James Twining - The Gilded Seal

In the distance, a police helicopter made a low pass over the neighbouring forest, the chop of its rotors muffled by the steady buzz of the radios carried by the twenty or so officers swarming purposefully around him. Tom shivered again, although this time it wasn’t the cold. This many cops always made him nervous.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ A policeman on the other side of the tape shouted over the noise. At the sound of his voice the thick curtain of cloud drew shut once again, and the castle faded back into its grey slumber.

‘It’s okay, Constable. He’s with me.’

Mark Dorling had appeared at the top of the left-hand staircase, a tall man wearing a dark blue double-breasted suit and a striped regimental tie. He waved him forward impatiently, Tom recognising in Dorling’s ever so slightly proprietary manner evidence, perhaps, of weekends spent visiting friends with houses of a similar size and stature.

The policeman nodded and Tom stooped under the tape and made his way up the shallow and worn steps to where Dorling was waiting for him, shoulders back, chin raised, fists balanced on each hip like a big game hunter posing over his kill. Oxford had been full of people like Dorling, Tom reflected. It was the eyes that gave them away, the look of scornful indifference tinged with contempt with which they surveyed the world, as if partly removed from it. At first Tom had been offended by this, resenting what appeared to be an instinctive disdain for anyone who didn’t share their privileged background or gilded future. But he had soon come to understand that behind those dead eyes lurked a cold fury at a world where the odds had so clearly been stacked in their favour, that their lives had been robbed of any sense of mystery or adventure. Far from contempt, therefore, what their expression actually revealed was a deep self-loathing, maybe even jealousy.

‘I wasn’t expecting you until later.’ Dorling welcomed him with a tight smile. Tom wasn’t offended by his accusing tone. People like Dorling didn’t like surprises. It disturbed the illusion of order and control they worked so hard to conjure up around themselves.

‘I thought you said you were in Milan?’ he continued, sweeping a quiff of thinning blond hair back off his forehead, a large gold signet ring gleaming on the little finger of his left hand.

‘I was,’ said Tom. ‘I got the early flight. It sounded important.’

‘It is,’ Dorling confirmed, his pale green eyes narrowing momentarily, his jaw stiffening. ‘It’s the Leonardo.’ A pause. ‘I’m glad you’re here Tom.’

Dorling gripped his hand unnecessarily hard, as if trying to compensate for his earlier brusqueness, his skin soft and firm. Tom said nothing, allowing this new piece of information to sink in for a few seconds before answering. The Madonna of the Yarnwinder . One of only fifteen paintings in the world thought to have been substantially painted by da Vinci. Conservatively worth $150 million. Probably more. In his business, it didn’t get much more important than that.

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘Anyone hurt?’

‘They overpowered a tour guide. She’s bruised but fine. More shocked than anything.’

‘Security?’

‘Rudimentary,’ Dorling gave an exasperated shrug. ‘It takes the police thirty minutes to get out here on a good day. These chaps were in and out in ten.’

‘Sounds like they knew what they were doing.’

‘Professionals,’ Dorling agreed.

‘Just as well it’s insured, then, isn’t it?’ Tom grinned. ‘Or aren’t Lloyd’s planning to pay up on this one?’

‘Why do you think you’re here?’ Dorling replied with a faint smile, the lines around his eyes and tanned cheeks deepening as his face creased, his eyes darkening momentarily.

‘The old poacher-turned-gamekeeper routine?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What does that make you, I wonder?’

Dorling paused to reflect before answering, the pulse in his temple fractionally increasing its tempo.

‘A businessman. Same as always.’

There were other words dancing on the edge of Tom’s tongue, but he took a deep breath and let the moment pass. He had his reasons. Dorling’s firm of chartered loss adjusters was the first port of call for Lloyd’s underwriters whenever they had a big-ticket insurance claim to investigate. And during the ten years that Tom had operated as an art thief – the best in the business, many said – Dorling’s company had co-operated with the police on countless jobs which they suspected him of being behind.

All that had changed, however, when word had got out a year or so back that Tom and his old fence, Archie Connelly, had set themselves up on the other side of the law, advising on museum security and helping recover lost or stolen art. Now the very people who had spent years trying to put them both away were queuing up for their help. The irony still bit deep.

Tom didn’t blame Dorling. If anything he found his shameless opportunism rather endearing. The truth was that the art world was full of people like him – crocodile-skinned and conveniently forgetful as soon as they understood there was a profit to be made. It was just that the memories didn’t fade quite so fast when you’d been the one staring down the wrong end of a twenty-year stretch.

‘Who’s inside?’ Tom asked, nodding towards the castle entrance.

‘Who isn’t?’ Dorling replied mournfully. ‘The owner, forensic team, local filth.’ The slang seemed forced and sat uneasily with Dorling’s clipped sentences and sharp vowels. Tom wondered if he too felt awkward about their past history and whether this was therefore a deliberate attempt to bridge or otherwise heal the gap between them. If so, it was a rather ham-fisted attempt, although Tom appreciated him making the effort at least. ‘Oh, and that annoying little shit from the Yard’s Art Crime Squad just showed up.’

‘Annoying little shit? You mean Clarke?’ Tom gave a rueful laugh. In this instance the description was an apt one, although Tom suspected that it was a term Dorling routinely deployed to describe anyone who hadn’t gone to the same school as him, or who didn’t feature on his regular Chelsea dinner-party circuit.

‘Play nicely,’ Dorling warned him. ‘We need him onside. We’re co-operating, remember, not competing.’

‘I will if he will,’ Tom shrugged, unable and perhaps unwilling to suppress the hint of petulance in his voice. Clarke and he had what Archie would have called ‘previous’. It didn’t matter how much you wanted to draw a line and move on, sometimes others wouldn’t let you. Tom felt suddenly hot and loosened his coat, revealing a single-breasted charcoal-grey Huntsman suit that he was wearing with an open necked blue Hilditch & Key shirt.

‘There’s one more thing you should know,’ said Dorling, pausing on the threshold, one foot outside the house, the other on the marble floor, his square chin raised as if anticipating a blow. ‘I had a call from our Beijing office. They only just heard, but Milo’s out. The Chinese released him six months ago. No one knows why.’

‘Milo?’ Tom froze, not sure he’d heard correctly. Not wanting to believe he had. ‘Milo’s out? What’s that got to do … you think this is him?’

Dorling shrugged awkwardly, his bluff confidence momentarily deserting him.

‘That’s why I called you in on this one, Tom. He’s left you something.’

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.