Page 2 of The Blue Hour

Becker nods. ‘They’re withdrawing the piece from the exhibition,’ he says. ‘It’s … it’s a total overreaction—’

‘Is it?’

Becker spreads his palms wide. ‘Of course it is! It has to be. The piece has been viewed by God knows how many people, including experts. If the bone were human, I think someone would have spotted it by now.’

Sebastian nods, his mouth turning down at the corners.

‘You’redisappointed?’ Becker asks, incredulous.

Sebastian shrugs. ‘It might have escaped your notice, Beck, but the great British public haven’t exactly been beating down our doors since we reopened … I thought maybe the suggestion of a mystery, a whiff of scandal …’

‘Scandal? Oh, I like the sound of that.’ The two men turn to see Helena standing in the doorway. She is clad from her chin to her ankles in black cashmere, a ribbed dress which hugs her neat bump. Wisps of chestnut hair have escaped her ponytail and there are bright spots of colour across her cheekbones. She’s slightly out of breath.

‘Hels!’ Sebastian leaps to his feet, embracing her, kissing her gently on both cheeks. ‘Radiant one. Did you walk over? Come in, sit!’

Helena allows herself to be guided to the armchair Sebastian has just vacated. ‘I fancied a little walk,’ she says, smiling at Becker,who’s regarding her quizzically. ‘It’s so beautiful out, what I’d really love is to go for a ride, but,’ she wafts a hand in the air, pre-empting Becker’s objections, ‘I’m obviously not going to dothat. So tell me, what’s all this about a scandal?’

She listens attentively as Becker explains, interrupting when he gets to the punchline. ‘But that piece was on display at the Berlinische Galerie! It was in theTwenty-Oneshow at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris!’

Becker nods. ‘That’s exactly what I said.’

‘So … what are you going to do?’

Sebastian perches on the edge of Becker’s desk. ‘No idea,’ he says. ‘To be honest, I’m not entirely sure I see what the fuss is about. Say the boneishuman. It’s not likely she robbed a grave, is it? Does itreallymatter?’

Becker bites the inside of his cheek. ‘You can’t just display human remains, Seb.’

‘The British Museum is full of them!’

‘Well, yes.’ A smile breaks across Becker’s face. ‘But I think this is a bit different.’

Sebastian turns to him and scowls. ‘Well, Goodwin agrees. He’s having kittens, he wants to send the piece to a private lab for testing, on the QT, you know—’

‘Absolutelynot!’ Becker leaps to his feet, jolting the desk as he does so, knocking coffee on to its fine green leather surface. Sebastian and Helena watch as he frantically mops up the spill with a handful of tissues. ‘To test the bone, they have to break the glass case and the case is part of the piece. She made it herself. If you break the glass you … well, I should think you invalidate the insurance at the very least, but more than that you damage the work. They’re not sending it off to some …random laboratorywith no knowledge of its history and no expertise in this area.’

‘OK,’ Sebastian says, shrugging extravagantly. ‘Well. What, then?’

‘We could start by asking someone else, some other expert, perhaps even a couple of experts, to take a look at it. Just alook, through the glass. And while that’s going on, we could talk to our insurers, explain the situation, explain that there might be need for …’ He doesn’t want to saytesting, doesn’t want to concede that point, ‘for furtherinvestigationsomewhere down the line.’

‘And in the meantime,’ Helena says, crossing and uncrossing her legs, ‘you could go and talk to Grace Haswell.’

‘No,’ Becker says, stifling a thrill of excitement, ‘I can’t. I don’t want to leave you …’

‘In my enfeebled condition?’ Helena laughs. ‘Yes, you can. Come on, Beck, you’ve been dying to get out to Eris, you talked of nothing else during lockdown. And now here’s the perfect opportunity. The perfect excuse.’

‘I suppose,’ Becker says carefully, ‘I could leave early, nip up and get back in a day …’

He glances at Sebastian, who shrugs. ‘I don’t mind. Go if you think it’ll be helpful. Not sure how the Wicked Witch of Eris Island is going to help with this, though? Unless you think she’ll know something? Perhaps the bone’s the last remains of one of the children she’s lured to her gingerbread house?’ Sebastian laughs at his own joke. Helena winks at Becker.Idiot. ‘No, it’s a good idea. It is. You could kill two birds with one stone – clear up this bone business and let her know in person that we’re sick of her foot-dragging. It’s time she handed over Chapman’s papers, along with anything else that belongs to us. You can remind her that the artistic estate was left to Fairburn, and that she doesn’t get to decide what to give us and what to withhold—’

‘Well, technically,’ Becker cuts in, leaning back in his chair, ‘she does. She’s the executor.’

‘Don’t try to be fucking clever.’ Sebastian’s playfulness evaporates like spit on a hotplate. Becker does his best not to flinch.Helena looks down at the carpet. ‘She’s been holding things back, hasn’t she? Papers, letters and quite possibly some works of art. It belongs to us.All of it. Every canvas, every sketch, every porcelain bowl she threw on her wheel, every fucking pebble she picked up on the beach and arrangedjust so. It’s ours. Anything related to the artistic estate is ours.’

Becker bites his tongue. He isdesperateto get his hands on Chapman’s papers; a couple of notebooks found their way to Fairburn along with the main consignments of art, but there is a great deal more material that no one has ever seen. Becker knows from interviews that she kept process journals, that she corresponded with other artists about her work – if and when Grace Haswell hands these over, he will be the first to read them. He will have the power to shape how the world sees Vanessa Chapman, how it sees her work, how that work is valued. The thought of it is enough to make him light-headed.

But Becker is cautious by nature, and kind, too. If there is a way of accessing those papers without threatening and bullying Chapman’s executor – and dear friend – he would rather take that route.

‘I’m nottrying to be clever,’ he says eventually. ‘You know as well as I do that it has not yet been determined what constitutes the artistic estate and what makes up the rest—’

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