Kitabı oku: «Sleeping With Ghosts», sayfa 2

‘Uh huh,’ Oliver nodded slowly, his face adopting a ‘Well, that answers everything’ sort of look. His glasses slipped an inch down his nose, he pushed them firmly back into place before saying, ‘I heard about your mother’s tragic car crash. Nasty business. I’m sorry.’

Her eyes did not waver from Freda’s photograph when she said, matter-of-fact, ‘My mother died a long time ago, so don’t be.’

A short nervous cough covered the estate agent’s embarrassment. He averted his gaze.

‘Come along, Mr Grant, we’re not finished yet,’ she said in a brighter voice.

Following her out of the living room, he trudged up a narrow staircase. He fixed his eyes on the smooth orb of her left buttock; it was the closest one to him, the panty line clearly visible beneath her tight denim jeans. He wondered if she wore lacy, see-through panties – the type he ogled in magazines. By the time they had reached the top of the stairs he was contemplating asking Kathryn if she was busy next Saturday. It was the annual dinner dance at his cricket club. Oliver was certain she would enjoy it, he always did.

Kathryn inclined her head towards an open door directly in front of them. ‘That’s the master bedroom, not very apt in this case, since there hasn’t been a master in there for a very long time.’ Having said this, she left him to measure up, before stepping alone into the room next door.

This bedroom looked exactly the same as the day she had left home. There was a crack in the face of the old Dohrmann alarm clock, one of the few remaining possessions her mother had brought with her from Germany. And the rosebud-pink patterned wallpaper which Kathryn had always hated had started to peel around a damp patch above the bed. But otherwise nothing had changed, and she was reminded of another time, long ago, but not forgotten.

Kathryn squeezed her eyes tightly shut as the demons, for ever hovering on the edge of her consciousness, began to invade. A shutter in her memory clicked, and Richard de Moubray’s face appeared. Not for the first time Kathryn thought how strange it was that every time she visualized her father, she saw only his face, never his body; he always looked sad, and the image was always in black and white. Even after almost twenty-five years, however much she tried to imagine him looking happy and at ease, he always wore the same expression he had worn the day he had left home.

‘I love you very much, Kathryn, but I won’t be living with you any longer. I’m leaving to live with someone else; you will be staying with Mummy, but we’ll see each other often, and I promise you will still be my little princess.’

It was the last time he ever called her his ‘little princess’, and after that day she had not seen him for exactly eight months, five days, six hours and twenty-four minutes. She knew; she had ticked the days off her calendar when she was nine years old.

Kathryn had lost count of the times she had stood in exactly the same spot, running and rerunning the little scene in her head, certain that it must have been something she had said, or done, that had made her daddy leave.

Slowly her eyes opened and she blinked to clear the thin film of moisture blurring her vision. Each season viewed from this bedroom window had brought with it vivid memories, painful in their clarity. With tinkling childish laughter pealing in her ears, she recalled her seventh birthday.

Her father walking towards her, carrying something … He is smiling, the special smile, the one he has for her, and her alone. She is running across the lawn, long blonde hair streaming from her upturned face, rapt in childish wonderment; her screams of delight mingle with the playful yelps of her birthday present – a golden Labrador puppy.

Shaking her head to disperse the memory, Kathryn stepped back from the window to sit on the edge of her old bed. With the flat of her hand, she stroked the quilted counterpane, her fingers lovingly resting on a small scatter cushion propped up against the pine headboard. She traced the border of an embroidered primrose; it was lopsided and the bright yellow petals had faded to a dull cream. A hint of a smile flickered across her face as she cast her mind back to the kindly Mrs Crowther, her needlework teacher, who had helped her with the embroidery. A painstaking task for a twelve-year-old who was neither patient nor a natural needlewoman.

Brimming with pride, she had brought the finished article home from school to sit on her bed next to Rumple, the one-eyed teddy she’d had for as long as she could remember. The smile slipped from her face as, with a pang, Kathryn recalled her shock on finding Rumple gone, and her stinging indignation towards her mother for having thrown her beloved companion away. It was as if her childhood had departed with Rumple, he who had shared her dreams, been party to her innermost secrets, and comforted her when her heart ached.

Oliver Grant’s voice cut sharply through her reverie.

‘I’ll send a photographer over tomorrow, so by early next week, we’ll have all the details ready to send out.’

