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CHAPTER 1

‘Damn it!’ Jack Smith’s shout echoed around the empty stairwell of number 19 Brook Street, one of a row of once very ordinary, but now very desirable Victorian terraced houses in that area of Oxford – just to the south of the river – known as Grandpont Grand Pont e – even Jack Smith’s schoolboy French stretched that far But as far as he was concerned, what Grandpont really spelt was money, or so he hoped – an area in which to expand his business However, at this precise moment in time none of this was on his mind, because the fact was that his thu down the side of his forefinger, and swore again, though this time less loudly, for as the point when there was no one to hear and no one to commiserate with his pain Finally, he wiped it on his overalls, and turned his attention back to the floorboards

For the next five minutes, he worked silently and with increased care as he eased up boards one by one Most of them resisted him stubbornly, but as he approached the corner, he encountered two shorter pieces which popped up with only the slightest pressure He sat back on his haunches, and then looked at his watch Ti break But the looseness of those last boards had registered so odd, and even as he felt inside his top pocket for his Silk Cut, he leant forward to take another look He frowned at what he saw, rearette packet, and slipped it instead into the floor-space When it re-eers rapped firmly round a dusty, hessian-wrapped object some 60 centimetres square He paused, as if uncertain what to do with it, but then put it down on the floor and carefully began to untie the string which was holding the hessian in place He did so with a sense of anticipation, for whatever it was, he was pretty sure it must have been put there deliberately, hidden in fact, by the previous owner presumably – not that he kneho that was Jack Sineer and South Oxford wasn’t his norround He lived off Headley Way, which links Marston to Headington, and it was around there that he had established a solid reputation for reliability and a willingness to turn out at all hours Of course, he worked further afield, and had in the last few years found hi more and more for clients in the Summertown area of North Oxford And it was one of these – Geraldine Payne, a dentist with a surgery in Beaumont Street and a flat towards the northern end of the Banbury Road – who had brought him south of the river Isis to rip out and replace the archaic plu system of a house she had purchased in Brook Street All he knew of the previous ohat he had been told by Mrs Thoit with a reputation for scraping a coin along the paintwork of any car left outside her house in ‘her’ parking space

The string around the hessian had been tied with a double bow, and it took the fingers of Jack Smith some little ti, and ith hi – and then on the painting that he discovered inside the hessian wrapping – he failed to hear the noise of the front door being opened, and then shortly afterwards clicking shut It was only when Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ began to fade that he heard the noise of leather soles on the uncarpeted boards and realized that souiltily, and quickly tossed the hessian over the painting

‘God, I thought you were Geraldine,’ he said as a woman appeared

‘She said I would find you here Why is your mobile turned off, Jack?’ she de, and I’m not happy’

Jack lifted his hand defensively ‘I left it at home Sorry But I’ll come and take a look at the shower on my way home I promise’

‘You’d better do more that take a look,’ she said He was still on one knee on the floor, and she now bent down so her face was close and intrusive She glared and he flinched If looks could kill, his brains would have been splattered all over the wall ‘You’d better bloody fix it, Jack Smith’

‘Sure, of course,’ he gulped Despite his bulk, he was easily intimidated

‘What’s that?’ she said Her eyes had moved to the piece of hessian, which was partially, but not wholly, covering the painting

‘Nothing,’ he said, unconvincingly

‘In that case, you won’ta look,’ she said, and she leant across, her hand out

Reluctantly, he pulled the hessian to the side, picked the painting up, and passed it over to her ‘I found it,’ he said ‘Under the floorboards’

She took it frouess you’ll be giving this to Geraldine, then?’ she said eventually, her eyes still on the painting

‘Finders keepers, I reckon,’ he said

Her eyes looked across at hi a bit on the side, do you, Jack? Bit of an art expert, are you, in your spare ti and sarcastic ‘You’ve been watching too much Cash in the Attic if you ask me’

‘It looks quite old, I reckon,’ he said ‘I was thinking I e Street and ask them what it orth, and—’

‘And the first thing they are going to ask,’ she cut in sharply, ‘is where you got it from’

‘Oh!’ he said uncertainly

‘It’s nice, though, in a quaint sort of way,’ she continued, her tone softening ‘I wouldn’tit off you’

His eyes narrowed ‘I wouldn’t hed, pleased with hiood as told me it’s worth some money’