Pawn (5 page)

“The last and greatest masterpiece of Rembrandt. Aphrodite in the Roses. Recently found hanging in a abandoned church in the Netherlands.”

“Aphrodite in the Roses?” The name didn’t mean much to the inspector. Fine art just wasn’t his cup of tea. But he knew a little about Rembrandt, mostly just how much his paintings were worth, and no matter how he sliced it, it didn’t sound like one the Dutch master’s works. Portraits and religious scenes for the most part as he recalled from his school days. And as for a Greek Goddess, the church would likely have frowned on that. Four hundred years ago the church frowning on a person could have very serious consequences.

“Yes.”

“Rembrandt?” Despite knowing that it would upset the man, he had to ask.

“It is a Rembrandt.” Mr. Venner seemed very certain of himself as he said it, placing his emphasis very strongly on the ‘is’, but the inspector couldn’t help but notice that a few of his employees looked away just then, slightly less certain at a guess.

“Really?”

“Yes it is inspector.” Mr. Venner drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest a little. He didn’t like being questioned, even when he was lying. Maybe especially then. But he had his story ready.

“Yes I know Rembrandt painted religious scenes and figures as well as private portraits and commissions. And I know there isn’t a single painting of his of a Greek god or goddess known. But there is now. Only one, in the entire world. A dozen different art experts have been through and examined the painting thoroughly. X rays have been taken showing the underlying work and the brushstrokes. The paint and the canvas have both been aged several times and using the most sophisticated tests known.”

“Aphrodite among the Roses is a genuine Rembrandt. You can see the reports for yourself.” And he would. He’d go through them with a fine tooth comb. Anyone that determined to prove his case had to be hiding something. But that was a matter for later. For the moment he just had to keep listening to the man’s well-practiced lies.

“It’s from his last years, actually his very last year, after the death of his son and his common law wife. Left hanging in an old church, affixed to the wall and gathering dust for four hundred years. It’s one of his finest works.” Was he telling him about the painting or trying to sell it to him Barns wondered? And he sounded very like a used car dealer just then. But then maybe he was working on his sales pitch, practicing in his spare time. The problem was that if he’d had it stolen then sure he could sell it via the black market. But he could probably get more selling it normally. For a start he could advertise it to the world as being for sale.

“And someone just walked in and stole it?” Of course they hadn’t. Whoever it was, had prepared carefully, and had the backing and resources that surely only the most successful of thieves had, including perhaps most important of all, a buyer.

“Walked in? Walked in inspector?” Mr. Venner didn’t seem too happy with his words, but his fake anger was slipping and he really just looked like a bad actor with a toothache. “These bastards gassed the entire guard house, cut all the alarm systems, blew half the vault to pieces and then drove a tank through what remained. An actual, bloody tank mind you! Then they carried out an eight foot tall masterpiece still bound in its steel and concrete case on a forklift.”

“No they didn’t just bloody walk in!” For the first time Barns almost believed him. The man seemed genuinely upset. And from the red glow in his face, the inspector guessed that he wouldn’t be happy to just get his painting back. Mr. Venner was a very angry man, and not just because of the loss of his painting. The burglary was an affront to him, a slap in the face, and he wanted some payback. He decided to change the subject before unfortunate things were said that couldn’t be taken back. By either of them.

“So how much is it worth?”

“Worth? It’s priceless inspector. There’s not a man on the planet with enough money to buy the painting.” He seemed upset by the very idea that a monetary amount could be put on his precious painting, something that seemed very wrong in a successful businessman. Maybe he actually was an art lover, but somehow Barns doubted it. The man was a money lover and he would let nothing distract him from that. This was just more acting. But what was he hiding?

“Then how much is it insured for?”

“It’s not insured. How can you insure something that’s priceless? How can you insure a painting that’s still to be authenticated? It’s not insured at all.”

“Oh!” That caught Barns by surprise. Insurance fraud was always an excellent motive for theft, but not if it wasn’t insured. Maybe the man did actually have a reason to be upset. If it wasn’t insured and he’d get the best price for it by selling it in a public auction, then what possible motive could he have for being involved in its theft? But Barns still didn’t trust him. The man was a snake. He was hiding something at the least. And if he had to guess, he wasn’t nearly as upset by the lack of insurance as he pretended to be. Why?

No, the man was guilty. In it up to his eyebrows. He knew it. His people probably knew it. But proving it was going to be a problem. As crude as the crime scene looked, it had been very carefully staged. The thieves had known when to strike, they had known what they’d need, and tanks if what the man was telling him was true, weren’t easy to come by. Gas to knock out the staff on site was not just expensive, it was also almost unheard of, and very dangerous to play with. They’d need an expert, unless they didn’t care if people died. They’d have to have schematics and access codes.

