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      ‘Merde, merde, merde,’ Pierre swore uncharacteristically. He shrugged at Maggie’s surprised look. ‘I don’t have energy for anything else at the moment.’

      ‘There is one thing you haven’t considered yet.’ Maggie tried to sound positive. ‘Maybe this has nothing to do with the Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet – specifically, I mean.’

      ‘I don’t understand,’ Pierre said.

      ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Sicán ceremonial mask that was also hijacked was the one from the London collection.’

      When Pierre nodded, Maggie continued. ‘The same mask that Alistair Nash found near Batán Grande in the early 70s and agreed to lend to your exhibition just before he died last year?’

      Pierre nodded again.

      ‘What do you think it’s worth?’

      ‘I have no idea,’ Pierre admitted.

      ‘It’s solid gold,’ Maggie reminded him. ‘It’s worth twenty times what the Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet is worth – both for its intrinsic value and as a cultural artefact. At least there’s no question about where it came from. So maybe that’s what the thieves were after; or perhaps they were just after what they could get.’

      Pierre looked miserable, so Maggie smiled and said, ‘Of course the field of investigation is much narrower if we limit our – sorry, if you limit your suspicions to Escobar and the bracelet.’

      ‘Oh Maggie, please stay,’ Pierre pleaded. ‘Your thoughts on this debacle are much clearer than mine.’

      ‘That’s because, unlike you, I am not accepting responsibility for it.’

      Pierre ran his hand through his hair. ‘It is my fault, isn’t it.’

      ‘No Pierre, it is not. But for a while to come it will feel like it is, and you will be the one that everyone blames – except Professor Jorge who will continue to accuse Escobar, even if it turns out the hijack was carried out by soccer hooligans who wanted the van and not its contents.’

      Chapter Two

      Melbourne, Thursday September 17, 1998

      ‘You do realise you’re going to miss the writers’ festival because of this so-called red tape. Are you listening, Sam?’

      ‘Yes Jacqui, I’m listening,’ Sam lied, dragging her attention away from the acrobats performing a gravity-defying act on the Southbank promenade below, and back to her sister and the remains of their shared platter of anti pasto.

      ‘I don’t understand why you have to go to Canberra for six weeks to be reassigned to your new job which is here in Melbourne,’ Jacqui continued, as she struggled back into her woollen coat. ‘I take it this is a promotion?’

      ‘Yes, it’s a promotion.’ Sam piled a piece of bread with prosciutto and eggplant.

      ‘Yeah, well, given the nature of bureaucracies like yours, you probably won’t even get a bigger desk, let alone a new office. But they’ll drag you all the way to our nation’s capital just to give you a new business card and say: “there’s a good little Special Agent, now off you go back to your cubicle, next to the boring Detective Ben Muldoon, and we’ll be in touch soon”. They’re my taxes at work flying you all over the country, you know.’ Jacqui wagged her finger.

      ‘They’re my taxes too,’ Sam reminded her. ‘The ACB is a Federal organisation, that’s why I have to go to Canberra to be briefed for this new position. And even though I’ll still be based in Melbourne, I could be sent anywhere. At least my new boss, the Minister himself,’ Sam straightened her back in mock respect, ‘doesn’t deem it necessary for me to actually live in Canberra in order to do my job.’

      ‘God forbid!’ Jacqui exclaimed.

      ‘Having explained all that to you again, there’s a couple of other things I’d like to clear up. I’m a detective not an agent. I hope you’re not still telling your friends, and god knows who else, that I’m a spy.’

      Jacqui rolled her eyes and looked everywhere but at Sam. ‘Not since you became a ‘Special’ Detective.’

      ‘That was only last week,’ Sam said.

      She ran her hands through her short, dark hair and gazed at the red-headed fruitloop opposite her, wondering for the umpteenth time which of them had been adopted, because they couldn’t possibly have come from the same gene pool.

      ‘I’m a cop, Jacqui. An ordinary, common or garden variety cop. I like what I do, you don’t have to make it more glamorous for me.’

      ‘I don’t do it for you Sam, I do it for me. And I doubt your fellow Feds would appreciate being called common.’

      ‘And another thing, Ben is not boring, he’s preoccupied.’

      ‘With tedium.’ Jacqui shrugged off her coat again.

      ‘What I don’t understand,’ Sam moved a wine glass out of the way of her sister’s flailing arms, ‘is why you insisted we eat outside when you’re not dressed for this weather.’

      ‘This weather?’ Jacqui repeated. ‘But it’s Spring, it’s glorious!’

      ‘Yes, but it’s Melbourne Spring, which means warm, bright sunshine accompanied by a chilly wind straight off Bass Strait, followed by a serious hot flush and a cooling shower of rain – all in the space of one hour, with the likelihood of a hail storm later just for fun.’

      ‘Ha, ha,’ Jacqui said. ‘Will you answer your phone before I relieve you of it and chuck it in the Yarra.’

      Sam was already reaching into the pocket of her jacket for her mobile. ‘Diamond,’ she answered curtly.

      ‘My name is Diamond. Sam Diamond.’ Jacqui’s attempt at Sean Connery sounded a lot more like Mae West.

      ‘Oh, hi Ben,’ Sam was saying. ‘We were just talking about you. My sister thinks...’

      Jacqui groaned and tried to hide behind her wine glass.

      ‘...that your life could do with a bit of spicing up.’ Sam listened, tried in vain not to smile, and said, ‘Ben wants to know if you’d like to have dinner with him.’

      ‘Yeah, sure, why not.’ Jacqui waved her hands around. ‘How about tonight?’

      ‘She says she’d love to, Ben, but tonight’s out because she has to take me to the airport.’

      Sam’s raised eyebrows and puzzled look, made Jacqui get quite antsy until it was obvious the half of the conversation she could hear had nothing to do with her, consisting mostly as it did of responses like: ‘Really? Which boss? Why? Okay, put him on. Yes sir. Well I’m not really dressed for work. No, yes I am dressed, but I’m at a restaurant. Of course, sir. I’ll be there in 15 minutes.’ She hung up.

      ‘Your plane doesn’t leave until 8 pm. I could’ve gone to dinner tonight,’ Jacqui said.

      ‘With Ben. Who’s suddenly not boring.’

      Jacqui shrugged. ‘He is quite the spunk though.’

      ‘And you are quite the desperado. Anyway, I’m not going to Canberra now. At least not today.’ Sam pulled her wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans. ‘I have to go check out a body at the museum.’

      ‘A body?’ exclaimed Jacqui, a little too loud for Sam’s liking. ‘But you don’t do that any more. You’re with the Cultural Affairs Department now. Or have they changed their bloody minds again?’

      ‘No, they haven’t. Perhaps a dead body in the museum comes under the category of cultural murder. Whatever the reason, this is officially my first assignment for the CAD, so I have to love you and leave you. Here’s my share of the bill.’

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