The Gilded Seal

JAMES TWINING

The Gilded Seal

DEDICATION

To Amelia and Jemima

‘When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies’

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

This novel was inspired by the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 and its eventual recovery in 1913, an event which triggered one of the largest criminal investigations in history and to which the Mona Lisa owes much of her present-day fame.

All descriptions and background information provided on works of art, artists, thefts, forgery detection techniques and architecture are similarly accurate. Unfortunately, the Claremont Riding Academy, which is briefly featured in this novel, announced its closure shortly before publication, but the description was left unchanged as a tribute to the sad passing of a much loved New York landmark.

For more information on the author and on the fascinating history, people, places and artefacts that feature in The Gilded Seal and the other Tom Kirk novels, please visit www.jamestwining.com

EXCERPT

Extract from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects by Giorgio Vasari (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)

Leonardo undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife.

In this head, whoever wished to see how closely art could imitate nature, was able to comprehend it with ease; for in it were counterfeited all the minutenesses that with subtlety are able to be painted…

…The nose, with its beautiful nostrils, rosy and tender, appeared to be alive. The mouth, with its opening, and with its ends united by the red of the lips to the flesh-tints of the face, seemed, in truth, to be not colours but flesh. In the pit of the throat, if one gazed upon it intently, could be seen the beating of the pulse. And, indeed, it may be said that it was painted in such a manner as to make every valiant craftsman, be he who he may, tremble and lose heart.

And in this work of Leonardo’s there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold; and it was held to be something marvellous, since the reality was not more alive.

The Washington Post, 13th December 1913

Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s great painting, which was stolen from the Louvre, in Paris, more than two years ago, has been found [and a man arrested]. It is now in the hands of the Italian authorities and will be returned to France.

Mona Lisa or La Joconde as it is more properly known, the most celebrated portrait of a woman ever painted, has been the object of an exhaustive search in all quarters of the globe. The mystery of its abstraction from the Louvre, its great intrinsic value, and the fascination of the smile of the woman it portrayed … have combined to keep alive interest in its recovery.

On being interrogated, the prisoner said his real name is Vincenzo Peruggia…‘I was ashamed,’ he said ‘that for more than a century no Italian had thought of avenging the spoliation committed by Frenchmen under Napoléon when they carried off from the Italian museums and galleries, pictures, statues and treasures of all kinds by wagonloads, ancient manuscripts by thousands, and gold by sacks.’

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Historical Background

Excerpt

Prologue

Part I

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Part II

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Part III

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

Fifty-Eight

Fifty-Nine

Sixty

Sixty-One

Sixty-Two

Sixty-Three

Sixty-Four

Sixty-Five

Sixty-Six

Sixty-Seven

Sixty-Eight

Sixty-Nine

Seventy

Seventy-One

Seventy-Two

Seventy-Three

Seventy-Four

Seventy-Five

Seventy-Six

Seventy-Seven

Seventy-Eight

Seventy-Nine

Eighty

Eighty-One

Eighty-Two

Eighty-Three

Eighty-Four

Eighty-Five

Eighty-Six

Eighty-Seven

Eighty-Eight

Eighty-Nine

Epilogue

Note from the author

Website

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Other Works

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous

Napoléon I

PROLOGUE

Macarena, Seville, Spain

14th April (Holy Thursday) – 2.37 a.m.

It started with a whisper; a barely voiced tremor of suppressed anticipation that rippled gently through the expectant crowd.

‘Pronto. Pronto estará aquí.’ Soon. She’ll be here soon.

But the whisper evaporated almost as quickly as it had appeared. Snatched from their lips by a capricious wind, it was carried far above their heads into the warm night, only to be casually tossed between the swirling currents like autumn leaves being chased across a park.

It was replaced, instead, by the distant sound of a lone trumpet, its plaintive, almost feminine cry echoing down the winding, cobbled street. This time, people made no attempt to conceal their excitement, and their faces flushed with a strange inner glow.

‘Ahora viene. Viene La Macarena.’ She’s coming. La Macarena is coming.

The crowd, almost ten deep on both sides of the street, surged forward against the steel barriers that lined the route, straining to see. In between them, the dark cobblestones flowed like a black river, their rippled surface glinting occasionally in the flickering light.

