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Reeve gently took Annis's hand. ‘Come on. We're not needed for this scene.' He put a hand on her elbow and began to move towards the door.

‘No!' Annis hissed desperately, but Reeve was firm.

‘Come on, I want to talk to you.' His grip on her elbow became more insistent, and, knowing she couldn't make a scene, steered her quietly and unobtrusively out of the door.

Once inside Webster's main hall, however, she yanked her arm free. ‘Now look here . . .' she began mutinously.

‘No, you look! Oh, let's take a walk,' he said, exasperatedly. ‘I've found a walled garden that looks pretty deserted to me.'

Annis felt her heart pound, and knew that the last thing she needed was to be alone with him. Pity it wasn't the last thing she wanted, too! As they stepped into Wallace Quad and
headed
towards Becket Arch, she shot him a quick, anxious look. What, exactly, was all this leading up to?

He led her diagonally across the lawns to where a square walled garden shimmered in the afternoon haze. A single, wrought-iron gate allowed access. On it was a white plaque.
PRIVATE Fellows' Garden—No Students Allowed.

‘We can't go in there,' Annis whispered.

‘Why not?'

‘We're not Fellows,' she muttered, but he was already opening the iron gate, which creaked protestingly. Inside, they stood and looked around, admiring the tall hollyhocks, lushly blooming borders, and the neat square cut of lawn.

‘Over here,' Reeve said, pointing to one shady corner, where he sprawled on the grass. Dressed only in a lightweight dark green shirt and black slacks, he looked dark and dangerous. He patted the grass next to him. ‘Come on. I won't bite. Not unless you want me to.'

Annis snarled. ‘You just try it!' she warned him, then collapsed bonelessly to the ground beside him.

‘Good faint,' he said admiringly. ‘Learn it on stage?'

‘For a small TV bit part, actually,' she corrected. Looking up at him, her amber eyes glowed sleepily in the mellow afternoon heat.
‘I
was one of those housemaids who find a body, scream and pass out.' She stretched luxuriously. She was wearing a simple blue cotton summer dress, her long legs were bare and her loose black hair spread across the grass.

‘How nice for you,' Reeve agreed. ‘Now, I want to know what that crack you made in the hot tub was supposed to mean,' he added blandly. Annis shot upright. Her amber eyes narrowed.

Talk about being ambushed! ‘What do you mean?' she asked warily.

‘I mean,' he said, meeting her eyes boldly. ‘Do you really just see me as a roll in the hay for the duration of our visit to Oxford. Or were you just blowing bubbles?'

He'd had time to think, since she'd caught him so unawares that time, just after leaving the tub, And for a sophisticated woman who just wanted a casual fling, she was behaving very oddly indeed. Avoiding him. Keeping him at arm's-length. Looking as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. Hardly the picture of a carefree woman out for a bit of harmless fun—which had given him at least some hope. He tried to ignore the cold clammy feeling that washed over him as he realised how easily this could all backfire on him. If he'd read her wrong.

‘Now just a minute,' Annis huffed. ‘I meant every damned word I said,' she angled her chin up. Just who did he think he was?

‘You
don't love me then?' he asked quietly.

Her heart stalled. ‘Hah!' she forced herself to snort scornfully. ‘Fancy yourself, don't you?'

‘You don't want to see me again when we leave Oxford?'

She licked painfully dry lips. She managed a magnificently nonchalant shrug. ‘I don't suppose that it will matter, one way or the other.'

‘So what happened the other afternoon meant nothing?' he persisted, struggling to control his elation, because he was beginning to see right through her.

Annis blushed. ‘Oh that.' She turned to tweak a blade of grass. ‘It was nice of course,' she murmured.

‘Nice?' Reeve protested and Annis grinned. She couldn't help it. Now that
had
hit home, hadn't it? She turned to him, mischief glimmering amongst the gold flecks in her eyes. ‘That's rather a shame,' Reeve said, seeing her smile falter. ‘Because that afternoon with you meant a hell of a lot to me.'

Annis frowned. ‘It did?' Careful she thought. He's an actor, remember. He can do ‘sincere' standing on his head.

‘Yes. And if it's all the same to you, I'd rather like to keep on seeing you, when we get back to London.'

‘You would?'

‘Yes. So, what do you say?'