It had to be an inside job. Venner was in it up to his neck. It was just figuring out how he’d done it, who he’d hired, and most of all, what was in it for him, that was going to be tricky.

But that was just a matter of gathering the evidence and sifting through it looking for the inconsistencies. No matter how well he thought he’d planned the heist, he would have made mistakes. Finding them was only a matter of time and hard work.

To that end the inspector spent his time interviewing, taking notes, detailed notes, as he spoke with Venner and his entire household, all while waiting for the forensics boys to turn up. An entire team of them instead of the normal one or two that normally showed up with a fingerprint kit.

It was lucky in a way that Venner’s people had gone mad and shot at Mr. Hennassy, because thanks to that little mistake he had an almost unlimited budget when it came to staff and overtime and most importantly lab work. If there was a chance of finding the gang through even a hair or a skin cell, they would find it. And they had the added bonus of making Venner nervous, not that he showed it. But still he made his excuses and vanished from the crime scene faster than he should have. That didn’t exactly upset Barns as he continued his interviews.

It was late by the time he was finished, and he had a lot more to do. But by then he’d taken down as much information as he could, the staff were tired, Venner was nowhere to be found, and the tech boys were setting up floodlights within the newly dug tunnel leading down to the vault as they prepared to work through the night. Even the guards had been sent off to the hospital for blood tests as they tried to find out what they’d been gassed with. There was little more he could do.

But his mind was still racing as he ran through the evidence, to the point where he barely even noticed he was in the car, and normally he was a nervous passenger. Even when his sergeant drove as he normally did.

“Hopkins, I want every detail of Mr. Venner’s story gone through with a fine tooth comb, checked and double checked. I want his receipts. I want his witnesses interviewed in detail. I want his sleeping beauty security guards giving full statements. All of them. And I want every detail of Venner’s background on my desk in the morning.”

“You don’t believe him sir?” Hopkins turned to him, probably something he shouldn’t be doing while he was driving, his face as usual a mask of questions.

“Believe him?” Barns stared at the sergeant wondering if he’d misheard him. “That man is a crooked little snake. A man so bent that he couldn’t sleep straight in bed. If he told me that the sun was going to rise in the morning I’d ask for a second opinion!”

“So you think he’s lying?”

“Oh no, far from it. He’s telling us the absolute truth and I’m certain every single fact he gives us will check out in triplicate.”

“Inspector?” Hopkins sounded confused, but he was young and that was the prerogative of youth. Stupidity wasn’t though.

“Sergeant, that man has just told us a whale of a story. A lie so big that it could never be true. But he’s anchored it with enough facts to make it seem as though it is. So we check those facts. We tick them off. And once we know every single truth in his concoction, we can begin to know where to look for the lies. Do they teach you nothing in university?” Barns knew he shouldn’t be so hard on his sergeant. It was a bad habit, and frowned upon in the modern police force, but he was an old fashioned type of copper, and he was frustrated. They had a lead, and it was a lie of some sort. A massive lie. After two solid days of doing nothing but reading the writings of madmen who wanted to believe the impossible, he wanted something more. He just didn’t have it.

And he despised Venner. The man was a living horror in an expensive business suit. The sort of criminal who should be locked away for life, and yet someone he couldn’t touch. God only knew how many innocents he’d robbed blind as he amassed his fortune, though he was certain the lawyers would call it something else. Something legal. Justified theft of some sort. Lawyers were good at renaming things.

One thing was certain though. Venner hadn’t built his Las Vegas casino house by playing by the rules or being nice. When they started digging, and they would, a few nasty little secrets would crawl out from his perfectly arranged closets.

As they drove away from the mansion, for the first time in days Barns started to experience a small measure of happiness and even peace. Everything thus far had been a complete mess. None of it had made any sense. But now they finally had a crime and a bad guy. Something to investigate. He was actually almost tempted to put on the radio and start singing along to whatever was playing.

He didn’t though. That would have been unprofessional.

Chapter Four.

Several days after the crash Rufus managed to make his way down to the police station and pick up his effects from the car. He probably should have done it a day or two before, except that he was far too sore. Instead of doing anything productive, he’d spent most of the previous couple of days either in bed or lying on the couch watching movies, swallowing painkillers and feeling like a very old man.

It was one of the things that they didn’t tell you about car crashes. That the seatbelts and air bags might save your life, but they weren’t gentle about it. And so he was battered and bruised from head to foot. And that was before he included the endless lacerations from the flying glass and the damage from throwing himself down an embankment. In fact he felt as though he’d been in the ring with a team of heavyweight boxers for the full twelve rounds, and they hadn’t been wearing gloves as they’d pummelled him.

