The Picasso Scam

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘I think there may have been a switch, but so far I’m crying in the wilderness. I take it someone rode in the back of the armoured van.’

  ‘That’s right. Two ABC guards. I saw them when they unloaded.’

  ‘Can you remember what they looked like?’

  ‘No. They were wearing helmets and visors. One was fairly small, though, and the other was about my size. We were keeping our eyes on the cargo.’

  ‘Mmm. Well, thanks for what you’ve told me. Sorry to keep you away from swanning up and down the motorway. If you think of anything else I’d be glad if you’d let me know.’

  He thought for a few seconds. ‘Just one small point,’ he said. ‘The two in the back liked country and western music. Played loud. All the time we were waiting it was coming out through the ventilators. Nearly sent me barmy.’

  I drove down to the courthouse and parked in the reserved parking. I was early, but I’d wanted to escape the distractions of the office. I sat in the car and took stock of what I knew so far. It didn’t amount to a shoe box full of polystyrene beads. Truscott was linked to the paintings, and ABC had moved them. I’d always imagined Truscott to be a non-smoker, he was so fastidious in other ways, but he’d had a small cigar when I saw him at Beamish, so he could have set fire to his own armchair. True, he was small, like the security guard, but lots of men were small. Small people weren’t usually attracted into the security industry, though. He definitely wasn’t a country and western lover: he probably thought the term referred to Cornish folk dances. String quartets were more his style. I thought about our meeting at Beamish and went through it, step by step, word by word. Something didn’t gel, and eventually I thought I knew what it was.

  I’d left the rest of the day free for the trial, but I’d been given an inkling that it wouldn’t take long. At the last minute the accused changed his plea to guilty, so there was no need for me to tell the court how I’d arrested him with the left halves of ninety-six pairs of expensive training shoes in his car boot. I came out and gunned my car over the hill into Lancashire. It was time to have a look at Mr Breadcake on his own territory.

  Forty minutes later I was sitting outside ABC House, nerve centre of the Cakebread empire. The building was an old warehouse, the side of which gave directly on to the pavement of a narrow cobbled alley. There was a big sliding door, with a small door let into it, otherwise it was just a huge, blank brick wall. The small door had a Yale lock and a deadlock. Round the front it was much more open. The building was set well back from the main road, with a tall mesh fence enclosing the area to the front and other side. At the side were parked several security vans with the ABC logo on them. In front were presumably the staff’s cars. The entrance to the compound was protected by a lowered barrier controlled by a gatehouse. Prominently situated, as close to the door as it was possible to park, was the familiar Rolls Royce with the personal registration number.

  I’d no plan. I just wanted to get the feel of the place, so that if I ever came back it wouldn’t be a surprise to me. I’d hang around a while, then maybe look for his home, The Ponderosa. What other names could he have chosen for his mansion, I wondered? A combination of their respective monickers would be about right. Eunaub had a certain style to it. Or maybe they’d prefer something a little more up-market, like … The Summer Palace.

  Suddenly he was there, getting into the Roller. He was even fatter than I remembered him. The gate man came out of his little office and raised the barrier and the Rolls swept imperiously through, the way that Rollses do.

  He could have forgotten his cigar clipper and come back for it, so I waited ten minutes before driving up to the little gatehouse that stood between me and the secrets of the Cakebread empire.

  ‘I’ve come to see Mr Cakebread; he is expecting me,’ I told the gateman.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve just missed him, sir, he left a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Oh dear. I’ve a rather important message for him.’ I tried to look suitably downcast and waved my ID card in his direction. ‘Do you think I could have a word with his secretary?

  ‘Certainly, sir. Do you know where to find her?

  ‘Yes, I think so, thanks.’

  He raised the barrier and I was through. I tried to watch him in the rear-view mirror but didn’t see anything. He hadn’t had the opportunity to read the name on my ID, but it was a fair bet that he wrote my registration number in his log book.

