by Adam Maxwell
“Because by now Big Terry would be tracking you down, there would be surveillance on its way…” said Fegan, the penny finally starting to drop.
“And I SOLD that performance to Percy.” Lucas stepped out from behind an enormous palm leaf. “When he confessed to ripping off Big Terry on camera. That was the clinching moment of this job, really. Wasn’t it?”
“Meh,” said Zoe. “More likely it was my mad disguise skills.”
“Lucas,” Violet nodded and smiled. “Good to see you, sir.”
“And you lot,” Lucas replied.
Barry gave Lucas a pat on the shoulder.
“Did I tell you I nearly didn’t record it?” asked Violet.
Lucas, Barry and Zoe frowned in unison.
“I’m not as good with the tech as I pretended,” said Violet, quickly. “Anyway, we got it, so I think I’ll just move on. There was a minor blip.”
“We had to rob a casino,” Zoe explained to Fegan.
“What? That was you?” Fegan goggled.
“There was a thing,” Barry muttered. “But we sorted it.”
“And then Big Terry descended for real,” said Violet. “We were celebrating.”
“You were… drunk?” asked Fegan.
“One or two light ales might have been consumed,” said Zoe.
“So your plan to piss off Big Terry came to a head when you were blind drunk?” Fegan waved his bandaged hand in the air. “I wish I’d been drunk when he came to see me three hours earlier…”
“I bet you’d like some good news right about now?” asked Zoe. “Like we’ve got the painting for you?”
“The thought had crossed my mind. Do you?”
Barry, Lucas, Zoe and Violet all shook their heads.
“This better have a happy ending,” said Fegan. “So what happened on the day?”
“I mildly poisoned the guard,” said Zoe. “This stuff would make you lose your shit. Literally.”
Lucas nodded. “Then I replaced him at the desk.”
“And I knocked out the security system,” interrupted Zoe.
Violet coughed. “Katie and I went downstairs to get set up.”
Lucas and Zoe looked a little shamefaced.
“Oh, hi Katie.” Violet gave a wave to Katie as she arrived, looming out of the heat and the moisture. Katie nodded a salutary hello and ran her two thumbs down the straps of a backpack she was wearing. “So almost the first thing I did was go into the banker’s bedroom and replace the bullets in his gun with blanks.”
“While she was doing that, I was phoning him up to tell him the company had come to move the painting early,” said Lucas.
“He did not like that,” said Zoe. “I was listening.”
“So he arrived with his security contingent, who Katie dealt with,” said Violet. “Then Lucas made sure that Glass was tied up.”
“But not so tied up he couldn’t escape,” clarified Lucas. “The idea being that if he believed it was a botched kidnapping then he wouldn’t even look to see if we’d taken the painting.”
“Exactly,” said Violet. “And when he escaped he shot the woman who was attacking him.”
“Bang!” Zoe shouted.
Fegan jumped.
“Don’t worry,” Zoe continued. “I put a corset-type-thing on Katie and it was just squibs. Katie just had to Helen Mirren the shit out of that performance whilst remembering to press the button to pop the blood bags.”
Zoe shot an accusing look at Katie, who gave her a thumbs-up before miming pressing the button with her thumb.
“Of course, it’s easier to pull the trigger than it is to come to terms with the fact that you killed someone in your own home,” said Violet. “The banker did exactly what I knew he would, which was to drop the gun and run for the hills. So while I took one of the fakes upstairs and threw it in the getaway car, Katie swiped the original and replaced it with the second fake.”
“There were TWO fakes?” Fegan barked.
“Did we not mention that?” asked Lucas.
“I made sure we had two,” said Violet. “One for the banker.”
“And one for Big Terry,” said Lucas.
“So while Katie cleaned up, I finished putting the security system back together,” said Zoe.
“I had to go and see Big Terry,” said Lucas.
“My God, man,” Fegan grinned. “You must have balls as big as…”
“There are three women and two men in this crew,” said Violet tersely. “Balls have nothing to do with it.”
Lucas looked a little deflated.
“But yes, Lucas,” Violet conceded. “You pulled a blinder.”
“I delivered the fake to Big Terry,” Lucas started to explain.
“So you really did get it?” said Fegan, cutting Lucas short. The relish he had for the victory was tempered by the knowledge that the tale was not yet at its end.
Night had begun to fall, the sun setting behind the trees, and a single light was turned on in the pond, shining up under the fountain’s single jet.
“We really did get it,” said Violet.
“But have you still got it?” asked Fegan, nervously.
“It wasn’t over,” said Violet. “There was still the matter of Percy to deal with.”
“And Big Terry,” added Fegan.
“Oh yeah,” said Violet. “But Lucas delivered the painting and, as we expected, Big Terry was ready to give us nothing.”
Fegan nodded.
“He was ready to kill me,” Lucas muttered.
“But he didn’t, did he?” laughed Barry. “More’s the pity. I could have had your share.”
Lucas raised his middle finger toward Barry.
Lucas picked up the story. “After Big Terry offered us nothing, he’d taken the fake, accepted it as real. But that wasn’t enough for Violet…”
Fegan raised an eyebrow. “The video?”
“Of Percy,” Violet confirmed. “We gave it to Terry…”
“I gave it to Terry,” Lucas confirmed.
