by Sara Rosett
“Zoe, we’re partners with Harrington. Keep him updated…while you innovate. He won’t appreciate being kept in the dark. If one of his contacts can’t help you, he needs to know.”
“I suppose that’s true. I just don’t want it to look like I don’t know what to do without him telling me.” Zoe reached the Royal Mile and paused at a crosswalk, waiting for a light. “Although, that’s how I feel.” The light changed, and she walked across the street. “Maybe the daughter will have some news for me. I’m on my way to meet her now. I’ll have to call Harrington later.”
“I see your feint there—that change of subject.”
“Sometimes I think you know me too well.” Zoe couldn’t help the smile that crept onto her face.
“I’ve got a line on a couple of your moves, that’s all. Good luck with the daughter. Let me know how it goes.”
“I will. And good luck to you, on the presentation.”
Jack made a grumbling sound. He wasn’t exactly fond of speaking in front of a crowd. He’d spent most of his life avoiding attention. Being in the spotlight made Zoe’s normally cool and collected husband sweat bullets, but they’d worked hard on prepping him for his presentation.
“You’re going to do fine. This is where all those video recordings pay off.”
“Yeah. I want evidence that you deleted those, by the way.”
“Of course.” Zoe moved through the arched tunnel entry to John’s Close.
“Zoe,” Jack said in a warning tone.
“See,” Zoe said, exasperated. “You do know me too well. Some of those bloopers were just too funny to delete, but fine. I’ll delete them.”
“Zoe.”
“I will as soon as I get home. I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t think about that now,” Zoe said. “You’ll do great. You know your stuff, and I know you look terrific.” Jack would wear one of his Italian suits that he’d picked up on sale during his time working at the consulate in Naples.
“You’ll be fine, too. You’ll figure out something. Just stay safe.”
“I will. Oh, I think that’s the daughter. I have to go.” As Zoe crossed the courtyard, a woman with short brown hair wearing a dark trench coat and carrying a bag of groceries with a loaf of bread sticking out of it walked to the door set in the turret of Staircase House.
3
ZOE PICKED UP HER PACE and joined the woman at the door. “Hello. Are you Poppy Foley?”
The woman jerked toward Zoe with a sharp intake of breath.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Zoe Andrews. I work with Harrington Throckmorton. I’m here about the painting.”
“Oh right.” She put out her hand. “Nice to meet you. Let me get this unlocked, and we can get inside.” Poppy was shorter than Zoe, about five feet tall, and had slightly protruding brown eyes and a long, narrow nose. The mist layered a fine spray of water over both of them. Poppy didn’t have an umbrella either, and she had the same type of hair as Zoe’s. Her chin-length bob was curling into spiral strands under the moisture. Poppy found the key she wanted and opened a thoroughly modern deadbolt that looked a bit at odds with the aged, rough wood of the door that was studded with iron.
The wood of the door around the lock and along the frame had the same antique look, but no fresh scars or gouges marred the wood. Zoe had learned a few things from Jack about security. “So either the intruder didn’t get in this way, or they had a key,” Zoe said as she followed Poppy onto the small landing of a circular staircase, which curved up to higher floors and down to the basement.
“What?” Poppy turned in the small area and looked back at the open door.
“The break-in. When the painting was stolen. This door wasn’t damaged.”
“No. It wasn’t.” Poppy reached around Zoe and closed the door. “The window upstairs was broken. That’s how they got in. Do you mind setting the bolt? Thanks.”
Zoe locked the door then followed Poppy up the steps toward the first floor.
Poppy continued speaking over her shoulder. “We get so many tourists, mostly architecture buffs, asking if they can take a quick look around.” She rolled her eyes. “And then they pester you with questions about building materials and dates of construction, which I don’t know anything about. The only thing I do know is that this house was built in 1622 and has many original features.”