  What the hell, I thought, no point in letting it grow cold, and parked in the spot marked ABC, so recently vacated by the man himself. Just inside the front entrance was a receptionist’s desk, combined with a switchboard. I gazed at the blonde sitting behind it with awe. Geological forces were at work underneath her blouse. The thin material was struggling to conceal a demonstration of plate tectonics. Continents were in collision.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked with a brassy smile, as she looked up from her True Romances.

  ‘Er, yes,’ I stumbled out, endeavouring to hold her gaze. Oh, to have the eyes of a chameleon, one to look here, the other to look there. ‘I, er, was hoping to see Mr Cakebread.’

  ‘Oh! you’ve just missed him. He left about five minutes ago, for the airport. He’s flying to Spain. He has his own plane, you know, flies himself all over the place. I think it’s ever so exciting.’ She went glassy-eyed with the romance of travel, then the receptionist training resurfaced: ‘Would you like to speak to anybody else, Mr …?’

  ‘No, it had to be Aubrey. I’m a policeman, and I needed a word with him. Any idea when he’ll be back?’

  A look of shock spread across her face, and she exclaimed: ‘Oh my God! The policeman, where did I put it?’ and started rummaging frantically in her desk. ‘Here it is!’ she cried triumphantly, holding aloft a manila envelope. She looked at the front of it and read: ‘Mr Hilditch, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ I lied, taking the envelope and putting it in my pocket. ‘Now you know my name, you have to tell me yours.’

  She gave me the warm, confident smile of someone who has narrowly missed making a cock-up and doesn’t yet know they have made an even bigger one. ‘Gloria,’ she told me, coyly.

  ‘It suits you,’ I said. ‘How long have you worked for Aubrey?’ We were interrupted by the telephone. While she tried to connect somebody I had a glance round. No Van Goghs or Monets were hanging on the walls, dammit.

  ‘Only about a month, well, this is my third week. I started in the office, then he made me his receptionist.’

  ‘Do you like working for him?’

  ‘Ooh yes, ever so much. Did you know he’s a multimillionaire? He’s got a plane and a boat, and flats all over the place. Says he’ll take me on his boat one day.’ She was looking dreamy again.

  ‘Whereabouts in Spain has he gone? Do you know, Gloria?’

  ‘Marbella, I think. He’s got a boat there. Don’t know where it is but I’ve heard of it. Sounds ever so romantic. Do you ever go to any of his parties, Mr Hilditch?’

  ‘It’s Ernest, you can call me Ernie. Yes, I’ve been to a couple at The Ponderosa. Old Aubrey certainly knows how to throw a party.’

  ‘Oh, I’d love to go to The Ponderosa. I meant the parties he holds here, in his suite upstairs.’

  ‘No. To tell the truth, I didn’t know he had a suite here. Crafty so-and-so’s kept it a secret from me. Probably scared I’ll pinch all the girls.’

  ‘It’s fabulous,’ she gushed, ‘carpets up to your knees, and the colours are gorgeous – everything matches. He showed me round it once. Says he’ll invite me to the next party.’

  ‘I might see you there, then.’ The clock behind her head showed a quarter to twelve. ‘How about letting me take you for a bite of lunch? What time are you free?’

  Her smile looked almost demure. ‘That will be lovely,’ she cooed. ‘About half past twelve; is that all right?’

  ‘That’s fine. Where shall I pick you up? Can you get out of the door at the si
de?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I’ll meet you just outside the gatehouse, if that’s OK.’

  ‘Perfect. So I’ll see you in three-quarters of an hour; it’s a long time to wait.’

  I drove away feeling like a prospector who isn’t sure if he’s struck gold or diamonds. I headed out of town until I found a suitable pub that served food, so that it looked as if I knew my way around. I parked and took the lumpy envelope from my inside pocket. It contained three keys and a note. One, a nondescript doorkey, was on its own; the other two, a Yale and a Chubb, were on a keyring. The note read:

  Ernest,

  PH Tue. PM Thur. Alarm 4297

  It was signed with a stylised ABC, similar to the logo on the vans. He’d obviously spent many hours practising it.

  When I arrived back at ABC House I parked just outside the side door. Looking as if I had every right to be there I tried the Yale key in the lock. It turned. Then I tried the Chubb and that fitted, too. I left the door as I’d found it and set off round to the gatehouse to wait for Gloria. That’s when the diamond mine fell in.

