“We’re going shopping?” Grant said. “Not what I was expecting.”

  We stood at the entrance to the famous store. Hordes of well-heeled shoppers and casually dressed tourists swirled around us. I told Grant what our goal was for today. “We’re going to look at art, not books.”

  “Why?”

  “My uncle Randolph was a known art forger. I believe he was engaged in that line of work when he died. The gallery I’m interested in, according to their website, specializes in school-of art. Meaning, not quite old masters but works by those who studied under them, or paintings that can’t be positively identified as created by one of the masters themselves. The public stuff they sell is expensive, as you’d expect, but not outrageously so. We’re not talking Sotheby’s here. I have reason to believe this gallery handles forgeries. Sixteenth to eighteenth century specifically. We’re going to have a look around, that’s all. You’re the wealthy American art lover; I’m your meek little wife.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I can pretend, Grant. You’ll look at what they have to show you and not be overly impressed. You were thinking something a little more … exclusive. See how they respond.”

  “They’re not going to respond by telling me they have a fake Vermeer propped up next to the furnace in the basement.”

  “No. Maybe I’m clutching at straws here. For all I know, Randy picked their business card up out of the gutter because he cares about keeping London clean and didn’t get around to throwing it in the garbage. But I want to see what the place is like. If I sense anything not aboveboard, so to speak, I’ll tell Pippa.”

  “And what will Pippa do then, Gemma?” Grant asked. His voice was low and his eyes serious. “What does she do?”

  “Pippa knows people. People who can do things. That’s really all I know.”

  “I’m happy to go along with you on this, if you want my help. But I still don’t understand why we’re in Harrods. Do they have any connection with this art gallery?”

  “There’s no point in going somewhere under a false pretext if one can’t play the part. You look perfectly fine. I do not.”

  “You look fine to me.”

  What do men know? I took his arm and led him into the store.

  We emerged half an hour later. I had a new pair of leather gloves (one hundred quid) on my hands, high-heeled leather ankle boots (five hundred quid) on my feet, and a Burberry bag (seven hundred quid) over my shoulder. I’d been afraid Grant was going to faint when he saw the price tags. Pippa and her “office” would be getting the bill. I’d briefly considered splashing out on diamond earnings, but Pippa might balk at paying for those. The plain gold hoops I regularly wore through my ears would have to do. I couldn’t carry my own things around, so I hadn’t worn a coat or brought my purse, and my cheap wool gloves and trainers were now in a trash can in the ladies’ loo.

  “Are we going to grab a taxi?” Grant asked.

  “It’s faster on the Tube at this time of day, but we can’t just walk up to the front door of the gallery. We’ll call a cab once we’re a mile or so away. I don’t think I can walk very far in these boots anyway. Now, remember, you’re an American, but you spent a lot of time in England.”

  “Which is true.”

  “So it is. Thus it’s natural for you to come to London in search of what you’re after. You are also no art expert, although you think you are. You’ve recently inherited a lot of money on the death of your father. He had absolutely no taste for the finer things in life, but you plan to acquire them, no matter the cost. You’ll be putty in their hands. In case they ask for your number so they can call you later, I have a second phone with me. One with a London number, untraceable.”

  “Dare I ask where you got that?”

  “No. I only wish you were older.”

  “Why?”

  “So I could be the young new wife.” I batted my eyelashes at him.

  He rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t lay it on too thick.”

  * * *

  Our cab pulled up in front of Gallery Lambert. Grant got out first and assisted me. I gave him a radiant smile. It wasn’t easy. We’d walked to Knightsbridge Tube station, down to the platform for the Piccadilly line, transferred to the Jubilee line to emerge at Waterloo, and then up to the street to hail a cab to take us to our destination. I couldn’t have been walking in my new boots more than ten minutes, and my feet were screaming in pain. I don’t normally wear such high heels, and I was worried I’d topple over. Perhaps I should have gone for lower heels instead, but that wouldn’t have made the impression I wanted.

