first one and bending his head slightly, read the numbers back to her.
‘131272.’
She turned back to the laptop she was sitting in front of.
‘Okay.’
Tom moved to the next crate.
‘1311…’
He was interrupted by a clipped, nasal voice that sank heavily from the platform above.
‘My, my – we have been busy, Kirk. You must have knocked off Buckingham Palace to get your hands on this little lot.’
‘Detective Constable Clarke,’ Tom said flatly without bothering to look up. ‘Our first customer.’
Clarke robotically lit another cigarette from the one already in his mouth before flicking the sputtering butt over the railing and wedging the new cigarette between his teeth. It landed harmlessly at Tom’s feet.
‘It’s Detective Sergeant Clarke now, Kirk,’ he said as he took a drag on his cigarette and made his way down the stairs to the warehouse floor, the staircase strangely silent under his lazy step. ‘While you’ve been away, there’s been a few changes around here.’
‘Detective Sergeant? They really must be desperate.’
A muscle in Clarke’s neck began to twitch. He was quite a tall man, although his rounded shoulders made him seem shorter. He was also distressingly thin, his grey skin drawn tightly across his sharp cheekbones, his mouth pulled into a permanently grudging grimace, his hair fine and brushed forward to disguise how far it had receded. His wrist bones, especially, jutted out under translucent skin and seemed so delicate that they might snap if you shook his hand too firmly. The only colour came from the broken blood vessels that danced across his sunken cheeks.
‘I heard you were back, Kirk. That you’d crawled out from whatever hole you’ve been hiding in for the last couple of months.’ His watery eyes flashed as he spoke. ‘So I thought I’d come and pay you a visit. A social call. Just in case you thought I’d forgotten about you.’
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I’d certainly forgotten about you.’
Clarke clamped his mouth shut and Tom could see from the colour rising to his face that he was focusing all his energies on not losing his temper. Eventually he turned away from Tom and indicated the room around him with his head.
‘So, all this shit yours then?’
Tom stole an anxious look at Dominique, but she was staring at the computer screen as if nothing was going on behind her.
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but yes.’
‘You mean it is now,’ said Clarke laughing coldly. ‘But God knows which poor sod you nicked it off.’ He kicked the crate nearest to him, his clumpy, thick-soled shoes at odds with his delicate frame and making his feet seem huge. ‘What about this one. What’s in here?’
‘You’re wasting your time, Clarke,’ said Tom, his own mounting frustration giving his voice a slight edge now. ‘I’ve moved my father’s business from Switzerland and I’m re-opening it here. I have import papers in triplicate from both the Swiss and British authorities for everything.’
Clarke turned back to face him and smirked.
‘Tell me, was it the drink or the shame over having you for a son that finally did him in?’ Tom’s body stiffened, the muscles in his jaw bulging as he clenched his teeth together. He could see Clarke savouring the moment, his eyes narrowed into fascinated slivers of grey.
‘I think it’s time you left,’ said Tom, taking a step forward.
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘No, I’m asking you to leave. Now.’
‘I’ll go when I’m ready.’ Clarke thrust his chin out in defiance and folded his arms across his chest, the material of his grey suit, shiny on the elbows, acquiring a new set of creases.
‘Dominique,’ Tom called out while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Clarke’s. ‘Could you please get me the Metropolitan Police on the line and ask to speak to Commissioner Jarvis. Tell him that Detective Sergeant Clarke is harassing me again. Tell him that he has illegally entered my premises without a warrant. Tell him that he’s refusing to leave.’ She nodded but didn’t move.
Clarke stepped forward until he was so close that Tom could smell the smoke on his breath.
‘You’ll slip up, Kirk. Everyone does eventually, even you. And I’ll be there when it happens.’
Flicking his cigarette to one side, sparks scattering in its wake, Clarke marched back up the stairs and through the door.
Dominique fixed Tom with a questioning stare. He cleared his throat nervously. Although he had known that he would have to have this conversation at some stage, he had planned to do it on his own terms when he was good and ready. Certainly not like this.
‘I’m sorry you had to sit through that,’ he began. ‘It’s not what it looks like.’
‘Sure it is.’ She gave him a half smile and then looked away.
‘What do you mean?’ His eyes narrowed.
Silence.
‘Your father used to talk a lot, you know, when he drank,’ she said eventually. ‘He said some things about you. I got the picture. Your policeman friend just filled in a few gaps.’
Tom sat down on the crate nearest her and rubbed the back of his head.
‘Well, if you knew that, what are you doing here?’
‘You really think I expected you to be the only honest person in the art business? Everyone’s got some sort of angle. Yours is better than others I’ve seen.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Partly.’ She smiled and tilted her head to one side. ‘You know, I put a lot of time into this business with your father. By the time he died, things were going really well. When we first met, you said you were serious about trying to keep it going. I guess I wanted to believe you.’
‘I am serious about making it work. More now than when we first spoke about it.’ He looked at her earnestly.
‘So what about…?’
‘That’s over. This is all I’ve got now.’
‘Okay.’ She nodded slowly.
‘Okay?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You sure?’
‘Okay.’ She put her glasses back on and turned back to the computer.
The Smithsonian, Washington DC19th
