She withdrew her arm and laughed. ‘He said he became concerned as one of the crates opened and he saw part of an oil painting. The guy on the machine stopped, looked down, then said it wasn’t anything worth saving, just a gloomy picture of an old man in a broken frame. That was a Rembrandt self-portrait; Adam painted several of them, as did Rembrandt.’
Before Jack could react, two men arrived at the glass reception doors. Both were smartly suited and carrying briefcases, one bald with glasses, the other gaunt and older.
Ester gave Jack a brilliant smile, thanking him loudly for his estimate, before standing back to welcome the two men inside. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ she said, closing the door behind them.
Chapter 38
Jack hailed a taxi to take him home. He stopped at the local super-market and brought a bottle of champagne, then stopped the driver again as they passed a flower stall on Fulham Road; he told the stall-holder he wanted a bucket-full. Arriving home with his arms full of roses and lilies, he didn’t need his keys as the front door was wide open. Outside was a skip full of debris. Inside, the hall now had a very large hole in the wall, while protective sheets had been laid along the carpet leading to the kitchen where there was another big hole. Marius was sweeping brick dust into the garden via the open doors.
‘Where is everyone?’ Jack asked, taking the flowers to the sink.
‘Your mum has got a picnic going up in the nursery. I’m finishing up for the day. I’ll be back first thing tomorrow to start plastering. The RSJ was a right bugger to fit, but we did it, and I’ll be getting a carpenter in to make a nice archway. I’m using the dining room door to make two safety gates for Charlie.’
‘All looking good to me,’ Jack said, already covered in white brick dust.
Marius slipped him a dusty scrap of paper with the estimate, then tapped his nose and winked that it was just between them, cash for himself and his lads. By the time Marius had cleaned up as much as he could and left in his van, Jack had found various vases and jugs to carry the flowers to the bedroom. He joined Penny and the children in the nursery, watched some TV with them, and had a banana sandwich before returning to the kitchen. Fetching the bottle of champagne from the fridge, he took two glasses from the cabinet and went up to the bedroom.
It was after seven when Maggie arrived home. She went straight to the kitchen and stood looking at the massive hole in the wall for a few moments before going up to the nursery. Penny was reading to Hannah, while Charlie crawled around on the floor.
‘Have you heard anything from Jack?’ she asked.
‘He was with us earlier,’ Penny said. ‘We had tea up here because of all the dust. Will you order something for your dinner?’
‘Yes. I think Marius is doing a good job, by the way.’
‘He and his lads have worked their socks off, but it was a real bugger getting that RSJ into place.’
Maggie nodded. ‘I think I’ll take a shower, then say goodnight to Hannah and Charlie.’
Maggie was stunned when she walked into the bedroom to see flowers wherever she looked. She was even more stunned when Jack, in his dressing gown, held up the bottle of champagne, grinning like a Cheshire cat. She sighed, kicking off her shoes.
‘This had better be good, Jack. It smells like a florist’s shop in here.’
‘I’ll open this after I tell you about my day at Scotland Yard.’
She unbuttoned her blouse, refusing to play along, as he put the unopened bottle on the bedside table. He sat on the bed, watching her undress, and told her about the offer of a role in an elite new murder squad, dealing only with first-degree murder cases.
‘I respectfully turned them down.’
‘What? Did you hand in your resignation? Is that what this is all about?’
‘No. Let me finish. Damn, seeing you getting naked makes it difficult to concentrate.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, you are beginning to piss me off.’ She went into the bathroom and he followed, watching her cleaning her makeup off and then washing her face. He leaned against the open door as she cleaned her teeth.
‘I asked to be given a team of officers to set up a new division in the fraud squad concentrating on art fraud. After a lot of huffing and puffing, they agreed to it. I’ll be working out of an office in Scotland Yard. It’ll take a few weeks to set up, with all the specialist equipment, but I’ll have three fraud officers already working there as my team.’
Maggie spat out the toothpaste and rinsed her mouth. ‘Is this for real, Jack? Or is it fantasy? Because to me, it doesn’t make any sense.’
She walked past him and took off her bra and pants to put on her nightdress. He was disappointed by her reaction. She didn’t seem to understand how serious he was. He switched off the bathroom light, following her into the bedroom.
‘What doesn’t make any sense to you, Maggie?’
‘Moving into a completely different area of the Met after your past record tracking down killers and bringing them to justice.’
‘I thought you would approve,’ he said quietly.
They were silent for a while. Then she watched him pick up the bottle of champagne. ‘Don’t open that now, Jack.’
‘You might not want to celebrate, but I do. My dad, Charlie, encouraged me to join the local force when I was eighteen. I’d never even thought of it. I just went ahead to make him proud of me. When we met and you had the offer of the position here in London, I just followed and got transferred to the Met. I never had any ambition, and truthfully, if it hadn’t been for my old boss, I would more than likely have quit, but Ridley became a sort of substitute for my dad, with me wanting to make him proud, and so I carried on and on and on, bored out of my skull most of the time, having to deal with the incident room arseholes. The further I moved up, taking on one murder investigation after another, the more I felt trapped, as if I was hiding who I really was.’
Maggie watched him in the mirror. Speaking quietly, his usual boyish expression was gone. His dark eyes now appeared hooded, and there were shadows under his chiselled cheekbones. She felt her heartbeat quicken, afraid of what he was going to say next or how to comfort him.
‘The first time I felt it was when I had to knock on the parents’ door to tell them their sixteen-year-old daughter had been murdered. Asking them to sit down before telling them why I was there. Then the anguish in their eyes, and having to be with them when they identified her, her face made up to hide the lacerations. I have had to deal with that torment repeatedly. Then the obsession with tracking down the killers, hoping to bring some justice but knowing there isn’t any. I cannot go back to all that because I can’t deal with it anymore.’
Maggie wanted to reach out to him, but the fact that he had hidden so much from her was painful to accept.
He was staring at the floor, then he looked up and smiled. ‘You know you’re always asking me about Adam Border. Why I protect him. I’ll tell you why. Being with him for even a short while gave me a strange sense of hope. He taught me, without even knowing that I was depressed, that there was another option. I want, like him, to do something I’m passionate about.’ He smiled. ‘And then I want to prove I can outwit him.’
Maggie got up and wrapped her arms around him. Some of it still didn’t make sense to her, but she didn’t care. They opened the bottle of champagne, and she held up her glass before he could say anything else.