The Princess of Wales paused; her eyes sought out the Netherlands’ Ambassador. Having sighted his supportive smile, she concluded her speech:

“The exhibition’s highlight is the two Vermeer paintings I’ll now unveil. The one on your left is a delight, the unexpected companion piece for the more famous Girl with the Pearl Earring. Rediscovered in Delft just over a year ago, this painting not only generated global excitement but also a re-evaluation of seventeenth-century views of alternative sexuality.

“So, it’s with the United Kingdom’s thanks to the Dutch people, and on behalf of His Majesty, the King, the Patron of the National Gallery, that I reveal, with great pleasure, the exhibition’s centrepiece, and thereby declare this celebration of art’s diversity open.”

Her Royal Highness tugged gently on a cord. Smooth as clockwork, the velvet that covered both paintings shimmied, then fell and puddled on the floorboards. The audience gasped, stunned by the unexpected: there was no girl with, or without, a pearl earring to be seen. The two picture frames profiled inky black cardboard.

In the middle of the small and disproportionately ennobled audience, Lady Porshia Sinn ignored the cacophony erupting around her. Rather, she tapped her signature red stiletto on the hardwood floor and tartly whispered, “Vamoosed Vermeers; a case for the Sinn Detective Agency, methinks, Annie.”

“What?”

“A double—triple if fornication were to be included—first from fucking Oxbridge and still fucking clueless.”

“Give me a break, mate!”

“Fair enough: you’re smart, but still green. Right now, neither you nor I have a clue. That’s a business opportunity; let’s mingle, eyes open, and prospect for information.”

“Information for whom?”

“Too soon to worry your pretty head about that. The Palace, the constabulary, the press; they’re all here. Get the jump on them, Annie and the virgin information becomes our meal ticket. I’ll touch base with the Police Commissioner and Gallery’s powers that be. You go ingratiate yourself with the plebs and the press.”

For what, with who? For fuck’s sake, I needed a thinker’s drink.

I politely eased myself past the Debrett’s list of pearl clutchers confirming a veritable truism: there’s always enough pearls at a Pommy upper crust shindig for a symphony of discordant clutching to break out.

But the direct route to the cutie I’d spotted behind the popup bar had been blocked by a fracas. The fourth estate had focused a camera.

“You know the rules: no photographs of our paintings,” a National Gallery staffer, arms akimbo, righteously intoned.

“There ain’t any paintings in the frames I’m photographing, squire.”

“Whatever, just do as you’re told.”

“I am, squire. You can’t impinge on the press’s freedom to snap picture frames surrounding inky voids.”

Amused, I eventually managed to skirt around the contretemps and make it to the bar at the side of the room.

The pretty young thing pouring, like the two circling the room with drink trays, was such a downstairs cliché—albeit a totally sultry one—nowadays only at an English society reception would black and white maid-like outfits be de rigueur. She looked kind of comatose, almost translucently pale. Yet she was still up to robotically pouring Krug on demand.

I took the glass she proffered with a sympathetic smile. “You need one too?”

“Friar Tuck, those two paintings going for a Burton. Brahms and Liszt while working is so against the rules. But, yeah, feel a bit Tom and Dick so maybe I should.”

“You’re cockney, I take it?”

“Yeah; like you’re not enunciating snobby vowels either.”

“No shit, Sherlock; I’m Aussi.”

 “I’ll moderate the slang then.”

“Nah, tease me with your Cockney. You lay eyes on the Vermeers?”

“Yeah, before the Princess arrived, when the whistle and flutes previewed the artwork. I was busy setting up this drinks table. You ever butcher’s the Girl with the Pearl Earring?”

“Got those Cockneyisms. Like, seen the pearl earring girl’s movie, and looked up the painting on the internet. One sexy sheila; albeit a buttoned down seventeenth-century version of gorgeousness.”

“Amen to that. That’s why Vermeer’s other painting is such a treacle tart.”

“Good, you mean? Tell me why.”

“A treacle tart is a cockney sweetheart. Any rate I googled after seeing the artwork in the flesh; it turns out Vermeer expected the two canvases to hang together. And fuck me …”

“I’d usually have a second drink first.”

She giggled, the colour returning to her cheeks. “Seriously, get this. Miss Pearl Earring was painted as gazing towards the total babe who dominates the second painting; she’s naked as, hot as, in fact she’s pure sex-on-legs. The two paintings are perfection, modernist even; a knicker-dampening allegory to the joys of sapphic lust.”

“Which explains why the church suppressed the second painting for centuries.”

Her second giggle was even more adorable than the first. “Proof that Dutch pastors didn’t want their female congregations contemplating the relative position of fingers and dykes!”

I sniggered. “Corny but cute. I’m Annie, by the way.”

“We’re almost namesakes. I’m Anne, but you’d better call me Gin.”

“Gin?”

“Yay; bested you with Cockney. Gin rhymes with Anne Boleyn.”

“Well, that’s obvious … not!”

“So, what’s a smoking-hot young Aussie doing amongst all this fading posh totty?”

“The plus one of my boss, Lady Sinn.”

“Sinn! That name serious or you’re taking the Mickey?”

“I graduated last year in psychology, specialising in criminology. Head hunted into the small but specialised Sinn Detective Agency.”

“That agency name will always reduce me the giggles. Specialising in what?”

“Miss Sinn likes to dominate a specific market niche: detective services for lesbians.”

“Please find me a pussy?”

I couldn’t help but also smirk. “I tried that joke at my first interview. Lady Sinn’s toffee-nosed contempt as she let the comment through to the keeper was a sight to behold. I’ve not bothered again.”

“Understood. Enough work?”

“You’d be surprised. It’s apparently not all sunshine and light in the closet.”

“That’s almost true by definition, but I hadn’t expected there’d be enough sapphic mayhem to earn a decent crust. You on or off duty now?”

“Miss Sinn was like: ‘Mingle and prospect for information. Virgin information is our currency, Annie.’”

