The Gilded Seal (8 page)
“But now you’ve swapped sides,” Archie reminded him.
“Whatever debt you two had don’t count for nothing no
more.”
“You mean
we’ve
swapped sides,” Tom corrected him,
with a nudge.
Archie mumbled something under his breath and fumbled
for his cigarettes.
“Do you have to?” Tom frowned as he lit up.
“I’ve been gagging for one all afternoon.” He took a deep
drag and sighed contentedly.
“Why, where have you been?”
“Over at Apsley House, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You should have seen the bird that runs the place.” He
rolled his eyes. “Fit as a butcher’s dog.”
“So you’re glad you went?” Tom laughed.
“I was till she gave me this,” Archie sighed, handing over
the CCTV still. “Now I’m not so sure.”
Tom studied the picture for a few seconds, attempting to
extrapolate the man’s face from the narrow sliver of his fea-
tures that hadn’t been obscured. He suddenly fi xed Archie
with an incredulous look.
“Is that Rafael?”
“That’s what I thought too. It’s the only shot they got of
him. He dodged the other cameras.”
“It can’t be him.” Tom shook his head in disbelief. “He’d
have let me know if he was over here.”
“You were away when this happened.”
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
4 7
“What was he after?”
“Part of a dinner service. They rumbled him before he
could get to it. He’s a better art forger than he is a thief.”
“A dinner service?” Tom looked up with a frown. “The
Egyptian dinner service?”
“You know it?”
“It’s one of a pair. I saw the other one once at the Kuskovo
Estate near Moscow.”
“Well, next time maybe he should try his luck there in-
stead,” Archie laughed. “He certainly ballsed this one up.”
Tom silently considered the grainy image, his brain furi-
ously calculating all the possible reasons Rafael might have
had to try and pull off a job like this. The problem was, none
of them made sense. Just like this picture didn’t make sense.
If Rafael had managed to avoid all the other cameras, why
allow himself to be seen in this one, even if he was only barely
recognizable? He would have known it was there, same as
the others.
Unless that was the whole point. Unless he wanted to be
seen. The question was, by who?
GINZA DISTRICT, TOKYO
19th April— 6:02 a.m.
This was a sanctuary. A refuge. A place to escape the
sensory assault of the outside world. The choking fumes
from the long ribbons of traffic, cut into neat strips where the
streets crossed. The deafening floods of people, the roar of
their heavy footsteps as they funneled obediently along the
sidewalks in different directions, depending on the time of
day. The blinding strum of the persuasive neon, the advertis-
ing signs preaching their different religions high above the
heads of those passing below, heads bowed as if in prayer.
Here there were no windows, and no way in, apart from a
solitary, soundproofed door that could only be opened from
the inside. The air was filtered and chilled, the walls covered
in the same black Poltrona Frau leather used by Ferrari, the
recessed lights waxing to nothing more than a lunar glow
before waning back into darkness at the press of a switch.
There was a single chair positioned in front of a blank
screen that took up almost an entire wall. A man was sitting
in it, naked. To his left was a glass of iced water. His head,
face, chest, arms, legs and groin were totally bald, giving
him the appearance of a grotesque oversized baby. From the
way he was sitting, it was also impossible to see his penis,
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
4 9
giving him a strange, androgynous quality that his distended
stomach, swollen breasts and delicate bone structure did
nothing to dispel.
He pressed the small remote balancing on his lap. The
screen flickered on, a searing rectangle of white light that
made the colorful brocade of tattoos that snaked over his en-
tire upper body ripple as if alive. From all around him came
the low hum and hiss of the concealed surround speakers.
Now an image appeared. A man. Terrified. His arms
pressed flat against a doorframe. Then someone else stepped
into the picture, a hammer in one hand and two nails in the
other. The first man’s eyes widened in sudden understanding.
The nail went through his wrist, the metal stretching his me-
dian nerve across its blunt tip like the strings over the bridge
of a violin, his thumbnail drawing blood where the refl ex had
caused it to embed itself into his palm. He screamed, the sa-
liva dribbling down his chin, then fainted. Reaching for the
remote, the viewer turned the volume up.
They waited until he regained consciousness and then
hammered in the second nail. He shrieked again, his body
momentarily rigid with pain, hands clenched into white tal-
ons, before sagging forward as the men released him and let
his wrists take the strain. The camera never left his face, si-
lent tears running down his cheek, a sudden nosebleed draw-
ing a vivid line across his upper lip and chin before dripping
on to his chest.
His tortured breathing echoed through the room, a steady
metronome that marked every few passing seconds with un-
feeling regularity until slowly, inevitably, the gap between
each rasping breath grew. For a few minutes it seemed as if
time itself was slowing, his lungs clawing for air, his lips thin
and blue, each breath shallower than the last until little more
than a whisper remained.
Then he was still.
Taking a sip of water and freeing his penis so it lay across
his stomach where he could touch it, the man settled down to
watch the fi lm again.
CLERKENWELL, LONDON
19th April— 1:16 a.m.
With a sigh, Tom threw the bedclothes off and swung his
feet down to the floor. He’d never been a good sleeper,
and experience had taught him there was no point trying to
wrestle his mind into submission when it had decided it had
better things to do.
He pulled on the jeans and shirt he’d thrown over the back
of a chair and negotiated his way across the open expanse of
the living room, the orange glow of the slumbering city seep-
ing in through the partially glazed roof overhead. Unbolting
his front door, he made his way down the staircase to his of-
fice, the rubber soles of his trainers squeaking noisily on the
concrete steps.
