by Danny Miller
‘Yes, you make yourself perfectly clear. Don’t worry, sir, you can rely on me.’
Longthorn was a large red-brick Victorian building with an even larger modern concrete annexe. There had been no attempt to assimilate the two; they were just stuck next to each other and somehow managed to cancel each other out. The schizophrenic design suited the institution, though. It was hidden away from view and as far from the general public as possible, deep in the Suffolk countryside. A solid and dependable storage facility, that’s what you got with Longthorn, the secure hospital for the criminally insane.
Frost was in the office of Dr Graham Edmunds, Longthorn’s chief medical officer. It was tantamount to being a prison governor, if you peeled away the thin veneer of its hospital status.
‘I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time, Inspector Frost.’
‘How long ago was this?’
‘Conrad Wilde passed away three weeks ago. Oesophageal cancer. He’d battled for almost five months, but in the end …’ Dr Graham Edmunds let out a philosophical sigh.
‘He died here?’
‘Yes. Due to our high security status we of course have our own infirmary; as you know, we are in fact a registered hospital. We also have a palliative-care wing equipped like a hospice. Less austere surroundings. A window, with bars of course. A great number of our “patients” smoke, obsessively, and suffer physical health problems as much as mental ones. Unfortunately, life expectancy is short at Longthorn.’
‘I’m surprised he ended up in here,’ Frost ventured.
‘You do know Conrad Wilde’s record, his prison record?’
‘From Pentonville, Parkhurst, Durham, then transfers all over the place. It took quite a bit of hunting down to find him here. Most of his records have been redacted, such as the reasons for his transfers, and what brought him here. He seems to have been almost lost in the system.’
The doctor had a full beard the same colour as his shoulder-length light-brown hair. He wore a pair of round wire-framed John Lennon glasses, and was probably in his early forties. His voice was soft and empathetic as he said, ‘I’ve only been in this post a year and a half. But I have to say, I think there’s been a miscarriage of justice somewhere. You say lost in the system, I would say buried. Conrad only came into the prison system for a five-year sentence for burglary. A non-violent crime, with no other previous for violence at all. It was his first prison sentence, and if he’d kept his nose clean he would have been out in three years. According to his records, he never settled into prison life. Eight months in and he got into a fight with a fellow prisoner. He pleaded self-defence, but ended up being sentenced to ten more years because he was considered so dangerous. Then he kept trying to escape, showing more and more erratic behaviour. Apparently.’
‘You sound uncertain?’ Frost prodded.
‘Well, all before my time. I’ve only seen the records, which as you say, are heavily redacted or skimpy at best. I don’t think they would be acceptable by today’s standards.’
‘So I take it he was repeatedly picking up more years and getting transferred?’
‘Yes. It was a terrible spiral for him that eventually brought him here.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Interesting question.’
‘How so?’
‘There is an assumption that once a person reaches here, that question becomes irrelevant. They are beyond redemption, beyond the pale, their personality and very being are fixed in one state, that of insanity. It took a while to get to know him, as when I first arrived here, he was heavily sedated.’
‘Whacked out on the chemical cosh?’
‘Exactly. When I took over, I found that the chemical cosh, as you put it, was wielded rather too heavily under the previous regime. Whilst there’s very little hope of rehabilitation, I felt that the management had lost touch with the fact that we are dealing with mental health issues, albeit of the most extreme and dangerous kind. I wasn’t sure Conrad Wilde even belonged here. The system had failed him somewhere along the line, and this is where he ended up.
‘The first thing I did was lower his meds. And it yielded results, his true personality began to emerge. I believe he thrived. He’d come to terms with his lot, seemed to find some kind of acceptance and peace. The times we spoke, he was civilized, amusing even, interested in the outside world and events.’
Frost considered Edmunds – he seemed young enough and intelligent enough to be the reforming modernizing type. ‘That would go along with my impression of him, from what I’ve heard. Tell me, did he do any painting whilst he was here?’