As Gin batted her eyelashes, her Cockney took a turn towards the sultry. “May I help you with your enquiries … pretty please?”

“By far the best offer I’m likely to get tonight. Let’s have another Krug and, having wet our whistles, you get to tell me about your evening?”

She sipped the champagne. “So good; seriously the best champers ever. Any rate, I drove the work van here, parked in the basement. Right on five o’clock, the public was being herded out of the National Gallery.”  

“Wait a minute, we’re drinking. You’re driving tonight?”

“No. I’ll leave the van here overnight and turn up at nine tomorrow to pack up.”

“That normal?”

“Varies, but my boss prefers it that way because it’s cheaper for us.”

“Many other cars in the basement?”

“A handful; mostly in the spaces reserved for Gallery executives. You had to show the officious security goons—palace I imagine—an event pass to get in. I took the lift to the ground floor and then lugged the wine and glasses up a flight of stairs to this room.”

“Just you?”

“Yeah, our boss is a total cheapskate. The other two arrived exactly when serving was scheduled to start. Though the Gallery CEO helped me towards the end. She’s a total worrywart, everything had to be just right. Any rate, just before six as I finished my setup, the big wigs surprised me by turning up. The Gallery’s CEO uncovered the paintings for the Princess’s Principal Private Secretary.”

“How did you know it was the Princess’s PPS?”

“He was on social media when those yummy photos of Her Highness’s boobs were published in the Currant Bun—that’s Cockney for the Sun newspaper.

“Got that one, your slang isn’t always an antipodean stretch.”

Gin smiled wickedly. “Must be the convict background?”

“You’re cruising for a bruising. And a Guinness Book of Records entry for the fastest spanking after being introduced.”

“That’s not the only thing I’ll sign up for. I was tempted to ask the PPS for a topless princess pic, HD of course. Poshest of posh totty in technicolour, that’s got to be the perfect masturbatory aid.”

“Bad, bad, girl. Many others at the private viewing?”

“Yeah, a few, maybe ten or twelve whistle and flutes; probably the National Gallery’s Board members and senior executives. Though I only recognised the latecomer, the super-hot daughter—Nicola, Nat, whichever—of that Russian oligarch who bought a football team last year.”

“Not into the English type of football; it’s Aussie Rules that totally rules. The bigwigs okay with you being there?”

“Absolutely fine. Until they were leaving, that is. Then that worrywart of a CEO made sure I’d joined them before she locked the door behind us all.”

“What time was that?”

“Around six, only thirty minutes or so before guests started arriving. I just hung around the National on my phone and waited. Didn’t see anyone going upstairs into this room. The Vermeers were where they were supposed to be at six, yet, somehow, they managed to vanish from a locked room.”

She savoured the last of the champagne, then smirked knowingly.

I smirked back. “You’ve got a secret, haven’t you. Going to tell me?”

“Depends …”

“Depends on what, you little minx?”

“Depends on you wanting to come back to my flat.”

“But what would rooting for information say about you and me both?”

“Rooting; I love that slice of Aussie slang. Well, isn’t information your currency according to Miss Sinn?”

“Aren’t you now calling me a whore, smart arse?”

“Got it in one. Best I own up to being a busted flush. My lust is unconditional: information or no information, I’d do you anytime, anywhere.”

“The gallery big wigs are helping the police with their inquiries. Lady Sinn has vanished. Everyone else is being politely escorted out. I’m done here; so, let’s go.”

She sweetly took my hand as we wandered into Trafalgar Square, scattering pigeons with each step. Gin-the-ingénue moved in mysterious ways; somehow, she’d infected me with a virulent strain of the lust bug, and I was as unconditionally horny as her. “Is it far? These shoes are killing me?”

“Soho; it’s not too far and not too un-posh. Those shiny red—Louboutin I’m guessing—won’t feel too out of place.”

“I’m Australian, don’t really do airs and pretences. Like, my dad’s a fishmonger. But I do have a weakness for quality frocks and heels.”

“So, you get that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

“Seriously! You’ve read Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yeah, I grew up unravelling English whodunnits.”

“Even after you realized Arther Conan Doyle was a misogynist?”

“Complex question. Yeah, in the end, I let it go, a man in his times. But then again, in my teenage imagination, both Holmes and Watson had kind of transmogrified into female.”

“Insightful; kind of sensible too.”

“Never judge a whodunnit by its cover, treacle tart. Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“That Cockneyism is forever seared into my mind. Fire away—your starter for ten.”

“Your boss; you’ve referred to her as Miss Sinn and Lady Sinn?”

I laughed. “She’s entitled to call herself a Lady, being the daughter of an Earl. And I’ve noticed how often being Lady Sinn opens doors the hoi polloi—you and me for instance—would never prise open.”

“Birthright not ability totally sucks you know.”

“Yeah, so true. That’s why England isn’t long-term for me.”

“Pity those of us born here, then. What’s up with calling herself Miss Sinn?”

“Simply advertising dominance in the bedroom.”

“Um … you have me lost for words.”

“Stiff upper lip, Gin. Go for it.”

“Well, um … you have that vibe too. You dominant Miss Annie?”

“Definitely as an undergraduate. My study breaks centred on using anyone in a skirt. But taking the lead led me into the arms of way too many posh pillow princesses. Nowadays it’s only women whose personality and lifestyle gels with mine. Then for me, whatever happens in the bedroom, happens; there’s lots of fun for a couple intrigued by each other in finding their sexual equilibrium.”

Gin spun on her heel, faced me and placed her arms over my shoulders. “I’m a natural submissive, but like you, I’m often disappointed in who I hook up with. What you’ve just said so resonates with me, I’m super excited.”

With arms circling her waist, my lips brushed hers. Our mouths instinctively opened. The long, luscious, knicker-dampening kiss was confident and intimate, deliciously sweet yet insistent. Somehow our lips and tongues just understood each other, that initial kiss felt purer yet naughtier than all my preceding first snogs. “Gin tastes yummy.”