‘About
what?'

Reeve growled. The sound rumbled from his throat like the warning from a wild animal before it leaped upon its helpless prey.

‘Annis—it's time to quit stalling. Admit all that talk in the tub was just so much hot air—and come here!'

A bee, drowsy and full of pollen, backed out of a foxglove, buzzed loudly around his dark curly head before heading for a Californian poppy. Annis watched it, then, slowly, looked up into his dark-blue eyes.

‘All right,' she said. She could take a gamble as well as the next girl, when she had to. ‘So I was feeling a bit defensive. But look at it from my point of view. You're the great super-stud, so-handsome-he-hurts-your-teeth Reeve Morgan. You'd just seduced me in the hot tub.'

‘
I
seduced you?' he exclaimed. ‘I like that!
You
were the one who dropped your robe and waltzed down into the tub
—
like Cleopatra with “attitude”. And, it was
your
foot, I seem to remember, that had trouble keeping itself to itself!'

Annis waved a hand vaguely in the air. ‘Whatever,' she said off-handedly. ‘The fact was, I felt as though I was just another notch on your belt. So, the last thing I wanted to hear, was all the usual stuff men dish out at times like that. About how commitment was over-rated, etc.,' she added grimly, her eyes troubled and just a little hurt.

Reeve
felt all sense of levity drain away. ‘So you thought you'd get it in first, hmm?' he queried. And in a way, it made sense. ‘But if you'd just kept that lovely mouth of yours shut for a few seconds longer,' he continued, ignoring the way her eyes flashed and her chin jutted out, ‘You'd have heard me tell you that, unbelievable as it may seem, I've fallen head over heels in love with you.'

Annis felt the ground beneath her shift. She felt the elbow on which she was leaning, give way, half-tipping her back on to the grass. She straightened her arm again. She'd gone very pale. ‘Head . . . ?' she whispered.

‘. . . Over heels,' Reeve finished, helpfully. ‘So you see, if it's all the same to you . . .'

Annis squealed and launched herself at him, pressing him back against the grass, knocking the breath out of him.

‘Stop!' Reeve laughed, but then her mouth was on his, her legs tangling with his, her hands finding their way inside his shirt, and allowing her fingertips to roam over his chest—and suddenly he didn't want her to ‘stop' after all.

*          *          *

When the train from Paddington pulled in at a few minutes past five, Frederica was sitting in a silent and deserted Ruskin, staring at her canvas, ‘Post-Millennium Home.' She'd
walked
down from Magdalen Bridge on her own, having said goodbye to Lorcan after a quiet and emotional hour on the river. He'd seemed distant. Mad that his ploy hadn't worked? Or really hurt that she hadn't trusted him? She sighed and continued to stare at her paintings for a long, long time.

Which was why she wasn't in her room when Richard Braine tapped on her door. Receiving no answer, he tried the handle, found it open, and stepped inside. He went straight to the canvas on the easel and yanked the sheet away.

An almost completed painting looked back at him. It was exquisite—one of the best forgeries he'd ever come across.

The Mill had no conservatory.

‘Oh Lorcan,' Richard said sadly. ‘You idiot!'

*          *          *

Back in the JCR at St Bede's, Gerry stormed off, threatening a divorce and slamming the door behind her. Julie burst into tears. John tried to comfort her. The rest of the conference delegates, forgetting it was supposed to be an inter-active game, burst into spontaneous applause. Ray Verney filtered out with the rest of the group, watching Carl Struthers linger behind to inspect one of the paintings—a brace of pheasants, painted by a competent enough, but uncollectable, artist. He frowned.

He
didn't like having Struthers around. Not when he was this close to making the switch. Sighing, and fighting back a tingling sense of fear and anticipation, Ray made his way to the Bursar's office and knocked.

The Bursar, a grey-haired and distinguished man, looked up with watery blue eyes that blinked at Ray from behind tortoiseshell-framed glasses.

‘Oh, yes, Mr Verney isn't it? How's the whodunit coming along?'

Ray beamed. ‘Splendidly. That's why I'm here. You remember you agreed to help our plot along by removing one of the paintings from Hall for us, and keeping it in your safe?' he prompted, looking around the room vaguely. The safe was a concealed one, but Ray had no trouble guessing that it was housed in the fake cupboard set flush against one wall.

