by Danny Miller
The house was in a large clearing, though you couldn’t call it a garden, because the grass was patchy and long. There was a blue Land Rover, looked like an army vehicle. She’d seen one outside school, Lindsey Klebb’s dad’s car, but he wasn’t in the army, he was a farmer. Did Lindsey Klebb’s dad steal her? No, now she remembered, Lindsey’s dad’s one was green, and it was always muddy.
She turned suddenly back towards the house as, in her peripheral vision, a light went on in one of the downstairs windows. She quickly realized that it wasn’t actually a window, but a thick sheet of clear plastic replacing the glass. But it was too murky and smeared with dirt to see who was inside. But she did detect some movement. The Ronald Reagans … who else? There were only two of them involved in stealing her, she was sure. And the other man, the angry man on the end of the line who shouted at them and told them off. It was when the two Ronald Reagans put the phone down, after these heated conversations with the angry man, that Ruby learned most of her new swear words. The Ronald Reagans sounded funny. But they were also dangerous.
She ran.
‘Lovely morning for it.’
Stephen Parker lifted his gaze from the cracks in the pavement he was walking along and turned sharply to his left, towards the road, to see the white Bedford van creeping alongside him. It stopped and Banes opened the passenger door, letting it swing ominously open. Parker glanced nervously around him. He had just stepped out of his home, and had gone about a hundred yards down the road to where he’d parked his 2CV.
‘I hadn’t heard from you … I thought it was over.’
‘Far from it, Doctor. It’s just begun. Our friend, Mr Wilkes, has had a change of heart. He’s happy for us to have the painting. It’s all been sorted out.’
‘I have to be at work.’
‘It won’t take long. Get in.’
Parker edged towards the van and held the open door, but didn’t commit himself to climbing in.
‘My … my third of the painting is at work, in my office. Vanessa thinks I’ve thrown it out.’
‘Very duplicitous of you. You don’t plan on sharing your new-found wealth with her?’
Parker barked an inappropriate little laugh, like it was all a bit of a joke. ‘I haven’t really thought about it. I just want to find out what it is that’s worth so much money and has cost people their lives. Like a good research problem, it’s about solving the mystery.’
‘Then get in.’
‘I can’t, I have rather a full day today.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Lots of papers to mark, a seminar, then I have to pick up Vanessa’s grandchild from school, her mother’s working today up in London, and Vanessa’s seeing her sister, so I said I would. Then I’m cooking dinner tonight. Sorry, another day. How are you fixed for tomorrow? Mm?’
Banes stared at him. At first he was incredulous. Then he glared at Parker as anger took over. This – this was proving to be his life’s work and this idiot was boring him to death with his tiresome little domestic plans. Treating the whole thing as an appointment in a diary, something to get to, like a haircut or a trip to the cinema.
‘Marking papers? Picking kids up from school? Are you mad? Do you know what we’re involved in here? Because if you don’t, why don’t you just give me your painting, and we’ll call it quits. Pretend we never met.’
‘No.’
‘No what? No, you don’t know what we’re involved in, or no, you don’t want to give me the painting?’
‘I don’t want to give you the painting.’
‘Maybe I should ask your delightful girlfriend, Vanessa, the glamorous granny, because I believe the painting belongs to her, right?’
‘I don’t want you anywhere near her!’
Banes’ thin mouth rippled into a smile. That was exactly what he wanted to hear from Parker. You mendacious little prick, thought Banes.
‘Ah, so you do know what you’re involved in. You see, Doctor, I’m no dilettante. This is a serious business. Not a “research” project. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, if you will. You’ve got a nice little girlfriend, your nice little family, your nice little job … But me? This is it for me. This is all I have. And I’m not going to blow a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because you’ve got to …’ He paused to get some equanimity back in his voice. ‘I’m a serious man. And you, you’re in this, you’re in this too. Up to your neck.’ And more than he knows, thought Banes. ‘So. Get. In. The. Van.’
