Read Online Checkmate in Amber by Matilde Asensi - Free Book Online

carefully unhooked the canvas and lowered it onto a length of silk I had laid out on the floor to use as my improvised workbench. I took the tools out of my backpack and set to work. Fifteen minutes had passed since I’d left Läufer in the car. It would take me about as long again to get back there, so I had barely half an hour to switch the paintings and erase any sign of my presence there. A seriously tight schedule.
    I placed the picture face down and, with the help of a screwdriver, levered up the tacks which nailed the stretcher frame to the picture frame and then pulled them out with a pair of pliers. I carefully removed the two supports and began the difficult task of drawing out, one by one, all those damn numbered nails that held the canvas in position. Luckily it turned out that I didn’t need to use any of the replica nails that Donna had gone to so much trouble to get her hands on, as every single one of them came out clean, although not without a struggle at times. I straightened up at the waist, to stretch my muscles and check the results of my work so far. All going fine and nothing to worry about. I took a deep breath and was just about to get going again when something unusual - exactly what, I wasn’t sure - caught my attention. Was it a slightly different coloring on the edges of the canvas revealed by my infrared-sensitive goggles? Was it a damp patch or just a shadow? I took a careful look, and no, it was none of those things. What the hell was it? Mystified, I crouched down and suddenly there it was. Absurd. A totally unexpected glue-paste lining on the back of the canvas.
    Paste linings are used exclusively in the restoration of canvases badly worn out by the passage of time. Old canvases often show rips and tears or small areas where strands have frayed or broken under tension. The correct way to proceed is to reinforce their underside with lining, which prevents further movement and makes it more resistant. Only then can the canvas and the paintwork itself be safely restored. But Krylov’s work was a mere youngster by comparison, barely over eighty years old and with no apparent damage, and had been painted onto modern machine-made canvas, very strong, very resistant and still in perfect condition. So why on earth had someone stuck that stupid lining on the back?
    I pulled Donna’s copy out of the carry tube and replaced it with the Krylov original which I had carefully wrapped in a length of soft muslin. I knelt back down on the floor and began to fit the forgery onto the stretcher frame. Carefully stretching the canvas over, I fixed it in place with the numbered nails, making sure that each went back into its original hole. Then I put the picture frame face down on the length of silk, fitted the stretched canvas inside it and then nailed it in with the same tacks I had removed with the pliers. I finished up, checked it over and then hung the painting back in place on its panel. Well-satisfied with the result, I stowed away all my bits and pieces. All I had to do now was get out of there as quickly as possible, and I’d be safe and sound.
    I made my way back to the flat roof, abseiled down the keep wall and freed the grappling hook by shaking the climbing rope sharply until it fell loose. I coiled up the rope, replaced it in my backpack with the grapnel and ran quickly across the castle bailey, feeling conspicuously spotlit by the moonlight. ‘One day I’ll no longer be up for this,’ I thought to myself. ‘I just won’t be able to handle the physical demands of this risky line of work. And then what’ll I do?’. Of all the members of our Group, I was number one on the early retirement roster. When that day came, how the hell was I going to spend my time - sitting in my little antique store watching the clock go round? Well, yes actually - no two ways about it. I’d better get used to the idea and enjoy the here and now, because when I became a wrinkled old lady, I’d be watching the