‘Oh yes,' the Bursar rose. ‘So it's time is it?'

Ray could hardly believe it was all working out so easily, but within minutes they'd collected the Principal and were trooping into Hall.

It didn't take long to carefully remove the painting by Hogarth from the wall. Ray, being so close to it now, was practically trembling, but that didn't stop him from helping them to carry it back to the Bursar's office. The Bursar, something of an antiquarian, very competently set about removing it from its frame. It was, of course, to reside in the safe during the course
of
the play—something insisted upon by the insurers.

Ray let himself be steered tactfully out by the Principal, beamed at him, thanked him profusely yet again for helping out their little production in this way, and trotted off, the image of the gorgeous Hogarth still imprinted on the back of his greedy eyes.

Soon, now. Soon.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dinner in Hall went well. Next day, at lunch, the Bursar would exclaim in horror over the missing painting, pointing out its ‘theft'. Those who had failed to notice it missing over dinner tonight, would be kicking themselves then.

Ray, eating his avocado starter, glanced nervously at Carl Struthers. To Ray, it was obvious how much the reclusive, anti-social millionaire coveted the Hogarth. He'd done nothing but stare at it every time they'd been in Hall. Luckily, though, no one else seemed to have noticed his preoccupation with it.

Ray leaned back in his chair and wondered, idly, if he should change his plans and make the switch tonight. But no. He'd already decided when and how to do it. Changing plans at the last minute was always dangerous. He could wait.

*          *          *

When Lorcan pulled up in front of his house the sun was just developing a reddish tint. A blackbird sang in a cherry tree, its melodious song filling the evening air. But he was in no mood for anything beautiful. He was reaching for his key when something moved behind him. He spun round, the key pointing outwards, ready to attack any drug-crazed mugger or his associates.

Richard Braine grinned, took a backward step, and held up both his hands. ‘Don't shoot,' he drawled.

Lorcan frowned. ‘Dammit it Richard, what the hell are you doing here? And why are you skulking about in the bushes?' Now that the initial adrenaline rush had subsided, he felt a cold, unpleasant sensation snake up his back. He ushered his friend into the lounge. ‘Want a drink?'

‘Scotch, if you have it.'

‘I always have good Scotch,' Lorcan agreed cheerfully, and thought grimly, ‘What's he doing here?' He poured them both a drink, and when they were sitting in matching comfortable arm chairs, facing each other like two wary gladiators in the ring, he said quietly, ‘So, what brings you to the city of Dreaming Spires, Richard?'

‘You do. Or rather, you and Miss Frederica
Delacroix
do.'

Lorcan took another sip of whisky. Not a flicker of emotion, alarm, or even interest, crossed his face. ‘Oh?'

Richard smiled. ‘I had a search warrant for her place at the Ruskin. I thought I'd come and take a look.' Was it his imagination, or did the gallery owner seem to relax just a little? ‘And, of course, I had another one for her room at St Bede's,' he added, as if as an afterthought.

Lorcan took another sip of the scotch and leaned his head further back against the chair, the epitome of a man at ease. ‘And . . . ?'

‘And I found an exact replica of Forbes-Wright's “The Old Mill and Swans”,' Richard said, waiting patiently, like a cat at a mouse hole.

For a long while Lorcan said nothing, his mind racing. Was the policeman bluffing? No, somehow he didn't think so. Did he know that he, Lorcan, had deliberately lied to him? Lorcan mentally shook his head. No, Richard couldn't know. He might very strongly suspect, though. He had to find a way of getting back in Richard's confidence. He had to think, dammit.

And Lorcan Greene could think very fast and very well. Lorcan Greene could do most things very well. ‘I see,' he said slowly. ‘Then she's done two copies,' he mused, watching his old friend carefully, trying to gauge his
reaction.
‘The one I found, that she's painting over in her own style. And another.' He paused, then went on a fishing expedition. ‘Did you find the one in her own style at the Ruskin?'

Richard frowned. A tiny pulse jerked in his jaw, and Lorcan was on to it in a moment. A hesitation. A hint of . . . confusion. ‘No,' Richard finally said. ‘When I found the copy in her room, I didn't go on to the Ruskin,' he admitted slowly. ‘There didn't seem to be much point.'