The Gilded Seal (5 page)
adopted the more primitive, expressive style that character-
ized his work after moving to Tahiti. Nevertheless it already
betrays his more conceptual method of repre sentation, 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 re-
sponse from the market.”
“Is it genuine?”
“Why do you ask that?” Hudson snapped, pulling the can-
vas away from her protectively, his eyes narrowing as if he
was again lining her up in his rifl e’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.”
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
2 5
“Don’t worry about Anthony.” Cole clapped Hudson on
the back. “You just hit a nerve, that’s all.”
“Show Agent Browne the catalog,” Green suggested.
“That’ll explain why.”
Cole flicked open the catches on his monogrammed Louis
Vuitton briefcase and extracted a loosely bound color docu-
ment that he handed to Jennifer.
“This is the proof of the catalog for our auction of nine-
teenth 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 partic ular, 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.”
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 conver-
sations echoed faintly along the cold and empty corridors.
It was an impression that the furnishings did little to dis-
pel, for although the cavernous rooms were adorned with a
rich and varied assortment of tapestries, gilt-framed oil paint-
ings, marble- topped chests, rococo consoles and miscella-
neous
objets d’art
, closer inspection revealed many of them
to be worn, dusty and neglected.
“This place reminds me of an Egyptian tomb,” Tom whis-
pered. “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 nod-
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
2 7
ded 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, eye-
brows 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 con-
stable was standing guard. From behind him came the oc-
casional 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 re-
fuse 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 offi cers 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 toward 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
gray raincoat covering his curved shoulders. The corners of
Tom’s mouth twitched as he recognized his voice.
2 8 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
“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 swiveled around to face him.
“Kirk!” He spat the name through clenched teeth, yellow-
ing 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 respectabil-
ity 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 un-
controllably. “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?”
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
2 9
The man standing next to Clarke turned to Tom with in-
terest.
“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
outward.
“Bruce Ritchie,” Dorling introduced him to Tom. “The
estate manager. Bruce, this is Tom Kirk.”
Tom shook Ritchie’s outstretched hand, noting the nico-
tine stains around the tips of his fingers and the empty shot-
gun 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. Indus-
trial 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, realizing now that Ritchie’s
stiff-shouldered demeanor and calculating gaze probably be-
trayed 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 ex-
actly what they were here for.”
“You don’t know that,” Clarke objected.
“Opportunistic is settling for the Rembrandt or the Holbein
3 0 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
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 be-
fore making contact and asking for a ransom. That way your
insurers avoid paying out full value and you get your paint-
ing 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 fi nder’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 dis-
missive 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.”
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
3 1
“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
skeptical.
“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 fi rmly. “I
just want to know what it means.”
“Milo likes to autograph his scores,” Tom explained. “It