FOUNDED 1744
“Sold to the gentleman in the centre of the room for five thousand
pounds.
“We now move on to Lot no. 32,” said the
auctioneer, looking down from the raised platform at the front of the crowded
room. “An icon of St George and the Dragon,” he declared as an attendant placed
a little painting on the easel next to him. The auctioneer stared down at the
faces of experts, amateurs and curious onlookers. “What am I bid for this
magnificent example of Russian art?” he asked, expectantly.
Robin gripped Adam’s hand. “I haven’t felt
this nervous since I came face to face with Romanov.”
“Don’t remind me,” said Adam.
“It is, of course, not the original that
hangs in the Winter Palace,” continued the auctioneer, “but it is nevertheless
a fine copy, probably executed by a court painter circa 1914,” he added, giving
the little painting an approving smile. “Do I have an opening bid? Shall I say
eight thousand?” The next few seconds seemed interminable to Robin and Adam. “Thank
you, sir,” said the auctioneer, eventually looking towards an anonymous sign
that had been given somewhere at the front of the room.
Neither Adam nor Robin
were
able to make out where the bid had come from. They had spent the last hour
seated at the back of the room watching the previous items coming under the
hammer and had rarely been able to work out whose hands they had ended up in.
“How much did the expert say it might go
for?” Robin asked again.
“Anywhere between ten and twenty thousand,”
Adam reminded her.
“Nine thousand,” said the auctioneer, his
eyes moving to a bid that appeared to come from the right-hand side of the
room.
“I still think it’s amazing,” said Robin, “that
the Russians ever agreed to the exchange in the first place.”
“Why?” asked Adam. “Once the Americans had
extracted the treaty, there was no harm in allowing the Russians to have their
original back in exchange for the copy which rightly belonged to me. As an
example of diplomatic ingenuity it was Lawrence at his most brilliant.”
“Ten thousand from the
front of the room.
Thank
you, sir,” said the auctioneer.
“What are you going to do with all that
money?”
“Buy a new double bass, get a wedding
present for my sister and hand over the rest to my mother.”
“Eleven thousand, a new bid on the centre
aisle,” said the auctioneer. “Thank you, madam.”
“No amount of money can bring back Heidi,”
said Robin quietly.
Adam nodded thoughtfully.
“How did the meeting with Heidi’s parents
turn out?”
“The Foreign Secretary saw them personally
last week. It couldn’t help, but at least he was able to confirm that I had
only been telling them the truth.”
“Twelve thousand.”
The auctioneer’s eye returned to the front
of the room.
“Did you see the Foreign Secretary yourself?”
“Good heavens, no, I’m far too junior for
that,
‘ said
Adam. “I’m lucky if I get to see
Lawrence, let alone the Foreign Secretary.”
Robin laughed. “I consider you were
lucky
to have been offered a place at
the Foreign Office at all.”
“Agreed,” said Adam chuckling to himself, “but
a vacancy arose unexpectedly.”
“What do you mean, ‘unexpectedly’?” asked
Robin, frustrated by how few of her questions had been answered directly in the
past half hour.
“All I can tell you is that one of Lawrence’s
old team was ‘retired early’,” said Adam.
“Was that also true of Romanov?” asked
Robin, still desperately trying to discover all that had taken place since they
had last met.
“Thirteen thousand,” said the auctioneer,
his eyes returning to the lady on the centre aisle.
“After all he can’t have survived for long
once they discovered you had done a switch on Tower Bridge that gave the
Russians back the copy while Romanov ended up presenting you with the original,”
said Robin.
“He’s never been heard of since,” admitted
Adam innocently.
“And all our information leads us to believe
that his boss Zaborski is soon to be replaced by someone called Yuri Andropov.”
“Fourteen thousand,” said the auctioneer,
his eye settling on the gentleman at the front once again.
“What happened when you produced the papers
proving that it was not your father who had smuggled the poison into Goering’s
cell?”
“Once they had been authenticated by the
Russians,” Adam said, “Lawrence paid an official visit to the Colonel of the
Regiment and furnished him with the conclusive evidence.”
“Any reaction?” probed Robin.
“They’re going to hold a memorial service in
Pa’s memory and have commissioned some fellow called Ward to paint his portrait
for the regimental mess. Mother has been invited to unveil it in the presence
of all those officers who served with my father.”
“Fourteen thousand for the first time then,”
said the auctioneer raising the little gavel a few inches in the air.
“She must have been over the moon,” said
Robin.
“Burst into tears,” said Adam. “All she
could say was ‘I wish Pa could have lived to see it.’
Ironic,
really.
If only he had opened that letter.”
“Fourteen thousand for the second time,”
said the auctioneer, the gavel now hovering.
“How do you fancy a celebration lunch at the
Ritz?” said Adam, delighted with how well the sale was turning out.
“No thank you,” said Robin.
Adam looked across at his companion in
surprise.
“It won’t be much fun if every time I ask
you a question I only get the official Foreign Office briefing.”
