Promises After Dark (After Dark Book 3) (2 page)

‘Nicholas II’s daughters used to play here,’ Andrei remarks as the car swoops to a stop in front of an ornate front door. ‘Imagine, four little grand duchesses running around, laughing, throwing snowballs at the soldiers protecting them. Not knowing what a miserable death awaits them.’

The driver has already got out and has opened the door on Andrei’s side. I shiver as icy air rushes into the warm interior, and push the thought of the fate of those children from my mind.

I put on my hat and gloves as the driver comes around to open my door. He helps me step out onto the icy path and guides me around to where Andrei awaits me.

‘A private entrance,’ he says, a slight smile twisting his lips. He smiles so rarely, but even this small effort manages to lighten those craggy features and soften his icy stare. ‘These things can be arranged.’

Not quite so open to everybody after all. Money still buys its way in where others are forbidden.

The door opens and a man comes out. He’s in late middle age, wearing a big black overcoat and a fur hat and boots. He’s smiling, his small eyes crinkling behind thick black-framed glasses. He rushes forward towards Andrei, greeting him effusively in Russian. They talk for a moment as I try to hide the fact that I’m shivering already despite my warm coat. I look enviously at the lucky driver who is back inside the warmth of the car.

Andrei suddenly switches to English as he gestures to me. ‘And this is Beth, my art adviser. She was there when I acquired the piece.’ He doesn’t bother to tell me who this man is, but I can guess he is someone important in the museum.

‘Madam Beth.’ The man speaks in accented English as he bows a welcome to me. ‘Please, let’s go inside. I can see you are cold.’ We follow him through the door and into the palace. At once I want to gasp out loud. No one else turns a hair at the magnificence within, they are obviously used to it, but I’m stunned by the opulence on show. Marble floors, gilt lamps with crystal shades, ornate mirrors, stunning paintings in vast gilded frames – everywhere there is colour and amazing, glittering, over-the-top decoration.

The two men ahead of me are talking again in Russian, and I follow behind trying to drink everything in. Here I am, in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. There’s no one else around, so we must be in a private area shut off from the public. How lucky I am . . . and yet I can’t help feeling full of trepidation. I’m in a strange place, a vast palace, with no idea where I actually am.

Andrei’s companion turns to me with a smile. ‘Is this your first time here, Madam Beth?’

I nod. I wish he would drop the madam but I don’t know how to ask it politely.

‘It’s a big place, isn’t it? There are fifteen hundred rooms in this palace, and a hundred and seventeen staircases. Please, do not get lost, it will be no easy task to find you!’ He laughs and turns back to Andrei.

Somehow I don’t find the prospect of being abandoned here quite as funny as he seems to.

We walk on. The men in front of me are keeping up a swift pace, which means I can hardly take in the stunning sights and the many beautiful paintings on the walls before we have passed them. We climb a large dark-oak staircase to the first floor and then walk down several more corridors before we finally reach our destination, a large polished wooden door set with an ornate brass handle and escutcheon.

Our guide opens it with a flourish. ‘Please come in!’

He leads us into a grand room, the plain office furniture in odd contrast to the gilded ceiling, huge chandelier and the vast windows. The walls are covered in red silk, enormous gilt-framed paintings glowing against them. In one corner I notice a large easel on which is mounted a canvas that’s covered with a plain cloth.

Our friend begins to speak in Russian but Andrei holds up one gloved hand and shakes his head. ‘No, Nicolai. English, please, for my adviser here.’

‘Certainly, certainly!’ Nicolai smiles over at me, obviously keen to please. ‘English it shall be.’ He gestures to us to sit on the plain black chairs in front of his grey Formica desk. ‘Please, make yourselves comfortable.’

‘We’re not here to socialise,’ Andrei says almost roughly. ‘You know what I want. What’s the answer?’

Nicolai slowly removes his fur hat, revealing a shiny bald spot on top of his head, and places it on the desk. He begins to unbutton his coat, frowning a little. As he shuffles it off, he says, ‘I can’t pretend, Andrei: this is one of the most complex cases we’ve ever been presented with. My experts here have been exceptionally thorough in their analysis.’

