CHAPTER 11 #2
Within a minute she had the catalogue open.
BLUE STUDY.
Celeste Arden.
Objects supplied in collaboration with Fenn Found.
Then the entry:
Hand-painted silk decorative panel, circa 1800. Recent private acquisition from long-held family collection. First public display.
First public display.
Romy looked at the 1997 photograph.
“That cannot both be true.”
“If it’s the same object,” Ellis said.
“Yes.”
Same design was not same object.
Patterns repeated. Textiles were printed in runs. Borders, birds, and colours could match.
Romy needed damage.
Age gave objects identities where catalogues did not.
Tiny losses.
Repairs.
Misprints.
Stains.
Distortions.
She opened her 6:31 image.
“Edge loss.”
“Where?”
“Upper left.”
A small crescent of missing silk interrupted the painted leaf border, perhaps eight millimetres.
“And here.”
The misregistered flower.
“You’re saying those could identify the specific textile.”
“If the old image shows both.”
Vivian asked, “Can a photograph from 1997 resolve that?”
“If Iqra finds a decent scan.”
They waited by working through more notes.
Sebastian had written Marcus’s name six times.
Fenn?
Ask Fenn source.
Supplier chain false?
Backing new.
Original mount removed?
Where 1998-2025?
One boxed line read:
WHY CALL IT FIRST PUBLIC DISPLAY?
Romy read it twice.
The plagiarism story had been loud.
This was quieter.
And potentially more dangerous.
If the panel’s ownership history was false, the issue could be stolen or misdescribed property moved through a chain somebody wanted hidden.
Sebastian had started asking legal questions about title before the preview.
Then he had seen the panel itself.
That must have confirmed something.
Or almost.
Found the real story.
Not a story.
The real story.
At 12:18, Iqra called.
“I found the issue.”
Romy straightened.
“Good.”
“Article is ‘The Halden Rooms Reconsidered.’ Photographer Daniel Mercer. March 1997. Pages forty-eight to fifty-seven.”
“West Drawing Room?”
“Yes.”
“Panel?”
“Yes.”
“Same pattern?”
“Looks like it.”
“Can you resolve the upper left edge?”
A pause.
Typing.
“Give me a second.”
Ellis and Vivian moved closer.
Romy put the call on speaker.
“There’s damage,” Iqra said.
“What shape?”
“Small curved loss. Upper left border.”
Romy looked at Ellis.
“Flower near upper right. Red print slightly offset from the line.”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Nobody spoke.
Two accidents of manufacture and age.
Same positions.
Same object.
Not merely the same pattern.
“How clear?”
“Very. I’ve got the digitized archive copy at high resolution.”
“Can police obtain it formally?”
Ellis leaned toward the phone.
“DI Harwood. Yes.”
“I know who you are.”
He looked at Romy.
She smiled.
“Please preserve the citation and source path,” Ellis said. “An officer will contact the archive.”
“Fine.”
Romy asked, “What does the caption say?”
Iqra read for a moment.
“West Drawing Room, Halden House. Textile panel from the Halden family collection. Eighteenth-century printed silk, displayed in the house since at least the 1930s.”
Romy stared at the Fenn Found description.
Private collection, northern England.
Acquired from family ownership, 2025.
No prior published history known.
First public display.
Impossible.
Vivian said, “The catalogue provenance is false.”
“Incompatible with documented history,” Ellis corrected.
“That is legal fear wearing a tie,” Romy said.
“It is accuracy.”
“It is false.”
“If the photograph is authenticated and the object match confirmed, yes.”
Iqra said, “For what it’s worth, I agree with Romy.”
“Thank you.”
Ellis rubbed his forehead.
“I regret speakerphone.”
Iqra continued.
“There’s more. Halden House sold part of the collection in 1998.”
“Public sale?”
“Partly.”
“Was the panel listed?”
“I’m checking.”
“Sebastian kept asking where it went after 1998.”
“That fits.”
Romy looked at his notes.
Where after 1998?
Who held it?
Private sale?
“Iqra, find every catalogue reference you can.”
“I’m already doing that.”
“Of course you are.”
“And Romy?”
“Yes.”
“You owe me lunch.”
“Done.”
The call ended.
The legal review room went still.
Fenn Found’s object description sat beside Sebastian’s 1997 print.
Twenty-eight years collapsed into two pieces of paper.
Romy had seen this kind of conflict before.
Not this object.
Not this house.
The pattern.
A physical thing saying one thing.
A written record saying another.
