said, exasperated. ‘It belongs to the nation. I’ve been trusted to protect it, Tracy. And now my wife, my own wife, goes and steals it!’
‘I thought you’d be pleased.’ Tears welled up in Tracy’s eyes.
‘Well, I’m not.’
She couldn’t understand Jeff’s reaction. Especially after she’d gone to so much trouble. He used to be proud of me when I pulled off jobs like that. No one had been hurt, after all. The old Jeff would have been pleased, amused, delighted. Tracy wanted the old Jeff back.
Jeff was staring down at the coin in his hand, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Rebecca said she thought you seemed distracted on opening day,’ he murmured. ‘I remember she asked me if there was anything up with you.’
‘Oh, Rebecca said something, did she?’ Tracy shot back angrily. ‘Well, bully for Rebecca! I’ll bet perfect little Rebecca would never sink so low as to steal a national treasure, now, would she?’
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ said Jeff.
‘Because she’s not a dishonest con artist like me, right?’
Jeff shrugged as if to say, If the shoe fits.
Tears of anger and humiliation streamed down Tracy’s cheeks. ‘Your little girlfriend may be better than me—’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Jeff snapped. ‘Rebecca isn’t my girlfriend.’
‘But if she’s better than me, she’s better than you too, Jeff. Have you forgotten who you are? You’re a con artist, Jeff Stevens. You may have retired, but you’ve got a twenty-year life of crime behind you, my friend! So don’t you come playing the high-handed saint with…’
Tracy stopped abruptly, like a child freezing in a game of musical statues.
‘What?’ said Jeff.
Tracy stared at him, her eyes wide and desperate, like a rabbit about to be shot. Then she looked down. Droplets of blood, dark and heavy, fell slowly from between her legs onto the floorboards.
She started to sob.
‘All right, sweetheart. Don’t panic.’ Jeff dropped the coin and put his arms around her. This was Tracy, his Tracy. What was he thinking, getting so angry with her in her condition? ‘It’ll be okay. Just lie down.’
Jeff ran for the phone. ‘I need an ambulance. Yes, Forty-five Eaton Square. As fast as you can, please.’
BELGRAVIA WAS PARTICULARLY BEAUTIFUL IN THE springtime, Jeff Stevens thought as he set out from Eaton Square in the direction of Hyde Park. The cherry trees lining the Georgian streets were all in bloom, an eruption of white that mirrored the white stucco facades and laid a snowy carpet over the uneven paving stones. Frequent rain had left the grass in Chester and Belgrave Square a glowing, vibrant green. And everywhere people seemed cheerful and renewed, grateful to have emerged from another long, grey, relentless London winter.
For Jeff and Tracy Stevens, the winter had been longer than most. Tracy’s miscarriage had hit both of them hard, but Jeff carried an extra burden of guilt, afraid that it was the fight they’d had over that stupid Mercian coin that had triggered it. He had discreetly returned the coin months ago, and no one at the British Museum had been any the wiser. But the damage that had been done to his relationship with Tracy was not so easy to fix.
They still loved each other. Of that there was no doubt. But the coin incident had forced them both to realize that they’d been papering over some pretty seismic cracks within the marriage. Perhaps it was Tracy’s struggle to conceive that had obscured them? Or Jeff’s total immersion in his new job? Or both? Whatever the cause, the bottom line was that Jeff had changed since they gave up their old life of heists and capers. And Tracy, fundamentally, had not.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t prepared to give up the actual act of committing crimes. That she could do. The stealing of the Saxon coin had been a one-shot deal, which she had no intention of repeating. It was more that there was a part of her identity, an important part, that she didn’t want to let go of. Jeff, at long last, was starting to understand this.
He still hoped that a child would eventually fill the void for Tracy, the way that his passion for antiquities had filled the void for him. They began IVF with high hopes. But as one cycle failed, and then a second, Jeff could only stand by and watch helplessly as the dark sadness inside his wife grew bigger and bigger; like a tumour nothing seemed able to stop it.
Jeff tried to make Tracy whole with his love. He started coming home early from work, took her on romantic vacations, and surprised her with all sorts of thoughtful gifts: a vintage oil painting of the quarter of New Orleans where Tracy had grown up; a beautiful leather-bound book on the history of flamenco, the dance to which Jeff and Tracy had first fallen in love; a pair of jet earrings from the Whitby coast, where the two of them had once spent a memorably awful weekend in a dreadful hotel, but where Tracy had become intoxicated with the wild, moorland landscape.
Tracy was touched by all of them. But the sadness remained.
‘It sounds like depression,’ Rebecca suggested tentatively, listening to Jeff pour his heart out over tea in the museum café. ‘Has she seen anybody?’
‘Like a shrink, you mean? No. Tracy doesn’t believe in all that stuff.’
‘Yeah, well. Unfortunately mental illness happens, whether you believe in it or not,’ said Rebecca. ‘Having someone to talk to might help.’
‘She has me to talk to,’ said Jeff. Rebecca could hear the despair in his voice.
‘Maybe there are things she can’t talk to you about.’ Reaching across the table, she squeezed Jeff’s hand.
Rebecca Mortimer had tried not to feel attracted to Jeff Stevens. It was unprofessional. But after months of working in close proximity to his gorgeous grey eyes and jet-black curls, his easy manner and his warm, infectious laugh, she’d given up the effort. How awful it must be to be married to a withdrawn, depressed wife who resented your work and shut you out emotionally. If she, Rebecca, had a husband like Jeff, she’d treat him like a king.
Jeff glanced up, as if something had suddenly occurred to him. ‘You know what? Maybe she is seeing someone. Maybe she has a shrink and is embarrassed to tell me. That would explain a lot.’
‘Explain a lot of what?’ Rebecca asked.
‘She’s been…I don’t know. Cagey, recently. Like she has these mysterious meetings and won’t tell me where she is. Or she comes home late and she seems kind of happier. Less stressed.’
Rebecca nodded silently. Inside she thought, Well, well, well. I wonder if the perfect Mrs Stevens has a boyfriend on the side? It was typical of Jeff that such a thought had clearly never even crossed his mind. Jeff Stevens worshipped his wife. But perhaps the goddess Tracy was about to come crashing down off her pedestal.
Jeff had reached the park now. When the weather was fine he often walked all the way to work, but he was already late this morning, so he hopped on the number nineteen bus.
Rebecca greeted him when he came in. She and Jeff shared an office on the second floor of the museum. If you could call it an office. It was really more of a broom closet, with room for only one desk and two chairs wedged side by side.
‘Hey.’ Rebecca handed him a cup of coffee, strong and black the way he liked it.
‘Hey.’
In a pair of tight black jeans and a bottle-green sleeveless top that contrasted strikingly with her titian hair, Jeff noticed she was looking particularly beautiful this morning. He also noticed that she seemed unhappy about something. She was biting her lower lip nervously and avoiding meeting his