False Impression

“What about me?” said Jack. “I’m thinking of suing the Wentworth estate, the Surrey police, and the Home Office, with Tom as my witness.”

“Not a hope,” said Tom. “I wouldn’t care to have Arabella as an enemy.”

Jack smiled. “Then I’ll have to settle for a lift to the Wentworth Arms.”

“You got it,” said Tom.

“And now that I feel safe to join you at Heathrow,” said Anna, rising from her place, “where shall we meet?”

“Don’t worry,” said Jack. “I’ll find you.”

43

LEAPMAN WAS DRIVEN to JFK to pick up the painting an hour before the plane was due to land. That didn’t stop Fenston calling him every ten minutes on the way to the airport, which became every five once the limousine was on its way back to Wall Street with the red crate safely stowed in the trunk.

Fenston was pacing up and down his office by the time Leapman was dropped outside the front of the building and waiting in the corridor when Barry Steadman and the driver stepped out of the elevator carrying the red crate.

“Open it,” ordered Fenston, long before the box had been propped up against the wall in his office. Barry and the driver undid the special clamps before setting about extracting the long nails that had been hammered firmly into the rim of the wooden crate, while Fenston, Leapman, and Tina looked on. When the lid was finally pried open and the polystyrene corners that were holding the painting in place were removed, Barry lifted the painting carefully out of the wooden crate and leaned it up against the chairman’s desk. Fenston rushed forward and began to tear off the bubble wrap with his bare hands, until he could at last see what he’d been willing to kill for.

Fenston stood back and gasped.

No one else in the room dared to speak until he had offered an opinion. Suddenly, the words came tumbling out in a torrent.

“It’s even more magnificent than I’d expected,” he declared. “The colors are so fresh, and the brushwork so bold. Truly a masterpiece,” he added. Leapman decided not to comment.

“I know exactly where I’m going to hang my Van Gogh,” said Fenston.

He looked up and stared at the wall behind his desk, where a massive photograph of George W. Bush shaking hands with him on his recent visit to Ground Zero filled the space.

Anna was looking forward to her flight back to the States, and the chance to get to know Jack a little better during the seven-hour journey. She even hoped that he would answer one or two more questions. How did he find out her mother’s address, why was he still suspicious of Tina, and was there any proof that Fenston and Krantz even knew each other?

Jack was waiting for her when she checked in. Anna took a little time to relax with a man she couldn’t forget had been following her for the last nine days and investigating her for the past eight weeks, but by the time they climbed the steps to the aircraft, together for a change, Jack knew she was a Knicks fan, liked spaghetti and Dustin Hoffman, while Anna had found out that he also supported the Knicks, that his favorite modern artist was Fernando Botero, and nothing could replace his mother’s Irish stew.

Anna was wondering if he liked fat women when his head fell onto her shoulder. As she was the cause of his not getting much sleep the previous night, Anna felt she was hardly in a position to complain. She pushed his head gently back up, not wishing to wake him. She began making a list of things she needed to do once she was back in New York, when Jack slumped back down onto her shoulder. Anna gave in and tried to sleep with his head there. She had once read that the head is one-seventh of your body weight. She no longer needed to be convinced.

She woke about an hour before they were due to land to find Jack was still asleep, but his arm was now draped around her shoulder. She sat up sleepily and accepted a cup of tea from the stewardess.

Jack leaned across. “So how was it for you?” he asked, grinning.

“I’ve had worse,” she replied, “and some of them were awake.”

“So what’s the first thing you’re going to do now that you’ve miraculously risen from the dead?” he asked.

“Call my family and friends and let them know just how alive I am, and then find out if anyone wants to employ me. And you?”

“I’ll have to check in with my boss and let him know I’m no nearer to nailing Fenston, which will be greeted with one of his two favorite maxims: ‘Raise your game, Jack,’ or ‘Step it up a notch.’ ”

“That’s hardly fair,” said Anna, “now that Krantz is safely behind bars.”

“No thanks to me,” said Jack. “And then I’ll have to face up to an even fiercer wrath than the boss’s, when I try to explain to my mother why I didn’t call her from London and apologize for not turning up for her Irish stew night. No, my only hope of redemption is to discover what NYRC stands for.” Jack put a hand in his top pocket. “After I’d checked out of the Wentworth Arms, I traveled on to the embassy with Tom, and thanks to modern technology, he was able to produce an exact copy of the key, even though the original is still in Romania.” He pulled the facsimile out of his top pocket and handed it across to Anna.

Anna turned the small brass key over in her hands. “NYRC 13. Got any ideas?” she asked.

“Only the obvious ones,” said Jack.

“New York Racing Club, New York Rowing Club, anything else?”

“New York Racquet Club, but if you come up with any others, let me know, because I intend to spend the rest of the weekend trying to find out if it’s any of those. I need to come up with something positive before I face the boss on Monday.”