‘We have an art therapy workshop three times a week. I believe he attended that.’
‘Do you have any of his paintings?’
‘There’s a session going on today. Would you like to join the inmates?’
‘I’ve always had the feeling it was only a matter of time.’
Edmunds smiled politely at his gag. ‘I’ll take you down myself, Inspector. We’re short-staffed. To be honest, we’re always short-staffed. One of our orderlies quit a couple of weeks ago, another’s not bothered to turn up at all. It’s a tough job. Frankly, it can be depressing, so the people who work here need to have good mental health themselves to do the job. I’m trying to improve the conditions for patients and staff, but needless to say, we have a very high turnover.’
Wednesday (2)
When Jimmy McVale arrived at the Little Chef restaurant they were already enjoying breakfast. The choice of venue was his. They offered to meet him at his hotel. But Jimmy McVale couldn’t afford to be seen with them; they were, after all, his former associates. And if he was caught fraternizing with them it would break the rules of his licence agreement, and he could end up back in prison. Plus the fact that, with what they had to discuss, McVale thought the anonymity of the Little Chef, next to a service station on the Denton bypass, offered the best setting; no one remembers anybody in these places.
So there the three big men sat, cramped in the little red booth. There had been some small talk, some catching up. His two former associates, Eddie Tobin and Tony Minton, had done very well for themselves, gone legit, well, semi-legit anyway. There were some scrapyards and some shrewd property investments in Docklands. Very nice. They were living on the Algarve half the year, swinging golf clubs and swigging the local beer. And watching their wives broil in the midday sun as their complexions began to match their crocodile handbags.
Foreign climes hadn’t staunched their appetite for English cuisine, and the two men squeezed the life out of the ketchup and HP Sauce containers, smothering their extra-large full Englishes.
Jimmy McVale contented himself with some orange juice and looked at a copy of the Denton Echo, which the two men had laid out on the table when he arrived. Its front page held the picture of him protecting the young WPC from the baying mob. Jimmy smiled, it was a great shot. He would definitely be putting it in the book.
‘Titian.’
‘Sorry?’
‘It looks like a Titian,’ said Eddie, wiping a napkin around his mouth. ‘Sort of epic, you the mighty warrior, saving the damsel in distress.’
McVale laughed. ‘Getting a bit grandiose there, Eddie.’
‘You’re not the only one who’s done a bit of self-improvement over the years, mate,’ said Tony, coming to Eddie’s defence. ‘That’s your trouble, Jimmy, you always took us for a pair of mugs.’
‘And we ain’t,’ said Eddie.
Before McVale could defend himself against the charge, Tony cut in. ‘So much for keeping low-key. I thought you wanted out of the newspapers. Start a new life with your new education … Doctor Doolittle, Professor Plum or whatever the fuck you are.’
‘And now we’ve found you,’ said Eddie.
‘I wasn’t hiding. Obviously.’
‘What are you doing here, Jimmy?’ asked Tony.
‘Didn’t you read the article in the paper? Or did you just look at the picture?’
‘There he
goes again, Tone, taking us for mugs.’
‘Cut to the chase, boys. What’s on your minds?’
Tony Minton gave him the headlines: ‘We’ve not forgotten, Jimmy. We can’t forget, never will. It’s stuck in our claw.’
‘Craw.’
‘What?’
‘It’s stuck in your craw, not claw.’
Eddie and Tony looked at each other and laughed. Then Tony said, ‘All this education has turned you into a real prick, Jimmy, you know that?’
Now McVale laughed.
Tony Minton continued: ‘As I was saying, we’ve never been able to let it go. And over the years we’ve kept our ear to the ground. We’ve paid good money for information when it’s been available. Truth be told, we’ve spent a small fortune over the years. We’ve had contacts in prison, both cons and screws, so we’ve heard the rumours, the rumblings, the gossip, the prison jungle drums. Conrad Wilde.’
‘I’ve heard the name. What about him?’ asked Jimmy McVale, after a sip of his orange juice.
