Page 7 of Undercover Star
"Like I said. I've been with him for years."
"What happens when he's done?"
"We take him home. We stick to him every time he has a public appearance." Oats shrugged. "It's like he's free game on the day. Fans don't often bother him when he's moving between home and studio, but he's had a few close calls. Not in London, thankfully, so we can scale it back a little. He's not all that comfortable with the attention."
Josh didn't get it. Why work so hard to become a fucking star when you hated attention? No point asking, though. He didn't need to understand Matisse Vervein. He just needed to work with him for a few days. Only until he got hold of the man responsible for Paul's death.
Chapter Three
Josh mentally apologisedto his boss. What he had failed to do, Matisse Vervein—or the dragon who looked after him—had managed with a phone call. They had an appointment at Kilbride House.
Josh stood in front of the imposing gate, closed except for a single night each year, and stared up the short, curved drive towards the house. Looking down Holborn, the space taken up by Kilbride House appeared like a gap in an otherwise perfect row of teeth. Not until one peeked through the gate, across the ornamental garden and drive, was it obvious that this house had seen the street transformed over and over.
Kilbride House, though modernised and extended over the years, had withstood the Great Fire of London. Its architectural features filled several books and its collections were lauded all over the world. Yet these weren't treasures for art lovers to enjoy. The owners, obsessively private, shared their hoard with only carefully selected visitors. And only once a year, during a charity gala.
Last year, Josh had been lucky to gain access to the house during the preparations for the gala. Long enough to confirm that the piece he sought was indeed part of the Kilbride collection. He'd spent a year spreading the word about his discovery, hoping to attract the thief. Now he needed to be inside. Needed to be on the spot when the thief made his move. Because the thief would lead him to the man who'd killed Paul.
Josh remembered sitting in the reading room of the British Library, poring over tome after tome. It had taken time, after Paul's sudden death, to focus on anything beyond finding the man who had wielded the knife. He'd gone through the stages of grief. He'd faced shock and denial, had raged at the Italian detectives for failing to get even a glimpse of the murderer, and had felt guilty he hadn't been by his partner's side. Never mind how ludicrous each notion was.
Paul had been on holiday with his wife. There'd been no earthly reason for Josh to tag along.
And the Italian police? They didn't want foreign tourists made targets, and they took Paul's murder as serious as if Paul had been one of their own. They understood about grief, too, especially when Josh had explained how long he and Paul had known each other, and had given him all the help they could.
They'd drawn a blank.
All their combined efforts had been in vain.
Josh had been devastated when the Italians shelved the investigation. The case would stay open, but only a lucky break would set it in motion again. He knew this was how it had to be. He'd thanked the detectives for their help, despite feeling as if someone had sucked all the air out of his world. He'd returned to his life, listless and detached, as if nothing mattered.
The police psychologist, telling him he was battling depression, had shocked him out of his detachment. Josh had refused antidepressants, but he had attended counselling sessions. It had been during one of those sessions, when he'd finally been able to look at the case photos and see more than his best friend's lifeless body in the crime scene shots, that he'd caught sight of the piece of jewellery Paul had handled moments before being stabbed. Nobody had anticipated what was going to happen next and Paul's wife, Dawn, had been happily snapping photo after photo.
For months, while he hunted an elusive killer, Josh had pushed those snaps aside. Only to find the key to the mystery staring him right in the face.
Shaped like a cross with a blood red ruby at its heart, the ornament nestled in folds of green velvet. The market stall had offered all manner of jewellery, some genuinely old, some mere trinkets or clever reproductions, but nothing matched the beauty or craftsmanship of the silver cross. Paul, with his love for Renaissance art would have homed in on the piece like a laser-guided missile.
There'd been no sign of the cross in the crime scene photos. Nobody had known to ask the stallholder. And Josh couldn't shake the feeling he'd seen the piece before.
