Philip kept his patience. ‘So where’s the chain now?’

‘How the hell do I know? Sabine Monette told Honthorst that she didn’t have it any more.’

‘So who has?’

‘Now, think about it, Philip. If I knew, would I tell you?’

‘Only if you wanted me to auction it for you.’

‘I could sell it privately.’

‘But I have the expertise. Remember, antique gold is my speciality. I have a list of clients who would kill to get their hands on that.’ Philip paused, picking his way forward. ‘Mind you, it’s only a chain. I mean, its connection to Bosch—’

‘He owned it.’

‘– puts up the value, but it is only a chain.’ He let the words hang, but Gerrit said nothing. If he knew there was more to the object, he wasn’t going to confide. ‘You said you had documents to prove its provenance?’

‘Yes. And no, you’re not going to see them.’

Piqued, Philip continued. ‘Well, they’re not much use anyway, are they? I mean, without the chain the papers are worthless.’ He moved to the door, then turned. ‘I suppose this is one sale you’ll have to put down as a loss.’

Fifteen

Mark Spencer was watching Honor carefully. She was taking notes, her dark hair smooth, her eyes looking down. He could see the gap in her blouse, giving just a hint of cleavage, and imagined touching her. He wondered if she was seeing anyone. Certainly no one had come to the offices, but then again, Honor was a private person. Not for the first time he toyed with the idea of ringing her home phone number. It couldn’t be difficult to find – all he had to do was to look in the Personnel files. He wouldn’t say anything, just see if anyone other than Honor picked up. See if there was a man living there. Or another woman. After all, if Ms Laverne were gay he should find out now – no point wasting time.

Honor cleared her throat suddenly, catching him looking at her. To his chagrin, Mark coloured up. Who was he kidding? he thought. Honor was pleasant, but she didn’t really like him. But then again, she didn’t know him. Didn’t appreciate that looks faded and what really mattered was ambition. And he had ambition – and a sickening, penetrating curiosity which had served him well in his criminal cases. His skill might be average, but he had a gift for unearthing secrets.

The meeting drew to its close and Honor left hurriedly. But she didn’t go straight back to her office, instead she made for the lavatory, locked the door and sat down on the toilet seat, trying to fathom what she had heard only an hour before. Eloise Devereux, for once abrupt, shock making her curt. And then tears following.

‘I’m so sorry about Claude’s death,’ Honor said over the phone line. ‘I never got to know him well, but I know Nicholas was very fond of him.’

‘So was I,’ Eloise had replied, her tone fading. Honor imagined that she would live in this way for the foreseeable future. Strong one moment, weak the next. Lifted by forgetfulness, buckled by memory. ‘It was such a terrible way to die.’

And then Eloise had told her. Claude Devereux’s manner of death had been suspicious, and the police were involved.

‘Suspicious?’ Honor had queried. ‘In what way?’

‘Claude was stabbed, but the killer had set fire to his body to try to cover his tracks … the pathologist took a while to determine the cause of death … Claude was burnt alive. He was still alive.’

The words had reverberated in Honor’s brain. Another murder. Another victim of fire.

‘Why would anyone want to kill him? Did he have any enemies?’

‘He was a landscape gardener,’ Eloise had replied, almost laughing at the absurdity. ‘No one kills gardeners. Everyone liked him, got on with him. Claude was kind, considerate … But that didn’t stop someone killing him, did it?’ She had grabbed at a breath as though simply living was an effort. ‘It’s only been two days. Two days, and it feels like he’s been gone for a lifetime.’

Honor had made a mental note to ring the French police and find out what she could about the case – or whatever they would tell her. The rest she would search for herself. The internet would have the death listed, and it would have been reported in the French newspapers. Moments later she had ended the phone conversation with Eloise Devereux, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the death of her husband.

Getting to her feet, Honor left the cloakroom, bumping into Mark Spencer as she did so. She had the unpleasant feeling that he had been waiting for her.

‘What d’you want, Mark?’

‘You all right?’

She frowned. ‘What?’

‘You looked pale in the meeting,’ he smarmed. ‘I was just wondering if you were OK.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Well, if there’s anything worrying you, you can always talk to me. You know, if you’re unsure about anything.’ He was flustered. ‘Like I say, if there’s anything I can do—’

‘Actually there is,’ Honor replied. ‘At the next meeting, stop trying to look down the front of my blouse.’

Sixteen

Lloyds Bank, Chelsea, London

Hurrying out of the rain, Nicholas walked into the bank and requested his safe deposit box. A few moments later, the manager showed him into a side room and then left him alone. After he had locked the door, Nicholas sat down at the table and drew the steel box towards him. Inserting the key he carried on a chain round his neck, he unlocked it and took out twenty-eight small envelopes, each barely two inches square.

They were numbered 1 to 28.

He stared at them for a long time, remembering the moment he had discovered the first one. How he had drawn the tiny piece of paper out of the crack in the gold connector and smoothed it down, intrigued by the faint writing in a Gothic script. In a language he couldn’t decipher at first. All he had recognised had been the name Hieronymus Bosch, and the date 1470. With intricate care he had levered open the joins of all the other connectors, finding – as he had expected and hoped – twenty-seven further tiny pieces of paper with writing on them. In the same hand and apparently in the same language.

So Sabine Monette had – on a whim – stolen a chain that turned out to be holding a secret. It hadn’t taken a genius to work out that anything concealed so carefully must be important. The question had been simple – what did the writing say? Without telling Sabine anything about his discovery, Nicholas had set about getting the words translated.

His instinct prompted him to secrecy. He knew from the reactions of Gerrit der Keyser and Philip Preston that the chain was valuable, so how much more valuable would the writing turn out to be?

Using a different name, he had gone online and sought help from three different university scholars, one in Cambridge, one in Holland and a third in Boston. His cover story had been simple: he was a journalist trying to translate some old copy from a late Middle Ages ledger for an article he was writing. And so, gradually, Nicholas had begun to translate the papers, alternating the three scholars so that no one would ever possess the full meaning.

And then the name Hieronymus Bosch had come up and the questions began. As with the others, Nicholas had asked the British expert Sidney Elliott for secrecy, but his trip to Cambridge had been an uneasy one. Elliott was well into his fifties, a hunched intellectual with a stammer, wearing bad clothes and working in a makeshift laboratory. Although an expert in his field, his early promise had nosedived because of family problems and his ambition had all but petered out – until Nicholas Laverne had shown him one of the Bosch pieces.

Bending down to look at it, Elliott had made a low sound in his throat, then glanced up at Nicholas.

‘Wh-wh-where did you get this?’

‘I’m afraid that’s confidential information. As I say, I’m a journalist and I need to speak to you in complete confidence.’