“Your kissing is sublime; your jokes … less so.”

The sounds of my hand slapping against a peachy butt followed by a sultry giggle echoed off the tenement walls. “Seriously, erotic writers peddle fantasies about lust on tap. For me that become fool’s gold.”

“My flat is through that door over there. You go first; it’s a workout, four flights and no lift.”

“Shouldn’t you lead? Or are you making a D/s point?”

“I’ll just plead the fifth on any scurrilous suggestion that I’m anticipating savouring the sight of what’s under your short skirt as you climb the stairs.”

The front door of her tiny flat slammed behind us, but, when I went to wrap her in my arms, Gin, eel-like, squirmed and slithered away. Dimming the lights, she smirked and dialled up music on her Sonos. I couldn’t help but giggle as Dire Straits’ Private Investigations filled the small one-bedder.

Gin watched me slip off my shoes. “Oh, if I ever develop a foot fetish, it’ll be from lusting after dainty feet like yours.”

I wiggled my toes. She giggled adorably, then took my hand and led me to the middle of her small, cluttered lounge.

Entwined in each other’s arms, we didn’t so much dance as circle. With eyes locked, our foreheads touched, and our fingers assumed control. Achingly slowly we unwrapped each other, and eventually musky knickers capped the pile of redundant clothes on her occasional table.   

My body hummed as raw desire coursed through my veins. Same for Gin, I suspected, given how eagerly she pressed that taut athlete’s frame of hers against me. Her hands mirrored mine, both cupped then kneaded a firm peachy derrière. With tongues tenderly tangling, our smearing damp pussy-lips introduced themselves. After the music had finished, my spanks on her bum mustered her towards the bedroom. Lying snuggled together on tangled sheets, we kissed and kissed for the longest time, our fingertips content with outlining abstract patterns on each other’s skin.

Until Gin’s patience snapped. I moaned with anticipation as her tongue traced around the curve of my breast and teasingly circled inwards before sliding around an areola. That moan turned into a delighted scream as she suddenly suckled my perky nipple into her moist mouth.

That was just the beginning, Gin’s tongue I discovered was a wonder of the world. With every delicate lick, every salivary caress, plus the occasional surprising nibble and bite, tsunami waves of goosebumps rippled across my skin.

Despite reducing me to incoherent quivering jelly, I felt the moment her focus turned laser-like. Leaving a warm, wet snail’s trail of saliva on my abs, her teasing tongue took its time to reach my mound. She spread my impatiently oozing pussy lips with her thumbs and rasped a flat tongue through my sticky folds then smeared my firming clit with my honey. Once, twice and then a third time, that was all it took for her to drop me into the beginnings of an orgasm she had crafted to strip me of sense.

Her tongue then curled and penetrated my pink, deliciously stretching velvet walls as she fossicked in my sex. Oh my God, there’s good and there’s great; then there’s Gin, her tongue was sensationally proprietary, and, when that realization dawned, lust’s dam fractured, and I came so much harder than I had with a newbie in ever such a long time.

Aftershocks were still pulsing through me when I finally opened my eyes and gazed down at her sticky glistening face. She smirked, such beautiful bedroom eyes; the little Cockney-bitch knew exactly how great she’d made me feel.

Cupping her breasts, their weight and feel were a perfect fit for my small hands. I watched her surrender to delight as my fingers teased her areolas then softly squeezed her hardening nipples. A firm pinch and tug of her hardened nipples drew her up to me. Her whimpers were cut off as my tongue slid into her mouth and I kissed her hard.  

Teasingly my fingers spider-walked along her taut stomach and stopped on reaching her mound. We held each other's gaze for the longest time. Suddenly I took her, curling two fingers into her viscous pussy and watched as she bit her bottom lip then arched her hips hard into my forceful scissoring thrusts.

While I loved possessing her like that, I also craved a taste of Cockney. Sliding down her body, the instant my tongue tip traced her viscous slit, I knew my fate—lost in lust for total control of this girl’s body. My mouth devoured her sex, my mind memorized the spots whose touch drew the loudest groans of pleasure-pain from her.  Then, I came back to them, again and again, my licks and nibbles carefully building her arousal until I drew an explosive release from her which flooded my lips and tongue.

"Okay," I sighed, as we snuggled together, "We so gel in the bedroom. You’re awesome."

"So are you. There's more potential to us than tongue and fingers you know," Gin coyly replied. With the naughtiest of smirks, she rolled off the bed. I watched, intrigued, as she pulled a Mary Poppins bag out of her wardrobe and surprised me by dumping a potpourri of kinky toys on the bed.

Talk about arousal flaring. All I could focus on was the days and weeks ahead: in full flow, all taut muscles and soft rippling contours, me impaling Gin with the assorted plugs, strap-ons and vibrators that lay on the bed.

My first-up choice was her pink Feeldoe. My thrust of the horse end into her squishy pussy, drew moans from both of us. She got it and arched her dripping pussy into my thrusts; fucking her meant she was also fucking me with the pony end of the toy. Repeatedly, I took her needy cunt, our eyes locked, her legs clasped hard around my waist. Together we edged each other towards the supernova that is a second orgasm. Climbing higher and higher until we lost it together; shouting each other’s names as we were flooded by a turbocharged climax that reduced me to squirming, panting, messy zombie.

As I emerged from the stupor of it all, I felt so utterly and deliciously lost in the fog of lust that surrounded this girl. Gin lay her sticky face on one of my breasts, traced a fingernail around the super-sensitive areola of my other boob and whispered, “Such a good idea to come home with me. Didn’t really want to spill my Vermeer secret where we’d be overheard.”

“You’re right; that should have gone through my mind too. But, in my defence, I was totally infected with your lust bug. Now that I’m momentarily satiated, you want to tell me the details?”

