13 Little Blue Envelopes(66)

paintings were very different. They were alive. They seemed to vibrate.

“Hang on.” Keith reached over and pulled off something

taped to the inside of the door. He looked at it and then held it over for Ginny and Richard to see. It was a heavy, dove gray card, with a name and number darkly imprinted.

“Cecil Gage-Rathbone,” Keith said. “That’s a name.”

Ginny reached for the card, then flipped it over. Scrawled in pen were the words CALL NOW.

They got the paintings, twenty-seven in all, out of the cabinet in packing tubes and oversized Harrods shopping bags. Richard had to spend a few minutes in the hallway convincing a very old security guard that they weren’t actually stealing things from the storeroom and finally had to flash something he carried in his wallet. The man backed away and apologized profusely.

They made their way to his office, which was a tight space entirely occupied with file cabinets and boxes. There was barely enough room to get over to the desk to use the phone.

Cecil Gage-Rathbone had a voice like ringing crystal.

“Is this Virginia Blackstone?” he asked. “We were told you’d be contacting us. We have all the paperwork ready—we’ve been preparing for this for months. I think we could manage . . .

Thurs day? Is that too soon? That only gives you two days.”

“Okay,” Ginny said, having no idea what he was really talking about.

“When would you like us to collect them?”

“The paintings . . . right?”

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“Yes, that’s right.”

“Um . . . whenever.”

“We could send someone round this evening, if that is

agreeable. We’d like to get them in-house as soon as possible to prepare things.”

“It’s . . . agreeable.”

“Excellent. Is five o’clock all right?”

“Sure?”

“Splendid. Five o’clock, then. Same address in Islington?”

“Yes?”

“Very good. You’ll just need to come here at nine in the

morning on Thursday. Do you have our address?”

After taking all the information from Cecil, who worked for something called Jerrlyn and Wise, Ginny set down the phone.

“Some people are coming to take the paintings,” she said.

“Who?” Richard asked.

“No idea. But we have to go to this address on Thursday at nine. Or at least I do.”

“For what?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, you’ve sorted that, then, haven’t you?” Keith said.

“Mystery solved.”

He looked between Richard and Ginny, then back toward

the door.

“You know what?” he said. “I’ve been meaning to have a better look at those famous food halls. Get something for my gran.”

“Sorry about . . . leaving,” she said, once Keith was gone.

“Well, you’re Peg’s niece,” he said. “It’s in your blood. And it’s all right.”

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Richard’s phone began ringing. It was a very loud, insistent phone. No wonder he always sounded hassled here.

“You better get that,” she said. “The queen might need

underwear.”

“She’ll wait a moment,” he said. “I’m sure she has lots of pants.”

“Probably.”

Ginny kept her eyes on the dull green carpet. There were

little paper circles everywhere, obviously fallen from the reser-voir of a hole punch. It looked like snow.

“We should really get you some clothes,” he said. “Why

don’t you go pick out some things, and I’ll have them charged to my account? Nothing too crazy, if you don’t mind, but get yourself something you like.”

Ginny nodded heavily. Her eyes were tracing patterns of

dots on the floor. A star. A one-eared rabbit.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you on the train.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. Sometimes I just say things.”

“It never seemed real,” she said.

“What didn’t? Peg and I? I don’t know what it was, really.”

“Her being gone,” Ginny explained. “She sometimes did

stuff like that.”

“Ah.”

Another, even louder line started to ring. Richard glanced over at his phone in annoyance, then depressed a few buttons, which silenced it.

“She always promised me she would be there,” Ginny said.

“For high school, college. She would promise things and then just not do them. And just leave without telling anyone.”

302

“I know. She was awful like that. But she could get away with it.”

It took effort, but she pulled her gaze from the floor.

Richard was absently pushing a folder around his desk.

“I know,” she said. “She could. She was really irritating like that.”

“Very,” he agreed. There was a thoughtful sadness about

him—one that seemed very familiar.

“I guess she did know what she was doing, a little,” she said.