Standing up, Kathryn said, ‘The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.’ She was suddenly seized with the familiar urge to get out of Fallowfields. The house had always been oppressive, but for some reason without her mother it was worse.

Following Kathryn downstairs, after taking the dimensions of her old bedroom, Oliver’s gaze roamed up and down the back of her legs, coming to rest once more on her backside. He fantasized about her bending over his bed wearing nothing but a black G-string. He blushed a little as he felt his erection rise and with his briefcase in front of his groin, he stopped at the front door.

‘Well, I think that just about wraps it up for now,’ he said. ‘I have a meeting with the surveyor tomorrow, and I also intend to do a full inventory of the contents. It’s amazing what turns up hidden away in attics and cellars; sometimes old people die and leave a fortune in antiques – actually only a couple of weeks ago …’

The estate agent looked animated for the first time, and Kathryn suspected he was about to embark on a long boring monologue of his occupational experiences. She interrupted his flow.

‘I’m sure you’ve got lots of fascinating anecdotes to relate, Mr Grant, but I’ve got to get back to London for an important meeting, and to be honest I’m late now.’

Her clipped tone, followed by a curt glance at her watch, were not lost on the estate agent, who, looking a little miffed, clamped his mouth shut and hovered on the doorstep.

Kathryn held out her hand. ‘I want a quick sale, Mr Grant, and I don’t mind dropping the price, if that’s what it takes.’

Taking her hand, he responded, ‘You can rest assured, Miss de Moubray, I’m sure I’ll get you the asking price and a quick sale. Trust me.’

There wasn’t an estate agent on the face of the earth she would have trusted, but her face softened and she could not resist a wry smile as Oliver Grant accelerated into his full sales pitch.

‘You are in good hands with Brinkforth and Sons; we have a few potential clients who spring immediately to mind for this highly desirable residence. I know that houses like Fallowfields do not stay on the market long.’

Kathryn nodded, and watched him walk to his car. She then stepped back into the house, closing the door quietly behind her. She leaned against it, letting out a long sigh, thinking how relieved she would be when Fallowfields was sold. She gazed around the dreary hall, and as usual she was conscious of the all-prevailing sadness that seemed to seep out of the very walls. Whispering echoes caressed her ears: her mother’s heels clicking on the wooden floor, as they had done at exactly the same time every weekday morning; her voice urging Kathryn to hurry or she would be late. Yes, she would be very happy to be done with Fallowfields.

Kathryn picked up the mail from the hall table. She stuffed it into her shoulder bag before running up the stairs two at a time to close an open window which she had spotted on her arrival. She was panting as she reached the landing. Hesitating on the threshold of her mother’s bedroom she tried to recall the last time she had been in there. Five, six years, maybe longer, she couldn’t remember exactly, all she did know was that she dreaded going inside, and had to force herself to open the door. She spotted the open window, and kept her eyes fixed on it as she crossed the room. She willed herself not to think of the night she had run in here as a terrified five-year-old in need of a cuddle and soothing voice after a disturbing nightmare. Instead she had been greeted by her father, naked and gleaming with sweat, frantically moving up and down and grunting like some crazed animal. It was only after she moved to the side of the bed that she realized her mother was under him, her face buried deep in the pillow.

As Kathryn had watched in silence, hardly daring to breathe, Freda had lifted her head slightly, turning to face her daughter. Their eyes had met, and in that split second Kathryn thought her mother was going to die.

Now, standing very still in the middle of the room, she was transported back to that time; she could still feel the rising panic, and the fur tickling the roof of her mouth as she had bitten down hard on top of her teddy’s head, before screaming at her father to stop hurting Mummy.

Kathryn stretched forward to close the window. Having done so, she turned to leave, swearing as she stubbed her big toe on the bedside chair. She stooped to rub it, her eyes drawn to a loose floorboard under the bed. It was sticking up at an angle, a couple of inches from where she knelt. The wood was rotting, pitted with tiny holes. Fixed with a single nail, it moved easily and her heart missed a beat when she saw something glinting in the small cavity below. When she slid her hand down to pull out a box, she thought of all the stories she’d heard about hiding money under the bed. The box was about ten inches in length, and six inches high; it was made of silver and tortoiseshell, and very beautiful.