“Momentarily! You’re a girl after my own heart. Okay then, before you resume your normal state of being a horny Aussie Miss, remember me saying I followed the National Gallery CEO out of the exhibition room.”

“Yeah, around six.”

“That’s right. Suddenly I realized my mobile was still on the drinks table. After I raced back inside and picked up the phone, I had this crazy thought. But … guess what?”

“What?”

“There’s a secret door, a second entrance to the room, between where the two Vermeer paintings were hanging. It started to open, but the foot that had just appeared suddenly drew back. Maybe I’d made a noise when surreptitiously snapping the keepsake photo of the covered paintings. Didn’t think anything of it because I had to dash out of the room behind the others.”

“Tell me about the foot.”

“Miss Dainty-toes has a foot fetish?”

“Nah; shoe fetish, maybe. I’m just following the gospel according to Lady Sinn and prospecting for information.”

“White calves, seemingly a stiletto … Person pronouns likely she and her.”

 “Smart arse.”

“You need the pic of the paintings and semi-opened door?”

“Seriously, of course, you never know what’s useful. Here’s my number.”

While my phone was quick to ping after she sent it to me, Little Miss Gin-trap was even faster. She’d already snared my attention by nibbling on my neck and sultrily whispering, “Wanna fuck again, baby?”

“Is the pope Catholic?”

The next morning, on waking from the deepest sleep, I stretched and wallowed in the heaven that is total satiation. Gin had vanished, leaving me alone with a needy pussy and a text. Barrow girl starts at sparrow fart. You’re a custard tart. Let yourself out of my apartment, but not out of my life.

I smiled, no way she’d be a one-night stand. One short reply: Once could never be enough with a girl like you. Promise! before I had to quickly get up and walk of shame back to my digs. There was barely enough time to shower, change and be at my desk before Lady Sinn’s usual on-the-dot-of-nine flounce into the office.

It was Miss Sinn who turned up at work today; that famous dominatrix-chic look reflected her regular trips to a certain famously risqué Parisian fashion house. But talk about waking on the wrong side of the bed, today’s infamous glance could have fried barramundi. Though weirdly the cutting edge of her fiery temper seemed to abate as she handed me a coffee. “From that southern European barista around the corner, I’ll never know why you don’t appreciate English coffee like the rest of us.”

There are things your boss says that will always trigger a change of subject. “Did you discover anything about the vamoosed Vermeers?”

“Of course. For instance, the National Gallery’s CEO was helpful; Calista was at Cheltenham Ladies with me. There were three short power outages of the Gallery’s circuits between six and six-thirty that took out the sensors around the paintings for three minutes. Time enough for the Vermeers to go walkabout.”

“But there’s evidence that the exhibition door was locked around six. Was anyone seen going into that room in those thirty minutes?”

“No, which totally puzzled the Police Commissioner. You, however, must learn to chat up informants in private; for God’s sake, you were overheard interviewing that scrubber serving drinks. I’m told you headed back to hers with fornication on your mind.”

“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell …”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

“And excuse me, I’ll have you know a key piece of information was whispered postcoitally.”

“I’ve succeeded in teaching you something then.”

“Like, you mean, well-fucked lesbians get loquacious?”

Finally, I’d extracted a horsey laugh from Lady Sinn. “Yes, precisely that. So, what did your pillow scrubber say for herself?”

“There’s another entrance to the exhibition room of the National Gallery. Between where the Vemeers were last night.”

“Seriously? Did she see anything?”

“Red heels, nothing else.”

“Let’s get to the National Gallery. I’ll text Calista that we’re coming, that bottom-bitch has some explaining to do.”

Miss Sinn aggressively piloted her Jaguar, which overnight had also been subject to criminal shenanigans— the indicators had been nicked—through the peak morning traffic. Like last night she assertively flashed an entry card at the National Gallery’s basement. But today’s barrier wasn’t moving. A nondescript man in a frayed brown suit signalled for Miss Sinn to open the driver’s window of her car. “This is a crime scene, your ladyship.”

“Duh. Surely you know who I am?”

“I do. You’re Lady Sinn, but you’re also a person of interest.”

“Preposterous.”

“Not so. Cars exited this garage last night without being searched?”

“The police were fine with …”

“The police have let us down; nothing should leave a crime scene uninspected.”

 “I resent your insolent implication. Anyway, who are you, little man?”

“MI5; brought in this morning to clean up the mess. My name is James, if it tickles your fancy feel free to call me James Bond.”

I giggled. Miss Sinn didn’t.  

James smiled at me. “I’ll interview Ms O’Brien first, then you Lady Sinn.”

As we parked in the basement, Miss Sinn furtively whispered, “Remember, information is our currency, Annie.”

James and I sat on hard wooden chairs in a dingy room in the corner of the basement while Lady Sinn sulked in the Jag.

“You came with Lady Sinn last night?” he asked, the hint of a smirk suggesting a familiarity with innuendo.

“We arrived by car in the basement around …”

“On the dot of five.”

“I’m sure that’s right.”

“Time of entry was digitally recorded. Do you often go places with Lady Sinn?”

“Yeah. Like I’m relatively new to the agency, and she is keen for me to meet potential clients.”

“So, tell me about your evening.”

“We walked upstairs. Miss Sinn needed to see Calista, the Gallery CEO, privately. I was left to my own devices.”

“So, let me guess. You’re descended from convicts: when an Australian gets bored she nicks a couple of Vermeers?”

“Damn, you’re good. Aussi, Aussi, Aussi; nicked, nicked, nicked, It’s a fair cop, Monsieur Poirot.”

James smiled the smile of a crocodile.  “Very droll.”

“In reality, I caught up with a university friend.”

“Oh, who and where?”

 “Natasha … In her office, here, she’s the Chair of the National …”

“I know exactly who she is. What did you talk about?”

“Not much. We were much too busy making out on the couch.”

“For an hour?”

“Men! It’s not all-over red rover in three point five minutes for girls, you know.”