Parker got in the van. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To see our friend Mr Wilkes.’
‘How did you get him to sell you the painting?’
Banes changed the subject. ‘She’s very lovely, your girlfriend. And her daughter, and granddaughter. And you, not a lot older than the daughter. But really, Vanessa is quite the beauty.’
‘How did you see … You followed us?’
Banes had been waiting outside Parker’s house when he and Vanessa had emerged earlier. The two of them had walked to Sally’s block of flats on Howland Street. And then they all walked Ella to school. It was busy at the school gates this morning. It was the first day Mountview Juniors had opened since the disappearance of Ruby Hanson. There were parents and grandparents in force, and even the mayor had shown up to show support for the returning children. There were yellow ribbons threaded through the cast-iron railings. Two WPCs were on hand, and a patrol car was parked outside. The press and TV cameras kept a respectful distance. The school reopening was news, but not big enough news for them to get excited about.
Once the little girl had kissed her mummy and grandmother goodbye, Vanessa and Stephen Parker headed back home, and Sally to the train station.
‘I followed you only because I didn’t think you’d want me knocking on your door. It would be difficult for you. And I didn’t think it was right for us to be seen together.’
Parker looked content with this answer, maybe relieved that Banes had got the parameters of their relationship right.
‘Here’s the plan, Stephen. We go to Wilkes’, pick up the painting, then go to the university and pick up your painting.’
‘And yours?’
Banes gestured with a flick of his head that his painting was in the back. Parker turned and saw what he assumed was the painting, leaning against the side. It had a floral sheet over it. Parker looked concerned – there appeared to be deep-red blotches on it, and they weren’t roses …
‘Stephen? Stephen?’
Parker turned away from the painting, and the red blotches on the floral sheet. ‘Yes?’
‘Then, then, when we have all three paintings together, we’ll work out where it is, and finally get our hands on it.’
‘You sound so confident?’
‘You have to be, or why bother? You have to think like the man who stole the treasure in the first place. No disrespect, but unlike you, they weren’t scholars; if they had thought about it too much, they’d never have undertaken such a daring robbery in the first place. Of course, for any high-risk undertaking, you need the right amount of planning, the right timing, a little bit of luck. But more than anything, you need guile. When I first heard about the possibility of the treasure being in Denton, I knew it was in my grasp. I’m not a religious man, God knows, I know how cruel He can be. But I do believe in fate. Some guiding force leading us through this life, this “vale of tears”. And when I heard what I heard from Conrad Wilde, well, I knew it was put in my path for a reason. All the … all the pain, hardship, it had been for a reason.’
Parker blinked twice in quick succession. It could have been nerves, or he could have been re-evaluating Banes. Refocusing his view of him. The pain … the hardship. He realized how little he knew about this man, this man who he had let into his life on the most tenuous of notions. And, also, the most dangerous. His mind scrolled back, to something the detective had said when he visited his office … Frost, that was his name. He’d come to see him about the ad he’d put in the Denton Echo off
ering a reward for the painting. Frost had warned him – maybe you should be careful – but then Banes turned up. He said he hadn’t stolen the painting from Ivan’s … but he had it. Parker was overtaken by two guiding thoughts: great pity, and great fear. With another feeling maybe overriding both: great excitement. Banes was right, this wasn’t an academic exercise; Parker was mixing and dealing with criminals, with real consequences to his actions. Then there was the floral sheet to consider, with the big red blotches …
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ said Parker, refocusing on the driver. ‘I could ask the same of you. You’re not looking too good.’
Banes adjusted the rear-view mirror to be met with a sallow visage, sweat beading his brow, murky rings under his eyes, and the eyes themselves a filigree of red veins. He didn’t want to feel weak, and he didn’t want to be perceived as such, not now.
‘You’re a doctor of philosophy, you said, so I’ll ask you to keep your opinions to yourself. Bit of a cold, nothing some paracetamol won’t cure.’
