecessarily hard, as if trying to compensate for his earlier brusqueness, his skin soft and firm. Tom said nothing, allowing this new piece of information to sink in for a few seconds before answering. The Madonna of the Yarnwinder. One of only fifteen paintings in the world thought to have been substantially painted by da Vinci. Conservatively worth $150 million. Probably more. In his business, it didn’t get much more important than that.

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘Anyone hurt?’

‘They overpowered a tour guide. She’s bruised but fine. More shocked than anything.’

‘Security?’

‘Rudimentary,’ Dorling gave an exasperated shrug. ‘It takes the police thirty minutes to get out here on a good day. These chaps were in and out in ten.’

‘Sounds like they knew what they were doing.’

‘Professionals,’ Dorling agreed.

‘Just as well it’s insured, then, isn’t it?’ Tom grinned. ‘Or aren’t Lloyd’s planning to pay up on this one?’

‘Why do you think you’re here?’ Dorling replied with a faint smile, the lines around his eyes and tanned cheeks deepening as his face creased, his eyes darkening momentarily.

‘The old poacher-turned-gamekeeper routine?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What does that make you, I wonder?’

Dorling paused to reflect before answering, the pulse in his temple fractionally increasing its tempo.

‘A businessman. Same as always.’

There were other words dancing on the edge of Tom’s tongue, but he took a deep breath and let the moment pass. He had his reasons. Dorling’s firm of chartered loss adjusters was the first port of call for Lloyd’s underwriters whenever they had a big-ticket insurance claim to investigate. And during the ten years that Tom had operated as an art thief – the best in the business, many said – Dorling’s company had co-operated with the police on countless jobs which they suspected him of being behind.

All that had changed, however, when word had got out a year or so back that Tom and his old fence, Archie Connelly, had set themselves up on the other side of the law, advising on museum security and helping recover lost or stolen art. Now the very people who had spent years trying to put them both away were queuing up for their help. The irony still bit deep.

Tom didn’t blame Dorling. If anything he found his shameless opportunism rather endearing. The truth was that the art world was full of people like him – crocodile-skinned and conveniently forgetful as soon as they understood there was a profit to be made. It was just that the memories didn’t fade quite so fast when you’d been the one staring down the wrong end of a twenty-year stretch.

‘Who’s inside?’ Tom asked, nodding towards the castle entrance.

‘Who isn’t?’ Dorling replied mournfully. ‘The owner, forensic team, local filth.’ The slang seemed forced and sat uneasily with Dorling’s clipped sentences and sharp vowels. Tom wondered if he too felt awkward about their past history and whether this was therefore a deliberate attempt to bridge or otherwise heal the gap between them. If so, it was a rather ham-fisted attempt, although Tom appreciated him making the effort at least. ‘Oh, and that annoying little shit from the Yard’s Art Crime Squad just showed up.’

‘Annoying little shit? You mean Clarke?’ Tom gave a rueful laugh. In this instance the description was an apt one, although Tom suspected that it was a term Dorling routinely deployed to describe anyone who hadn’t gone to the same school as him, or who didn’t feature on his regular Chelsea dinner-party circuit.

‘Play nicely,’ Dorling warned him. ‘We need him onside. We’re co-operating, remember, not competing.’

‘I will if he will,’ Tom shrugged, unable and perhaps unwilling to suppress the hint of petulance in his voice. Clarke and he had what Archie would have called ‘previous’. It didn’t matter how much you wanted to draw a line and move on, sometimes others wouldn’t let you. Tom felt suddenly hot and loosened his coat, revealing a single-breasted charcoal-grey Huntsman suit that he was wearing with an open necked blue Hilditch & Key shirt.

‘There’s one more thing you should know,’ said Dorling, pausing on the threshold, one foot outside the house, the other on the marble floor, his square chin raised as if anticipating a blow. ‘I had a call from our Beijing office. They only just heard, but Milo’s out. The Chinese released him six months ago. No one knows why.’

‘Milo?’ Tom froze, not sure he’d heard correctly. Not wanting to believe he had. ‘Milo’s out? What’s that got to do … you think this is him?’

Dorling shrugged awkwardly, his bluff confidence momentarily deserting him.

‘That’s why I called you in on this one, Tom. He’s left you something.’

TWO

New York City

18th April – 7.00 a.m.

They hit traffic almost immediately they turned on to Broadway, brake lights shimmering ahead of them like beads on a long necklace, umbrellas bobbing impatiently along the sidewalk. The rain, thick with the evaporated sweat of eight million people, crawled in greasy rivulets down the glass, flecking Special Agent Jennifer Browne’s faint reflection in the passenger-side window as she sipped coffee from a polystyrene cup.

Most agreed that she was a beautiful woman, perhaps even more so since she’d broken thirty, as if she’d somehow grown into the slender, elegantly curving five foot nine frame that had made her appear a little gawky when younger. She had light brown skin and curling black hair, her father’s African American colouring having been softened by her mother’s Southern pallor. But her large, honeyed hazel eyes were pure Grandma May, a fierce woman who claimed to have met the devil on two separate occasions; once on the ship over from Haiti, the other on her wedding night. To her regret, Jennifer had been too young to verify either of these stories with her grandfather before he’d died.

And yet despite what others said, Jennifer had never really considered herself to be attractive, citing her younger sister as an example of a far more natural and intuitive beauty. Besides, she’d never been that concerned with what people thought about how she looked. It was, after all, a poor proxy for character, which is what she preferred to be judged on.

She stifled a yawn, the mesmeric fizz of the wipers across the windshield exposing the effects of too many late nights. She certainly could have done without today’s early start. Then again, she’d not had much choice. Not when FBI Director Green himself was calling the shots.

‘This is taking for ever,’ she said restlessly as they shuffled forward another few feet and the caffeine began to bite. ‘Cut across to Eighth when you hit West Fourteenth.’ She glanced up and caught the driver eyeing the firm outline of her breasts in the mirror.

‘Sure thing.’ He nodded awkwardly, his eyes flicking back to the road.

She sat back, her annoyance with the driver offset by her amusement at herself. Only nine months in and she was already well on her way to being a real New Yorker – not only irrationally impatient but also utterly convinced of her ability to navigate to any point in the city faster than anyone else. Not particularly attractive traits, perhaps, but ones that nonetheless gave her a sudden sense of belonging that she hadn’t felt for a long time. Too long.

Twenty-five minutes later they turned on to West 89th Street and drew up outside the elegant façade of the Claremont Riding Academy, the oldest continuously working stable in the state, according to the sign fixed to the wall outside.

Jennifer scanned the street – Green’s usual security detachment was already there, a lucky few sat in one of the three unmarked Suburbans, the rest sheltering in the doorways opposite, water dripping on to their shoulders and the toecaps of their polished shoes. He was early. That was a first. Whatever he wanted, he clearly didn’t plan to hang around.

She stepped out of the car, a long coat worn over her usual urban camouflage of black trouser suit and white silk blouse. Not the most exciting outfit, she knew, but then she’d learnt the hard way that people would grasp at anything to categorise you into their rigid mental taxonomies. Certainly, given how hard it was to make it as a woman in the Bureau, let alone an African American woman, she’d rather be classified as frigid than as a potential fuck, which, convention had it, were the only two points on the scale that female agents could operate at. Besides, in a way it suited her – it was one less decision to make in the morning.

A ramp covered with a deep carpet of dirt and wood shavings led up to the riding school itself. She made her way inside, suddenly aware of the smell, an incongruous mixture of horse and leather and manure amidst Manhattan’s unforgiving forest of steel and concrete and glass. There was a time, she mused, when the whole city would have smelt this way, when the clatter of hooves and the foghorns of ships arriving in the harbour had signalled the forging of a new city built on hope and ambition. She decided she liked this smell. It seemed somehow real. Permanent. Relevant.

Ahead of her a single horse was trotting robotically in a wide circle defined by the space between the walls and the bright blue pillars supporting the whitewashed brick ceiling above. A young girl was perched unsteadily in the saddle, golden braids peeking out from under a pristine black velvet helmet. An instructor was standing in the centre of the school, swivelling on the heels of his scuffed brown riding boots as he followed the horse round and round, occasionally bellowing instructions.

‘Excuse me,’ Jennifer called, as the horse rode past and the man turned to face her. ‘I’m looking for Falstaff.’

‘Falstaff?’ He eyed her curiously as he walked over, his muscled thighs sheathed in pale cream Lycra jodhpurs. ‘You’re here for Falstaff?’

She nodded firmly, hoping that he had not noticed the slight uncertainty in her own voice. Green’s call had been hurried and muffled by the sound of a passing siren. Seven thirty a.m. Claremont Riding Academy. Ask for Falstaff. Don’t be late.

‘How many times? Keep your heels down,’ The instructor suddenly barked, his eyes fixed beyond her shoulder. Jennifer glanced behind her and saw the young girl blush crimson as she wheeled away, heels firmly pressed down against her stirrups, braids bouncing frantically off her shoulders. The instructor’s searching gaze followed her as she circled past, his face set into a disapproving frown.

‘Yes, Falstaff. You know where I can find him?’

The man glanced at her sceptically, before giving a vague nod to his right.

‘They’re waiting for you upstairs. First floor. Back and right. That’s it. Good girl. Hands out in front. Now remember your posture. It all comes from the posture.’

With a faint word of thanks, Jennifer headed over to the spot he had indicated. A wide, curving ramp led up to the stabling floor above, the stone worn and gouged by generations of hooves and over-indulged Upper West Side kids.

Two more of Green’s men were positioned at the top of the ramp, transparent earpieces snaking inside their collars. They waved her down a central aisle that led to the far end of the stables, narrower passageways containing loose-boxes leading off to the left and the right. The boxes themselves were painted white and in various stages of decay and disrepair, with wooden slats missing or broken and the wrought-iron railings thick with rust and overpainting. Saddles, reins and various other pieces of tack and frayed rope were hanging haphazardly from the peeling walls or slung over skewed gates. A stereo dangled from an overhead beam, the music clearly more to the taste of the Mexican workers mucking out than the horses whose mournful heads she could see peering over the stable doors.

Another of Green’s men was waiting for her at the end of the main aisle. He silently steered her to the right. The sound of voices drew her to the final stall where a tin plate was attached to the door with twine. A name had been punched into it with a blunt nail – Falstaff.

Jennifer frowned, momentarily disconcerted. She’d assumed Falstaff was someone whose parents had either had an irrational love of Shakespeare, or a questionable sense of humour. Not a horse.

With a shrug, she stepped into the box. Jack Green had his back to her and was locked in conversation with two smartly dressed men, one noticeably older than the other. The younger man looked up sharply when he saw her. Picking up on his cue, Green spun round to greet her.

‘Browne.’ He gave her a fleeting smile. ‘Good.’

Green was one of those cookie-cutter DC insiders who seemed to roll off a secret production line in some rich white neighbourhood on the outskirts of Boston. Crisp creases in his suit trousers, ironed parting in his brown hair, plump cheeks, perfect teeth and irises like faded ink spots on crisp linen sheets, his gaze constantly flitting over your shoulder, in case someone more interesting should come into the room behind you.

He’d lost weight since the last time she’d seen him, adding substance to the Bureau gossips who contended that he’d recently re-married and that his new, much younger and richer bride, had him on a treadmill three times a week. True or not, he still had a way to go; the material around the top button of his trousers was buckling under the stress of holding his stomach in. And if there was a new wife, she’d certainly done nothing to improve his taste in ties, this morning’s offering a garish blend of different shades of orange.

‘Morning, sir.’ She shook his hand.

‘Thank you for coming. I know it’s early.’

‘It’s not a problem,’ she said generously. ‘I normally go for a run at this time anyway.’

He gave her a look that was caught somewhere between sympathy and admiration, before gesturing first towards the older man, then his younger companion.

‘I’d like you to meet Lord Anthony Hudson, Chairman of Sotheby’s, and Benjamin Cole, his opposite number at Christie’s. Gentlemen, this is Special Agent Jennifer Browne from our Art Crime Team.’

‘Call me Ben.’

Cole gave a wide, teethy grin, his dark brown eyes searching hers out earnestly and then darting away when she tried to hold his gaze. She wondered if the others knew he was gay. Probably. He was immaculately dressed in a black suit and open-necked white shirt, the glint of a thin gold chain just visible in the cleft of his collarbone. She guessed he was in his early forties, although he looked maybe ten years younger, the healthy glow of his long pointed face betraying a daily routine of wheat grass, exfoliation, free weights, soya milk, pilates and expensive moisturiser.

‘But whatever you do, don’t call him Tony,’ he continued.

Hudson looked as jaded and shopworn as Cole was bright and fit, the dated cut and frayed corners of his pinstriped suit suggesting that it was some sort of family heirloom or hand-me-down. His eyes had almost disappeared under his eyebrows’ craggy overhang, while his cheeks were lined and drooping like a balloon that has had the air let out of it, and his lips were cracked and frozen into a permanent scowl. She placed him at about fifty-five; not quite retirement age, but definitely counting the days. She had the sudden impression that he was weighing her up, as if he was gazing at her through the crosshairs of a rifle on some distant Scottish moor and estimating the distance and wind speed before pulling the trigger.

‘I recognise you both, of course.’ She nodded, reaching out to shake their hands.