“I don’t; women aren’t my cup of tea. So, what happened around six?”

“She hurriedly made herself decent and went to show the Palace representatives the two Vermeer paintings.”

“Happened to you I meant?”

“Zoned out in post-orgasmic bliss. Nat really is that good. I eventually freshened up in her small bathroom and hit the function a bit after six thirty.”

“Then after the Vermeers vanished?”

“Chatted up the hottie behind the bar.”

“Then what did you get up to …”

“That a serious question or a prurient interest in my social life?”

“You’re a private detective at a crime scene. I’m interested in whether you saw or heard anything out of the ordinary. Not who you picked up.”

“All I know is that Lady Sinn discovered there were three power outages between six and six thirty. And that Gin, the bar girl, told me she saw a second door open between the two Vermeer paintings around six.”

“Did anyone else see what she did? Did she recognise who opened the door?”

“Nah to both. Gin had rushed back inside having forgotten her mobile but didn’t tarry as she knew the Gallery CEO wanted to lock the main door.”

“Thanks, that’s useful. I’ll interview this Gin character.”

“She should be upstairs tidying up as we speak.”

“That’ll be if I survive my interview with Lady Sinn.”

“Best of British with that then.”

Having exchanged knowing smirks, I skedaddled upstairs to the exhibition room where a frazzled pot-bellied dude was passive-aggressively disassembling last night’s pop-up bar. “Where’s Gin?”

“God knows; and for mine she can keep on fucking off. Left me in the lurch with my biggest account.”

“That’s not like her.”

“Should have trusted my instincts: you can’t trust barrow bitches.”

Instincts? Prejudice is more like it.

I texted till my fingers were numb. Totally spooked by Gin not replying, I rushed up to the National Gallery’s executive floor. But Natasha was secreted away in the Chair’s office with the Police Commissioner. So, I whiled away the time by taking a longer look at the photo Gin had sent me the previous night, hoping against hope for an osmosis-driven insight.

To be sure quality pumps had stepped into the exhibition room, but that ruled out few if any guests. After all expensive heels were a no-brainer for the Sloanes whose life revolves around being seen at arty-farty exhibition openings. Yet, as Gin’s photo had been taken from the side of the room, then, just maybe, someone at the main door would have had a clearer view of the mystery person.

My musings were interrupted by the Commissioner’s glance at me as she strode out of Nat’s office. Brutally condescending, it felt crushing in its severity given she’d been a beacon of diversity and pride—the first out and proud lesbian to head the police force of any Western country—for us gay girls starting out on our own criminology careers.

Natasha shut and locked her office door behind us. “You okay, Miss, you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

“The Commissioner. Like sometimes, you put someone on a pedestal, and then you meet them and all you see are feet of clay.”

Her arms went around me, and she kissed my forehead. “Let’s sit on the couch; you need to take a deep breath, Miss. This gets worse, I just got grilled about you. For some reason, the Commissioner has you in the frame for stealing our paintings.”

“What! Evidence?”

“Not much. You were seen in red shoes.”

“I spied so many red shoes at last night’s opening. You told her, didn’t you?”

“Of course. She now understands that you and I have a backstory that involves sharing all manner of things including shoes. But that didn’t absolve you from police suspicion.”

“Whyever not?”

“Mainly because you were left alone for the crucial half hour when I went to view the paintings and afterwards greeted the Princess when her car arrived in the basement.”

“I was shagged out, baby. Your fault.”

“Though apparently, you recover quickly.”

“What! Recovered and nick Vemeers, you mean?”

Natasha’s arm went around me and snuggled me against her silk blouse. “No not that, silly. I heard you went home with Gin.”

I interlinked my fingers with hers. “Whatever happened to privacy. You know Gin, in the biblical sense I mean?”

“I’ve enjoyed her as much as I hope you did last night.”

We smirked knowingly at each other. But fortunately the Miss Code doesn’t ban prurient gossip. “Really; who topped whom?”

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business, Miss. Suffice to say Gin won the race to the bottom.”

“Who knew that delivering bar services for the National Gallery also included servicing the Chair’s pussy?”

“Uncontracted though, she’s not yet my whore, Miss.”

Yet! That made me smile. “Seriously, though, Gin’s missing, I think. Her disgruntled boss is cleaning up the pop-up bar.”

“Missing! You know any more, Annie?”

“Annie, you’re not calling me Miss anymore?”

“Not right now. For this kind of shite, we’ll always be a team.”

“Yeah, missing, Coincidence or not, the one thing I know is that Gin saw a second entrance to the exhibition room between the two Vermeer paintings open.”

“Yes, that’s the access lift for securely getting paintings that arrive in the basement in armored vehicles up to the exhibition room.”

“Do many know about it?”

“National Gallery staff for sure, no one else I would have thought. Did Gin see who had opened the door?”

“No, that door opened towards her. You’d have had a clearer view from the main entrance.”

“I was walking away with the Princess’s PPS. Only Calista might have seen I would have thought. She waited for Gin to retrieve her phone before locking the main door.”

“Is locking that door normal practice?”

“As far as I am aware; certainly, keeping that door locked outside visiting hours was in the exhibition management plan that the Board signed off on.”

“So, what was the point of showing the Vermeer paintings to the Princess’s PPS?”

“Late request from the Palace. The Princess became minded to bring her daughter. Needed to understand how risqué the second Vermeer was.”

“And the answer?”

Natasha slid to her knees, her fingertips teasingly tracing up the sides of my legs and under my skirt. “It’s the hottest painting in the history of art.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. The two paintings are just a pure distillation of lesbian lust, Miss.”

On autopilot my hips lifted my arse off the couch. “I’m not sure we should be doing this?”

Natasha’s confident smirk spoke to her having got me bang to rights, whatever conviction was in my words had been undermined by the scent of my needy cunt. She tugged on my knickers, and we both heard the pop as a sticky wet spot unglued from my pussy folds.

