False Impression

He climbed out of bed and headed straight for the bathroom. However closely he shaved, Leapman knew he would still have stubble on his chin long before he went to bed. He could grow a beard over a long weekend. Once he’d showered and shaved, he didn’t bother with making himself breakfast. He’d be served coffee and croissants later by the company stewardess on the bank’s private jet. Who in this run-down apartment building in such an unfashionable neighbourhood would believe that in a couple of hours Leapman would be the only passenger on a Gulfstream V on its way to London.

He walked across to his half-empty closet and selected his most recently acquired suit, his favorite shirt, and a tie that he would be wearing for the first time. He didn’t need the pilot to look smarter than he was.

Leapman stood by the window, waiting for the limousine to appear, aware that his little apartment was not much of an improvement on the prison cell where he’d spent four years. He looked down on Forty-third Street as the incongruous limousine drew up outside the front door.

Leapman climbed into the back of the car, not speaking to the driver as the door was opened for him. Like Fenston, he pushed the button in the armrest and watched as the smoke-gray window slid up, cutting him off from the driver. For the next twenty-four hours, he would live in a different world.

Forty-five minutes later the limousine turned off the Van Wyck Expressway and took the exit to JFK. The driver swept through an entrance that few passengers ever discover and drew up outside a small terminal building that served only those privileged enough to fly in their own aircraft. Leapman stepped out of the car and was escorted to a private lounge, where the captain of the company’s Gulfstream V jet was waiting for him.

“Any hope of taking off earlier than planned?” Leapman asked, as he sank into a comfortable leather armchair.

“No, sir,” the captain replied, “planes are taking off every forty-five seconds, and our slot is confirmed for seven twenty.”

Leapman grunted and turned his attention to the morning papers.

The New York Times was leading on the news that President Bush was offering a fifty-million-dollar reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden, which Leapman considered to be no more than the usual Texan approach to law and order over the past hundred years. The Wall Street Journal listed Fenston Finance off another twelve cents, a fate suffered by several companies whose headquarters had been based in the World Trade Center. Once he got his hands on the Van Gogh, the company could ride out a period of weak share prices while he concentrated on consolidating the bottom line. Leapman’s thoughts were interrupted by a member of the cabin crew.

“You can board now, sir. We’ll be taking off in around fifteen minutes.”

Another car drove Leapman to the steps of the aircraft, and the plane began to taxi even before he’d finished his orange juice, but he didn’t relax until the jet reached its cruising altitude of thirty thousand feet and the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign had been turned off. He leaned forward, picked up the phone, and dialed Fenston’s private line.

“I’m on my way,” he said, “and I can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be back by this time tomorrow—” he paused “—with a Dutchman sitting in the seat next to me.”

“Call me the moment you land,” was the chairman’s response.

Tina flicked off the extension to the chairman’s phone.

Leapman had been dropping into her office more and more recently—always without knocking. He made no secret of the fact that he believed Anna was still alive and in touch with her.

The chairman’s jet had taken off from JFK on time that morning, and Tina had listened in on his conversation with Leapman. She realized that Anna only had a few hours’ start on him, and that was assuming she was even in London.

Tina thought about Leapman returning to New York the following day, that sickly grin plastered on his face as he handed over the Van Gogh to the chairman. Tina continued to download the latest contracts, having earlier e-mailed them to her private address—something she only did when Leapman was out of the office and Fenston was fully occupied.

The first available flight to London Gatwick that morning was due out of Schiphol at ten o’clock. Anna purchased a ticket from British Airways, who warned her that the flight was running twenty minutes late as the incoming plane had not yet landed. She took advantage of the delay to have a shower and change her clothes. Schiphol was accustomed to overnight travelers. Anna selected the most conservative outfit from her small wardrobe for her meeting with Victoria.

As she sat in Caffè Nero sipping coffee, Anna turned the pages of the Herald Tribune: 50-MILLION-DOLLAR-REWARD, read a headline on the second page—less of a bounty than the Van Gogh would fetch at any auction house. Anna didn’t waste any time reading the article as she needed to concentrate on her priorities once she came face-to-face with

Victoria.

First she had to find out where the Van Gogh was. If Ruth Parish had the picture in storage, then she would advise Victoria to call Ruth and insist that it be returned to Wentworth Hall without delay, and add that she’d be quite happy to advise Ruth that Fenston Finance couldn’t hold onto the painting against Victoria’s wishes, especially if the only contract in existence were to disappear. She had a feeling Victoria would not agree to that, but if she did, Anna would get in touch with Mr. Nakamura in Tokyo and try to find out if—“British Airways flight eight-one-one-two to London Gatwick is now ready for boarding at Gate D-fourteen,” announced a voice over the public-address system.

As they crossed the English Channel, Anna went over her plan again and again, trying to find some fault with her logic, but she could think of only two people who would consider it anything other than common sense. The plane touched down at Gatwick thirty-five minutes late.

Anna checked her watch as she stepped onto English soil, aware that it would only be another nine hours before Leapman landed at Heathrow. Once she was through passport control and had retrieved her baggage, Anna went in search of a rental car. She avoided the Happy Hire Company desk and stood in line at the Avis counter.

Anna didn’t see the smartly dressed young man who was standing in the duty-free shop whispering into a cell phone, “She’s landed. I’m on her tail.”

Leapman settled back in the wide leather chair, far more comfortable than anything in his apartment on Forty-third Street. The stewardess served him a black coffee in a gold-rimmed china cup on a silver tray. He leaned back and thought about the task ahead of him. He knew he was nothing more than a bagman, even if the bag today contained one of the most valuable paintings on earth. He despised Fenston, who never treated him as an equal. If Fenston just once acknowledged his contribution to the company’s success and responded to his ideas as if he was a respected colleague rather than a paid lackey—not that he was paid that much . . . If he just occasionally said thank you—it would be enough. True, Fenston had picked him up out of the gutter but only to drop him into another.

He had served Fenston for a decade and watched as the unsophisticated immigrant from Bucharest climbed up the ladder of wealth and status—a ladder he had held in place, while remaining nothing more than a sidekick. But that could change overnight. She only needed to make one mistake, and their roles would be reversed. Fenston would end up in prison, and he would have a fortune at his disposal that no one could ever trace.

“Would you care for some more coffee, Mr. Leapman?” asked the stewardess.

Anna didn’t need a map to find her way to Wentworth Hall, although she did have to remember not to go the wrong way around the numerous traffic islands en route.

Forty minutes later, she drove through the gates of Wentworth Hall. Anna had no special knowledge of the Baroque architecture that dominated the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century homes of aristocratic England before she stayed at Wentworth Hall. The pile—Victoria’s description of her home—had been built in 1697 by Sir John Vanbrugh. It was his first commission before he moved on to create Castle Howard and, later, Blenheim Palace, for another triumphant soldier—after which he became the most sought-after architect in Europe.

The long drive up to the house was shaded by fine oaks of the same vintage as the hall itself, although gaps were now visible where trees had succumbed to the violent storms of 1987. Anna drove by an ornate lake full of Magoi Koi carp—immigrants from Japan—and on past two tennis courts and a croquet lawn, sprinkled with the first leaves of autumn. As she rounded the bend, the great hall, surrounded by a thousand green English acres, loomed up to dominate the skyline.