Hudson was a Brit, a blue-blood distantly related to the Queen who’d been shipped in to schmooze Sotheby’s mainly North American clientele with canapés and a touch of old-fashioned class. Cole on the other hand was a Brooklyn-born hustler who, despite barely being able to spell his name when he first joined the Christie’s mail room, had risen to the top on the back of a silken tongue and an unfailing eye for a good deal. The two of them neatly represented the social spectrum of both the auction world and the clients they served.

‘Then you’ll also know why I asked you to meet us here.’ Green waved semi-apologetically at their surroundings. Hudson shifted uncomfortably in mute agreement, his eyes fixed reproachfully on the thin coat of dust, straw and feed that had already settled on his gleaming handmade shoes.

‘I can guess,’ Jennifer confirmed with a nod.

A few years ago both Christie’s and Sotheby’s had faced anti-trust cases over allegations that they were fixing commission levels through a series of illicit meetings in the back of limousines and in airport departure lounges. Huge corporate fines and even jail sentences had resulted, although Sir Norman Watkins, Hudson’s predecessor, had managed to avoid incarceration so far by refusing to return to the United States. The stables, therefore, offered a suitably discreet venue for Hudson and Cole to get together, given that in the current climate they daren’t risk being seen in the same room, let alone meeting in private as they were now.

‘Anthony,’ Green turned to Hudson, ‘why don’t you explain what this is all about.’

‘Very well,’ Hudson loosened the inside button on his double-breasted suit jacket, the lining flashing emerald green. He bent down stiffly and picked up a gilt-framed painting that Jennifer had not noticed leaning against the stall.

‘Vase de Fleurs, Lilas, by Paul Gauguin, 1885,’ he pronounced grandly, as he held it up for her to see. It was quite a small painting, featuring a delicately rendered vase of bright flowers against a dark, almost stormy background. ‘Not one of his most famous works perhaps, since he had not yet adopted the more primitive, expressive style that characterised his work after moving to Tahiti. Nevertheless it already betrays his more conceptual method of representation, as well as reflecting clear influences by Pissarro and Cézanne.’

‘Don’t worry, I don’t know what he’s talking about either,’ Cole laughed.

Hudson twitched but said nothing and Jennifer suspected he quite liked Cole and his irreverent manner; probably even slightly envied it.

‘You’re auctioning it?’ she guessed.

‘Next week. It belongs to Reuben Razi, an Iranian dealer. A good client of ours. So far, we’ve had a very positive response from the market.’

‘Is it genuine?’

‘Why do you ask that?’ Hudson snapped, pulling the canvas away from her protectively, his eyes narrowing as if he was again lining her up in his rifle’s crosshairs.

‘Because, Lord Hudson, I’m guessing you didn’t ask me up here just to show me a painting.’

‘You see?’ Green smiled. ‘I told you she was good.’

‘Don’t worry about Anthony.’ Cole clapped Hudson on the back. ‘You just hit a nerve, that’s all.’

‘Show Agent Browne the catalogue,’ Green suggested. ‘That’ll explain why.’

Cole flicked open the catches on his monogrammed Louis Vuitton briefcase and extracted a loosely bound colour document that he handed to Jennifer.

‘This is the proof of the catalogue for our auction of nineteenth and twentieth-century art in Paris in a few months’ time. A Japanese conglomerate, a longstanding client of ours, has asked us to include a number of paintings in the sale. One in particular, stands out.’ He nodded at the document. ‘Lot 185.’

Jennifer thumbed through the pages until she came to the lot mentioned by Cole. There was a short description of the item and an estimate of three hundred thousand dollars, but it was the picture that immediately grabbed her attention. She looked up in surprise.

‘It’s the same painting,’ she exclaimed.

‘Exactly,’ Hudson growled. ‘Someone’s trying to rip us off. And this time, we’ve bloody well caught them with their hand in the till.’

‘This time?’

‘Both Lord Hudson and Mr Cole believe that this isn’t an isolated incident,’ Green explained solemnly.

‘And that, Agent Browne,’ Cole added, suddenly serious, ‘Is why we asked you up here.’

THREE

Drumlanrig Castle, Scotland

18th April – 12.07 p.m.

It seemed less a castle than a mausoleum to Tom; a place of thin shadows, cloaked with a funereal stillness, where muffled footsteps and snatched fragments of hushed conversations echoed faintly along the cold and empty corridors.

It was an impression that the furnishings did little to dispel, for although the cavernous rooms were adorned with a rich and varied assortment of tapestries, gilt-framed oil paintings, marble-topped chests, rococo consoles and miscellaneous objets d’art, closer inspection revealed many of them to be worn, dusty and neglected.

‘This place reminds me of an Egyptian tomb,’ Tom whispered. ‘You know, stuffed full of treasure and servants and then sealed to the outside world.’

‘It’s a family home,’ Dorling reminded him. ‘The Dukes of Buccleuch have lived here for centuries.’

‘I wonder if they’ve ever really lived here or just tended it, like a grave?’

‘Why don’t you ask them? That’s the Duke and his son, the Earl of Dalkieth,’ Dorling hissed as they walked past an old man being supported by a younger one. Both men nodded at them solemnly as they passed by, their faces etched with a mournful, almost reproachful look that made Tom feel as though he had invaded the privacy of an intimate family occasion. ‘Poor bastards look like somebody died.’

‘That’s probably how it feels.’ said Tom sympathetically. ‘Like somebody who has been a member of their family for two hundred and fifty years has suddenly dropped down dead.’

‘It’s much worse than that,’ Dorling corrected him, eyebrows raised playfully. ‘It’s like they’ve died and left eighty million quid to the local cat’s home.’

The hall had been sealed off; a square-shouldered constable was standing guard. From behind him came the occasional white flash and mechanical whir of a police photographer’s camera. Tom felt his chest tighten as they stepped closer, Dorling’s words echoing in his head: ‘He’s left you something.’

The disturbing thing was that Milo and he had always had a very simple agreement to just keep out of each other’s way. So something serious must have happened for Milo to break that arrangement now, something that involved Tom and this place and whatever was waiting for him on the other side of that doorway. The easy option, Tom knew, would have been to refuse to take the bait, to walk away and simply ignore whatever lay in the next room. But the easy option was rarely the right one. Besides, Tom preferred to know what he was up against.

Seeing Dorling, the constable lifted the tape for them both to stoop under. To Tom’s right, some forensic officers in white evidence suits were huddled next to the wall where Tom assumed the painting had been hanging.

‘There’s nothing here,’ Tom almost sounded relieved as he glanced around. Knowing Milo as he did, he’d feared the worst.

Dorling shrugged and then motioned towards two men who were standing at the foot of the staircase. One of them was speaking to the other in a gratingly nasal whine, a shapeless grey raincoat covering his curved shoulders. The corners of Tom’s mouth twitched as he recognised his voice.

‘It was opportunistic,’ the man pronounced. ‘They walked in, saw their chance and took it.’

‘What about the little souvenir they left behind?’ the other man queried in a soft Edinburgh burr. ‘They must have planned that.’

‘Probably smuggled it in with them under a coat,’ Dorling agreed. ‘Look. I’m not saying they didn’t plan to come here and steal something, just that they weren’t that bothered what they took. Probably wouldn’t know who da Vinci was if he jumped up and gave them a haircut.’

‘Would you?’ Tom interrupted, unable to stop himself, despite Dorling’s earlier warning.

The man swivelled round to face him.

‘Kirk!’ He spat the name through clenched teeth, yellowing eyes bulging above the dark shadows that nestled in his long, sunken cheeks. His skin was like marble, cold and white and flecked with a delicate spider’s web of tiny veins that pulsed red just below the surface.

‘Sergeant Clarke!’ Tom exclaimed, his eyes twinkling mischievously. ‘What a nice surprise.’

Tom could no longer remember quite why Clarke had made it his personal mission to see him behind bars. It was a pursuit that had at times verged on the obsessive, Clarke’s anger mounting as Tom had managed again and again to slip from his grasp. Even now, he refused to believe that Tom had gone straight, convinced that his newly acquired respectability was all part of some elaborate con. Still, Tom didn’t mind. If anything he found Clarke mildly amusing, which seemed to make him even angrier.

‘It’s Detective Sergeant Clarke, as well you know,’ Clarke seethed, the sharp outline of his Adam’s apple bobbing uncontrollably. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I invited him,’ Dorling volunteered.

‘This is a criminal investigation,’ Clarke rounded on him. ‘Not a bloody cocktail party.’

‘If Tom’s here, it’s because I think he can help,’ Dorling replied tersely.

‘For all you know, he nicked it himself,’ Clarke sneered. ‘Ever think of that?’

The man standing next to Clarke turned to Tom with interest.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’ He was about fifty years old, tall, with wind-tanned cheeks, moss green eyes and a wild thatch of muddy brown hair that was thinning from the crown outwards.

‘Bruce Ritchie,’ Dorling introduced him to Tom. ‘The estate manager. Bruce, this is Tom Kirk.’

Tom shook Ritchie’s outstretched hand, noting the nicotine stains around the tips of his fingers and the empty shotgun cartridges in his waxed jacket that rattled as he moved his arm.

‘I take it you have some direct … experience of this type of crime?’ He hesitated fractionally over the right choice of words.

‘Too bloody right he does,’ Clarke muttered darkly.

‘Can I ask where from?’

‘He’s a thief,’ Clarke snapped before Tom could answer. ‘That’s all you need to know. The Yanks trained him. Industrial espionage. That is until he decided to go into business for himself.’ Clarke turned to Tom, a confident smirk curling across his face. ‘How am I doing so far?’

‘Agency?’ Ritchie guessed, his tone suggesting that, far from scaring him off, Clarke had only succeeded in further arousing his interest.

‘That’s right,’ Tom nodded, realising now that Ritchie’s stiff-shouldered demeanour and calculating gaze probably betrayed a military background. Possibly special forces. ‘You?’

‘Army intelligence,’ he said with a grin. ‘Back when we didn’t just do what the Yanks told us.’

Clarke looked on unsmilingly as the other three men laughed.

‘So you don’t agree that this was opportunistic?’ asked Ritchie.

Tom shook his head. ‘The people who did this knew exactly what they were here for.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Clarke objected.

‘Opportunistic is settling for the Rembrandt or the Holbein nearer the entrance, not deliberately targeting the da Vinci,’ Tom retorted, sensing Clarke flinch every time he moved too suddenly.

‘Do you think they’ll try and sell it?’ Ritchie pressed.

‘Not on the open market. It’s too hot. But then that was never the plan. Best case they’ll lie low for a few months before making contact and asking for a ransom. That way your insurers avoid paying out full value and you get your painting back. It’s what some people say the National Gallery in London had to do to get their two Turners returned, although they called it a finder’s fee.’

‘And worst case?’ Ritchie asked with a glum frown.

‘If you don’t hear from them in the next twelve months, then chances are it’s been taken as collateral for a drugs or arms deal. It’ll take seven years for it to work its way through the system to a point where someone will be willing to make contact again. The timings run like clockwork. But I don’t think that’s what’s happened here.’

‘You’re just making this up,’ Clarke snorted with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘You don’t know anything about this job or who pulled it.’

Tom shrugged.

‘Four man team, right?’

‘Maybe.’ Clarke gave an uncertain nod.

‘I’d guess two on the inside and two on the outside – a lookout and a driver. The getaway car was probably stolen last night. Something small and fast. Most likely white or red so it wouldn’t stand out.’

‘A white VW,’ Ritchie confirmed, his obvious surprise giving way to an irritated frown as he turned to Clarke. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to release any details yet?’

‘We haven’t,’ Clarke spluttered.

‘I know because it’s his usual MO,’ Tom reassured him.

‘Whose?’

‘His name is Ludovic Royal,’ Tom explained. He’s known in the business as Milo. French, although he would argue he’s Corsican. Turned to art theft after five years in the Foreign Legion and another ten fighting in West Africa for whoever could afford him. He’s ruthless and he’s one of the best.’

‘Why’s he called Milo?’

‘Back when he first got started a client, some Syrian dealer, stiffed him on a deal. Milo hacked both the guy’s arms off, one at the elbow, the other at the shoulder, and left him to bleed to death. When the photos leaked to the local press in Damascus they dubbed it the Venus de Milo killing. The name stuck.’

‘And that’s who you think did this?’ Ritchie sounded sceptical.

‘It’s too early to say,’ Clarke intervened.

‘Have you found the gambling chip yet?’ Tom asked. ‘It’s a small mother-of-pearl disc about this big, with the letter M inlaid in ebony.’

Clarke glared furiously at Dorling. ‘What else have you told him?’

‘Nothing,’ Dorling insisted.

‘I don’t care who’s told who what,’ Ritchie said firmly. ‘I just want to know what it means.’

‘Milo likes to autograph his scores,’ Tom explained. ‘It lets the rest of us know how good he is.’

‘The gambling chip is his symbol,’ Dorling confirmed. ‘They’re pretty common in the art underworld,’ he paused, deliberately avoiding Tom’s gaze. ‘Tom’s was a black cat, you know, like the cartoon character. That’s why they used to call him Felix.’

Ritchie nodded slowly, as if this last piece of information had somehow confirmed a decision that had been forming in his mind.

‘What do you know about the painting?’ he asked.

