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found. She concentrated on Impressionist works, but the high-profile thefts involved brazen raids by men with guns.
    One theft caught her eye – the targeted removal of a Cézanne piece from Oxford during the millennium celebrations. The entry was stealthy, but that was the only similarity. Thieves used scaffolding to get in and set off smoke canisters to cause confusion, whereas their thief had used a stolen key card and a brutal hammer blow.
    However, Oxfordshire Police believed the painting had been targeted for theft. Perhaps that was the case here? From what Amy could see, it was the most famous piece at the museum. She interrogated the museum’s website for nineteenth century paintings of comparable value – and stopped dead.
    One picture in particular had caught her eye, the most spectacular beauty filling her screen. A woman with startling red hair, like DC Aitken’s carrot top, painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Amy was captivated by the colours, the vibrancy of it all. She had never realised art could be alive like this, as if she could reach out and touch it – as if she were out among these things, in the real world, feeling the sun and tasting the fresh air.
    The door buzzer sounded and Amy saved the painting for later, the colours still burning bright in her mind.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Amy, it’s Owain.’
    She buzzed him up. Should she reinstate Bryn and Owain’s access privileges to the flat? She had shut them out after the police investigation into Jason earlier in the year, but they had all kissed and made up since then. Yet she liked having more control over her space, with only Jason able to come and go as he pleased. It made her safe space safer, secured her territory. She had increased the trip sensors around the perimeter, added more barbed wire and cameras. It was her fortress.
    The lift doors opened and she turned to see him for the first time in weeks, the first time since … before. He was thinner and his eyes were pained, the same look she saw in the mirror every day. But he was whole and alive, and sometimes that was enough.
    It was unlike him to visit her alone for an investigation, usually tagging along with Bryn and staying in the background. It was unusual, but Amy wasn’t quite sure what it meant yet.
    ‘Welcome back,’ she said, pushing her curiosity to the side for the moment.
    He smiled half a smile and said nothing. He shifted his laptop bag off his shoulder onto the sofa, tactfully ignored the disembowelled phone decorating the floor, and handed her an encrypted memory stick.
    She opened up the files – in quarantine, of course – and scanned through the lines of code. She wasn’t familiar with security systems outside her own, but she recognised a log when she saw one.
    ‘Who owned the stolen card?’
    ‘Talia Yeltsova. Senior Oil Painting Conservationist. Her car was broken into last night but, as the radio was obviously missing, she didn’t check to see if anything else was stolen.’
    ‘Where was her car parked?’
    ‘Outside the museum.’
    Amy drummed her fingers on the edge of the keyboard. ‘Why was her access card in the car if she was at work?’
    Owain pointed at the code on her screen, careful not to touch her precious monitor. ‘Looking at the log, you need a card to get in but not to leave. Security signs everyone in and out on paper and she arrived at nine-fifteen. The museum was already open, so she probably came in through the front door.’
    Amy pulled a face at the paper records. Why anyone would store important information on something so fragile was beyond her.
    Owain, however, was one step ahead. ‘I scanned and uploaded it to police evidence. It should be on the stick.’
    Amy opened the hi-res scan and scrolled down the list. ‘Out at twenty-five past eight. Did she report the theft?’
    ‘No police log. We’re checking with the insurance company.’
    ‘Sunset was at…’ her fingers drew the data to her, like a spider flexing the strands of