‘He was in the country-house game. One of the best.’
Jimmy McVale knew what that meant. He wasn’t just your average burglar, he pulled big jobs, could bypass sophisticated alarms and specialized in country houses, stately homes, fine art. ‘What about him?’
‘He died of cancer not long ago. We heard through the grapevine that towards the end he was blabbing away to anyone that would listen that he buried a fortune in the countryside. Whatever it was he buried, it was worth millions upon millions, he said. It was almost a deathbed confession, to be taken very seriously. But he was banged up in the nuthouse, so no one did take him seriously. Including us. Just another rumour. We’d heard hundreds of them over the years. Then we did take it seriously. Because this Conrad said he buried this fortune in Denton. Denton. Where you’re staying right now. Coincidence?’
Eddie Tobin took over: ‘We hired a private dick to find out about this Conrad Wilde. He found out that Conrad used to work with a character called Ivan Fielding. Big-time art and antiques dealer in his day. And an even bigger fence. Ivan Fielding was found dead—’
‘Yeah, I read about it in the local paper.’
‘That’s right, the local paper you’re on the front cover of. Which begs the question—’
‘Did I kill him?’
‘That’s jumping the gun a bit, Jimmy,’ said Tony Minton. ‘But since you mention it, did you?’
Jimmy McVale laughed good and hard. ‘Course I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He stopped laughing. ‘I’m here because an old mate has a cottage here. You know him, Fat Harry Baskin. I asked if I could stay here for a few weeks so I can finish my new book. Somewhere quiet, out of London and away from distractions. Away from idiots dragging up my past and asking stupid questions.’
Tony Minton and Eddie Tobin gazed with narrowed eyes at the man opposite them finishing off his orange juice.
Tobin spoke first. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘You calling me a liar, Eddie?’
‘Heaven forbid. But I do believe in … serendipity.’
Tony Minton nodded, proud. ‘Big word that, Jimmy, told you we weren’t mugs.’
‘Five syllables, you’re on a roll,’ quipped McVale, echoing Harry Baskin’s earlier jibe.
‘Tell him, Eddie.’
‘We don’t know what happened, but we think that somehow, over the years, it ended up here. In Denton. And we’re gonna find it.’
‘Let it go, boys. I have,’ McVale said.
‘No, mate. We had it. We had the prize. We got it! And it escaped us. It was stolen off us!’
Tony Minton said, ‘I won’t lie, Jimmy. If you’d escaped from prison and got away, never to be seen again, like Lord Lucan or Shergar, I’d have thought you’d double-crossed us.’
Eddie Tobin nodded his agreement. ‘After all, you were the last one to see it.’
McVale glowered at the two men opposite him. ‘I was the one who did the time for killing the barrister’ – he spat out the words like poison – ‘the not-so-honourable Mr Charles D’Arcy. I was the one who did the work to try and find out what happened to it. I was the one who did the time,’ he repeated. ‘Seventeen years on circumstantial evidence. I could have grassed you slags up at any time—’
‘We know, Jimmy, and we’re grateful—’
‘—and I would have got a reduced sentence! But I stood staunch, kept my mouth shut.’
‘Jimmy—’
‘Shut up!’
Eddie and Tony did as they were told. It was like old times again. They were doing as they were told. As a ‘firm’ they were always equal in everything. All had a say in what jobs they’d pick, each got an equal share of the haul. But leaders always emerge. Those who go just that little bit further to get the job done. And Jimmy McVale was always the first amongst equals. A natural leader. At the table were three of the original five of the gang; the other two had met violent ends.
‘You’ve both done well for yourselves whilst I was rotting in prison.’
‘We’ve put some aside for you,’ said Eddie, ‘we told you that.’
‘That’s not the point. If I can swallow it, why can’t you? You’ve grown rich and fat, so why do you want to risk everything going after it now?’
The two men turned towards each other, and Tony gave Eddie the nod to speak. As if they’d thought long and hard and rehearsed this moment, and now it was here.
