Chapter 5
After considering the security guard’s statement, Ethan decided to forego the Chinese food. Instead, he talked to the restaurant owner, who was able to pinpoint the employee who had delivered to the Tate Britain last night, and produced the receipt. The credit card number had been connected to the security guard, Peter Welling, though the owner wasn’t willing to hand over that information without a warrant.
The owner had not taken down the order, and there was no way to determine exactly which employee had, because it had been entered on an iPad connected to the register. Only three employees had been working last night, and none of them had remembered the order—it was just one amongst dozens they delivered every night. And the Tate Britain ordered quite often in the late hours.
As he parked in Scotland Yard’s lot, Ethan mulled over what he’d learned. The food poisoning had to be a coincidence. Perhaps the guard simply had a touch of flu. It didn’t make sense that an outside source could have anticipated the security guard’s order, picked it up, and delivered it by hand. Unless the perpetrator had worked at the restaurant. He’d have to stop by Welling’s home today and see how he was feeling.
Meanwhile, he entered familiar halls. Over the past year, Ethan had established a routine with Scotland Yard—as routine as two previous cases could make things. They knew him and approved his entry and use of the facilities with little-to-no argument, depending on to whom he spoke.
Superintendent Wellbrute, who was Olivia’s boss, knew him from a previous engagement, when Ethan had consulted on a stolen Rembrandt. It had been a fake. The master, while prolific, had oftentimes signed his name to his students’ studies of his works, and his style was so wide-ranging, so it should have been difficult to determine its authenticity. But Ethan had known within a few minutes that the paint used had not been mixed with ground glass, as Rembrandt had once used. He had a sixth sense about paints and paintings.
He found the forensics lab and was pleased that Marcus Newman was on shift today. The forensics manager shook his hand and led him through the fluorescent-lit aisles of stainless-steel tables to where Olivia studied the damaged painting with a loupe. Bent over the table, her hair hung forward to reveal the back of her neck. Ethan’s eyes landed on that skin. He imagined it must be fabulous to nuzzle. To inhale and—
“Mr. Maxwell,” Olivia said without looking up. “Are you staring at my arse?”
“I haven’t moved down that far yet. But I will, if allowed.”
“Permission denied.”
Her tone sounded flirtatious, but Ethan cautioned himself from allowing the fantasy to become reality. He was hearing things. He had to be.
He cleared his throat. “What do you hope to find?” He took off his blazer, draping it on the next table, and made sure his shirt cuffs were buttoned. A tug at his wool vest ensured all four buttons were secure. He couldn’t have loose clothing falling into the evidence.
“Not sure, but I like to take a thorough look over the entirety before forensics disassembles it.” She straightened and looked up at him. Had she fixed her lipstick and hair since this morning? She looked…refreshed. Or maybe it was the sparkle to her eyes that caught his attention for a few seconds too long.
Olivia crossed her arms and shook the loupe at him. “Mr. Maxwell? Is there something about me that distracts you?”
Oh, so many things.
“Hmm? No, uh… Well, yes, actually.” He smiled his most charming grin, but she wasn’t buying it. She raised her eyebrows but did not return his smile. Time to climb out of the hole he had fallen into. “I spoke to the owner of the Chinese restaurant. Not much to go on. He was appalled I would suggest his food had given someone food poisoning.”
“It could have been tampered with during delivery.”
“I suspected as much, though I wasn’t able to interview the employee who made the delivery.”
“I’ll send someone to go through the Tate’s garbage bins. See if we can dig up some of the remains.”
“Excellent idea. We can have it tested for poison or any substance that should not be in Chinese food.”
“I’ve also sent an officer to interview Peter Welling, last night’s guard. When I rang him, his wife told me he was feeling very poorly. I didn’t want to risk catching whatever he might have.”
“Very wise, sending in someone else, Miss Lawson. I am a bit averse to germs myself. At least, those that may be splattered at me with a sneeze or cough. May I?”
He stepped beside her and located a pair of blue latex gloves from a nearby dispensary box. After snapping them on, he lifted the frame, which was still sturdy despite the explosion. The hang wires across the back had been completely removed, along with any suspicious parts that could be attributed to the bomb.
“Bomb squad did their job neatly.” He picked up a pair of tweezers and removed a postage-sized bit of charred paper. “A remainder of a stamp of provenance.”
“Yes, you pointed that out earlier when the painting hung on the wall.”
He squinted and waved his fingers toward his chest, but she didn’t react. “Please, Miss Lawson.” He wagged his fingers again.
“I may read sign language, but that particular gesture is not to my knowledge,” she said. “What are you insisting from me, Mr. Maxwell?”
“The loupe—” He stopped himself from swearing, embarrassed when he realized he had just treated her as if she were an assistant. It was a mode he fell into rather easily when investigating, because he knew his stuff better than anyone. “If you please, would you hand me the loupe?”
