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pictures.’ At least ten million’s worth. This really was going to be a proper valuation.
    He nodded smugly, treating me to another walrus snort. ‘I have the Whistler drawings in my bedroom,’ he wheezed, skittering towards a second door. This room was yet more dim and close, with an unpleasant acrid smell of dried sweat cut with astringent, old-fashioned cologne. A large bed, made up with sheets and hairy moss-green blankets, took up most of the space. I had to sidle round it to reach the bureau, where five small pictures were lined up. I took out my torch and examined each one thoroughly, checking for the consistency of the signature and very gently unfastening the frames to check the watermark on the paper.
    ‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘The preps for the Thames Sonata series, just as you suggested.’ I was quite pleased with the sound of my own confident, efficient attribution.
    ‘I didn’t need you to tell me that.’
    ‘Of course. But you are thinking of offering them for sale? They wouldn’t be quite suitable for the Italian show, but they’d be perfect for the spring catalogue. Naturally you have the provenances?’ Provenance was key in this business – the trajectory of a picture from the artist’s easel through its various owners and salerooms, the paper trail that proved it was genuine.
    ‘Naturally. Perhaps you might like to have a glance at these while I hunt them out?’ He handed me a heavy album. ‘They’re late Victorian. Most unusual.’
    Perhaps it was the two grasping hands which were scrabbling at my buttocks, but I had a depressingly clear idea of what the Colonel’s etchings were going to look like. Nothing I couldn’t handle. I simply twitched the hands off and opened the album. Not bad, for nineteenth-century porn. I turned a few pages as though I was actually interested. Professionalism, that was all I needed. But then I felt one of those hands creeping around my breast, and suddenly his weight was on me, pushing me abruptly down on the bed.
    ‘Colonel! Let me up immediately!’ I gave him my best outraged-head-girl voice, but this wasn’t feeling like panto anymore. His body pressed heavily on my lungs as he rolled sideways to try to get those repulsive cuspate fingers under my skirt. The green blanket was stifling me; I couldn’t lift my head. My attempts to buck him away were obviously doing something for him, as he planted a foully wet kiss on my exposed neck and hauled his body further over mine.
    I was breathing in shallow gasps – I couldn’t get any air, and that was making me panic. I really don’t like that. I tried to work my palms beneath me to throw him off in a press-up, but he pinioned my right wrist to the bed. I managed to turn my face to the right and sucked foetid air from beneath his armpit. Sweat drenched the front of his Viyella shirt and the bunched wrinkles of his face pulsed next to mine. This close, his teeth were hideously tiny, browning foetal stumps.
    ‘What do you think?’ he gasped, narrowing his boiled eyes seductively. ‘I’ve got lots more like that. Videos too. I bet a little bitch like you would love that, eh?’
    His stomach was gibbering against my back. I gave him time to fumble at his fly. God knows what he thought he’d find there. Then I bit his hand, as hard as I could, feeling the flesh give under my jaw. In the moment it took him to squeal and rear up, I’d grabbed my bag, found my phone and aimed it firmly at his crotch like a pistol.
    ‘You little –’
    ‘Bitch? Yes, you said that already. Problem with dogs is, they bite. Now. Get the fuck away from me.’
    He was nursing his hand. I hadn’t drawn blood, but I spat at him just in case.
    ‘I’m going to call Rupert immediately!’
    ‘I don’t think so. You see, videos are a bit behind the times, Colonel Morris. We’ve gone digital. Like my phone. Which can film this and automatically email it to all my friends. Though there’s no magnifying glass if you’re planning