Kathryn stood the fine object on the dressing table, thinking how incongruous it looked amidst the functional hairbrush, comb, and assorted plain wooden boxes her mother had used. She dusted the lid with the flat of her hand, her index finger tracing the intricately carved flowers and leaves decorating the lid. It was locked, but she was gripped by the most weird sensation. It was as if the inanimate object was speaking to her. Open me, please, the box seemed to beg. Kathryn looked around the room for something to break the lock.

In the dressing-table drawer she found a pair of nail scissors. After several attempts the tiny silver lock opened with a sharp crack. Panting slightly from a mixture of exertion and anticipation, she lifted the lid at last. It was, as she expected, a jewel case, and in perfect condition. There were three different-sized compartments, all intact, and the dark purple lining looked as good as new. It contained no jewellery apart from a silver crucifix Kathryn had worn for her confirmation. The chain was tied around a bundle of photographs and letters, and the cross, blackened with age, hung from a ragged blue ribbon. Carefully she untied the bundle, and sorting through the photographs found to her surprise that most were of herself, in different stages of development from birth up to university graduation. There were a few of her parents; one on their wedding day, and another taken on a holiday in Wales a few years later. Her father looked detached, in stark contrast to his wife’s serene expression. There was a sealed brown envelope, the padded sort used for sending fragile mail. It contained a wad of money. Kathryn quickly counted three thousand pounds in used fifty- and twenty-pound notes.

She was about to replace the memorabilia, when she noticed another tiny hinge on the inside of the lid. Running her index finger around the edge, she could feel a thin ridge and a moment later her finger encountered a spring catch. She pressed it, jumping as a panel dropped open and a photograph frame fell out, landing face down with a dull clang.

Squinting to read the faded writing scrawled across the back, she lifted the frame closer to her eyes. It read, ‘Von Trellenberg family, Schloss Bischofstell Mühlhausen, 30th July 1936.’

It was a group shot, the family bunched together in a wide doorway under a coat of arms set in stone. Her eyes rested on the face of a little girl, about nine years old; her heart missing a beat at the angelic features framed by a mass of platinum curls. Kathryn was certain that if the photograph was in colour, the child’s eyes would be a bright periwinkle blue. She knew because they were her mother’s eyes. There was another younger child in the photograph, smaller and very plain. Kathryn assumed by the shape of the high domed forehead and long nose that it was Ingrid. This child was squirming shyly behind the left leg of her mother, who appeared to be trying in vain to push her daughter forward and smile herself at the same time. A young boy of about ten Kathryn guessed to be her Uncle Joachim. He was standing tall and very upright, sunlight glinting off the top of his golden crown. His small upturned face was radiant in admiration as he looked at his father dressed in the uniform of a German SS officer.

Kathryn shivered in spite of the heat, there was something obscene in the young boy’s look. She felt a sudden tightness in her chest, and drawing in a shaky breath, her hands tightened their grip on the photograph. She would have dropped it if the urge to keep staring were not so great. Klaus Von Trellenberg’s face was almost a mirror image of her own. Beads of cold sweat popped out across her brow, and the back of her neck felt suddenly very icy. She threw the frame down, breaking the glass, breathing deeply, willing herself to stay calm. For God’s sake, why did she have to look like him? Was it not bad enough that she had a Nazi for a grandfather? But to be the spitting image! Then out loud she yelled, ‘Why, Mother, why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to find out now, when you’re not around to explain it? There’s so much I need to know.’

Fighting back angry tears, Kathryn stuffed everything back into the box, and carrying it close to her chest she strode out of the room and downstairs, not stopping until she reached the front door. Stepping outside, she slammed the door shut for what she hoped would be the last time. As she turned the key in the lock, she glanced up at the wooden sign hanging above her head. It had a crack running through the centre and age had worn away some of the gold lettering. It now read,’ al ow i lds’.

With slow precise movements Kathryn walked back towards her car, past a scarlet blanket of poppies, and herbaceous borders thickly stocked with a glorious summer display. Stooping to pick a stephanotis, she held the flower close to her nose, inhaling the fragrant scent. A picture of her mother in vivid Technicolor popped into her mind. Freda in a battered straw hat, bent double, her gloved hand working furiously in the soil; then a fond memory of her mother’s excitement after winning her first prize at a local flower show.