  Nor would falling flat on my face.

  Grant took my arm and we went inside.

  Gallery Lambert was minimalist and screaming of money. Paintings in the style of the old masters hung on walls painted in shades of terra-cotta. The lighting was dim, with individual lamps discreetly illuminating each painting.

  “Gosh,” I said in my best American accent, “these are nice, honey.”

  A woman, who looked like she might have stepped out of a modern painting, all sharp angles and harsh edges, was seated behind a reception desk. She smiled at us without a trace of warmth. Her skin was the color of bleached cotton, her hair chopped at the line of her chin and dyed a pure solid black, her mouth a thin slash of red.

  I couldn’t help glancing at the painting behind her desk of a woman in a stiff black dress trimmed with pearls and a high ruffled collar. She wasn’t smiling, but compared to the live woman in front of us, she was all softness and warmth.

  “Good afternoon,” the woman—the living one—said in a terribly posh drawl. No doubt she’d gone to a top-ranked girls’ boarding school that qualified her for nothing more than staffing the desk at a fancy art gallery and impressing the customers. The accent, however, was not English but Canadian.

  “Hi,” Grant said. “I’m Kevin Thornton from New York, and I was told about this gallery by a collector friend of mine.”

  The woman got to her feet. She’d had, I thought, some plastic surgery done, and it might not have been entirely successful. Her mouth was too thin, her tiny nose out of proportion for the bone structure of her face. A genuine smile touched the edges of her painted mouth as she studied Grant.

  Me, she ignored completely. All the better to allow me to snoop around.

  “Might I know the name of your friend?” she asked.

  “That would be telling,” Grant said. “You wouldn’t recognize his name, anyway. My friend prefers to buy through an agent.”

  She laughed lightly. “Welcome, Mr. Thornton. I’m Vivienne. Are you looking for anything in particular?”

  “I’ve recently come into some funds, and I’m eager to start building myself a good collection. My wife and I are in London on a little buying trip.”

  I wiggled my one-hundred-pound leather gloves at her. She did not look impressed.

  Grant wandered over to study a painting of a dog and a brace of pheasant. “I don’t recognize this name,” he said.

  “One of the lesser Flemish artists,” Vivienne replied. “If you tell me precisely what you’re interested in for your collection, Mr. Thornton, perhaps I can make some recommendations.”

  “I like the Dutch. You know, Rembrandt. Vermeer. Frank Hall.”

  “Frank Hall? Oh, you mean Frans Hals.”

  “Yeah. Him.”

  “Items of that quality rarely, if ever, come onto the open market,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know that. It would be nice to have one though, wouldn’t it? Some of the paintings you have here are good.”

  I noticed the absence of price tags. Presumably if you had to ask how much they cost, you couldn’t afford them.

  “Our gallery owner, Mr. Julian Lambert, is in his office. Perhaps he can make some suggestions.”

  “Sure.” Grant walked off to look at the other paintings in the room while Vivienne picked up the phone on her desk.

  Mr. Julian Lambert was a short, slightly built man in an Armani suit, gold cuff links, and Italian loafers. His thick gray hair was expertly cut, his hands manicured, and he smelled of cologne. His accent was English and middle-class. If he’d been at the Sherlock Holmes conference banquet, I hadn’t noticed him.

  Grant repeated what he was after and Julian showed him the pieces on display, while Vivienne returned her attention to the computer on her desk. She tapped at a sleek keyboard. I couldn’t get a good look at the screen without leaning over her shoulder. Her perfume, too heavily applied, carried a breath of the tropics.

  “My father, Kevin Senior, didn’t have much of an eye for art,” Grant said. “Too busy building his business empire.”

  “I don’t believe I’m familiar with that name,” Julian said.

  Grant grinned at him. “And that was my father’s intention his entire life. No need to attract attention, was his motto. As it was for many of his business contacts.” Grant tapped the side of his nose.

  “Oh,” said Julian. “I understand.”

