The Gilded Seal

‘Tried and failed. That’s why he smashed the glass.’

‘When was this?’

‘March thirtieth, so a couple of weeks ago now. One of the guards disturbed him before he could take anything. They chased him outside, but he had a car waiting.’

‘It don’t make no sense,’ Archie said with a frown, reasoning with himself as much as anyone. ‘The most he could have got away with would have been a couple of pieces. And what would they have been worth? A couple of grand, tops.’

‘Exactly. Any one of the swords or batons would have been worth a lot more.’

‘And been easier to flog,’ Archie added. ‘He certainly doesn’t sound like a pro.’

‘To be honest, I don’t care who he is,’ she retorted. ‘All I want to know is how we make sure nothing like this happens again.’

‘The bad news is you can’t,’ Archie said with a sigh. ‘Not for certain. But there are some things you can do to even the odds. Upgrade the locks, install security glass in all the cases, re-configure the patrol cycles, that sort of thing. Anything more will cost you. If you’re interested, I’ll pull something together laying the options out. Maybe we could run through them over dinner?’

‘Do you think there’s any chance he’ll try again?’ she persisted, ignoring his suggestion.

‘Normally I’d say no,’ Archie said with a shrug. ‘But this guy seems to be making it up as he goes along. It might be worth watching out for him, just in case.’

‘The problem is we don’t know what he looks like,’ she said. ‘The guard only saw the back of his head.’

‘What about the cameras outside?’

‘He had his head lowered in every picture. The police said he must have known where they were.’

Archie frowned. If this intruder had taken the trouble to scope out the cameras, then maybe he wasn’t quite the amateur he had assumed. Was he missing something?

‘This is the best shot we could come up with,’ she said, taking a manilla folder from a side table and removing a photograph of a man, his head dipped so that only a narrow crescent of the bottom half of his face could be seen. Archie studied it for a few seconds and then looked up, straining to keep his voice level and face impassive.

‘Mind if I hang on to this?’

‘Why?’ she asked, a curious edge to her voice. ‘You don’t recognise him, do you?’

‘No,’ Archie lied. ‘But you never know. Someone else might.’

SIX (#ulink_443c1323-ed5d-5e95-8ed8-0c0117419a34)

Clerkenwell, London

18th April – 8.59 p.m.

Tom was finishing a call when Archie let himself in, the chatter of the refrigeration unit on a passing lorry gushing through the open door before draining away the instant it was shut behind him. Removing his coat, Archie tossed it over the back of one of the Georgian dining chairs arranged in the shop’s two large arched windows.

Tom had bought this building just over a year ago now, transferring the stock from his father’s antique business in Geneva after he’d died. As well as the dimly lit showroom area they were in now, the ground floor consisted of a large warehouse to the rear and an office that Tom and Archie shared as a base for their art recovery work. Tom himself lived on the top floor.

He killed the call and threw the phone down on the green baize card table he was sitting at, his right hand deftly manipulating a small mother-of-pearl casino chip through his slender fingers. Behind him, a grandfather clock lazily boomed the hour, triggering a sympathetic chorus of subtle chiming and gently pinging bells from the other clocks positioned around the room.

‘All right?’ Archie asked, leaning against the back of one of a pair of matching Chesterfield armchairs.

Tom caught a flash of cerise pink lining as Archie’s jacket fell open and smiled. Subtlety had never been Archie’s strongest point and even in a suit, a uniform Tom had rarely seen him out of, his forceful character seemed to find a way to flaunt itself. He had at least recently shed one of the two phones that he used to juggle from ear to ear like a commodities trader, although from the occasional involuntary twitch of his fingers, like a gunfighter stripped of his .45, Tom knew that he still missed the buzz of his old life.

‘Good. You?’

‘Not bad, not bad,’ Archie sniffed.

Tom nodded, struck by how, the better you knew someone, the less you often needed to say.

‘Dominique in?’ Archie glanced hopefully towards the rear.

‘Not seen her.’ Tom shrugged. ‘Why, are you going to ask her out?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Archie laughed the question away.

‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. What are you waiting for?’

‘Leave it out, will you?’ Archie snorted.

‘If you don’t make your move, someone else will.’

‘If I wanted to make a move, I would have done,’ Archie insisted.

‘Well, it’s probably just as well,’ Tom sniffed, his eyes twinkling at Archie’s discomfort. ‘She’d only have said no. Better to avoid the rejection.’

‘Very funny.’ Archie smiled tightly. Tom decided to change the subject before he completely lost his sense of humour.

‘That was Dorling, by the way.’ Tom nodded towards the phone.

‘What the hell did he want?’ Archie bristled. While Tom had understood the need to forgive his one-time pursuers if he was to move on, Archie was less sanguine. His scars ran deep, and he was suspicious of Dorling’s Machiavellian pragmatism, sensing the seeds of a further about-turn should the circumstances require it.

‘He just got the initial results of the forensic tests back.’

‘And?’

‘And basically they’ve got nothing. No prints at the scene. The getaway car torched. Zip.’ In truth, he’d have been more surprised if they had found something. From what he’d seen, this crew weren’t the sort to make mistakes.

‘Any idea who pulled it?’

Tom flicked the chip down on to the card table, enjoying the expression registering on Archie’s face as he stepped forward for a closer look.

‘Milo?’ he exclaimed. ‘Pull the other one! He was down for a ten-year stretch, minimum.’

‘According to Dorling, he got out six months ago. They found one of these at the scene.’ He nodded towards the chip. ‘This is one he gave me after a job we pulled together in Macau. Back when we were still talking.’

‘Well then, all we have to do is wait. He’ll just follow his usual MO and ransom it back.’

‘I think he’s picked up some new moves while he’s been away. This time he left a message.’

‘What sort of a message?’