Elin’s case had turned on the same divide.
People trusted records because records looked orderly. Dates. Names. Signatures. Ownership descriptions repeated until repetition acquired the weight of fact.
Objects were less polite.
They kept damage, repairs, old fittings, tool marks, surface changes.
Evidence paperwork could not erase.
Romy touched the corner of the 1997 photograph.
“Same problem.”
Ellis looked at her.
“What?”
“Record says recent acquisition. Object says it was photographed in a named collection in 1997.”
Vivian said, “That does not tell us what happened after 1998.”
“No.”
“It could have been sold legitimately.”
“Yes.”
“Passed through multiple owners.”
“Yes.”
“Marcus could have acquired it lawfully in 2025 from someone whose family had owned it for years.”
“Yes.”
Romy looked at her.
“But then why erase the 1997 history?”
Vivian did not answer.
A clean chain did not require pretending the object had never appeared publicly.
Ellis picked up Fenn Found’s description.
“Who wrote this?”
Vivian checked the catalogue submission records.
“Supplied by Fenn Found.”
“Marcus personally?”
“Company submission account. We need metadata or correspondence to know who drafted the text.”
Romy said, “He called it first public display. He told Celeste it came through one of his suppliers. He also supplied the felt and the plate-warmer.”
Ellis looked at her.
“Careful.”
“I am being careful.”
“You are building a person out of three objects.”
“I’m building questions.”
“Better.”
Romy hated when he approved of her restraint.
At one fifteen, Vivian announced she could no longer think while Romy’s stomach was making noise.
“It was not.”
“It absolutely was.”
Ellis said, “I heard it.”
Romy looked betrayed.
Vivian ordered sandwiches from the hotel kitchen.
They moved Sebastian’s documents well away and ate at the same table.
Romy had cheese and pickle.
Ellis had ham.
Vivian ate half an egg sandwich while answering four emails.
For ten minutes they did not discuss murder.
Vivian complained about the hotel pillows.
Ellis claimed hotel pillows were either bricks or clouds.
Romy objected to the phrase as scientifically useless.
Vivian said, “You people desperately need normal hobbies.”
Romy thought of Leo’s railway posters.
“We’re working on it.”
The sandwiches helped.
So did the absurdity of arguing about bedding while a false provenance chain waited nearby.
Reset.
Not escape.
When they returned to Sebastian’s papers, the final box contained handwritten research notes mixed with dealer-database printouts.
Romy found three more references to the panel.
1997 photo confirmed?
Halden disposal list incomplete.
Ask Fenn re private source.
Then:
Backing not original.
She stopped.
“Backing.”
Ellis leaned over.
Sebastian had underlined it twice.
The next pages held close photographs of the back of a textile.
Stitch holes.
Fresh backing cloth.
A replaced hanging strip.
Romy recognized the conservation signs.
Someone had remounted the panel.
Not necessarily recently.
But later than the textile itself.
Vivian asked, “Why does that matter?”
“Backings often carry history.”
“Labels?”
“Yes. Dealer marks. Collection numbers. Old hanging systems. Stains matching prior mounts.”
“Could changing the backing remove evidence of ownership?” Ellis asked.
“It could.”
“Could also be conservation.”
“Absolutely.”
Romy turned another page.
Beside a photograph of newly attached backing cloth, Sebastian had written a short note in the margin.
Iqra called again at the same moment.
“I found the 1998 disposal references.”
Romy put her on speaker.
“And?”
“The public catalogue lists textiles, but not this panel by description. There’s a note saying several furnishing elements were retained for private family division before sale.”
“So the trail goes dark.”
“Publicly, yes.”
“Anything after that?”
“Not yet.”
Romy looked at Sebastian’s question.
WHERE AFTER 1998?
He had reached the same wall.
Iqra said, “What are you looking at?”
“Photographs of the back.”
“Current panel?”
“Looks like it.”
“Any old labels?”
“No.”
“Removed stitching?”
“Yes.”
Iqra went quiet.
Then, “Wait.”
“What?”
“Read me Sebastian’s notes around the backing.”
Romy did.
Backing not original.
Old mounting removed?
New cloth post-2010?
Ask Fenn source.
Then the final line.
Iqra said, “There.”
Romy frowned.
“Where?”
“The margin.”
Romy followed the cramped handwriting where it ran almost into the printed edge.
She had seen it.
She had not registered the question inside it.
Iqra said, “Read that.”
Romy did not need to.
The words had already landed.
“Ask Fenn why the backing was changed.”