Paint. The art of scam. (38 page)

‘Don't you dare
even think about it!’ snapped Nastasia, her eyes firing daggers at him. ‘This
place is yours! You belong here! Look at it, everywhere, you made this place
the paradise that it is. Have you any idea how many people admire you for what
you’ve done? How much respect people have for you? You remember in the storms
last year, when the estate had no power for a week, how you charged all the
electric fence batteries with your Dingy turbine? You were the only one with
power for ten miles. And you opened this place up for people to camp until they
got their places fixed.’

‘Yeh that was
good fun wasn't it.’

‘It was brilliant
Cyril! This place is you and you are not going to leave it! And that's final!’

Cyril watched
her. She meant it. She was genuinely angry. He had seen her like this before,
but not with such force. He waited until she calmed.

Nastasia cringed,
as another angry roar of diesel motor in the distance, punched the air,
followed by the creak of splitting wood, then the heavy thud that shook the
ground. A second later the chorus of screaming chain saws began again. She
looked at Cyril, her eyes moistened.

‘Oh Natty.’ said
Cyril as he grabbed her by the waist, pulled her to him, held her tight and
whispered in her ear. ‘My dear, dear Natty, I can't stay here if I can't get in
or out. Edward is going to fuck me, the whole estate and everyone in it. There
is nothing anyone can do about it, nothing; it's as simple as that.’

‘Then we'll have
to kill him.’ said Nastasia calmly as she pushed Cyril away, sat up and rubbed
her eyes. ‘Fancy a cuppa.’

Johnny sat in his
car and watched Polly unlock the front door of her apartment block. He checked
his watch. He'd seen Seymour go out an hour before and followed him until he
went into Rosey's Cafe. Seymour had spent about an hour or so in the cafe in
the last two days. Long enough.

Polly however was
inconsistent with her movements, no pattern. Just the day before, he had
decided the time was right and reached for the car door handle only to see
Polly going out again. He had followed her on foot to an old empty shop, where
she went inside and wandered around measuring things; making notes.

Normally Johnny
would have a small team of pros working for him on surveillance. But this was
different. This was personal. Even if he did want to get help, nobody would go
near anything to do with the Hogarth Job. The Hogarth job had even damaged
his
reputation. Up until then, he was considered to be one of the most feared and
respected specialists in the business. He was going places, earmarked to become
a lieutenant in the Corby Gang, who ran pretty much every casino, legal and
illegal in London. He'd become part of the Hogarth job at the last minute, when
the safe house Paulo Costaldi had organised had turned out to have been
demolished after a fire. Johnny was the only one to have enough contacts to
organise an alternative in a hurry. He also saw a chance to grab a healthy lump
of cash. Not that he needed it, the Corby Gang looked after him well, but he
knew who the bunch of fools, who planned the Hogarth job, were and there was a
chance he could grab the lot. There was nothing wrong with freelancing, or so
he thought.

The Corby gang
were strict on loyalty, nobody ever stepped outside the Corby Gang operations.
They had a reputation for being straight, dependable, honourable, trustworthy,
loyal and would happily cut the throat of anybody that said otherwise.

Johnny was lucky
to be alive. When the Corby Gang found out that Johnny was involved with the
Hogarth job, they picked him up from his house, bundled him into a car,
blindfolded him, took him out to an abandoned factory, under the flight path at
Heathrow Airport, tied him up in a chair and pushed a gun barrel into his
mouth. They waited for the next plane to take off and pulled the trigger.
Click. The last thing he remembered after that click, was the filthy rag,
soaked in ether, smothering his face and held there until he lost
consciousness.

This was Corby
Gang justice. He had been sent out into the wilderness. Although there were no
written rules or guidelines in the Corby Gang, normally you would sent out into
the wilderness for at least two years before you would even be considered for
readmission. In fact, normally, anybody found guilty of breaking the Corby
Gang's terms and conditions were, as they like to put it, put to sleep. But
Johnny was special, they wanted to keep him on ice.

Now he was
working for Stella Solutions. Stella Solutions are an employment agency and
head hunter, ran by Stella Murphy, a powerful, fifty year old Irish, ex 5 star
prostitute.

Her clients
ranged from Supermarkets, IT companies, Media, Engineering firms, in fact
anybody that needed specially qualified and experienced staff. She was very
successful and ran a slick, lucrative business. Which was a perfect front for
her core business, her passion, assassinations.

Stella too was
strict on loyalty, to a point, but not too strict. Her issue with loyalty was
more based on the fact that she wanted a piece of the action rather than some
sort of moral code.

Johnny always had
a sneaking suspicion that there was a connection between The Corby Gang and
Stella Solutions. But he never liked to ask.

As he reached for
the car door handle, his pager beeped.

‘Shit!’ whispered
Johnny to himself. He looked down to his belt, opened the pager and read the
message. ‘Can you get some bread please darling. xx’ That was a call to the
office. Another job. Polly would have to keep.

Cyril was getting
anxious. The atmosphere on the estate was becoming more and more poisoned by
the day. The latest news was that Chris and John, having now finished clearing
the forest, had been told to catch Laural and Hardy and deal with them. Laural
and Hardy had apparently charged at a team of surveyors up on Cassock hill,
trampled on all their equipment and eaten the plans for the new golf driving
range.

Of course Chris
and John would never succeed in catching them, they had no intention of doing
so. Chris and John would do anything for a quid. But not that.

