James Twining - The Gilded Seal

They waited until he regained consciousness and then hammered in the second nail. He shrieked again, his body momentarily rigid with pain, hands clenched into white talons, before sagging forward as the men released him and let his wrists take the strain. The camera never left his face, silent tears running down his cheek, a sudden nosebleed drawing a vivid line across his upper lip and chin before dripping on to his chest.

His tortured breathing echoed through the room, a steady metronome that marked every few passing seconds with unfeeling regularity until slowly, inevitably, the gap between each rasping breath grew. For a few minutes it seemed as if time itself was slowing, his lungs clawing for air, his lips thin and blue, each breath shallower than the last until little more than a whisper remained.

Then he was still.

Taking a sip of water and freeing his penis so it lay across his stomach where he could touch it, the man settled down to watch the film again.

Clerkenwell, London

19th April – 1.16 a.m.

With a sigh, Tom threw the bedclothes off and swung his feet down to the floor. He’d never been a good sleeper, and experience had taught him there was no point trying to wrestle his mind into submission when it had decided it had better things to do.

He pulled on the jeans and shirt he’d thrown over the back of a chair and negotiated his way across the open expanse of the living room, the orange glow of the slumbering city seeping in through the partially glazed roof overhead. Unbolting his front door, he made his way down the staircase to his office, the rubber soles of his trainers squeaking noisily on the concrete steps.

The desk light snapped on, a brilliant wash of bleached halogen sweeping across the worn leather surface. He prodded the mouse and his computer blinked reluctantly into life, the screen staining his face blue.

He scanned through his emails – junk mail mostly, offering to improve his sex life or his bank balance. For a moment his cursor hovered over the three unopened messages from Jennifer Browne that lurked at the foot of his inbox. Two from the year before, one sent this January. Then nothing.

Not that that was surprising. Jennifer had better things to do than waste time writing to him if he couldn’t be bothered to reply. But then it wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to read them. It was just simpler that way. His was a life that could only be lived alone and there was no point in pretending otherwise. And although he would never admit it, he drew a perverse satisfaction in his asceticism; in proving that civilian life had not blunted his self-discipline. Even so, he hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to delete her emails yet. That would have been a little too final. Perhaps, deep down, he liked to believe that there might be another way.

A noise made Tom look up. The roller-shutter over the entrance had been activated and was retracting itself with a loud clanking. He crossed over to the window that looked on to the warehouse below, just in time to see a powerful motorbike pull in, the dazzling beam of its headlamp picking out a series of packing crates and cardboard boxes before both it and the engine were extinguished. Almost immediately, the shutter unfurled behind it.

Dominique jumped to the ground and removed her helmet, blonde hair spilling out on to her shoulders. Looking up, she waved at Tom with a smile, before turning and making her way up the spiral staircase towards him.

‘Welcome home.’ She kissed him on both cheeks, her blue eyes sparkling under a silvery eye shadow.

‘Thanks. You’re late back.’

‘You checking up on me too?’ She grinned, unzipping her leather jacket to reveal a strapless black cocktail dress. ‘I’ve already had two missed calls from Archie tonight.’

‘I just didn’t know where you were,’ said Tom.

Although it was against his natural instincts to worry about anyone other than himself, Tom felt strangely responsible for Dominique. Responsible because, as she had revealed to him a few months before, it was his father who had offered her a way out of Geneva’s callous streets and a spiralling cycle of soft drugs, casual scams and brutal young-offender institutions. Responsible because, after his father’s death, she was the one who had picked up the reins of his business, first transferring it to London and then agreeing to stay and help run it. Protecting her was, therefore, a way of preserving the delicate thread of shared memories that led back to his father. Not that she wanted or needed much protection.

‘I can look after myself,’ she said, arching her eyebrows knowingly. ‘What are you doing up?’

‘Can’t sleep.’

‘Anything you want to talk about?’ She laid a concerned hand on his arm. ‘You were only meant to be gone a few days. It’s been three weeks.’

‘I got a lead on the Ghent altarpiece,’ he said defensively. ‘I followed it up.’

‘You look tired.’

‘I’ve got a lot going on.’

‘You need to slow down,’ she cautioned.

‘I like to keep busy.’

‘Keeping busy won’t bring any of them back, you know. Your father, Harry –’

‘I don’t want to talk about him.’ Tom felt his teeth clenching at the mention of Harry Renwick. A family friend and surrogate father to Tom, Renwick had revealed himself to be the murderer and criminal mastermind known as Cassius. The shock of his betrayal the previous summer still hadn’t left Tom; nor had the guilt he now felt at his role in Harry’s death, or his anger that Renwick had taken the truth about Tom’s father’s true involvement in his murderous schemes to his grave. There were still so many questions about the sort of man his father had been, about the people he’d known and the things he’d done. Questions, always questions, but never any way of answering them.

‘You never want to…’ She broke off suddenly, reached behind him and snatched the CCTV still off the desk where Tom had left it. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘Archie. It’s from that break-in at Apsley House.’

‘I know that man.’ She pointed at the blurred image.

‘Rafael?’ Tom gave a disbelieving frown. ‘I doubt it.’

‘He was here,’ she insisted. ‘The morning you flew off to Italy. He left you something.’

‘What?’

She pointed at the bookcase under the window. A long, narrow object had been placed there, wrapped in what appeared to be a white linen napkin.

Tom picked it up and carried it over to the desk. As he stood it up and undid the knot, the material fell away, revealing a porcelain obelisk, just over two feet long, inscribed with hieroglyphs.

‘What is it?’ asked Dominique, frowning.

‘It’s part of the Egyptian dinner service from Apsley House,’ Tom answered, grim-faced.

‘But they told us nothing was taken.’

‘That’s exactly what he wanted them to think.’

‘You mean he swapped this for a replica?’

‘I should have known better than to think he’d have run away empty handed. He’s too good.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A crook and a friend.’ Tom gave a wry smile.

‘In that order?’

‘He never saw the difference. Was there anything else?’

‘A letter.’ She handed him an envelope. It was made from thick, good quality ivory paper and a single word had been written across the front in a swirling copperplate script. Felix .

Tom snatched a knife out of the desk drawer and sliced it open.

‘It’s empty,’ said Dominique, looking up at him questioningly. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Only one way to find out,’ Tom said as he reached into the desk for his address book.

‘Have you seen the time?’ she warned him.