‘I know it’s small, about nineteen inches long and fifteen wide, so it won’t be hard to smuggle out of the country,’ Tom began. ‘I know it was painted between 1500 and 1510 and that a total of eleven copies were produced by da Vinci’s workshop. Yours was the original.’

‘What about its subject matter?’ Ritchie pressed.

‘Who cares?’ Clarke huffed impatiently.

‘It shows the Madonna pulling the infant Jesus away from a yarnwinder, a wooden tool used for winding wool,’ Tom replied, ignoring him. ‘It’s meant to symbolise the cross and the fact that even her love cannot save him from the Passion.’

‘Some of the copies even have a small cross bar on the yarnwinder to make the reference to the crucifixion more explicit,’ Ritchie confirmed with a nod. Then he paused, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to continue.

‘Is there something else?’ Tom ventured.

‘You tell me,’ Ritchie said with a shrug, pointing to his right.

The forensic team had shifted to one side and Tom could now see the panelled wall where the painting had hung between two other works. But instead of an empty space, something seemed to have been fixed there. Something small and black.

‘They found the gambling chip you described in its mouth,’ Ritchie explained, earning himself a reproachful glare from Clarke.

‘In what’s mouth?’ Tom breathed.

He stepped closer, his heart beating apprehensively as the shape slowly came into focus.

He could see a head, legs and a long black tail. He could see a small pink tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth. He could see trails of dried blood where it had been nailed to the wall and a pool of sticky dark liquid on the top of the display case beneath it rendered a translucent pink by the light shining through the glass.

It was a cat. A crucified cat.

He glanced sharply at Dorling who gave him a telling nod.

‘I told you he’d left you something, Felix.’

FOUR

Claremont Riding Academy, New York

18th April – 7.55 a.m.

As a precaution against being seen in Hudson’s company, Cole had allowed five minutes to elapse before following the older man down the ramp and out of the stables, leaving Jennifer and Green standing in an awkward silence.

‘Any questions?’ Green asked as Cole’s footsteps faded away, only to be replaced by the muffled thump of hooves from the floor below.

‘What about the case I’m on now? We’ve got a warehouse under surveillance over in New Jersey. I’m due on the next shift.’

‘It’s all taken care of,’ Green said firmly. ‘I explained the situation to Dawkins. He understands this takes priority.’

Although Jennifer felt bad about walking away from her team halfway through, she couldn’t deny that part of her was relieved. After the month she’d just had, the prospect of another two weeks of sleepless nights and weak coffee was not one she had been particularly looking forward to.

‘Anything else?’ Green asked.

‘Just one thing…’ Jennifer hesitated, not entirely sure how she should phrase this. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, sir, what’s this got to do with you?’

Green nodded, having clearly been expecting this. After all, it usually took a bit more than a suspect painting to get the Director of the FBI personally involved in a case, let alone wading through horse shit at 7 a.m. to a briefing.

‘Let’s head back down,’ he suggested. ‘I need to get out to LaGuardia for nine.’

She followed him out of the stall and back down the main aisle. A hosepipe had been left running, the end twitching nervously as water spilled across the floor, a ridge of straw and dirt forming at the edges of its wash. She stepped over it carefully, not wanting to ruin her shoes any more than they already had been.

‘Hudson and I read law together at Yale,’ Green explained as they picked their way down the ramp to the ground floor, his men jogging ahead to ensure the route was secure. ‘Or rather I read law and he played polo. We’ve stayed in touch ever since.’

‘I see.’ She fought off the dismayed look that had momentarily threatened to engulf her face. Great. Screw up and she’d carry the can. Get a result and Green would step in to look good in front of his old college buddy. Either way, she couldn’t win. In fact the best she could hope for was to get this over with as quickly as possible. ‘Did he call you?’

‘As soon as he found out about the second Gauguin,’ Green confirmed, pausing under the building’s arched entrance. ‘He’s convinced that his client’s version is genuine, of course. But then Cole’s client is the one with the certificate of authenticity.’

‘Can’t they just cancel the sale and sort it out between them?’

‘You want the short answer or the long one?’

‘Either will do.’

‘If they pull the lots, people will start to ask questions. Questions they can’t answer until they can identify the fake.’

‘They could control the story if they wanted to.’

‘Perhaps. But they’ve got enough on their hands fighting off all these Holocaust claims without adding to their problems. And after the anti-trust case, neither of them can risk another big scandal. That was the long answer by the way.’

Jennifer nodded. Both firms stood accused by descendants of Holocaust victims of auctioning off art works stolen from their families by the Nazis. Nothing had been proved, but news of them both selling the same painting would hardly help restore their already battered reputations.

‘So I’m guessing you want this kept low key.’

‘Until we know what we’re dealing with.’ Green wagged his finger in agreement. ‘Ask around. See what you can find out without making too many waves. Both Cole and Hudson agree that this isn’t an isolated incident. If there’s an art forgery ring here in New York, we’d all like to know about it. I don’t want to scare anyone off until we’ve got something solid.’

‘One more question, sir,’ Jennifer said as Green made to step out on to the street where one of his flunkies was hovering with an umbrella, ready to escort him to the limousine’s open door. ‘Why me?’

The question had been gnawing away at her all morning. After all, it had been nearly a year since she had last spoken to Green, and even then it had been the briefest of conversations. She knew she should feel flattered that he had selected her for this, but she had been in the Bureau long enough to suspect an ulterior motive.

‘Because you’re good. Because you deserve it.’

‘The Bureau’s full of good agents.’

Green turned to face her, his eyes meeting hers and steadily holding her gaze. She had the sudden feeling that he was doing this deliberately, as if to try and convince her of his sincerity.

‘The press office got called up by some bullshit journalist a few days ago,’ Green began. ‘Leigh Lewis. Writes for one of the check-out rags – American Voice. You know it?’

‘No,’ said Jennifer, unsure where this was leading.

‘That figures,’ he sniffed. ‘Sometimes I wonder if anyone actually reads that shit. Anyway, he must have some good sources, because he was asking about the Double Eagle case.’

Jennifer’s eyes widened in surprise. As far as she knew, that case was still classified. Highly classified. And for good reason. At its heart was the cover-up of an old CIA industrial espionage operation and a theft from Fort Knox that led all the way to the White House. No wonder Green was being cagey.

‘What did he know?’

‘Not much. But he had a name.’

‘Mine?’ she guessed.

Green nodded.

‘Obviously we didn’t comment, but, given the extreme sensitivity of that investigation and your previous history…’

He didn’t have to complete the sentence for her to know what he was referring to. A few years back, while on a DEA-led raid, she’d accidentally shot and killed a fellow officer, her one-time instructor from Quantico. During the inquiry it came out that they’d been seeing each other. It was a real mess. Though she’d been cleared of any wrongdoing, that hadn’t stopped the press speculation and the Bureau gossips. It certainly hadn’t stopped her being shipped out to the Atlanta field office until, in their words, things had ‘blown over’, when in reality they had just wanted her out of the way.

‘You don’t think Lewis is going to drop the story?’

‘We’re doing what we can behind the scenes. But these things take time. That’s why, when Hudson called, I thought of you. Given the circumstances it seemed like a good fit.’

‘I don’t follow,’ she said with a frown. ‘What circumstances?’

‘This case needs to be run in stealth mode. That means you’ll be flying way beneath Lewis’s radar for a few months. It’s perfect,’ he exclaimed, clearly pleased with himself for devising such a creative solution.

Jennifer’s heart sank. Far from singling her out as she’d somewhat vainly assumed, all Green wanted was to banish her to the nursery slopes where she couldn’t do any damage. Suddenly two weeks of surveillance didn’t look quite the bum deal she’d thought.

‘Am I being suspended?

‘Of course not,’ he spluttered, a little too forcefully for Jennifer’s liking. ‘I wouldn’t have put you on this case if I didn’t think it was important and that you could do a good job. This is an opportunity, not a punishment. But until we find out what Lewis knows and where he’s getting it from, I don’t want you to take any risks. You know the potential embarrassment to the Bureau and to the Administration if the Double Eagle story gets out. We’ll all be in the firing line. This is for your own protection.’

Somehow, Jennifer seriously doubted that. There was a rumour that Green, armed with his new wife’s money, was thinking of running for office. A tilt at the Senate, some even said. The only protection he was worried about was his own.

FIVE

Apsley House, London

18th April – 5.13 p.m.

The hall was dark and still. Several marble busts, once milky white and now curdled a creamy yellow by age, flanked its square perimeter and glared unblinkingly into nothingness. On the walls, a series of sombre paintings. Archie glanced at each piece as he waited, fidgeting longingly with the cigarette packet and solid silver Dunhill lighter in his pocket, the sharp click of his heels amplified by the cloying silence.

‘Mr Connolly?’ A female voice suddenly rang out.

Archie swivelled round to see a short woman striding towards him purposefully, her lips shining in the gloom.

‘Yeah?’

‘Hannah Key.’ She thrust out her arm and grasped his hand firmly. ‘I’m the curator here.’

‘Nice to put a face to the voice,’ said Archie.

She was much younger and prettier than he had guessed from their phone conversation a few days ago, with a pale oval face and large, inky eyes that reminded him of a Vermeer painting. Her long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail that was fixed in place with an elastic band, suggesting she was more concerned with the immediate practicalities of keeping her hair out of her eyes than she was with looking good. This impression was further confirmed by her simple blue dress, complete lack of jewellery and makeup, and the unsightly chips in the pearl varnish along the edges of her nails. What struck Archie most though were her shoes, which were new, clearly expensive and a startling shade of emerald green. Perhaps, he speculated, these revealed a rather more impulsive and indulgent character than the severe and forbidding persona she projected at work.

Then again, Archie knew he wasn’t without his contradictions either. His accent, for example, straddled a broad social divide, occasionally hinting at a wholesome middle-class education but more often suggesting a rough apprenticeship amidst the traders who operated at the sharp end of the Bermondsey and Portobello antiques markets. And while he wore an elegant handmade suit and bright Hermès tie that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Pall Mall club, his gold identity bracelet, square-shouldered physique and closely cropped blond hair suggested a journeyman boxer of some sort.

In a country that invested so much meaning in external markers of social class, he knew that people often struggled to reconcile these seemingly conflicting signs. Some even questioned whether this was, in fact, deliberate. Archie chose not to elaborate. He’d always found it paid to keep people guessing.

‘Not everyone who works in a museum is an antique,’ she remarked wryly, seemingly reading his thoughts. ‘Some of us even have a social life.’

‘Not many.’ Archie grinned. ‘At least not that I’ve seen over the years.’

‘Maybe things have changed since you got started?’

‘I’m forty-five. That’s thirty five years in the art game and counting,’ he said with a smile. ‘Everything’s changed since I got started.’

‘By art game you mean museum security?’

He paused before answering. Sometimes he had to remind himself that Tom and he were running a legitimate business. Museum security was certainly not how he would have described his years as a fence, although it was probably the best training he could ever have received for what he was doing now.

‘One way or another.’ He nodded. ‘Never been here before, though.’

‘So you said on the phone.’ She adopted a slightly disapproving tone.

‘Nice gaff. Perhaps you could show me round?’ he ventured. She wasn’t really his type, but there was no harm in chancing his hand.

‘Perhaps we should finish up here first,’ she replied curtly.

‘What’s worth seeing?’ She hadn’t said no. That was pretty much a green light as far as Archie was concerned.

‘Everything. But most people come for the paintings in the formal rooms on the first floor.’

‘Most people including your thieves?’

‘Thief, not thieves,’ she corrected him. ‘And no, he didn’t come for them. In fact that’s what’s most strange about this whole thing.’

She steered Archie over to a large rectangular room on the left side of the house that looked out on to a small walled garden.

‘This room contains some of the gifts bestowed on Wellington after Waterloo,’ she announced proudly. ‘The Waterloo Shield. His twelve Field Marshal batons. The Portuguese dinner service.’

She indicated the mahogany display cases that lined the walls, each brimming with porcelain, gold and silver and decorated, wherever space allowed, with swooping copperplate inscriptions extolling Wellington’s brilliance and the eternal gratitude of the piece’s donor.

Archie’s attention, however, was immediately drawn to the two-tier glass-sided cabinet positioned at the centre of the room. Dominating the space like a small boat, the lower level was filled with decorated plates while the upper level appeared to contain a twenty-foot-long scale model of an Egyptian temple complex, complete with gateways, seated figures, obelisks, three separate temple buildings and sixteen sets of matching sacred rams.

‘What’s that?’ It didn’t happen that often anymore, but he was impressed.

‘The Sèvres Egyptian dinner service,’ she explained. Archie noted how the cadence of her voice quickened whenever she spoke about any of the exhibits. ‘One of two sets made to commemorate Napoleon’s successful invasion of Egypt in 1798. Each plate shows a different archaeological site, while the centrepiece is made from biscuit porcelain and modelled on the temples of Luxor, Karnak, Dendera and Edfu. This particular example was a gift from the Emperor to the Empress Josephine after their divorce, although she rejected it. It was eventually gifted to Wellington by the newly restored King of France.’

‘And this is what your villain wanted? The centrepiece. Or part of it at least.’

‘Yes,’ she confirmed, her voice betraying her surprise. ‘How did you know…?’