Adam looked sheepish. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No, that wasn’t fair,” said Robin. “Now you’re
on the inside it can’t be easy, so I suppose I will have to go to my grave
wondering what treaty was inside that icon.”
Adam looked away from the girl who had saved
his life.
“Or perhaps I’ll find out the truth in 1996
when the cabinet papers are released.”
He turned slowly to face her.
“Alas...” he began as the auctioneer’s
hammer came down with a thud. They both looked up.
“Sold to the gentleman at
the front for fourteen thousand pounds.”
“Not a bad price,” said Adam, smiling.
“A bargain in my opinion,” replied Robin
quietly.
Adam turned to her, a quizzical look on his
face.
“After all,” she said in a whisper, “imagine
what the forty-ninth state would have fetched if it had come up for auction.”
THE END
One million dollars – that’s what Harvey Metcalfe, life-long king of
shady deals, has pulled off with empty promises of an oil bonanza and instant
riches. Overnight, four men – the heir to an earldom, a Harley Street doctor, a
Bond Street art dealer and an Oxford don – find themselves penniless. But this
time Harvey has swindled the wrong men. They band together and shadow Harvey
from the casinos of Monte Carlo to the high stakes windows at Ascot and the
hallowed lawns of Oxford.
Their plan is simple: to sting the crook for exactly what they lost.
To the penny.
‘Marvellously plotted, with just the right amounts of romance, wit and
savoir-faire’
Publishers Weekly
‘The greatest storyteller of our age’
The Mail on Sunday
CORONET BOOKS
Two friends fall under the spell of a New York beauty – with quite
unexpected results.
An offhand remark is taken seriously by a Chinese sculptor and a British
diplomat becomes the owner of a priceless work of art.
An insurance claims advisor has a most unexpected encounter on the train
home to Sevenoaks.
The openings to three of this marvellous collection of stories that ends
with a hauntingly-written, atmospheric account of two undergraduates at Oxford
in the thirties, a story of bitter rivalry that ends in a memorable love story.
‘Stylish, witty and constantly entertaining... Jeffrey Archer has a
natural aptitude for short stories’
The Times
‘Somerset Maugham never penned anything so swift or so urbanely satiric
as this’
Publishers Weekly
‘Probably the greatest storyteller of our age’
The Mail on Sunday
CORONET BOOKS
In the 1960s four ambitious new MPs take their seats at Westminster.
Over three decades they share the turbulent passions of the race for power with
their wives and families, men and women caught up in a dramatic game for the
highest stakes of all. But only one man can gain the ultimate goal – the office
of Prime Minister...
‘Seductive...
His most ambitious book.
He takes
us through the last twenty years or so of English political life and makes the
rewards of office appear not only matters of rivalry but actually glamorous’
The Times
‘Great fun.
It possesses a roguish and extremely
well-informed and realistic slant on the unsalubrious side of political life’
Financial Times
‘We haven’t had a better novel about Parliament since Anthony Trollope
gave us Phineas Finn’
The Scotsman
CORONET BOOKS
A man calls unexpectedly on his mistress and sees another man leaving
her flat. Accusing her of being unfaithful, he quarrels with her, strikes her.
She dies.
Leaving unseen, he tips off the police so that the other man is arrested
and charged... Has he managed
The Perfect
Murder?
A tantalising opening to
A Twist in the Tale.
Consider also: a wine tasting with a bizarre difference, a game of chess
with a sexy stranger, a violent row in a golf clubhouse bar, a rivalry founded
on eating cornflakes... just some of the openings in this cunningly
constructed, fast-moving, entertaining set of stories from
the
bestselling author of our times.
‘Contains 12 of the best O’Henry-style, twist in the final paragraph,
short stories. The writing is straightforward, pretty gripping, and the plots
move forward confidently’
He’s certain to delight his many fans’
The Times
‘Probably the greatest storyteller of our age’
The Mail on Sunday
CORONET BOOKS
The magnificent story of love and politics
that continues the story of KANE AND ABEL.
The titanic battle between two men obsessed with destroying each other
continues into the next generation. Florentyna Rosnovski, Abel’s daughter,
inherits all her father’s desire but none of his wealth. A woman gifted with
beauty and spirit, but above all with indomitable will, she sets off in pursuit
of an ambition that dwarfs even that of Kane and Abel, as she battles for the
highest office of all...
‘A blockbuster and a good read... Archer has an excellent eye for a
place and instinct for the balance of the political game’
The Mail on Sunday
‘An exciting and dramatic tale that ends on a heart-warming note’
San Francisco Examiner
‘Remarkable... full of appeal’
London Review of Books
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JEFFREY ARCHER
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4 9 3
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny
Less
£3.50
Shall We Tell the President? £3.50
Kane and Abel £4.50
A Quiver Full of Arrows £3.50
TheProdigal Daughter £4.50
First Among Equals £4.50
A Matter of Honour £4.50
A Twist in the Tale £3.50
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