“Well, let’s get this opened right away,” Renwick continued as he led Tom through to the sitting room. “Now I hope you don’t mind, but I invited someone else to join us tonight. Thomas, meet Jennifer Browne; Jennifer, meet Thomas Kirk.”
Tom had frozen in the doorway as he had glimpsed Jennifer rising from her chair on the other side of the room. He glared at Renwick angrily. What was going on? Was Harry working with the Feds?
“Good evening, Mr. Kirk.” She glided toward him as if they’d never met before, a cloud of Chanel No. 5 in her wake.
Tom gave her a tight smile as they shook hands.
“Miss Browne.”
“Come, come. No need to be so formal. We’re all friends here,” Renwick chided. “Jennifer works at the FBI in America for a friend of mine. Apparently he thinks I might be able to help on a case they’re investigating. It’s awfully exciting.” Renwick grinned. “Anyway, she’s only in town for a few days and I thought you two might get on.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Uncle Harry,” said Tom, forcing a smile and feeling slightly guilty. Perhaps he’d been a bit too quick to judge Renwick. It was more likely that he was an unwitting pawn in whatever game the FBI was playing rather than their willing accomplice.
“Drinks, anyone?” Renwick exclaimed. “How about you, my dear, what will you have? A glass of champagne? Excellent.” Renwick removed the foil wrapper and the wire cage from the bottle and gently levered the cork out until it came free with a repressed hiss.
“Glasses? Bugger. Hold that, will you, Thomas, and I’ll go and get some. And an ice bucket, of course. Never forget the ice bucket.” Handing the open bottle to Tom, Renwick swept off to the kitchen.
“Even for you guys this is pretty low,” Tom hissed, rounding on Jennifer.
“You think this is some sort of game?” Jennifer shot back indignantly. “Just so you know, this is your life from now on. Wherever you go, wherever you turn, we’ll be there. Your world’s about to get a whole lot smaller.”
“You got a problem with me, fine. But Harry’s on the outside. He’s got nothing to do with any of this. I won’t let you drag him into my life.”
“He’s not even really your uncle, is he? Your whole life is a lie.”
“That’s irrelevant.” Tom took a step toward her until they were only a few feet apart. “I’m warning you, keep him out of it.”
“Well, if you play ball with us, it won’t ever get to that, will it?” Jennifer glared defiantly into Tom’s eyes.
Renwick strode back into the room, clutching glasses and a champagne bucket.
“Well, you two certainly seem to have broken the ice.” He chuckled. “Excellent.”
At the sound of his voice they both jumped apart and stood awkwardly as Renwick poured them each a glass. He then ushered them to the right-hand sofa while he sat on the one opposite. In between them, a low blue silk divan covered in auction catalogs served as an impromptu coffee table, while the large marble fireplace had been filled with dried flowers.
“Business must be good,” said Tom, straining to make his voice sound relaxed and normal, indicating the room around them.
Although simply furnished with modern mushroom-colored sofas and sea-grass matting, the sandstone walls had been carefully hung with a collection of paintings and sketches — an Old Testament prophet, a beatific Madonna clutching a cherubic Christ child, a papal portrait, its subject frozen in martial pose, and a mythical scene of bacchanalian abandonment, to name but a few. Not to mention, of course, that Tom had immediately recognized the hand of van Eyck, Rembrandt, and perhaps even Verrocchio in several of the works. It was a staggering collection that would have sat well in the Renaissance gallery of any major museum.
“What, this? Most of it’s new to me, actually,” Renwick said, looking around him dispassionately. “I inherited the house from a relative a few months ago, gave it a lick of paint and bought some new furniture. He was in shipping or something. Made a fortune after the war. Anyway, I don’t know how he lived here because it was full of junk. I sold most of it but some of it was worth keeping.”
“I can see that,” said Tom, appreciatively.
“In fact, I’ve got a chap coming round here tomorrow to look at that one there.” He pointed at the papal portrait at the far left side of the room. “It’s always been attributed to the school of Titian. But I have a suspicion that it may have been painted by Titian himself.”
“Really?” Tom stood up and approached the painting with an appreciative look.
“And what are they?” Jennifer pointed at the luridly painted masks that had been hung over the mantelpiece.
“Ah. Now they are mine.” Renwick’s voice was immediately energized. “I collect them. They’re Japanese Noh masks.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“Noh was a form of Japanese theater that emerged in the Muromacho period,” Renwick explained. “The plots are always simple and serious and very symbolic, the costumes elaborate. The masks are worn to show stylized characters or emotions, much like in ancient Greek theater, and also to let the same actor play several characters. I’ve been collecting these since I was a boy.” Renwick’s eyes shone brightly, his voice vibrant.
“How old are they?”
“Well, the oldest one I have is that one.” He stood up to point at a white mask decorated with golden horns and bulging eyes, its mouth drawn into a white-teethed demonic grin. “That’s from about 1604 when Noh was adopted as the official theater of Japan under the protection of the ruling samurai class and the shogun. The others date from the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”
Tom let his eyes flick over some of the other masks. A smiling mandarin, eyes scrunched in laughter, a neatly clipped beard and moustache decorating his dimpled chin. A worried-looking Japanese youth, forehead creased, hair thinning, eyes narrowed in surprise.
“Now I hope you don’t mind, my dear,” Renwick boomed to Jennifer. “But we’re eating in the kitchen. The dining room still looks like a bomb site.”
He showed them into the kitchen, a wide stone-flagged room with a rustic-looking wooden table in the middle of it, set for three. French windows along the right-hand wall gave out onto the garden and these were slightly ajar, allowing the smell of the honeysuckle that grew up the side of the house to seep in. Granite-topped cherrywood units ran along the left and facing walls, punctuated by a gas range — a huge mass of cast iron and dials and pipes — and a deep Belfast sink, which was already piled high with pans and dishes.
They sat down, Renwick at the head of the table, Tom and Jennifer opposite each other.
“Now, if I’d known earlier you were coming I would have done something special,” Renwick apologized.
“This looks wonderful,” Jennifer protested.
Tom looked at Jennifer angrily. He knew that this intrusion into his life was some trick, some underhanded way of showing him just how far they could go — would go — to get what they wanted.
She was wearing a fitted black jacket over a white blouse, her long legs sheathed in flowing black silk trousers, the material fluttering around her ankles. Tom noticed that as she talked the tip of her nose twitched in sympathy to the movement of her lips, like a small rabbit.
Despite everything, that made him smile, which only infuriated him further.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Several hours later, Jennifer’s cheeks glowing a little from the wine and the heat from the stove, they went back through to the sitting room for coffee. Once they had all helped themselves, Renwick settled back into the sofa and smiled benevolently at Jennifer, who had parked herself next to him and opposite Tom.