by SL Beaumont
“Stephanie, right? I hope to God you’ve come to make up – he’s been like a bear with a sore head all day,” he said nodding toward the band. Cam was in his mid-twenties and was beginning to make a name for himself as a talent manager. When he heard The Fury playing at a club in London, he had signed them on the spot. He was short and stocky, with a shrewd eye for business.
Stephanie followed his gaze. James was perched on the edge of an amp, tuning his guitar. She cringed as she registered the black eye that he was sporting, obviously the result of the previous night’s altercation. His lip had been cut and was swollen. In his tight black jeans and a loose open necked white shirt, he looked every bit the brooding rock star.
Stephanie felt her heart contract slightly – poor James, that looked sore and it was all her fault. She shouldn’t have paraded Sam in front of him like that. But it wasn’t like they were going out or anything.
As if he felt them looking at him, he suddenly looked up. Anger flashed in his eyes. When the song ended, he carefully set his guitar aside and sauntered over to where they were standing.
“What do you want?” he asked her coldly. “It’s not your shift, so I assume you must be looking for me.”
“James, sorry to break it to you – but the world doesn’t revolve around you,” she said scowling back at him. Wow he could be so arrogant. The fact I am here to see him, notwithstanding, she thought, not completely missing the irony in her response.
James rolled his eyes and said, “yeah, yeah whatever.”
Stephanie was suddenly aware that the chatter in the café had subsided to a low buzz. “But since you are here my arrogant little friend – I do have a question for you. Outside?” she suggested quietly.
She gave Michael a little smile before walking to the door and opening it, suddenly keen to get away from the curious stares. James hesitated and then followed her, both of them conscious of everyone watching.
The door banged shut behind them as they stepped out into the dark night. He stood defensively, hands shoved in his jeans pockets, his face a mask.
She studied him for a moment. The black eye and swollen lip made him look somehow vulnerable, which gave her a strange feeling in the pit of stomach. Damn it, she thought annoyed.
“What did you mean last night?” she asked quietly. “It sounded like there is a lot more to this than simply my grandmother blaming your family for Sophie’s death and your family being pissed off about the fraternisation claims.”
Looking him directly in the eye, she tried to keep her breathing even, so as not to give away the turmoil that her emotions were in. James has so many girls fawning over him already – it will make a nice change for him to have one who appears uninterested.
He eyed her carefully, a taunting smile playing around his lips. “What? The Wakefield and Cooper women aren’t enough to drive a family to war?” he said.
She sighed and shook her head. This wasn’t going to give her any answers. Frustrated she turned towards her car, pulling the keys from her jeans pocket.
James grabbed her arm, pulling her back around to face him.
“Wait,” he said.
She hesitated.
“Just leave it alone Steph,” he whispered. Their eyes locked.
“What? You said, and I quote ‘you can investigate the bitter and twisted ramblings of an old woman if you wish’,” she said lowering her voice, mimicking his accent, and shaking her arm out of his grasp.
“Yeah, very funny,” he said. But he wasn’t laughing. She could feel the tension building between them, like a dam that was ready to burst.
“Are you telling me that there actually is something and now you don’t want me to look into it?” she continued.
A range of emotions crossed his face and he pulled his hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration.
“Let me spell this out for you. Leave my family alone. It’s best if you just walk away from this,” he said slowly, forcefully. He leaned down, his face close to hers and tilted her chin with his thumb, so that she was looking directly at him. “Do you understand?” he demanded, holding her gaze.
Stephanie gasped subconsciously at his touch and the force of his words. “Does that include us?” she said, her voice was barely a whisper. She lowered her eyes self-consciously, waiting for the sting of rejection.
“Oh – I think you made that perfectly clear last night,” he said. The softness of a moment ago had gone from his voice, which had turned cold again. He straightened up and took a step back from her, his eyes hard.
Stephanie bit her lip. Last night he had said that he was sorry they had argued, but now? Now he was like a different person. One she didn’t know. She could feel her own frustration and anger building like a tidal wave – there was no way she could bring herself to back down when he was being so cold and nasty. She would only make a fool of herself.
“As did you last week,” she retorted, hands on hips.
“Then we both know where we stand,” James said, his eyes flashing angrily. “Go now – I’m sure lover boy must be waiting for you to call.”
He looked at her again – the hurt in his eyes raw for a fleeting moment before they became hard and distant again. She hesitated, “James,” she began.
“See ya ‘round, Steph,” he said backing away from her towards the café.
Stephanie turned away from him. She had to get to her car before the tears came.
James pushed the door of the café open and strode back past Michael towards the little stage.
“Don’t be too hard on her dude,” Michael said softly as he passed.
“What? She left with that bastard last night,” James said, stopping and turning on him.
“Yeah, but you didn’t hear the row they had afterwards outside,” Michael said, smiling broadly. “I followed her out of the pub to make sure she was ok and overheard her shouting at Sam. She told him where to go in no uncertain terms.”
“Really?” James said, surprised.
