His Favourite Sin

Chapter Three: The Empty Photograph

The gallery owner insisted that Clara had not left the building.

He repeated it to the security guard, then to the two assistants searching the back corridor, and finally to a police officer who arrived twenty minutes after the first call. Each time, his voice became less certain.

Vesper stood near the entrance with Imani, watching the confusion spread through the exhibition.

The guests had begun to leave. Some looked concerned; others seemed irritated that an evening intended for art and networking had become an inconvenience. A man in a navy suit complained loudly about the police questioning him. Two women whispered beside the windows, their eyes moving repeatedly towards Lucien Varr.

He had remained.

That, more than anything, held Vesper's attention.

A man with his apparent influence could have departed before the police arrived. Instead, he stood near the gallery owner's office, answering questions with a composure that made the officers seem almost apologetic for asking them.

Vesper couldn't decide whether that made him reassuring or suspicious.

“Clara worked here regularly,” Imani said quietly. “The owner mentioned her when we arrived.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember people who know where the money goes.”

Vesper glanced at her. “You were looking into the gallery before tonight?”

“Not the gallery. One of its investors.”

“Lucien?”

“Possibly.”

“Imani.”

“What? You asked.”

Vesper lowered her voice. “You could have mentioned that before introducing yourself to half the room.”

“And ruin the evening?”

“It's ruined anyway.”

“Fair point.”

Across the room, a police officer approached Lucien. Their conversation was too quiet to hear, but Vesper saw the officer open a small notebook. Lucien answered a question, then gestured towards the front desk.

The officer followed his direction.

“What do you think happened to her?” Vesper asked.

Imani's expression grew serious.

“I think we should find out who saw her last.”

They approached the gallery owner, who was standing beside a table where abandoned glasses and folded exhibition programmes had begun to accumulate.

“Excuse me,” Imani said. “I'm a journalist. We spoke briefly earlier.”

The man's shoulders tightened.

“I'm not giving interviews.”

“I'm not asking for one. We just want to know when Clara was last seen.”

“Why?”

“Because she appears to be missing.”

He looked at her with open irritation. “The police are handling it.”

“Then you won't mind telling them the same thing twice.”

Vesper almost smiled.

The owner studied Imani's face, apparently weighing the inconvenience of answering against the possibility of making an enemy. At last, he exhaled.

“Clara was assisting with the guest register. She brought it to my office shortly after eight. I asked her to collect a catalogue from the storage room.”

“And then?” Vesper asked.

“She didn't return.”

“Is the storage room connected to an outside entrance?”

“No.”

“Windows?”

“None that open.”

Imani exchanged a glance with Vesper.

“Did Clara know Mr. Varr?” she asked.

The owner's face became guarded.

“She knew many of our patrons.”

“That wasn't the question.”

Before he could answer, a police officer called him away.

Imani watched him go.

“He's frightened.”

“Of the police?”

“Possibly. But I don't think that's all.”

Vesper looked towards Lucien again. He was speaking to another officer, his expression unreadable.

“Everyone seems frightened of someone tonight.”

“That's usually when people start lying.”

They were permitted to leave after giving their names and contact details. Outside, the harbour wind swept along the pavement, carrying the smell of salt and rain. The streetlights reflected across the wet road, and cars moved through the intersection in long ribbons of white and red.

Imani pulled her coat closer.

“Come to mine,” she said. “We'll look into Clara before you go back to that workshop alone.”

“I have work tomorrow.”

“You also have a mysterious ring, a wealthy stranger warning you about invisible dangers, and a woman who appears to have vanished from a locked building.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds unreasonable.”

“It sounded unreasonable before I said it.”

Vesper considered arguing, but the image of the empty corridor remained with her. She had no particular reason to believe Clara's disappearance was connected to the ring. Still, she could not ignore the timing.

“Fine,” she said. “But I'm not staying all night.”

“Of course not.”

Imani's expression suggested she believed the opposite.

---

Imani's flat occupied the second floor of a narrow brick building above a pharmacy. It was crowded with books, newspapers, camera equipment, and half-finished cups of tea. A corkboard covered one wall, pinned with photographs and handwritten notes.

Vesper had seen the board before, usually when Imani was investigating something she insisted was only a small story.

Tonight, several photographs had been added to it.

One showed Clara standing outside the gallery several weeks earlier, smiling at someone beyond the frame. Another showed the gallery's front entrance. Beneath it were printed records of companies, property transactions, and charitable donations.

Vesper set her handbag on the sofa.

