preferred to follow backward-walking guides holding neon flags aloft.
“I’d take one of those croissants I spotted in the case, mate, thanks much,” Britten said, adding to Teagarden, “long as you’re picking up the tab.”
“Nothing for me,” Teagarden told the waiter.
“So,” Britten said, leaning back in his chair, “still working freelance, are you, Detective Superintendent?”
Teagarden nodded. He took a tentative sip of the steaming coffee, winced and set the demitasse down to cool.
“What can I do for you?” Britten asked.
“I’m looking for a missing van Gogh,” Teagarden told him. “Naturally, I thought of you.”
“I’m flattered, mate, but I prefer not to mess with the Yanks.”
“So you know which van Gogh I’m talking about?”
“Oh, it sounds like your kind of case, Superintendent. Don’t know what those sods were thinking, mind. They’ve got The Terminator for guv’nor over there in California. Old Arnold’ll stick a needle in your arm soon as look at you.”
“So you know about the murders at the Arlen Hunter, too.”
“I heard something about it, yeah.” Britten glanced up at the waiter, who’d returned with his croissant. “Cheers.”
“What did you hear?” Teagarden pressed.
Britten watched the waiter walk away, then shrugged as he bit into the pastry. “Heard about a security equipment fiasco—some of the equipment not installed, video feeds compromised. Bloody cock-up.”
“That information about the video, that wasn’t reported in the press. So how do you know about it?”
Britten shrugged. “Just because it’s not my work doesn’t mean I don’t take a professional interest. Really makes you think, you know?”
“How so?”
“Well, it’s harder to nick a shirt worth ten quid from Marks & Spencer than a painting worth millions. I mean, even Marks & Sparks have got their merchandise sensors, their plainclothes floorwalkers, their CCTV cameras. When it comes to shoplifting, they mean business—pardon the pun. But your average museum? Pitiful. Minimum wage rent-a-dicks, elderly docents. Scarcely a bit of high-tech equipment to be found.”
Teagarden nodded. “That’s true. But it’s the high-profile exhibits that generate ticket sales, so that’s where most of the money goes.” Even world-class establishments like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Louvre were more vulnerable than they liked to admit.
“That’s what I’m saying. Security’s always the poor cousin to your revenue-generating bling.” Britten shook his head ruefully, like he wasn’t one of those very thieves who took advantage of those security weaknesses. “Mind you, doing the job on New Year’s Day, that wasn’t too daft. Always a good chance half the staff will have come down with cheap champagne flu. And them that are left—well, they’re tired, aren’t they? It’s closing time and the last day of the exhibit, too, so everybody’s guard is down. Prime time to act. You put a team together, get in and out fast, and Bob’s yer uncle.”
Teagarden raised a brow. “But you say it wasn’t you.”
“Give me some credit, mate. Just because Her Majesty trained me in the deadly arts doesn’t mean I’m going to use them against civilians.”
“So who do you reckon it was? One professional to another,” Teagarden added.
“Oh, well, I don’t like to rat out a colleague, even if he is the competition.”
“Hardly a colleague, I would think. As you say, it was a very messily executed job—literally, given the body count. Not very flattering professional company to be keeping.”
“That’s very true. Gives everyone a bad name.”
“On the other hand, who knows? Maybe that’s what passes for professionalism these days.”
“’Scuse me?”
“More efficient, I suppose. Eliminate all the witnesses.”
“Nothing efficient about pulling down that much heat,” Britten sniffed. “Only a rank amateur or a psycho uses that much brute force when he doesn’t have to. And he didn’t have to, did he, given that the museum practically sent out engraved invitations asking to be taken down, the way they mucked up security.”
“Yeah, but this ringleader, whoever he was, showed some restraint, didn’t he? After all, he only took the one painting.”
“Self-restraint!” Britten snorted. “That wasn’t his idea. That was a direct order from the client—take The Night Café and nothing more. You don’t argue with orders like that, not when they come from that client.”
“So you do know who did the job—and who gave the orders. Did the client come to you?”
Britten shrugged. “Might have.”
“And? You couldn’t handle it?”
“Couldn’t handle it? Not bloody likely. A trained monkey could have done that job.”
“Yet you turned it down.”
Britten drummed his fingers on the table.
“Why?” Teagarden pressed.
“Look, mate, you and I have had our differences in the past, yeah? But we’ve got two things in common.” Britten held up the first two fingers of his left hand, then pulled them down one after the other. “A, we both love beautiful paintings, and B, we’ve both done honorable service for Her Majesty’s Government. Here’s the deal—nicking that painting had precisely nothing to do with the client’s love of art. And I spent the Gulf War dodging bullets from guns this bloke sold to Saddam Hussein. So, thanks all the same, no, I did not care to take the man up on his offer.”
“So who was the client? And who told him ‘yes’ after you said ‘no’?”
Britten exhaled sharply. Then, signaling to the waiter for another espresso, he settled in resignedly for a long chat.
Teagarden, to be sociable, did the same. It would appear, he thought, that there was honor amongst thieves after all.
Two
Orange County, California
“Gabe, no more snacking. You’ll spoil your dinner.”
Hannah snatched the last of the nachos away from the poised hand of her son and carried them from the patio into the house. The western sun, low over the ocean, was making rainbows on the walls of Nora’s kitchen. For the past couple of hours, the boys—one compact, the other tall and rangy—had climbed out of the water every twenty minutes or so, water streaming off their bodies. Splattering over to the patio table, they’d practically inhaled the fruits and crackers, cheeses and nachos that Nora had