Zoe followed Poppy up the curving stone staircase. The lower half of the walls enclosing the staircase were painted a rich red while the upper half was cream. At the next floor, the second story, Poppy stepped onto another small landing and moved through a doorway into a long airy room painted in the same deep red tone as the staircase. Oak trim lined the walls as well as the tall windows that reached all the way to the high ceiling. A fireplace dominated the right side of the room while an oak bannister enclosing a minstrel’s gallery ran along the upper portion of the left side of the room. Despite the dark wood trim and dark walls, the high ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows gave the room an open feeling.
Poppy set down the groceries on a table near the door and dropped her purse beside it. “Can I take your coat?” She shrugged out of her own trench coat.
“Yes, thank you,” Zoe handed off her raincoat, which Poppy hung on a coat tree by the door. After Zoe removed a small spiral notebook, pen, and her phone from her messenger bag, she placed her bag on the table by Poppy’s purse. Since she’d never done this before, she wasn’t quite sure what she’d need, but a pen and paper seemed a good thing to have.
“All right. Where would you like to start?” Poppy straightened the hem of her pink cardigan, then fidgeted with her hands, finally shoving them in the pockets of her black pants. A burglary tends to make people jittery, so Zoe didn’t start with that topic. Instead she said, “First let me tell you that Harrington is so sorry he couldn’t be here in person.”
Poppy smiled. “Dear Uncle Harry. He’s not really my uncle, of course. We just called him that when we were kids, my brother and I. He came to visit us quite a bit at Frampton Downs.”
Harrington hadn’t mentioned the name of the Foley’s country estate, but Zoe assumed that was what Poppy was referring to.
Poppy looked more at ease as she continued, “I wish Uncle Harry could have been here, too, but I have complete confidence in you. He wouldn’t send someone who couldn’t complete the job.”
Zoe’s insides twisted, thinking that with only chic Violet in her corner, the odds of finding the painting were long, but Zoe put on her most reassuring and confident smile. “Thank you. Now, why don’t you show me where the painting was located?”
“Yes, of course. That’s the logical place to start. This way.” She headed for another staircase located under the minstrel’s gallery. The staircase ran straight up the wall to the gallery. “Mind this step.” She pointed to a step about halfway up the staircase that was painted white, a contrasting color to the rest of the cream colored steps. “It was intentionally made higher than the others so that an intruder would stumble on it and give themselves away.”
“Very clever. An early burglar alarm,” Zoe said, filing the tidbit away to tell Jack. He’d find it interesting.
“Yes, unfortunately it didn’t do a thing to prevent someone from taking Aunt Annabel’s View of Edinburgh.” Poppy walked along the narrow passage at the top of the stairs. It opened out into the minstrel’s gallery, a loft-type area that overlooked the room below. A couple of chairs covered in a faded floral print fabric and a small desk filled the space. The walls, edged in dark wood trim, were covered in groupings of artwork, which included paintings and some photographs that looked as if they’d been taken shortly after the invention of the camera.
Poppy stopped in front of what had been a grouping of three paintings. “It was here.” She pointed to the empty space between two gorgeous oil paintings of date palms done in vibrant colors, obviously some of Annabel Foley’s later work.
“These are gorgeous,” Zoe sai
d, studying the remaining paintings.
“Yes, they’re lovely.” Poppy shook her head. “I don’t understand why they didn’t take these as well. I mean, I’m so glad they didn’t, but it is rather odd.”
“Yes, strange,” Zoe murmured. Harrington had included the dimensions of the painting, nine inches by seven inches, slightly bigger than a sheet of typing paper. “Do you mind if I take some photos?” Zoe asked, thinking that it would be so easy to slip the painting into a backpack or even a large handbag.
“Go ahead.” Poppy stepped back, her hands buried in her pockets.
Zoe used the camera on her phone to photograph the space where the painting had been then took close-ups of the paintings on each side of the blank spot.
“Why are you interested in these other paintings?” Poppy asked.
