‘Shall we agree to call him Vlad?’ the inspector suggested. ‘It’s a lot easier. According to Vlad, Nick approached his employer, who we have to assume is a Russian national, probably living in London.’

‘Don’t we … I mean, you … know who he is?’

‘I could make an educated guess, several, but Vlad is not prepared to identify him; he’s worried about who might be able to get at him while he’s inside. But whoever this man is, he was very interested in the icon and sent Vlad down to look at it and report back. But Nick wasn’t prepared to let him see it without a down payment. He claimed there were others interested in the icon and Vlad’s boss would have to secure his own interest with cash, as it were. This is not uncommon practice, apparently. The down payment was agreed and handed over, photographs of the object taken, our friend returns to London and reports back to his boss who puts in an offer for the icon, which is accepted. All fine so far.’

‘But?’ I asked as the inspector drew breath.

‘But then it seems that Nickolai and Evans claimed they’d had a better offer from someone else. We have no idea whether this was true or just an attempt to force the price up, but Vlad’s boss was furious. The price had been agreed and he was not prepared to get into a bidding war. He sends Vlad and Pietrov down to Ashburton to get his deposit back … and I think this is where you enter the story, Miss Browne.’

‘That’s why they were going to beat Nick up that day,’ I said quickly, ‘because he didn’t want to return the money.’ I could just imagine Nick trying to tell Vlad and Igor that the deposit was non-returnable. ‘And that must have been the money that Nick gave back to them in front of Paul. But if the money was returned, surely that should have been the end of it?’

‘Ah, but Vlad had lost face,’ the inspector went on. ‘The whole episode was viewed as a humiliation, a failure. The only way he thought he could salvage his reputation in the eyes of his boss was to obtain the icon himself, preferably without having to pay for it.’

‘But at this point, surely, he wouldn’t know if Nick still had the icon,’ I objected, ‘or if he’d sold it to one of these other interested parties.’

‘He claims that since their encounter with you, Nick had contacted him, privately, told him the icon was still in his possession, and he was still prepared to do a deal.’