The Gilded Seal

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.’