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Authors: Eve Paludan,Stuart Sharp

1 Witchy Business (4 page)

BOOK: 1 Witchy Business
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“I’m Niall Sampson. This is Detective Inspector McAndrew.”

I was embarrassed when the police detective looked me over too, but at least with him, it was professional. Actually, it was
totally
professional, which was kind of a new experience for me. Even the PC on the door had been checking me out a little. This one was simply a little suspicious.

“Good luck getting anything out of this one,” he said. I took the grumbling as a sign that I’d met whatever standard he had to count as a colleague of sorts. “We’ve interviewed all the staff. We’ve checked for forensics. So far, nothing.”

“So, I might as well go home?” I suggested with a smile and a tiny push of my talent at the detective.

“I didn’t say that,” DI McAndrew replied. “Though I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

“Better things than trying to do my job?” I shook my head. “I’m sure you’ll understand if I at least try before giving up?”

“I have every faith that you’ll find my Escher,” Niall said then, turning his eyes from DI McAndrew to me. “You have quite a reputation, Ms. Chambers.”

Why did I feel slightly disappointed that he hadn’t called me Elle again? I tried to focus on the job.

“Can you tell me anything that might help our investigation?” I asked DI McAndrew, carefully getting back into his territory.

“Like I said, nothing. No fingerprints are out of place, so far. Only staff and Mr. Sampson. No obvious damage on entry. We’ll keep the file open, in case someone is stupid enough to try to sell the piece, but until then…well, give us a call if you discover anything.” McAndrew handed me his business card.

It was as good as saying that I was on my own. Until I found something, they wouldn’t be throwing effort at a case where there didn’t seem to be a chance of a result. The DI and his forensic support left a minute or two after that, leaving Niall and me alone in the gallery room.

“This is a spectacular room,” I said, unable to help myself.

“I’m glad you appreciate it. Would you like coffee?” he asked, smiling in a way that made it hard to think.

“Hmm?”

“I assume you’ll want to ask me about what happened, Ms. Chambers? Perhaps we could do that over coffee in the living room?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” I said, cursing myself for being so slow. What was wrong with me? Was just being around this man enough to do that? There was something different about him, certainly. Something that felt…I couldn’t say how it felt, only that I hadn’t felt it before. I, of all people, should have been able to label feelings, but not this one.

We walked through to an elegantly furnished room with matched Regency armchairs around a coffee table that looked like it had been brought in from India a hundred years ago. There was a piano in the corner by Wood, Small and Son, at least a hundred years old. A young woman wearing a very plain and businesslike outfit came in to offer us coffee.

“Marie, my assistant,” Niall explained.

“I’ll want to talk to her,” I said, trying to get my mind back on the case, “as well as to any other staff here.”

“That would be Kelly, my housekeeper, and David, my driver.”

I nodded, taking my cell phone out of my bag. It was as easy to make notes on as a notepad, and I wasn’t as likely to lose it. “So, Mr. Sampson—”

“Niall, please.”

“Niall, what can you tell me about what happened here? I know you must have been through it with the police, but I’ll need to put it in my preliminary report to the insurers, and any detail that you can remember might be important.”

 “There isn’t much to say.” He looked over at me apologetically. “I had been out of the house for a few hours at a business meeting. My staff remained behind at home, but they were apparently caught up with their individual jobs, and so didn’t go into the collection gallery for several hours. When I got back, I discovered my Escher had been taken. I called the police and my insurers straight away.”

I needed more details. “I’ll need to hear more about your security arrangements. The make and model of your alarm system, the locks on the doors, and so on.”

Niall smiled. “With that, I mostly followed the arrangements the insurance company suggested.”

“Mostly?”
Mostly
wasn’t a good word when it came to doing things right.

“They wanted me to shut away my collection in a climate-controlled vault.”

I looked at him, trying to gauge him. Trying to get a sense of his emotions. The mixture right then was too complex to get a firm grip on, though. “Why didn’t you?”

“Beauty locked away in a vault would be only a fraction of what it was meant to be. Can you understand that, Elle? That beauty can only be appreciated if it is truly fulfilling what it is meant to be?”

“Of course.”

“This is my home and I like to look at my pieces in a living environment, where I can enjoy them as I wish. Art is about the emotions it produces. There is nothing worse than having a piece of art you have to visit by unlocking a steel door, turning on florescent lights and then standing in a vault to look at it.”

“That environment doesn’t seem do them justice,” I agreed.

“I see you love art, too,” Niall remarked.

“But you don’t put your art out in a public gallery,” I pointed out.

“What can I say?” Niall asked. “I like to enjoy what is mine. A museum, with its opening hours and its restrictions, would make that difficult.”

I smiled, knowing that there was a game behind the words, but not wanting to get caught up in it. I had work to do.

“As an art lover, I do respect your position on security. However, as an insurance investigator, well, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that both a vault and a museum would have been more secure.”