A fifteen-minute silent drive and they were soon in the picturesque village of Gisborough. It was only when they were at the door of the ancient little shop, with its peeling green fascia and faded gold lettering spelling out ‘Wilkes’ Village Arts’, and Banes pulled out a large bunch of keys, that Parker asked where Wilkes was. ‘Are those his keys? Why have you got them?’
Banes ignored him, busy as he was with trying each of the dozen-odd keys in succession. It was around number nine that he hit the jackpot, and the big old lock gave and they gained entry.
The shop was, ostensibly, a little gallery, with also a small offering of artist’s materials for sale: tubes of paint, brushes, pallet knives. Not that it appeared to derive much of a profit from the dusty-looking stock in the cabinet. The whole place was a vanity project for its owner. Every inch of wall space was taken up with Wilkes’ own paintings. They were mostly oils of the surrounding countryside. Every building in the village looked like it had been immortalized by Wilkes at one time or another.
At least he was better at buildings and the broad strokes of landscapes than the up-close-and-personal of portraiture. The skill of capturing the human form had eluded his heavy-handed approach. The people in the paintings just didn’t look like people, and you’d be horrified to find any of them actually walking about. Hands, always a problem for even the most gifted of artists, were reduced to mitten-clad flippers. But compared to Conrad Wilde’s efforts, Wilkes’ pictures were masterpieces worthy of a wall, even a wing, of the Louvre. No comparison. And that, at first glance for Banes and Parker, was precisely the problem. There was no comparison. For Conrad Wilde’s painting was nowhere to be seen.
But after the feverish initial search for the painting, which lasted a good ten minutes, Parker resumed his questioning.
‘Where is Wilkes? Why isn’t he here to show us … and why do you have his keys … this is breaking and entering, is it not?’
Banes, who had locked the door after them, now reinforced this by standing in front of it to block anyone’s attempt at an escape.
‘Don’t worry about Wilkes.’
‘What … what does that mean …?’
‘No one will find him.’
‘What have you done to him?’
‘No one will ever know what, because no one will find him.’
Stephen Parker took a backward step, then another, and another until he was as far away from Banes as he could put himself. What alerted him to this fact was the clatter of paintings being knocked from the wall as he pressed himself against it.
He balled his fists in panic, and looked like he wanted to fight his way out of there. But Banes was guarding the door, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his duffel coat, and Parker dreaded to think what he was concealing in there – a knife, a gun? He was taller than Banes, but he knew he couldn’t hit him, not with any great impact anyway. The idea of violence appalled him, and his ineffectuality at it just embarrassed him. He even had trouble making a fist properly, his long wispy fingers somehow buckling under the strain. But I can certainly stand up straight and try not to look like a submissive victim, he told himself.
‘You’ve killed him?’ Parker struggled to keep his voice even.
‘Prove it.’
‘I … I can stop this. This has to stop.’
‘OK.’ Banes leaned back against the door; it was a casual pose and full of confidence, like he was totally at ease with the situation. ‘Why don’t you go to the police? Tell them everything. Tell them who I am. Tell them what we’ve been up to. Because they’ll want to know. They’ll want to know everything. You can’t pick and choose what you tell them. It’s like pulling on the thread of your favourite old jumper, it just unravels until you’re left with nothing and you wish you hadn’t started. You set out on a journey, Dr Parker, and you’re not even halfway through it.’
‘This isn’t what I want … I’ve had enough, I want out.’
‘Tough. I won’t let you. Not until we’re done. Then – then you’re free to do as you please. But until then, you belong to me.’
‘Don’t threaten me.’
‘I’m not. In fact, if anyone’s been doing any threatening around here, it’s you.’
Banes took his hands out of his duffel coat to reveal not a knife or a gun, but some photos. He moved away from the door and placed the five snaps on the counter for Parker to look at.