The man allowed himself to be carried forward by the breathless host, sheltering in the warm comfort of the anonymity they provided. In the crowd, but not of it, his eyes skipped nervously over the faces of those around him rather than the approaching procession. Had he lost them? Surely they couldn’t find him now.

He caught his own reflection in the polished rim of a lantern being carried by a woman in front of him. His leathered skin, dark eyes glowing like hot coals, the steep cliff of his jaw, the ruby-coloured razor slash of his lips, his wild mane of white hair. The unmistakeable mask of despair. He had a sudden vision of an ageing lion, standing on some high promontory, taking one last look at his territory stretching towards the horizon and at his pride, lazing beneath him in the setting sun’s orange-fingered embrace, before heading quietly into the bush to die.

A cheer drew his gaze. The first nazarenos had swung into view. Sinister in their matching purple cloaks and long pointed hats, they trooped silently past, their faces masked with only narrow slits for eyes, a black candle grasped solemnly in one hand. Behind them, a marching band dictated a steady pace.

‘¡Está aquí! ¡Está aquí!’ She’s here! She’s here! A small boy with long golden hair had fought his way through to where he was standing and was jumping to try and get a better look. The man smiled at his eagerness, at his uncomplicated and breathless excitement and, for a moment, forgot his fear.

‘Todavía no. ¿Ves?’ Not yet. See? He swept the boy off the ground and lifted him above his shoulders to show him how far the procession still had to run before the solid silver float containing the statue of the Virgen de la Esperanza Macarena would appear.

‘Gracias, Señor.’ The boy gave him a faint kiss on the cheek before diving through the legs of the people in front with a snatched wave.

The first flower-strewn float shuffled past – the sentencing of Christ by Pontius Pilate. The faint aroma of incense and orange blossom drifted to him on a mournful sigh of wind and he breathed in deeply, the smells blending harmoniously at the back of his throat like cognac fumes. How had it come to this? It had all happened so long ago now. Forgotten.

He looked back to the procession and saw that the nazarenos had given way, temporarily at least, to two rows of penitentes – those who sought to repent of their sins by walking the processional route barefoot and with heavy wooden crosses slung over their shoulders. He smiled ruefully at the sight of their bruised and bloodied feet, part of him wanting to take his place alongside them, the other knowing it was too late.

A sudden break in their sombre ranks afforded him a clear view right through to the other side of the street. There several monaguillos, children dressed as priests, were handing out sweets to the people standing in the front row. They were all smiling, the peal of their laughter filling the air. All apart from one man who, his phone pressed to his ear, was staring straight at him.

‘They’re here,’ he breathed. ‘They’ve found me.’

He turned away, instinctively heading against the flow of the procession to make it harder for anyone to follow him. Elbowing his way through the crush, he came to a narrow street and darted up it, past a drunk pissing in one doorway and some kids making out in another, the boy’s hand shoved awkwardly up the girl’s top. Halfway along, he veered right down a side alley where bright banners and wilting flowers hung lazily from low, sagging balconies.

He skidded to a halt outside a large wooden gate. The sign nailed to it indicated that the building was currently being renovated by Construción Pedro Alvarez. That meant it was empty.

It only took him a couple of seconds to spring the padlock open. He stepped inside and carefully closed the gate behind him, finding himself in a small courtyard littered with paint-spattered tools and broken terracotta tiles. A dog had fouled the large pile of sand immediately to his left.

In the middle stood a well. He made his way to it. It was disused, a black grille over the opening rendering the bucket suspended above it purely ornamental. This was as good a place as any.

A match flared in the darkness and he held it to his small notebook. The dry paper clutched at the flame, drawing it in like water, the fire gnawing hungrily at the pages’ pale skin until only the charred spine remained. He glanced towards the gate. He still had time. Time to leave some clue as to what he had discovered before it was too late.

The knife bit into his palm, the blood welling up through the deep gash and then oozing through his fingers, sticky and warm. He had barely finished when the gate burst open.

‘Está allí. Te dijé que le iba a encontrar. ¡Venga! ¡Venga! Antes de que se vaya.’ He’s in here. I told you I’d find him. Quick! Quick! Before he gets away.

