Brilliant

by Kellogg, Marne Davis

  I wasn’t so sure of that—Owen could be more diabolical than Professor Moriarty—but I didn’t say so. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go to the V and A with you yesterday, Thomas—I love the Rafael cartoons and their Sunday brunch. Was it terrific?”

  “Very.”

  “I was away for the weekend.”

  “So I see.” He smiled broadly. He was looking straight at my neck. “Lucky fellow.”

  “Oh, my God.” My hand flew up to my neck, scene of the incriminating hickey—my scarf was gone. “Oh, God.”

  We both started laughing, and within seconds had tears running down our cheeks. I know my face was bright red. I don’t think I’d ever laughed so hard in my life. It was so ludicrous, so naughty, so ridiculous. And what made it even funnier was that we both knew it. Things like hickeys simply did not happen to people our age, what- ever that was.

  “I swear to God this has never happened to me before,” I told him, although I don’t know why; it wasn’t any of his business. “I’m just absolutely horrified by it.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed on my account. Believe me, whatever you were doing was possibly as much fun, maybe even more, than the museum. Although I wouldn’t bet on it. I haven’t seen a raspberry like that since I was at Oxford.”

  “Raspberry? Oh, my God. How unbelievably cheap.” We both went hysterical again.

  When Mr. Rush and Andrew emerged from the safe, we were still trying to compose ourselves. Then, as bad luck would have it, just as we got outside, the lord mayor of London and the head of Scotland Yard drove up, right off the plane from Norway. That wiped the smile off Commander Thomas Curtis’s face. His jaw set. His troubles were just beginning.

  F O R T Y - F O U R

  Once the initial shock subsided, the sheer magnitude of the event, its repercussions and ripple effects, set in.

  The bombing had quickly been claimed by two separate groups, each proclaiming itself as the true monarchy. But the sad fact was, within hours of the attack, a number of other arrests were made, including a gang of common, bumbling criminals who had followed Dimitri around for a few months looking for the right opportunity and almost blown themselves up in the process. They knew somebody, who knew somebody, who knew somebody who worked for Dimitri’s family. Two of the suspects were the drivers of the Mercedes and the Rolls, and they were arrested in their hospital beds once they regained consciousness.

  “That’s the problem most criminals suffer from,” Thomas explained. “They aren’t very intelligent. They don’t have the horsepower to think things through.”

  We were grateful for the arrests, but wished they’d find someone with a more authentic agenda. It didn’t seem fair or right that a burglary gone awry by common and inexperienced thieves had caused such destruction and suffering.

  Mr. Rush and his family went into seclusion and were provided a round-the-clock, maximum-security detail.

  Everything was on hold. Everything. Except Owen’s and my growing infatuation with each other which “the Troubles,” as Bertram had taken to calling them from his hospital bed, had thrust into high-gear. I experienced each day with a sort of mindlessness, doing my business but really only wondering when I could touch Owen and he would touch me. It was stupid and immature and irresponsible, and I knew it. But I justified it with the fact that I could have been one of those injured in the blast—I could have been killed. What a gratuitous, selfish excuse. I should have been ashamed, and deep down, I was. But for the moment, all I cared about was my physical pleasure. Life was short. I didn’t stop to look at our relationship or wonder where it might be headed, although deep down I probably knew the answer to that, too. If I had any thoughts about the long term, I kept them to myself. Everything was about now.

  Our poor building was condemned until the police completed their investigation and the engineers could determine the extent of the structural damage, which they did in record time. Except for the front of the house, the building had been constructed so solidly two hundred years ago—dirt from the excavation had been used to fill the walls—it was generally sound. Reconstruction commenced and proceeded, at a snail’s pace.

  Every day I walked over to survey the progress, or lack of it, and it broke my heart. Our beautiful home with its windows and front door boarded up and police tape looped along the temporary, plastic mesh fencing like bunting. A police guard in full military combat/riot gear patrolled, front and rear, night and day. I was glad Sir Cramner wasn’t here to see it. To see what the reality of his “fantasy” had wrought. It would break his heart, too.

