For a moment, I was too astonished to take in more information. The porous parts of my brain sealed over, and the words on the page simply bounced off the surface. I looked to Jessica for help, but her eyebrows were arched over wide blue eyes stunned into staring. I sat down on one of the old green leather chairs and laid the letter flat on the table in front of me, where it stuck on the waxy surface.

Dear James,

If you get this letter it means that we are no longer in contact. Perhaps you have finally grown tired of my fickleness, and cut yourself off from me completely. Perhaps I have set off for distant, monkey-infested shores in search of infamy and fortune (well, another fortune anyway), and am even now sipping a vulgarly named cocktail on a deserted stretch of volcanic sand. Perhaps you have caught me seducing your wife. Perhaps I have taken some sort of mortal oath, and ensconced myself in meditative silence at the peak of Everest. Whatever the reason, I do so hope that I remain in your thoughts.

I have placed this letter in my lawyer’s keeping, so that it shall never be at the mercy of my own better judgement. There are any number of circumstances that might trigger delivery, but I don’t want to spoil it by telling you what they all are: whatever has happened to you over the last few days should act as an explanation. Suffice it to say, James, that I have done something a little naughty, or else painfully good, and I wanted to warn you before others realized first. I wanted to tell you that I swapped the paintings. I couldn’t help thinking that the whole thing would be so much better if we really got something for nothing – and so much more exciting, don’t you think? When I drove the real picture down to be verified by the ‘expert’ I took the fake one with me, and after he had checked it over I swapped it in the car park. It was the easiest thing in the world. I simply left the real one in the room, then after he had gone took the fake one out of the boot and handed it to his heavies. I could barely contain myself, I was bursting with my own cleverness at the thought of how we stitched up that brute White, but I knew that if I told you lot then you would give the game away, and Lisa would try and make me give it back.

I sincerely hope you are pleased to discover yourself an artist whose works sell for millions. Please forgive me if you are not. Either way, you are now free to amend your plans as you see fit in the light of the truth. Jessica and Lisa will currently be reading letters to the same effect, allowing a few days to track them down. I always thought they would fall a little further from the tree than you and that, despite my best efforts, you would wind up being contactable. It is a terrible sign if this letter has found you quickly – it can only mean that you are leading a predictable life. I hope it reaches you months from now, stained with tea and coffee rings from mugs set down by foreign officials, covered with a hundred countries’ stamps in sheaves as thick as autumn leaves, opened and read and reread by censors looking for a private code, with random words excised in black pen, finally arriving under your eyes on a silver tray, borne by a slave-girl, beside your morning glass of ambrosia in the warmth of a tropical sunrise. I hope above all that you are happy. Regards to your lovely father.