Chapter 9
The coffee shop down the block from the Tate Britain was one of Olivia’s favorite haunts. The barista with the eyebrow ring and shaved head winked at her in recognition and set to making her chai. She also ordered black tea for Ethan, who, after taking in the ironwork décor and vinyl records of local punk bands on the walls, commented that he’d have to return sometime for the atmosphere.
Olivia took out her credit card, but Ethan leaned in and swiped his before she had a chance. Fair enough. She wasn’t beyond accepting a free drink from a man. And she caught a whiff of his aftershave. Cool and clean, like a summer day away from this dismal city. She really needed a vacation.
Ethan grabbed both cups and, since the café was packed, she followed him outside. He strolled down the street, then stopped at the curb next to a lamp pole. After handing her the chai, he sipped his tea, staring at the passing traffic. A cyclist swore at a motorist who nearly clipped his front tire, but Olivia thought bikers who used the middle of the road were taking their lives in their own hands. A flock of pigeons descended on an abandoned sandwich, fighting off a homeless man. And everywhere people walked with their heads down, staring at their phones.
She tucked her cell phone away.
“So your father,” she prompted, unwilling to allow him to forget the reason they’d taken their discussion off-campus. “You must have realized it with the first incident at the Wexler gallery?”
“Actually, no. Of course, at the time, I did know the painting was one of my father’s works. I’m aware of his various pieces and their locations across the world.”
“Various pieces? How many are in circulation?”
Ethan shrugged. “Close to twenty? A good majority are here in London where he lived.”
He was using the past tense, so Olivia made the obvious conclusion. “He’s passed?”
Ethan nodded. “A few years ago. I was unable to attend his funeral due to…work issues.” As he sipped, she watched his fingers curl tensely about the paper cup. He avoided eye contact, his vision cast over the street bustle. “He was an excellent painter. Skilled in his work. His renditions were virtual copies. You said you saw the Byam Shaw before it was destroyed.”
“An amazing work.” And honestly, she hadn’t pegged that one for a forgery. “Which was really a…Maxwell? What was your father’s name again?”
“Christopher Maxwell. It’s unlikely you’ve heard of him in your investigations into art crimes. As well as being a skilled artist, he was a ghost on the forgery scene. He could slip in a forgery on a wink. Masterful.”
His obvious appreciation for his father’s work showed in the reverent tone of his voice. And while it was a good thing to respect and look up to one’s father—something Olivia could not relate to—it was another thing to worship someone who had fooled the system with art fraud and deception.
“So, I don’t think I understand….” She tossed her empty cup into a trash bin. “Why would the vandal target your father if he’s not even alive? It makes little sense.”
“It baffles me as well. But that presumes my father is the target. What if this is mere coincidence that the two paintings vandalized were both by my father?”
“It’s possible, but not probable.”
“It’s entirely probably, Watson.” He smirked. “There may be many forgeries in circulation, but considering every painting in the world, they make up only a fraction of a percent, I’m sure. And my father has saturated the London area with his works. So it is very likely that a vandal could have randomly chosen two of his works. But let’s go with it being premeditated. Then we return to the original question. If it’s to out the forger, the vandal can take no reward in flaunting to the world a dead man’s crime. Can he?”
“Makes little sense. What if he’s targeting you?”
Ethan turned abruptly and met her gaze. His face was drawn, his lips thin as he scrutinized her expression. Olivia held his stare for a few moments longer than she was comfortable, then glanced across the street.
“Can it be possible someone knows you investigate art crimes, and they are using your father’s work to lure you to them?”
“For what reason?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know. Forgers do like publicity.”
“After the fact.”
“Yes, after they’ve served their time. But some enjoy fame before that as well. They take a certain joy in teasing at the public’s gullibility. Trust me.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe the suspect is an unknown, like your father was, who seeks fame? By drawing attention to yet another forger…. That makes little sense. I’m grasping here. But talking it through is how I work out things and get ideas. You tell me. Have you anything to hide?”
Ethan twisted his neck until it cracked, and stared again at the cars rushing by. Did he have something to hide? His father had apparently been a career criminal, which may have been reason enough to tempt Ethan into a life of going after forgers. On the other hand, he possessed a great respect for them, even going as far to say their work was a compliment to the masters. That was something she would never understand.
She would have to check the database for Christopher Maxwell when she returned to Scotland Yard.
“Perhaps it’s someone you’ve crossed paths with on a previous investigation?” she suggested. “Someone you’ve put away? The jail time for fraud is so short, some days it hardly seems a worthy pursuit. Although what makes it worth the investigation is we do sometimes recover original works.”
“I’m not sure how this is related to me.” His tone was abrupt. “I just wanted you to have the facts about my father. To be upfront with you. I haven’t moved beyond that.”
“But you need to.”
“I do.” He tossed his cup into the trash bin.
