The Picasso Scam (21 page)

I padded across to the stairs and climbed them two at a time, hauling on the handrail and extracting the third key from my pocket as I moved. I paused at the door and looked around. The place was as silent as a turkey farm on Boxing Day. I tried the key. It turned. I let the door swing open and surveyed the room. It was windowless and dark. I didn’t want to put the lights on, so I left the door wide open. It still took a few moments for my eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom. It was a big room, with an odd assortment of furniture. There were two or three easy chairs and a huge table that might have come from a drawing office or a school laboratory. But what really caught my attention was the familiar face, staring unwaveringly at me through the gloaming.

I gazed back at it with a deal more fascination than when I’d seen the original in the Louvre, many years ago. It was the
Mona Lisa
, but the picture wasn’t hanging on the wall: it was on an easel, as if waiting for the artist to add the finishing touches.

I turned it a few degrees, so that it received more of the light from the door. It was good. Oil paints are slow to dry; the different colours drying at different speeds. The earth colours, as used in this painting, might take a couple of days, whereas a red might need a week or more to be touch-dry. Total dryness can take up to a year. I tested the surface with my fingers, to feel what it could tell me. Not much. He could, of course, have been working on it for months, developing minute areas with infinite patience.

That hint of a smile on her face doesn’t fool me. I reckon someone in the room has just broken wind, and, being a lady, she’s desperately trying to pretend she didn’t hear them. I think she’d look better with a big, lecherous grin. If the paint wasn’t completely dry I should be able to do it with my fingertips. I tried to draw the corners of the mouth upwards, pressing hard on the surface. It was too late. She looked a little more as if she was about to lose control, but not as manic as I’d hoped for. I glanced around for materials, then pulled open the drawer in the table.

All his paints were neatly laid out, as per the rainbow. I went straight to the short end of the spectrum and selected a colour. Cadmium scarlet, perfect. Squeezing the paint directly from the tube on to the canvas, I gave her a luscious, Monroesque pout – although it did look as if she’d applied her lipstick while riding a horse.

I placed the squashed tube back in the drawer without putting the top back on and moved up the frequency range. Something had to be done about those eyebrows and the receding hairline. Chrome yellow; a bit cool, but it’d do. I gave her two arching brows, then, working outwards from the parting, masses of looping, blonde curls. Bet she’d always wanted to be a blonde. Half a tube of lamp black provided eyelashes that looked like lawn rakes. I closed the drawer and examined my handiwork. Well, at least it was original.

At that point I should have left. I’d penetrated their empire and guaranteed them a bad case of dysentery
when they found out. I should have organised
twenty-four
-hour surveillance. Over the years, there’ve been a lot of things I should have done, but didn’t. Besides, I’ve always had an interest in interior decoration. I just had to have a look at Mr Cakebread’s private suite. I presumed that was where the door at the far end of the room led.

The handle turned silently and the door swung inwards when gently pushed. It was almost pitch black inside, except for a flickering blue glow reflecting off the shiny surfaces. As the door swung wider I saw the source of it. High in a corner was a small black-
and-white
closed-circuit TV monitor, showing the big door at the side, where I had entered the building.

‘Come in, Charlie,’ said a familiar voice, and the lights flashed on.

Rudi Truscott was standing at the far side of the room. He had a smug expression on his face and a Smith and Wesson in his hand. It was a Lady Smith, one of a neat little series of weapons designed for American women to carry in their purses. It was a thirty-eight, though, and would fell a moose at this range.

‘Pizza Express,’ I said. ‘Did anybody here order a
quattro stagioni?
’

‘Sit down,’ he commanded, gesturing towards an armchair, ‘and keep your tiresome humour to yourself.’

Ouch! That hurt. He placed himself on an upright chair at the other side of the room. I glanced round at the furnishings. There was a lot of lilac. The style was
Puffs Boudoir, with heavy Cocktail Bar influences.

‘Nice room,’ I said. ‘Did you choose the colours?’ No answer, just a contemptuous stare.

‘I, er, I saw your painting.’ I gestured towards the outer room. ‘It’s good, one of your best. But surely you’re not going to try to heist the
Mona Lisa
, are you?’

He sniggered. ‘No. While I am confident I can reproduce Leonardo’s masterpiece, he unfortunately used inferior materials. I am unable to do justice to the surface cracks that it is covered with. The picture is just a little present for the wife of a friend. She says it’s her favourite painting.’

