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Rauschenbergs and several
Warhol acrylics, including a Black Marilyn.
    An old school
friend advised Chris that the way to double his money would be to invest in the
dot.com revolution. Chris Jr pointed out that he didn’t have any ready cash,
just the gallery, the paintings and Christina, his father’s old yacht – and
even that was half owned by his younger sister. Fenston Finance stepped in and
advanced him a loan of twelve million dollars, on their usual terms.
    As in so many revolutions,
several bodies ended up on the battlefield: among them, Chris Jr’s.
    Fenston Finance
allowed the debt to continue mounting without ever troubling their client. That
was until Chris Jr read in the Los Angeles Times that Warhol’s Shot Bed Marilyn
had recently sold for over four million dollars. He immediately contacted
Christie’s in LA, who assured him that he could expect an equally good return
for his Rothkos, Pollocks and Jasper Johnses. Three months later, Leapman
rushed into the chairman’s office bearing the latest copy of a Christie’s sale
catalogue. He had placed yellow Post-it notes against seven different lots that
were due to come under the hammer. Fenston made one phone call, then booked himself on the next flight to Rome.
    Three days later,
Chris Jr was discovered in the lavatory of a gay bar with his throat cut.
    Fenston was on
holiday in Italy at the time, and Jack had a copy of his hotel bill, plane
tickets, and even his credit-card purchases from several shops and restaurants.
    The paintings
were immediately withdrawn from the Christie’s sale while the LA police carried
out their investigations. After eighteen months of no new evidence and dead
ends, the file joined the other LAPD cold cases stored in the basement. All
Chris’s sister ended up with was a model of Christina, her father’s much loved
yacht.
    Jack tossed
Chris Jr’s file to one side, and stared down at the name of Maria Vasconcellos,
a Brazilian widow who had inherited a house and a lawn full of statues – and not
of the garden-centre variety. Moore, Giacometti, Remington, Botero and Calder
were among Senora Vasconcellos’s husband’s bequest. Unfortunately, she fell in
love with a gigolo, and when he suggested…
    The phone rang
on Jack’s desk.
    ‘Our London
embassy is on line two,’ his secretary informed him.
    ‘Thanks, Sally,’
said Jack, knowing it could only be his friend Tom Crasanti, who had joined the
FBI on the same day as he had.
    ‘Hi, Tom, how
are you?’ he asked even before he heard a voice.
    ‘In good shape,’
Tom replied. ‘Still running every day, even if I’m not as fit
as you.’
    ‘And
my godson?’
    ‘He’s learning
to play cricket.’
    ‘The
traitor. Got any good news?’
    ‘No,’ said Tom,
‘that’s why I’m calling. You’re going to have to open another file.’
    Jack felt a cold
shiver run through his body. “Who is it this time?’ he asked quietly.
    ‘The lady’s
name, and Lady she was, is Victoria Wentworth.’
    ‘How did she
die?’
    ‘In exactly the
same manner as the other three, throat cut, almost certainly with a kitchen
knife.’
    ‘What makes you
think Fenston was involved?’
    ‘She owed the
bank over thirty million.’
    ‘And what was he
after this time?’
    ‘A
Van Gogh self-portrait.’
    ‘Value?’
    ‘Sixty,
possibly seventy million dollars.’
    ‘I’ll be on the
next plane to London.’

8
    A t 7.56, Anna
closed the Wentworth file and bent down to open the bottom drawer of her desk.
She slipped off her sneakers and replaced them with a pair of black high-heeled
shoes. She rose from her chair, gathered up the files
and glanced in the mirror not a hair out of place.
    Anna stepped out
of her office and walked down the corridor towards the large corner suite. Two
or three members of staff greeted her with ‘Good morning, Anna’, which she
acknowledged with a smile. A gentle knock on the chairman’s door – she knew
Fenston would already be seated at his desk. Had she