The Auction

"Lot 273."

Gene caught Ray's eye from across the room. Buy this one, Guv his eyes begged.

They already had a non-daffodil painting, a particularly ugly oil-on-canvass of a broken stiletto. Dexter was clearly a poof, not just because he was bringing feminism into the nineteen-eighties or whatever the hell he was doing. Or pretending to do, so no one would guess he was a drug baron.

"Three hundred pounds," said the auctioneer. Gene raised his hand, glad that the expenses would be covered by the Met and probably recovered from Dexter, once he was found guilty.

A lot of bidders dropped out at the seven hundred pound mark. By the time they had reached one thousand pounds, it was just Gene and another man, sitting about five rows in front. He thought about sending Alex to get a look at his face but realised she couldn't just stand up in the middle of the auction. He saw Shaz take a peek at him and wished she had the camera.

"Do I hear one-thousand two hundred?"

Alex saw the other man raise his hand and she frowned. She was watching Dexter too and his reaction to the auction puzzled her. Rather than looking delighted that his painting was selling for so much, he kept looking from Gene to the man in front and back again, a look of worry on his face.

"Don't put your hand up again," she whispered.

"What?" asked Gene, "Why?"

"Because it was supposed to go for six-hundred!"

"Bolly, we aren't paying-" Gene started to say but Alex grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. He forgot that he was able to use his other hand and let the painting be sold for one thousand, two hundred pounds to the "charming gentleman in the second row."

Gene gave Alex a glass of champagne and took a sip from his own glass.

"So you think the picture of the shoe is the druggie one then?"

Alex sighed. "No, the daffodil is a symbol for drugs, I'm sure of it."

"Then why didn't you let me buy it!"

"Because you went way over the estimated price! It was getting suspicious and besides, you weren't going to get it. The man in the front row probably works for Dexter, acts as a competitor to stop non-dealers buying a dirty painting. We must've forced all the dealers out just before one thousand pounds."

"That's another piece of evidence that's slipped through our fingers, Drake!" Gene groaned.

Alex looked around. "We should mingle a bit, see if we can work out who the dealers are. Get the others to talk to whoever bought a daffodil painting, if they're still around."

As Gene walked off, trying to pretend that his DI hadn't just given him orders, Alex made her way over to the ladies to touch up her make-up then walked past the door. She had noticed another marked 'Private'. She should probably wait for the Guv and a memory forced its way through to the foreground of her mind.

"I told him to wait for the Guv… if you're smart, you'll learn that being where the Guv is, is the right place to be"

Alex had found herself in a stairwell. The stairs beckoned her, taunting her. She knew, just knew that the next piece of the jigsaw was up those stairs. List of dealers? List of codes? She placed one hand on the banister.

Suddenly, a hand slammed against her mouth and the barrel of a gun nuzzled her temple. The voice of the shop assistant purred against her ear.

"Well, well, well, the sniffer from Farrant's. What the fuck are you doing here then?"