‘This glass is new,’ Archie explained, pointing at the cracked varnish where an old pane had been removed and a new one inserted. ‘And someone has tried to pick the lock.’ He ran his finger across the small scratches at the edges of one of the cabinet’s brass locks.

‘Tried and failed. That’s why he smashed the glass.’

‘When was this?’

‘March thirtieth, so a couple of weeks ago now. One of the guards disturbed him before he could take anything. They chased him outside, but he had a car waiting.’

‘It don’t make no sense,’ Archie said with a frown, reasoning with himself as much as anyone. ‘The most he could have got away with would have been a couple of pieces. And what would they have been worth? A couple of grand, tops.’

‘Exactly. Any one of the swords or batons would have been worth a lot more.’

‘And been easier to flog,’ Archie added. ‘He certainly doesn’t sound like a pro.’

‘To be honest, I don’t care who he is,’ she retorted. ‘All I want to know is how we make sure nothing like this happens again.’

‘The bad news is you can’t,’ Archie said with a sigh. ‘Not for certain. But there are some things you can do to even the odds. Upgrade the locks, install security glass in all the cases, re-configure the patrol cycles, that sort of thing. Anything more will cost you. If you’re interested, I’ll pull something together laying the options out. Maybe we could run through them over dinner?’

‘Do you think there’s any chance he’ll try again?’ she persisted, ignoring his suggestion.

‘Normally I’d say no,’ Archie said with a shrug. ‘But this guy seems to be making it up as he goes along. It might be worth watching out for him, just in case.’

‘The problem is we don’t know what he looks like,’ she said. ‘The guard only saw the back of his head.’

‘What about the cameras outside?’

‘He had his head lowered in every picture. The police said he must have known where they were.’

Archie frowned. If this intruder had taken the trouble to scope out the cameras, then maybe he wasn’t quite the amateur he had assumed. Was he missing something?

‘This is the best shot we could come up with,’ she said, taking a manilla folder from a side table and removing a photograph of a man, his head dipped so that only a narrow crescent of the bottom half of his face could be seen. Archie studied it for a few seconds and then looked up, straining to keep his voice level and face impassive.

‘Mind if I hang on to this?’

‘Why?’ she asked, a curious edge to her voice. ‘You don’t recognise him, do you?’

‘No,’ Archie lied. ‘But you never know. Someone else might.’

SIX

Clerkenwell, London

18th April – 8.59 p.m.

Tom was finishing a call when Archie let himself in, the chatter of the refrigeration unit on a passing lorry gushing through the open door before draining away the instant it was shut behind him. Removing his coat, Archie tossed it over the back of one of the Georgian dining chairs arranged in the shop’s two large arched windows.

Tom had bought this building just over a year ago now, transferring the stock from his father’s antique business in Geneva after he’d died. As well as the dimly lit showroom area they were in now, the ground floor consisted of a large warehouse to the rear and an office that Tom and Archie shared as a base for their art recovery work. Tom himself lived on the top floor.

He killed the call and threw the phone down on the green baize card table he was sitting at, his right hand deftly manipulating a small mother-of-pearl casino chip through his slender fingers. Behind him, a grandfather clock lazily boomed the hour, triggering a sympathetic chorus of subtle chiming and gently pinging bells from the other clocks positioned around the room.

‘All right?’ Archie asked, leaning against the back of one of a pair of matching Chesterfield armchairs.

Tom caught a flash of cerise pink lining as Archie’s jacket fell open and smiled. Subtlety had never been Archie’s strongest point and even in a suit, a uniform Tom had rarely seen him out of, his forceful character seemed to find a way to flaunt itself. He had at least recently shed one of the two phones that he used to juggle from ear to ear like a commodities trader, although from the occasional involuntary twitch of his fingers, like a gunfighter stripped of his .45, Tom knew that he still missed the buzz of his old life.

‘Good. You?’

‘Not bad, not bad,’ Archie sniffed.

Tom nodded, struck by how, the better you knew someone, the less you often needed to say.

‘Dominique in?’ Archie glanced hopefully towards the rear.

‘Not seen her.’ Tom shrugged. ‘Why, are you going to ask her out?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Archie laughed the question away.

‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. What are you waiting for?’

‘Leave it out, will you?’ Archie snorted.

‘If you don’t make your move, someone else will.’

‘If I wanted to make a move, I would have done,’ Archie insisted.

‘Well, it’s probably just as well,’ Tom sniffed, his eyes twinkling at Archie’s discomfort. ‘She’d only have said no. Better to avoid the rejection.’

‘Very funny.’ Archie smiled tightly. Tom decided to change the subject before he completely lost his sense of humour.

‘That was Dorling, by the way.’ Tom nodded towards the phone.

‘What the hell did he want?’ Archie bristled. While Tom had understood the need to forgive his one-time pursuers if he was to move on, Archie was less sanguine. His scars ran deep, and he was suspicious of Dorling’s Machiavellian pragmatism, sensing the seeds of a further about-turn should the circumstances require it.

‘He just got the initial results of the forensic tests back.’

‘And?’

‘And basically they’ve got nothing. No prints at the scene. The getaway car torched. Zip.’ In truth, he’d have been more surprised if they had found something. From what he’d seen, this crew weren’t the sort to make mistakes.

‘Any idea who pulled it?’

Tom flicked the chip down on to the card table, enjoying the expression registering on Archie’s face as he stepped forward for a closer look.

‘Milo?’ he exclaimed. ‘Pull the other one! He was down for a ten-year stretch, minimum.’

‘According to Dorling, he got out six months ago. They found one of these at the scene.’ He nodded towards the chip. ‘This is one he gave me after a job we pulled together in Macau. Back when we were still talking.’

‘Well then, all we have to do is wait. He’ll just follow his usual MO and ransom it back.’

‘I think he’s picked up some new moves while he’s been away. This time he left a message.’

‘What sort of a message?’

‘A black cat. Dead. Nailed to the wall. The chip was in its mouth.’ He shook his head, as if to shake the grotesque image from his mind, but found that every time he blinked its ghostly outline reappeared in front of him, as if it had somehow been seared on to the back of his eyelids.

Archie sat down slowly on the opposite other side of the card table. He picked the chip up and considered it for a few seconds, then locked eyes with Tom.

‘And you think it was meant for you, don’t you?’

‘I think it was meant for Felix, yes.’ Tom was surprised at the instinctive anger in his voice. That name sat uncomfortably with him now, reminding him of a past life and a past self that he was trying to forget, to leave behind. Only Milo was trying to drag him back.

‘It’s a bit bloody crude, isn’t it, even for him?’

‘He’s a showman. He likes to shock people.’

‘What do you think he wants?’

‘To let me know he’s back?’ Tom speculated irritably. ‘To show me that he’s not lost his touch? That he’s still number one? Take your pick.’

‘You don’t think it’s a threat?’

‘No.’ Tom gave a confident shake of his head. ‘We have an understanding. More of a debt, really. Milo operates by this old-fashioned code of honour, a hangover from his days in the Legion. According to his code he owes me a life, because I helped save his once. Until he repays it, he won’t touch me.’

‘But now you’ve swapped sides,’ Archie reminded him. ‘Whatever debt you two had don’t count for nothing no more.’

‘You mean we’ve swapped sides,’ Tom corrected him, with a nudge.

Archie mumbled something under his breath and fumbled for his cigarettes.

‘Do you have to?’ Tom frowned as he lit up.

‘I’ve been gagging for one all afternoon.’ He took a deep drag and sighed contentedly.

‘Why, where have you been?’

‘Over at Apsley House, remember?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘You should have seen the bird that runs the place.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Fit as a butcher’s dog.’

‘So you’re glad you went?’ Tom laughed.

‘I was till she gave me this,’ Archie sighed, handing over the CCTV still. ‘Now I’m not so sure.’

Tom studied the picture for a few seconds, attempting to extrapolate the man’s face from the narrow sliver of his features that hadn’t been obscured. He suddenly fixed Archie with an incredulous look.

‘Is that Rafael?’

‘That’s what I thought too. It’s the only shot they got of him. He dodged the other cameras.’

‘It can’t be him.’ Tom shook his head in disbelief. ‘He’d have let me know if he was over here.’

‘You were away when this happened.’

‘What was he after?’

‘Part of a dinner service. They rumbled him before he could get to it. He’s a better art forger than he is a thief.’

‘A dinner service?’ Tom looked up with a frown. ‘The Egyptian dinner service?’

‘You know it?’

‘It’s one of a pair. I saw the other one once at the Kuskovo Estate near Moscow.’

‘Well, next time maybe he should try his luck there instead,’ Archie laughed. ‘He certainly ballsed this one up.’

Tom silently considered the grainy image, his brain furiously calculating all the possible reasons Rafael might have had to try and pull off a job like this. The problem was, none of them made sense. Just like this picture didn’t make sense. If Rafael had managed to avoid all the other cameras, why allow himself to be seen in this one, even if he was only barely recognisable? He would have known it was there, same as the others.

Unless that was the whole point. Unless he wanted to be seen. The question was, by who?

SEVEN

Ginza District, Tokyo

19th April – 6.02 a.m.

This was a sanctuary. A refuge. A place to escape the sensory assault of the outside world. The choking fumes from the long ribbons of traffic, cut into neat strips where the streets crossed. The deafening floods of people, the roar of their heavy footsteps as they funnelled obediently along the sidewalks in different directions, depending on the time of day. The blinding strum of the persuasive neon, the advertising signs preaching their different religions high above the heads of those passing below, heads bowed as if in prayer.

Here there were no windows, and no way in, apart from a solitary, soundproofed door that could only be opened from the inside. The air was filtered and chilled, the walls covered in the same black Poltrona Frau leather used by Ferrari, the recessed lights waxing to nothing more than a lunar glow before waning back into darkness at the press of a switch.

There was a single chair positioned in front of a blank screen that took up almost an entire wall. A man was sitting in it, naked. To his left was a glass of iced water. His head, face, chest, arms, legs and groin were totally bald, giving him the appearance of a grotesque oversized baby. From the way he was sitting, it was also impossible to see his penis, giving him a strange, androgynous quality that his distended stomach, swollen breasts and delicate bone structure did nothing to dispel.

He pressed the small remote balancing on his lap. The screen flickered on, a searing rectangle of white light that made the colourful brocade of tattoos that snaked over his entire upper body ripple as if alive. From all around him came the low hum and hiss of the concealed surround speakers.

Now an image appeared. A man. Terrified. His arms pressed flat against a doorframe. Then someone else stepped into the picture, a hammer in one hand and two nails in the other. The first man’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. The nail went through his wrist, the metal stretching his median nerve across its blunt tip like the strings over the bridge of a violin, his thumbnail drawing blood where the reflex had caused it to embed itself into his palm. He screamed, the saliva dribbling down his chin, then fainted. Reaching for the remote, the viewer turned the volume up.

They waited until he regained consciousness and then hammered in the second nail. He shrieked again, his body momentarily rigid with pain, hands clenched into white talons, before sagging forward as the men released him and let his wrists take the strain. The camera never left his face, silent tears running down his cheek, a sudden nosebleed drawing a vivid line across his upper lip and chin before dripping on to his chest.

His tortured breathing echoed through the room, a steady metronome that marked every few passing seconds with unfeeling regularity until slowly, inevitably, the gap between each rasping breath grew. For a few minutes it seemed as if time itself was slowing, his lungs clawing for air, his lips thin and blue, each breath shallower than the last until little more than a whisper remained.

Then he was still.

Taking a sip of water and freeing his penis so it lay across his stomach where he could touch it, the man settled down to watch the film again.

EIGHT

Clerkenwell, London

19th April – 1.16 a.m.

With a sigh, Tom threw the bedclothes off and swung his feet down to the floor. He’d never been a good sleeper, and experience had taught him there was no point trying to wrestle his mind into submission when it had decided it had better things to do.

He pulled on the jeans and shirt he’d thrown over the back of a chair and negotiated his way across the open expanse of the living room, the orange glow of the slumbering city seeping in through the partially glazed roof overhead. Unbolting his front door, he made his way down the staircase to his office, the rubber soles of his trainers squeaking noisily on the concrete steps.

The desk light snapped on, a brilliant wash of bleached halogen sweeping across the worn leather surface. He prodded the mouse and his computer blinked reluctantly into life, the screen staining his face blue.

He scanned through his emails – junk mail mostly, offering to improve his sex life or his bank balance. For a moment his cursor hovered over the three unopened messages from Jennifer Browne that lurked at the foot of his inbox. Two from the year before, one sent this January. Then nothing.

Not that that was surprising. Jennifer had better things to do than waste time writing to him if he couldn’t be bothered to reply. But then it wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to read them. It was just simpler that way. His was a life that could only be lived alone and there was no point in pretending otherwise. And although he would never admit it, he drew a perverse satisfaction in his asceticism; in proving that civilian life had not blunted his self-discipline. Even so, he hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to delete her emails yet. That would have been a little too final. Perhaps, deep down, he liked to believe that there might be another way.

A noise made Tom look up. The roller-shutter over the entrance had been activated and was retracting itself with a loud clanking. He crossed over to the window that looked on to the warehouse below, just in time to see a powerful motorbike pull in, the dazzling beam of its headlamp picking out a series of packing crates and cardboard boxes before both it and the engine were extinguished. Almost immediately, the shutter unfurled behind it.

