by Pip Drysdale
‘Caffeine?’ Noah asks as he closes the door and heads to the kitchen.
A flash of his party. Of him reaching for my wrist and drawing that half a heart. His breath on my ear.
‘Sure,’ I say, my voice thick.
I sit down on the other sofa and wait for him to bring my coffee. There’s a canvas lying on the floor with only a rough outline on it. Noah walks towards me, hands me a cup and sits down.
‘Thanks,’ I say. The warmth between my hands is comforting even though I’m pretty sure if I drink the coffee I may have some sort of heart attack.
‘So,’ he says, his eyes on mine.
‘So,’ I reply. But I am thinking about his message.
‘What did you mean by you knew she’d do something like this?’ I ask. No point skirting around it.
‘You went past the gallery, right? About a week ago.’
‘So? Lots of people go there.’
‘Yeah but you must have done something to make her think that we had a thing. Because she called me, said some girl named “Grace”,’ he inserts air-quotes here so I am guessing he’s still pissed about the name thing, ‘just came past. Wanted to know who you were. If Sabine had ever mentioned you.’
‘Well, what did you say?’ I ask, my mind a whirr as I try to recall our conversation from that day. Whether there was something I said to stir her suspicion.
‘I said no… of course,’ he replies. ‘I know what she’s like. I didn’t want you on her radar. But it looks like I was too late.’
‘Fuck.’ The pieces are slotting into place. ‘I told her I was Sabine’s really good friend.’ A flash of the CCTV outside the gallery. She would have seen Noah and me together. It would have raised a bright red flag when he said he didn’t know who I was. She would have wondered who was lying: him or me? And why?
‘But how would the guy in the picture have found me?’ I ask. ‘He didn’t even have my name?’ The subtext here is: did you tell her?
‘He’s always hanging around the gallery,’ he says, reaching for my hand. I let him take it. ‘But look, don’t worry. She’ll get bored soon enough. She’s just possessive and jealous…’
And I might think that too if I hadn’t seen what was on that video.
He’s looking down at our hands and I’m looking at him. I sense he has no idea what Agnès has been really doing. And now that I have to tell him, I’m not sure how to start.
I take a deep breath. ‘Noah, there’s more to this than just jealousy.’
He tilts his head just slightly. ‘Like what?’
‘I found something.’ I let go of his hand and reach for my phone, scrolling through my photographs to the still frame of that financial document on the screen. ‘Here,’ I say, handing it to him.
He frowns down at it. ‘What is this?’
‘That company, Hintos Holdings, belongs to Philip Crawford-White.’
‘So?’ Noah says. ‘Agnès did loads of deals for loads of people. They all use company names. And Philip is a friend, she sells paintings for him sometimes to private collectors.’
‘What kind of paintings?’ I ask, slowly, thinking of the Klimt.
He shrugs. ‘I don’t really know. These people have extensive collections. It’s a whole other world.’
‘Did Agnès ever mention Genovexa or Requiem?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ He pauses. ‘Why, what do you think is going on here, Harper?’ He fully enunciates my name.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, taking back my phone. ‘But there was this too.’ I pull up the video of Sabine and the Klimt.
I hand him my phone and watch his face as it plays.
His eyes get big. His mouth opens just a little bit. He frowns at the screen. And then Sabine says ‘Je sais ce que tu fais, Agnès’, and blows a kiss at the camera.
His jaw clenches.
His face is pale when he looks at me. ‘What the hell is this?’ his voice comes out as an almost whisper. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘It was on one of Sabine’s drives. I got it for a story I was working on.’ I keep it intentionally vague.
He’s looking from wall to wall, as though trying to get his head around it.
‘I’m pretty sure Sabine was blackmailing your wife,’ I say slowly. ‘The painting in that video isn’t supposed to exist anymore.’
He looks straight at me. I watch the thoughts dance behind his eyes. And when he speaks the words come out husky. ‘Wait. Do you think Agnès killed her?’ He holds up my phone. ‘Because of this?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, my voice small. ‘But maybe.’
