Blurb
A holiday photograph. A $25,000 cheque. A collector at the door who will not be refused.
Retired architect Thomas Garrison never meant to become a clue — until Alfred Smythe Concord Esquire tracked him to Edmonton and demanded every copy of a lodge snapshot no search engine can find online. Art recovery expert Yasim Shallal recovers stolen masters — and sends them home. Kelly brokers deals the art world pretends not to notice. Both are circling the same theory: Helene Kröller-Müller hid Van Goghs the world believes lost — and Thomas’s photograph may be the key.
Floor plans shift. Wartime secrets surface. Thomas and Carla thought they were retired travellers. The missing Van Goghs disagree.
Excerpt: Chapter One — Old Fashioned
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Ding Dong.
Thomas tensed his shoulders, the sudden intrusion shattering the tranquil focus he had cultivated. A slow breath, a silent wish for muted — eluded him. Why use both loud knocks and a persistent electronic chime? Their actions were unacceptable given the ideal outdoor light that captured the late afternoon sun’s nuances on his canvas.
The studio smelled of linseed oil and the particular quiet of a room doing its job. Tuesday in early August — Edmonton still pretending summer had not ended. North-east corner of the war-era house, windows angled to catch the long Edmonton afternoons — the light he had waited for since morning, when cloud cover had finally broken at two. His cherished sable brush had been halfway to the waiting easel, poised to capture a fleeting highlight along the cedar railing he was painting from memory, when the urgent clamor erupted.
He was not far off. The kind of closeness where the subsequent brushstroke could either finalize or reveal the next location to examine. Thomas knew the difference in his wrists before the mistake showed on canvas.
“I got it, Hun,” Carla called out from somewhere deeper within the house.
The opportunity had passed. The delicate thread of his artistic concentration severed. Thomas set the brush in the jar of turpentine and watched the bristles fan — a small funeral for momentum. He cleaned it with the care he always gave tools that outlasted moods, capped the tubes of paint, wiped his hands on the rag that had seen twenty years of the same ritual. Only then did he move through the familiar hallway toward the living room, Fitbit counting steps he had not intended to take.
Through the front window he caught a glimpse of the visitor — tall, angular, pacing on the porch stones Thomas had set himself three summers ago. The path curved the way he wanted it to: deliberate, not casual. Each stone had been chosen for colour and weight, fitted so winter heave wouldn’t shift the line. Whoever this was had not admired the rocks. They had used them as a stage, turning in tight circles as if the house might answer if he looked impatient enough.
“Thomas, this is Alfred Smythe Concord…” Carla began, her tone neutral as she stood slightly to the side of the doorway, gesturing towards their unexpected visitor.
“Esquire, don’t forget the esquire, it’s quite important, you see,” the visitor interjected, his voice carrying a distinct European lilt. He punctuated the honorific with a sharp tap of his index finger in the air, as if drawing an invisible exclamation point.
“All the copies… all the digital versions… all the backups… I must be the sole owner of them all, of the picture itself, the complete piece of art, its tangible and intangible representations.” The man’s gaze was unnervingly intense, fixed on Thomas as if he were an interesting specimen under a microscope.
Carla moved to the drinks cabinet. “I think a cocktail is in order. Would you fancy a gin and tonic, Mr. Concord? I have a rather lovely elderflower tonic, if I may say so myself.”
“Thomas?” Carla asked, turning with a ‘this will be interesting’ twinkle in her eye.
“I think an Old Fashioned is in order,” he announced.
At the cabinet, Thomas worked by muscle memory: Demerara simple syrup on a bar spoon, two dashes of Strathcona orange bitters, bourbon over a single large ice cube in cut crystal. He cut an orange peel, expressed the oils, dropped it in. Carla built the gin and tonic at the sideboard, stirred like a ritual that mattered.
“Which image are we specifically talking about, Mr. Concord?” Thomas inquired, breaking the awkward silence.
“Why, the one of the Sint Hubertus Hunting Lodge on your Instagram feed, of course!”
