“Oh, since when?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re a reporter,” he said. “I don’t think your profession is big on that.”

Incredulity filled up my chest. “Are you always prone to making unsubstantiated statements?”

“No, I leave that to journalists.”

Ouch! My teeth gritted together in fury. Who the hell did this man think he was?! “You know nothing about me, Mr Talbot, nor about my journalistic career. If you did, you would realise that I am a trustworthy and conscientious reporter.”

Flynn Talbot started to reply but I cut him off. “I’m not the one who lied to a journalist.”

“I’m sorry,” he ground out. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Then why did you?”

Flynn sighed into my ear. “Let’s just say my previous experience of journalists hasn’t been a positive one.”

He then tried to move the conversation on. “It turns out there’s enough going on in my family as it is without any more complications and the press camped out on the doorstep, if they found out about the Chandler thing. Present company excepted, of course.”

That’s big of you, I thought to myself, before my mind took off in another direction with so many questions I wanted to ask and not just about Flynn’s grandfather being the infamous artist.

“Flynn, what did you mean when you said you hadn’t had a great previous experience with journalists?”

I could hear him considering my question. “Let’s just say it was to do with affairs of the heart and a trust issue.”

“Ah.”

I wanted to ask more, but his deafening silence told me that he wasn’t prepared to divulge anything further. At least not for now.

My stunned thoughts careered back to the Chandler revelation. “How long have you known?” I asked, failing to conceal the thrill in my voice.

“That my grandfather was Chandler?”

“Yes.”

“Since I was fifteen, so… twenty years now. My father found out by accident when he visited my grandfather one day. They both got a bit pissed and my grandfather told him.” Flynn let out a short laugh. “My dad thought he was rambling, but he showed him preparatory images he had been working on that had only just been released into the public domain. He also knew Chandler’s secret signature. That’s how any forgeries or copycats can be identified, so they know it’s a real Chandler piece of art and not a fake.”

“It’s a black CH in a box,” I rambled, my enthusiasm threatening to spill over. “And it always appears on the image somewhere.”

“That’s right,” faltered Flynn into my ear. “Wow. How do you know that?”