‘Good,’ I replied, nodding my approval. ‘Good. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. Tell me, what’s her second favourite: the white horses galloping through the waves, or the Burmese lady with the green face?’

‘You’re a sarcastic bastard,’ he hissed. ‘You always were. But we won’t have to put up with you for much longer.’

‘Why? What are you going to do?’ I asked. It seemed a reasonable question. I was genuinely interested.

‘You’ll find out.’

‘I’d never have thought of you as a killer, Rudi,’ I told him. ‘I’m not.’

‘Aren’t you? What about old Jamie?’

‘Who’s old Jamie?’

‘You remember. The tramp whose body we found in your cottage. We’ve been looking for you for his murder.’

Fear flickered across his face for a moment. The gun wavered alarmingly. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he hissed. ‘He … died.’

‘Did he? And what did you do to help the process? Give him a litre of Bell’s and tell him to get it down? It amounts to the same thing in my book.’

His eyes flashed up towards the TV monitor and he smiled. ‘Fortunately, Priest, your book is not the one we’re working from.’

I followed his gaze. The big door was open and the Rolls was coming through. As it slid shut again Truscott said: ‘Get up, it’s time to go.’ He pointed towards the exit. ‘Walk slowly, and don’t try anything.’

I walked slowly. Very slowly. I was hoping he’d come up close behind me, but he was wary. ‘Faster!’ he snapped.

We were approaching the painting, which was angled away from us, towards the outer door. I glanced back at him and said: ‘Yes, it’s a really nice picture.’ We’d reached it now. I went on: ‘It needed a few small alterations, though, so I made them for you. I hope you don’t mind.’

I grabbed the top of the easel and turned it so he could appreciate my handiwork. With the lights on it wasn’t
La Gioconda
any more; it was Barbara Cartland, after being ravished by the Chipping Sodbury chapter of Hell’s Angels.

His face contorted in horror: ‘You bastard!’ he screamed.

One second later the picture, with easel still attached, hit him in the mouth and I was out through the door.

Cakebread was opening the boot of the Rolls. He looked up when he heard the commotion and his natural look of self-satisfaction turned to panic when he saw me. I was down the stairs in three leaps and already running when my feet hit the ground. Truscott fired. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete in front of me, nearly hitting Cakebread.

‘Three seconds, dear God,’ I prayed. ‘Three seconds, that’s all I ask, with my hands round his throat.’

I nearly made it. With five yards to go Cakebread delved into the boot and spun in my direction. I found myself charging towards the pitiless black orifices of a sawn-off shotgun.

Plan B. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had. I executed a body-swerve and change of direction that would have graced any football field in the world, and headed for the door. But you can’t outrun a twelve-bore.

The noise, the pain and the impact all hit me at once. The blast caught me in the right side, spinning me round. My legs tangled and I went down. The only thought in my head was ‘keep moving’. I rolled over and over. Then I was scrabbling forward on my hands and knees and finally on my feet again. I thumbed the door catch with my free hand – the one that wasn’t holding my guts in – yanked it open and spilt out on to the welcoming pavement.

Penny Throstle owns a craft shop in the new riverside development at Oldfield. She sells rugs and blankets that she weaves herself on a Victorian floor loom, purchased when the company that had hitherto owned it fell victim to advancing technology and cheap imports. She was given the option to buy the three similar ones in the mill at the same knockdown price, so she took those, too. The intention was to use them for spares, or restore them for sale to another small operator. Fortunately she did neither, and all four are now in use.

The rugs are usually hung on walls as decoration, being far too expensive to walk on or throw over the bed. Her designs come from all around the world, as well as the original ones she develops herself. Ms Throstle was doing quite nicely, thank you, until she made a rug for Mr Rahkshan. Now she is doing very well indeed.

Mr Rahkshan is a silversmith, and owns the shop next door. He is a Muslim. One day, in a period when Ms Throstle was beguiled by the geometric patterns of Islamic art and producing beautiful works under its heady influence, she made Mr Rahkshan a prayer mat. Her motives were not purely spiritual – she fancied him madly. The design was based on five lines, radiating from a point halfway along one side. Mr Rahkshan was captivated when she explained how it worked. You simply placed the mat on the floor, with the appropriate line pointing in the direction of the sun; then, as you
knelt on the mat, you were automatically facing towards Mecca.