Sliding my panties down my legs she scrunched them into a ball and then inhaled my scent. She looked up at me with doe eyes, her tongue hanging out like an eager to please puppy anticipating a treat. “The painting speaks to me of the most special girl.”

My fingers curled in her hair. “Who, baby? Gin perhaps.”

“Silly Miss. We both know Gin is good. But from the instant I laid eyes on you, I knew.” She pressed her tongue towards my dripping sex. My fingers tightened, the tug on the roots of her hair held her inches from my cunt.

“Knew what?”

“Knew that you would always be my forever Miss.”

“Fuck. Then whyever did we grow apart?”

“You more than me, Miss. I’ve always suspected you thought me a dilettante, a trust fund baby.”

I felt the warmth bloom on my cheeks. It was only after Nat had been appointed Chair of the National Gallery and to the board of two national charities that my messaging had blossomed beyond Happy Birthday and Have a Happy Christmas.

Natasha wanly smiled at my introspection, then gazed up into my eyes and whispered, “It’s okay; the last couple of months have been a fresh start. Feels good being on probation with you, Miss. Please don’t overthink, just use your girl?”

I dragged her face towards me, my folds docking with her lips as I smothered her mouth with my oozing sex.

I’d known her triggers since that first night in Oxbridge. The painful tugs on the roots of her hair as I arched my pussy into her face accentuated her delight in being reduced to putty in my hands. Her tongue responded and probed my wet slit as I ground my clit against her nose.

Momentarily, I loosened my grip, a signal for her to clamp her lips around my clit and curl two fingers into my needy liquefying pussy. As knuckles scissor-stretched my velvet walls, I repeatedly bucked my sex harder and harder against her mouth.

Again and again, I took her mouth, lost in the pure lust that was using Natasha’s body. Then I tensed. Squealed. Held my breath. Shuddered and squirted a monster of an orgasmic gush of cum-honey into her mouth.

Then lay panting against the back of the couch and watched her kitten licking and savouring my cream, taking care to extract every last quiver of pleasure for me.

Then, sitting back on her heels, she smiled up at me, her face sticky with my juices. “Thank you, Miss. You make me so happy knowing you want me. And much more in the mood to focus on Gin and the two Vermeer paintings.”

“We don’t know much. All I’m certain about is that someone, almost certainly female, wearing red heels, perhaps Louboutin, was in that access lift at six. They opened the second door and closed it again. What happened next is still a mystery I’m yet to unravel.”

“That was timed with the first outage. Any suppositions about the second and third outages?”

“Whoever was at the door was likely spooked the first time, so needed the second outage to cover nicking the paintings. God knows about the third; shrouding something in the basement, perhaps.”

“Wait a minute?”

“What, baby?”

“How do you know it was a red stiletto?”

“Gin took a picture, it’s a red stiletto for sure.”

“Oh fuck, no wonder you are in the frame. Who knows that?”

“No one, I think. No, that’s not right, I told Miss Sinn.”

“Was that why I was grilled by the Police Commissioner?”

“Jesus Christ. Must be, I didn’t even mention the red shoe to MI5.”

“Can I see the picture. We’ve got such small feet, maybe the photo would rule you out.”

I passed her my phone open on Gin’s keepsake snap. “I thought of that but it’s so hard to say. What do you think?”

“Not sure. Send me the pic, we’ll blow it up on my laptop and take a closer look.”

After peering at her screen for the longest time, Nat wiggled her shoe at me. “Look closely at the pic, then look at my shoe. See what I see?”

“Red shoes. It’s kind of hard to focus when you’re criminally framed.”

“You’re slow, baby.”

“That is no way to refer to your Miss."

“My Miss. Seriously?”

I nodded then stared, once, twice and a third time from my shoes to the screen. Fuck, of course, I eventually saw what Nat was seeing. Talk about now being up a completely different shit creek without a paddle.

There is a nondescript building in a nondescript street in a nondescript London suburb. A building without signage, just a discretely placed desk beside a small front door.

“I’m Annie O’Brien …”

The receptionist peered at me, before focusing on her computer for the longest time. “It is indeed highly probable that you are Annie O’Brien. And that’s an acceptable level of identity certainty for me to escort you upstairs. The Boss is expecting you.”

In the blandest of rooms, the personality-challenged James who had interviewed me in the National Gallery basement twirled his spectacles.

“James Bond, I presume.”

He smiled, the smile of a Queensland salt-water croc eyeing its prey. “Coffee, Ms O’Brien? Real Australian coffee, not our Costa crap.”

“Thank you, I will. Expecting me, I hear.”

“Indeed, once you’d fully engaged your brain where else could you have turned.”

“Well … I’m also a suspect apparently. Other than me not nicking the paintings, I’ve not proved to myself who is and is not part of this Vermeer heist. Are you?”

“If I’m a conspirator then so much more and so many more than you are screwed.”  

“Too easy, tell me why I should trust you.”

His fist crashed into the desk. “MI5 deals in truth, defending Britain against perfidious foreigners; valiant to the death.”

The coffee arrived and as promised the cappuccino was excellent. “To be fair, coffee of this quality does suggest you’re a man of your word.”  

“Thank you. Perhaps it’ll help if I outline what you think you know.”

I laughed, the most I’d laughed today. “Four years studying criminology, a year in the trade. I know it’s totally de rigueur for detectives to ask the questions not provide the answers.”

“Not when I’m confident with what I know. And sure of your non-existent role in the heist. But you don’t know the one or two key things that I know.”

“Then why do we need to talk?”

“Smart rejoinder. It’s about evidence, Ms O’Brien. I can’t recommend that the Prime Minister purge someone without providing a modicum of evidence.”

“Oh, I see. Then I do understand why I might have you at an advantage.”

“Let me start by proving my bona fides and tell you a little about what you don’t understand.”

“Fire away.”