Zoe couldn’t say, I’m winging it here, so she replied, “Just being thorough.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll leave you to it…” Poppy trailed off uncertainly as she backed toward the staircase.
“Wait. Can you show me where the break-in happened?”
“That window there.” Poppy pointed beyond Zoe’s shoulder to a large window near the seating area of the loft. “It was broken, but it’s been repaired.”
Zoe moved to the window and photographed it. Most of the panes of glass were wavy with age, giving the impression that you were looking through thick, syrupy air that had somehow broken the laws of nature and been frozen in place. Two panes near the lever-like handle that opened the window were filled with glass so clear that Zoe could see a few dust motes floating outside the window. A fire escape hugged the building outside the window ledge. “Do you mind if I open it?”
“No, go ahead.”
“There’s no alarm?” Zoe asked.
Poppy laughed briefly. “Well, yes, there is an alarm system, but it was installed in the early eighties. I don’t think it’s been used for ten years. It’s so glitchy, we don’t even bother to set it.”
After a brief struggle with the latch, Zoe pushed the window open, letting in a cold draft. She leaned out and quickly photographed the metal fire escape as well as the window ledge. Zoe was pretty sure they didn’t have metal fire escapes when the building was constructed in 1622, but it didn’t look much newer than that. She wasn’t going out on it. She quickly closed and refastened the window then turned back to Poppy, who was gathering up several papers that had blown off a nearby desk in the sudden gust of wind.
She handed them to Zoe. “This is all the information I have about the painting.”
“Thanks.” Zoe flicked through the thin stack. She didn’t see anything that she hadn’t already read in Harrington’s briefing. In fact, Violet had told her more about the painting itself than the sketchy information in these papers. The last item in the file was a large photograph of the painting. Zoe pulled it out and examined it. It was larger than the image Harrington had attached to his email.
Poppy said, “It’s a little blurry. It was a group photo taken up here. I cropped the people out and blew it up as large as I could. Uncle Harry said to give you any photos of the painting. This is all I could find.”
“This is very helpful.” Zoe tucked the photo back into the file. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Did anyone in particular admire the painting? Had anyone ever offered to purchase it from your family?”
“No.” Poppy shrugged. “Nothing like that.”
“Well, what can you tell me about it? Your family must have talked about it. Your mother is fond of it?”
“Yes, that’s right. Very fond of it.” She motioned to the chairs. “Won’t you sit down? I’ll tell you what I can, but it’s not much. Mother has always loved it,” Poppy said as they sat down. “That’s why I called Uncle Harry. If it can be recovered, it would be the best thing. She’s had such a shock recently.”
“Harrington told me about your father. I’m sorry,” Zoe said.
“Yes, that was incredibly hard.” Poppy looked down and sucked in a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” Zoe repeated and wondered if she should offer to look for some tissues.
But Poppy pressed a hand to her mouth for a moment then recovered her composure. “No, I’m the one who is sorry. Father’s stroke was so sudden. Only a few weeks after it happened, he was gone.” She blinked a few times. “Mother has decided to sell this place.” Her gaze ranged over the gallery and down to the main room. “When the subject came up, the first thing mother mentioned was A View of Edinburgh and how she wants to hang it in the flat in London. Of course, when I realized it was gone I didn’t mention it to her. She’s rather…delicate…at the moment. If you can find the painting, I can take it back to her when I return to London in a few days. Do you think that will be possible?”
Poppy gazed at Zoe, a pleading look in her bulging eyes, but Zoe knew better than to make an outright promise. “I’ll do everything I can to find it. Let’s go through exactly what happened. Was it stolen while you were here? You don’t live here full-time, do you?”
“No. I only came up on Monday to begin preparations to sell the house. That’s when I found the broken window.” Poppy had recovered from her weepy state, and now there was an edge of anger to her tone. Zoe could identify. When her house in Dallas had been broken into, Zoe had felt the same way. While Zoe could understand Poppy’s emotional state, her words made Zoe’s hopes of wrapping up this case quickly do a nose-dive. “So how long had the house been unoccupied?” Zoe asked.
