William chuckled.
‘Would it be too much of an imposition, sir, to ask if I might be allowed to spend an hour or so a day with you during the voyage?’ James asked, without displaying his previous confidence.
‘I’d enjoy that. Around this time of the morning would suit me, because that’s when my wife will be at her yoga class. But there’s one proviso: should you ever meet her, you won’t tell her what we’ve been talking about.’
‘And what have you been talking about?’ asked Beth, as she appeared by their side.
James leapt up. ‘The price of gold, Mrs Warwick,’ he said, looking earnest.
‘Then you will have quickly discovered it’s a subject about which my husband knows very little,’ said Beth, giving the young man a warm smile.
‘I was about to tell you, James,’ said William, ‘that my wife is far brighter than I am, which is why she’s the keeper of pictures at the Fitzmolean Museum and I’m a mere Detective Chief Inspector.’
‘The youngest in the Met’s history,’ said Beth.
‘Although should you ever mention the Met to my wife, she’ll assume you’re talking about one of the finest museums on earth, rather than London’s police force.’
‘I was so glad you managed to get the Vermeer back,’ said James, turning to Mrs Warwick.
It was Beth’s turn to look surprised. ‘Yes,’ she eventually managed, ‘and fortunately it can’t be stolen again because the thief is dead.’
‘Miles Faulkner,’ said James, ‘who died in Switzerland, after suffering a heart attack.’
William and Beth looked at each other but said nothing.
‘You even attended the funeral, Chief Inspector, presumably to convince yourself he was dead.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’ said William, once again on the back foot.
‘I read The Spectator and the New Statesman every week, which keeps me up to date on what’s happening in Britain, and then try to form my own opinion.’
‘Of course you do,’ said William.
‘I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow, sir,’ said James, ‘when I’ll be interested to find out if you think it’s possible Miles Faulkner is still alive.’
CHAPTER 2
MILES FAULKNER STROLLED ACROSS THE dining room of the Savoy just after eight o’clock the following morning, to see his lawyer already seated at his usual place. No one gave him a second look as he weaved in and out of the tables.
‘Good morning,’ Booth Watson said, looking up at his only client, a man he neither liked nor trusted. However, Faulkner was the one person who made it possible for him to enjoy a lifestyle few of his colleagues at the bar could hope to emulate.
‘Good morning, BW,’ Miles replied, as he sat down in the seat opposite him.
A waiter quickly appeared, notebook open, pen poised. ‘What will you have this morning, gentlemen?’ he asked.
‘The full English,’ said Miles, without looking at the menu.
‘And will you be having your usual, sir?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed Booth Watson, as he peered more closely at his client. He had to admit the Swiss plastic surgeon had done a first-class job. No one would have recognized him as the man who had escaped from prison, attended his own funeral, and recently risen from the dead. The man seated opposite him bore no resemblance to the successful entrepreneur who had once owned one of the great art collections in private hands, but now looked every bit the retired naval captain and veteran of the Falklands campaign, who answered to the name of Captain Ralph Neville. But if William Warwick were to discover that his old nemesis was still alive, he wouldn’t rest until he was back behind bars. For Warwick it would be personal, the man who escaped from his clutches, the man who made fools of the Metropolitan Police, the man who’d—
‘Why did you need to see me so urgently?’ Miles asked once the waiter had left.
‘A journalist from The Sunday Times insight team called yesterday and asked me if I knew anything about a Raphael that had recently been sold by Christie’s and turned out to be a fake.’
‘What did you tell him?’ asked Miles, nervously.
‘I assured her that the original was part of the late Miles Faulkner’s private collection, and is still hanging in his widow’s villa in Monte Carlo.’
‘Not for much longer,’ confided Miles. ‘Once Christina found out she wasn’t a widow after all, I had no choice but to move the entire collection to a safer location before she could get her hands on it.’