  I didn’t.

  “At Gallery Lambert, discretion is our business.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Grant said. “Now, all this is nice enough, but let’s see what you have in the back.”

  “I’m afraid I have nothing in the back, Mr. Thornton.”

  “Call me Kevin.”

  “Kevin.” Lambert gestured around the room. “What you see is what we have on offer. At this time.” He loaded the last phrase with significance. Grant caught it and lifted one eyebrow.

  No one was paying the slightest bit of attention to little old me. I might as well have been the invisible woman here. I tottered past the reception desk and around a corner to the left. This room was smaller, but similar to the main room, displaying the same type of art. As I’d told Jayne, I have no art education. I wouldn’t be able to tell a fake from an original old master unless it was reproduced in crayon. One painting caught my eye. It was of a young woman, dressed in the severe black of her age, with a high ruffled collar that must have driven her nuts, her dark hair tightly confined to a lacy cap. The quality of lace and the number of pearls sewn onto her dress showed she was from a wealthy family. Something about her eyes attracted me. A sense of amusement, laughter even, lay behind them. She didn’t take life too seriously, and there was something shockingly sensuous about the way she stroked the small dog on her lap as she stared out of the canvas. In a flight of fancy, I wondered if she’d been in love with the painter.

  This sort of formal portrait was likely to have been commissioned to mark her engagement or wedding. I hoped she’d found happiness in life.

  “Your wife has excellent taste,” Julian said.

  I blinked. I’d forgotten myself. A serious mistake. I turned to him with a smile. “This is lovely. Do we know who she is?”

  “Unnamed woman painted by an artist who never received the fame he should have.” Even if I hadn’t been wearing the new boots, I’d have been taller than Julian. He sniffed and stretched his neck in an attempt to make himself look more imposing. “Very little is known about him, as he died far too young. Not long after this portrait was painted, in fact. That was in 1643, I believe.”

  “Do you like it, honey?” Grant asked me.

  “I adore it.” I giggled. “I have a birthday coming up.”

  “How much?” Grant asked.

  Lambert named a sum that had me giggling again so as to avoid choking. Grant nodded wisely. “Probably a good deal. I’m not sure I want to start my collection off with unknown artists, though.”

  “But I like it,” I said in my best little-girl voice.

  Grant smiled at me indulgently. “We’ve plenty of other places to see, honey. Besides, I thought you wanted to go shopping at Harrods for your birthday present.”

  I pouted prettily. I hoped it was prettily. I’ve never actually pouted before. “I guess.”

  Grant turned back to Julian. My birthday present and I were dismissed. I continued looking around. A door opened off the small room. Leading, most likely, to Lambert’s office and the storage areas. “I need to use the bathroom,” I said. “Do you mind?”

  Irritation flashed across Julian’s face, but he covered it up well. “Not at all. I’ll get Vivienne to take you. Viv!”

  “No need to bother her. I can find my way.” I wrenched the door open and stepped directly into an office. Lambert obviously brought clients here, as it was luxuriously furnished with a glass-and-chrome desk, a chair with good lumbar support, and two comfortable guest chairs. A credenza that probably also served as a filing cabinet held a silver tray with four cut-lead glasses, a silver ice bucket with tongs, and a bottle of Laphroaig. The computer on the desk was a top-of-the-line Apple with a twenty-seven-inch screen. At the moment, the monitor showed a packaged screen saver with alternating photographs of great beaches. Another door led out of the office going further back into the building.

  Before I could even think about hacking into the computer or trying to open the credenza, Viv came in. “You’ll need a key for the loo.” She dangled it in front of me. She was of average height, meaning shorter than me, taller than Jayne, and lean and fit. Now that she was out from behind her desk, I could see that her legs, visible under a short tight skirt and sheer stockings, were well muscled, indicating a runner.

  “Oh, gee, thanks so much.”

