Page 78 of Next in Line

‘You’ll have to sell them privately, and I’m afraid that could take some time.’

‘Would you be willing to visit the house and take a look at the collection for me?’

‘Of course I will. I’ll go tomorrow and start making an inventory of the works and let you know how much I think they’re worth.’

‘I couldn’t ask for more,’ said James. ‘But I fear I must now leave you.’

Beth raised an eyebrow.

‘I have to go and prove to Artemisia that I can read.’

•••

It had taken Christina only one visit to Gerald Sloane with the suggestion that she might be willing to reinstate her annual donation to the Fitzmolean for him to reveal everything she needed to know.

‘Your visit couldn’t have come at a more opportune time,’ he purred.

‘Why?’ asked Christina, innocently.

After she had gleaned all the information she needed to know about the Holbein, she took a leaf out of Beth’s book and thought carefully about what she would say to Mr Rosen when she phoned him. It was some time before her call was answered.

‘Thomas Rosen,’ said a refined voice, with a slight accent.

‘Mr Rosen, my name is Christina Faulkner, and I understand from my good friend, Beth Warwick, that you have a picture for sale that I might be interested in.’

‘Are you calling on behalf of the Fitzmolean, Mrs Faulkner?’

‘Yes, I am. However, they wish the approach to remain confidential for the time being.’

‘I understand,’ said Rosen. ‘Like you, we wouldn’t want the sale to become public knowledge.’

‘You can be assured of my discretion,’ said Christina, who certainly didn’t want Sloane or Miles to find out what she was up to.

‘That being the case, Mrs Faulkner, I would be only too happy for you to visit me in Amsterdam where you could view the painting.’

‘As well as the artist’s handwritten note that’s attached to the back of the panel?’

‘You are well-informed, Mrs Faulkner, which doesn’t surprise me. So if you’d be kind enough to make the journey to Amsterdam at your convenience, I’ll have my chauffeur pick you up in the airport and drive you to my home.’

CHAPTER 26

NO ONE RECOGNIZED THE OFFICERseated next to the Hawk, but they were all aware of his reputation.

Assistant Commissioner Harry Holbrooke was the officer in charge of Counter Terrorism, and rarely seen in public. If you passed him in the street, you wouldn’t have given him a second look, and would not have considered it plausible that he was the man the IRA most feared.

He couldn’t have been more than five foot eight, weighing around 145 pounds, a featherweight when he entered the boxing ring, a heavyweight when it came to knock-outs.

‘I’d like to begin,’ he said in a broad Yorkshire accent that he made no attempt to soften for his southern colleagues, ‘by asking Superintendent Warwick to give us a detailed report of his meeting with Miles Faulkner, and his opinion of the source’s credibility.’

They all listened intently to William’s account of what had taken place when he and DS Pankhurst had visited the prisoner in Belmarsh. Rebecca read out the occasional verbatimcontribution from her notebook. When William had finished, he waited to hear Holbrooke’s assessment.

‘Let me say from the outset,’ he began, ‘that your principal informant can hardly be described as A1. As a source – which is graded from A, always reliable, to E, untested – Faulkner’s a D at best, unreliable. For reputation – which is ranked from 1, known to be honest without reservation, to 5, suspected to be false – he scrapes in with a 4, cannot be trusted. So, your man is not only a D4 but currently serving a prison sentence for fraud and deception.

‘In normal circumstances,’ continued Holbrooke, ‘information provided by such a source would be handled by a junior officer in SO13, and would be highly unlikely to reach my desk. However, I concede this cannot be described as “normal circumstances”, and Faulkner has two things going for him. One, his undoubted intelligence, and two, what would be in it for him to invent such a cock and bull story? Let me now throw this open for discussion, commander,’ Holbrooke said, looking towards the other end of the table. ‘I’d like you to play devil’s advocate on this occasion while your team try to convince me that I should make this a priority, because at present it sounds like a waste of my time.’ The Hawk nodded. ‘Then let’s begin with you, Superintendent.’

‘I agree with your assessment of the source’s reputation,’ said William. ‘D4 at best. But I still believe we can’t afford to take the threat lightly.’

‘We’ve never had to deal with a suicide bomber in England,’ interjected the Hawk. ‘This would be a first.’

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