The Gilded Seal (3 page)
silhouetted against the white light’s searing canvas, the world
suddenly drained of all color. The figure had a hammer in
one hand and two six-inch masonry nails in the other that he
had scooped up off the floor. A kaleidoscopic undershirt of
tattoos disappeared up each sleeve and formed a rounded
collar where they reappeared just below the neckline of his
unbuttoned shirt.
Rafael felt himself being lifted so that his wrists were
pressed flat against the wall on either side of an open doorway.
The video operator took up a position so he could get both
men in the shot.
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
9
“Ready?”
Outside, Rafael heard muffled cheering and the faint sound
of women wailing and crying. He knew then that La Mac-
arena had finally appeared on the adjacent street, glass tears
of grief at the loss of her only son frozen on to the delicate
ecstasy of her carved face.
She was here. She was here for him.
Forsake not an old friend;
for the new is not comparable to him;
a new friend is as new wine;
when it is old,
thou shalt drink it with plea sure.
Ecclesiasticus 9:10
DRUMLANRIG CASTLE, SCOTLAND
18th April— 11:58 a.m.
As the car drew up, a shaft of light appeared through a
break in the brooding sky. The castle’s sandstone walls
glowed under its gentle touch, an unexpected shock of pink
against the ancient greens of the surrounding hills and wood-
lands.
Tom Kirk stepped out and drew his dark overcoat around
him with a shiver, turning the black velvet collar up so it
hugged the circle of his neck. Ahead of him, blue- and-white
police tape snapped in the icy wind where it had been strung
across the opposing steps that curved up to the main entrance.
Six feet tall, slim and square shouldered, Tom had an athletic
although not obviously muscular build, his careful gestures
and the precise way he moved hinting at a deliberate, con-
trolled strength that was strangely compelling to watch.
It was his eyes that were most striking, though, an intense
pale blue that suggested both a calm intelligence and an un-
flinching resolve. These were set into a handsome, angular
face, his thick arching eyebrows matching the color of his
short brown hair, the firm line of his jaw echoing the sharp
edge of his cheekbones and lending an air of measured self-
confidence. The only jarring note came from the series of
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t w i n i n g
small fighting scars that flecked his knuckles, tiny white
lines that joined and bisected each other like animal tracks
across the savanna.
Looking up, he was suddenly struck by the almost deliber-
ate extravagance of the castle’s elaborate Renais sance splen-
dor compared to the artisinal, gray functionality of the
neighboring village he had just passed through. No doubt
when it had been built that had been precisely the point, the
building a crushing reminder to the local population of their
lowly status. Now, however, the castle looked slightly out of
place, as if it had emerged blinking into the new century,
uncertain of its role and perhaps even slightly embarrassed
by its outmoded fi nery.
In the distance, a police helicop ter made a low pass over
the neighboring forest, the chop of its rotors muffled by the
steady buzz of the radios carried by the twenty or so offi cers
swarming purposefully around him. Tom shivered again, al-
though this time it wasn’t the cold. This many cops always
made him nervous.
“Can I help you, sir?” A policeman on the other side of
the tape shouted over the noise. At the sound of his voice the
thick curtain of cloud drew shut once again, and the castle
faded back into its gray slumber.
“It’s okay, Constable. He’s with me.”
Mark Dorling had appeared at the top of the left- hand
staircase, a tall man wearing a dark blue double-breasted suit
and a striped regimental tie. He waved him forward impa-
tiently, Tom recognizing in Dorling’s ever so slightly propri-
etary manner evidence, perhaps, of weekends spent visiting
friends with houses of a similar size and stature.
The policeman nodded and Tom stooped under the tape
and made his way up the shallow and worn steps to where
Dorling was waiting for him, shoulders back, chin raised, fi sts
balanced on each hip like a big game hunter posing over his
kill. Oxford had been full of people like Dorling, Tom re-
flected. It was the eyes that gave them away, the look of scorn-
ful indifference tinged with contempt with which they surveyed
the world, as if partly removed from it. At first Tom had been
offended by this, resenting what appeared to be an instinctive
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
1 5
disdain for anyone who didn’t share their privileged back-
ground or gilded future. But he had soon come to understand
that behind those dead eyes lurked a cold fury at a world
where the odds had so clearly been stacked in their favor, that
their lives had been robbed of any sense of mystery or adven-
ture. Far from contempt, therefore, what their expression actu-
ally revealed was a deep self-loathing, maybe even jealousy.
“I wasn’t expecting you until later.” Dorling welcomed
him with a tight smile. Tom wasn’t offended by his accusing
tone. People like Dorling didn’t like surprises. It disturbed
the illusion of order and control they worked so hard to con-
jure up around themselves.
“I thought you said you were in Milan?” he continued,
sweeping a quiff of thinning blond hair back off his fore-
head, a large gold signet ring gleaming on the little fi nger of
his left hand.
“I was,” said Tom. “I got the early flight. It sounded im-
portant.”
“It is,” Dorling confirmed, his pale green eyes narrowing
momentarily, his jaw stiffening. “It’s the Leonardo.” A pause.
“I’m glad you’re here Tom.”
