Chapter 1

Tom Anderson was in Lyons, France, about to join a river cruise on the luxury boat, theVoyager. The cruise would be down the River Rhone to Avignon and back, calling at places of interest, with an extra day scheduled at Avignon.

But Tom was not on holiday – he was a policeman in plain clothes, undercover to track down profiteers and smugglers who might be using the Rhone riverboats to move their goods from source to market. Only seven days before, Tom had been called into his superior’s office to join the police group that linked with Customs& Excise to combat the illegal import of goods. Frank Thompson, an experienced colleague, led this group and, when all were seated, he introduced Tom to each person by title, but not by name. No-one was in uniform, but there was no doubting their seniority as they all specialised in identifying and dealing with those who made fortunes by trying to evade import duty on drugs, explosives, tobacco, etc. or flouted UK Border Controls by bringing in illegal immigrants. Tom looked round the table at this high-powered gathering and wondered why he was here, but years of experience with the top brass told him to keep quiet and just wait.

He did not have long to wait, as Frank liked to get on with things.

“OK,” Frank said, “let’s make a start. Item 1: Fake art imports. You may have read in the press about various scams where copies of well-known paintings have been sold as the real thing. Well, copies, fakes, have been turning up at art auctions in several parts of the UK – not great numbers, nothing spectacular, but we feel something is going on – something organised and building; a kind of testing the market before a final financial killi