The first morning Jay spent at Moran’s flat, he’d brushed his teeth with a spare, unopened toothbrush he found in the bathroom cabinet. The next time he stayed over, that same toothbrush was waiting for him in a cup on the counter. Now, months later, there was no denying it was Jay’s toothbrush.
Jay spat toothpaste into the sink, rinsed his mouth out with a handful of water from the tap, and emerged from Moran’s en-suite to find the man still laying in bed, utterly naked.
“Whoever let you find out how gorgeous you are,” Jay said, weary, “has a lot to answer for.”
Sebastian grinned. “You think I’m gorgeous, then?”
Jay rolled his eyes and made for Sebastian’s dresser. A few times now, he’d left the previous night’s clothes here only to later find them laundered and folded in their own drawer. A drawer that Sebastian appeared to have specifically set aside for him.
It wasn’t something they ever talked about. Sebastian had simply moved bits of his own life around to make space for Jay.
Jay pulled a change of clothes from the drawer and ignored Sebastian’s noise of disappointment as he dressed. He’d still need to drop by his own flat to stash his phone and pick up his equipment, but at least he wouldn’t have to change.
Now more or less decent, Jay sidled back to the bed and perched at the edge of the mattress. Sebastian lay beneath him in a careless sprawl, one hand tucked beneath the pillow. There was a faded scar across the meat of his tricep, wide and ragged where a bullet must have grazed him in his previous life. He watched Jay with all the languid attention of a jungle creature lazing in the heat of the day.
Sebastian’s hair was tousled from sleep, his lower lip a little bruised from the mauling Jay had given it last night. Jay leaned down and brushed his own lips over it.
With a contented hum, Sebastian opened his mouth beneath Jay’s; what was intended to be a quick goodbye deepened into a lush invitation, day-old stubble scratching against Jay’s chin as their lips moved together. Jay crawled further onto the bed, swinging a leg over Sebastian’s hips to settle on top of him; he tugged at that bruised lip with his teeth, scratching lightly with his fingernails as he ran his hands up from Sebastian’s chest to his shoulders. His skin was warm, the body beneath it solid yet yielding, and outside was the frigid drizzling misery of London in February.
Jay was going to murder John Clay.
Sebastian’s hands were on Jay’s waist; Jay caught them with his own and brought them down to the bed, pinning them lightly at either side of Sebastian’s head as he laced their fingers together. Sebastian breathed a low groan of interest into Jay’s mouth, but Jay pulled away and said, “I have to go.”
“You sure?” Sebastian licked his lips, hips nudging up into Jay’s.
Jay sighed and caught Sebastian’s mouth in another, brief kiss. “No.”
Then, with great reluctance, he climbed off Sebastian and headed out the door.
John Clay’s mystery client had ordered Study of a Young Shepherdess brought to a car park in a quiet corner of the Port of London.
“This,” Jay observed, as Baird pulled the car up, “is the most dodgy possible place to do this.”
Clay was unconcerned. “We can’t hand off a three-hundred-year-old stolen painting at fucking Greggs, can we?”
Another car pulled up across the lot: a grey sedan, fresh from the dealership. Two men exited from the front, one from the back; all three were dressed alike in dark nondescript clothes.
“There’s my contact,” Clay said, indicating the severe-looking man who’d emerged from the back seat. He climbed out of the car, approaching the other group; Jay hung back with Baird as she fetched the backpack from the boot.
Clay’s contact looked to be somewhere approaching fifty, with a lean and predatory look. His gaze darted suspiciously toward Jay and Baird. “Who are they?” he snapped; his accent was eastern European, maybe Russian.
“I hired a crew,” Clay said, perplexed that this was even a question. “Robbing a national gallery isn’t a one-man job, you know.”
The other two men had picked up on their leader’s mood; they shifted uneasily where they stood at his sides as he said, “You didn’t discuss this with us.”
Jay glanced at Baird, who watched this all play out with the backpack slung over her shoulder and a growing apprehension that matched Jay’s. Any time a client got hostile over small details, it meant something was very wrong.
“Clay—” Jay called out.
But the contact was already reaching for something under his jacket, barking in his own language at the men flanking him. Because this had been the plan all along: hire a thief to steal for them, then eliminate him as the only witness instead of paying up.
Jay bolted for the car, a beat before Baird did the same. He didn’t dare look back and check what had happened to Clay. Baird unslung the backpack as Jay dove into the passenger seat, throwing it into his lap as she stooped to climb into the driver’s seat.
A gunshot echoed across the lot. Something dark spattered the window of the car’s open door. Baird collapsed, bouncing off the side of the car and sliding bonelessly to the pavement below.
Even as Jay’s conscious mind stuttered, fixed on Baird where she lay unmoving on the ground, his body clambered over into the driver’s seat and hit the ignition. His foot slammed the accelerator and the car lurched forward, out of the car park and away from the quay. Another gunshot punched a hole through the rear windscreen, but then Jay was out of range, speeding through the darkened streets of London.
It wouldn’t take long for his pursuers to reach their own car and follow.
He needed help. He needed Sebastian.
Jay grabbed his laptop but left his phone behind at the flat, ducking out the back door as the men following him broke in through the front.
