She shot me an impish smile and I found myself warming to her. Taking the chair opposite, I searched my pockets for the small journal I’d been carrying about with me for the past week. The notebook was filled with the research notes I’d taken from my earliest observations of the dress as well as the interviews I’d conducted with Bram and the other divers and Olivia at the historical society. But it was nowhere to be found. I assumed I’d left it in the hire car or perhaps back at Liam’s lab in Castricum but there was no time to dwell on its absence. I’d have to call him later.

‘I understand you’re coordinating an exhibition on the birth of the art market,’ I said.

‘If you’re here to beg for a pre-show ticket, I’m afraid the allocation has already been exhausted. There are at least twenty journalists ahead of you on the waiting list.’

‘Oh, I’m not a journalist,’ I said, quickly. ‘I’m a textiles historian and a freelance curator. I’m trying to track down the owner of a dress.’

She smiled. ‘Just one dress? Isn’t that a little reductive?’

‘It’s an unusual artefact,’ I said. ‘Some Dutch friends of mine – divers – brought it up from a shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean.’

‘And it survived the process?’

‘Miraculously, yes. Preliminary chemical analysis of fabric samples suggest it dates back to the early 17th century and I have reason to believe it was owned and worn by either the Dutch artist Catharina van Shurman or her companion, Anna Tesseltje. I understand Catharina van Shurman is significantly featured in your exhibition and I was hoping to convince you to let me take a look at a few of her artworks. My colleague, Doctor Liam Pinney, is undertaking the technical lab procedures so I promised to follow up the tangential leads, which might provide some proof of ownership.’

‘So what you’re saying is, he’s left you to do all the grunt work?’

‘I hadn’t thought about it in quite those terms.’

‘Some men will always take the low road, if you let them. I once had a man sneak into one of my exhibitions before opening night to take photographs that he proceeded to sell to the press for an exorbitant fee. The paper ran a story he’d prepared which made me out to be some kind of nymphomaniac, suggesting the only way I could have possibly secured those artwork loans was to have conducted affairs with the collectors.’

‘He sounds like a total loser.’

‘He was my ex-husband, so yes, your character assessment is correct.’

‘Well, I can assure you, Ms Hall, that my intentions are purely academic.’

‘Which is not, in and of itself, completely altruistic.’