Authors: Karen Swan
‘No, thanks.’
‘I think I need something more fortifying than tea.’
She watched as he wandered over to the kitchen cupboard and poured himself a finger of whisky, before opening the fridge and pulling out some ice from the ice tray, replacing the BlackBerry on
the shelf below.
Flora bit her lip but didn’t say anything. She could retrieve it for him in a minute, once he went to check on her mother. She went back to watching the rain smear the windows. London was
obscured – its stone buildings and rushing river just a smudge of grey – and she felt as though they were all in a bubble: dry, safe, together, sealed off from the outside world.
This was how the Vermeils must have felt, she knew, as shame and humiliation had snapped at their heels; how they’d been driven to hide behind their high walls all summer, only those
wall-mounted CCTV cameras every ten metres the unblinking eyes that dared to look out.
No. She took a deep breath and forced them – him – back out of her mind. She wouldn’t waste any emotional energy on him. Not today.
‘Oh! I think I see him!’ she said suddenly, sitting arrow-straight as she saw a forlorn, lanky figure round the corner and trudge its way up the glistening street. He was still in
his jeans and Vans – no jacket – and was soaked through. In another minute he’d be alongside the car sitting idle by the kerb, ready to whisk him to court.
Flora jumped down from the sill. Freds was going to need to change into his suit in double-quick time. ‘I’ll get the door for him,’ she said, running across the flat and
flinging open the door. ‘Oh, hey, Troy!’ she said as she almost collided with him in the communal hall.
‘Hey.’ Troy was clad head to toe in black Lycra, a high-vis fluorescent vest on over his jacket, his eyes protected behind clear plastic goggles, some mud spatters dried around the
rims. This wasn’t an unusual look. In fact, Flora wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her brother’s neighbour in ‘civvies’. He was a serious cyclist, choosing to ride
the North Downs every Saturday morning – whatever the weather – before breakfast, and every holiday he took involved two wheels and an Alp.
‘Just going out?’ she asked politely, her eyes flicking to the communal door, knowing that any minute now she’d hear Freds’s key in the lock
‘Yeah.’ He double-locked his front door and snapped closed the chin strap for his helmet.
Flora stepped around him quickly to open the door onto the street. Freddie was already halfway up the steps.
‘Hey,’ she smiled brightly. ‘I saw you from the window. Thought I’d save you the bother of getting your keys out.’
‘Oh. Right. Thanks,’ Fred replied flatly. He saw Troy and stepped aside to let him pass. He tried to rally, keep up appearances. ‘Hey, man, how’s it going?’
Troy nodded. ‘Good, mate. Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you around in a while.’
‘Working,’ Freddie nodded, rolling his eyes.
Troy skipped down the short flight of steps and started fiddling with the high-tech lock on his bike. ‘You given any more thought to coming out with me one weekend?’
‘Uh, yeah . . . yeah . . . I’m definitely thinking about it.’
Flora bit her lip as she watched her brother stuff his hands into his pockets, nodding away chummily as though his own future was his to control. She thought her heart might break just to see
him trying so hard to appear normal, not a man twenty minutes from being driven to court for a rape trial.
‘Don’t think, just do,’ Troy replied, pocketing an Allen key in the back of his jacket and wheeling the carbon-fibre bike from its hiding spot behind the bins.
‘Had any more problems with thieves lately?’ Freddie asked, quickly changing the subject.
‘Not recently. This lock’s the nuts, although I reckon they know not to mess with me now.’ He swung a leg over the bike and sat on the saddle, only then noticing the flat tyre
on his front wheel. ‘Agh! Motherfuckers!’
Flora tried to suppress a smile as he jumped off again, examining the wheel to find a slash mark as long as his thumb down the inner rim of the tyre. He swore violently under his breath before
straightening up.
Freddie grimaced apologetically. ‘Sorry, mate.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ he panted, his hands on his hips, his cheeks pink with anger. ‘They won’t get away with this. I’ll have their faces to show the police this
time!’ he said, his mouth drawn into a thin line.
‘What do you mean? How?’
Troy pointed to his bay sash window. A small black camera was only just visible sitting on the sill inside. ‘The police advised me to get it after the last bike went. We’ll see
who’s got the last laugh now, shall we?’