‘I took these when you were first trying to convince Mr Wilkes to part with his painting. I’ve had a few psychological assessments in my time, and whilst I’m no doctor … I definitely detect interpersonal issues with you. Easily frustrated, quick to anger, the overactive id of the completely unempathetic narcissist demanding that its needs are met, and totally prepared to use violence to get those needs met …’ He drew a deep breath. ‘… But enough about me, how about you? Because that’s what they’ll see, because a picture says more than words ever can. Just ask Wilkes … he looks positively terrified in some of these … Being hounded on his own front doorstep. By you.’
Parker’s eyes flitted from photo to photo, each one more incriminating and damning than the last. He wasn’t aware he could be so animated. Yet there he was, on Wilkes’ doorstep – eyes bulging, mouth contorted into a vicious snarl, hands gesticulating wildly in pure rage and frustration. It looked like a different man, a man very much, as Banes had pointed out, capable of violence, capable of killing someone. And yet very visibly still Parker. And Wilkes, his ‘victim’, on one photo meeting the challenge, but on all the others looking cowed and intimidated. He remembered Wilkes being a completely intractable old prick, ignoring his pleas, and his overly generous offers, but he didn’t …
‘Probably not as you remember it at all, right? But the camera doesn’t lie, Stephen. You were proper pissed off. Angry. I remember sitting in your tin can of a car taking the snaps on my little Olympus Trip, thinking they would tell a tale. And they do. You look like you could kill him. And seeing as you’re the one in the photo, and not me, you probably fucking well did.’
Parker went to gather up the photos and tear them up – but stopped. Pointless, Banes would have the negatives.
‘Think about it, the police have already spoken to you, and you’ve already expressed an interest in the Bond Street job. Your field of academic interest. You’re Vanessa’s boyfriend, the estranged wife of Ivan Fielding. You’re a suspect for his murder.’
‘It’s not murder – he had a heart attack.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Inspector Frost will soon reopen the case once these photos come to light. Maybe your relationship with Vanessa is a sham, you’re just with her to get your hands on the money.’
‘You … you did it!’
‘Me? Who am I? No one knows who I am. No one has seen me. Not even Charles Wilkes. He just felt a sharp pain to the back of his head. They all do. But they never see me. No one sees me or knows who I am.’
‘You’re Banes … You’re Clive Banes
.’
He smiled. ‘Am I?’
When Parker lifted his hands away from his weeping eyes, he found himself crouched on the floor. On realizing just how compromised he was, he felt his bones imperceptibly slip from his body, and he slumped forward. What broke him out of his torpor was a cry of fury. ‘Shit!’
Banes was no longer by the door, he too was crouched down, but by the opposite wall, looking at a canvas that had been painted over with a base colour wash to cover the garish green that lay beneath, but not enough to obliterate it. Parker recognized it immediately: it was the exact same size as the others. Banes had found the final third of the triptych.
‘Shit!’ Banes repeated.
‘It’s OK,’ assured Stephen Parker, not bothering to get up, but crawling along on his hands and knees to the painting propped up against the wall.
‘How the hell is it OK, he’s painted over it!’ said Banes, also still crouched on the floor examining the canvas.
‘Yes, he told me he was going to. But like I told you before, there’s a technician in the art department at work, Ralph Collins, he can remove the new paint and restore it back to the original. Remember? And anyway, it’s freshly done, and looks like he only gave it one layer.’
It was true, Conrad’s garish composition was visible in patches under the light-grey coating.
‘Trust me, Banes, Ralph can get this painting back to its original form.’ Stephen Parker stood up, seemingly excited by a thought. ‘And, of course, if there are any secret messages under the painting, Ralph has the latest ultraviolet equipment that can expose everything. That might be where the secret is hidden, under the painting! A map, directions. It’s not unheard of for prisoners to do that, to get messages to the outside world, to their criminal cohorts. When they send letters to their loved ones, they also write other messages on the paper that aren’t visible to the naked eye, so the warders can’t detect them. They use their urine, it works as invisible ink. You just put a light behind the paper, and it becomes visible.’