Chapter 14
“Are you sure about this?” Danny asks dubiously.
Tristan and I slide the chest of drawers forward so I can lean down to tuck one of the hex bags under the corner of the carpet where it can’t be seen.
“Yes,” I reply, and pat the carpet down. “Of course it will work.” Then I move to the next corner of the room. “Tristan, a little help please,” I grunt as I try to shift the heavy wardrobe on my own.
“Oh shit, sorry.” He tears his attention away from his dad.
“I’ll help.” Danny reaches for his crutches so he can lift himself off the sofa, but Tristan scoops them up and out of the way.
“Nope, you stay exactly where you are. The last thing we need is you breaking the other leg when a wardrobe accidentally falls on top of you.”
Danny frowns in reply. “I’d rather it didn’t fall on anybody.”
Tristan moves towards me and grasps the other side of the wardrobe. Between the two of us, we manage to wiggle it away from the wall far enough that I can squeeze my arm down the gap and tuck the last hex bag under the carpet.
“Okay, that’s done.” I stand up and dust off my clothes, then reach into my pocket and pull out the braided bracelet. “We just need to get this on your dad.”
Tristan nods and edges around the bed to where his dad, Martin, stands beside his bedside table, clicking the nightlight on and off.
While he’s preoccupied, Tristan takes his hand gently and lift his arm to pull up his sleeve.
Martin doesn’t even notice. I quickly wrap the bracelet around his wrist and double-knot it.
“There, that shouldn’t come off,” I mutter. “Just make sure his carers know not to remove it, even when he’s being showered.”
“I will, I–”
We both turn as the door opens and Martin’s carer, Lois, walks in. She stops dead and stares at the furniture, still out of position from our supernatural security measures.
“What on earth is going on in here?” She looks first at Tristan and then her eyes settle on me.
“Um... This is Harrison,” Tristan introduces me. “He’s uh…he’s…a…a feng shui expert,” he concludes lamely.
“A feng shui expert?” Lois repeats.
“I, uh…” He glances at me, his eyes widening meaningfully. I can only assume he wants me to collaborate his ridiculous explanation for why we’re moving the furniture around.
“Yes, I’m an expert at positioning,” I tell Lois. Dusty snorts loudly from across the room. Danny is also trying not to laugh. “We thought Martin would benefit from a positive energy flow in his personal space.”
“I must say Martin does look remarkably calmer.” She studies Martin. “Feng shui, you say?” she mutters before turning to me. “Make sure you’re signed into the visitors book.”
I smile politely. “Already done.”
“Um, Lois,” Tristan interrupts. “I gave Dad a bracelet and it’s special to me. Could you make sure no one takes it off? It’s braided with soft silken threads so it won’t chafe at all, and it can be worn while showering. I just…I would feel better if he had it close to him.”
Lois’ gaze softens. “Of course I will.”
“Thank you,” he murmurs, watching his dad wander aimlessly around the room.
“Alright then, come along, Martin.” She steps forward and takes his hand. “Time for some dinner. You boys make sure you put that furniture back,” she throws over her shoulder. “We’ll be back in about an hour.”
As the door clicks closed, I turn to Tristan, one brow raised.
“A feng shui expert?”
“I panicked.” He winces. “Come on, we better put this furniture back.”
It doesn’t take long to get everything back into place, and once we have, Tristan turns his attention back to me, his expression relieved.
“Thank you,” he says gratefully.
“You’re welcome.”
Tristan’s phone suddenly rings, and with a glance at the screen, he frowns and connects the call.
“Hel– Whoa, whoa, Chan! You’ve gone ultrasonic. I can’t understand you.”
I wince at the high-pitched ramble I can hear from across the room.
“Tris.” Danny struggles to his feet and I hand him his crutches.
“Hold on a minute, Chan,” Tristan says, and lowers the phone as Danny approaches.
“Why don’t you go and see her?” he suggests. “I can hear her from halfway across the room, so I think it’s obvious she needs you.”
Tristan sighs deeply. “I really wanted to just go home and crawl into bed with you and eat pizza.”
I’ve got to admit there’s a little kernel of jealousy pulsing inside me. I wonder what it would be like to have someone of my own to curl up and eat pizza with.
“We will,” Danny promises. “But first, go and see what’s wrong with Chan. I’ll head home after making sure Martin is settled. I’ve got work to do on Bruce’s case anyway, so I’ll order some pizza and wait for you.”
“You’re the best.” Tristan pecks a kiss to his mouth, then turns his attention to me. “You coming with me?”
I stare at him contemplatively for a moment before giving a small shrug. “I suppose I could.”
