“So, Jennifer. Robert said that I might be able to help with something? Confidentially, of course.” Jennifer nodded gratefully and put her cup down. She had been careful to drink only one glass of wine in anticipation of this moment, and although she had spoken to Renwick for almost the whole meal, she had felt Kirk’s angry eyes on her throughout.
“Agent Corbett — I mean Robert — said you were the person to talk to about numismatics in Europe.” Her tone was businesslike now.
“He did, did he? Well, that’s very kind. I suppose it is true to say that it’s my area. I was a dealer for years and years. That’s how we met, you know, on another of his cases several years ago now. I’ve diversified a bit recently into other areas, but one of my clients is a fanatical collector, so I still have to keep up with things.”
Jennifer hesitated. This was a careful balancing act. While she wanted the benefit of Renwick’s insight, Corbett had reminded her she couldn’t afford to give him, a civilian, all the details on the theft. And yet this was also an opportunity to crank up the pressure on Kirk by showing him that they knew exactly what had happened and then seeing how he reacted. It was a fine line to tread. She reached into the zipped compartment of her purse and extracted the protective envelope containing the gold coin, handing it to Renwick.
“Good God.” Renwick gasped. The coin dropped from his hand to the floor and disappeared out of sight. He fell to his knees, apologizing to Jennifer, as he reached under his chair.
“I’m terribly sorry — please forgive me — don’t know what came over me,” he stuttered. Jennifer smiled, noticed Tom looking on with curiosity. He had barely moved in his seat.
“It’s fine. Don’t mention it.”
“It’s just that it was such a shock,” he explained, once the coin was safely back in his hand and he had settled back down. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“Not many people have,” Jennifer said helpfully.
“Seen what?” Tom asked, his forehead wrinkled, straining to see what he was holding.
“A 1933 Double Eagle. A phenomenally rare coin,” Renwick explained to Tom, handing him the coin.
“A twenty-dollar coin,” Tom said, examining it. “Gold. Is it valuable?” He flipped the coin in the air, caught it and then placed it down on the blue silk divan.
Jennifer snorted her disbelief at Tom’s question.
“Only about eight million dollars,” Renwick said excitedly.
“Christ!”
Tom sat forward and picked the coin up again, a respectful look on his face now. Jennifer’s brows furrowed. Either Tom was a very convincing actor or else…? Renwick interrupted her thoughts.
“My client, you know the one I mentioned earlier, he has one. Bought it at auction recently. I’ve never seen it, of course. He keeps it locked up in Paris. I thought that his was the only one, though.”
“If your client is Darius Van Simson, then officially, it still is.”
“And unofficially?” He looked at her quizzically over the top of his coffee cup.
“Unofficially, the U.S. Treasury did hold on to a few other coins. Only they have been… mislaid.” She stared at Tom as she said this and again was confused by his reaction. Sudden understanding swept across his face as if the pieces of a puzzle had just fallen into place. As if he’d only just realized what this was all about.
“Mislaid?” Renwick took his glasses off and flashed her an indulgent smile. “Where were they last seen?”
“This coin was found in Paris. We are assuming that the others are also in Europe.”
“I see.” Renwick rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, Van Simson will be furious when he hears about this.”
“I thought we’d agreed that he won’t,” said Jennifer sharply. “Or at least if he does it’ll be from me. I’ve an appointment with him tomorrow.”
“My dear girl, I won’t breathe a word. But the art world is a very small place, just ask Thomas. Van Simson likes to keep on top of things and he pays a lot of money to get this sort of information first. If he doesn’t know already, he soon will. And believe me, when you pay eight million dollars for a coin that is supposedly unique, you don’t react too well to people pulling one out of their handbag like confetti.”
“Do you know him well?” asked Tom.
“Not really. As I said, he’s a client. I look out for coins for him. And I got him some paintings, modern stuff mainly. But that’s about it.”
“What I need to know,” Jennifer asked, mindful of steering the conversation back to the coin, “is who the likely buyers might be here in Europe. Who would pay to own such a piece.” Tom was studying Renwick as if he was as interested in his answer as she was.
Renwick sucked his cheeks in.
“I really couldn’t say. Your best bet is probably to identify the winning bidders at the large coin auctions over the past few years and focus on them. The most active buyers in the market tend to be institutional. You know, museums, trusts, corporates. Van Simson is the only private collector I know of who could come close to affording something like that.”
“So how would you sell something like this, if you were to have… let’s say… stolen it?” Jennifer fixed Tom with a stare as she said this but he returned it unblinkingly.
“Stolen it?” Renwick paused. “Hmmm. Well, something like that would almost certainly have a buyer lined up before it was stolen. It’s not the sort of thing you can just sell on the open market.”
Jennifer considered the thought that had struck her on the plane flying over. For the coin to have ended up back in FBI hands, somewhere along the line the plan had clearly gone wrong. Maybe this explained it.
“But what if you didn’t have a buyer? What would you do then?”
Renwick shook his head.
“It’s unlikely, but the obvious step would probably be to try and find a fence. You know, someone who would take it off your hands and then try and sell it themselves through their own network.”
A fence? Jennifer nodded slowly. It made sense. Ranieri was a fence. Maybe that was how he’d ended up with the coin. For some reason there’d been no buyer and Ranieri had been brought in to help. But by whom?
“Or an off-site?” Tom suggested.
“Yes, that’s possible, too, I suppose,” said Renwick, rubbing his chin again. “It’s possible, but very risky. Especially these days.”
“An off-site?” Jennifer looked questioningly at each of them. “What’s that?”
“It’s a sort of black market auction,” Tom explained, Jennifer noticing a slight edge to his voice, as if he were forcing himself to be civil. She was glad. She wanted him to feel uncomfortable.
“What do you mean?”
Renwick answered for him.
“Any major artist has a catalogue raisonné, a book put together by experts showing photos and descriptions of every work by the artist in question together with details on the rightful owners. The first step for any respectable gallery owner or auctioneer when asked to sell an item would be to consult these books to see where the piece in question had originally come from. The second step would be to consult the Art Loss Register in London, which records all reported art thefts on its system. Together, they make an open sale of a stolen quality piece almost impossible.”
Nodding, Tom took over.
“One alternative is an off-site, an opportunity to get some of the benefits of an auction without the publicity. There’s a very selective list of approved buyers who get told when and where it’s happening at the last minute. Used to happen a lot, but less so now. The cops have wised up.”