‘Lawyers?’

‘From the Picasso Estate. They got there just at the crucial moment and halted the sale.’

‘Halted the sale?’ echoed Sally.

‘But they can’t?’

‘They did.’ Zoe took another swig from her teacup. ‘They say that the work was illicitly taken by Old Mother Hubbard, or whatever her stupid name was, and never did belong to her. They say that she was never Picasso’s mistress – she was his cleaner. And, while cleaning, she had stolen it. And if the mosaic did not ever belong to her, equally it does not belong to us.’

‘So who does it belong to?’ Theresa took a deep breath.

‘According to those lawyers, it belongs to the descendants of Picasso.’ Zoe shrugged and started to shout. ‘As though they needed the money, the little, spoilt, grasping, tight-arsed, nappy-wearing, ugly little sods.’

‘So there’s no sale?’ Carol put her face in her hands. ‘Oh Gaaadddd.’

‘Do we get some kind of compensation?’ asked Sally. ‘We must get something?’

‘Nothing.’ Zoe shook her head. ‘As I said: zip, zilch, sod all.’ She quaffed some more gin. ‘Actually I’m wrong. We not only get sod all, we will be given the present of a massive bill from the auction house for administrative costs, photographs, insurance, storage, advertising . . . and the rest.’

Theresa felt as though she was about to fall through the floor. Suddenly everything was blurred. She feared she would pass out. She stretched forward for the gin.

‘Now what?’ she said, gripping the blue glass bottle to steady herself. ‘That is the question.’

‘Well, I suppose the first thing . . .’ Zoe looked at her watch ‘ . . . would be for you lot to go to La Mosaïque and open up. You’ve got one booking for tonight. Table for one. Me.’

‘Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Zoe,’ said Sally. ‘Thank you for still having faith in us.’

‘Who’s talking about faith? I’m quite aware that you won’t be able to pay me back the money you owe me in pounds, shillings and pence, or even in euros for that matter, so instead you can pay me in kind. Starting tonight.’

Whey-faced, William and Benjamin had arrived in La Mosaïque at the end of the night’s service, having flown down from Paris immediately after finishing the dire business concerning the mosaic.

The group stayed in the dining room of the restaurant and talked until late into the night about the consequences and choices of the day’s debacle.

They could choose to engage lawyers to fight the claim, but having no evidence of the sex life of the late Widow Magenta, the previous owner, or of her relationship with Pablo Picasso, they knew that, by hiring anyone to defend them, they would probably only be throwing good money after bad. After all, the Picasso Estate was obviously not short of a bob or two, and would have enough dosh to buy the best legal team in the world to fight their case.