Tristan smiles and lift the phone back to his ear. “Chan, text me your address. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Finally,” Chan says from the doorway of her flat. “You said twenty minutes.”
Tristan glances at his watch. “It’s been twenty-three.”
She stands aside to let him enter and then her eyes fall on me.
“Oh, you brought Prickles.” Chan blinks in surprise. I walk past her and roll my eyes. “Fine, you can both help,” she mutters sullenly.
“Dusty’s here too,” Tristan adds as she closes the door behind us and leads the way into her living room. “So what’s the probl–” Tristan breaks off in shock, his mouth falling open and his eyes widening.
“Wow,” I mutter. “That’s–” I blink, at a bit of a loss for words.
“That’s really ostentatious, even for Chan,” Dusty states as she stands beside us with her hands on her hips, her lips pursed thoughtfully. She tilts her head back and looks up at a bloody enormous painting.
It must be nearly three metres high including the elaborate thick dull-gold frame. The whole thing’s so tall it reaches all the way to the ceiling in Chan’s tiny flat, and that’s with it being propped at an angle. I can’t imagine how she got it through the doorway.
The painting itself is really dark, full of deep, muted colours. It portrays two men…kind of…wrestling? I think. They look like they may be naked, and one has got the other in a kind of wrestling move, bent over in front of him.
“Why does it look like he’s giving him a blow job?” Dusty squints.
The three of us tilt our heads simultaneously as we study it.
“Where did it come from?” I frown. “It’s not really the sort of thing you’d find down at Tooting market.”
“Where did it come from?” Chan replies, her voice rising in clear annoyance. “Where did it come from?”
She spins around and grabs the TV remote to flip the TV on. The screen freezes and pixelates for a moment when the lights flicker.
“Stupid fucking storm,” she mutters as the picture resumes, and she changes it to the news channel.
“Paris is in uproar tonight with the apparent theft of a painting from the Grande Gallerie of the Louvre. The painting itself, named Hercules and Achelous, was painted in the early part of the seventeenth century by Italian artist Guido Reni. Police are baffled as to how the piece of art was removed from the wall of the Gallerie without tripping any alarms or registering on the security cameras…”
We stare at the picture of the painting on the screen and then back at the one behind us.
“Oh my god,” Tristan breathes. “That’s the real thing?”
Dusty whistles. “It’s probably worth millions.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” I offer. “While I’ll admit I’m curious as to how it ended up here, I doubt the authorities will think to look for a three-hundred-year-old painting in an ex-council flat in Shoreditch.”
“What I want to know is how the fuck did it get here?” Chan snaps. “This isn’t the bloody Thomas Crown Affair.” She glares at me as if this is somehow all my fault. “All of a sudden all this weird crap just keeps appearing in my flat or in my dressing room at the club.”
“Weird crap?” I repeat. “Like what?”
“See for yourself.” She indicates a pile of objects stacked on the armchair next to the painting, and I lean down and start rooting through the items.
“Oh.”
“Oh, what?” Chan scowls.
“This.” I lift a dirty-looking cloth. Made from dark, coarse material, it’s about the size of a beach towel, and it looks as if it’s been used to wipe the floor and then plug a leak.
“That appeared on my bed a couple of nights ago.” She wrinkles her nose. “It smells like my grandmother, all stale and musty.”
“I think it’s a Tibetan death shroud,” I murmur in fascination as I study it closely. “It has very distinctive stitching, see?”
“I don’t even like cross-stitch.” She throws her hands up in exasperation. “And what the fuck was it doing on my bed?”
“These date back to roughly the second century, and they were considered incredibly powerful. They were laid over the dead to protect them from evil spirits.” I set it aside carefully and pick up an Egyptian amulet.
“Wow, an Egyptian funerary amulet.” I turn it over in my hand.
“Roughly between 186 BC and 90 BC. They were used for a similar purpose, to offer protection on the journey to the Underworld. This craftsmanship is gorgeous,” I whisper reverently, eyeing the inlaid gold and lapis lazuli.
“How do you know so much about history?” Dusty asks.
“I don’t.” I chuckle. “But I do know about powerful magic shit.”
“Never mind that,” Chan interrupts. “I want to know where they came from. And I don’t mean the country.”
“Uh…” Tristan glances at Dusty, who mouths a name to him, but I don’t catch what it is. Whoever is responsible for these items appearing, Tristan and Dusty seem to have figured it out. “Um, I think you have an admirer.”
“I told you I had a stalker.” Chan fists her hands on her hips, looking absolutely mutinous.
“Don’t quote me on it or anything, but I don’t think it’s meant in a kind of stalkerish I have a shrine of you way and I’m going to chop you up and keep you in my freezer kind of way.”