  Even though certain key employees were permitted access to the St. James’s Square headquarters, the public was not. So, we on the executive staff, who dealt with the public on a regular basis, were obliged to set up interim operations as best we could. The executive offices were temporarily relocated to a ghastly, white-elephant office building at the corner of St. James and St. James’s Place. But when filled with unclaimed furniture and paintings from our warehouse, our quarters had a comfortable, eclectic look, a little Biedermaier here, a little Chippendale there.

  Bertram was released from the hospital. He had a long way to go before he’d be completely healed—he still couldn’t get his full breath—but his sense of humor hadn’t suffered. He began to fancy that the stitched-up cuts on his face made him even more dashing. “Quite Bondian, I think. Don’t you?”

  He spent every day on the phone reassuring clients and potential clients that the losses weren’t as catastrophic as they seemed at first glance. Far from it, in fact. To be sure, the items that were in the process of being auctioned at the time of the explosion were complete losses, as were the displays in the Square-side exhibition rooms. But all the other goods stored in back and underground had escaped unscathed. So, it could have been much, much worse.

  On the plus side, the bomb solved a few problems. Ballantine’s carried a huge amount of expensive insurance, which began to pay damages right off the bat and put our cash flow in a steadier, more dependable and much healthier position than if we were engaged in business as usual. Also, in a special emergency board meeting, Credit Suisse agreed to a further ninety-day extension of the notes. If they foreclosed on us now, their loans would be complete write-offs. It gave us almost six months.

  The Romanov collection itself, slept safely in the cellar vault, protected round-the-clock by heavily armed, private guards. Under their watchful eye, Andrew and his team began the meticulous process of cataloging and authenticating the pieces.

  The collection was the superstar of a glamorous international incident, and because we were its caretakers, we had ringside seats. It was a public relations gold mine. Not the one we’d envisioned, but every time the incident was mentioned, we were, as well. Every time a story appeared about any auction or any auction house, or any kind of jewelry collection, or practically anything Russian, Ballantine & Company got some ink. When it came time to reopen and begin the business of auctioning, we wouldn’t be able to keep the crowds away.

  I’m ashamed to say it, but it crossed my mind that Owen and Dimitri Rush engineered the catastrophe for the publicity.

  F O R T Y - F I V E

  Scotland Yard and Her Majesty’s Home Office had claimants of the jewels coming out of the woodwork and weren’t taking any chances on another robbery attempt. The Ballantine & Company employees who were lucky enough to go back to work in their regular offices and workrooms passed through a harrowing phalanx of security. They were required to carry not only their company identifications, but special police-issued ones as well. Security personnel were rotated daily so none of the employees got to know any of the guards and vice versa.

  We all had to get these special IDs. The background checks and security clearances were intense. When it was my turn, I took special care with my hair and makeup. I knew I was going to be videotaped, so everything I put on—my best three-strand pearl necklace, daytime pearl-and-amethyst brooch and earrings, and a sedate espresso brown Rena Lange suit
—was designed to reflect, soften, and flatter. Oh yes, quite a lot of lip gloss, too. So I was feeling quite sharp when I stepped boldly into the interrogation room at Scotland Yard—well, I’m being dramatic, of course. It wasn’t an “interrogation” room like we see on television, where people get slammed up against the wall and bullied and burst into tears. It was actually a regular conference room, equipped with a video camera on a tripod at the end of the table, a tape recorder, and Commander Curtis, done up today in a nice-looking navy blue suit with a clean shirt and tie. His hair was combed.

  “Commander,” I said.

  “Miss Keswick,” he greeted me formally, as though we’d never met, except his eyes darted to my neck, where makeup concealed the small shadowy remnants of my hickey. He invited me to be seated and explained the interrogation procedures, which were basic and brief. After a few warm-up questions, he headed to the heart of the matter.