Dorling gripped his hand unnecessarily hard, as if trying
to compensate for his earlier brusqueness, his skin soft and
firm. Tom said nothing, allowing this new piece of informa-
tion to sink in for a few seconds before answering. The
Ma-
donna of the Yarnwinder
. One of only fifteen paintings in the
world thought to have been substantially painted by da Vinci.
Conservatively worth $150 million. Probably more. In his
business, it didn’t get much more important than that.
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“They overpowered a tour guide. She’s bruised but fi ne.
More shocked than anything.”
“Security?”
“Rudimentary,” Dorling gave an exasperated shrug. “It
takes the police thirty minutes to get out here on a good day.
These chaps were in and out in ten.”
“Sounds like they knew what they were doing.”
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t w i n i n g
“Professionals,” Dorling agreed.
“Just as well it’s insured, then, isn’t it?” Tom grinned. “Or
aren’t Lloyd’s planning to pay up on this one?”
“Why do you think you’re here?” Dorling replied with a
faint smile, the lines around his eyes and tanned cheeks
deepening as his face creased, his eyes darkening momen-
tarily.
“The old poacher- turned-gamekeeper routine?”
“Something like that.”
“What does that make you, I wonder?”
Dorling paused to reflect before answering, the pulse in
his temple fractionally increasing its tempo.
“A businessman. Same as always.”
There were other words dancing on the edge of Tom’s
tongue, but he took a deep breath and let the moment pass.
He had his reasons. Dorling’s firm of chartered loss adjusters
was the first port of call for Lloyd’s underwriters whenever
they had a big-ticket insurance claim to investigate. And dur-
ing the ten years that Tom had operated as an art thief—the
best in the business, many said—Dorling’s company had co-
operated with the police on countless jobs which they sus-
pected him of being behind.
All that had changed, however, when word had got out a
year or so back that Tom and his old fence, Archie Connelly,
had set themselves up on the other side of the law, advising
on museum security and helping recover lost or stolen art.
Now the very people who had spent years trying to put them
both away were queuing up for their help. The irony still bit
deep.
Tom didn’t blame Dorling. If anything he found his shame-
less opportunism rather endearing. The truth was that the art
world was full of people like him—crocodile-skinned and
conveniently forgetful as soon as they understood there was a
profit to be made. It was just that the memories didn’t fade
quite so fast when you’d been the one staring down the wrong
end of a twenty-year stretch.
“Who’s inside?” Tom asked, nodding toward the castle
entrance.
“Who isn’t?” Dorling replied mournfully. “The own
er,
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forensic team, local filth.” The slang seemed forced and sat
uneasily with Dorling’s clipped sentences and sharp vowels.
Tom wondered if he too felt awkward about their past history
and whether this was therefore a deliberate attempt to bridge
or otherwise heal the gap between them. If so, it was a rather
ham- fisted attempt, although Tom appreciated him making
the effort at least. “Oh, and that annoying little shit from the
Yard’s Art Crime Squad just showed up.”
“Annoying little shit? You mean Clarke?” Tom gave a rue-
ful laugh. In this instance the description was an apt one, al-
though Tom suspected that it was a term Dorling routinely
deployed to describe anyone who hadn’t gone to the same
school as him, or who didn’t feature on his regular Chelsea
dinner- party circuit.
“Play nicely,” Dorling warned him. “We need him onside.
We’re cooperating, remember, not competing.”
“I will if he will.” Tom shrugged, unable and perhaps un-
willing to suppress the hint of petulance in his voice. Clarke
and he had what Archie would have called “previous.” It
didn’t matter how much you wanted to draw a line and move
on, sometimes others wouldn’t let you. Tom felt suddenly hot
and loosened his coat, revealing a single- breasted charcoal-
gray Huntsman suit that he was wearing with an open-necked
blue Hilditch & Key shirt.
“There’s one more thing you should know,” said Dorling,
pausing on the threshold, one foot outside the house, the
other on the marble floor, his square chin raised as if antici-
pating a blow. “I had a call from our Beijing offi ce. They
only just heard, but Milo’s out. The Chinese released him six
months ago. No one knows why.”
“Milo?” Tom froze, not sure he’d heard correctly. Not
wanting to believe he had. “Milo’s out? What’s that got to
do . . . you think this is him?”
Dorling shrugged awkwardly, his bluff confi dence mo-
mentarily deserting him.
“That’s why I called you in on this one, Tom. He’s left you
something.”
NEW YORK CITY
18th April— 7:00 a.m.
They hit traffic almost immediately when they turned on
to Broadway, brake lights shimmering ahead of them
like beads on a long necklace, umbrellas bobbing impatiently
along the sidewalk. The rain, thick with the evaporated sweat
of eight million people, crawled in greasy rivulets down the
glass, flecking Special Agent Jennifer Browne’s faint refl ec-
tion in the passenger-side window as she sipped coffee from
a polystyrene cup.
Most agreed that she was a beautiful woman, perhaps even
more so since she’d broken thirty, as if she’d somehow grown
into the slender, elegantly curving five foot nine frame that
had made her appear a little gawky when younger. She had
light brown skin and curling black hair, her father’s African
American coloring having been softened by her mother’s