Flora frowned. ‘. . . Troy, when did you get that?’
‘What? The camera?’
She nodded.
‘Earlier in the summer. July time, I guess.’
Flora felt her heart rate quicken as she glanced across at Freddie who was merely looking back at her, perplexed. ‘Do you keep the footage?’
‘Sure, it automatically uploads onto my Cloud every night. Why?’
Flora tried to stay calm. ‘Would it have captured people coming up these steps?’
‘It records every person, animal, goddam
thief
, that approaches the flats.’
Flora stared hard at Freddie with what he’d always called her ‘plotting face’, before looking back at Troy again. ‘Hey, Troy, if you’ve got a spare tyre, we can
hold your bike for you while you go and get it, if you like.’ She smiled, trying to look helpful.
‘Oh, that’s decent. Thanks.’ Troy nodded, falling for her smile and passing the bike into her care, climbing carefully up the steps in his cleats.
Flora waited for the door to close behind him before she allowed herself a gasp. ‘Oh my God, Freddie, do you realize what this means?’
‘Not really, no.’ He looked back at her blankly.
‘Freds, you said Milly came over to your flat the day after, right? When she heard about you and Aggs breaking up.’
Freddie blanched, as though reliving events. ‘Yes, but I can’t prove it. No one saw her come in and her flatmate’s sticking to her story that she stayed in her room all
evening, crying. And the street CCTV just shows someone in a hoody getting out of a cab. There’s nothing to show it’s her. We can’t see her—’ His eyes widened.
‘We can’t see her face!’
‘But I bet Troy’s camera can! And if you can show it’s her, it begs the very big question of why, if she’d been attacked by you, she would have willingly travelled back
to your flat the very next day?’
Freddie threw his head back suddenly and laughed, his arms outstretched as the rain continued to pelt down. ‘Christ, Batty, you might just have blown a fucking great hole in her
story!’
She propped the bike against the wall and cried, ‘I know!’, throwing her arms wide too and flinging them around his neck. He twirled her on the spot so fast her feet left the ground,
both of them laughing and crying.
‘You always were my favourite sister,’ he beamed, hugging her tightly.
‘Oh my God, we’ve got to tell your barrister,’ she said, looking up at him, suddenly serious again.
‘Yeah, you’re right. I’ll call him now. Oh, no, wait.’ Freddie raked his hands through his hair. ‘Oh shit, what’s the time?’
She checked her watch and pulled a face. ‘He’ll already be at court. We need to leave right now. Quick, go get your suit on, the car’s waiting. I’ll try and see if I can
find the footage on Troy’s Cloud.’
At that moment, Troy reappeared, the new inner tube limp in his hand. ‘Right,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Let’s get—’
But Flora was already halfway up the steps, ushering him back into the building.
‘Hey, what’s going on?’
‘No time to explain, Troy,’ she said breathlessly, pushing on his back and urging him to move faster. ‘I’ll tell you everything, I promise, but this is massively urgent
and we don’t have a moment to lose.’
‘But what about my bike?’ Troy protested, frowning as Freddie sprinted past them, already pulling his sodden T-shirt over his head.
‘You’re a good man, Troy,’ Freddie said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘I owe you a pint or ten.’
Three minutes later, Flora was on her way back out with a flash drive in her hand and a smile on her face. Her parents were already in the car, Freddie locking and double-locking the front door
nervously, his hands shaking. He turned to face Flora, looking more scared now than he had at any other point, as though hope was the most terrifying proposition of all. ‘. . . Did you find
it?’
Flora smiled, reaching up to loosen his tie which he’d tightened as hard as a knuckle. ‘Yep. We’ve got her, all right. It’s over, Freds.’
Freddie slumped, a sob escaping him, and Flora threw her arms around him, rubbing his back as the stress of the past few months overcame him. Flora saw her parents’ white faces looking up
anxiously from behind the rain-smeared windows. But something else too.
It took a double-take for her to register the slight figure standing on the opposite pavement, her hands clasped protectively in front, her chin dipped in trepidation, that distinctive fiery
hair ablaze in the rain.
