Jennifer nodded and then turned to Renwick.
“What would be really useful, then, is to run through who the likely buyers might be, both at regular auctions and these off-sites.”
“Yes, of course. I’d be happy to help. When would you like to do that?” Jennifer gave a sheepish smile. “Now?” he asked with surprise.
“I’m still running on U.S. time.” Her tone was apologetic. “It’s only” — she snatched a look at her watch — “five-thirty in the afternoon back home. I’d sure appreciate it if we could make a start tonight. I’m on a pretty tight schedule my end.”
“Fine. Of course, if that’s what you want. I’m somewhat of a night owl myself so I’m more than happy to stay up and knock it on the head.”
“Well, in that case, I’m off,” said Tom, yawning. “I’ve got an early start tomorrow. Another shipment coming in. And you two clearly don’t need me anymore.”
Renwick phoned for a taxi. It arrived five minutes later and he showed Tom to the door, Jennifer standing behind him.
“Good-bye, Agent Browne,” said Tom. “And I hope you find your coins.”
“Oh, don’t worry, we will.” She smiled tightly. “And whoever took them.”
Renwick walked Tom out to the taxi.
“Bye-bye Tom, and do keep in touch.”
“I will, I promise.” The two men hugged each other.
“By the way, isn’t she a great girl?” Renwick whispered quietly. “Full of fire. And beautiful, too. Maybe you should make a move.”
“Make a move? She’s really not my type,” said Tom, laughing. “And in any case, it was you she wanted to meet. You’re the coin expert.”
Tom shook his hand again and climbed into the taxi.
Waving him good-bye, Renwick closed the front door and turned to face Jennifer.
“Right. Let’s get cracking. If you go back into the sitting room and help yourself to a drink I’ll pop upstairs and get my files. This should only take an hour or so.”
“Great.”
Renwick walked upstairs and into his book-lined study, sitting down heavily in the leather chair that he pulled out from under the front of the large mahogany desk. For several minutes he sat there, thinking, until he pulled the phone toward him, lifted the receiver out of the cradle, and dialed a number.
“Yes?”
“It’s me.”
“What is it?”
Renwick sat back in the chair and put his feet up on the desk.
“You’ll never guess what I’ve got downstairs.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Did you find the port?”
Renwick had reappeared at the sitting-room door and Jennifer turned round to face him, reluctantly tearing her eyes away from the oil painting she had been studying.
“Water’s fine for me, thanks.” She held up her glass to show she had helped herself.
“Very sensible. Let’s do this in the kitchen, shall we? Give us a bit more room to spread out.” He nodded toward the dark blue folder he was clutching under one arm.
Jennifer followed him through to the kitchen and helped him clear a space on the table, piling plates and glasses high on the work tops, the sounds of expensive china and cutlery echoing around them.
“Leave all that, my dear,” Renwick boomed as Jennifer began to clear some of the plates into the trash. “The housekeeper will clear it away in the morning. Now, why don’t you sit yourself down there and I’ll pull a chair up next to you.” He pointed at a chair on the left-hand side of the table and dragged another over next to it. Jennifer sat down.
“So what is all this?” she asked as Renwick began to empty the contents of the file onto the table’s coarse wooden surface.
“Press cuttings, newsletters, sale reports. Anything relevant to the European coin and medal markets. I have a company that collates them all for me as well as for other areas I work in. Helps keep me up to speed. Anyway, between all this we should be able to come up with a list of names and companies you can look into.”
“You know, I really appreciate you helping me on this. Especially this late.”
Renwick beamed at her.
“My dear, it’s my pleasure. Really, it is.”
He sat down and then immediately stood up.
“I’m hot. Are you hot?” Without waiting for an answer he moved over to the French windows that gave onto the garden and threw them open. A cool breeze slid into the room. Renwick sat down again.
“I hope you didn’t mind Thomas being here as well?” he said with a smile.
“No, not at all,” she replied, careful not to sound too enthusiastic. The last thing she wanted was Renwick realizing that they were just using him to get to Tom.
“It’s just that Robert told me that you were only in town for a few days and I’d already invited Thomas over last week. He didn’t think you’d mind. And it did occur to me that Thomas might have some useful input for your investigation as well. I hope that wasn’t presumptuous.”
“Of course not. Although I’m intrigued. What is it that Mr. Kirk — I mean Tom — does for a living that made you think he could help?”
“Ah!” Renwick laughed. “Many people have asked themselves that same question. From what he tells me, and that’s not much, he’s some sort of antiques dealer. They’ve always been his thing, ever since he was a child. I suppose he got that from his parents. Anyway, he knows the business inside out, hence why I thought he could help.”
“Have you known Tom for long, then?”
“Since he was fourteen, at least. I met Charles, his father, after he moved to Geneva. Tom would turn up every so often at the holidays.”
“He didn’t live at home?” Jennifer already knew the answer to this question, but then she couldn’t let Renwick realize that the CIA had a file on Kirk an inch thick.
“No. His mother, Rebecca, was killed in a car accident when he was about thirteen. It turned out that Thomas was driving.”
“Oh.” Jennifer nodded in understanding. Her father often used to let her sit on his knee and drive the short distance from their house to the first main intersection. It was a game that in this case had clearly gone horribly wrong.
“Charles took it very badly — never really recovered, if truth be known. Thomas was sent to live with his mother’s family. I think Charles found it too painful to have him around.”
“That must have really screwed him up. Losing one parent and then being rejected by the other.”
“Yes.” Renwick paused. “You know, he never really talks about his childhood now, but he did once tell me a story that always stuck with me. One day at junior school — or whatever it is you Americans call it — Thomas saw two boys stealing a purse belonging to one of the teachers. He didn’t say anything because he’d only been there a few months and it was hard enough for him as a new pupil at a new school in a new country without attracting even more attention to himself. Apparently, these two pupils somehow knew that Thomas had seen them and decided to put the money they’d taken in his locker before tipping off the teacher. She opened his locker in front of the whole class and there was her purse, right where these two boys had put it.
“They suspended him for a few weeks and no matter what he said, no one ever believed he was innocent. Charles least of all. Not even when the same two pupils were caught shoplifting and the police then found a stash of stolen items in one of their rooms. Thomas was always guilty in his father’s eyes, and I’m not sure he ever forgave him for that.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Jennifer, arching her eyebrows at the irony of Tom, having been wrongly accused of theft, actually becoming a thief.