  “Through here.” She opened the door at the rear of the office and held it for me. I stepped into an ill-lit corridor. Viv took two steps past me and put the key into the lock of the door on the other side. She watched me and I went inside. It was a standard office loo. I’d find no secret account documents or illicit old masters in here. I lingered for a few minutes, hoping Viv would give up and leave me alone, but when I came out she was standing there.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “My pleasure. Shall we join the gentlemen?”

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Ready to go?” Grant said when we were back in the main gallery.

  “I guess so,” I said. “I do like that painting, sweetie.”

  Grant winked at Julian. “We might come back, honey. Julian here is going to speak to some of his contacts and ask if they have anything else we might like.”

  I squealed in delight.

  Julian pulled out his phone. “Why don’t you give me your number, and I’ll call when I have news.”

  “Take care of that, will you, honey,” Grant said.

  “Okay.” I pulled out the burner phone Pippa had given me. I’d memorized the number, but I pretended not to have. I read it out to Julian, and he punched it into his own phone.

  “We might have to go elsewhere to see the painting I’m thinking of,” he said.

  “I’m good with that.” Grant held out his hand and the two men shook.

  “You’ll be able to catch a cab at the Tate,” Vivienne said. “It’s not far.”

  “Thanks,” Grant said.

  “Bye!” I followed Grant to the street and we turned right, passing an antique-furniture shop. He took my arm and we strolled toward the river. I tugged his arm at the first intersection and pulled him to the right. Once we were around the corner, I immediately bent over and pulled off my boots. “I might never walk again,” I said in my own voice.

  He put his hands on the small of his back and leaned back to release some of the tension. “That was fun. Can we do it again?”

  “I don’t know that we learned all that much. We’ll have to see if he calls us.”

  “Did you see anything when you were in the back? He sent Vivienne after you mighty fast.”

  “Which doesn’t mean they were suspicious. She had to unlock the loo door. Their security is good. They’ve got substantial locks on the door leading to the back alley, and the door is alarmed. A CCTV camera is mounted inside facing toward it. No doubt there’s a camera watching the alley as well.”

  “Fair enough if they have half-a-million-pound paintings inside.”

  “You should have bought that for me.” I lifted my leg and rubbed at my toes. “I wasn’t acting about that. I loved it.”

  “I broadly hinted that if he could find something for my collection, I’d buy the painting as a gift for the little woman. I expect he’ll call before suppertime.”

  “Good job. Now, get us a taxi please. I cannot take another step in these boots. We have a couple of other stops to make; I want to talk to the woman who accused Randy of stealing her ideas. But we’ll have to visit a shoe store first.”

  Chapter Twelve

  We never did make it to the address of the dreadlocked woman who, Pippa had discovered, went by the name of Elsie Saunders.

  Grant headed for a busier street to hail a cab. Once it arrived, I hobbled into it and we took Waterloo Bridge across the river.

  “I need a shoe store,” I said to the cabby. “Any shoe store, but nothing too expensive. I just want a pair of trainers.”

  “New boots, pet?” he said. Considering that when I’d gotten into the cab I’d been limping and carrying the right boot in my hand, he didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that out. He winked at Grant in the rearview mirror. “Me wife likes to buy shoes she can’t walk in, too. They’ll do anything to please us, won’t they, mate?”

  “And we love them for it,” Grant said. I refrained from slapping him because at that moment my phone—my own phone—rang. Pippa.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  She didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Dad’s been arrested.”

  “What? When?”

  “Moments ago. Morrison came to the house and formally arrested him. He was allowed to call Mum, and she’s sent one of her partners down to the nick to represent him. She called me.”

  “What station? We’re in a cab now.”

  “There’s no point in you going there, Gemma. They won’t let you talk to him. I know Brian Cohen and he’s a darn good solicitor.”

  “I can pace nervously up and down.”

  “What’s happening?” Grant mouthed.

  “That would not be helpful,” Pippa said. “Now Dad has officially been charged, I can do even less to help him, so it’s all up to you. Keep on with what you’re doing. How’s your day going?”