A cloud covered the sun, and with it the image darkened. Freda’s expression had changed, devoid of emotion, clearly indifferent to the news of Kathryn’s First in English from Edinburgh University. Blinking back tears of profound regret, Kathryn wished, as she had so many times in the past, that she had been able to reach her mother. They had been like strangers, uncomfortable in each other’s company. Freda had never been able to acknowledge her daughter’s considerable achievements. Resentment had taken the place of pride and Kathryn knew her own successes had burnt inside Freda like a white hot coal. For a long time she had searched for something, anything, to bind them as mother and daughter; but she was sure, with the certainty of feminine intuition, that her mother had firmly locked the door to her soul the day her father had left, if not before.

Had Klaus Von Trellenberg been guilty of hideous crimes during the war, perhaps genocide? Kathryn wondered if that was why her mother had been so distant; had she been burdened with a terrible secret? They were both dead now, and Kathryn doubted she would ever know the truth, yet she found it impossible not to care.

The flower slipped from her hand, she watched it flutter gently to the ground before slipping inside her car. Putting her foot down hard on the accelerator, she roared forward, tyres churning up the gravel drive.

Before turning out on to the road, Kathryn allowed herself one last fleeting glance in her rear-view mirror, but the house was obscured in a cloud of dust.

Chapter Two

‘This time I really believe we’ve got him.’

Mark Grossman studied the sensitive face of the man seated on the opposite side of his desk. The deep-set eyes lit with an expectant gleam had taken on a golden hue and looked lighter than their usual amber. His mouth opened as if to speak, but closed as Mark continued.

‘Our sources tell us that he’s been spotted in the West Indies. An eye-witness account which, as you know, can be totally unreliable, but we’ve checked this one out thoroughly. It seems, if you’ll excuse the expression, kosher.’

Mark blinked several times, his head ached, and there was a gritty sensation behind his eyes.

‘You look tired, Mark,’ Adam commented

‘Yeah, I feel lousy. I’m wrecked. My schedule has been, to put it mildly, a little tight. Argentina two days ago, back in Manhattan for a meeting, then five hours later, I jumped on a flight to Israel. I arrived in town at six a.m. this morning on the red eye from Tel Aviv. I don’t know if I need a crap or a haircut.’

Adam grinned, ‘Both probably.’ Then lowering his voice said, ‘So our little Nazi friend is holed up in the West Indies. It’s a hell of a long way from his last known address.’

‘Not as far as you might think. Boats ply from South America through the Indies constantly, there are lots of small craft skippered by dubious captains who would not be adverse to taking on an unusual fare. Come on, Adam, think about it. Who would question a retired European living in the West Indies when there are literally thousands of them? The ex-pat brigade: the English with their gin and tonics, and the Yanks with their ridiculous cocktails.’

‘You’re right, anyway who cares how he got there; more important, we know he’s there. And he’s still alive.’

Mark nodded. ‘If our sources are correct, he has a rare form of bone cancer. Two weeks ago he went to the local hospital in St Lucia for a scan. Unfortunately for our suspect, an American doctor Ben Weitzman happened to be on a lecturing tour in the West Indies. Dr Weitzman, who is a bone cancer specialist, was asked to take a look at him. Ben Weitzman’s mother is a Holocaust survivor, you may have met her brother – Nathan Drey?’

Adam shook his head. ‘His name doesn’t ring a bell.’

Mark went on, ‘Nathan died a couple of years ago. He worked for the Centre when I joined in 1979.’

Mark blinked. Seventeen years. It seemed like yesterday. He had been twenty-six, a child of Holocaust survivors, and an ardent recruit to an organization he felt needed young blood, and new ideas. He had desperately wanted to rid the Horowitz Centre of its old image. An image he knew many people shared: that of embittered Jews, tormented by their time spent in the camps, obsessed with psychopathic cat-and-mouse games of hunting down anyone who had even a slight connection with the Nazis.

Mark Grossman, now Head of Intelligence, felt he had achieved his objective in some small measure, and hoped that the Centre was now recognized throughout the world for spreading an important message. Man’s inhumanity to man could not be ignored, and racial bigotry had to be addressed and punished, to ensure that what happened in Germany before, and during, World War Two never happened again.

Adam was speaking, intruding on his thoughts. ‘You were telling me about Nathan?’