Dominique jumped to the ground and removed her helmet, blonde hair spilling out on to her shoulders. Looking up, she waved at Tom with a smile, before turning and making her way up the spiral staircase towards him.

‘Welcome home.’ She kissed him on both cheeks, her blue eyes sparkling under a silvery eye shadow.

‘Thanks. You’re late back.’

‘You checking up on me too?’ She grinned, unzipping her leather jacket to reveal a strapless black cocktail dress. ‘I’ve already had two missed calls from Archie tonight.’

‘I just didn’t know where you were,’ said Tom.

Although it was against his natural instincts to worry about anyone other than himself, Tom felt strangely responsible for Dominique. Responsible because, as she had revealed to him a few months before, it was his father who had offered her a way out of Geneva’s callous streets and a spiralling cycle of soft drugs, casual scams and brutal young-offender institutions. Responsible because, after his father’s death, she was the one who had picked up the reins of his business, first transferring it to London and then agreeing to stay and help run it. Protecting her was, therefore, a way of preserving the delicate thread of shared memories that led back to his father. Not that she wanted or needed much protection.

‘I can look after myself,’ she said, arching her eyebrows knowingly. ‘What are you doing up?’

‘Can’t sleep.’

‘Anything you want to talk about?’ She laid a concerned hand on his arm. ‘You were only meant to be gone a few days. It’s been three weeks.’

‘I got a lead on the Ghent altarpiece,’ he said defensively. ‘I followed it up.’

‘You look tired.’

‘I’ve got a lot going on.’

‘You need to slow down,’ she cautioned.

‘I like to keep busy.’

‘Keeping busy won’t bring any of them back, you know. Your father, Harry –’

‘I don’t want to talk about him.’ Tom felt his teeth clenching at the mention of Harry Renwick. A family friend and surrogate father to Tom, Renwick had revealed himself to be the murderer and criminal mastermind known as Cassius. The shock of his betrayal the previous summer still hadn’t left Tom; nor had the guilt he now felt at his role in Harry’s death, or his anger that Renwick had taken the truth about Tom’s father’s true involvement in his murderous schemes to his grave. There were still so many questions about the sort of man his father had been, about the people he’d known and the things he’d done. Questions, always questions, but never any way of answering them.

‘You never want to…’ She broke off suddenly, reached behind him and snatched the CCTV still off the desk where Tom had left it. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘Archie. It’s from that break-in at Apsley House.’

‘I know that man.’ She pointed at the blurred image.

‘Rafael?’ Tom gave a disbelieving frown. ‘I doubt it.’

‘He was here,’ she insisted. ‘The morning you flew off to Italy. He left you something.’

‘What?’

She pointed at the bookcase under the window. A long, narrow object had been placed there, wrapped in what appeared to be a white linen napkin.

Tom picked it up and carried it over to the desk. As he stood it up and undid the knot, the material fell away, revealing a porcelain obelisk, just over two feet long, inscribed with hieroglyphs.

‘What is it?’ asked Dominique, frowning.

‘It’s part of the Egyptian dinner service from Apsley House,’ Tom answered, grim-faced.

‘But they told us nothing was taken.’

‘That’s exactly what he wanted them to think.’

‘You mean he swapped this for a replica?’

‘I should have known better than to think he’d have run away empty handed. He’s too good.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A crook and a friend.’ Tom gave a wry smile.

‘In that order?’

‘He never saw the difference. Was there anything else?’

‘A letter.’ She handed him an envelope. It was made from thick, good quality ivory paper and a single word had been written across the front in a swirling copperplate script. Felix.

Tom snatched a knife out of the desk drawer and sliced it open.

‘It’s empty,’ said Dominique, looking up at him questioningly. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Only one way to find out,’ Tom said as he reached into the desk for his address book.

‘Have you seen the time?’ she warned him.

‘He’s up to something,’ he muttered, nodding at the stolen obelisk and the empty envelope. ‘What if he’s in some sort of trouble? What if he needs my help?’

He found Rafael’s number and dialled it. A few seconds later a voice answered.

‘Digame.’

‘Rafael?’ he asked in a tentative tone, not recognising the man’s voice and wondering if he’d misdialled.

There was a pause.

‘Who is this?’ There was a suspicious edge to the man’s voice.

‘Oliver Cook,’ Tom improvised a name and a reason for calling. ‘I work for the London Times. We were hoping to get a quote from Mr Quintavalle for a piece we’re running tomorrow. Who am I speaking to?’

‘Officer Juan Alonso of the Seville Police,’ came the heavily accented reply.

‘The police? Is Mr Quintavalle in some sort of trouble?’

Another pause, then the man replied in a hesitant, almost apologetic tone.

‘Señor Quintavalle is dead.’

‘Dead?’ Tom gasped. ‘How? When?’

‘Last week. Murdered. If you like, I transfer you to my superior,’ Alonso suggested eagerly.

‘That’s kind, but I’m on a deadline and I’m a quote down,’ Tom insisted, trying to keep his voice level. ‘Thanks for your help. Buenas noches.’

He punched the off button. There was a long silence. Dominique placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I was too late,’ he said slowly, shaking her off. ‘He came here because he needed my help. He needed my help and I wasn’t here for him.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said gently.

‘It’s somebody’s fault,’ Tom shot back.

‘He’s dead, Tom. There’s nothing you can do for him now.’

‘I can find out who did this,’ Tom said coldly, his eyes rising to meet hers. ‘I can find out who did this and make them pay.’

NINE

Soho, New York

19th April – 8.50 a.m.

Reuben Razi’s gallery occupied the ground floor of one of Soho’s characteristic cast-iron warehouses, the rusty scar of its fire-escape zig-zagging up the recently painted white façade.

Jennifer had yet to see anyone enter the building, but it was still early. She’d been sitting in her car, parked outside the model agency on the opposite side of the street, since seven thirty, watching the neighbourhood slowly stretch, yawning, into life. The early start had been deliberate. Razi’s receptionist had told her he would not be in until after nine, but she wanted to get a feel for the world Razi lived in before she met him.

According to the file spread across her lap, Razi had fled to the US from Iran after the fall of the Shah. Penniless and not speaking a word of English, he had begun importing Middle Eastern antiquities, and from those modest beginnings had evolved the small but prosperous fine art business he ran today. He specialised in the mid-market, selling second-tier artists and minor works by some of the bigger Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters – the sort of piece that was worth hundreds of thousands rather than millions. It was a formula that seemed to have worked, given that Razi was able to afford a sprawling compound out in Long Island from where he commuted every day.

The only slight question mark on his resumé had been over the sale of a number of paintings reported to belong to the Fanjul and de la Torre families. As refugees from Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba, their art collections had been seized by the Communists, but some of the more valuable works had reappeared several years later in US and European auction rooms. Razi had been named by an informant as the link man between the Cuban government and an Italian art dealer who had arranged for the works to be smuggled abroad. Nothing had ever been proven, of course, and Razi’s name had been just one of several in the frame. It certainly wasn’t enough to undermine his credibility or the trust that Lord Hudson so clearly had in him.

A Range Rover swept past her, its tyres drumming noisily over the cobbled street, the sunlight winking in its heavily tinted windows. She checked the plates, confirming that it was the same car that had already driven past twice this morning. According to the list she had in front of her, it was registered in Razi’s name.

This time, rather than drive on, the Range Rover drew up outside the gallery. As the driver’s door opened, a girl ran out of the building. A man stepped from the vehicle and scurried inside, Jennifer just catching a glimpse of the back of his head before he vanished. The girl meanwhile clambered in, adjusted the driver’s seat and pulled sedately away, Jennifer guessing that she had gone to park it somewhere. She gave it a few minutes and then followed the man inside, the file clutched under one arm.

The gallery was a large, open-plan space, every inch of which had been painted an unforgivably clinical white. Despite its size, there couldn’t have been more than fifteen paintings on display, small islands of colour marooned amidst the walls’ featureless expanse, each illuminated by a single brushed-steel spotlight that protruded from the ceiling like a medical implant.

‘I’d like to speak to Mr Razi, please,’ Jennifer instructed the receptionist, holding out her ID.

‘He’s in a meeting right now,’ the receptionist trilled through a saccharine smile. ‘Can I take a message?’

‘You must be Agent Browne.’

Jennifer looked up to where the accented voice had come from. A man was beaming down at her over the mezzanine level’s railings like a ringmaster welcoming her to the circus.

‘Mr Razi?’

She stepped back to get a better view. He had a swarthy face and a pencil-thin moustache dyed an unlikely shade of black to match his carefully styled hair. According to the file he was in his early fifties, but he looked older, and the diamond stud in his left ear suggested someone clinging by his fingertips to the rock-face of youth. Amidst the sterile surroundings, his vibrant purple velvet suit seemed almost unreal, and made him look as if he had been superimposed against the gallery walls.

Without answering, he stepped away from the balustrade and made his way down to her, each heavy footstep making the spiral staircase vibrate with a dull clang. He held out his hand and, as she shook it, he bowed theatrically. A thatch of long dark hairs poked out from under the cuff of his starched white shirt and now she was closer she could see that his face was pitted with acne scars.

‘Hudson said you’d come.’ He pressed a hand over his mouth, affecting surprise, his English strangely stilted. ‘Was that very wrong of him?’

‘Not wrong. Just not ideal.’

‘You must forgive him,’ Razi pleaded, bringing his hands together as if in prayer, the large gold rings that adorned every finger glinting like brass knuckles. ‘He thought I should know. It is my painting, after all.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said with a shrug, not wanting to put Razi on the defensive. Not yet at least. ‘We’re all after the same thing.’

‘And what is that?’

‘To figure out what’s going on, as fast as we can.’

‘Exactly!’ He smiled in agreement, the faint glint of several gold teeth coming from the back of his mouth. ‘I hope you didn’t waste too much time this morning?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I drove past at eight o’clock and saw you outside. And again at quarter past. Were you hoping to see anything in particular?’

Jennifer paused. She was less worried at having been spotted than intrigued as to why Razi had felt it necessary to drive past his gallery twice before finally going inside.

‘Why don’t we sit down?’ she suggested.

‘By all means.’ He nodded towards a secluded area at the rear of the gallery where a white leather divan had been provocatively placed at a forty-five-degree angle across the floorspace. Jennifer instinctively wanted to straighten it. They sat down and he turned to face her with his palms resting on his knees.

‘We should start with a few questions, if that’s okay?’

‘You are very beautiful, Agent Browne.’ Razi smiled, his nostrils flaring slightly as he spoke. ‘But I expect many men tell you that.’

Jennifer gazed at Razi unblinkingly. She knew that in his business, the ability to read people was the key to convincing someone to pay a hundred thousand for something worth fifty. She therefore took the compliment as a sighting shot to calibrate how he should play her, rather than a line. Having said that, from what she’d seen so far, Razi was also a performer. One who clearly liked to keep his audience slightly off-balance. Either way, her best policy was not to react.

‘When did you buy the Gauguin?’

Razi sat back resignedly and began to slowly crack his knuckles in turn. ‘About ten years ago. At the time, people said I overpaid, but a Gauguin is a Gauguin, whatever the period.’

‘And you never doubted its authenticity?’

‘Never.’ Razi was adamant, his hand movements becoming more animated. ‘Its provenance was beyond suspicion. The documentation proved it. I can supply you with copies of everything.’

‘So the existence of a second work has taken you by surprise?’

‘Absolutely.’ Razi gave a vehement nod.

‘The seller is a major Japanese corporation.’

‘It’s always the Japanese these days.’ He shrugged. ‘The economy’s not what it used to be. Russia, on the other hand – now that’s a market.’

‘Have you ever come across a forgery yourself?’

‘Not that I can recall.’ He gave another shrug.

‘And yet you buy and sell a lot of paintings, don’t you?’

‘It depends on what you mean by “a lot”.’

‘Lord Hudson said that you were a good client of his.’ She opened her file and consulted one of the typewritten pages inside. ‘I counted fifteen purchases and twenty sales in the past three years from Sotheby’s alone.’

‘Is that file on me?’ Razi’s tone hardened.

‘Parts of it, yes.’ Jennifer flipped the cover shut. Although it wasn’t exactly standard procedure, she’d brought the file in with her precisely to see how Razi would react when he saw it. So far, he seemed more offended than concerned.

‘Am I a suspect, Agent Browne?’ He drew back and glared at her.

‘No more than I am, Mr Razi,’ Jennifer said in a conciliatory tone. ‘But if we’re going to get a result, we need to have a fuller picture of you and your business. After all, this could have been done by a client or a supplier. Someone who bore a personal grudge and wanted to damage your reputation.’

‘I have no enemies.’ Razi shook his head firmly. ‘I left them all behind in Iran. Here, in America, I am with friends. Many, many friends.’

‘What about Herbie Hammon?’

Again she saw a flash of impatience in his eyes.

‘Herbie and I are … are very close.’

‘Close enough for you to break his arm?’ she pressed, thinking back to the paramedic’s deposition she’d read in the file while she’d been waiting. ‘Close enough for him to sue you for assault?’

‘The case never went to trial.’ His humourless tone belied his easy smile. ‘It was a simple misunderstanding. I never meant to hurt him…’ A pause. ‘Are you married, Agent Browne?’