The desk light snapped on, a brilliant wash of bleached
halogen sweeping across the worn leather surface. He prod-
ded the mouse and his computer blinked reluctantly into life,
the screen staining his face blue.
He scanned through his emails— junk mail mostly, offer-
ing to improve his sex life or his bank balance. For a moment
his cursor hovered over the three unopened messages from
Jennifer Browne that lurked at the foot of his inbox. Two
from the year before, one sent this January. Then nothing.
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
5 1
Not that that was surprising. Jennifer had better things to
do than waste time writing to him if he couldn’t be bothered
to reply. But then it wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to read
them. It was just simpler that way. His was a life that could
only be lived alone and there was no point in pretending oth-
erwise. And although he would never admit it, he drew a
perverse satisfaction in his asceticism; in proving that civil-
ian life had not blunted his self-discipline. Even so, he hadn’t
quite been able to bring himself to delete her emails yet. That
would have been a little too final. Perhaps, deep down, he
liked to believe that there might be another way.
A noise made Tom look up. The roller- shutter over the en-
trance had been activated and was retracting itself with a
loud clanking. He crossed over to the window that looked on
to the ware house below, just in time to see a powerful motor-
bike pull in, the dazzling beam of its headlamp picking out a
series of packing crates and cardboard boxes before both it
and the engine were extinguished. Almost immediately, the
shutter unfurled behind it.
Dominique jumped to the ground and removed her hel-
met, blonde hair spilling out on to her shoulders. Looking up,
she waved at Tom with a smile, before turning and making
her way up the spiral staircase toward him.
“Welcome home.” She kissed him on both cheeks, her blue
eyes sparkling under a silvery eye shadow.
“Thanks. You’re late back.”
“You checking up on me too?” She grinned, unzipping her
leather jacket to reveal a strapless black cocktail dress. “I’ve
already had two missed calls from Archie to night.”
“I just didn’t know where you were,” said Tom.
Although it was against his natural instincts to worry
about anyone other than himself, Tom felt strangely respon-
sible for Dominique. Responsible because, as she had re-
vealed to him a few months before, it was his father who had
offered her a way out of Geneva’s callous streets and a spiral-
ing cycle of soft drugs, casual scams and brutal young-
offender institutions. Responsible because, after his father’s
death, she was the one who had picked up the reins of his
business, first transferring it to London and then agreeing to
5 2 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
stay and help run it. Protecting her was, therefore, a way of
preserving the delicate thread of shared memories that led
back to his father. Not that she wanted or needed much pro-
tection.
“I can look after myself,” she said, arching her eyebrows
knowingly. “What are you doing up?”
“Can’t sleep.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” She laid a concerned
hand on his arm. “You were only meant to be gone a few
days. It’s been three weeks.”
“I got a lead on the Ghent altarpiece,” he said defensively.
“I followed it up.”
“You look tired.”
“I’ve got a lot going on.”
“You need to slow down,” she cautioned.
“I like to keep busy.”
“Keeping busy won’t bring any of them back, you know.
Your father, Harry—”
“I don’t want to talk about him.” Tom felt his teeth clench-
ing at the mention of Harry Renwick. A family friend and
surrogate father to Tom, Renwick had revealed himself to be
the murderer and criminal mastermind known as Cassius.
The shock of his betrayal the previous summer still hadn’t
left Tom; nor had the guilt he now felt at his role in Harry’s
death, or his anger that Renwick had taken the truth about
Tom’s father’s true involvement in his murderous schemes to
his grave. There were still so many questions about the sort
of man his father had been, about the people he’d known and
the things he’d done. Questions, always questions, but never
any way of answering them.
“You never want to . . .” She broke off suddenly, reached
behind him and snatched the CCTV still off the desk where
Tom had left it. “Where did you get this?”
“Archie. It’s from that break-in at Apsley House.”
“I know that man.” She pointed at the blurred image.
“Rafael?” Tom gave a disbelieving frown. “I doubt it.”
“He was here,” she insisted. “The morning you flew off to
Italy. He left you something.”
“What?”
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
5 3
She pointed at the bookcase under the window. A long,
narrow object had been placed there, wrapped in what ap-
peared to be a white linen napkin.
Tom picked it up and carried it over to the desk. As he
stood it up and undid the knot, the material fell away, reveal-
ing a porcelain obelisk, just over two feet long, inscribed
with hieroglyphs.
“What is it?” asked Dominique, frowning.
“It’s part of the Egyptian dinner service from Apsley
House,” Tom answered, grim-faced.
“But they told us nothing was taken.”
“That’s exactly what he wanted them to think.”
“You mean he swapped this for a replica?”
“I should have known better than to think he’d have run
away empty-handed. He’s too good.”
“Who is he?”
“A crook and a friend.” Tom gave a wry smile.
“In that order?”
“He never saw the difference. Was there anything else?”
“A letter.” She handed him an envelope. It was made
from thick, good-quality ivory paper and a single word had
been written across the front in a swirling copperplate script.
Felix
.
Tom snatched a knife out of the desk drawer and sliced it
open.
“It’s empty,” said Dominique, looking up at him question-
ingly. “What does that mean?”
“Only one way to find out,” Tom said as he reached into
the desk for his address book.
“Have you seen the time?” she warned him.
“He’s up to something,” he muttered, nodding at the stolen