“Oh yeah – he would most definitely have been on the sofa,” Michael laughed. “Besides – it certainly looked like Victoria was going to kiss you all better,” he said, looking knowingly at James. “And I know she made sure that Steph thought that.”
James walked over to the band, returning Liam’s hi-five, and looked out the window as he threw his guitar strap across his body.
“At least you came back in one piece,” Andy said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
James glanced out of the window. In the light pooling from the street lamps he watched as Stephanie’s Fiat accelerated out of the car park, gravel flying in her wake.
* * *
Stephanie woke the next morning with a head ache. She hadn’t slept at all well. Crying herself to sleep didn’t help. In the cold light of day, she felt annoyed with herself. Who is he anyway? A jumped up little wannabe rock star with an over inflated ego. He had been annoyed about Sam though – far more than she thought he would have been. What right did he have to act like that; it wasn’t like we were together? And besides he was the one who had pushed me away. Still, she felt miserable. See, she told herself sternly, rolling over and sitting up, this is why you don’t get involved. You only end up hurting.
She shook her head. Enough – time to move on.
She hadn’t dated that many boys, but she did know that really the only thing to ease the pain of rejection, was time and distraction. However, she didn’t have the luxury of time to get over him, with her working for his best mate Andy, so it would have to be distraction. Still, she was surprised at the how much James’ words had hurt her – after all she hadn’t known him all that long and only kissed him that one time…..
Stop it, she told herself firmly.
She crawled out of bed and pulled on her work out gear and forced herself out of the house for a thirty minute run. After a hot shower, she sat at her desk, switched on her laptop and looked through the stack of information she had gathered. She had Sophie’s journal
s, along with some old newspaper articles about the inquiry into the fraternisation claims that listed the names of several Germans who had supposedly visited Knox Manor in the immediate pre-war years. In addition, she had borrowed the autobiographies of some of the Knox and Wakefield family’s contemporaries – such as the Mitford sisters, from the local library.
A good real life mystery – now that was just the sort of distraction she needed. James’ insistence that she stop looking into the Knox family only strengthened her resolve to follow up on whatever Sophie and David thought they might have uncovered. James obviously knew more than he was letting on. She picked up the books and articles and curled up on her sofa to read.
If the Knoxes had been storing paintings and other valuables for European friends as Edward suggested to Sophie, what if they had kept some and not returned them after the war? she wondered.
She did a quick internet search on World War II and paintings. There were thousands of results. She clicked open the first search result which claimed to be the official site for research into looted art and scrolled through their first list. She was amazed. This was just something that she had never realised. There were literally thousands of works of art that had disappeared during those years that were still missing, presumed destroyed and lost forever. Specialist art theft units existed within police forces around the world tasked with recovering what they could, along with investigating more recent art thefts.
She clicked open an in depth New York Times article from the previous year which explained how Hitler’s men had systematically plundered the art galleries and museums of the countries they invaded and stolen valuables belonging to many doomed Jewish families, such as the Rockefellers and Rosenbergs in Paris. The Nazis had meticulously catalogued their looting though, which had been an enormous help in the restoration process following the war.
The article went on to say that after the war, allied soldiers had found famous art works by artists such as Picasso, Degas, Manet and Rembrandt, hidden in railway tunnels, underground mines and in the luxurious homes of the leaders of the third Reich. The castle of Neuschwanstein had been a main repository of artworks stolen from France. It had taken a specialist team of Allied soldiers, the Monuments Men, six weeks to empty it. The Monuments Men were tasked with recovering and restoring whatever art, national monuments and treasures they could in Europe. Where they were able, many items were repatriated to their lawful owners, but countless others had simply disappeared.
Various efforts by governments and other groups in the years since the war ended, had recovered some of the art that had appeared in private collections and art galleries. But it wasn’t always straight forward proving ownership; although museum collections had good records, there were many gaps in the documentation of art works that changed hands in Europe between 1933 and 1945. According to the article, it was likely that many major collections around the world could still hold pieces with dubious gaps in the history of their ownership.
As part of the war reparation process in the late 1940s a list of missing works had been compiled, using the albums that Hitler’s men produced of the art work they had obtained.
Stephanie sat back at her desk and shook her head. This was unbelievable.
She spent the next hour reading other recent newspaper articles. Hitler had in effect tried to change Germany’s view of what was appropriate art and what wasn’t. He had labelled the art work of any modern, non-German artist as ‘degenerate’. Stephanie was shocked at the famous names that had been considered degenerate in Germany – Dali, Van Gogh, Picasso, Renoir, and Chagall.
This fits with the story that Hoffman told at dinner, according to Sophie’s diary, she thought. Imagine if Germany had won the war – much of Europe’s cultural history would have been irrevocably altered and destroyed.
Artwork thought demolished during the Nazi area was still turning up though. As recently as 2010 a set of sculptures labelled as degenerate in the 1930s had been unearthed during the excavations for an extension to the subway in Berlin.