Andrei goes very still. ‘And?’

I glance at his face. His lips are set hard, the lower one sticking out in that obstinate way, and his eyes are burning with intensity. I know he badly wants to hear the right answer. This painting has put us all through a lot. I’m anxious myself: my heart is pounding and I feel breathless. I realise that my hands are tightly clenched inside my coat pockets.

Nicolai clearly has a taste for the dramatic. He slowly hangs his coat over the back of his chair and then makes his way across the room to the easel. He takes the corner of the cloth covering the canvas on the easel in one hand, pauses for a moment and then pulls so that the fabric slides slowly away. And there it is, in all its glory: the shimmering, beautiful painting that I last saw in a Croatian monastery. The Madonna still sits serenely in her gorgeous garden, her baby on her knee, the saints and monks around her. It truly is exquisite and the moment I see it, my faith is reborn.
This is the real thing. Surely. Can anything that isn’t a masterpiece be so lovely?

I’m surprised by a sudden stab of unexpected sadness. Something mournful fills me as I remember what else happened in that monastery: the glorious reunion I had there with Dominic. It felt as though our relationship had been rekindled and made stronger than ever. Now, we are apart again and this time I’m afraid that we’ll never be able to bridge the gap between us.

I see him in my mind, just as he was when we were last together, so clear and so vivid I can’t help pulling in a sharp breath. But his beautiful face is set hard with anger and fear, his eyes are glowering. I hear his words again:

‘I want you to swear on your life that nothing has ever happened between you and Dubrovski. Come on, Beth. Swear.’

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be sure. And that sent us spiralling apart, the precious trust between us broken. For ever?

No. I won’t let that happen. I’ll make sure it doesn’t.

Andrei’s voice, harsh and jagged, brings me back to the present. I’m filled with desperate longing to be with Dominic, not here in this strange country with the man who was the cause of the trouble. This is sheer madness.

‘Come on, Nicolai! What’s the answer?’

Nicolai puts on a pair of glasses and examines the painting closely, making little clicking noises with his tongue. At last he says, ‘The brushwork is magnificent, the paints absolutely masterful in their tints. They match exactly what we would expect from Fra Angelico’s genius. Everything: the composition, the linear perspective, the style . . . it’s almost perfect.’

‘
Almost
?’ raps out Andrei.

Nicolai nods mournfully. ‘Perfect, but for one thing. Analysis of the pigments and the canvas itself tells us that this work is no more than two hundred years old. It’s a very clever, very delightful, very exciting pastiche. It is a wonderful work by a great talent, but it is not by Fra Angelico.’ He looks straight at Andrei who is standing like a statue, his face pale. ‘I’m sorry, Andrei, but there’s no doubt about it. Your painting is a fake.’

Chapter Two

I’m virtually running through the Winter Palace in pursuit of Andrei, who is striding ahead of me. I hope he can remember the way out because I have no idea where we are. We’ve gone along metres of corridors and down at least one flight of stairs already.

Fifteen hundred rooms. If he can’t remember the way, we could be racing around for a very long time looking for the exit.

But Andrei evidently knows the route and he keeps up his killing pace until we reach the door where we came in. He goes to open it.

‘Andrei, please!’ I gasp. ‘Wait!’

He stops and turns around. His expression is awful: I’ve never seen rage so deeply etched on a face and his eyes are like burning flint.

‘I . . . I . . . I’m sorry!’ I manage to say as I try to catch my breath. ‘I know what the painting meant to you!’

A nasty snarl curls his lips. ‘You and your friend have cost me two million dollars,’ he says, his voice harsher than ever. I never usually notice his accent – he sounds more American than anything to me – but now the Russian aspect is pronounced, as though he wants to emphasise the difference between us. ‘You want to think about that, huh?’

I almost recoil in shock. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re my art adviser, aren’t you? You and Mark, together? You came with me to Croatia to advise me on the purchase of the Fra Angelico and it was on your say-so that I bought the goddamned thing! So much for your expertise.’

