still; it hadn’t worn off at all. I dialed up the intensity a few notches. “I almost did. But by that time, by the time I found out, it had just gone too far, you know? Gouger’s stuff was out there, on the website, it was on the invitation—I know for a fact he was the reason the Sunday Times said yes, and the ambassador—” I was talking too fast, gabbling, it made me sound guilty. I slowed down. “All I could think was how suspicious it would look if he vanished so close to the show. It could have cast doubt on the whole thing. The whole gallery.” Richard’s eyes closed for a second against that. “And I didn’t want to throw the responsibility onto you. So I just—”
“It’s on me now. And you’re right, it’s going to look incredibly suspicious.”
“We can fix it. Honestly. I’ve spent the last three days working it all out. We can have it sorted by the end of today.” We, we: we’re still a team. “I’ll get onto all the guests and the critics, explain that we’ve had a slight change in the lineup and we thought they might want to know. I’ll tell them Gouger got cold feet—he thinks his enemies might be sniffing around, he needs to keep a low profile for a while. I’ll say we’re very optimistic that he’ll sort out his personal problems soon and bring his work back to us—we need to keep them hopeful, let them down gradually. I’ll explain that this is a risk you take when you work with people from that kind of background, and while we’re obviously sorry it’s gone wrong, we don’t regret giving him a chance. It would take a monster to have a problem with that.”
“You’re very good at this,” Richard said wearily. He took off his glasses and pressed the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb.
“I need to be. I need to make it up to you.” He didn’t react. “We’ll lose a few of the critics, and maybe a couple of guests, but not enough to matter. I’m pretty sure we’re in time to stop the program going to press; we can redo the cover, put Chantelle’s sofa assemblage on it—”
“All of that would have been much easier to do three weeks ago.”
“I know. I know. But it’s not too late. I’ll talk to the media, make sure they keep it low-key, explain we don’t want to scare him off for good—”
“Or,” Richard said. He put his glasses back on. “We could send out a press release explaining that we discovered Gouger was an impostor.”
He looked up at me, mild blue eyes magnified and unblinking.
“Well,” I said carefully. I was heartened by the “we,” but this was a really awful idea and I needed to make sure he got that. “We could. But it would almost definitely mean canceling the whole show. I mean, I suppose I could try to find a way to angle it, maybe highlight the fact that we pulled his work as soon as we knew, but it’s still going to make us look gullible, and that’s going to raise questions about the rest of the—”
“All right,” Richard said, turning his face away and raising a hand to stop me. “I know all that. We’re not going to do it. God knows I’d love to, but we’re not. Go do the other thing, all the stuff you talked about. Get it done fast.”
“Richard,” I said, from the heart. Looking at him, the sudden tide of fatigue dragging at his body, I felt terrible. Richard had always been good to me, he had taken a chance on grass-green me when the other woman at the final interview had had years of experience; if I’d had any idea it would hit him this hard I would never have let things go this far, never—“I’m so sorry.”
“Are you?”
“God, yes, I am. It was an awful thing to do. I just . . . the pictures are so good, you know? I wanted people to see them. I wanted us to show them. I got carried away. I’ll never make that mistake again.”
“All right. That’s good.” He still wasn’t looking at me. “Go make your phone calls.”
“I’ll sort it out. I swear.”
“I’m sure you will,” Richard said flatly, “now go,” and he went back to rearranging his pieces of paper.
I took the stairs down to my office at a run, jubilant, already mapping out the