‘No.’

‘No,’ he repeated. Jennifer found herself bristling at his tone, which implied she’d provided the answer he had been expecting. Was she that easy to read? ‘Well, Herbie and I are like a married couple, and married couples argue. Things are said and done in the heat of the moment. But they don’t mean anything. The important thing is that we always kiss and make up in the end.’

There was a long silence as Jennifer waited to see if he would continue. If nothing else, the mention of Hammon’s name seemed to have thrown him. It was an angle worth following up on, even if Razi wasn’t prepared to volunteer anything more himself.

‘Mr Razi, is there something you’re not telling me?’ she asked eventually. ‘Something that might have provoked someone out there to try to get at you?’

‘I’ve already said no,’ he said with a simple shake of his head. ‘Why, do you…?’ He glanced accusingly at the file on Jennifer’s lap and then snatched his eyes back to hers.

Jennifer remained silent. The truth was that she had more questions now than when she had walked in. Like why had Razi driven past his gallery twice before finally sprinting inside? Or, more to the point, what had prompted him to carry the revolver that she had glimpsed strapped to his right ankle as he’d made his way downstairs?

These were hardly the actions of a man who supposedly had no enemies. But then again, as the existence of two identical Gauguins had shown, in this world, appearances could sometimes be deceptive.

TEN

Alameda, Seville

19th April – 5.15 p.m.

The wooden gate creaked open, ripping the police notice forbidding entry in half and revealing a small courtyard. Tom stepped in warily, the walls of the two-storey building rising on all sides to frame a small slab of sky overhead, grey and sullen.

The ground was littered with broken tiles and shattered terracotta bricks. The dog turd on the large pile of sand to his left had been stepped in, the crumbling imprint of a ridged sole still visible. A pile of wind-blown rubbish had drifted into the far corner where Tom thought he could make out the fluorescent glow of a discarded condom. He shook his head angrily. Rafael had deserved better than this. Much better.

‘This way.’

Marco Gillez shouldered past him and strode into the middle of the courtyard. Tom paused to secure the gate behind them before following, fluttering his T-shirt against his body to cool himself. It was warm for this time of year, even for Spain.

Gillez was wearing an outfit that looked as if it had been lifted from a bad fifties musical – blue flannel trousers worn with a pastel green jacket and cream shoes that were in need of a polish. He had a long, pale face and small muddy brown eyes that were separated by a large nose that narrowed to an almost impossibly sharp edge along its ridge, casting a shadow across one half of his face like the arm of a sundial. His ginger hair and goatee had been dyed black, the resulting colour a dark mahogany that changed hue depending on the light.

‘There –’

He pointed with a dramatic flourish at an open doorway; his fingernails were gnawed right back, the cuticles sore and bleeding. Tom looked up and saw two holes on either side of the door frame, dark rivulets of dried blood running from beneath them to the ground. White chalk marks had been drawn around the outline of the bloodstains, forming a large, looping line like an untightened noose.

‘Cause of death: asfixia,’ Gillez continued as he consulted a file produced from a small brown leather satchel, his voice coloured by a heavy Spanish accent. ‘The weight of the body suspended on the two nails made it impossible to breathe. It only took a few minutes.’ He ran his hand over his goatee as he spoke, smoothing it against his skin as if he was stroking a cat.

‘That’s why the Romans used to nail people’s feet too,’ Tom added in a dispassionate tone. ‘So they could push themselves up and catch their breath. It prolonged the ordeal.’

‘So it could have been worse?’ A flicker of interest in Gillez’s voice. ‘He was lucky?’

‘He was crucified, Marco,’ Tom snapped. ‘Nailed to a doorway in a yard full of dog shit and used rubbers. You call that lucky?’

He turned away and stared angrily at the open doorway. The small part of him that had voiced a faint voice of hope that Rafael could not be dead, that this must all be some terrible mistake, was suddenly tellingly muted. This was where Rafael’s life had ebbed away, retreating a little further out of reach with every agonised breath. He almost wished he’d taken Dominique’s advice and stayed away.

There was a long silence. Gillez, his jaw clicking as he exercised it slowly from side to side, appeared to be waiting for Tom to say something.

‘Would you like to see the photos?’ he asked eventually, thrusting the file hopefully towards Tom.

‘No.’ Tom turned away in distaste, a brief mental image forming of Gillez as a child, pulling the legs off a crab and watching it struggle at the bottom of his bucket. ‘Just tell me what it says.’

Gillez gave a disappointed shrug and turned the page.

‘Rafael Quintavalle. White male. Age fifty-six. Found dead on the Domingo de Resurrección – Easter Sunday. Homicidio. The coroner estimated he’d been here two to three days. He was identified by his step-daughter.’

‘Eva?’ Tom asked in surprise. ‘She’s here?’

‘You know her?’

‘Used to.’ Tom nodded with a sigh.

‘She’s a wild one,’ Gillez said with a whistle. ‘It says here the FBI arrested her for diamond smuggling.’

‘That was a long time ago. What else does it say about Rafael?’

‘He was last seen at the Macarena procession on Jueves Santo – Holy Thursday. At least two people claim they saw him going for confesión in the Basilica de la Macarena just before the procession set out.’

‘Confession?’ Tom gave an incredulous frown. ‘Are you sure?’

‘That’s what it says.’ Again Gillez thrust the file towards him.

‘What does it say about his apartment? Did the police find anything there?’

‘It had already been searched by the time they arrived. They were too late.’

‘I was too late,’ Tom murmured to himself.

‘You knew him well?’ Gillez, fanning himself with one of the photographs, sounded intrigued.

‘Rafael and I did a couple of jobs once,’ Tom confirmed. ‘In the early days. I don’t know why, but we clicked. We’ve been friends ever since.’

He paused, thinking back to when he’d left the CIA, or rather when they’d decided that he’d become a dangerous liability that needed silencing. Rafael had been there for him when he’d gone on the run, had helped set him up in the business, introduced him to the right people, Archie amongst them. He thought back to their friendship and the good times they’d shared. All that was gone now.

‘Rafael was old school, a real character. He taught me a lot about the way the game was played. He taught me a lot about myself. I trusted him. He trusted me. In our business, that doesn’t happen very often.’

‘They say he was a good forger.’

‘One of the best,’ Tom agreed. ‘He’s got two in the Getty and three more in the Prado. And they’re just the ones he told me about.’

‘But he’d retired?’ Gillez sounded uncertain.

‘That’s what he told me.’ Tom shrugged. ‘But retired people don’t get crucified.’

Gillez nodded at this, as if he’d come to the same conclusion. Tom locked eyes with him.

‘What is it?’

‘Aquí.’

Gillez stepped towards the small well and pointed at the stone step leading up to it. More white chalk marks had been drawn on the floor and the stone.

‘We think he set fire to something before they killed him. A small notebook or something like that. Then he cut himself.’ His eyes shone excitedly, his razor-edged nose quivering as if he’d picked up a scent. ‘The index finger of his right hand was covered in blood.’

‘He wrote something, didn’t he?’ Tom guessed breathlessly. ‘Show me.’

ELEVEN

Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, New York

19th April – 11.25 p.m.

‘The thing is, Special Agent Browne… I’m awful busy.’

If Jennifer had heard those words once since leaving Razi that morning, she’d heard them ten times.

Each visit she’d made had played out the same way: an expectant smile from the gallery owner that had wilted the moment they realised she was not a potential client. Then a slow, deliberate nodding of the head to feign interest in her questions, their eyes glazing over all the while. Shortly thereafter came hesitation, and a sudden distracted interest in a painting that needed straightening or a chest requiring a polish – anything to play for time. Finally, an excuse along the lines of the one that had just been given.

‘Mr Wilson, this won’t take long.’

With a weary sigh, Wilson took his spectacles off, folded them carefully and placed them on the desk in front of him. His pinched features and fussy, slightly arch movements, suggested to Jennifer the type of person who insisted on cataloguing their CDs not only by year of recording, but also by conductor.

‘Very well.’

‘Do you know Reuben Razi?’

‘Is that who this is about?’

‘You do know him then?’

‘I know of him. He’s a buyer. In this business that gets you known.’ He gestured at the paintings carefully arranged around the walls of his gallery, as if to indicate that he too was well known in the art world. ‘But I’ve never met him. He isn’t really involved in the art scene here in Manhattan.’

‘He’s a competitor of yours.’

‘Competitor is such a vulgar word,’ Wilson said, his top lip lifting off his square teeth as he wrinkled his nose. ‘We’re partners, really; partners in a shared cultural enterprise. We’re not like those sharks on Wall Street. We don’t take lumps out of each other any time someone swims too close. Our business is a bit more civilised than that.’

Jennifer bit her tongue, wanting to pick Wilson up on almost every point he’d just made, but knowing she’d only make things more difficult than they already were. Besides, she wasn’t sure whether she was annoyed because she disagreed with him, or because of his pompous, self-satisfied manner.

‘But it is a business. At the end of the day, surely you’re all in it to make money?’

‘We’re in it for the art,’ he corrected her tartly. ‘The money is just a happy coincidence.’

Judging from his immaculate hand-made suit and glittering Cartier wristwatch, it was a coincidence that Jennifer sensed Wilson was taking full advantage of.

‘Would you say Mr Razi is a well-respected member of the Manhattan art community?’ she probed.

‘Of course.’ Wilson nodded, perhaps just a little too emphatically, she thought.

‘You’ve never heard of him falling out with anyone?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ he said, with a firm shake of his head. ‘In fact, I heard he can be … quite charming.’ Wilson bared his teeth with what she assumed was an attempt to look charming himself. She stifled a smile.

‘Did you hear about a fight that he was involved in a few months ago?’

‘I don’t listen to gossip,’ Wilson sniffed disdainfully.

‘It was picked up by the press. A man had his arm broken. An attorney here in Manhattan, by the name of Herbie Hammon. Have you any idea what they were fighting about?’

‘I don’t follow the news either,’ said Wilson with a perfunctory shake of the head. ‘All doom and gloom and celebrity tittle-tattle. I suggest you go and ask Mr Hammon yourself.’

‘I have an appointment to see him later today,’ she said with a thin smile, noting a rolled-up copy of that day’s New York Times peeking out from his trash can. ‘It’s strange – not a single dealer I have spoken to today seems to have heard of that fight, or have an opinion as to what it was about.’

‘It must have been a private matter.’ Wilson perched his spectacles back on his nose and peered at her impatiently. ‘Personally, I find people’s lack of willingness to speculate on the causes commendable rather than strange.’

This was going nowhere. Jennifer decided on a change of approach.

‘Have you ever been a victim of fraud here, Mr Wilson?’

‘Fraud?’ The question seemed to take him by surprise and his watery grey eyes blinked repeatedly.

‘Artistic fraud. Has anyone ever tried to sell you a forgery? Have you perhaps bought one without realising what it was at the time?’

‘What sort of a question is that?’ Wilson asked haughtily, stepping out from behind his desk and drawing himself up to his full five feet six – still a few inches shorter than Jennifer.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I take it you haven’t been working in the art world long?’

‘Less than a year,’ she admitted icily. His condescending tone was beginning to rile her, although she comforted herself with the thought that he was probably like this with everyone. Part of her couldn’t help wondering, however, if he would speak to a man in the same way. Probably not.

‘It shows.’ He took up a position close to the door as he spoke, Jennifer taking this as a rather unsubtle attempt to bring their conversation to an end. ‘A bit more experience would have taught you to tread more carefully when using f-words.’

‘F-words?’

‘Fake, forgery, fraud. Bring them up in the wrong context and you’ll find yourself on very dangerous ground.’ His tone was growing increasingly strident, almost angry.

‘I wasn’t suggesting…’

‘People’s reputations are on the line. Reputations that have taken years to establish. An accusation is made and pfff –’ he snapped his fingers ‘– it’s all gone. But what if you get it wrong? By the time you realise your mistake, lifelong relationships have been destroyed, trust shattered. Forgery is the paedophilia of the art world. Once the suspicion is raised, you’re presumed guilty even when proven innocent. It’s a shadow that never leaves you, poisoning everything you touch. So you need to be either very brave, or very sure that you’re right, before you cry forgery in this city.’

‘Even so,’ she said with a frown, ‘given the sums involved, I would have thought that forged works appear on a fairly regular –’

‘I’ve already told you,’ he snapped, his hand hovering over the door handle, his cheeks flushed, ‘none of us do this for the money. It’s…’

‘For the art, I know.’ She completed the sentence for him unsmilingly. It wasn’t the first time today she’d heard that familiar and infuriating refrain.

TWELVE

Alameda, Seville

19th April – 5.25 p.m.

Gillez led Tom round to the other side of the well. There, hastily daubed against its weather-stained stone base, were three letters, or at least what appeared to be letters, arranged in a triangle. At the top an F, to the left a Q, to the right an almost indistinct N.

‘Any ideas?’ Gillez asked hopefully, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve.

Tom shrugged.

‘Not really,’ he lied.

The triangle was Rafael’s symbol, an oblique reference to the mountainous region of Northern Italy his family came from and from which his name derived – Quintavalle literally meant the fifth valley. The top letter was who the message was addressed to. F for Felix. The Q was who it was from. Quintavalle. As for the N, Tom was certain that it wasn’t an N at all but an M that Rafael had been unable to complete before his attackers pounced. An M for Milo, to tell Tom that that was who was about to kill him.