Cyril hadn't seen
or heard from Nastasia for over a week now. That was unusual. The state she was
in when she left the last time was also unusual. Nastasia was a strong woman,
she had to be, to handle some of the things she had experienced in her life,
all of which she took full responsibility for. But the last time Cyril saw her,
it felt like she had given up blocking something. He'd never seen her cry like
that before. It was a cry of hate for Edward and all he was doing. Cyril and
Nastasia could talk about anything with one exception. What had happened that
night in the woods just before Nastasia had been shipped off to France. Cyril
was forbidden to ask her. All he knew was that Nastasia and her mother had
given their word to Sir Thomas to never discuss what had happened. Never.

Cyril had spent
that week in limbo, just functioning day to day in a daze of uncertainty. Mrs.
Frank from the old vicarage had given him some cabbage plants the day before.
She knew what was going on with the Estate and was as furious as the rest of
them. She told him to plant them.

‘What's the
point?’ Cyril had said.

‘Plant them!’ she
had said emphatically.

So he did. He had
also continued watering everything on his land.

Roger had been
more attentive than usual, following Cyril around everywhere he went, getting
in the way and licking him at every opportunity.

Nastasia had
suggested that it would be a good idea to take the money away from the land.
She was right, the way things were going, if he got caught with that amount of
cash, it really would be the end, now that he had a conviction for propagating
marijuana.

Cyril was sitting
amongst the tentacle like roots of the old willow tree by the river, when Roger
took off and ran to the track barking. Then, sure enough, came the rumble of
Nastasia's Mercedes. Cyril sighed with relief and got up to meet her.

‘Natty! I was
starting to get worried about you. You OK?’

‘Hi Cyril! I'm
fine, just been busy at the shop. How are you?’ said Nastasia as she got out
the car and hugged him tight.

‘Want some tea?’

‘No thanks. I
can't stay long, I want to ask you a favour.’

‘Sure.’ said
Cyril climbing up the steps into the van with Nastasia and Roger in tow.

Cyril joined
Nastasia on the bed. ‘Fire away.’

‘Well, you know
it's my birthday next week?’

‘Really?
Completely forgot.’ said Cyril playfully.

‘Well I want a
party, here, and I want to invite everybody on the estate.’

‘Here? Why? You
don't need to wind Edward up any more you know.’

‘Is that a no?’

‘No, I'm not
saying no.’

‘Then it's a yes?’

‘Jesus you're a
manipulating bitch.’

Nastasia smiled
and hugged him.

‘Good, I've
already done the list and printed out the invites, here's yours.’ Nastasia
pulled out a bulging envelope from her bag and put it by the side of the bed.

‘What's that?’

‘It's 58 invites
for you to take down to the pub, I've got the rest, please do it ASAP. Thank
you darling.’ said Nastasia holding him tighter and kissing him on the
forehead.

‘Hang on Natty!
How many people have you invited?’

‘About 200, or
so.’

‘200! Fuck me
Natty. When do you want to have it?’

‘In two weeks, on
the 10th.’

‘Natty. Edward's
closing the road on the 13th!’

‘I know. It's
like a double celebration, my birthday and the end of your land access.’ said
Nastasia, hanging on to Cyril and stroking his head.

‘What are you up
to Natty?’

‘Nothing.’

Cyril pulled his
head away from hers and looked her squarely in the eyes.

‘I don't believe
you.’

Nastasia smiled,
leapt up from the bed and grabbed her bag.

‘Right, got to
get back to the shop. Oh, by the way, The Lonesome Cowboys said they'll play
for free!’

‘Now there's a
surprise.’ said Cyril rolling his eyes.

‘Trust me.’ Nastasia
blew a parting kiss before she skipped down the steps, got into her car and
drove off.

Cyril looked at
Roger, laying next to him, on his back, legs in the air. Roger let out a deep,
satisfying sigh that Cyril found strangely reassuring.

Polly stood in
the middle of the old empty shop. She had been there six times in the last week:
umming and arring about whether or not she should take it.

It belonged to
Lucy Frampton, a friend of Carva's; one of his new friends. It used to be a
ladies fashion shop, back in the early sixties, when fashion was more ordered
and less prone to constant change. There was summer fashion and there was
winter fashion. That was it. You knew what to wear and you didn't have to think
about it. If you really had to, you could do the spring and autumn fashions:
but that was regarded as obsessive.

Polly had walked
past the shop many times since they had moved to London. Through the years of
grime on the windows, you could see the two naked mannequins, one leaning
precariously against the window, its dead cartoon eyes staring down, the other
with raised arms as if launching doves, both with their nylon wigs matted with
cobwebs and dead flies.

She had casually mentioned
one day to Carva, that she'd thought about maybe opening a shop; selling
one-off interior decor or 'honest art' as Seymour called it. She'd met many new
people via Seymour's work, not only artists, but skilled artisans making
beautiful things. That had got Polly thinking.

Next thing you
know, Carva told Polly about the shop, Lucy gave her the keys and told her she
can have it for as long as she wanted, rent free. It was something about asset
management; she had tried to explain. If she rented it out, it wasn't worth as
much and was therefore worthless as an asset that you can borrow against,
something like that. Her son, whom she wished would visit her more, was an
investment banker.

So, Polly had
decided at last to take it. Seymour was totally supportive, mainly, she
suspected, with her out of the way, he could lounge around at home a lot more,
stop pretending that he was working and not get funny looks from her every time
he was 'popping out for a coffee.'

She had already
measured up and had the same handymen that had worked on Carva’s gallery coming
around the next day. It wouldn't cost much. Polly wanted to keep the old post
war features, that had mysteriously become cool again after the horrible
experiment of the 1970's and 80's, when aesthetic boundaries where pushed to
their limits and thankfully failed to endure. The whole place was to be painted
white, subtly lit with spots; and the stock, which would all be on consignment,
would dress the place up. Not a gallery, nor a shop, but somehow both.