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she could hardly not feel insulted by what they were implying.
    ‘I’m sorry, Verity,’ Sir John Sykes, the highly respected Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at Oxford University interrupted with an apologetic cough. ‘It just isn’t right. The hair is pure early sixth-century BC, as you say, but the face and abdomen are clearly much later. And while you can find similarly muscular thighs in Corinth, I’ve only seen feet and a base like that in Boeotia. The science can only tell you so much. You have to rely on the aesthetics, on what you can see. To me, this is almost verging on the pastiche.’
    ‘Well, I’m sorry, Sir John, but we couldn’t disagree more…’ Verity began angrily, looking to the director for support but seeing that he appeared to have retreated to the periphery of the group.
    ‘Actually, Sir John, the word I’d use,’ Professor Vivienne Foyle of the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University added, pausing to make sure everyone was listening, ‘is fresh .’
    The loaded meaning of the word was clear. Foyle was suggesting that the statue was in facta forgery, that it had been knocked up in some backstreet workshop and never been in the ground at all. Verity was reeling, but the mood in the room was now such that she knew she had no chance of sensibly arguing her case.
    The interrogation continued. Why didn’t the plinth have a lead attachment like other kouroi? Couldn’t the degradation of the stone have been caused deliberately by oxalic acid? How was it that such an exceptional piece had only surfaced now? What due diligence had been carried out on it’s provenance?
    She barely heard them, her ears filled with the dull pulse of her mounting rage. Her face white and cold as marble, she nodded and smiled and shrugged at what seemed opportune moments, not trusting herself to open her mouth without swearing. A further ten minutes of this torture had to be endured before the director, perhaps sensing that she might be about to erupt, finally saw fit to bring an end to her ordeal.
    ‘Fresh? I’ll give that senile old bitch fresh,’ she muttered angrily as she stalked back to her office. ‘Sonya?’
    ‘I’m Cynthia,’ the PR girl chirped, skipping to keep up with her.
    ‘Whatever. Get me Faulks on the phone.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Earl Faulks. F-A-U-L-K-S, pronounced likefolks. I don’t care where he is. I don’t care what he’s doing. Just get him for me. In fact, I don’t want just to speak to him. I want to see him. Here. Tomorrow.’

SEVEN
    Over Nebraska 17th March - 8.43 p.m.
    Normally used to scoop whales into the casino’s deep-throated net, Kezman’s private jet was a potent introduction to the Vegas experience: snowwhite leather seats with a gilded letter ‘A’ embroidered into the head-rests, leopard-skin carpets, polished mahogany panelling running the length of the cabin like the interior of a pre-war steamer, a small glass bar lit with blue neon. At the front, over the cockpit door, hung a photo of Kezman, all teeth and tan, gazing down on them benevolently like the dictator of some oil-rich African state.
    Tom, lost in thought, had immediately settled back into his seat, politely declining the offer of a drink from the attentive stewardess whose skirt seemed to have been hitched almost as high as her top was pulled low. Head turned to thewindow, gaze fixed on some distant point on the horizon, he barely noticed the plane take off, let alone Jennifer move to the seat opposite him.
    ‘You’re still wearing it then?’ she asked, head tilted to one side so that her curling mass of black hair covered the top of her right shoulder.
    He glanced down at the 1934 stainless steel ‘Brancard’ Rolex Prince on his wrist. It had been a gift from the FBI for Tom’s help on the first case he’d worked on with Jennifer, although Tom suspected that the decision to offer it to him, and the choice of watch, had been all hers.
    ‘Why?’ He turned to face her