‘Did you find a small gambling chip anywhere? Mother-of-pearl, inlaid with an ebony letter?’

‘What?’ The confused expression on Gillez’s face told Tom they hadn’t. Not that surprising, on reflection. Murder was probably not something Milo would want to advertise.

‘Show me the photos.’ Tom demanded icily.

‘I thought you didn’t want to…’

‘Well now I do,’ Tom insisted, his earlier reluctance forgotten.

With a shrug, Gillez pulled a handful of black-and-white photos out of the file and handed them over. Tom leafed through them slowly, his face impassive, trying to divorce the pictures of the carcase that had been strung across the open doorway from the living, feeling person he had once known. It was an impossible task and Tom knew that from now on both images were condemned to an unhappy marriage in his mind, each intimately bound up with the other.

He looked back to the inscription written in his friend’s blood. He had not given much thought to the events up at Drumlanrig Castle since he had learnt about Rafael’s fate. In fact, he had called Dorling on his way to the airport to excuse himself, temporarily at least, from the investigation.

Now, however, the image of the black cat nailed to the wall and its parallels with Rafael’s agonising death came sharply back into focus. Milo was clearly involved in both cases and wanted him to know it. The question was why.

He looked up sharply, the noise of approaching sirens interrupting his thoughts and prompting an instant, almost instinctive reaction.

‘Are they for me?’

‘Of course not,’ Gillez laughed. ‘I wouldn’t do that. Especially not to you.’

Tom stared at Gillez for moment and then cuffed him across the face. The man’s head snapped back as if it was on a spring. A small cut opened up on his right cheekbone.

‘Yes, you would,’ Tom said stonily. If there was one thing he had learned to rely on, it was Gillez’s pathological dishonesty.

Gillez glared at him angrily, his hand clutching his face.

‘Don’t you trust anyone any more?’

‘Cut the bullshit, Marco. How long have I got?’

Marco’s shoulders slumped into a sullen sulk.

‘It’s not my fault. They still want you for that Prado job. I had to give them something in exchange for the file.’

‘Don’t try and pretend you did me some sort of a favour,’ Tom snarled. ‘This was all about you. It always is. What did they catch you at this time? Bribing a judge, sleeping with the mayor’s wife? Something that made it worth selling me out for, in any case. How long have I got?’

‘One, maybe two minutes,’ Gillez admitted, still massaging his cheek. ‘They’re locking down the whole area. They don’t want you slipping away again.’

‘Then I’d better make this look convincing.’

Tom stepped forward and punched him in the face, breaking the sharp ridge of his nose with a satisfyingly loud crack. Gillez screamed and clutched his face, the file dropping from his hand, blood seeping between his fingers and dripping on to his pastel jacket and cream shoes.

‘You don’t want them thinking you let me get away, do you?’ Tom shouted as he scooped the file off the floor. The anger and frustration of the last twenty-four hours had found a strange release in the sharp stab of pain across his knuckles and Gillez’s animal yelp. He went to hit him again, but then drew back as the sound of approaching feet and muffled shouts of ‘Policía!’ reached him. Spinning round, he darted through one of the open doorways and up the stairs just as someone began pounding on the heavy gate. He was glad he’d taken the time to lock it behind them.

He continued up the crumbling staircase until he arrived at a flimsy metal door. Kicking it open, he emerged on to the flat roof. The city stretched out around him, slumbering in the dusty heat, the surrounding rooftops of burnt terracotta forming stepping stones across which, if he was quick, he could make his way to safety.

From the courtyard below came the sound of the gate splintering. Gillez’s plaintive cry echoed up the stairwell. Tom’s Spanish wasn’t fluent, but he knew enough to understand what he was blubbing.

‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! It’s me, Sergeant Gillez. He’s upstairs. Someone get me a doctor. The bastard’s broken my nose. I tried to stop him, but he had a gun. Shoot him. Oh, my nose. Somebody shoot him, for God’s sake!’

Despite everything, Tom smiled. Cops like Gillez gave most criminals a good name.

THIRTEEN

South Street, New York

19th April – 3.17 p.m.

The sound of sirens echoing down Broadway’s steel canyon reached Jennifer several blocks before she turned on to South Street and saw the reflection of the blue strobe lights in the glass walls looming around her. New York was one of the few cities where sound travelled faster than light.

As she drew closer, she could see that a small crowd had gathered at the foot of the one of the buildings, straining to see what was going on from behind a hastily erected set of weathered blue police barriers. As she watched, the crowd parted reluctantly to let two paramedic teams through, before snapping shut hungrily behind them.

‘Stop here,’ she instructed her driver, who tacked obediently right and eased to a halt about fifty yards from the building’s entrance.

Jennifer stepped out. A local news channel was already broadcasting from across the street, presumably tipped off by one of the cops that they kept on the payroll for just this sort of eventuality. And given the manpower that the NYPD was already lavishing on the scene, the networks wouldn’t be far behind.

‘What’s going on?’ she demanded, grabbing the arm of a passing officer and flashing her badge. He glanced at it suspiciously, checking her face against the photo.

‘Homicide. Some hot-shot attorney.’ He shrugged disinterestedly, giving Jennifer the impression that either this was a fairly routine occurrence in this part of Manhattan, or that a small part of him felt that one less attorney in the world was probably no bad thing.

‘He got a name?’

‘Yeah, Hammon. At least that’s what it sounded like. Half the time you can’t hear a goddamned thing on this piece of shit –’ He smacked his radio resentfully. ‘Now, if you don’t mind…?’

Jennifer waved him on and took a deep breath. Hammon dead. Coincidence? Possibly. Probably. Until she knew more, it was pointless to speculate.

‘Special Agent Browne?’

A questioning, almost incredulous voice broke into her thoughts. As she turned, a man in his mid-fifties broke away from the crowd at the base of the building and walked towards her, his rolling gait suggesting some sort of longstanding hip injury. Every part of him appeared to be sagging, his clothes hanging listlessly from his sharp, bony frame, the excess skin under his eyes and chin draped like folds of loose material. Brushing his straw-coloured hair across his balding scalp, he smiled warmly as he approached, the colour of his teeth betraying that he was a smoker, and a heavy one at that.

Jennifer frowned, unable to place the man’s chalky face and pallid green eyes, her mind feverishly trawling back through distant high school memories and her freshman year at Columbia. Now she was closer, she noticed that he had a mustard stain on the right leg of his faded chinos and a button missing from the front of his blue linen jacket.

‘Leigh Lewis – American Voice.’ He held out a moist palm, which Jennifer shook warily, still uncertain who he was. ‘Here, Tony, get a shot.’

Before Jennifer knew what was happening, a flashgun exploded in her face. The fog lifted. Lewis. The journalist Green had warned her about.

‘So, what’s the deal here? You know the vic?’ Lewis jerked his head at the building behind him, a tape recorder materialising under her nose.

‘No comment,’ Jennifer insisted as she pushed past him, her annoyance with herself at not having immediately recognised his name only slightly tempered by her curiosity at what he was doing here.

‘Was Hammon under federal investigation?’ Lewis skipped backwards to keep up with her.

‘No comment,’ Jennifer repeated, shielding her face from the camera’s cyclopic gaze as she marched purposefully towards the building’s entrance.

‘Or had you two hooked up? The word is you like to party.’

‘Get out of my way,’ Jennifer said through gritted teeth. She was only a few feet from the security cordon now and she gripped her ID anxiously in anticipation of escaping Lewis before she lost her temper.

‘The only catch, of course, is that everyone who screws you winds up dead.’ Lewis was standing directly in front of her now, blocking her way and moving his head in line with hers every time she tried to look past him. ‘In fact, maybe I should call you the black widow, Agent Browne.’

‘Fuck you.’ Jennifer pushed Lewis roughly in the chest. He stumbled backwards, tripping over his photographer and sending him sprawling.

She caught the shocked yet triumphant expression on Lewis’s face as she stalked past them, the camera still chattering noisily as the photographer continued to shoot. She flashed her badge at the bemused officer controlling access into the building and stalked inside, her eyes brimming with tears of silent anger. From behind her she could hear Lewis’s voice ringing out in an annoyingly sing-song tone.

‘Can I quote you on that?’

FOURTEEN

Las Candelarias, Seville

19th April – 9.23 p.m.

Tom had waited for the protective cloak of darkness to fall before venturing over to this side of town. Although Gillez and his colleagues were reassuringly incompetent, there was certainly no point in tempting fate by walking around in broad daylight. The trail left by Rafael’s killer was cold enough already, without Tom being arrested and delayed by yet another round of pointless questioning.

He had therefore spent the intervening hours holed up in the tenebrous anonymity of a small basement bar in the Barrio Santa Cruz, trying to forget what he had felt upon seeing the place where Rafael had died, and focus instead on what he had learned there.

On reflection, of all the things that Gillez had told him, two stood out. The first was that Rafael had been seen going to confession at the Basilica de la Macarena which, given Rafael’s attitude towards religion in general and the Catholic faith in particular, seemed about as likely as the Pope being spotted in a strip bar.

The second was that although Gillez had mentioned Rafael’s apartment being searched, he’d said nothing about his studio. It was just possible, therefore, that the police didn’t know about it. This was hardly surprising given that, as far as Tom could remember, the property was registered in the name of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, a once-famous Sevillian bullfighter and longstanding resident of the Cementerio de San Fernando.

The crumbling street of tattered warehouses and tumble-down workshops was deserted, but Tom stuck to the shadows all the same. When he was satisfied that he was alone, he crossed over, side-stepping a decomposing car raised on bricks. The wreck had been set alight at some point and the seats were melted back to their frames, scraps of fabric and foam clinging stubbornly to their blackened skeletons like skin.

There were no lights on inside Rafael’s two-storey building, and as he drew closer Tom could see that the padlock securing its heavily graffitied roller-shutter to the ground was still intact. Above him, a small fern that had somehow taken root under the flaking plaster swayed lazily in the sticky heat.

Checking around him one last time, he sprang the lock, raised the shutter high enough to slip under it and then rolled it back behind him. The noise reverberated along the length of the windowless room that stretched in front of him like a deep coffin. Grabbing a chair, he leaned it against the shutter and then balanced the padlock he’d removed from the door on its seat. It was an old trick, but an effective one.

Locating the torch in its usual hiding place, Tom crept along the narrow corridor formed by the assortment of unwanted furniture, old tyres and children’s toys that had been piled up on either side of the room, dolls’ eyes glinting accusingly every so often out of the darkness. A few of the nicer pieces had been covered in protective sheets; as Tom walked past, they lifted slowly as if reaching out to touch him, before settling back with an inaudible sigh.

Compared to the ground floor, the upstairs room was light and airy, with large windows front and back and a high, glazed roof. There was a full moon, its anaemic glow chased away every few seconds by the red-blooded pulse of a large neon advertising sign high on the wall of a neighbouring building.

Despite the shifting light, Tom could see that the room was every bit as chaotic as he remembered. The concrete floor, for example, was almost lost under a layer of dried paint, thin veins of random colours that crackled underfoot like dry twigs on a forest floor. Discarded sketches and half-finished canvases were gathered in the corners as if blown there by the wind, empty paint tubes and worn brushes emerging from the gaps between them like the masts of a ship half-buried in sand.

And yet not everything was the same. A chair had been flipped over on to its front, its legs extended helplessly into the air, its innards spilling through the deep gash that had been cut in its seat. Two easels were lying prostate on the ground. All the cupboards and drawers had been yanked open and their contents scooped out on to the floor beneath. Tom’s face set into a grim frown. Whoever had turned over Rafael’s apartment had clearly been here too.

Kneeling down, he plucked a small photo frame from where it was sheltering under a crumpled newspaper. Although the glass had been shattered, he recognised Rafael’s grinning face through the sparkling web of tiny fractures. He had his arm around Tom on one side and Eva on the other, and the three of them were sitting on the edge of a fountain in the Alcázar. The mixture of anger and disbelief that he had felt on seeing the crime-scene photographs welled up in him again. Why?

There was a thud downstairs. Steel on concrete. The padlock falling off the chair he’d left leaning against the shutter. Someone had come in behind him.

He placed the frame back on the ground and crept over to the top of the stairs, positioning himself out of sight to the left of the doorway. From below he heard the sound of careful footsteps and then the tell-tale creak of the staircase. The third step, he remembered from when he had made his own way up.

He readied himself, ready to send whoever was coming up sprawling across the room, when the faint scent of perfume reached him. A perfume he recognised.

‘Tom?’ An uncertain voice filtered through the open doorway.

‘Eva?’ Tom edged forward, his shadow further obscuring the already dark stairwell. A figure advanced towards him.

‘Still using that old chair routine?’ A flash of white teeth amid the gloom.

‘Still wearing Chanel?’ Tom smiled as he stepped back and let Eva into the room.

‘If that’s a line, it’s a bad one,’ she sniffed, brushing past and then wheeling to face him. In the intermittent neon glow she looked even more striking than he remembered: dark oval eyes glinting impetuously, an almost indecently suggestive mouth, shimmering black hair held off her face by an elasticated white band and tumbling down on to olive-skinned shoulders that might have been modelled on a Canova nude.

