Nicholas stared at her, trying to work out what she was offering.

‘Where’s the chain?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

She walked to the door and paused. ‘I’ll come back and we can talk again. In the meantime, think about what I’ve said. I can help you – so we might as well work together.’

‘I’m not putting you in danger.’

‘It’s too late for that,’ she said shortly. ‘It’s spreading, Nicholas. The secret’s leaked out and it’s claimed two lives already. Trust me or there’ll be more. And next time it might be someone you love.’

Twenty-One

Philip Preston’s Auction House, Chelsea, London

There was an auction already in progress. Philip was on the rostrum and a large video screen was throwing up magnified images of the lots so that the audience could see – in glaring close-up – exactly what they were bidding for. Of course most dealers attended the previews and picked over the goods before the auction, making a note of lot numbers and the estimate of how much each piece was expected to reach. But there were always latecomers, and the inevitable opportunists.

Positioned at the back of the hall, Gerrit der Keyser spotted Hiram Kaminski and beckoned for him to approach. He scuttled over, peeling off a pair of pigskin gloves and laying his hat on his lap. He was, as ever, prim, his feet crossed at the ankles.

‘I heard about Sabine Monette,’ Hiram whispered, shocked. ‘What a terrible way to die. I read that she’d been murdered.’ He paused, then asked, ‘Hadn’t she just bought a painting off you?’

‘Shit!’ Gerrit said feigning irritation. ‘So the secret’s out, is it? Yeah, the old bat bought a small Bosch picture – and stole a chain off me.’ He watched as Hiram’s eyes widened. Nice man, Gerrit thought. Good dealer. Honest and trusting. Poor fool. ‘She nicked the fucking chain off the back of the painting. Thought I wouldn’t notice—’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why did she steal the chain?’ Hiram asked, his tone perplexed. ‘Sabine Monette was a rich woman. So why would she need to steal? And besides, she’d bought the painting so the chain was hers by rights anyway.’

Damn it, Gerrit thought, Hiram Kaminski wasn’t quite the innocent he seemed.

‘She had dementia,’ Gerrit lied, tapping his forehead. ‘Early onset Alzheimer’s. I mean, I wouldn’t have pressed charges, I just wanted to get the chain back. But apparently she’d lost it – her mind and the chain – so I let the matter rest.’ He touched Hiram’s sleeve. ‘Don’t repeat a word of this, hey? I mean, I don’t want to look like a mug.’

Hiram might have seemed guileless, but he wasn’t that big a fool. Piecing together what his wife had told him and this last bit of information from Gerrit der Keyser, he asked, ‘Was the chain valuable?’

‘It was old—’

‘Original to the painting?’

Gerrit shrugged, lying deftly. ‘I suppose so.’

‘So it dated from Hieronymus Bosch’s time!’ Hiram said crossly. ‘I have to say, Gerrit, rivalry or not, everyone in London knows that I’m an expert on the late Middle Ages. You could have contacted me – I might have wanted to buy it.’ He was flushed with annoyance, overheated in a worsted suit. ‘Bosch is one of my favourite artists and any artefact which had belonged to him would have been of tremendous interest to me.’

‘But you couldn’t have afforded it,’ Gerrit replied regretfully. ‘I got a tremendous price from Sabine Monette—’

‘Probably took advantage of her dementia,’ Hiram snorted, watching as Philip Preston started the bidding on a small Turner sketch. Automatically, he dropped his voice. ‘You shouldn’t have sold it to her if you knew she wasn’t all there. And besides, how d’you know I couldn’t have afforded it?’

‘People talk. And let’s face it, your gallery’s not been doing too well in the recession, has it?’ Gerrit needled him. ‘Not that you’re one of the unscrupulous dealers, Hiram – we all know you’re a decent man. But decent men aren’t usually rich men.’

‘You still could have asked me,’ Hiram replied, smarting, reverting to a whisper. ‘You could have given me the opportunity to put in a bid. You didn’t even let me look at it. As a scholar I’d have relished the chance to study the chain.’

Gerrit sighed. ‘Sabine Monette wanted a quick sale.’

‘How convenient,’ Hiram replied, uncharacteristically caustic. ‘So where’s the painting and the chain now?’

‘The painting’s still at her French estate, I suppose. As for the chain, who knows? Like I say, she lost it.’ Gerrit shrugged, wondering himself just where the chain had got to and if it was, as he suspected, now with Nicholas Laverne. ‘I suppose it’s now a lost cause.’

Hiram gave him a cold look. ‘Somebody cheated you and you’re going to let it go?’

‘I have no choice. Sabine Monette is dead.’

‘Murdered,’ Hiram said, feeling his way along. Gerrit der Keyser had infuriated him. He had never trusted the dealer; he was suspicious of his methods and still stinging from his patronising comments. A kindly man, Hiram was unusually abrasive. ‘Why would anyone kill Sabine Monette? It makes no sense. Unless …’

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless,’ Hiram whispered, leaning closer towards Gerrit der Keyser, ‘they’re killing everyone who knows about the chain.’

Twenty-Two

It was drizzling when Nicholas hurried towards Philip Preston’s business premises. His coat soaked, he entered the auction room just as Philip handed the proceedings over to his assistant and left the hall.

Ducking round the back of the building, Nicholas took the fire escape steps to Preston’s office and walked in, unannounced, to find the auctioneer kissing his secretary. Embarrassed Philip jumped back and the woman left the room hurriedly.

‘Couldn’t you have knocked?’ Philip asked, wiping lipstick off his mouth with his handkerchief and glowering at Nicholas.

He was unmoved. ‘Aren’t you a bit old for that?’

‘I wasn’t the one who took a vow of chastity,’ Philip replied. ‘Where have you been anyway? I’d given up on you, thought you weren’t coming back.’

‘Sabine Monette was murdered.’

‘I know, I found her,’ Philip replied, smoothing his white hair with his hands. ‘Don’t look at me like that!’

‘You found her? How did you find her?’

‘I was going to have a chat with her—’

‘You were trying to cut me out, you mean,’ Nicholas retorted bitterly. ‘Did you find out anything useful, Philip?’

He was about to lie, then thought better of it.

‘I know what your big secret is. I took Sabine’s phone, saw the Bosch papers that you’d sent to her.’ He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. ‘Quite a revelation, I must say. The art world won’t like it, Bosch dying in his twenties – it means that all the paintings after 1473 were fakes.’

‘Not entirely. They were done by members of the Bosch family.’

‘But not Hieronymus, which is where the value lies. No one wants the also-rans.’ Philip reached into his middle desk drawer and waved Sabine Monette’s mobile in his hand. ‘Thing is, I don’t know what to do with this information. Not yet, anyway. I suppose you want to expose the part the Catholic Church played in the fraud, hang them out to dry. Certainly won’t look good for them, covering up a man’s death and raking in money for all those years. Then again, we have to think of the art world too, don’t we?’

‘Do we?’

‘If we expose this subterfuge, the value of Bosch’s works will take a beating. A lot of galleries and collectors around the world will have egg on their faces when this comes out. If it comes out.’ Philip paused, pushing the mobile into his back pocket. ‘Of course it doesn’t have to. I know of interested parties who would pay well to keep it suppressed.’

‘You’re crooked.’

Philip shrugged. ‘No, I just know how to be flexible. This is a business that requires a lot of gymnastics.’