‘Sorry, yes, I was miles away, thinking about when I first met Nathan. He was a good man, if a little fanatical, I suppose if you’ve lived through four years of Auschwitz, it kinda makes you that way. He helped to capture Eichmann, and for years he worked night and day on Von Trellenberg. Nathan was like a dog with a bone, he left no stone unturned. I would often come into the office in the early morning, to find him slumped over his desk sleeping. He’d been there all night. He was the one who tracked down Von Trellenberg in Bolivia in 1958. Nathan thought he had him then, but he was double-crossed by some local Argentine creep. Anyway both Klaus and the Argentine guy disappeared without trace. But Nathan had managed to get a couple of photographs of the man he thought was Klaus, and Nathan’s sister Anna positively identified him as Von Trellenberg. Anna and Nathan Drey were both born in Berlin. She was a celebrated concert pianist and composer before the war. Von Trellenberg knew her. Apparently he and his father had attended several of her concerts. She was interned in Bergen Belsen in 1943, and claims to have seen Von Trellenberg visiting the camp at least three times.

‘Anyway, to get back to the current situation, the man with bone cancer claims to be Dutch. Says his name is Van Beukering, from Rotterdam. Yet when questioned about Holland, he became very agitated and eager to leave. Then when Dr Ben Weitzman asked him where he was born, he reeled off a street name in Amsterdam, instead of Rotterdam. Weitzman then made an appointment to see him a few days later. First he called me here, and I arranged for his mother and one of my colleagues to fly to St Lucia. This Van Beukering didn’t turn up for the appointment. Ben’s tried to contact Van Beukering’s own doctor, but he’s on vacation overseas and we’ve been unable to locate him. The man gave a false address to the hospital, and so far we’ve hit a brick wall with all our enquiries.’ Mark sighed. ‘Nobody on St Lucia seems to have seen or heard of this guy. Meanwhile he’s disappeared into thin—’

‘Did Dr Weitzman see his hand?’ Adam interrupted.

Mark nodded, unable to contain the rising excitement in his voice. ‘Yes. Apparently that was the first thing he noticed; the third finger on his left hand was severed at the knuckle.’

Adam banged the top of the desk with his clenched fist. ‘That’s him! You’ve got him, Mark.’

‘Well, it isn’t absolutely positive yet, but I feel we’ve got enough to continue investigating. This is the closest we’ve come since Argentina.’

Adam, his fist still clenched in a tight ball, stood up and began to pace the small office. He was wearing what he always wore: jeans. Today they were black, teamed with a white shirt made by Bernie Katz in the finest lawn cotton, the same shirt-maker his father had used before him. And a pair of tan hide cowboy boots, custom-made from a firm in Houston. Mark could not recall ever having seen him in anything else and was, as always, struck by the image of an ageing rock star, rather than the reality of a successful international art dealer.

When Adam finally stopped pacing, he stood in front of Mark and said, ‘Argentina was close, I really thought you had the bastard then.’

A nerve began to tremor uncontrollably in Mark’s left temple. He massaged it with his forefinger, also thinking of the last time they had come this close to the man he had been hunting all these years. It had been in 1987, in a remote hill village close to the town of Santa Rosa, in Argentina.

Mark would never forget that night.

The sky was bigger than he could ever have imagined, and blacker, although rashed with stars. The frenzied animal screams breaking the stillness had caused his heart to race, and then came the wild tangerine glow – so bright it had hurt his eyes, lighting up the sky like a huge glowing torch that he thought would burn for ever. The stench of charred flesh in the burnt-out remains of the ranch would remain with him for the rest of his life. As would the despair he’d felt when he’d learnt that the bodies had all been local farm hands.

Mark stood up. He had pale eyes and pale skin, and an unruly thatch of thick, black hair. He ran his hands down the front of his crumpled navy blue suit and, straightening his tie, he listened intently to Adam’s next words.

‘I want to be there when you get him, Mark.’

‘If we get him. The bird has probably flown by now.’

‘He’s ill, he’s dying; he’s unlikely to be making any long journeys. No, I think he’s there in St Lucia. Hiding out somewhere. I’d love to go down there myself, I’m sure I could hunt him out of his fucking rat-hole.’

Mark Grossman shook his head, like a father to an errant son. He had a deep affection for Adam Krantz, and for his late father Benjamin who had been a patron of the Centre for many years. But Adam’s ambition was just not professional and it was more than his job was worth to allow it.