‘I heard you’d gone straight.’ She sounded sceptical.

‘I’d heard the same about you,’ he said softly, trying to keep his eyes on her face rather than tracing a line from her slender ankles to her skirt’s embroidered hem and the suggestive curve of her legs. Now, as when he’d first met her, she radiated sex. It wasn’t deliberate, it was just the way she was. The animal dart of her pink tongue against her lips, the generous heave of her breasts under her black silk blouse, the erect nipples brushing the material, the open thrust of her hips. Sex seasoned with a hint of unpredictability and a dash of temper for good measure.

A pause.

‘It’s good to see you again, Eva.’

He meant it.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

Her tone didn’t surprise him. Their break-up had been messy. She’d been hurt. No reason she should be anything other than cold with him now. In fact, it made things simpler.

‘Same as you. Looking for answers.’

‘He’s dead.’ Her voice was hollow. ‘What more of an answer do you want?’ She paused, her eyes boring into his. ‘Go home, Tom. You’re not needed here. You’re not wanted here.’

‘He left a message before he died.’

‘I know.’ She gave a sad nod. ‘They showed me the photos.’

‘Then you saw who it was addressed to?’

‘You two and your little codes and secrets.’ Her bottom lip, pink and full, jutted out indignantly, nostrils quivering.

‘It was never like that,’ he insisted.

‘Yes it was. Rafael only ever invited me in when it suited him. And even now that he’s dead, nothing’s changed.’ Tom remembered now that she’d always insisted on calling her stepfather by his first name.

‘What was he mixed up in?’ Tom pressed.

‘I don’t know. Things were never simple between us.’ She fixed him with an accusing stare. ‘You walking out on me didn’t help. It forced him to pick sides.’

‘Is this about Rafael, or us?’

Eva flew forward and slapped Tom across the cheek, the sharp crack of the blow echoing around the room.

A pause.

‘Feel better?’ Tom asked slowly, rubbing his face.

‘Go home, Tom,’ she said wearily.

‘He came to see me in London.’

‘What?’ This, finally, seemed to have registered.

‘Three or four weeks ago. I don’t know what he’d got himself involved in, Eva, but I think he was in trouble and that he wanted my help. He stole part of a Napoleonic dinner service. An obelisk. What was he up to?’

She looked down, the toe of her black patent leather shoe poking absent-mindedly through the debris strewn across the floor.

‘He lied to us, Tom.’ She glanced up, looking unsure of herself for the first time. ‘He lied to us all. I could tell from his voice. He’d signed up for another job.’

‘For Milo.’ Tom nodded, thinking back to the unfinished letter M scrawled in blood across the base of the well. ‘Have you checked the drawers yet?’

‘What do you mean?’

He pulled one of the drawers out, emptied what remained inside it on to the floor, and then released a small catch underneath. The bottom of the drawer folded back, revealing a hidden compartment about an inch deep. It was empty.

‘He used to hide things he was working on in these,’ Tom began, before realising from the expression on Eva’s face that this was yet another secret Rafael had not chosen to share with her. Maybe she had a point after all.

‘Open them,’ she muttered hoarsely.

There were six drawers, but like the first, they were empty. All except the final one. This opened to reveal a painting. A painting that a small part of Tom had almost been expecting to find. There could be no doubt now that the two cases were connected.

‘Is that a da Vinci?’ Eva exclaimed.

‘It’s the Madonna of the Yarnwinder,’ Tom confirmed grimly as he carefully lifted it from the drawer. ‘But it’s not the original. That was stolen a few days ago by Milo. This must be one of your father’s forgeries. I expect that’s what his killers were looking for when they turned this place and his apartment upside down.’

‘You mean all this was for a stupid painting?’ Her voice broke as she gestured, the sweep of her arm taking in the ransacked room but also, Tom knew, the invisible trail of blood that led to the courtyard on the other side of the city. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to keep her emotions in check. He said nothing, giving her time to regain her composure. As she lowered her arm, Tom caught a glimpse of the silver bracelet he’d given her many summers ago, before she hurriedly tugged her sleeve back down to cover it. Perhaps she hadn’t totally banished those times from her mind after all.

‘They didn’t take everything,’ he said gently. ‘They left you this –’

He handed her the photo he had found on the floor. This time there was no holding back her tears.

FIFTEEN

South Street, New York

19th April – 3.26 p.m.

As soon as she was certain that the doors had closed behind her, Jennifer let out an angry cry and struck her fist against the side of the elevator. The noise echoed up the shaft above her like thunder presaging a heavy storm. How could she have been so stupid? Lewis had just been fishing and she’d grabbed the bait at the first time of asking. She’d even knocked the guy over. On camera. What would Green say? Assaulting civilians was not exactly how the Bureau liked to handle its PR. If it wasn’t so bad, it would almost have been funny.

Less funny was how Lewis had known she would be there. Had someone leaked her schedule? Unlikely, given she had only arranged to see Hammon after leaving Razi earlier that morning.

Maybe it was just an unfortunate coincidence. After all, years swimming through the lurid waters of popular scandal had given Lewis and his kind a nose for a story somewhat akin to a shark’s for a wounded seal. He would have smelt the blood in the water from the other side of the city.

The doors whirred open. A camera flash exploded, momentarily burning an image on to the back of her retina. A corpse sprawled on the floor in front of the reception desk. Two bullet wounds in her back suggesting she’d been gunned down as she tried to run away. A dark shadow of blood beneath her, matting her long blonde hair with dark streaks.

‘Who the fuck let you up here?’ A man stepped into her field of vision. He had a mottled complexion, a deep scar across the bridge of his nose and a lazy right eye.

‘Special Agent Jennifer Browne, FBI.’

The man glanced at her ID and then looked up again, his chin jutting out defiantly. Judging from his greying brown hair, she guessed he was maybe forty, forty-five years old. Behind him, she saw two people from the coroner’s office flip the girl over before lifting her into a body bag and zipping it shut.

‘You’re kidding, right? The bodies are still warm and already you’re trying to crowd us out?’

‘I had an appointment with Mr Hammon.’ She nodded at the large nameplate on the wall behind the reception desk. ‘I only just found out about the shooting.’

‘Hey, Sutton,’ the man called out without looking round. ‘You got anything in the book today with a Julia Browne?’

The body bag was lifted on to a stretcher and wheeled into the open lift behind her.

‘Jennifer,’ she corrected him sharply.

‘Whatever.’ He shrugged.

A woman standing on the other side of the desk leaned over the terminal, her finger leaving a greasy mark as she slid it across the surface of the on-screen diary.

‘Sure,’ she called out. ‘Three thirty. Special Agent Jennifer Browne.’ She looked up and gave Jennifer a fleeting nod that she took as sisterly encouragement not to let herself be pushed around. There was no danger of that.

Grudgingly, the man reached out to shake her hand.

‘Jim Mitchell, Homicide. I’m afraid Hammon’s going to miss your three thirty.’

‘No kidding?’

‘You a client?’

‘I was hoping to talk to him about a case I’m investigating.’

‘Yeah, well, talking’s the one thing he won’t be doing again,’ Mitchell said with a smirk.

‘What do you mean?’

‘See for yourself.’

He threw open the large mahogany double doors behind him and waved her through. Hammon’s office was located in the corner of the building, its two glass walls framing the graceful sweep of the Brooklyn Bridge as it unfurled against the East River. At that moment a chopper took off from the nearby heliport, its red-tipped rotors carving a steep circle in the thin air.

Beyond the view and the extravagance of a large fish tank set into the facing wall, however, the room was a triumph of minimalist design. The only furniture consisted of two Barcelona chairs neatly arranged around a square glass table and a massive cherrywood desk that was empty apart from a folded copy of the Wall Street Journal and an open laptop. A fax machine and a printer sat on a low table that hugged the desk’s right leg.

‘We’ve got three fatalities. Hammon, the receptionist and a security guard in the lobby.’

‘When?’

‘An hour ago, maybe two. Eyewitnesses put two men at the scene, with two more waiting in a car outside. Initial reports suggest they were Oriental – Japanese or Korean, maybe. You know…’ he shrugged helplessly and for a moment Jennifer thought he was actually going to tell her that they all looked the same to him. This guy was a real sweetheart.

‘Were all the victims shot?’

‘Point-blank range. Probably a .45. Only Hammon didn’t get off quite so easy as the other two.’ Mitchell nodded grimly towards the desk and the large black chair with its back turned towards them.

Jennifer stepped around the edge of the desk and realised, as she caught sight of a wrist secured to the chair’s metal arm with a plastic tag, that Hammon was still there.

‘He’s next, as soon as they’ve loaded the other two up,’ Mitchell explained as she shot him a questioning glance.

Moving closer, she could see that the lawyer’s balding head was slumped forward and to one side; his chin and monogrammed shirt were soaked in blood. One of his expensive leather shoes seemed to have half come off as he had struggled, although the black handle of the Tanto knife that was protruding from his chest, his Ferragamo tie draped around it like a scarf, suggested it had been a short and uneven contest.

Most shocking though were his eyes, or rather the gaping, livid sockets where his eyes had been until someone had prised them out, leaving red tears frozen on to his face like wax.

‘There’s no sign of them here,’ Mitchell volunteered. ‘We figure they took them with them.’

Jennifer looked up, her face impassive. The longer she did this job, the less instances of random sadism such as this seemed to shock her.

‘Some sort of trophy?’

‘Maybe.’

She leaned forward with a frown, having caught sight of something soft and pink that seemed to have been skewered on to the tip of the knife before it was plunged into Hammon’s chest.

‘What’s that?’

‘His tongue,’ said Mitchell, watching her closely.

‘His tongue…’ It was more of a statement than a question and Mitchell seemed disappointed by her muted reaction. ‘So it’s got to be some sort of a revenge killing, right? A punishment for something he’d said or seen. Or both.’

‘You tell me.’ Mitchell shrugged. ‘I’m normally pulling hookers out of dumpsters and junkies out of the East River. What was your angle?’

‘Hammon got into a fight with someone who’s involved in my case. I wanted to find out why.’

‘The guy’s an attorney. What more of a reason do you need?’ Mitchell laughed.

Jennifer smiled as she moved round to the other side of the desk, slowly warming to Mitchell’s black humour.

‘You got any paper?’ she asked suddenly.

‘What?’ Mitchell frowned.

‘Paper?’

Mitchell continued to stare at her blankly.

‘For the fax,’ she explained, pointing at the light blinking on the fax machine. ‘Looks like something’s caught in the memory.’

With a nod of understanding, Mitchell opened the printer tray, removed a few sheets of paper, and placed them into the fax. Moments later, the machine began to whir and hum, sucking a fresh sheet inside and then spitting it out on to the floor.

Mitchell picked the sheet up, studied it for a few seconds, then handed it to Jennifer. ‘Go figure.’

Three items were listed on the page: First an alphanumeric code – VIS1095. Then a sum of money – $100,000,000. And beneath them, a letter in a circle.

The letter M.

SIXTEEN

Las Candelarias, Seville

19th April – 9.33 p.m.

Eva seemed reluctant to leave the workshop. Tom understood why.

Unable to sleep the night of his own father’s funeral a few years before, he had wandered through Geneva’s wintry streets, vainly looking for answers to questions that he couldn’t yet quite bring himself to ask. As dawn broke, he had found himself standing outside the front door to his father’s old apartment, drawn there as if by some ancient magic. Sitting on the foot of his father’s bed, seeing his cufflinks glittering on the marble-topped chest and his ties peeking out from behind the wardrobe door like snowdrops nosing their way above ground in early spring, it was almost as if he had still been alive.

Now he sensed that Eva was doing the same, absorbing the memories of her father that swirled stubbornly around this room like paint fumes. The half-empty wine glass with a ghostly lip-print on its rim. The pocket-knife, its bone handle smoothed by use. The discarded sunglasses, one arm bent back on itself where he had sat on them. Part of Tom wanted to hold her, to tell her that it would all be all right. But he knew it wouldn’t, not for a long time, and that this was something she was going to have to come to terms with on her own.

‘We should go,’ Tom muttered eventually as he carefully wrapped the painting in a cloth and placed it inside his bag.

‘Where to?’ she said mournfully. ‘The police are in and out of his apartment. I can’t bear it there any more.’

For a moment Tom thought of suggesting that they go to his hotel, but quickly changed his mind. Chances were she would take it the wrong way, and in any case the cops were probably there by now. The best thing would be to get out of Seville as quickly as possible, but there was one more place he needed to go first. According to Gillez, Rafael had been seen going to confession at the Basilica de la Macarena the night he was killed. Assuming that he hadn’t been gripped by a sudden bout of evangelical fervour, Tom wanted to see for himself what had drawn him there. But she interrupted him before he could suggest it, her voice breathless and hurried.

‘There’s something you should know. Something Rafael told me about your father. About how he died. I should have told you before only I was so angry with you that I never –’

The words stuck in Eva’s throat as the glass roof above them suddenly imploded. Tom pulled her to the floor and threw his coat over their heads, the shards embedding themselves into the thick material and crashing around their feet. The next instant he was up, dragging her towards the exit, but heavy footsteps announced someone pounding up the staircase towards them. He turned back, hoping to get to the window, but two other men abseiled into the room, guns drawn, blocking their path. They were trapped.

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