But Grace knew that her icon had been stolen four or five decades earlier than that, from her family in Harbin.
Before returning to Breamlea, she checked her e-mail.
One message. Steve Finch.
‘ You hit the wrong people Wed night. Got you on camera. Flashing your pic around. No cops involved yet, but not nice people. Give us a call, urgent.’
She closed down immediately, left the cafe and walked along the beach, gnawing at the inside of her cheek. She needed to think about Finch and the Niekirks, but Galt was there in her head.
One day he’d got a phone call. She was with him on the sofa with the Harbour view, and he had one hand inside her pants-lovely slender fingers, really, for such a cruel man-and her head was resting against his, so she heard quite clearly the voice in his ear saying: ‘Woof, woof.’
Meaning dog, meaning the dogs of the police force, the Ethical Standards officers, were sniffing around.
Galt had said ‘Fuck,’ shoved her aside and simply walked out of the flat.
She’d tried to imagine what he’d do, where he’d go. They’d been after him before, he told her one night, both of them slick from lovemaking. ‘There was this sergeant, looking at me funny for a few weeks.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Put a bullet in his letterbox.’
The message plain: this has your name on it.
‘What happened?’
‘He transferred to a station in the bush, that’s what happened.’
‘To you, I mean.’
A raised eyebrow. ‘Nothing.’
But this time something had happened. The dogs had come for her a few days later, threatening serious jail time in order to get at him. Sweetening the deal with the offer of witness protection. Instead, she’d protected herself.
Her aloneness had been her chief advantage. No friends, family or work colleagues to tug at her heart, no one who might unwittingly or deliberately feed information to the wrong people. No habits, gym routine, favourite pub or hobby magazine subscription that might give her away. And rather than become someone with a definable character and lifestyle, she’d become a flibbertigibbet, a young woman who seemed to change her looks, job and car every few months. The fact that there wasn’t a job didn’t matter, it was all about appearances. She gave people a box to put her in. She didn’t do anything to attract the law-well, apart from being a career thief. No speeding tickets, no drink driving, no arguments with noisy neighbours. When the Breamlea house was burgled in her absence last year, she hadn’t reported it, not wanting a police investigation, a fingerprint search. And she’d told herself that she could walk away in an instant. If she were in bed and heard a noise, she wouldn’t think ‘It’s a burglar’, she’d think ‘It’s the man who has come to kill me.’
She hadn’t counted on a threat from another direction.
Grace returned to the main street and found a public phone. She didn’t give Finch a chance to talk. ‘You know who it is. There’s a payphone in the 7-Eleven around the corner from where you live. I’ll call you on it in five.’
‘How do you know the number of-’
She cut him off. She counted down the minutes, called the 7-Eleven payphone and demanded: ‘What exactly did they say?’
‘Hello to you, too.’
‘ Steve.’
‘Okay, okay. Look, I’ve done a bit of business with them over the years, so they know I handle the odd objet d’art, and they came into the shop yesterday, showed me your picture.’
‘They asked if you knew me?’
‘Yes. I said no.’
‘Then what did they say?’
‘They said if you, or anyone else, came in wanting to offload a little Klee oil painting, I had to let them know, pronto.’
Grace chewed on that.
‘You robbed the wrong people, Sue.’
‘Let me think about this.’
But she didn’t hang up.
‘Tell you what, we can make a few dollars out of this,’ Finch said.
‘How?’
‘I’ll tell them you did make contact, and it was quick because you were nervous, and you told me you’d heard about me on the grapevine as someone who deals in art from time to time, and I asked did you have something in particular you wanted me to handle, and you showed me a picture, and it was a Paul Klee oil painting, and I said I might be able to shift it for you.’ He paused. ‘That’s what I’ll tell them.’
‘In fewer words than that, I hope. Steve, get to the point.’
‘Okay, so I tell them I can get the painting back for them, only you want ten grand. Five each, Suze.’
Five grand was five grand. If she didn’t return the painting, they’d continue to hunt her down. Maybe even inform the police.
‘I can’t get at it until Monday.’
‘You’re doing the right thing, Suze,’ Steve Finch said.
44
Mara Niekirk was a good hater.
And she really hated Steven Finch.
Late Saturday afternoon: he’d driven down from Williamstown all excited, saying, ‘Guess what?’
Warren was somewhere in the house, her daughter and the nanny somewhere else in the house, so Mara was obliged to deal with the grubby little man. She wasn’t in the mood for games, merely stared at him.
‘That chick you showed me a picture of, she was in the shop this afternoon. Definitely her, and she definitely has the painting.’
‘Really,’ said Mara flatly.
‘I know,’ said Finch, shaking his head at the wonder of it. ‘Couldn’t believe it myself.’
‘It’s just as well we notified you,’ Mara said.
‘Exactly.’
Mara watched him wander around her sitting room as though he owned it, tilting a vase to read the maker’s mark on the bottom, peering into her china cabinet, cocking his head at her Howard Arkley.
He pointed his chin at it. ‘Original?’
‘Yes,’ said Mara, wondering what his game was. Had he bought the Klee from the thief? And she wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t commissioned the theft in the first place.
Meanwhile the moron continued to examine her Arkley, his face dubious. ‘Easy to fake, that airbrushed-suburban-house-in-a-riot-of-fluorescent-colours schtick.’
Mara recalled the Dickerson. ‘You would know.’
‘Now, now.’
Mara said, ‘You want a finder’s fee? Is that it?’
‘The woman who stole it wants a fee. I’m happy to be the middleman.’
‘Expecting that we’ll be appropriately grateful.’
Finch shrugged, still looking at the Arkley painting. ‘Opportunity knocks, and all that.’
Mara watched him from her fat round armchair. If she sat there long enough, addressing his scrawny back, maybe it would dawn on him what a rude bastard he was. ‘Leaving aside the money for the moment, what if we said we’d changed our minds, didn’t want the painting returned? What then?’
Finch swung around on her with a sharkish smile. ‘You’d just give it up? A beautiful painting like that? Maybe worth millions?’
And, without invitation, he was sprawling in the chair opposite, his bony knees too close. Mara’s skin crawled. Somewhere in the depths of the house, delighted laughter broke out, and she glanced at the diamond encrusted Cartier on her wrist: Natalia’s bath time. She also heard the deeper note of adult laughter. Two adults, Warren and the tart who called herself a nanny.
‘I have things to do. Get to the point, then get out.’
A flash of something nasty in Finch’s face. ‘It’s not all about you, Mara. There are other people who might be interested.’
‘How much?’
Finch shifted on the expensive fabric of her armchair. ‘Twenty thousand,’ he said. ‘I managed to beat her down from fifty.’
‘That was big of you,’ Mara said.
The seconds ticked by and she watched him expressionlessly. Emanated a chill, perhaps, but that was normal. Shadows were gathering beyond the window, populating her garden with lumpish shapes. A young woman perhaps known to this awful man had stood out there one afternoon and chatted about the beauty of the landscape, the headiness of the perfumed air, blah, blah, blah. And then had come back and robbed her.