  “You have a sealed juvenile record in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Miss Keswick. You’re not required to reveal whatever your infraction was, but I wonder if you’d care to comment?”

  I knew that someday, some way, this would come to light, and I was always ready. I paused to collect myself. “That was so long ago.” I smiled, as though warmed by a fond memory, just as I’d practiced a million times in front of my mirror. “I’d almost forgotten about it, but the fact is, a number of us were arrested for malicious mischief, Commander.”

  “You were arrested for malicious mischief ?”

  “It was the sixties—all the students in America were doing some- thing to be bad.”

  “What sort of mischief ?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Oklahoma, but it’s not exactly a hotbed of dissention. Or activity.”

  “Never had the pleasure.”

  “You haven’t missed much, unless you like oil wells and cows. Anyhow, we draped toilet paper over the trees and the teachers’ cars and tossed paint on the school building and marched around with signs.”

  “And for that, you were arrested?” He was having trouble keeping a straight face.

  “Everyone was getting arrested in those days.”

  “And you were protesting what?” Thomas set out on another tack.

  I cleared my throat. “We were protesting just about everything, but I can’t remember what all our signs said. It was all kinds of things—not so much the war, we weren’t big antiwar people in Oklahoma—mostly we were against curfews and in favor of love, peace, free sex, you know, things teenagers care about.”

  He laughed. “You’re the last person I’d envision doing something like that.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “What did your sign say?”

  “ ‘More Pay for Cops.’ ” I smiled.

  Thomas put his hand across his mouth and sat very still. When he looked at me, his eyes twinkled. “More pay for cops.”

  “That’s Oklahoma for you. It’s a real law-and-order state.”

  “Excuse me.” He left the room, returning shortly with fresh coffee and a new pack of cigarettes, and began again, very sober this time, and we got through it.

  “I’d like to ask you a favor, Commander,” I said. The camera was still rolling. “No one knows about this indiscretion in my past. I’d appreciate your keeping it a confidence.”

  “You have our word, Miss Keswick. Unless it turns out, of course, you were involved somehow in the bombing.”

  “I can assure you, I was not.”

  We stood and I gathered my purse.

  “One last question, Miss Keswick,” he said offhandedly. “What do you know about Gil Garrett?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Garrett, the president of Panther.”

  “Oh, I know who he is . . .” I was perplexed. “. . . but I really don’t know anything at all about him. Why?”

  Thomas shook his head. “Just curious. He seems an unsavory type, his background is obfuscated.”

  “ ‘Obfuscated’? What do you mean?”

  “As far as we can tell, he’s only been Gil Garrett for twenty-or-so years, since he went to work for Mr. Brace in the eighties. He materialized out of nowhere. Well, we’ll get to the bottom of it—probably nothing. Thanks for coming in.” Thomas switched off the video camera.

  “That was the most unprofessional interview I’ve ever done.” He walked me through the maze of offices. “I imagine dinner is still out of the question.”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “I’m still sort of taken.”

  “You are a world of wonder to me, Kick. A bundle of contradictions. On the one hand you’re self-possessed, composed, sophisticated— you’re establishment, upper-crust. Yet, you’ve been arrested for mischief as a teenager, and you’ve gotten a recent hickey on your neck.”

  “Can we just forget the hickey?”

  “One of these days, I intend to get to know you better. I have a feeling you’re probably lots of fun.”

  “Well, of course I’m fun. That’s why I’m taken, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not going anywhere, and even though I don’t know you well, I know you well enough to be confident you’ll get tired of Mr. Brace and his ways before long.”

  “Really.”

  Thomas nodded. “Really. You need a grown-up man, not a peacock.”

  “Well, he is that.”

  “Tell me, do you ever miss Oklahoma? I mean, it couldn’t be more different from here.”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you still have family there?”

  “No. Everybody’s gone now.”

  “I’m sorry. My family’s all gone, too. It’s strange, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I suppose it is. I haven’t really given it much thought.”

