Jessica spoke first. ‘I’m sorry I’ve left you alone for so long. When this thing came up, I have to tell you, I was almost grateful, because it meant that I could see you again.’

‘Why couldn’t you just see me anyway?’

‘Why couldn’t you call me?’

I could not give her an answer. She shifted in her seat.

‘Look, there are still some things I need to know about the painting. For my own peace of mind.’

‘Just ask. I’ll tell you whatever I know.’

‘Would it bear up under chemical analysis?’

‘No. I drew those sketches with modern pencils on thick cream paper we stained with cold tea and flecked with brown ink. Any kind of technical investigation would immediately reveal them as fakes. As to the style, I don’t want to congratulate myself too much, but I think it will hold up under close examination. I followed the lines of the original exactly, but I didn’t trace them, so that the picture has accuracy and spontaneity in just the right proportions. The hardest part of any picture to fake is the provenance, and the Picasso has a flawless and accurate history. As you know it’s not in the interest of the auction houses to prove it a fake – their cut relies on getting a good price for it. Besides, the sheer volume of pictures they sell precludes proper safeguards. The sellers don’t want to know because it would make their goods worthless, and the buyers don’t want to know because it would invalidate the objects of their desire. It’s a wonderful conspiracy of ignorance. I don’t foresee any dangers in the sale, unless the new owners decide to have it cleaned or restored. If that happens, we’re fucked.’

‘So even if the sale goes through without a hitch, it will just hang over us, like before. We’ll never be quite safe.’

‘Man knows not the hour.’ I surprised myself when I said it. It seemed to come out as an automated response.

Jessica shivered. ‘What do you think we did?’ she asked.

‘We committed a crime.’

‘Don’t be obtuse.’

‘Actually, we committed crimes. Law school was a real eye-opener for me. Theft, breach of fiduciary duty, tax evasion. You have no idea what it’s like to sit on the front bench of the lecture hall and realize your life basically constitutes a case study.’ My tone was flippant, I was trying to restore some sense of levity after my previous comment, but I knew even as I spoke that I had misjudged the mood.

‘Shut up, James. Of course I know what we did,’ she said, irritated, ‘but what did it mean, to be so wrong that we should always be punished like this, never knowing peace for one minute, always waiting for the police car to pull up outside?’

I paused to let her know I was thinking about the question seriously. When I spoke, all the forced lightness was gone from my voice.

‘I don’t know. Sometimes I think we’re punished for our greed. I mean we weren’t starving, we weren’t cold or living on the streets, but somehow it still seemed so desperate. I think maybe that’s what real greed is, a blindness to proportion. And we were selfish. Christ, we were selfish, and worse than that we were selfish when we pretended to be thinking about each other. We insisted on handling what was happening to Francis on our own, we drove away all the offers of help, and I think that part of that was because deep down we were afraid of getting caught.’