He managed to lose them long enough to make a run for the Marigold. The safe house behind the screening room had been an idle thought, easily snuck through the planning process for the cinema’s reconstruction. Now it was his best chance to stay alive—and it was only once he was inside, door locked securely behind him, that his pounding heart started to slow.
As the reassuring isolation and silence of the room settled in around him, he opened the backpack and propped Study of a Young Shepherdess up against the wall. It didn’t look to have sustained any damage in the chase—a relief, considering how likely it was he’d need to use the thing as leverage.
Working out the full plan could wait until Moran got here. He’d be at Jay’s flat by now. Or perhaps he’d already figured it out, and was on his way to the Marigold.
The girl in the painting had a faintly dubious air.
“No,” Jay said aloud, to himself as much as her. “Anything I send him might be intercepted. He’ll find me. I just need to be patient.”
The girl had a mocking look, as if fully aware of Jay’s track record with patience.
Jay preoccupied himself with his laptop, settling in at the safe house’s desk. The cinema wasn’t wired for fibre yet, leaving him to make do with the mobile hotspot he’d set up as a temporary measure. With his phone compromised, he didn’t dare access anything tied to his legal identity; instead he pulled up the audio feed for the Met’s police scanner.
After a few minutes of the usual chatter, dispatch reported a 999 call—two men found unconscious in a residential building in Camden. Jay’s building.
No word on their identity. No way of telling if either of those men was Sebastian.
What if Sebastian had been hurt, looking for him? What if—?
He firmly shoved the image of Baird, crumpled on the pavement, from his mind.
Time passed unevenly, as it usually did when Jay neglected to sleep; fifteen minutes crawled by, and then he blinked and it was an hour later. He allowed himself a brief, longing glance at the futon—but he needed to be awake when Moran got here. If he got here.
And then the doorknob rattled.
Jay slowly turned to face the door. The lock made a series of quiet clicks, over and over again.
He’d paid particular attention to the door when he designed this place. It was near-impenetrable, difficult to cut through and difficult to pick open. But not impossible, because Moran didn’t have a key.
And if this wasn’t Moran, there wouldn’t be much Jay could do about it.
The lock gave one final click, the doorknob turned, and the door swung open to reveal Sebastian standing in the alley.
He looked wrecked, as if he’d been holding back for hours something that was now crashing down on him all at once. A bruise had started to form over his cheekbone. Jay instinctively lurched to his feet, worry and relief dragging him across the room, reaching out to touch—
—and with shaking hands, Sebastian wrapped himself around Jay.
Jay wheezed a protest into Sebastian’s neck as the man’s arms crushed the air from his lungs. Sebastian’s grip eased a little and Jay relaxed into the warmth of the embrace, his own hands resting at Sebastian’s waist.
Then, with a sharp inhale, Sebastian pulled back. His hands fluttered over Jay’s chest and sides—checking for injuries. One hand touched Jay’s chin, turning his face to look for bruises.
“I’m all right.” Jay caught his hands and held them, thumbs stroking over Sebastian’s knuckles. “It’s all right. I knew you’d find me.”
Behind Sebastian, someone awkwardly cleared their throat.
“Clay,” Jay said dryly, leaning past Sebastian to glare at him. “You’re still alive.”
Sebastian’s expression shuttered into a flat, annoyed look.
“They didn’t dare kill me so long as you were on the loose with the Greuze.” Clay glanced at the painting in question, still propped up against the wall. “Of course, now we’ve both got fugitive Russian mercenaries after us.”
“Konovalov?” Jay asked, looking back to Moran.
Moran nodded. “I assume tipping the police is off the table.”
“Can’t afford the exposure,” Clay said with a shrug. “At this point I don’t think you can, either. Unless we did it anonymously.”
Jay shook his head. “Konovalov’s disappearance is the internet’s favourite story right now. Our tip would be one of thousands.” A thought occurred to him, and he turned to contemplate the Greuze. “They’d believe his daughter, though.”
“I’m sure she has no idea her father is in town,” Clay said. “And she certainly has no reason to suspect he stole her painting.”
With a sidelong look at Moran, Jay replied, “Not yet.”
Kira Konovalova lived in Kensington, in a flat overlooking Hyde Park which cost more than most mansions. Sebastian buttoned the jacket of his cheapest suit as he stepped out of the cab and approached the door. Through the covert earpiece he wore came Clay’s distant, whining voice: “You can’t set that man loose on normal people, Moriarty. It’s unethical.”
Jay’s voice was louder, closer to the microphone, as he replied, “He can hear you.”
“Oh, shit.”
Sebastian allowed himself a quiet smirk.
A young woman in dark slacks and a white blouse answered the doorbell; not the lady of the house, but one of the staff.
“Hello.” Sebastian gave her a polite nod. “I’m Eric Hayes, with Oculus Investigations. I was hoping to speak with Ms. Konovalova about Study of a Young Shepherdess.”
As expected, the painting’s name got the maid’s attention. She ushered him inside.
The front hall opened into an old continental-style foyer, where a grand hardwood staircase took up most of the visual real estate. The maid led the way down a side door into the drawing room: cosy, in much the same style as the foyer, but with art and antiques adorning every available surface.