“Natasha can’t afford to be frivolous; she wouldn’t be part of a plot to nick the Vermeers and have Gin disappear.”

“Fuck that; Gin missing isn’t frivolous. I should throw the remains of this cappuccino at you.”

“Focus, you’re a detective! Natasha’s only plausible motive for erasing Gin would be jealousy knowing you’d bonked her.”

“Crimes of passion happen, you know.”

“They do. But the paintings vanished before you fucked Gin.”

“Okay, point taken; talk about crawling up your own arse.”

“Let’s give Natasha the benefit of the doubt for a hot minute. Emerge from your arse, Ms O’Brien, and focus. Now tell me about her father?”

“He’s a Russian oligarch. Owns a London based soccer team.”

“Another in France, one in Italy. Then there’s the Spanish one. Born where do you think?”

“For fuck’s sake, Captain Obvious. Russia.”

“Wrong!”

“Oh. Where then?”

“Kyiv.”

“Meaning?”

“He’s a Ukrainian nationalist.”

“So …”

“So, I’m on the edge of breaking the Official Secrets Act. Let’s just say there’s a reason father and daughter haven’t seen each other for a couple of years.”

“That kind of shit happens way too much when a child is gay.”

“Not in this case, my dear. Her father doesn’t give a damn about who she fucks. He’s so liberal he’ll even be okay with Australians.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thank you, I’m not into women. But those two won’t indulge in a traditional loving father-daughter relationship anymore.  For fear that Putin has worked out they’re the transmission vehicle for the West’s funding of Zelensky”

Seriously. Fuck, I really am idiot-Annie. “Not sure I understand …”

“By never being together, Putin can’t simultaneously assassinate them. So yes, Ms O’Brien no matter how much Natasha might love the newly discovered Vermeer, I’m positive that nicking paintings isn’t mission critical for her and her dad.”

“Positive?”

“Well done. You’re green and will make mistakes but I’m confident you’re going to be good. Positive is all very well and good, but I don’t have proof of who I think did it, and I am hoping you do.”

“And if I do?”

“Then the PM will announce that one of the UK’s leading public servants is retiring on health grounds. And you’ll be looking for a new employer.”

“Fuck no. The bitches criminally tried in the Old Bailey.”

“Not happening. As a country, we are neck deep in the shit that is leading the West’s intervention in the Ukraine. We keep Natasha safe; the French keep her father, well, not quite as safe. That’s the NATO priority.”

“That’s not justice.”

“More justice than you think, Ms O’Brien. You're Australian, let me give you a local’s insight into the mother country’s upper classes. You’ve heard of the word black-balled?”

“The BBC porn meaning?”

“You’re assessing my sense of humour, aren’t you?”

I managed a smile. “You are good. I so was.”

“Why?”

“Career advice. It’s shitty not being as sharp as I think I should be. Detective work isn’t fun when people you like go missing. And a right shambles when your employer isn’t the person you think she is.”

“Yes, indeed. Trusting no one and examining everything definitely grinds you down. But …”

“But what?”

“For me, it’s about being right; keeping our country safe. That makes it worth it.”

“Down mean streets an honourable man has gotta go ...."

"Oh, you're alluding to Raymond Chandler. Thank you, I’m really am honoured, you're a gem. Ironically he thought English whodunnits far too mannered.

“As a reader, I agree. In real life, well let’s just say that right now I’d appreciate my cases to be way more mannered than this shite.”

“You can do anything, Ms O’Brien. MI5 should you want, I’d personally mentor you. Or recommend you to our Australian cousins. But only you can decide if ending up in a place like this in a position like mine is for you.”

“And if not?”

“Any private sector firm that interests you, I’d open UK doors for you. I am sure your dad would in Australia too.”

“You’re so nice, but let’s be frank I’ve not given you what I have and even then, I’m not sure it’s what you need.”

“You will, because you have no alternative. Irrespective of your evidence my offer will remain. So let me explain how blackballing is a gilded cage.”

Once he’d explained how subtle yet cutting certain microaggressions were in the rarified air of the upper classes—and how hurtful something like the second tier of seating at Royal Ascot or Wimbledon was, and indeed, that being unclubbable got a whole lot worse than that—I almost felt sorry for the ostracised.

So, I passed him my phone and he stared at the pic Gin had snapped. “You’re point, Miss O’Brien?”

“Men!”

“You’ve got me.”

“Look at the shoe, then look at my feet. The penny dropped yet?”

“I regret to say, Ms O’Brien, that not even a pound coin has dropped.”

“I’ll send it to you. Get your tech boffins to blow up the image. But think longer lasts. It’s hard to say exactly what size from a distance, but that’s not petite like my Louboutin or …”

“Or Natasha’s you mean.”

“Yes, we swapped shoes last night. I was wearing her red shoes; she wore my black heels thinking that was a more sober colour for meeting the Princess of Wales.”

“So, whose foot did Gin snap in the second door?”

“Cluedo time: Who has big feet, a liking for rouge Louboutin and a car parked in the basement?”

“Miss Sinn! That’s the evidence I need for the PM.”

“But what about the Police Commissioner?”

“She personally did the security checks in the basement, to keep Royalty safe, so she said. Odd but not unreasonable. Three cars weren’t checked on the way out. Presumably one contained the paintings. The Princess of Wales …

“Well, I’m reasonably confident.”

“Natasha’s car also wasn’t checked.”

“You’re positive she didn’t nick the painting.”

“I’m beginning to understand what the word smart-arse means, Ms O’Brien … And Miss Sinn. Who’s …” His raised eyebrows suggested he could rock my world.

“Who’s what?”

“Bonking the Police Commissioner.”

“Fucking hell, I didn’t know that. Then that’s opportunity and motive.”

“Exactly.”

“But hardly beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“What did Sherlock Holmes conclude, Ms O’Brien?”

“The United Kingdom security is safe in your hands. Sherlock said: ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”

“Indeed. So, text me the shoe pic and leave the rest to me. You take your time to find yourself, as the young things say.”

