Page 4 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

When all was said and done, the thing Matty Shaw was most looking forward to about his promotion was the mustache he would grow.

“The mustache?” Inspector Barrows laughed.

The two of them shared a cramped and paper-strewn office at the very end of the Special Investigations hallway of the London Metropolitan Police Station at Scotland Yard.

They made an odd pair, Matty and Barrows; the former appearing too young and fresh-faced for the position he was in, the latter so gray and erect it was a wonder his impending retirement hadn’t happened a decade ago.

The light had gone orange with evening as it slanted through their single second-story window, specks of dust in the air lit up to look like unseasonable indoor snow—they did their own housekeeping when there was sensitive material around, doing about as well in the cluttered office as one might expect from an aging husband who’d never had to clean a thing and the confirmed bachelor he’d all but raised himself in a detective’s office.

Matty and Barrows, after a day of witness interviews and strategizing their new case, had settled into their respective desks, positioned across from each other in this office they’d shared since before Matty’s facial hair preferences were even worth talking about.

The locked filing cabinets were behind Matty, and their case visualization board was behind Barrows.

Matty sometimes imagined, as they sat together like this at the end of a shift—Matty slouched with ink-stained fingers before his files, Barrows forcing his posture to remain ever-straight even through obvious end-of-day weariness—that they might look like grandfather and grandson after a long day of flying kites or other such quaint bonding.

“You are too much, really,” Barrows said, incredulous. “I retire and get my old bones out of your way; you replace me at last, take control of your own cases, gain the respect of the unit, and it’s the mustache you’re salivating over?”

“I wouldn’t say salivating over ,” Matty corrected dryly.

He met Barrows’s eyes, but it was short-lived, gaze drifting to the latest case notes on the wall over his shoulder as he spoke.

Because they were not, in fact, a quaint familial pair, but detectives with both their minds always half-immersed in whatever they were working.

“That stuff typically flows the other direction, doesn’t it?

I’m sorry, but your position isn’t high enough to justify a beard.

This is Scotland Yard, man. Those of us who aren’t actively trying to look like whores are supposed to don mustaches, and I am thrilled to soon count myself among the latter at last.”

Barrows didn’t laugh this time, his amusement at Matty’s straight-faced humor confined to his eyes and a little quirk of his own steel-gray, Scotland Yard?approved facial decoration.

“Well, keep your razor sharp for now, Matthew. We need you to give off that willing youth aura of yours one last time. Play it well and your upper lip will be cozy before Christmas.”

Barrows glanced at the tackboard behind him, the one Matty was already perusing.

Over the past few weeks, it had accumu lated the news clippings, suspect photos, and various relevant paraphernalia for an art forgery case that seemed almost laughably quaint compared with Matty’s usual fare.

Blessed or cursed with the sort of pretty, innocent countenance that humanity’s dregs seemed compelled to exploit, Matty’s plainclothes work usually revolved around disturbing and dangerous trafficking operations.

That tack board was more often filled with photographs and newspaper clippings so grim that nightmares were a job quirk he hardly thought more of than he did of putting his coat on in the morning.

Matty got up and joined Barrows under the board.

He ought to be getting ready to leave, or at least encouraging Barrows to do so, but ever since the old man had announced his retirement, the end of each day had come with an increasingly tight squeezing sensation around the center of Matty’s chest. The only thing that alleviated it was engaging in excuses to linger.

So linger he did, this time over the board they’d rearranged just this afternoon.

A wave of fraudulent art pieces had been making its way through society, causing massive loss of money and no little embarrassment for London’s aesthetically inclined.

Headlines screamed for justice from where Matty had cut them out and pinned them up in chronological order.

Beside them were photographs of the suspects they’d narrowed it down to.

One was a large-scale Continental operation, foreign and therefore outside their department.

The other was a portrait-painting academy right here in London, owned by an eccentric married couple with some dubious monetary records and a questionable reputation in the London art scene.

