“Will you take a trip with me so you can see why I do this?” He hands me the roses and I inhale their sweet perfume. Roses have thorns but that doesn’t make them evil. St. Clair looks at me, his blue eyes yearning, “I want you to know me, to understand. Please?”
I pause, but my resolve is weakening. He’s not hiding anymore: he’s finally opening up.
“I’ll give you one more chance. One chance to explain everything. But that’s all, Charles. It has to be.”
CHAPTER 4
The first thing the next morning, St. Clair arrives in his sports car outside my flat.
He opens the door for me. “After you, m’lady,” he says in an attempt to lighten the mood, but I can barely crack a smile there’s so much weighing on my mind.
We drive through London, going north, I think, although the streets are still all a foreign blur to me. I’ve barely been in the country for two weeks, and it feels like no time at all.
I look over at St. Clair behind the wheel. He seems nervous, and for some reason, that thought makes me feel better. This matters to him, so maybe I matter, too.
After the city landscapes have shifted into more residential streets with tree branches stretching across the narrower roads, St. Clair turns onto a cul-de-sac lined with shady oaks and lots of rose bushes.
“Here we are.” He pulls into the driveway of a cute stone cottage nearly hidden behind a blooming garden full of bushy plants and wild mint and towering wildflowers. I see the curtains in the front window move.
“Where are we?” I ask, getting out of the car.
“Hampstead.”
I give him a look. “You know what I mean.”
He gives me a hesitant smile. “You want to know more about…what I do. So, I thought I’d show you.”
I glance at the cottage, then back at St. Clair. That doesn’t explain anything.
We walk up the winding stone path, stepping on dozens of fallen petals like colorful natural confetti, and I wonder who lives here: who could possibly make me change my mind about him.
St. Clair knocks, and immediately the wooden door opens to reveal an older woman. She’s in her eighties, maybe, with a shock of grey hair and a thick knitted cardigan.
“Charlie,” she beams, speaking with a thick European accent. “You’re right on time.”
“I never keep a lady waiting.” St. Clair lifts her hand to his lips in a polite greeting.
“Greta, this is my friend, Grace. The one I told you about.”
“Ah, yes.” Greta looks me over, her sharp stare missing nothing, despite her age. She finally gives a small nod of what I hope is approval, and stands aside. “Please. Come in.”
Greta leads us into her sitting room, a small but warm space stuffed to the brim with antique couches, threadbare rugs and old clocks. And there, on her wooden mantel, along with lots of framed family photos, sits a very familiar painting.
I stop, shocked. It’s the painting St. Clair stole from the museum in San Francisco.
Greta chuckles at my expression. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she says. “Sit, sit. I’ll get the tea.” She walks away slowly, leaving us alone.
I move closer to the mantle, drawn to examine it more closely. It can’t be. But I quickly realize it’s not a reproduction, it’s the real deal, just as I thought – a few thousand miles from where it was last seen.
“You took it,” I say softly. If I had any remaining doubts about St. Clair’s thieving, they’re gone now. He’s made a whole life out of doing this. It’s who he is. And it will never stop.
St. Clair nods.
“Why this one?”
“I’ll let Greta tell you all about it.” He gives me a smile, but he’s tapping his fingers restlessly on the table, still anxious and jittery.
I realize what a risk he’s taking here: I could already be working with Lennox, and he’s led me straight to evidence of his crimes. But his trust in me is heartening; it makes me believe that he really is telling the truth now.
Greta returns with a tray of tea things, and St. Clair immediately leaps to take it from her and set it on the coffee table. Greta slowly lowers herself into an old armchair, and then bats away St. Clair’s hands to pour.
When we’re all seated with mismatched china cups of tea, St. Clair nods to Greta. “I told Grace you would explain to her about the painting, and how I came to retrieve it for you.”
“Are you sure?” she checks, but St. Clair nods.
“Please. I’d like her to know.”
Greta takes a deep breath. “It’s not an uncommon story, I’m afraid. I grew up in Germany, with my family, and then, well, the war came. When I was still in grade school, I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle here in England, but the rest of my family weren’t so lucky. They were taken, sent to the camps, and eventually killed.” Her voice is steady, despite the horror she’s describing. “All our possessions, every single thing we owned, was looted. The Nazis took anything of value themselves, to furnish their war-rooms and the houses of the top generals. They wouldn’t allow any of the artwork to be hung in public, but it was more than good enough for their own collections.” She snorts with disdain, and I see her gnarled hand curl into a fist in her lap. I feel anger at her loss, at the losses that so many suffered, and I have to hold back from reaching for Greta’s hand.
“When the writing was on the wall, and they knew they were losing the war, the Nazis sent the most valuable items out of the country – to the Swiss vaults, or South America. Millions in stolen art and heirlooms just disappeared into the ether, to be profited on by future generations. Title deeds were forged or mislaid. What was left of my family tried to make claims, for compensation, but without documentation there was nothing to be done. And then, last year, I got word that this painting had surfaced in America. Can you imagine?” she asks. “The prized painting that had sat on the mantel in my family home when I was a girl—one of the few things of any value that we owned, passed down through generations—now hanging in a gallery in San Francisco.”
I’m enraptured by her story. “Did you try to get it back?” I ask. “Did you tell them it was yours, that it had been taken without permission?”
She shakes her head. “I did, dear. I went through all the legal channels. But without title deeds or pictures, or really any proof other than my memory and my word, the owners refused.” She sighs. “I was heartbroken.’
I look to St. Clair. “How did you meet?”
“Through mutual friends,” Greta says. “They suggested he could help me with my legal troubles. We discussed the options in the courts, but it seemed like hope was lost. I resigned myself to never possessing that painting again, but he told me to have faith.” She gives St. Clair a fond look. “And then, a few weeks ago, I got a delivery.” She has tears in her eyes, of joy and gratitude. “It was like getting a small piece of my family back.”
I’m tearing up, too, and Greta hands me a handkerchief. I take it, wipe my eyes. “I’m so sorry for all you went through,” I say.
She nods. “This young man proved to me that no matter what happens, there is still beauty in this world. Because true beauty endures,” Greta adds, her face full of the wisdom of many years, a lifetime of experiences, good and bad. “Just like love.”
We leave Greta’s after tea, and drive back into the city. I’m lost in thought, there’s so much to process. Seeing Greta, hearing her story, I can understand for the first time why St. Clair strayed outside the boundaries of the law. He did something good for that woman and the memory of her family, even if Lennox and the authorities would disagree.
But if he’s not just a simple criminal, what does that mean for me?
For us?
Finally we arrive in front of my flat in Notting Hill, the cute little blue building I was so thrilled to enter for the first time. It felt like an adventure. For a sheltered girl who had never even left the country before, living abroad was a big deal. If only I could go back and tell that Grace, “Just you wait.”