It was only accurate, of course, when within a few hundred miles of Oldfield. The design would have to be modified for use in other parts of the world. Mr Rahkshan proudly showed the mat to his friends. As well as having direction-finding capabilities it was also a thing of beauty, for Ms Throstle had invested her best efforts, plus a few prayers of her own, in it. One week later he gave her a firm order for twenty similar mats, at an extremely agreeable price, with promises of more to follow.

A month later they became partners – alas, only for business purposes – went mail-order and put the other looms into use. They were inundated.

‘The secret of a good reputation,’ Mr Rahkshan would say, ‘is to produce a good-quality article and deliver it on time. Then you can charge what you want,’ and he would give his tinkling laugh that entranced Ms Throstle. The trouble was, they had received so many orders they might have difficulty in achieving the second premise. Simply packing all the rugs for posting was a gargantuan undertaking. Fortunately a little factory that made cardboard cartons came to the rescue. They were in Welton, joined on to the back of ABC House, domicile of Aubrey Cakebread.

Business for them was desperate; they were rapidly coming unstuck at the flaps. When Mr Rahkshan asked them to make boxes for the mats, they gladly offered
to pack, address and post them, at a small extra cost. It was a satisfactory arrangement all round. The grateful staff worked all weekend to process the latest order. They finished it late Sunday afternoon, and had just left the factory and were walking down the cobbled lane alongside ABC House, on their way home, when I burst into their midst.

There were about six of them. They were gathered around me, trying to comprehend my gibberings, when Cakebread appeared at the side door. He was brandishing the shotgun, no doubt with two fresh charges up the spouts, and looked intent on murder. The alley should have been deserted at that time of day. When Cakebread saw the crowd he panicked and fled back inside. I don’t know if Penny Throstle’s mats ever do any good for the people who pray on them, but there is no doubt that they saved my life.

Cakebread had killed Truscott with the second barrel. He jumped into the Rolls and fled through the front entrance. The poor gateman was dozing in his hut when the car smashed through the barrier. He hadn’t even known that his boss was in the place. It was a long time, though, before I learnt all this.

I was in intensive care for three days, in hospital for three weeks and off work for three months. Who decided that a week should have seven days? All round the world, too. Bet you’d never get today’s politicians to agree to it. Hospitalisation gives you
the opportunity to ponder on questions like that.

I once went to the funeral of one of my more agreeable clients and I was the only mourner there. It occurred to me then that a measure of a man’s life is the number of people who attend his funeral. OK, so nobody turned up at Mozart’s, but there’s always an exception. Another good indicator, I have since discovered, is how many visitors he gets when he’s in hospital. Numerically I didn’t do too badly, but they were all policemen or policemen’s wives. I had no illusions – Gilbert organised a rota. There were still days when I felt that the hands of the clock were painted on, and I longed for a familiar face to come round the corner. There was nobody special, though.

Except just once. I’d had a bit of a relapse after they brought me to Heckley General and was lying with a tube up my nose and a drip in my arm. The nurse was smiling as she held the screen wide open and told me I had a visitor. Julie hobbled in on her new crutches. ‘Hello,’ she said, softly.

I tried to smile at her, but my throat felt as if I’d swallowed a chainsaw.

‘My mum told me what happened to you. I hope you get well soon. I’ve brought you something to read.’ She wobbled alarmingly on the crutches as she retrieved a magazine from the pocket of her dressing gown, and held up the latest copy of
Just Seventeen
.

I managed, to say ‘Thanks’ as she placed it on my cabinet.

After an awkward silence she said: ‘Martin came to see me. And Claire and some girls from school. I think Claire fancies him. She says she’s going to tell him some names of … you know … the drugs thing.’

I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t … matter,’ I croaked.

‘Are you in pain?’ she asked with concern.

I gathered up my reserves of strength and courage and mumbled: ‘Only … when … I laugh.’

She smiled at me. Her face really was bonny. As if an afterthought she dipped into her pocket again and produced the teddy bear. ‘He’s yours now,’ she told me, as I reached out for him.

I held him up so I could see him without moving my head. One eye was missing and an arm was hanging on by a thread. ‘What’s he … called?’ I asked.

Julie manoeuvred on her crutches and pointed herself towards the way out. ‘Douglas,’ she said, over her shoulder, ‘Douglas Bearda.’