‘You know I can’t have that, Adam. Just supposing it is him – you know the procedure: we’ve got no official authority in the West Indies; we have to make an application to the St Lucian government for a warrant for his arrest and extradition. The local police resent intruders and can be very uncooperative. You’re too emotionally involved in all this; that could impair your judgement; you might take the law into your own hands. I don’t want to risk that liability. Von Trellenberg is a big fish, we can’t afford to screw up.’

‘Look, I promise to be a good boy, do exactly what I’m told, no screw-ups. I’ve always wanted to go to the West Indies and I’m due for a vacation. Come on, Mark,’ he pushed. ‘You owe me.’

Mark sighed and, turning away, he scanned the floor-to-ceiling wall of books in front of him, without seeing one title. Adam was right: he did owe him. Adam had helped a lot in the past, and not only with money. He had invested time and commitment.

Neither man spoke for several seconds.

Mark finally broke the silence. ‘You’re right, the Centre owes you and your father a lot. So now you’re calling in your dues; is that how it is? You’re putting me on the spot, man. I thought we were friends.’

‘We are, Mark, that’s why I feel I can ask. You know how important this is to me. I understand your position, but I’m begging you as a patron and a good friend to bend the rules for me just a little.’

The two men faced each other. Adam, although not unusually tall at five foot ten, towered above the diminutive Mark – who now relented. ‘If it is him, and we make a formal arrest, I’ll see what I can do.’

Adam smiled, then quickly composed himself, but not before the other man had seen a hint of triumph in his face. Mark rubbed the tip of his long nose saying cautiously, ‘I make no formal promises. Who knows, this man may not even be Von Trellenberg.’

‘How many other eighty-two-year-old Europeans with a severed finger can there be living in obscurity in the West Indies?’

Mark shrugged, his face impassive. ‘You know me, Adam, ever sceptical, it goes with the job.’

‘Yeah, I appreciate that. I know you’ve had your fair share of false alarms.’

‘Who doesn’t …’ Mark looked resigned, then added on a brighter note, ‘I’ll keep you up to date with developments as and when they occur, and now you really will have to excuse me. I’ve got to fly down to Washington and be back in time for dinner with the family. That is if I still have a wife and kids, I’ve forgotten what Victoria looks like.’

Adam gripped his hand firmly in farewell. ‘I feel very confident, Mark. Good vibes, you know what I mean? I really think that this time we’ve got the son-of-a-bitch!’

Adam left Mark’s office five minutes later, stepping on to First Ave and into glorious June sunshine. The light, blindingly bright, danced across acres of Manhattan glass, soaring into the china blue sky. A light breeze ruffled his dark hair as he hailed a taxi, asking for 76th and Madison.

Upper eastside was gridlocked, so he got out at the corner of 74th, strolling the two blocks to his art gallery. ‘Morning, Lenny,’ he waved to the street vendor, on the corner of 76th.

Lenny waved back. ‘It’s going to be a hot one, Mr Krantz, they say in the high eighties.’

‘You’ll sell more Cokes then.’

‘I wish I was selling on the beach in Bermuda!’

‘And I wish I was there with you,’ Adam smiled before walking on.

He stopped outside his shop, admiring the recently completed sign above the door: ‘Krantz Fine Art’. The gilded calligraphy had taken over a week to paint by hand and in Adam’s opinion looked much better than the previous ‘Krantz Gallery’ sign his father had designed in the early fifties. Benjamin had stubbornly refused to change it – insisting that his clients came to him not because of a fancy shop-front, but because he had a fine reputation as a dealer of the utmost integrity.

The gallery was cool, and there was a sense of calm in the hushed surroundings. At the sound of the doorbell, Joanne, Adam’s PA, peered from behind a pile of canvases.

‘Morning, Mr Krantz,’ she greeted him with a warm smile.

‘Morning, Joanne,’ he returned, walking past her into a small office at the rear of the gallery. ‘Any mail?’

‘Tell me a time when there isn’t any mail!’ Joanne said, joining him. ‘The usual circulars, bills, invitations, etc. And this.’ She picked up a letter from the top of the pile and handed it to him.

Adam’s eyes flicked briefly over the correspondence; a small nerve at the corner of his mouth twitched as he protested, ‘Some people never give up! How many more times do I have to tell this schmuck that I do not want to sell the Renoir.’ He screwed the letter into a tight ball and dropped it into the bin. ‘Write to this creep, tell him if he doesn’t stop bothering me I intend to take legal action for harassment.’