I gasp at this. It’s blatantly unfair. I can see Mark’s unhappy face in my mind right now. He didn’t want to be pressed into advising Andrei to buy the painting but Andrei insisted. Mark’s advice was to wait until the painting was properly authenticated; Andrei hadn’t listened. I can hear Mark telling me that his reputation would be on the line if the painting turned out to be a fake.
Oh God, Mark – what will this do to you?

Fury blazes up in me. Andrei can’t play it this way. He can’t pretend that he didn’t steamroller us and buy the painting against Mark’s advice.

‘You know that’s not true!’ I cry. The anger boiling up in me makes my voice strong and indignant. ‘I won’t let you blame Mark for this! He warned you, he told you to be cautious but you wouldn’t listen. He never wanted you to buy that painting but you went ahead anyway. He’s been so loyal to you, how dare you turn on him like this?’

Andrei says nothing but he’s paler than ever, his brows knitting as he stares at me.

I’m more fired up now, despite a voice at the back of my mind warning me to tread carefully. ‘It’s your own fault, you know it is. You wanted to believe that the painting was real, so you did exactly what you wanted. Is this how you operate? Throwing people to the lions when things go wrong rather than take the blame yourself? I thought better of you than that. But I’m beginning to realise I was wrong about you on more than one level.’

I can’t quite believe what I’ve just said. A thread of fear curls around my stomach and tightens.
Oh no, I’ve gone too far.

His teeth are clenched, I can tell by the tightness of his jaw and the way a muscle is pulsing in his cheek. He looks like he wants to kill me. Then, after an agonising pause, he says curtly, ‘Get in the car. Now.’ He strides out without looking to see if I’m obeying.

As I follow him through the door, I curse my rashness. I’m completely at this man’s mercy. Now is not the time to antagonise him – but I couldn’t stop myself. If he’s going to blame Mark and me for this situation, then our working relationship is at an end anyway. But what if I’m about to see a whole different side of Andrei Dubrovski? I’ve seen him polished and civilised, considerate, even seductive – but I’ve always known that under that sophisticated exterior is a boy from the Moscow back streets, brought up in an orphanage, who made his fortune through toughness and determination, succeeding no matter what it took.

How far would he go if he wanted some kind of revenge?

The driver is out of the car, holding the door open for me. I climb in and wonder what the hell is going to happen now. Andrei is next to me. He’s silent but I can sense the fury roiling inside him. My instinct tells me to keep quiet, so I don’t even ask where we’re going now. I want desperately to be back in my room at the hotel. I need to get away from him so I can think this all through. The car sets off, out through the gate and back over the river. We’re on the Nevsky Prospect, the famous main road of St Petersburg, crawling along through the heavy traffic, rolling by crowds of well-wrapped-up people walking through snowy streets in front of bright shop windows. We pass ornate department stores, brightly lit malls, huge churches and beautiful monuments. I ought to be thrilled to be here, I ought to be drinking in these sights, but instead I’m nervous and unhappy, wondering what is going to happen next.

Andrei doesn’t speak all the way back to the hotel. Then, as we walk into the glitzy marble lobby with its giant crystal lights, he says, ‘I’m going to my room. Order whatever you want for lunch. Be ready to leave here again at two o’clock.’

‘Are we going home?’ I venture.

He looks down at me with a swift chilly gaze. Then something he sees in my face makes him pause and soften slightly. ‘Not yet. Tonight. There’s something I need to do first.’ He looks as though he wants to say something else, but he decides against it and only adds: ‘Two o’clock. Exactly.’

I go back to my room, grateful to be able to recover a little from the drama of this morning. When the door is safely closed behind me, I lean against it and sigh with relief. Then I kick off my boots, throw myself down on my bed and stare up at the ceiling.

‘So the painting is a fake,’ I say out loud. ‘I can’t believe it. After all that.’

I wonder what Andrei intends to do about it. I wouldn’t want to be the abbot of the monastery when he has to take that particular telephone call. But I have my own call to make. I ought to tell Mark what the results of the Hermitage investigation are; he needs to know. I remember the last time I saw him, just before I left for Russia with Andrei. I’d gone round to the Belgravia house to see how he was and get some final instructions, only to find a big bustling blonde woman had taken charge of everything.