Flora gasped. In spite of Freddie’s stark warnings, she had texted Aggie several times, asking her to call, telling her it was urgent – but Aggie hadn’t responded and in
desperation yesterday, knowing she risked someone else overhearing (a new boyfriend, flatmate, the cleaner), Flora had left an angry message on her answerphone, explaining exactly what was
happening to her ex-boyfriend and the reason why he’d been keeping a profile lower than the dead. Reckless? Yes. There had been every chance Freds would be true to his word and if he found
out what she’d done, going behind his back . . .
But it wasn’t going to come to that.
‘What is it?’ Freddie asked, feeling her straighten and pull back. His gaze followed hers and he fell still as he saw Aggie looking back at him, bedraggled and wretched. But
here.
She was here.
The saleroom was packed, the buzz of conversation more akin to a cocktail party than a fine-art sale. Flora sat still in her seat, her paddle on her lap as she let the chatter
fly around her head. She felt strangely serene in the babble, the swirling passions and torrents of the summer beginning to recede into memories that would one day not hurt any more, but just
become vague facts with no emotion attached – a sleepless night in Antibes, a lie laid bare . . . That was all they would become: a string of words, a sequence of images turned down to mute,
shed of all the anger and hurt, despair and confusion that had blared at her in surround sound this summer.
A hand squeezed her shoulder, the specialist in Asian Contemporary Art at Christie’s grinning down at her. ‘Thought I might see you here. Congratulations! What a project. I’d
love to hear about it. Breakfast next week?’
‘Sure,’ she nodded.
Coolly, she watched a couple of women joyously greeting each other on the far side of the room, lipsticked lips never touching the other’s cheeks. She looked away, unmoved by their
excitement, and watched, instead, an older gentleman sitting alone and thumbing the catalogue with great interest, his brow furrow deepening on certain pages as he held them close to the end of his
nose.
She hadn’t bothered looking through the catalogue herself, of course; she knew the collection being sold tonight by heart. She found it deeply ironic to be bidding on a piece she herself
had found – not just found but inventoried, researched, named, returned to the world. Of course, she was acting for different clients tonight. Angus had promised to be here to represent the
Vermeils – as the sellers – and make sure everything ran smoothly. Naturally, his flight was delayed . . .
‘Flora! Haven’t seen you all summer. We must have lunch.’
She raised a smile and nodded back at the Bruton Street gallerist. ‘Lovely. Absolutely.’
None of the family was here either. According to Angus, they had debated it long and hard; the response to the LAPADA advert had been favourably received and overwhelming, especially when it had
come out in the press about Von Taschelt’s true role in the war. Whilst he couldn’t be hailed an outright hero – his estate had profited too much from his dealings with the Third
Reich for that – his efforts to save the condemned and most notably, smuggle thirteen children to safety in crates, had gone a very long way in restoring his reputation and the family’s
name.
In the end, though, they had decided against making a personal appearance here, which could be construed as ‘showy’ or attention-seeking, instead settling for placing an open letter
at the front of the sale catalogue, reiterating their wish to return the looted art in their collection to the rightful owners; and where that wasn’t possible – as per this sale tonight
– to raise funds for a foundation benefiting children of refugees.
‘Flo! I hope you’ve asked for a pay rise! Coffee soon?’ The vice president for Jewellery at Bonhams was en route to her seat, her eyebrows shrugged high.
‘Love to.’
Ideally she wouldn’t have been here either; whether the family was in the saleroom or not, the moment the first lot came out, they would be all around her again – memories swirling
as she remembered their voices gabbling, eyes assessing her, scrutinizing her, dismantling her . . . She sniffed lightly and straightened her back, head held high.
It was fine. Just another sale. She’d only come for the Seurat – a mid-sized portrait of a Moorish woman, for an Ibizan villa belonging to a new German client. She’d flown
there only last week in order to see and ‘feel’ the space herself, although she’d already been 80 per cent sure that the Seurat was the right fit. The guide price was
£18,000–£20,000 but she was prepared to go to £27,250.
The shuffle of leather-soled shoes and a cloud of cologne announced the arrival of someone in the seat beside her, someone who wasn’t Angus, for whom the seat was provisionally saved.
She turned to find Max St John, of Bonhams and the
Concours d’Élégance
, settling himself beside her. She didn’t turn him away.
‘Flora! How are you?’ he purred in a low, silky voice, in his natural element as the room swarmed with familiar faces, people taking their seats as the clock ticked ever closer to
eight.