The maid rushed off to fetch her employer, closing the door behind her, and Sebastian made himself comfortable on a teak sofa upholstered in eggshell white.
It wasn’t long before the door opened again and Kira Konovalova strode into the room with rigid composure belied by the speed with which she’d arrived. She was around Sebastian’s age, somewhere in her thirties; her sharp cheekbones and sculpted nose had a generic look that suggested surgical assistance, while a presumably well-paid stylist had made sure her artfully tousled hair, straight-leg jeans, and fitted jumper projected an impression of polished approachability. It didn’t do for the oligarchs to look too much like oligarchs, these days.
“Ms. Konovalova,” Sebastian said, rising to greet her.
“Mr. Hayes,” Kira replied, shaking his offered hand. Her accent, like her appearance, had been carefully pruned. “I’m afraid this is quite a busy morning for me.”
Sebastian settled back into his seat and allowed his posture to shift, taking on a lazy, irreverent demeanour. “Oh, I’m sure.”
The corners of Kira’s mouth tightened; he’d successfully cracked that composure.
“Norton Insurance has hired my agency to investigate the theft,” Sebastian went on. “As they hold the policy on your painting, it’s in their best interest to recover it.”
For a moment, Kira looked confused; perhaps it hadn’t occurred to her that hiring a detective was much less expensive than paying out a multimillion-pound insurance policy. “And have you made any progress?”
“Some.” Sebastian retrieved a notebook and pen from his jacket. “Tell me, does your father have much interest in art?”
Kira scoffed, immediately dismissive. “My father is the son of a welder. He never even went to university.” Then she caught the implications of the question; her eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“Just gathering the necessary background.” Sebastian made some idle scribbles in the notebook. “Has he ever expressed appreciation for your collection?”
Sebastian couldn’t outright say “your father stole your painting”; it wasn’t wise to pass on information one shouldn’t have in the first place. But if he put Kira on the defensive and pushed her to make the connection herself, she’d believe in it all the more.
And her voice had a pensive note in it when she replied, “My father’s only interest in my collection would be its financial value.”
“But you haven’t heard from him since the, er, incident in Russia.”
“We haven’t spoken in years.” There was a stiffness to the words, and tension around Kira’s mouth.
Now, to apply pressure. “I should warn you,” Sebastian said, “that if my agency concludes there was any collusion between yourself and the thieves, Norton Insurance would have grounds to deny your claim. And press charges, for that matter.”
Kira’s eyes flashed; haughty and stiff, she snapped, “What are you implying?”
“Nothing at all.” Sebastian snapped the notebook shut and stood. “I’ll be in touch if I have any further questions, Ms. Konovalova.”
Kira didn’t answer, except to summon the maid to escort him out.
Sebastian walked to the corner, then crossed the street toward the car Jay had arranged for him. “I think that did it,” he reported quietly into the earpiece. “Did you get into her phone?”
“It was connected to her home Wi-Fi,” Jay replied. “Easy enough once your phone was in range. I’ve installed a full spyware suite—we should have access to her microphone and any calls she makes.”
Now they just had to wait, and watch.
Clay was pacing—a perpetual, maddening circuit from one end of the tiny safe-house to the other.
Jay muted the microphone on his laptop. “Stop that.”
“There’s nothing else to do,” Clay snapped back at him. “Why isn’t he saying anything?”
“Because there’s nothing to say.”
Moran was still out, monitoring Kira Konovalova. So far she hadn’t left home or called anyone; the audio feed from her phone’s microphone yielded nothing but background noise and orders to the household staff.
With a noise of petty frustration, Clay dragged a spare chair over to the computer desk and sat next to Jay. Something on the screen caught his interest; he reached for the keyboard, and Jay smacked his hand away.
Moran’s voice broke through the tense silence between them: “Kira’s headed out. Following her now.”
Jay quickly unmuted to reply, “Got it,” then re-muted so he could address Clay’s uncertain expression with a tense, “What?”
With stark disbelief, Clay said, “How are you not terrified of him?”
Jay rolled his eyes. “Why would I be?”
“You should hear the way people talk about him.”
By “people,” of course, Clay meant “toffs.” Any prolonged conversation with the man inevitably turned toward Clay’s so-called peers among the upper crust—or those who would have been his peers, if his mother hadn’t been born on the wrong side of the sheets.
“They don’t say anything outright, but he puts everyone on edge,” Clay went on. “Hard not to feel nervous about a man who could kill you with his pinky.”
Jay rubbed his forehead. “Plenty of posh boys join the SAS.”
“But the only son of an ambassador does not become a career soldier,” Clay insisted. “He does a single term in the Scots Guards to make his CV look good, then goes off and joins the civil service. Unless there’s something wrong with him.”
Jay had a sense of where this was going. “He hasn’t hurt me. He never would.”
“You’re sure about that?” Clay had a dubious look. “Because last night, he hurt a lot of people for you.”
A weird, breathless jolt went through Jay at the thought. Before he could figure out what it meant, Moran’s voice broke in again:
“I don’t think Kira’s going to the police station.”
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