There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t ache, not a patch of his skin that wasn’t bruised or torn, and to add insult to injury he had a perfect set of panda eyes. His nose must have taken a blow somewhere in the crash, and it looked as though someone had given him two perfect black eyes.

Of course it was more than just pain that had kept him at home. It was fear. Gut wrenching, sickening, paralysing fear.

The nightmares had returned with full force. Footsteps on the stairs. The evil voice in the middle of the night, calling his name, chilling his blood as he knew something terrible was coming. The hands in the darkness, holding him down, forcing him, strangling him. And the pain. The terrible pain as things he couldn’t even imagine were done to him again and again.

It had been a long time since he’d had those nightmares. Since he’d woken every night drenched in ice cold sweat, terrified of what lay out there in the darkness. A long time since that terrible fear had left him completely powerless, and it was like a kick in the teeth. He’d thought he’d moved on. He’d thought they’d died for good. But suddenly they were back as if they’d never gone away. And with them came the fear. The terror of not knowing what lay around every corner. Of who was behind him. Of when he’d feel those powerful hands smashing down on his shoulders, holding him. His fear was back in all its gut churning glory. And the thought of leaving the safety of his home was a horror all its own.

Though he’d been making progress these past couple of decades since escaping his home, learning to go out more and take risks, at least a few, to find safety in places like schools and libraries and hospitals, after the events of that shocking day, he was almost all the way back to where he had been as a young child. Afraid of the dark. Afraid of anywhere that wasn’t safe, anywhere he didn’t know. Afraid of anyone he didn’t know. He found it very difficult to face going outside. His home was safe, it was his fortress. He’d worked hard to make it that way, and that was where he belonged.

Deadlocks on the doors and windows, a decent burglar alarm in place for when he slept, bolts he could slam home when he was in, a panic alarm he could reach for in every room in the house, and of course, a panic room. His home was safe, just as it was meant to be. Everything else, everywhere else, wasn’t.

So he’d called the office and told them he wouldn’t be in for a couple of weeks, told them he was still hurting from the crash, and given himself an unscheduled holiday. The sort of holiday he most wanted. A safe one. At least for a few days.

Still eventually he had to go outside. He knew that. He’d always known that, which was how he’d made it through his childhood. Forcing himself to do what had to be done. And after a couple of days of scarcely even looking out the window, he finally found the courage to force himself to go down to the station in a taxi, and pick up his envelope of personal effects. Years of living his nightmares had taught him that he had to face his fears, or else live in a closet. In the end you always had to go on. It was that or death.

He had to wonder though, as he was driven back to his house, why he’d even bothered. It was a very small envelope. A few discs for the cd player, a couple of paper files from work, a box of tissues, his camera and some coins from the tray. Not much to show for his morning’s effort. Not much to show for having abandoned the safety of his home, for having somehow pushed all the terror he felt out in the open back down in to the dark recesses of his subconscious. Hell they could have chucked a stamp on it and mailed it to him. Actually they could have kept it. He wouldn’t have cared.

At least though, he hadn’t had to face the inspector again. That would have been too much. The man had looked at him as though he was some sort of criminal, and his questions once he’d started, didn’t seem to stop. Instead he’d just asked and asked and asked them, often repeating the same question three or four times in a row, hoping perhaps he’d change his story or get caught in a lie. And all the time he was chewing absently on a pen while his eyes had narrowed to slits as he stared straight at him, searching for the lie.

Being interviewed by the inspector Rufus had felt as though he was the one on trial, as though he was the suspect, and that had seemed frightfully unfair to him at the time. Battered and bruised, still shaking from the shock of what had happened, and being fussed over by the nurses in the hospital who kept trying to remove the last of his blood, the last thing he needed was to be accused of a crime. Especially the crime that had been committed on him. But he hadn’t found the words to say that to the inspector. None that he would have accepted anyway. The man didn’t seem a particularly understanding sort.

Inspector Barns didn’t like being interrupted either. When one of his subordinates had come to see him he’d snapped at him like an angry pitbull terrier, and sent the man scurrying away while he continued his interrogation of the victim. Rufus would have hated to work in his office.

It was clear that the inspector didn’t believe him, though what there was to doubt he wasn’t sure. On the other hand he kept wondering if it had really happened, himself. It was simply so bizarre. Cars self-destructing, people in speeding trucks shooting at him with machine guns. It was madness. It was the sort of thing that happened in the movies, not real life. Not his life anyway. His life was boring, just the way he liked it.

Still even if it had gone mad, even if all his nightmares had returned, he had faced his fears once more. He had left his home and claimed his stuff. And in time he knew, or he hoped, the fear would go away again. He should be proud of himself. Rufus told himself that as he paid the driver and headed back to his haven. He had told himself the same many times before. But it never really helped.