“Of course, I see your point. Tell me though, Elle, could
you
do that?”

Since I was working for his insurers, there should really only have been one answer to that. Yet, it wouldn’t have been the truth, and I got the feeling that not telling the truth would cost me a lot of Niall Sampson’s respect.

“I like art where I can look at it,” I admitted. “It feels…dead, in a vault. But it’s hard to look at when it has been stolen.”

Niall shrugged, making the movement somehow graceful. “I was hoping you would be able to help me with that part. The loss of the Escher is a grave blow to my collection. I feel like a child has been kidnapped.”

“So, you want me to succeed where the police can’t?”

“I suspect that you are capable of far more than they are. Far more than you let yourself believe, maybe.”

I didn’t know what to make of that. Maybe I
would
be able to do things the police couldn’t. I could talk directly to criminals, for one thing. I could act without having to worry about how it would look at a trial, too. As an insurance investigator, I had fewer rules in my way than the police. My employer didn’t mind about chains of evidence, as long as cases got solved. So long as they didn’t have to pay on the claim, the rest didn’t matter so much. And I had my magic. Not that Niall Sampson would know anything about that. Or would he?

“When did you discover the artwork was missing? I mean, all the steps that led up to you noticing that it was gone.”

“Right after I came home from my business meeting.”

I could picture him, coming home after a stressful meeting, wanting to go to his private collection to unwind. I forced myself to focus. “I have a photograph of the Escher of course, from the insurer. Do you have other photos besides the ones for the policy?”

“I’ll have to dig them up and email them to you.”

“Thank you.” I took a sip of the coffee and held in a groan of pleasure. It was
good
coffee.

“What else would you like to know?”

“A little history on the artwork would be nice. I like Escher’s graphic design pieces, but I don’t know this one.”

“It’s somewhat…different to his usual work,” Niall said.

I looked at him over my coffee mug. “Tell me.”

“In 1931 or thereabouts, Escher was illustrating a Dutch horror novel for an acquaintance.” He paused, looking at me carefully as he said, “In English, the title is
The Terrible Adventures of Scholastica
—it was about a woman who was accused of witchcraft in the sixteenth century.”

I kept my expression deliberately blank and waited for him to go on.

 “Back then, one of the methods they used to determine guilt were scales that were used to weigh accused witches. If they failed to weigh in correctly, then they would be killed, usually burned. The scales in the story were, unusually, not rigged. They were honest scales, and in the end, the suspected witch was found innocent.”

“I love a happy ending,” I said, although I was having a harder time letting nothing show on my face. “So, the Escher is what?”

“Escher made woodcuts that were used to make illustrations for the book, as well as illuminated letters.”

I nodded. I’d always enjoyed the richness of those.

Niall kept going. “
The Terrible Adventures of Scholastica
was only printed in Dutch, in a limited edition of 300. There were nineteen or so woodcuts of Escher’s for the book. He made at least one woodcut that was never used in the book. The letter A. That was what was stolen from my collection.”

“Just that. A print of the letter A?” Being a professional, I didn’t point out that it sounded like Sesame Street might be responsible for the crime.

“Not a print,” Niall corrected me. “The actual woodcut block Escher made. It is so rare there is not even a print available of the letter. It is a one-of-a-kind artifact.”

“Even so, to be insured for a million…” I said, stopping only because I suspected Niall wouldn’t like being told that I couldn’t see how his precious artwork could possibly be worth the money.

“There is more that is not public about the woodcut block.” Niall paused. “I have examined it many times. There are mystical symbols carved into it, so densely that it is hard to read them. There are those who say the woodcut is…magical.”

I had a special laugh for those moments when people brought up the idea of magic. One that said
oh, but we don’t believe in nonsense like that, do we
as clearly as possible. I deployed it then and Niall looked at me carefully.

 “I have one of just 300 original copies of
De vreeselijke avonturen van Scholastica
. I was intrigued enough by the story to set about trying to obtain the illustrations in other forms. I found that I could purchase prints from the book. But not of the letter A, you see?”

“That’s why you had to have the wood carving. It’s one of a kind.”

“Yes. I prize one-of-a-kind things.” He shot another smile my way. “I trust you will be discreet with your report to the insurers? All of this…”

“I am very discreet,” I assured him. “Trust me, my insurers aren’t interested in anything beyond whether I recover a stolen object.”

Niall let out a sigh. “That’s good.”

“Has anyone ever shown interest in the Escher woodcut block? Collectors?”

“Almost no one. It’s so obscure that I doubt most people would even understand its value.”

 He had a point there. “Who knows the history?”

“My staff knows bits and pieces. Perhaps there are scholars who might know of the strange hidden symbols, or the rarity value of the block.”

“Who framed it?” I asked, casting around for possible connections to the art world. A framer would often research a piece when he or she worked on it.

BOOK: 1 Witchy Business
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