“You really have been investigating the gallery.”

“Not the gallery itself. A pattern.”

Imani removed her coat and turned on her laptop.

“Three people have disappeared in the last six months. All worked for organisations that received funding from the same group of private investors.”

“Clara makes four?”

“Possibly. I don't count someone as missing until I've established they haven't simply left town.”

“That sounds sensible.”

“It's an irritating habit. Makes stories take longer.”

Vesper sat beside her.

“Where did the other three work?”

“One at a private medical clinic. One for a property management company. The third was a financial assistant at an investment firm.”

“Connected to Lucien?”

“Connected to businesses in which his companies hold shares.”

“That's not the same thing.”

“No, it isn't.” Imani turned towards her. “Which is why I'm not accusing him of anything. I'm trying to establish whether the connections mean something.”

Vesper appreciated the distinction, although she was not sure it made her feel better.

Imani opened a folder of photographs. They showed the three missing people at different stages of their lives: a young man standing outside a café, a woman leaving an office building, and a middle-aged man photographed at what appeared to be a family gathering.

“They don't look connected,” Vesper said.

“That's what interested me.”

Imani enlarged the image of the woman.

“Different ages, different jobs, different circumstances. No obvious family connection. But each disappeared after accessing records related to the same group of investors.”

“What records?”

“That's the problem. The companies involved are legally separate, and the documents are difficult to obtain. Someone has taken care to make the connections look ordinary.”

Vesper looked at the corkboard again.

“What does the jewellery have to do with any of this?”

“That's what I'd like to know.”

She opened the photograph Vesper had sent her earlier that evening.

The ring appeared on the screen, its red stone dark beneath the workshop light.

Imani leaned closer.

“Where did you say you got this?”

“An appointment with a man calling himself Mr. Vale.”

“Did you check his identity?”

“He left before I could ask for anything useful.”

“And you accepted the ring?”

“I accepted a restoration examination. I haven't agreed to repair it.”

Imani studied the photograph.

“There's something strange about the engraving.”

“I know.”

“Not the symbol. The lines around it.”

She zoomed in, then rotated the image.

Vesper leaned over her shoulder.

At first, the engraving looked like three decorative strokes curving around the thorn enclosed in a circle. Under magnification, however, the lines seemed uneven. Tiny breaks interrupted their curves, each one positioned with deliberate precision.

Vesper felt a familiar thrill of recognition.

“They aren't decorative,” she said.

“Can you read them?”

“Not yet.”

She took the ring from her handbag and placed it on the table. Under Imani's desk lamp, the engraving became clearer. Vesper rotated the band until the light caught its inner surface.

One of the tiny breaks aligned with the point of the thorn.

Then she noticed another mark, almost hidden beneath the setting.

A small, shallow indentation shaped like a crescent.

Her breath caught.

She had seen that crescent before, beside the thorn-and-circle symbol in her relative's old designs.

But there was something else.

The crescent had been cut through by a single straight line.

Vesper reached for the photograph again.

“Imani, look at the image of Clara.”

Imani brought it up.

Clara stood outside the gallery entrance, one hand resting against the strap of her bag. A silver chain hung around her neck, almost hidden beneath her collar.

At its centre was a small pendant.

A crescent crossed by a single line.

Neither woman spoke for several seconds.

Then Imani leaned back slowly.

“That could be a coincidence.”

“Yes,” Vesper said.

Neither of them sounded convinced.

Imani saved the image to a separate folder and wrote down the time it had been taken. Vesper returned the ring to its pouch, though she could no longer look at it as an ordinary antique.

Her phone vibrated.

An unknown number.

You were warned not to make copies.

Vesper stared at the message.

She had photographed the ring in her workshop before attending the exhibition. She had sent the image to herself and later shown it to Imani. No one outside those two conversations should have known.

A second message appeared.

Stop looking for the girl.

Imani read it over her shoulder.

The room seemed to grow quieter.

“Who knows you have the ring?” she asked.

“Mr. Vale. Lucien Varr. And now you.”

“Did you tell anyone where you were going tonight?”

“No.”

Imani reached for her phone. “I'm saving these messages.”

Vesper looked at the dark window above the sink. Across the street, a car sat beneath a streetlamp with its headlights off.

She could not see anyone inside.

When she looked again, the car pulled away from the kerb and disappeared into the traffic.

For the first time, Vesper wondered whether the ring had been brought to her because she was a skilled jeweller.

Or because someone had been waiting for her to find it.

And somewhere in Gloamspire, Lucien Varr already knew that she had begun.