  “You’re lucky.” He held the taxi door for me. “I think about it all the time. Incidentally, did the cops in Oklahoma City get more pay?”

  “It was Tulsa, and I haven’t got the slightest idea. But I know they deserved it.”

  In the taxi on the way back to the office, I was almost light-headed with a rush of emotions. I’d talked about my past for the first time. Ever. I mean, none of what I’d said was the truth, except that I had been involved in a small protest march in high school, that was true. Were my mother and father alive? I had no clue and no interest. My child? Oh my, what a complicated, haunting issue that had become for my soul. But that’s not the point. The point I’m trying to get across is that it’d given me a strangely liberating feeling to discuss, in a perfectly relaxed way, the fact that I was from Oklahoma and had a juvenile record. To tell a story from my high school years. To mention that I’d even been to high school at all, or had a life before Ballantine & Company.

  No one had ever asked to hear anything about me, expressed even the slightest interest in my past. Sir Cramner seemed to know that it was a closed and painful subject. And Owen—who wasn’t ever interested in anyone but himself—had never asked again about my past beyond that first evening we had sandwiches in my kitchen, which was fine with me. Our connection was adult, physical, and contemporary. We were of the moment. Our lives might as well have begun the day we met for all we knew about each other, or cared to know.

  So now, to have even this minimal discussion with Thomas had been a very peculiar experience. I liked it and I didn’t. Someone— Commander Thomas Curtis of Scotland Yard of all places—knew something about me that no one else knew, something big, something true. The fact that he thought I was a reformed juvenile delinquent didn’t seem to make any difference to him. He still wanted to take me to dinner. Wasn’t that nice? Okay, so if he really knew the truth, that I’d never reformed, that I was still delinquent, the Shamrock Burglar, in fact, he probably would have felt very differently. He would have arrested me, no matter how charming he thought I was.

  One of these days I’d need to straighten up this messy life of mine. It was getting to be burdensome.

  I also ruminated on his remarks about Gil and his “unsavory, obfuscated” background—no news to me. I coul
d have mentioned that, for starters, he and Owen were planning a scam that would make the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price-fixing scandal of a few years ago look like a business school assignment. That they lived on the edge of their financial seats, much more in the dark than the light. It was obviously out of the question for me to make any such observations, but Thomas’s comments did give me something to think about for a few minutes besides Owen. And sex.

  F O R T Y - S I X

  The Carstairs auction had been postponed for ninety more days, giving Owen and Gil’s crew of forgers and workmen much-needed time to make progress. I didn’t want to have anything to do with that project and told Owen so.

  “It’s exciting,” I said, “but it makes me really, really, uncomfortable to have such an active and visible role. I mean, the fact is, Owen, if this thing were to get blown open, I don’t want to be the one going to jail because I was the one out there giving them orders.”

  This was the truth. My own little operation was just that: mine, and I had it controlled down to the smallest detail. And speaking of small, if I felt I was about to be apprehended with a load of goods, they could vanish in the twinkling of an eye, off a bridge, down a sewer, into someone else’s purse, someone unsuspecting, into an Underground wastebin. I could stand my ground without physically running from the law and making myself suspect. But these men were involved with physically big things: armoires, sideboards, bedsteads, works of art. You get caught with a couple of hot Louis XVI vitrines or a forged Gainesborough in your possession, you—not your goods—have to be what vanishes, and I’m just not that fit. And Owen’s remark at our first luncheon at Cliveden about how stolen or forged decorative arts were not a priority of the government? Well, that’s true in America, but in England, France, and Italy? The preservation and conservation of antiquities are very high priorities, indeed. They prosecute to the full extent of the law. The thought of perpetrating fraud on the sheer physical scale of Owen and Gil’s operation was completely out of the question—it scared me to death. I would be at the mercy of their competence, which I believed to be minimal. I’d sooner quit—take my marbles and scoot.