Page 30 of Undercover Star
Josh didn't reply, but there in the darkness, with lights sweeping through the gloom at intervals, the silence felt oddly intimate. Not as if Josh was withholding his answers and more as if he was carefully arranging his thoughts.
"Four years ago my partner went to Rome on holiday. One Sunday morning, he and his wife visited an antiques market. He spotted an intricate silver cross with a large, square-cut ruby at its centre. Paul had studied Renaissance art. He knew the period. I'm sure the cross would have drawn him as if it had steel cables attached. His wife snapped photos of him holding it moments before he was stabbed to death. When the police secured the crime scene, the cross was nowhere to be found."
"Someone stole it in the confusion?"
"I don’t think so. You see, the cross had been stolen from the Vatican two days earlier. We believe Paul happened into the middle of the transfer. The thief passed the cross to the trader at the antiques market, who simply placed it with the other items he offered for sale. The collector, who had ordered the item stolen, would buy it at an agreed price, most likely the trader's commission. This way, nobody would be able to connect the collector and the thief."
"Was it the trader who stabbed your friend, or the collector?"
"We think the collector turned up just as Paul was examining the cross and panicked."
"He stabbed him and took the cross. And you hope catching the thief will lead you to the collector."
"Yes."
Matisse thought it over. Years ago, he'd come close to losing his dad in an accident. He remembered the shock and the impotent rage he'd felt, and he'd just been a boy. Josh—grown-up, strong, resourceful Josh—must have felt so helpless when he'd heard the news. And, yes, maybe Matisse had read a few too many stories of detective partners having each other's backs, but Josh's tone when he related history indicated that those weren't just stories. "So, why did you set a trap in Kilbride House? If you don’t know who the thief is, I mean."
Josh stretched in the passenger seat. Matisse's mouth went dry and he forced his attention back to the road before he could do something he'd regret. Like reach over and touch what wasn't his.
"The locket—the cross is a locket, technically speaking—was one of a pair. They're identical, except for the gem in the centre. The locket Paul examined at the Roman market had a ruby at its heart. The companion piece has an emerald. When I realised the second locket was in the collection at Kilbride House I got in, verified that it was the right artefact, and then spread the word. Very carefully, but so the collector would get to hear of it."
"I thought you don't know who the collector is?"
"I don't, but there are channels, ways to put the word about. I'm with the art and antiques squad. We monitor those communications, so it wasn't too tricky to add to them."
"What is so fucking important about a stupid, ugly ornament?"
"It's neither stupid, nor ugly, Mat. It's a valuable piece of Renaissance art. It's also damned dangerous. It was made for Cesare Borgia."
"Okay. Now you lost me."
Josh laughed softly, then grabbed one of the water bottles and drained half of its content. "You really want to know? Fine. I'll tell you the story, provided you warn me before my rambling puts you to sleep."
Matisse let go of the steering wheel and punched Josh in the arm. It was a left-handed punch, weak and haphazard, but it got Josh laughing.
"Okay, okay. Once upon a time, in Italy, there lived a prince...."
Matisse drove and Josh told him a story of greed and power, of two matched lockets made to hold a poison and its antidote, of a prince who'd died by the roadside, stripped of all his possessions and even his clothes, and whose real fortune was said to have vanished while he lay dying. Josh's deep voice was soothing, there in the darkness, though at no point was Matisse in danger of falling asleep. The passion and fire in Josh's recital made it next to impossible.
"Wow, that's just.... The pope with ten illegitimate children. And nobody cared. How do you know all this?"
Josh shrugged, the movement just discernible in the headlights of oncoming cars. "I'm a history nerd. I have a degree in history and a masters in history of art."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. Paul and I went through university together and joined the police after. I'm more than just brawn, you know?"
The comment pulled Matisse up short. He hadn't... hadn't.... Actually, yes, he had judged Josh by his job description. He hated that Josh saw him as little more than a dress-up doll, yet he was guilty of the self-same thing: of judging by appearances.
"I'm sorry," he offered quietly.
"It's okay." Josh stretched out his hand until the backs of his fingers brushed Matisse's cheek. "We didn't take much time to get to know each other."
Matisse cleared his throat, desperate to get them back onto an even footing. He didn't want to acknowledge the sudden wave of tenderness that swamped him, didn't want to deal with the heat that came in its wake. Not when he felt half ashamed half embarrassed over misjudging Josh. He groped for a safer topic, and found it in the story Josh had told him. "So, those lockets... they're supposed to be a treasure map of sorts?"
"Not an actual map."
"And I really don't care. It's close enough, even if the notion is ludicrous. One holding poison and the other an antidote makes a lot more sense to me."
