Gissing shook his head theatrically. ‘I’m talking about the paintings, child! Don’t know why I come to these tragic affairs.’

‘The free booze?’ Allan pretended to guess, but Gissing ignored him.

‘Dozens and dozens of works, representing the best each artist could muster… a story behind each brush stroke, each carefully considered placement of object or subject…’ Gissing had pinched his thumb and forefinger together, as though holding a tiny brush. ‘They belong to us all, part of our collective consciousness, our nation’s narrative… our history.’ He was in his element now. Mike caught Laura’s eye and offered a wink: they’d both heard the speech – or variations on its central theme – plenty of times in the past. ‘They don’t belong in boardrooms,’ Gissing went on, ‘where only a security pass will get you into the building. Nor do they belong in some insurance company’s vault or a captain of industry’s hunting lodge…’

‘Or a self-made millionaire’s apartment,’ Allan teased, but Gissing wagged a finger as fat as a sausage at him.

‘You lot at First Caly are the worst offenders – overpaying for undeveloped young talent that then gets too big for its boots!’ He paused for breath, and slapped a hand down on Mike’s shoulder again. ‘But I won’t hear a word said against young Michael here.’ Mike flinched as Gissing’s grip tightened. ‘Especially as he’s just about to buy me a pint-pot of whisky.’

‘I’ll leave you boys to it,’ Laura said, fanning out the fingers of her free hand as she waved goodbye. ‘Sale’s a week today… make sure it’s in your diaries.’ There was, it seemed to Mike, a final smile just for him as she moved away.

‘The Shining Star?’ Gissing was offering. It took Mike a moment to realise he was talking about the wine bar along the street.

It was a low-ceilinged, windowless basement with mahogany slats on the walls and brown leather furnishings. In the past, Gissing had complained that it felt like being in a well-upholstered coffin.

After private viewings and the auctions themselves, it had become their custom to drop into the Shining Star for what Gissing called ‘post-match analysis’. Tonight, the place was half full – students by the look of it, albeit of the well-heeled variety.

‘Living in daddy’s Stockbridge pied-à-terre,’ Gissing muttered.

‘But still your bread and butter,’ Allan teased him.

They found an empty booth and waited for the staff to take their order – whisky for Gissing and Mike, the house champagne for Allan.

‘Need a glass of the real McCoy to wash away the memory,’ he explained.

‘I mean it, you know,’ Gissing was saying, rubbing his hands together as if soaping them. ‘About all those paintings in purdah… meant every bloody word.’

‘We know,’ Allan told him. ‘But you’re preaching to the converted. ’

Robert Gissing was head of the city’s College of Art, but not for much longer. Retirement was only a month or two away – at the end of the summer term. It seemed, however, that he was determined to argue his various points to the very last.

‘I can’t believe it’s what the artists themselves would have wanted,’ Gissing persisted.

‘In the past,’ Mike felt obliged to ask, ‘didn’t they all crave patrons?’

‘Those same patrons often loaned out important works,’ Gissing shot back, ‘to the national collections and elsewhere.’

‘First Caly does the same,’ Mike argued, looking to Allan for support.

‘That’s true,’ Allan agreed. ‘We send paintings all over the place.’

‘But it’s not the same,’ Gissing growled. ‘It’s all about commerce these days, when it should be about taking pleasure in the works themselves.’ He balled one hand into a fist, thumping the table for effect.

‘Steady there,’ Mike said. ‘Staff’ll think we’re impatient.’ He noticed that Allan’s gaze was fixed on the bar. ‘Good-looking waitress? ’ he guessed, starting to turn his head.

‘Don’t!’ Allan warned, lowering his voice and leaning across the table, as if for a huddle. ‘Three men at the bar, necking a bottle of what looks suspiciously like Roederer Cristal…’

‘Art dealers?’

Allan was shaking his head. ‘I think one of them’s Chib Calloway.’

‘The gangster?’ Gissing’s words coincided with the end of a music track, seeming even louder in the sudden silence, and as he craned his neck to look, the man called Calloway caught the movement and stared back at the trio. His bulbous shaved head rested on huge hunched shoulders. He wore a black leather jacket and a distended black T-shirt. The champagne glass looked like it was being choked by his fist.

Allan had opened his catalogue on the table and was pretending to skim through it. ‘Nice going,’ he muttered.

‘I was at the same school as him,’ Mike added quietly. ‘Not that he’ll remember…’

‘Probably not the time to remind him,’ Allan cautioned as their drinks arrived.

Calloway was a known face in the city: protection, strip bars, maybe drugs, too. Their waitress added a warning look of her own as she moved off, but it was too late: a hulking figure was moving towards the booth. Chib Calloway rested his knuckles against the table and leaned across it, casting a shadow over the three men seated there.

‘Are my ears burning?’ he asked. No one answered, though Mike returned the gangster’s stare. Calloway, only half a year older than Mike, had not worn well. His skin had an oily look to it, and his face was chipped and dented, evidence of past battles fought. ‘Gone all quiet, hasn’t it?’ he went on, lifting the catalogue and examining its cover. He opened it at random, examining an early masterpiece by Bossun. ‘Seventy-five to a hundred? For some wattle and daub?’ He tossed the catalogue back on to the table. ‘Now that, my friends, is what I call daylight robbery. I wouldn’t pay seventy-five pence for it, never mind K.’ He met Mike’s stare for a moment, but, as the silence persisted, decided there was little else to detain him. He was chuckling to himself as he went back to the bar, chuckling as he finished his drink and headed out into the night with his scowling colleagues.

Mike watched as the waiting staff’s shoulders relaxed and they scooped up the ice bucket and glasses. Allan’s eyes were on the door. He waited a further few seconds before speaking.

‘We could’ve taken them.’

But his hand wasn’t at its steadiest as he lifted the champagne to his mouth. ‘Rumour has it,’ he added from above the rim of his glass, ‘our chum Calloway pulled off the First Caly heist back in ninety-seven.’

‘He should be retired then,’ Mike offered.

‘Not every retiree is as canny with their cash as you, Mike.’

Gissing had drained his whisky and was waving towards the bar that a further offering was required. ‘Maybe we could get him to help us,’ he said as he gestured.

‘Help us?’ Allan echoed.

‘Another raid on First Caly,’ the professor explained into his empty glass. ‘We’d be freedom fighters, Allan, fighting for a cause.’

‘And what cause might that be?’ Mike couldn’t help asking. He was working hard at controlling his breathing, bringing his heartbeat back to something like normal. In the years – around twenty of them – since he’d last seen Calloway, the man had changed substantially. These days he glowed with menace and a sense of his own invulnerability.

‘Repatriation of some of those poor imprisoned works of art.’ Gissing was grinning as the whisky arrived. ‘The infidels have held on to them for long enough. Time we took our revenge.’

‘I like your thinking,’ Mike said with a smile.

‘Why pick on First Caly?’ Allan complained. ‘Plenty of other villains out there.’

‘And not all of them as public as Mr Calloway,’ Gissing agreed. ‘You say you were at school with him, Mike?’

‘Same year,’ Mike answered, nodding slowly. ‘He was the kid everyone wanted to know.’