The gallery was accessed through an air-lock directly off the hallway; with a second door made from one inch thick Armourlite steel on the opposite side of the small space. This had eight electromagnetic locking shoot-bolts that were located along all four edges. With anti-tamper contact points between door and frame connected to the main system and concealed sensors around the door frame under the plasterwork. There were no windows and the room itself had its own computer-controlled air-conditioning and humidifying system, both independent of the main house. The air was cool, the temperature constant, and the paintings were maintained in pristine condition. Recessed spotlights and cleverly disguised sound speakers were positioned strategically around the ceiling and were controlled by a remote unit inside the air-lock. No-one was ever allowed in this gallery without invitation — a fact which irritated Daniel very much. It was a rich man’s indulgence and in Daniel’s view such treasures should be shared.
Daniel liked the luxury house on the Sandbanks peninsula, it had been built to his father’s exact specification. They had moved into it within twelve months of the purchase of the original derelict property, which had sat on the prime piece of land for many years prior to its demolition.
When they had lived in India there had been at least a dozen servants around the family estate, but now there was only Daniel, his father and a housekeeper. Since moving to the UK seven years ago, when he was fourteen, he had spent every school holiday there. He had been sent to a good private boarding school and was now at Cambridge University reading law. He often argued with his father, but cared for him and worried about him, too. It was a concern he had never understood, for his father was rich and had been before he left India, but that was merely about business and money. There were sides to his father that he had never understood, and sometimes thought it best not to. There were even times when he was afraid of him; really afraid.
He had never known his mother. She had given birth to him and then, according to his father, had left. His father never talked about her, it was a taboo subject and as if she had never existed. His father’s attitude was always unswerving in not wanting to ever talk about her. Once, when his curiosity had got the better of him, he’d searched through his father’s private paperwork in an attempt to find out anything about her. There were no letters, no photographs — absolutely nothing. He had always assumed that she had run off with another man. That didn’t worry him, but he often wondered what had happened to her. When the subject came up, his father gave the impression that it was all too painful to talk about. Every time it had the same outcome: a blazing argument about his mother, sometimes quite vicious. At such times, Daniel had seen the darker side of his father that he would have preferred not to have seen, and it always frightened him. This was the reason why he’d not raised the matter since going off to university.
The only thing his father had ever allowed himself to comment on was just how much he looked like her. Daniel was good looking, had naturally black hair, which he kept cropped, lightly tanned skin, and the darkest coloured eyes. He was just over six foot two inches, and had girls falling at his feet.
Daniel was twenty-one, and at an age where he wanted to find a few things out about himself. He was sure that his father wanted him around, although he had never said as much. It was a strange bond, born of uncertainties and the unknown.And yet, somehow, the sometimes uneasy ambiguity provided the stimulation and the will to see it through. It was as if he was still searching for the answers and not sure whether he really wanted to find them.
Daniel walked out of the gallery, and back into the air-lock. He waited a moment whilst the computer-controlled security system closed the inner door. It rolled back into place with a low rumbling sound, and then came the heavy thud of the eight shoot-bolts locating into the framework; the door opposite slid back silently and again automatically closed as he stepped out into the hallway. He left the gallery, with all of the priceless paintings inside fully alarmed, and went up to his own penthouse in the atrium of the luxury house. This was his private space, where he could lounge around, gazing through the three hundred and sixty degree glass panels that afforded him the most spectacular view of the harbour, and across to the Purbeck hills beyond. It was a magnificent uninterrupted view, but he often asked himself why, as it was just the two of them did they need a three-storey, architect-designed house with its own mooring on the shores of Poole Harbour? His father very rarely entertained and friends seldom came to stay. Daniel himself brought university friends home from time to time, but he had his own living space with its own lift in the state of the art building — that was useful, of course. Charlie Hart was not an academic man, didn’t have one qualification to his name, but with success and enormous wealth had come a love of reading and collecting books in general. This was why he had set up his private study in the round library on the ground floor which was kept under lock and key and off limits to everyone, including Daniel.
He paced around the room, annoyed with himself for having these thoughts. Why was he thinking like this? What did it ever achieve? It was the same old issues. Perhaps because since arriving home for the half term break, he’d noticed how, over the last few days, his father’s usual charisma had left him, bit by bit. And that this, in turn, had driven him into his own shell. And the more morose he became, the more he hid behind the invisible barriers that he always erected to protect himself, even from his son. Daniel knew what it meant: a crisis of some sort was looming on the horizon.
He didn’t hear his father arrive, but heard him call out. He left the penthouse and ran down the Italian marble stairs until he reached the first floor landing. He looked over the edge of the gallery and down at the magnificent sweeping staircase running down either side of the main hall. Charlie Hart looked up as he reached the top, and Daniel thought how pale and gaunt his father was looking.
“Are you okay, Father?”
“Of course I’m okay, Daniel. Why, do I look ill?”
“No, you just don’t look yourself that’s all.”
“Well, I feel absolutely fine. And thank you for showing concern,” Charlie Hart said, as he walked slowly past his son towards the main drawing room.
Daniel knew his father too well to believe him, but let it go anyway, and instead said, “I want to bring a friend around to view the collection.”
Hart reached the drawing room door, placed his hand on the handle.“Who is she?” he asked.
“A friend from university.”
“And what sort of friend is she?”
“The usual kind.” Daniel grinned.
“Where does she come from?”
“What the hell has that got to do with it?”
Daniel walked along the landing towards his father, and was now standing next to him. Hart opened the door and allowed his son to walk into the first floor drawing room ahead of him.
“Actually, she’s Dutch,” Daniel said over his shoulder.
They were standing in a beautiful room, light streaming in through a wall of glass. Hart moved towards the drinks cabinet. He was in no hurry to answer his son, and knew that it would annoy him immensely.