“Fuck that. No new age shit for me.”

“A woman after my own heart. Heads up though, there’s a limo outside with Natasha in the backseat. I’ve messaged that you might want to talk to her.”

I so did. Outside MI5, I clambered into the bulletproof limo, and smiled wanly at the gorgeous Russian, no Ukrainian, sexpot. “Seems I owe you the biggest ever apology.”

“How much do you know?”

“You and your dad are NATO’s funding mechanism for Ukraine. I’m so proud of you.”

She sighed with relief. “Thank you, Miss. You, okay?”

“Not really. MI5 told me Lady Sinn was in cahoots with the Police Commissioner. Seems they nicked the Vermeers, presumably to decorate their love nest. Then panicked and no doubt kidnapped Gin when they found out she knew too much. James Bond has promised to find the paintings, Gin too; then smooth ruffled Netherland feathers and blackball the bitches.”

“Not really fair, is it?”

“But not totally unfair … Um.”

“Um what?”

“It’s all so trivial compared to trying to save your country, baby.”

“Much less stressful too. That’s why I’ve always needed you beside me, Miss.”

“Pride got the better of me, no more. Fortunately, MI5 want me to keep a low profile for a bit, think about career options and have concluded I’ll be safe with you.”

“Well, they do protect me 24/7 from that bullshit artist, Putin. So far, so good, I’m alive. You’re likely safe at my country estate?”

“I’d like that.”

From the luxurious Victorian style downstairs, there’s only one entrance, secured by her fingerprint scan, into the modern private wing. Natasha took my hand and led me to her cavernous bedroom.

She smirked.

I was gobsmacked. “Oh. My. Fucking. God. How, why?”

Natasha wrapped her arms around me as I stared at the two Vermeer paintings, “You like, Miss?”

“God yes. I see your point. The two paintings really are the perfect knicker-dampening allegory to the joys of sapphic lust.”

“When I first saw the paintings in Delft, I needed to make you see them so you understood how I felt about you.”

“So, that first power outage at the National Gallery?”

“You’re the detective, you tell me.”

“You must have known Miss Sinn was up to something and the point was the photo Gin took.”

“That’s true, Callista had been a bit weird which alerted me that something was up. Lady Sinn seemed to be around the National Gallery much more than one would expect.”

“So, the second outage had to be Miss Sinn nicking the paintings.”

“Indeed.”

“So, the third? It could have been you nicking the paintings from Miss Sinn’s Jaguar, except …”

“Except, what Miss.”

“Except you were with the Princess of Wales. As was the Police Commissioner. No one was left alone in the basement … Oh fuck, Gin. She said she was hanging around the National Gallery on her phone waiting for the guests to arrive. She could have been lurking in the basement and when you and the Princess’s party headed upstairs, then she’d have had time to douse security and jack open Miss Sinn’s jag.”

The bathroom door’s latch clicked open. “I’ve been such a bad bad tea leaf, Miss Annie.”

I shook my head at Natasha and turned to the opening door. There Gin was, naked, nipples clamped, cockney cunt glistening, her Mary Poppins toy bag slung lasciviously over her shoulder.

Natasha smirked at me. “Barrow girl is bottom girl, Miss. She’s a naughty little thief who I had to make disappear once you had the photo. But while she’s been banished from public, she’s making herself available for use should Miss choose.”  

“But how could you have been sure I would actually talk to Gin at the function.”

The other two giggled, hysterically it must be said. “I knew Gin was delectable. You’ve always been the consummate pickup artist, Miss. But there was a Plan B where Gin would send the pic to me.”

“And when Miss Sinn confesses to MI5 that while she might have originally purloined the paintings someone else subsequently nicked them from her car?”

“How convincing does that sound to you?”

“Fair point. She’s so fucked. As are you two, do pass me that bag of toys, Gin.”

“Yes please, Miss. While Gin and I can of course be very good, for you we’re going to be very very bad.”

Natasha opened a bottle of Krug from the minibar and poured three glasses. “This seems like such a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in. It amuses me that MI5 are unknowingly protecting the artwork.”

Her toast was to Vladimir Putin. Without whom she’d have no fear to exploit. Za vashe zdorov’ye.

Gin toasted the toffee-nosed English bitches. Imprisoned in their superiority they’d opened themselves to be played. Two of them who would never have been convicted in court were now blackballed for a sin they couldn’t possibly have committed. Friar Tuck, treacle tarts.

My toast was to my two rocking badarse bitches—Ukrainian and Cockney—who seemed to have developed the nasty habit of topping from the bottom which I needed to soon eradicate. Cheers, mate.

Natasha smirked at me, “But …”

“But what, baby?”

“Someday, we’re going to have to put the paintings in the limo. Then drive them to the National Gallery and hang them in the Exhibition Room.”

“Seriously. Dear God, how do you think we're going to pull off that cunning stunt without incriminating ourselves.”

“You’ll work it out, Miss. I’ll might even invite the Netherlands Ambassador and MI5 to a private viewing.”

“Then what will have been the point of nicking the paintings?”

“Silly Miss. When I return them, everything returns to normal. Except the one thing in this nasty brutal world that I’ve never wanted to be normal.”

“Fuck, I really am silly. That’s always been the point …”

“You really aren’t that silly. But go on.”

“You knew flowers and chocolates weren’t ever going to be enough to grab my attention.”

“Indeed. So topping from the bottom was how I’d get you to notice how totally serious I was about you.”

“And your dad?”

“I’ll be soundly spanked if he finds out. But, no regrets, baby. I’ll petulantly stamp my foot and tell him that he needs you as much as I do; after all you’re my forever girl.”

Then that's game set and match, I guess. Slava Ukraini.

Except, in this sapphic wonderland, while using my two forever girls, I’ve somehow got to work out how one returns two vamoosed Vermeers incognito. For fucks sake, we shall just have to overcome.