As she handed it to him, he turned the painting over to set on the tattered front. The explosion had burst through the original and the copy, leaving only two or three inches around the edges of both canvases. In some places, the strips were ten or twelve inches long.
“Did you get a picture of the painting before the explosion?” the forensics manager asked Olivia.
“Yes. I’ll forward all photographs I took to you, Marcus. The vandalized canvas was tightly pinned over the original.”
Ethan leaned over the provenance stamp. Forensics had dusted away the residual powder that had blackened most of it, and though three quarters of it was burned away, he was able to read the date and the owner’s name, which corresponded with what he knew about this painting. He’d studied this provenance stamp intimately years earlier. He could recreate it with his eyes closed. This stamp? He knew exactly how it had been made, which proved what he’d suspected earlier. The real crime had been committed years ago. The stamp’s edges were not frayed or perforated, but cleanly cut. An oversight on the forger’s part that he noted with some disdain.
As he searched his memory of all the forged works he was familiar with, and where they were currently displayed, hung, or sitting in storage, Ethan winced. Shit.
He stood up and handed the loupe back to Olivia. That it was another Pre-Raphaelite work only furthered the questions he had whether it was connected to the case he’d been on for the past year. But was it coincidence that the vandal had chosen this specific painting? It seemed rather obvious that the choice was deliberate. And yet, why? Did the vandal wish to send a message? To whom?
He tugged out his cell phone and scanned through the photos he had stored.
“What is it? Did you find something?” Olivia asked. “If you’re not going to offer information with common courtesy, I don’t see how we’ll be able to work together.”
Instead of arguing with her, he tapped the photo of the painting he’d taken last week: Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix. Painted after the death of his wife, and touted as his mourning cry, it had hung in the Wexler gallery for two-and-a-half years. And Ethan had known it well.
There couldn’t be a connection. At least, not the connection that immediately came to mind. No. He must look at all the evidence before making wild assumptions.
“Sorry.”
Olivia glared at Ethan, her right hand on her hip. He didn’t blame her for being annoyed. She had to have touched up her hair and makeup. She appeared so fresh. Kissable, actually. Hmm… Yes, he would have liked to lower his gaze down to her arse. And he would not forget her teasing tone. “Let’s remove the frame and inspect the edges of the canvas, shall we?”
Olivia gestured to Marcus to help, and the three of them carefully removed the frame and set it aside. Once off, the canvas edges were revealed, clean and marked only in spots where the artist had allowed the paints to go over the sides. Some painters reframed their work after finishing it, and the edges of the picture were bent over the sides, but others left them in the original frame.
Olivia moved in front of the tattered Byam Shaw, inadvertently forcing Ethan to the side, but he stepped aside. He inwardly chastised himself for his earlier chauvinism. It tended to leak out at the most inopportune times. But he had only to check one detail on the painting to confirm whether it was a forgery, and he waited patiently to do so while Constable Lawson looked it over.
“It’s a funny business doing something like this,” Marcus commented as the constable preened over the surface of the remaining painting with the loupe. “You say another such vandalism happened over at the Wexler gallery?”
“Yes, a week ago. I suspect it is the same vandal because of the explosives and, of course, the forgery pinned over an original.”
Ethan gestured to the gilded frame, where the fresh oils had spattered the wood when the explosion had dispersed the still-wet paint. “Does it not appear a hasty job?” He shuddered. “To put something so tragic in such a fine establishment.”
Someone popped their head in at the front of the lab and called for Marcus. He excused himself. After he left, Ethan sat on the edge of the lab table to watch Olivia work.
She methodically moved over the canvas remnants from top to bottom, side to side, pausing near the right edge, where he noticed some paint from the copy had smeared. A spill of her hair brushed the canvas, and she tucked it behind her ear, which revealed the creamy smooth side of her face. Like cream, indeed, with the barest tint of rose. And her lipstick matched the roses on her dress. Her lashes were so defined he could make out each one. He marveled over the soft flutter against her pale skin. Had the painting been intact, he could have easily fit her into the scene alongside the other nubile, pale-skinned beauties.
When she stood and handed him the loupe, he was still stuck in observation mode, and his mouth curled into an appreciative smile.
“Are you all right, Mr. Maxwell? Sure you didn’t have some Chinese? You have a weird habit of staring at me.”
“Sorry. It’s easy to get lost staring at you.”
She raised her eyebrows, but he wasn’t going to apologize for a compliment.
“And I avoided the Chinese,” he added, “so I am in top form.”
Jumping down from the table, he took the loupe and set it aside. With a quick bow to surmise the upper right underside of the canvas frame, he noted the tiny red mark that was virtually not there, and only clinging to a thread in the canvas. That told him what he’d needed to know. Of course, there were many tests that could be run to classify a piece of art: analyzing pigments, studying painting technique, testing trace material that reveal age and provenance.