He looked up and recognised the little boy he had lifted above the crowd earlier pointing triumphantly towards him, a cruel look in his eyes, blond hair shimmering like flames in the darkness.

Five men shot through the doorway, two of them overpowering him instantly by bending his right arm up behind his back and forcing him to his knees.

‘Did you really think you could hide from us, Rafael?’ came a voice from behind him.

He didn’t answer, knowing it was pointless.

‘Get him up.’

The grip on his arm relaxed slightly and he was dragged to his feet. A cold, blinding light snapped on. Rafael held his other hand up to his face, shielding his eyes. A video camera. The sick putas were filming this. They were filming the whole thing.

A shape materialised in front of him, a solid black outline silhouetted against the white light’s searing canvas, the world suddenly drained of all colour. The figure had a hammer in one hand and two six-inch masonry nails in the other that he had scooped up off the floor. A kaleidoscopic undershirt of tattoos disappeared up each sleeve and formed a rounded collar where they reappeared just below the neck line of his unbuttoned shirt.

Rafael felt himself being lifted so that his wrists were pressed flat against the wall either side of an open doorway. The video operator took up a position so he could get both men in shot.

‘Ready?’

Outside, Rafael heard muffled cheering and the faint sound of women wailing and crying. He knew then that La Macarena had finally appeared on the adjacent street, glass tears of grief at the loss of her only son frozen on to the delicate ecstasy of her carved face.

She was here. She was here for him.

PART ONE

Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him; a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure.

Ecclesiasticus 9:10

ONE

Drumlanrig Castle, Scotland

18th April – 11.58 a.m.

As the car drew up, a shaft of light appeared through a break in the brooding sky. The castle’s sandstone walls glowed under its gentle touch, an unexpected shock of pink against the ancient greens of the surrounding hills and woodlands.

Tom Kirk stepped out and drew his dark overcoat around him with a shiver, turning the black velvet collar up so it hugged the circle of his neck. Ahead of him, blue-and-white police tape snapped in the icy wind where it had been strung across the opposing steps that curved up to the main entrance. Six feet tall, slim and square shouldered, Tom had an athletic although not obviously muscular build, his careful gestures and the precise way he moved hinting at a deliberate, controlled strength that was strangely compelling to watch.

It was his eyes that were most striking, though, an intense pale blue that suggested both a calm intelligence and an unflinching resolve. These were set into a handsome, angular face, his thick arching eyebrows matching the colour of his short brown hair, the firm line of his jaw echoing the sharp edge of his cheekbones and lending an air of measured self-confidence. The only jarring note came from the series of small fighting scars that flecked his knuckles, tiny white lines that joined and bisected each other like animal tracks across the savanna.

Looking up, he was suddenly struck by the almost deliberate extravagance of the castle’s elaborate Renaissance splendour compared to the artisinal, grey functionality of the neighbouring village he had just passed through. No doubt when it had been built that had been precisely the point, the building a crushing reminder to the local population of their lowly status. Now, however, the castle looked slightly out of place, as if it had emerged blinking into the new century, uncertain of its role and perhaps even slightly embarrassed by its outmoded finery.

In the distance, a police helicopter made a low pass over the neighbouring forest, the chop of its rotors muffled by the steady buzz of the radios carried by the twenty or so officers swarming purposefully around him. Tom shivered again, although this time it wasn’t the cold. This many cops always made him nervous.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ A policeman on the other side of the tape shouted over the noise. At the sound of his voice the thick curtain of cloud drew shut once again, and the castle faded back into its grey slumber.

‘It’s okay, Constable. He’s with me.’

Mark Dorling had appeared at the top of the left-hand staircase, a tall man wearing a dark blue double-breasted suit and a striped regimental tie. He waved him forward impatiently, Tom recognising in Dorling’s ever so slightly proprietary manner evidence, perhaps, of weekends spent visiting friends with houses of a similar size and stature.