‘Because we’re cut from the same cloth, Jimmy. We’re thieves, always will be. No matter how much you put on our plate, we always want more. And because it was ours. Because we had it, we had the prize. It was our biggest job, it was our Everest, and we had it snatched away. And this is the only concrete news we’ve heard about it in over seventeen years. It all makes sense.’
Like in a well-drilled double act, Tony Minton took over. ‘Come on, Jimmy, you know it makes sense. And you’re just like us. Reformed character? It’s in your bones. If someone offered you a million quid not to steal ever again, you’d tell them to go fuck themselves, then work out a way to steal it off them.’
‘We’re not calling you a liar,’ said Eddie, ‘but the minute we heard you was in Denton, we knew you’d heard what we heard.’
‘Right, Jimmy?’
Eddie and Tony stared him down with expectant eyes.
Jimmy McVale picked up the Denton Echo, looked at his picture, then rolled the paper up like a cosh and gave both men a playful whack over the head. They smiled; just like old times.
‘Like I said, I was the one who did the time. Of course I heard the rumours. Heard the same as you. A mate of mine inside, he said a mate of his had got nutted off, certified insane and sent to the funny farm. Said this Conrad Wilde has been singing like a bird. Of course, he’s dead now. Maybe he took the secret of where exactly he buried it to the grave with him – but maybe he didn’t.’
‘And his partner, Ivan Fielding, he’s dead too,’ added Tony.
‘But the trail’s not.’
Eddie and Tony smiled again. They were back in business. Eddie, more out of habit than necessity, scoped the Little Chef to see if anyone was earwigging – the place was empty. The three men leaned into a huddle; just like old times.
‘It was always the same, country idylls, green hills, blue skies. Or sometimes it was the ocean, with old ships. Conrad used to say they were pirate ships, because they were free to sail the seven seas, they could go wherever they wanted. But it was always the great outdoors. Freedom beyond the walls of prison, I suppose.’
‘And was he always this bad at painting?’
‘Afraid so,’ said the young art therapist, with some sadness. She was in her twenties, wore a pair of paint-splattered Lee dungarees and a white shirt. ‘But painting kept him calm, and of course he was let out into the grounds, which are quite extensive.’
Frost and the therapist were looking at a selection of Conrad Wilde’s paintings. They were unmistakably by the same hand as the pai
nting belonging to Vanessa Fielding that Stephen Parker had shown him.
‘Did he ever say what they meant?’
She looked confused, then glanced at the paintings, then back at Frost, still confused. ‘In art terms, they meant exactly what was on the canvas. I’m afraid, Inspector, you may be looking for meaning where there is none. You’ll find no melting clocks like in The Persistence of Memory here.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Salvador Dalí, his most famous work, with the melting clocks.’
‘Yes, I know the painting, but not the title. Did Conrad have titles for his paintings?’
‘If he did, he never mentioned them.’
‘I take it patients are allowed to give their work away, to family, friends?’
‘Yes. Depending on the content, of course. Some images can be … rather disturbing.’
‘Did Conrad?’
‘Yes, I believe he did once. They usually give them to visitors, but with Conrad, I think he posted his out. I remember because he had to pay for postage and packing himself.’
‘Do you remember who he sent them to? Or have any records of this?’
She shook her head, doubtful. ‘There may be some records at the post office in town, but we wouldn’t keep them. We don’t have the resources, I’m afraid.’
‘Would you mind if I borrowed one of the paintings?’
‘No, not at all. Take your pick.’
‘Inspector?’
Frost turned to see Dr Edmunds approaching with a folded sheet of lined paper.
‘You asked about visitors?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Conrad had just the one visitor in the time he was with us. He’s an ex-offender, I believe, served time with Conrad, not here though. He was on file as the next of kin. Conrad didn’t have any family. I tried to contact him to tell him about the small funeral service we had for Conrad here, but I couldn’t reach him. His mother said he’d gone away. Make of that what you will.’