  As I stopped in the road just short of the entrance, a maroon Daimler did a right turn across the front of me. It was driven by the one and only, the inimitable, appearing for the first time in person, Ernest Hilditch, Chief Constable of the East Pennine force. After a brief word the barrier was raised, and soon he was, no doubt, addressing the considerable charms of Gloria. After a couple of minutes he came storming out and slammed the Daimler’s door behind him. As he tore towards the exit the barrier was raised, but he screeched to a halt and leapt out to accost the gateman.

  After a few violent gestures they went into his office. Chief Constable Hilditch was playing at being a policeman, collecting car numbers. Somebody was up Shit Creek with a duff outboard, and it looked like me.

  My appetite had gone, so I went straight back to the office. Nigel and Tony Willis were in, going through some cases, solved and unsolved, looking for common denominators.

  I gave them a terse ‘Any messages?’ as I hung up my jacket. It was my I Mean Business entrance.

  ‘Two,’ Nigel told me. ‘Your friend at the Fraud Squad said to tell you that rumour has it that the American private eye firm, Winkler’s, are over here and asking a lot of questions in the shady market. He thinks you may be on to something.’

  ‘Good, and the other?’

  ‘Limbo said be sure not to miss her promotion do tomorrow night.’

  I caught Tony’s gaze and flashed a glance up at a poster on the wall. It was headed: ‘Racism and Sexism’, and went on to say that these would not be tolerated, and any officer hearing racist or sexist language should address it immediately.

  ‘Who’s Limbo?’ I asked him.

  ‘WPC Limbert, Kim Limbert. She moves to the city on the first, as sergeant.’

  We sat in silence for a few moments, then I asked: ‘Have you ever thought that she might find being called Limbo offensive?’

  ‘Gosh, no,’ he confessed, ‘it never occurred to me. Everybody calls her Limbo.’

  ‘Not everybody,’ I stated.

  Nigel was embarrassed at being caught out, and fell silent. I wouldn’t have let him off the hook, but Tony was working with him, so after a while he threw out a lifeline. ‘Do you still fancy Kim, Charlie?’

  I thought about it, leaning back in my chair and looking up at the ceiling. ‘Yes, I think I do, but I’ve stopped dreaming about her. Unless I dream about her and forget.’

  ‘Not enough meat on her for me. I prefer something you can dig your fingers into.’

  Nigel was looking from one of us to the other, growing visibly agitated.

  ‘Naw,’ I disagreed, ‘I like them tall and skinny. It’s like wrestling with a boa constrictor, lots of points of contact and intertwining limbs.’

  Nigel could contain himself no longer. ‘What about sexism?’ he demanded, ‘When are you going to start addressing sexism?’

  ‘Good point, boss,’ Tony admitted. ‘When do we start addressing sexism?’

  I thought about it for ten seconds before making my pronouncement: ‘Mariana,’ I said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Nobody told me I was sacked, so I carried on as normal. We had a murder during the night and I was called from my bed. That’s fairly normal. Neighbours had heard a couple having a violent fight and the husband had stormed off in his car. Definitely normal. Four hours later, when the eighth playing of Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits was still keeping them awake, the neighbours called the police. Playing Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits eight times on the trot is definitely abnormal behaviour – our boys were there in minutes. They pulled the plug on the CD player, then looked for the wife.

  He’d made a good job of her. In the kitchen there was a rack with enough chef’s knives on it to equip the Catering Corps. I’d seen them advertised in the colour supplements. He’d found a novel use for the cleaver on the end. I drew on my years of police training and told Command and Control to find the husband’s car. A bright constable recognised the number as being involved in an accident he had attended at the beginning of his shift. Our man had gone off the road two miles from home, and was now in the General, waiting to have his broken thigh placed in traction.

  ‘He’s all yours,’ I told DS Willis, ‘and if he won’t confess, swing on his wires. But make sure his solicitor is looking the other way.’