‘Fuck,’ he says, staring at a wall. ‘I don’t know, Harper, I mean she’s batshit crazy, yes, but murder?’
‘I know.’
‘Except…’ He pulls his hands through his hair.
‘What?’
He lets out a big breath. ‘This one time Sabine was talking all about her big exhibition. The one she was going to have at Le Voltage. And I wanted to prepare her for the fact that it might not happen. I knew how little Agnès rated her work. I was trying to be kind and soften the blow. So I told her, look the art world is full of disappointment and Agnès might pull it but it didn’t mean she wasn’t great.’ His eyes are on mine. ‘Do you know what she said?’
‘What?’
‘Just let her try.’
My stomach clenches and the room rings with silence.
An exhibition. Sabine was blackmailing Agnès for an exhibition.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Because now the rest of our conversation from that day in the gallery is floating back. I’m thinking of how Agnès Bisset’s eyes changed when I spoke about that exhibition. ‘She was so excited. Wouldn’t stop talking about it,’ I’d said.
I can almost hear Agnès’s thoughts. She was wondering what else Sabine had told me. How close I was to the one person who knew exactly what she’d been up to; who had evidence to prove it. And whether if I dug deep enough, I might figure out why Sabine was killed.
This is why she’s been having me followed.
And now my throat feels like it’s closing up.
‘Wait, she doesn’t know you’ve seen this, does she?’ Noah asks. He’s looking at me and his voice is dark. ‘You said there was more to it. That’s not why you think she’s following you?’
I shake my head. ‘No,’ I say. ‘She couldn’t know. I’m pretty sure she’s just being careful.’ And as I say it I pray I’m right.
‘Okay, good,’ he says, thinking for a moment. ‘Hang on, what does Philip have to do with it all? What was that document?’ Noah asks and I turn to look at him.
‘I don’t know exactly,’ I say. ‘But Sabine had them in the same folder. They have to be connected. Philip was the seller and I’m pretty sure it has something to do with how they moved the money around for the painting.’
‘We should go to the police,’ he says, turning his whole body towards me. ‘They think I did this. That I killed her. They found the video,’ he continues. ‘The one Sabine took of us. It uploaded to her fucking iCloud and they think I had a reason. If they find one more shred of evidence against me I’m fucked. But this… this could change everything.’
Guilt courses through me. Because if it wasn’t for me the police wouldn’t have been looking for that video. They might never have even got a warrant for her iCloud. He might not be a suspect.
‘We need more,’ I say. Firm.
‘Why? It’s all there.’
I shake my head. ‘If we take it to the police now, Agnès could just say it was a print. Or a fake. The original has officially been destroyed. And there’s nothing on that document that is illegal. Her name isn’t even on it. There is nothing other than the location to link that painting to Agnès even if they did believe it was real. And also, Agnès is basically the Mother Teresa of the art world. Nobody is going to bring her down without a lot more proof. And if she thinks we’re onto her she’ll have a chance to destroy everything. Then you’ll
definitely get the blame.’
The room is so silent that I can hear him swallow.
‘You’re right,’ he says, holding his head in his hands. ‘And she knows everyone. She’ll be protected. I’m so fucked.’
He looks at me. ‘But what other proof is there?’
‘We need something linking her to it all. This is most likely not the first time she’s done something like this, it’s just the first one Sabine got on video. There must be documentation somewhere. Do you have access to Agnès’s computers? Know any of her passwords?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘But that wouldn’t help anyway. A few months back she got paranoid as fuck. She wouldn’t let anyone email her anything. Something about cyber crime.’
Or something about that video Sabine took of her computer screen. She’d been compromised and she knew it.
‘Okay…’ I say, thinking.
The room is silent and smells of coffee.
‘Oh my god,’ Noah says, his voice husky. I turn to look at him. ‘This is why she had that tracker on my car. The spyware on my phone. She was trying to keep tabs on what I knew.’ His voice is feeble and his eyes are wide. Like he’s seeing her clearly for the first time.
