Sally put a line through the seven appointments in the diary on Thursday, well aware that there had to be a good reason for Dick to postpone a cabinet minister and the chairman of Reuters. But what could he be buying? The only thing he had ever bid for in the past had been newspapers, and you couldn’t pick up one of those at an auction house.
Sally returned to her office and asked Benson to drive over to Sotheby’s in Bond Street and purchase a copy of their catalog for the Geneva sale. When he presented it to her an hour later, she was even more surprised. Dick had never shown any interest in collecting eggs in the past. Could it be the Russian connection? Because surely Sharon wasn’t expecting a Fabergé for two nights’ work?
* * *
On the Wednesday evening, Dick and Sharon flew into the Swiss city and checked into Le Richemond. Before dinner they strolled over to the Hôtel de Bergues in the center of the city, where Sotheby’s always conduct their Geneva auctions, to inspect the room where the sale would be taking place.
Armstrong watched as the hotel staff put out the chairs on a floor which he estimated would hold about four hundred people. He walked slowly round the room, deciding where he needed to sit to be sure that he had a clear view of the auctioneer as well as the bank of nine telephones placed on a raised platform at one side of the room. As he and Sharon were about to leave, he stopped to glance round the room once more.
As soon as they arrived back at their hotel, Armstrong marched into the small dining room overlooking the lake and headed straight for the alcove table in the corner. He had sat down long before the head waiter could tell him the table was reserved for another guest. He ordered for himself and then passed the menu to Sharon.
As he waited for the first course, he began to butter the bread roll on the plate by his side. When he had eaten it, he leaned across and took Sharon’s roll from her plate. She continued to turn the pages of the Sotheby’s catalog.
“Page forty-nine,” he said between mouthfuls. Sharon quickly flicked over a few more pages. Her eyes settled on an object whose name she couldn’t pronounce.
“Is this to be added to a collection?” she asked, hoping it might be a gift for her.
“Yes,” he replied, with his mouth full, “but not mine. I’d never heard of Fabergé until last week,” he admitted. “It’s just part of a bigger deal I’m involved in.”
Sharon’s eyes continued down the page, passing over the detailed description of how the masterpiece had been smuggled out of Russia in 1917, until they settled on the estimated price.
Armstrong reached under the table and put a hand on her thigh.
“How high will you go?” she asked, as a waiter appeared by their side and placed a large bowl of caviar in front of them.
Armstrong quickly removed his hand and switched his attention to the first course.
Since their weekend in Paris they had spent every night together, and Dick couldn’t remember how long it was since he had been so obsessed by anyone—if ever. Much to Sally’s surprise, he had taken to leaving the office in the early evening, and not reappearing until ten the next day.
Over breakfast each morning he would offer to buy her presents, but she always rejected them, which made him fearful of losing her. He knew it wasn’t love, but whatever it was, he hoped it would go on for a long time. He had always dreaded the thought of a divorce, even though he rarely saw Charlotte nowadays other than at official functions and couldn’t even remember when they had last slept together. But to his relief Sharon never talked about marriage. The only suggestion she ever made would, she kept reminding him, allow them the best of both worlds. He was slowly coming round to falling in with her wishes.
After the empty caviar bowl had been whisked away, Armstrong began to attack a steak which took up so much of his plate that the extra vegetables he had demanded had to be placed on s
everal other dishes. By using two forks he found he was able to eat from two plates at once, while Sharon contented herself with nibbling a lettuce leaf and toying with some smoked salmon. He would have ordered a second helping of Black Forest gâteau if she hadn’t started running the tip of her right foot along the inside of his thigh.
He threw his napkin down on the table and headed out of the restaurant toward the lift, leaving Sharon to follow a pace behind. He stepped in and jabbed the button for the seventh floor, and the doors closed just in time to prevent an elderly couple from joining them.
When they reached their floor he was relieved that there was no one else in the corridor, because if there had been, they could not have failed to notice the state he was in.
Once he had kicked the bedroom door closed with his heel, she pulled him down on to the floor and began pulling off his shirt. “I can’t wait any longer,” she whispered.
* * *
The following morning, Armstrong sat down at a table laid for two in their suite. He ate both breakfasts while checking the exchange rate for the Swiss franc against the pound in the Financial Times.
Sharon was admiring herself in a long mirror at the other end of the room, taking her time to get dressed. She liked what she saw, and smiled before turning round and walking over to the breakfast table. She placed a long, slim leg on the arm of Armstrong’s chair. He dropped his butter knife on the carpet as she began pulling on a black stocking. When she changed legs he stood up to face her, sighing as she slipped her arms inside his dressing-gown.
“Have we got time?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about time, my darling, the auction doesn’t start until ten,” she whispered, unclipping her bra and pulling him back down to the floor.
They left the hotel a few minutes before ten, but as the only item Armstrong was interested in was unlikely to come up much before eleven, they strolled arm in arm along the side of the lake, making their way slowly in the direction of the city center and enjoying the warmth of the morning sun.
When they entered the foyer of the Hôtel de Bergues, Armstrong felt strangely apprehensive. Despite the fact that he had bargained for everything he had ever wanted in his life, this was the first time he had attended an auction. But he had been carefully briefed on what was expected of him, and he immediately began to carry out his instructions. At the entrance to the ballroom he gave his name to one of the smartly-dressed women seated behind a long table. She spoke in French and he replied in kind, explaining that he was only interested in Lot Forty-three. Armstrong was surprised to find that almost every place in the room had already been taken, including the one he had identified the previous evening. Sharon pointed to two empty chairs on the left-hand side of the room, toward the back. Armstrong nodded and led her down the aisle. As they sat down a young man in an open-necked shirt slipped into a seat behind them.
Armstrong checked that he had a clear view of the auctioneer as well as the bank of temporary phones, each of them manned by an overqualified telephonist. His position wasn’t as convenient as his original choice, but he could see no reason why it should prevent him from fulfilling his part of the bargain.
“Lot Seventeen,” declared the auctioneer from his podium at the front of the ballroom. Armstrong turned to the relevant page in his catalog, and looked down at a silver-gilt Easter egg supported by four crosses with the blue enameled cipher of Czar Nicholas II, commissioned in 1907 from Peter Carl Fabergé for the Czarina. He began to concentrate on the proceedings.