“Lucas gave it to Terry,” Violet conceded. “And somehow managed not to shit in his pants. And when he handed it over the net closed and Percy was dealt with.”
“Dealt with?” asked Fegan.
“Big Terry stabbed him in the leg and threw him in the boot of his car,” said Lucas.
“And will he… kill him?”
Violet nodded. “I sincerely doubt Big Terry will kill him, he still has value to the little psycho, but he will punish him. Probably literally to within an inch of his life. If he kills him… Well, let’s just say I’m at peace with my decisions. If he doesn’t. I suppose we’re even.”
A silence fell over the group as they stared out at the pitiful fountain spewing its single jet into the near darkness.
“But why did he pay you?” asked Fegan, after a moment.
“He thinks it motivates us to do a better job, if he ever decides he wants to work with us again,” said Barry. “We’re all criminals, but by not calling the police, by honouring at least a part of the deal, in his twisted mind at least, it demonstrates the hatchet is buried.”
“If it wasn’t for you,” Fegan turned to Violet, “the hatchet might well have been buried in the back of someone’s head.”
“I love it when a plan comes together,” said Violet with a grin.
“So let me get this straight,” asked Fegan, shaking his head. “You recruited your crew, phoned Big Terry to set him on your own trail then dragged your treacherous ex into the mix, got two copies of the painting forged, robbed a casino, staged a fake kidnapping and a fake murder. All to steal a painting and wreak your revenge on you ex?”
Violet nodded.
“Which means that you have it?” Fegan said eventually.
“Absolutely,” said Violet, then nodded to Katie, who took off her backpack and removed a carefully wrapped canvas from within. Katie handed it gently to Fegan, who took it with a smile.
“So this is the original then?” he said.
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Katie nodded.
“After Katie cleaned up the blood from the squibs there was plenty of time for her to take the original out of its frame and put one of the fakes in there,” said Violet.
“But if Big Terry has already paid you, you won’t need paying a second time now, will you?”
Violet raised an eyebrow in Fegan’s direction. “I told you a story about a woman who died. Big Terry’s payment is going to her family. An anonymous gift from a mystery benefactor. It can’t bring her back, but… I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
“No, of course. I suppose,” said Fegan, sighing as he wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “And there’s no need to worry about the dwarf finding out about the other copies. My buyer always had the intention to keep this painting in a very private collection. Which was why they requested the switch in the first place. So it’s unlikely he’ll ever be any the wiser.”
Violet nodded.
“I’ll arrange the transfer of your fee in the morning,” Fegan continued. “You should consider sticking around in Kilchester, you know?”
Violet stared out at the fountain then let her gaze pass over the crew. Her crew. “I was thinking that maybe I would stick around in Kilchester for a while.”
Katie grabbed Violet and hoisted her up, hugging the air out of her.
The sound of laughter echoed around the enormous glasshouse.
“Well, in all likelihood I’ll be in touch with you soon,” said Fegan. “Just one thing that would have been the icing on the cake.”
“What’s that?” said Violet, now safely returned to earth by Katie.
“The diamond heist,” said Fegan. “The one you left Kilchester after. Such a shame you didn’t grab any of the diamonds.”
He sighed and turned to make his way out of the winter garden.
Violet grinned at him. “Who said I didn’t grab any of the diamonds?”
Acknowledgments
It’s difficult to know where to begin or end when paying tribute to the people who have been instrumental in helping me bring this book to life. I’m lucky to have all of them in my life, whether I paid them to be there or not, so forgive me a little sentimentality.
Most of all my wife, Eve. Your unwavering belief, unerring support and oceans of love are a constant source of inspiration to me. I love you now and always and my life would be much duller and have much less laughter in it without you.
James Whitman, my writing spirit animal. Thank you for your support through every stage of this novel. From the long, convoluted conversations about outlines to arguing over sentence structure and changes in tense you are infuriatingly, irritatingly correct more than anyone has any right to be. Thank God I ignored you as often as I did.
My co-editors Sam Hartburn and Elaine Jinks-Turner, for all the hours and hours (and hours) that you have put in to bashing the book into shape, thank you both.
Matt Austin and Mark Young for your eagle eyed insistence that time operates in a linear fashion and, as such, should be adhered to when writing fiction. Both of your input has helped to ensure this most convoluted of tales has remained understood on non-quantum levels.
To my family and friends for all their advance input; Mam, Brenda West, Michael Brett, Claire Aberdeen, Roz Wyllie, Margaret Field, Oliver Kinsley, Martin Greatbatch, Richard Heslop. I’m grateful to you all for the questions, pointers, clarifications and encouragement.
The cover illustration by Mute. How you crowbarred those images out of my head and rendered them in colour and shape I do not know. Neither do I know how to remove the scars from my temples.
To Damien Walter from The Guardian for being kind enough to write a blurb to help me convince people to take this journey with me.
Lastly I’d like to thank my advance team expert loungers who volunteered to read this. You kick arse. All of you:
Kirsty Linderholm, Jesse Fowler, Krissy Lee, Gary, Paulo, Ian, Amber, Nessa, Jenny, Stephen, Kryste, Peg and Graham.
- A.M.