“Crap!” The first thing Rufus saw when he made it up the half dozen steps to his front door was that it was open. Pushed in. And just like that his feeling of safety was completely gone, maybe never to return. His home, the only place he could feel protected, had been violated, and a feeling of horror and disbelief grabbed him. The blood drained from him, he could feel his innards churning, and the sick rising in the pit of his stomach. Soon he knew, if he didn’t control it, there would be a stinking mess everywhere.

It was a nightmare. A series of nightmares. First the car crash, then the machine gun attack, then the suspicious police inspector, and now this. Was nowhere safe any more? How could this be happening to him? Would it never end? So many terrible questions for which he had no answers. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to cry out and scream and shout to the heavens above that it just wasn’t fair. He wanted to run away. And he could do none of those things. All he could do was what he always did. Take his courage in both hands, pray a little to a God that wasn’t listening or didn’t care even if he was, and try to do what normal people were supposed to do. Carry on.

He carried on.

First he examined the evidence to see if there was anything to tell him who had done this or why. But there wasn’t much. Someone had broken in to his home and by the looks of things, they hadn’t been subtle about it. Instead of jimmying the lock the door had simply been pushed in, the deadlock had held as it was supposed to, but the timber around it had splintered and the doorframe had then broken completely away. He had no idea who would do that, especially out in the open on a quiet street during the middle of the day, but whoever it was he was strong.

Smashing a doorframe apart took a lot of force. The sort of force made by a man hurling himself at the door like a battering ram. Quite possibly, since he had a state of the art deadbolt system, several times. It must have made a lot of noise when whoever it was had busted the door down. A lot of noise in a normally very quiet street. And his home was on the high side of the street, the front door and entrance exposed to anybody walking by and the neighbours across the road.

It didn’t make sense. Harris Street was one of the better streets in the township. The sort of street in which things like this just didn’t happen. It wasn’t as if it was near the new comprehensive school full of teenage vandals. Someone must have seen it surely. His neighbours must have heard something. But if they had, where were the police? Looking around though, there was nobody there.  He could see the taxi driving off in the distance and no one else at all. Maybe that was the downside of living in such a quiet street. There was no one to see anything.

Fearing the worst Rufus pushed the door open a little with the tips of his fingers to peek inside, worried that whoever had done this might still be inside. After all he hadn’t been gone very long. He needn’t have worried. The man wasn’t there any more, but even through the crack Rufus could see that his house had been burgled. More than burgled. Vandalized.

“Oh Crap!”

Pushing the door the rest of the way open Rufus could finally see all the way into his house and he didn’t want to. Someone had been there. Someone had turned everything upside down, obviously searching for something. And then when they hadn’t found it they’d decided to pretty much destroy the place.

His burglar alarm was no longer on the wall, though it was still attached to part of it. It was just that that part and the grey box of state of the art electronics, were on the far side of the room in pieces. It looked for all the world as though someone had simply ripped the box out of the wall and flung it across the room. Maybe they had.

Stuff was everywhere. Things had been chucked all over the floor, shelves had been emptied and their contents strewn all over the place, and they hadn’t stopped at his main room. Cutlery and crockery, much of it smashed, told him they’d been in the kitchen, though why they’d tossed that stuff all over his lounge he didn’t know. And when they hadn’t found what they’d wanted in plain sight, they’d started ripping things apart. Even his telly had been torn apart. Why? What could anyone possibly find inside a telly? Or a dvd player for that matter? Or stereo speakers? And how could they have done it all in the hour and a half he’d been out, down at the police station?

A sudden feeling of terror hit him as he realised one thing more. They must have been watching him, waiting for him to leave. It was paranoia of course, but he knew it had to be true. There just wouldn’t have been the chance otherwise for someone to simply break in and know he wasn’t at home. So someone had watched him, seen him leave, and taken the opportunity to break in. But who? Why? He didn’t have much to steal and he didn’t know any secrets. He didn’t even have any enemies as far as he knew.

Except that now he did. He had people who wanted to kill him, and more who wanted to rob him blind. That was as good a definition of enemy as he knew.

In time, as he stared at the mess that had once been his home, Rufus realised that there was one more thing he had to do as a law-abiding citizen. And also as someone who at least wanted to be able to claim insurance for his losses. He had to call the police. And that meant the inspector. Again.

Detective Chief Inspector Barns would never believe him, he knew that. He would grill him for hours, again, thinking he was the guilty party, and then he would grill him some more, certain he would confess to something. And when he got nothing, he would start again.

It was all Rufus could do just to keep from breaking down about then.

Was there no end to his suffering?