‘Maybe…’ I say and then I watch as he turns to stare at a wall. His jaw clenches and unclenches. His shoulders tense. But when he looks back to me his gaze is solid.
‘There’s a back room at the gallery,’ he says slowly. ‘That’s where we need to look. Sabine said something once about that room being full of secrets. I thought she was just being Sabine. I mean she was a bit out there. Maybe she was trying to tell me something. Fuck. I can’t believe this.’
I think of the fob in that top desk drawer. The one the mousy-haired girl put in there that day I went past the gallery. Then of the files and the shelving I saw in Sabine’s video of that room. Then the back door. The code I saw him trace that night… a cross.
I could probably get into the gallery one way or another…
‘Do you know the alarm code?’ I ask, thinking of the sensors blinking red from the upper corners of the gallery.
‘Our wedding anniversary,’ he says beneath his breath.
I wait for him to elaborate and pull out my phone to note down the details. But he says nothing.
‘Which is?’ I ask, looking up at him.
He’s frowning now. ‘You don’t think I’m letting you go alone, do you?’ he asks.
‘You’re going to come along and protect me, are you?’ I ask, eyebrows raised.
‘No, of course not.’ He gives the slightest hint of a smile. ‘I’m going to come along and make sure you don’t fuck anything up.’
Chapitre trente
So here we are, full circle. It’s a Saturday morning and I’m back on my sofa, the rain tapping on the roof, the smell of Noah in my hair while I sip coffee and think about Agnès Bisset. Except this time the door is double bolted and there’s no guilt pulsing through me. This time she’s not the victim. This time she can’t hide behind some pristine public image. This time I see her for what she is: the woman who had Sabine killed; the woman who deals in stolen art; the woman who is having me followed.
The woman whose gallery I will be breaking into tomorrow night.
Which would be why, right now, I’m feeling around the bottom of my bag for a couple of bobby pins.
I pull them into the light and adjust them so they look just like the ones on the screen.
I’m watching a YouTube video with corporate music in the background as a well-manicured hand demonstrates how to break into a desk drawer with just two bobby pins. Yes, these videos exist. I’ve already watched it once, but now that I have my tools at the ready I plan on rewatching it a couple more times so I’m ready when the time comes. I just need to somehow get the baubles off the ends of the bobby pins… Maybe a knife? Some pliers? My phone screen lights up from the sofa beside me with a message.
How’s Paris, beautiful? H x
I put down the bobby pins, take a sip of coffee and glare at the message. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Of course I get a message from Harrison today, just as I need to focus. The man has fucking antennae, I tell you. This is because I never called to say thank you for the roses, so now he’s terrified that maybe, finally, I’m healing.
I should just block him. That would be one way to stop his fake-nice overtures. He wouldn’t even know. He’d keep sending his Trojan horses, and never know why they stopped working.
And then it happens.
The way ideas always happen.
One thought links to another and boom.
My breath is quick as I reach for my phone, go to Notes and start to type before the idea deserts me.
That bond. 100 million euro. Klimt. Trojan Horse.
And just like that I know why Sabine had those two videos in the same folder. Philip Crawford-White was selling something, but it wasn’t a bond. Not really. It was a painting. A painting that didn’t exist. He just needed a solid cover story for why that money was going into his account.
A cover story like a bond worth about the same.
But is that sane? Would it even work?
Philip Crawford-White is an uber wealthy guy, so nobody would question the amount, but what about the buyer? What if one day he decided to collect on that bond?
My breath is quick as I reach for my phone and text Thomas.
What would happen if someone went to collect on a bond and the company had no money?
A split second later: typing bubbles.
Then they lose their money. That’s the risk of business. But we can talk about all this when we meet. Tomorrow?
