London | Early September | Three days before trial
The heatwave had broken, replaced by an air that felt taut, metallic. Stella stood in the Shen Fund conference room, facing Zhang Mei on video link, Hunter in Reykjavík, and Freya, who had returned from Cambridge.
On screen was the final edited version of the “Prosecution Opening Statement Summary,” just delivered by Sir James Morris’s team. Twenty-five pages, cool, precise, merciless. It framed her mother’s crimes as “disguised predation”—not art, but theft. Theft of lives, theft of stories, theft of others’ pain repurposed as private collection.
“They’ve adopted our framework,” Zhang Mei said, her face grave on screen. “‘Systematic curation,’ ‘weaponization of valuation criteria.’ But stripped of all aesthetic discussion.”
“That’s co