Ruling out or proving that academy’s involvement was their focus.

Not too tough, not too violent—such a decent way for Barrows to conclude his career that it might seem purposeful, if those sorts of things were ever taken into account in a place like this.

Matty took down the academy advertisement that had been making its way into postboxes all over the West End this week, perusing it for the dozenth time for anything that hinted at untowardness.

Buttersnipe’s School for Artistic Enrichment.

Pursue your passion and be part of the aesthetic revolution.

Whatever the devil that meant. He suspected it meant they were training up forgers, rather than legitimate portraitists, though it still remained to be seen.

“Are we certain Buttersnipe is even a real name?” Matty asked. “Like guttersnipe? It just sounds fake.”

“Even if it’s fake, there are other reasons for a fake name.”

Matty’s eyes flicked from the advertisement to the single photograph they had of the suspects.

The couple posed mournfully in their studio with a little dog between them—their acquaintances confirmed in today’s interviews that the artists reported distrusting photography, which seemed like a convenient excuse not to have a lot of photographs floating around.

Matty looked to the note beside the picture, written in his own handwriting from another of today’s tip-offs: “possible they bring figure models into their bed—either sex.” He read that one over a few times.

He’d been excited to get the information because it offered a great way in, but by now was vaguely nauseous about what he might be subjecting himself to at their hands, when he went undercover as one of these figure models.

After a moment, he felt a heavy warmth on his arm. Barrows’s hand.

“Alright, Matthew?”

“I’m glad to be getting old, Barrows,” Matty admitted. Without you, I wouldn’t have. Those words were on his tongue as he looked at the old man who’d certainly saved him from being a grim data point on a case board himself. But that was too sentimental. “Just glad for it. That’s all.”

“Twenty-five is hardly old.”

Matty did not correct him that twenty-five was practically ancient in the sort of cases he had made his career investigating.

He’d been successfully posing as a potential or active prostitute for years, and it was Barrows himself who’d pointed out at the beginning that, statistically, lads in that particular profession rarely lasted past twenty, for one reason or another (and some of those reasons pretty terrible indeed).

In his last case—the Lord Belleville case, the big one—he hadn’t even managed to pull it off, unable to seduce any closer to the center of the ring than playing valet for some harmless sodomite who ran an irrelevant side operation called The Curious Fox.

The bloke had clearly liked the look of him well enough, but never even hinted at anything usefully untoward.

Might have been insulting if it hadn’t been so nice to be treated like a human being for once during the course of a case.

His own fond feelings for the chap aside, however, the near-propriety made things difficult.

Matty was still astounded he’d gotten intelligence at all in that position, much less bust the case open as successfully as he had.

So it was clearly coming to an end, this angle of his. Given the danger and degradation it required, he ought to be happy about that. Barrows, at least, seemed confident he’d be able to manage the transition, that his mind would eventually prove at least as good as the rest of him.

All Matty was confident in, though, was that he could look the part of a detective chief. He’d always been skilled at looking the part, after all.

Thus, the mustache: the only part of the job he might prove suited for, in the end.

“Well, one last case like this probably won’t kill me,” Matty sighed, trying to reason those worries from his mind. “Easier than the others, I’d say. These figure models are presumably willing, at least. That’s better than I usually get.”

“You’ve done well, these years,” Barrows said with a very serious nod. “I’ve rarely met a detective so willing to do what needs to be done. It’s a shame I can’t be here to watch what you accomplish next.”

His voice held the undeniable note of impending goodbye.

Not the day’s goodbye, but the other one, the one Matty could not delay by spending a few extra minutes staring at the board.

It made Matty itch, like his comfortable plain clothes had been swapped for the heavy uniform that detectives only donned for Met events, or that lacy frock that had gotten him access to a certain illicit soiree…

He tugged at his collar and said nothing but, “Thank you, sir.”

“I have something for you.”

No. God, no. He really couldn’t bear this sort of thing. “Sir, I don’t—”