The Girl You Left Behind

dark brown eyes and hair that reached down to
     his collar. Worked briefly under Matisse.
    ‘I’m starting to understand why
     his work – if it
is
his work – might be the subject of a restitution
     request.’
    ‘Go on.’ Liv pops an olive into
     her mouth. Kristen stands beside her, dishcloth in hand.
    ‘I didn’t tell him about the
     claim, obviously, and he can’t value it without seeing it, but on the basis of the
     last sale they held for Lefèvre, and its provenance, they reckon it could easily be
     worth between two and three million pounds.’
    ‘What?’ she says weakly.
    ‘Yes. David’s little wedding
     gift has turned out to be a rather good investment. Two million pounds
minimum
were his exact words. In fact, he recommended you get aninsurance
     valuation done immediately. Apparently our Lefèvre has become quite the man in the
     art market. The Russians have a thing for him and it’s pushed prices sky
     high.’
    She swallows the olive whole and begins to
     choke. Kristen thumps her on the back and pours her a glass of water. She sips it,
     hearing his words going round in her head. They don’t seem to make any sense.
    ‘So, I suppose it should actually come
     as no great surprise that there are people suddenly coming out of the woodwork to try to
     get a piece of the action. I asked Shirley at the office to dig out a few case studies
     and email them over – these claimants, they dig around a little in the family history,
     claim the painting, saying it was so precious to their grandparents, how heartbroken
     they were to lose it … Then they get it back, and what do you know?’
    ‘What do we know?’ says
     Kristen.
    ‘They sell it. And they’re
     richer than their wildest dreams.’
    The kitchen falls silent.
    ‘Two to three million pounds? But –
     but we paid two hundred euros for her.’
    ‘It’s like
Antiques
     Roadshow
,’ says Kristen, happily.
    ‘That’s David. Always did have
     the Midas touch.’ Sven pours himself a glass of wine. ‘It’s a shame
     they knew it was in your house. I think, without a warrant or proof of any kind, they
     might not have been able to prove you had it. Do they know for sure it’s in
     there?’
    She thinks of Paul.
And the pit of her
     stomach drops. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘They know I have it.’
    ‘Okay. Well, either way,’ he
     sits down beside her andputs a hand on her shoulder, ‘we need
     to get you some serious legal representation. And fast.’
    Liv sleepwalks through the next two days,
     her mind humming, her heart racing. She visits the dentist, buys bread and milk,
     delivers work to deadline, takes mugs of tea downstairs to Fran and brings them back up
     when Fran complains she has forgotten the sugar. She barely registers any of it. She is
     thinking of the way Paul had kissed her, that accidental first meeting, his unusually
     generous offer of help. Had he planned this from the start? Given the value of the
     painting, had she actually been the subject of a complicated sting? She Googles Paul
     McCafferty, reads testimonials about his time in the Art Squad of the NYPD, his
     ‘brilliant criminal mind’, his ‘strategic thinking’. Everything
     she has believed about him evaporates. Her thoughts spin and collide, veer off in new,
     terrible directions. Twice she has felt so sick that she has had to leave the table and
     splash her face with cold water, resting it against the cool porcelain of the
     cloakroom.
    Last November TARP helped return a small
     Cézanne to a Russian Jewish family. The value of the painting was said to be in the
     region of fifteen million pounds. TARP, its website states in the section
About
     Us
, works on a commission basis.
    He texts her three times:
Can we talk? I
     know this is difficult, but please – can we just discuss it?
He makes himself
     sound so reasonable. Like someone almost trustworthy. She sleeps sporadically, and
     struggles to eat.
    Mo watches all this and, for once, says
     nothing.
    Liv runs. Every morning, and some evenings
     too. Runninghas taken the place of thinking, of eating, sometimes of
     sleeping. She runs until her shins burn and her lungs feel as if they will explode. She
     runs new routes: around the back-streets of Southwark, across the bridge into the
     gleaming outdoor corridors of the City, ducking the besuited bankers and the
     coffee-bearing secretaries as she goes.
    She is headed out on Friday evening at six
     o’clock. It is a beautiful crisp