Stephanie followed a number of links and came to a website which claimed to list one hundred paintings stolen by the Nazis. Some had been found, but many had never been recovered. She scrolled through the thumbnail pictures on the website. There were paintings by Gustav Klimt, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Johannes Vermeer.
Suddenly she stopped. She scrolled back up the page and peered at one of the pictures – it showed a brightly coloured painting of a man in country scene. It couldn’t be. I have seen that exact painting before.
Chapter 13
Stephanie enlarged the thumbnail of the painting on the screen. It looked exactly like the painting that was hanging in the library at Knox Manor. She had commented to James about it, the evening he had shown her the photos he had found of Edward and Sophie. She looked closely at the screen – there was no way that could be the same painting, was there? She would need to have another look at it to be sure.
She clicked into the detail of the painting. It was a self-portrait entitled ‘Painter on the Road to Tarascon’ and the artist was none other than Vincent van Gogh. Stephanie did a double take. She read through the history of the painting. The painting had originally hung in the Kulturhistorisches Museum in Magdeburg in Germany. From there the Nazis had confiscated it, considering it degenerate in 1938, and it hadn’t been seen since. It was assumed to have been destroyed in the Allied bombing of Berlin in 1944.
Stephanie sat back unsure what to do. Surely the painting hanging in the Knox library must be a copy, although James did say it was very old. Pity he was being so difficult or she could go back to the manor and take another look at it. One thing was certain; she would need to ensure it was the same painting before saying anything.
She had to think this through carefully, rather than run off and make a fool of herself.
Stomach rumbling, she skipped downstairs to have a late breakfast.
I wonder if Alex Knox’s business has a website, she thought an hour or so later, her mind wandering. Back in her bedroom, she opened up internet explorer on her laptop and did a Google search and sure enough, there it was www.knoxantiques.co.uk.
She clicked onto the website and spent the next ten minutes reading. It looked very legitimate – well of course it would, she thought. She noted that his area of expertise was late 19th and early to mid 20th century art and antiques. It appeared that he ran the business out of a shop in Green Park in London. She took a mental note of its location – could be worth a visit sometime.
Stephanie was interrupted a little while later with a visit from Michael. He arrived at the same time as a courier, who handed him a large bouquet of flowers.
“Hi Steph,” he called knocking quietly and poking his head around her open bedroom door. “Here, these were just delivered for you.” He handed her the flowers.
Wow. Maybe James had gotten over his mood after all, Stephanie thought. She felt her own mood lift and her breath hitch. She laid the flowers on the end of her bed and pulled out the card.
Sorry about Friday. Look forward to seeing you again soon. Love Sam
Stephanie let out the breath she had been holding. She felt disappointed and then immediately annoyed with herself.
Michael watched the myriad of emotions cross her face.
“Not from the person you hoped?” he asked with surprising insight.
She shrugged, but didn’t answer. She tossed the card aside onto the bed. It landed face up and Michael saw Sam’s name on the bottom.
“I thought I’d check you were ok after last night. I know you and James argued and you looked upset when you left,” he said shuffling uncomfortably.
“I’m fine,” she said, dismissing his concern. “It seems that James and I have agreed to disagree on just about everything - especially when it’s to do with to our families.”
“James is really sensitive about his family. He was absolutely devastated when his father d
ied. Not only were they really close, but I think he protected James from his brother,” Michael said. “Alex has beaten the crap out of James on several occasions since then. He’s got a foul temper.”
“What about his mother? Surely she wouldn’t let that happen?” Stephanie said.
“She hasn’t been around much of late. She remarried fairly quickly and he hates his stepfather,” Michael said. “I think James feels pretty betrayed and abandoned by her, although he puts on this tough front.”
Stephanie looked away. Great. Her natural instinct was feel sad for James. Don’t make me feel sorry for the arrogant little git.
Michael perched on the arm of the sofa beside Stephanie’s desk. Her laptop was open with the Knox Antiques home page displayed.
He looked at her quizzically. “So what does Alex Knox’s antiques business have to do with the search you have me running for you?” He picked up Sophie’s journal and turned it over in his hands. “What are you up to Steph?”
Stephanie blushed. “I’m not quite sure yet. Can you trust me for a few days, if I promise to tell you once I have uncovered a little more? It might be nothing.” She carefully took the diary from him.
“Ok – I will hold you to that promise though,” Michael said.
After Michael went home, Stephanie felt restless. Despite what he had said, she refused to allow herself to feel sorry for James. He’s made his feelings for me pretty clear. I need to just move on, she thought.
While she arranged Sam’s flowers in a large vase, the painting in the library continued to play on her mind. If only she could get another look at it. The seed of a plan began to grow in her mind. However, it depended on James’ whereabouts. She wandered into her wardrobe and selected a casual hat. She piled her hair up on top of her head and pulled the hat on. The brim partially covered her face. She grabbed her bag and car keys and ran down the stairs to the front door.
“Just popping to the village,” she called and let herself out the front door.