That didn’t change the fact that they needed to figure out who had done this and why.
“Tell me your thoughts, Miss Lawson.” He crossed his arms to keep himself from leaning closer to inhale her vanilla sweetness more deeply.
“The blue sky on the corner here is intact, and the craquelure is deep,” Olivia said. “I’m unable to press my fingernail into the paint. And the provenance, well it does look legitimate, yet I’m concerned that the edges of the stamp are too neat.”
“Yet you’re positive it’s the Byam Shaw that’s been hanging in the Tate Britain for years.”
“Not at all. I’ve been there many times and glanced at it, but have never gotten the feeling I get with—well, as with the Gravedigger. Do you think it’s the real deal? You said as much when we viewed it on the wall.”
Ethan shrugged. “Yes, but that was then. Now I’m just trying to talk you through this. Do you think the forgery the vandal pinned onto this has anything to do with the painting underneath?”
“It was a copy, so it has everything to do with it. But I can’t begin to guess why he would do such a thing.”
“He?”
“The vandal.” She shrugged. “There hasn’t been a documented case of a female art thief or forger in history. Accomplices, yes.”
“But this is neither theft nor a decent forgery.” Ethan clenched his jaw. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “It’s vandalism, and an awful copy.”
“There has to be a message.” She leaned over the tattered canvas again. “No one would randomly commit such an act without wanting to say something. To call attention to… I don’t know. Is he trying to say that this work is unworthy by placing a ridiculous copy on top of it? And why the bomb? What purpose does that serve, if the masterpiece is then destroyed? It’s as if he’s testing the investigators. Will they be smart enough to see what I’ve done?”
“Perhaps. Yes, a personal message then, you suspect?”
“It’s all I can come up with at the moment. I’ll need to read up on the Byam Shaw and study the crime-scene photos. What are your thoughts, Mr. Maxwell? And are you going to show me the painting you’ve brought up on your phone?”
He’d forgotten he’d left it on the screen. “Of course.” He handed her his phone. “Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix, which was destroyed in the Wexler gallery. I was hoping to find a connection.”
“Oh, my. That was one of Rossetti’s finest works. I can’t believe I didn’t hear about it.”
“Brownie points for the Elite Crimes Unit. We know how to keep a secret.” At her frown, he adjusted his shoulders. “The gallery requested discretion. They are reeling after its destruction. Valued at four point five million pounds.”
“So the vandal is teasing us with the destruction of valuable works.” She tapped the frame on the Byam Shaw. “This one has an estimated value of around four million, as well. It’s a threat.”
“Threats usually come with a request for appeasement, or even rewards for not carrying out the threat. I have seen no such thing with these two paintings. You should know, the Elite Crimes Unit has been following a suspected art-theft ring that has been selling forgeries worldwide. They principally traffic in Pre-Raphaelite works.”
“But Byam Shaw wasn’t a Pre-Raphaelite.”
“He based much of his work on Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poems, and many tend to lump him into the Pre-Raphaelites. It’s not a stretch.”
“I can go there with that assessment.” She peered over the painting, not really seeing it, lost in thought. Ethan almost reached over to brush the hair from her cheek over an ear, but curled his fingers behind his back to stop himself. “So there have been more vandalisms of this sort?”
“No, these are the first two. But I’m holding them aside my current investigation into the art theft ring because of the subject matter.”
“I see. I’ll need to know a lot more about that case, if you please.”
“I can see about having the reports forwarded to you, though it is Interpol’s jurisdiction.”
Olivia looked down, but he didn’t miss her expression. She did not care to be patronized. She tapped the frayed canvas. “Perhaps the vandal puts no value in the masterworks?”
“An art hater? Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen such vandalism because a work of art pissed someone off. Literally. Remember Serrano’s Immersion (Piss Christ)? That got a lot of attention, and even some death threats and hate mail.”
“Yes, but this is different. He’d not targeting one particular painter. Not even a living painter. This makes me sick. Two irreplaceable masterpieces lost in the period of a week.”
Ethan checked his watch. “Why don’t we leave the painting to Marcus and convene in your office over tea? We might decide our next move.”
“You certainly do like your tea, Mr. Maxwell. But I agree. And I need to get on board with the bigger investigation concerning this theft ring.”
“I’ll remind you that is an Interpol investigation. We don’t require Scotland Yard’s assistance. But I have no qualms about giving you the details that I believe could tie it to this case. I’ll stop by the lunch room for tea. Where is your office? I’ll meet you there.”
“Downstairs at the end of the hall.”
Ethan frowned. “They’ve hidden you away in the basement?”
She shrugged. “To be expected. I’ll see you in a bit, then.”
As she strode out, Ethan winced at her easy acceptance of what was obviously patriarchal treatment. She was an interesting woman. And the idea of studying her surface to learn her secrets, such as he did with a painting, intrigued him.