“Do you have a list of your father’s forgeries and where they are located?”
He nodded tensely. Unwilling to get overly enthusiastic about sharing such information, she guessed. She preferred his flirtatious side.
“Could I have that list?”
Again he met her gaze, only this time his hard veneer softened and he managed an amiable nod. Resignation. “I suppose it would be helpful. The list is here.” He tapped his temple. “But with some thought I can write them down.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Her phone buzzed, and she took it out of her pocket. It was Denise; the toxicology report on the Chinese food had come in. “Clean? Thank you, Denise.” She hung up. “The Chinese food wasn’t poisoned.”
Ethan tilted his head. “So the guard was sick on his own? Interesting.”
“Not out of the realm of possibility.”
“Indeed not. Which defeats that lead.”
“Oh!” She leaned over the trash bin. “Ethan, look!”
He inspected the cup he’d just tossed and saw the picture of the Byam Shaw painting on the underside. It looked like it had been cut out from a catalog and pasted into the circle. Straightening, he took in the surroundings, then he eyed the coffee shop.
“Save that cup!” Ethan yelled as he took off.
He ran into the coffee shop. Olivia tugged a scarf out of her purse and used it to retrieve the cup. If any incriminating fingerprints were on it, Ethan’s grasp might have smeared them, but she wasn’t going to further contaminate the evidence.
* * * *
Ethan dashed into the coffee shop and shoved ahead of a young couple bopping to some unheard music. He slammed his palms onto the counter, startling the barista who had been sorting napkins with her back to him. “I was in here ten minutes ago. I received a cup with a picture taped onto the bottom. You handed me the order, but who made it for you?”
The barista turned and looked behind the counter. “I’m not sure. Think he was new.”
“Could you go find him? It is a police matter.”
“Really? Uh…”
Ethan had no credentials to flash in such situations. “Bother that. I’ll do it myself.”
He swung around the counter, and, much to the girl’s protests, pushed through the swinging doors to a small kitchen that was steamy due to the hot water running in a stainless steel sink. Two employees, both women, stared open-mouthed at him.
“Was there another employee here today? Where do you keep your paper drinking cups?”
“There was a guy…” one of the girls offered. “I thought he was new.”
Ethan grabbed her by the shoulders. “What did he look like? What was his name?”
“I don’t know his name. I’ve never seen him here before.”
“And yet he wandered in to work alongside of you and you did not have a conversation with him?”
“I guess.”
The youth of today! So oblivious. Probably paid more attention to her phone than the people around her.
He shook her. “I need his name. Is it possible he could have walked in off the street, put on an apron and…”
Ethan was getting nowhere with this girl, who had one earbud in and kept flashing her heavily black-lined gaze to the other employee for help. Seeing that the back door was open, he shoved her aside and rushed out, scattering a flock of pigeons pecking about the crumbs from discarded scones. He glanced down the alley both ways. “Is that door always open?”
“Not always. But it’s hot in here today, so yeah. You have, like, a police badge or something, bloke? ‘Cause I don’t think you should be back here.”
Olivia called from the front of the shop, and he yelled for her to come to the back. When she arrived, he pointed out the back door. “I’m going for a look.”
“Right behind you.”
She followed him, but he didn’t think she’d get far on her heels. Not very practical for pursuing a suspect. Then again, he doubted she had many opportunities to engage in something so dynamic as a chase. Art crimes tended to be rather sedate.
A gang of teenagers scattered as Ethan burst out at the end of the alley. He grabbed one. “Did you see a man run by here?”
“Get your sodding hands off me!”
Olivia rushed up, holding up her badge. “Police business. If you can tell us anything, that would be helpful.”
The teens shrugged. All held cell phones, and one had yet to acknowledge the disruption, so rapt he was on the screen in his hand.
“Just so.” Ethan took off to the right, but slowed when nothing caught his eye. He turned back to Olivia, who offered a hopeless splay of hands. They’d lost him. Or rather, the vandal had been long gone before he’d discovered the cup.
Unless he was watching them? Ethan scanned the nearby buildings as Olivia joined him.
“I’m going to swing by headquarters and drop off this cup at the lab,” she said. “They might be able to pick up fingerprints beyond your own.”
“I’ll get the names of the clerks in the shop so we can rule them out.” He held out his palm to catch the sudden splash of raindrops. “Guess we’ll be bringing work inside the rest of the day?”
“We can do that at my place.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Yes, in about an hour.”
“It’s a date.” Ethan swung around to walk back to the coffee shop, then realized what he had just said. “I mean…it’s not a date. It’s a work afternoon-into-evening sort of thing. Right?”
Olivia was texting Denise to look up information on Christopher Maxwell,
and she looked up. “Huh? Oh. Yes.” She furrowed her brows in question. “Afternoon-into-evening thing?”
He decided not to explain and waved her off. “I’ll be round in an hour.”