The policeman nodded and Tom stooped under the tape and made his way up the shallow and worn steps to where Dorling was waiting for him, shoulders back, chin raised, fists balanced on each hip like a big game hunter posing over his kill. Oxford had been full of people like Dorling, Tom reflected. It was the eyes that gave them away, the look of scornful indifference tinged with contempt with which they surveyed the world, as if partly removed from it. At first Tom had been offended by this, resenting what appeared to be an instinctive disdain for anyone who didn’t share their privileged background or gilded future. But he had soon come to understand that behind those dead eyes lurked a cold fury at a world where the odds had so clearly been stacked in their favour, that their lives had been robbed of any sense of mystery or adventure. Far from contempt, therefore, what their expression actually revealed was a deep self-loathing, maybe even jealousy.

‘I wasn’t expecting you until later.’ Dorling welcomed him with a tight smile. Tom wasn’t offended by his accusing tone. People like Dorling didn’t like surprises. It disturbed the illusion of order and control they worked so hard to conjure up around themselves.

‘I thought you said you were in Milan?’ he continued, sweeping a quiff of thinning blond hair back off his forehead, a large gold signet ring gleaming on the little finger of his left hand.

‘I was,’ said Tom. ‘I got the early flight. It sounded important.’

‘It is,’ Dorling confirmed, his pale green eyes narrowing momentarily, his jaw stiffening. ‘It’s the Leonardo.’ A pause. ‘I’m glad you’re here Tom.’

Dorling gripped his hand unnecessarily hard, as if trying to compensate for his earlier brusqueness, his skin soft and firm. Tom said nothing, allowing this new piece of information to sink in for a few seconds before answering. The Madonna of the Yarnwinder. One of only fifteen paintings in the world thought to have been substantially painted by da Vinci. Conservatively worth $150 million. Probably more. In his business, it didn’t get much more important than that.

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘Anyone hurt?’

‘They overpowered a tour guide. She’s bruised but fine. More shocked than anything.’

‘Security?’

‘Rudimentary,’ Dorling gave an exasperated shrug. ‘It takes the police thirty minutes to get out here on a good day. These chaps were in and out in ten.’

‘Sounds like they knew what they were doing.’

‘Professionals,’ Dorling agreed.

‘Just as well it’s insured, then, isn’t it?’ Tom grinned. ‘Or aren’t Lloyd’s planning to pay up on this one?’

‘Why do you think you’re here?’ Dorling replied with a faint smile, the lines around his eyes and tanned cheeks deepening as his face creased, his eyes darkening momentarily.

‘The old poacher-turned-gamekeeper routine?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What does that make you, I wonder?’

Dorling paused to reflect before answering, the pulse in his temple fractionally increasing its tempo.

‘A businessman. Same as always.’

There were other words dancing on the edge of Tom’s tongue, but he took a deep breath and let the moment pass. He had his reasons. Dorling’s firm of chartered loss adjusters was the first port of call for Lloyd’s underwriters whenever they had a big-ticket insurance claim to investigate. And during the ten years that Tom had operated as an art thief – the best in the business, many said – Dorling’s company had co-operated with the police on countless jobs which they suspected him of being behind.

All that had changed, however, when word had got out a year or so back that Tom and his old fence, Archie Connelly, had set themselves up on the other side of the law, advising on museum security and helping recover lost or stolen art. Now the very people who had spent years trying to put them both away were queuing up for their help. The irony still bit deep.

Tom didn’t blame Dorling. If anything he found his shameless opportunism rather endearing. The truth was that the art world was full of people like him – crocodile-skinned and conveniently forgetful as soon as they understood there was a profit to be made. It was just that the memories didn’t fade quite so fast when you’d been the one staring down the wrong end of a twenty-year stretch.

‘Who’s inside?’ Tom asked, nodding towards the castle entrance.

‘Who isn’t?’ Dorling replied mournfully. ‘The owner, forensic team, local filth.’ The slang seemed forced and sat uneasily with Dorling’s clipped sentences and sharp vowels. Tom wondered if he too felt awkward about their past history and whether this was therefore a deliberate attempt to bridge or otherwise heal the gap between them. If so, it was a rather ham-fisted attempt, although Tom appreciated him making the effort at least. ‘Oh, and that annoying little shit from the Yard’s Art Crime Squad just showed up.’

‘Annoying little shit? You mean Clarke?’ Tom gave a rueful laugh. In this instance the description was an apt one, although Tom suspected that it was a term Dorling routinely deployed to describe anyone who hadn’t gone to the same school as him, or who didn’t feature on his regular Chelsea dinner-party circuit.