The Girl You Left Behind

to back
     down?’
    ‘Not for the reasons you
     think.’
    ‘What does that mean?’
    He gazes ahead of him. ‘I found
     stuff.’
    Some part of her grows very still. ‘In
     France?’
    He compresses his mouth as if trying to work
     out how much to tell her. ‘I found an old newspaper article, written by the
     American journalist who owned your painting. She talks about how she was given your
     painting from a store of stolen artwork near Dachau.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So these works were all stolen. Which
     would lend weight to our case that the painting was obtained illegally and taken into
     German possession.’
    ‘That’s a big
     assumption.’
    ‘It taints any later
     acquisition.’
    ‘So you say.’
    ‘I’m good at my job, Liv.
     We’re halfway there. And if there’s further evidence, you know I’m
     going to find it.’
    She feels herself growing rigid. ‘I
     think the important word there is “if”.’ She removes her hand from
     his.
    He shifts round to face her. ‘Okay.
     This is what I don’t get. Aside from what is morally right and wrong here, I
     don’t get why a really smart woman who is in possession of a painting that cost
     almost nothing, and now knows that it has a dubious past, wouldn’t agree to hand
     it back in return for a lot of money. A hell of a lot more money than she paid for
     it.’
    ‘It’s not about the
     money.’
    ‘Oh, come
on
, Liv. I’m
     pointing out the obvious, here. Which is that if you go ahead with this case and you
     lose, you stand to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds. Maybe even your home. All your
     security. For a painting? Really?’
    ‘Sophie doesn’t belong with
     them. They don’t … they don’t care about her.’
    ‘Sophie Lefèvre has been dead for
     eighty-odd years. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to make any difference to
     her one way or the other.’
    Liv slides out of the bed, casts around for
     her trousers. ‘You really don’t understand, do you?’ She hauls them
     on, zipping them up furiously. ‘God. You are so not the man I thought you
     were.’
    ‘No. I’m a man who,
     surprisingly, doesn’t want to see you lose your house for nothing.’
    ‘Oh, no. I forgot. You’re the
     man who brought this crap into my house in the first place.’
    ‘You think someone else wouldn’t
     have done this job? It’s a straightforward case, Liv. There are organizations like
     ours all over the place who would have run with it.’
    ‘Are we finished?’ She fastens
     her bra, pulls her jumper over her head.
    ‘Ah, hell. Look. I just want you to
     think about it. I – I just don’t want you to lose everything on a matter of
     principle.’
    ‘Oh. So all this is about looking out
     for me. Right.’
    He rubs his forehead, as if he’s
     trying to keep his temper. And then he shakes his head. ‘You know what? I
     don’t think this is about the painting at all. I think this is about your
     inability to move on. Giving up the painting means leaving David in the past. And you
     can’t do that.’
    ‘I’ve moved on! You know I moved
     on! What the hell do you think last night was about?’
    He stares at her. ‘You know what? I
     don’t know. I really don’t know.’
    When she pushes past him to leave he
     doesn’t try to stop her.

25
    Two hours later, Liv sits in the taxi
     watching Henry demolish a coffee and a Danish pastry, her stomach in knots. ‘Got
     to get the kids to school,’ he says, spraying crumbs through his legs.
     ‘Never have time for breakfast.’
    She is in a dark grey tailored jacket, a
     flash of bright blue shirt underneath it. She wears these clothes like armour. She wants
     to say something but her jaw appears to have wired itself shut. She no longer has
     nerves: she is one giant nerve. If someone touched her she might twang.
    ‘Guaranteed that just as you sit down
     with a mug of coffee one of them will come in demanding toast or porridge or
     whatnot.’
    She nods mutely. She keeps hearing
     Paul’s voice.
These works were all stolen.
    ‘I think for about a year I ate
     whatever I could grab from the bread bin on the way out. Got quite fond of raw crumpets,
     actually.’
    There are people outside the court. A small
     crowd is milling in front of the main steps. At first she thinks it must be a group of
     sightseers – but Henry reaches for her arm as she steps out of the taxi. ‘Oh,
     Christ. Keep your head down,’ he says.
    ‘What?’
    As her foot meets the pavement, the air