“For several months. No one has been up here since, oh I don’t know, probably November.”
“So that painting could have been taken anytime between November and Monday?”
“Oh no. Everything was fine last Thursday. Mrs. Reid comes every Thursday to check the house and clean. She would have called if the window was broken. It had to have happened sometime between Thursday afternoon and when I arrived on Monday. Mrs. Reid always finishes by noon.”
“Okay,” Zoe said, feeling somewhat relieved. At least she could narrow down the time of the painting’s disappearance to within the last week. “I’d like to talk to Mrs. Reid.” Zoe opened her notebook and wrote down the name on the first pristine page.
“Of course.” Poppy half-pushed off from the cushions, then dropped back down. “I don’t have her phone number in my phone. She’s just got a new mobile, and I don’t have her new number with me, but I can get it for you.”
“That would be good. Now, what about neighbors? Have you talked to anyone?”
Poppy reared back. “No, I haven’t said a word to anyone, except Uncle Harry. Mother knows absolutely everyone. She’s very social, and I didn’t want to risk any whisper about the missing painting getting back to her.” She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “And it probably doesn’t matter anyway.” The house next door is for let. It’s been empty an age, and the other closest building, the one that forms the nearest corner of the close, is under renovation. So, only workmen coming and going there.”
“But someone might have seen something,” Zoe said.
Poppy looked distressed. “Please, isn’t there something else you can do? Some other thing you can focus on? I know talking to people around the close will be useless.”
Zoe doubted that Mrs. Foley’s social circle extended to the construction workers in a specific building in Edinburgh, but Zoe bent her head over her notebook and made a note on possible witnesses. She wasn’t about to alienate Poppy. She was the client, after all. Zoe had learned through dealing with clients in her various temp jobs that the client might not always make the best choices and decisions, but the client was always right. At the end of the day, the client paid the bill. “We can hold off on that, for now. You do understand that Harrington has asked a local art dealer to put out the word that we’re interested in the painting?”
“Yes. He explained that.” Poppy didn’t look happy. “I’d rather not do that either, but he said we didn’t have a choice.”
“That’s true.”
“No, but I met with her before I came here. I promise I’ll contact you the moment I hear something.” Zoe verified that she had her correct phone number then said, “Okay, so is there anything else you can think of that could help us?”
“No. I’m sorry, but I can’t think of any reason someone would waste time and risk breaking in here to get a painting that only has sentimental value.”
Ivan Barrows, Head of Special Collections at one of Edinburgh’s finest institutions of higher learning, closed his eyes as his assistant, located at her desk outside his office door, honked into yet another tissue. Ivan closed his laptop with a snap. He’d leave work early today. He couldn’t concentrate on the department budget with all that sniffling and sneezing going on mere feet from him. His glance slid to the tiny window where a square of pale gray sky today had replaced the usual square of dark gunmetal gray sky. The weather the last few days had been horrendous—either solid sheets of rain drumming straight down or sheets of rain blowing sideways. A cold, cloudy day was an improvement.
He shrugged into his leather coat and wrapped his wool Armani scarf around his neck. He packed his laptop and a few files into his briefcase then turned off his office lights.
“You’re leaving?” Alice Wicks asked from behind a tissue she was using to swab her bright pink nose.
“I have an appointment.”
“You don’t have anything on your calendar.”
“It’s personal.” Ivan strode away quickly as he called over his shoulder, “Have a good weekend.”
He trotted down the exterior steps of the library, drawing in great breaths of the painfully chilly air, contemplating his options. He could go home, of course, but all he had at home was a tin of tomato soup and some stale bread, and his stomach was rumbling for lunch. No, he’d head over to that little antique shop on Prince’s Street and get something to eat on the way. He could look through that collection of books that the owner had emailed him about. Stuart had tipped him off to several nice finds in the past. It might be worth his time.