I can’t do tomorrow, of course, because I’ll be breaking into Le Voltage with Noah then. He’s bringing the duct tape. I’m bringing the locksmithery. I wanted to do it tonight, but Noah said that was too risky. The gallery is closed on Mondays, like much else in Paris. So if we do it on Sunday night we’ll have a twenty-four hour grace period before anyone realises the CCTV outside was compromised.
And at least now I know what we’ll be looking for: something, anything, to link Agnès Bisset to Genovexa. And I know it was Agnès who set it up. Because, let’s be fair, Philip would be pretty stupid to set up a company then issue himself a fake bond as a cover story. But what sort of evidence would prove that?
I imagine Thomas sitting there, on that brown leather sofa of his, waiting for my reply. I don’t really want to see him unless I have to, so I give myself a wide girth and type back: Tuesday?
I’ll know if I need any further information by then.
Typing bubbles.
Tuesday.
And then I close down the video and pull up my Word document. My article. Because now I know what to write.
I know not only what Agnès has been doing and how she’s been doing it, but I understand her. Why her image matters so much to her. Why she’s such a stickler for privacy. So terrified of scandal.
Because scandal attracts attention.
And if you’re a criminal, the last thing you want is attention.
Chapitre trente et un
The sound of the upstairs neighbour drilling into a wall rips me from sleep. I pull my eye mask from my face and glare up at the ceiling: I couldn’t sleep last night and it’s a fucking Sunday. Even the church bells have the decency not to ring until just before 11 am on Sundays. But the drilling continues and I turn my gaze to the sky beyond the window. It’s blue with a wisp of apricot and the air is Antarctic. What a beautiful day to become a criminal. I roll over, reach for my phone and squint at it through heavy lids. The screen is full of notifications but there’s one right in the middle. A news notification. I blink hard and focus on it, translating in my head.
My breath catches in the back of my throat.
Noah X arrested over Sabine Roux murder.
I sit up, the walls pulsing in towards me as I tap through to the article and pull it into Reverso.
Noah Parker
, 32, otherwise known as Noah X, has this morning been taken into police custody over the murder of Sabine Roux on 15 October. An informed source revealed this came after a white sheet of fabric traced back to Mr Parker was found near the crime scene… tip-off to police from the public… seen entering the woodland at le Bois de Boulogne in the early hours of Saturday 16 October.
Shit.
I scan the article again: the white sheet of fabric. The ones Noah used to cover his work. I saw those in both his studio and at Le Voltage. How easily his wife could have planted that as evidence. And a tip-off from the public. Please. My bet is that call originated with Agnès Bisset or one of her cohort. But what made her frame Noah? Did she see me there on Friday afternoon? Was I followed after all? Was she worried about what he’d told me? And what does this mean she has in store for me?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The air is icy so I reach for my jumper and pull it on then take my phone through to the kitchen and flick on the kettle. Mr Oiseau is sitting on the terracotta pots outside, like nothing bad has happened and I knock on the window as the hum of the kettle gets louder and louder. My eyes move beyond him and out onto the street: I search the crowd for a tall silhouette. Nothing.
Noah has been arrested.
What if he’s charged?
I bite down on my lower lip.
My phone starts to sing from the countertop and I reach for it. Camilla is calling.
‘Hey,’ I say, spooning coffee into the cafetière with my free hand and spilling it on the counter.
‘So which one?’ Camilla asks.
‘What?’
‘Which outfit? For my interview on Monday?’
‘Sorry, Mills, I just woke up,’ I say.
‘Oh, okay, I texted you some options. Fuck, I’m nervous. This is everything I’ve ever wanted.’
‘You’re made for this job,’ I say, pouring the boiling water as the drilling from upstairs starts up again. Caffeine. I need caffeine. The air smells like coffee now and I reach for a cup from the drying rack by the sink. I’m aware of Camilla speaking but I can’t focus, all I can think about is Noah behind big, steel bars and Agnès out there somewhere and the fact that I can’t break into the gallery alone because he never gave me the stupid alarm codes. So I can’t help him.