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people who’d pay to see it, to revel in
The Skin Hunter
out of ghoulish curiosity. Besides, I don’t believe that paintings have any power of their own.’ Smiling, she folded her arms. ‘For God’s sake, Triumph, this is the twenty-first century. They might have believed all kinds of superstitious crap in Titian’s time, but not now.’
    â€˜Maybe.’
    â€˜Does its reputation put you off?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜I thought not,’ she said crisply. ‘Well, I want it too. But I can’t get it without your help.’
    Calmly, he smiled. ‘Why would I help a rival?’
    â€˜You know Gaspare Reni; you used to deal with him. The Italian’s old school, and he’ll talk to you.’
    â€˜Ah, but maybe he won’t want to sell the picture.’
    â€˜He’s struggling,’ she replied, leaning forward in her seat. ‘He’s old and he’s got that great albatross of a gallery hanging round his neck. It must cost a fortune just to keep it open. Trust me, Gaspare Reni will sell – but not to me. We had a run-in a long time ago, and he won’t let anything come to the Alim Collection if he can help it.’
    â€˜I
could
help you,’ Triumph said after a prolonged pause, knowing that by assisting her he would be publicising the find and upping its value, ‘but then we’d be competing for the same painting – which means you’d lose.’
    â€˜You can’t win every time,’ Farina challenged him. ‘No one wins
every
time.’

7
    Sunnyvale Rest Home, London
    Finishing her shift, Sally Egan pulled a coat over her uniform and left by the back exit. Her door keys were in her pocket, her handbag slung over her left shoulder. She was thinking, with some pleasure, of the man she had slept with the previous week, Eddie Gilmore. They had been a bit drunk, but he had still managed to perform pretty well and afterwards he hadn’t hustled her either. Instead he’d made her a sandwich and together they’d pulled the duvet around them and watched a DVD. For the first time in years she had felt comfortable and treasured. At nine they had made love again, with real affection, but at nine thirty Sally’s alarm had gone off and, reluctantly, she had dressed and headed home.
    She hadn’t heard from him since.
    Briskly pushing open the gate, Sally hurried up to the semidetached house and opened the door. Immediately a woman came down the stairs, dressed in a nurse’s uniform.
    â€˜Your dad’s asleep.’
    â€˜How’s he been?’ Sally asked, taking off her coat and moving into the kitchen to put the kettle on. The woman followed her.
    â€˜A bit het up this afternoon. Asking for your mother, but he calmed down later.’
    Pulling out a chair, Jean sat down. For the previous three years she had acted as a part-time carer for Sally’s father, who was approaching the last stages of Alzheimer’s. At times she wondered how Sally coped with her full-time job at the care home
and
a senile father. How did an attractive, intelligent woman in her thirties take to being an incessant carer? Didn’t she ever get sick of emptying bedpans and listening to interminable stories from the past and long to escape? Weren’t there moments of complete despair as she walked from the care home across the green to the semi where her father was fading, hour by hour?
    A couple of times over the years Sally had confided that she had wanted to go to art school. She’d been talented, she said – top of her class. But her mother’s early death and her father’s already erratic behaviour had prevented her from leaving home, and the need for a proper wage had shattered any illusions of pursuing a painting career. So instead of studying Michelangelo, she had started work in a nearby care home for the elderly, shelving Rodin for Radio 4 and incontinence pads.
    If there was any