  There was no point in going home, so I hung around the station until the canteen opened. I was snoozing in the office when I received a call from a probation officer called Gav Smith. Could he come round to see me sometime?’

  ‘Come round now and I’ll treat you to a bacon sandwich,’ I said. My stomach hadn’t seen food for twelve hours and was considering suing my mouth for desertion. The popular conception is that we catch criminals and the Probation Service try to get them off. It sometimes seems that way to me, too, but they have an important and difficult job to do. Well, they say they have. I’d met Gavin professionally plenty of times, mainly at various committee meetings, but never socially. I was intrigued to know what he wanted: probation officers have a befriending role with their clients, and no doubt learn lots of stuff we’d find useful.

  I met him at the desk and took him to the canteen. ‘Two bacon sandwiches, please. One with all the fat cut off and cooked till it frizzles, in a toasted bun; the other as it comes. And two teas: one weak, no milk and three sugars; the other as it comes.’

  I joined him at the table. ‘What’s it all about, Gavin?’ I asked. I refused to join the Gav conspiracy.

  ‘I had a client die of a heroin OD at the weekend. There’s aspects of the case that I think the police ought to know.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He was a pleasant lad, only seventeen. Brighter than most of our customers; very bright, in fact. He was in trouble for stealing to pay for his habit. An older man, about thirty, had made friends with him and took him to parties and discos. He introduced him to Ecstacy, said he could pay for it later. Jason got hooked on it. We think it must have been laced with something else; you don’t get hooked on E like he was. Then they started chasing the dragon; it still seemed like good fun. Next he was having to inject, but by now he owed several hundred pounds to the pusher. He was caught robbing an old lady who had just collected her pension. In his right mind he wouldn’t have dreamt of doing anything like that. That’s when we got him. I tried to persuade him to grass on the pusher, but he wouldn’t. Then during one of our talks, he let a name slip. Parker, that’s all. He begged me to keep it to myself, and I had to, to maintain my credibility. I was working on ways of letting you know, but on Sunday he died. Massive overdose of uncut heroin. Somebody’s poisoning our kids, Charlie. The streets are flooded with the stuff.’

  The sandwiches arrived; they were both As They Come. Gavin was visibly distressed, but he wolfed his sandwich down; he seemed hungrier than I was. I thought about what he had told me.

  ‘Parker, just Parker?’

 
‘Afraid so. Doesn’t narrow it down much, does it?’

  ‘That’s OK, it’s a starting point.’ Providing it’s not just his pen name. I wrestled with my sandwich and sipped my tea.

  ‘A couple of weeks ago we caught three youths trying to rob the owner of a Chinese restaurant,’ I told him. ‘They were all first-offenders and they all had syringe marks on their arms. They’re doing cold turkey on remand now. Last week we caught three schoolgirls stealing handbags. When their rooms were searched no drugs were found, but they had all the paraphernalia associated with the scene: posters, weird records, that sort of stuff. Plus their parents and teachers were alarmed at the deterioration in the girls’ behaviour recently. You’re right, we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg.’

  The other reason for talking in the canteen was to escape the constant interruptions of the telephone. It didn’t work. ‘It’s for you, Mr Priest,’ the manageress called out. I went behind the counter to take it.

  ‘Is that Inspector Priest?’ asked the voice, flatly. Male, northern accent, unemotional.

  ‘Yes, who’s that, please?’

  ‘Never mind. I’ve some information for you, and for you only. Meet me at the Coiners Arms, tonight, seven o’clock.’ And he was gone. Today was turning into Let’s Tell Charlie Day.

  ‘I’ll have to go, Gavin. Thanks for the information, I’ll let you know if we make anything of it.’

  ‘I just hope you can catch whoever’s pushing this stuff,’ he answered. ‘Do you think they’ll let me have another bacon sandwich?’

  I granted him the Freedom of the Canteen and went up to the office. Mike Freer is an old boozing pal from the days before I found out that a crutch made out of liquid is about as useful as a blancmange stepladder. He’s also an inspector on the city Drug Squad. His office told me he wasn’t in, but they’d get him to ring me as soon as possible, night or day.