The Picasso Scam

by Stuart Pawson

  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.’

  I watched her swing hesitantly away. You’ll be all right, I thought. Then I drifted off into the best untroubled sleep I’d had for months, with Douglas watching over me from the bedside locker.

  They’d removed a few feet of my intestine and a piece of liver, but it wasn’t a problem. The doctor told me that I still had twenty-odd feet of gut left, and the liver is the only major organ we have that can regenerate itself. I was in nearly new condition and my warranty was still valid.

  ‘Just go easy on the alcohol,’ he told me, on the morning I was discharged, ‘and lay off the fried food.’

  ‘No problem, Doc. What about my sex life? Will that have been affected?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he replied in his most reassuring manner.

  ‘Pity,’ I said. ‘I was hoping it would have been.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The waiter asked if we preferred our coffee and liqueurs where we were, or would we rather make ourselves comfortable in the lounge.

  ‘In the lounge?’ suggested Gilbert.

  Annabelle and Molly nodded their acquiescence, so we all moved through and resettled ourselves in the easy chairs round a low table.

  ‘You know,’ said Molly to Annabelle, ‘this is the first time Gilbert has ever told me about a case. Usually I have to be content with what I can glean from the papers.’ She turned to her husband: ‘Go on then, finish it off: what happened to this Cakebread man?’

  The waiter appeared with the coffees. He placed them on the table and told me that my tea would be along in a moment, in the tone of voice he normally reserved for customers who’d asked for the ketchup.

  When he’d gone Gilbert said: ‘Well, the local police put out an APW – that’s an all-ports warning – for Cakebread, but, frankly, they were a bit slow. He made it all the way to Blackpool airport, where his plane was. He’d flown it the day before and left instructions for it to be refuelled and serviced for use the following weekend. It hadn’t been done though. He made an unauthorised take-off and headed south. The tower alerted us and the RAF and various tracking stations, and he was shadowed all the way. When it was obvious that he was making for foreign parts the RAF asked the Americans for assistance. Apparently our planes are too fast and the helicopters haven’t the range. The Yanks had an IO stooging around somewhere …’

  ‘What, an old BSA motorbike?’ I interrupted. ‘My father had one of those when I was a kid.’

  ‘No, dumbo, it’s an aeroplane. Weird thing with two big jet engines on the back. Apparently they can fly quite slowly if necessary. So this A10 tagged on to Cakebread’s tail and followed him. Somewhere off the Channel Isles he ran out of fuel and ditched in the sea. It was dark by then. A fishing boat recovered his body next morning.’

  We sat in silence for a few moments. Death, even the death of an enemy, always deserves a few private thoughts. I poured a cup of tea and sweetened it with half a sachet of sugar.

  ‘Why did he shoot … Truscott, was it?’ asked Molly.

  Gilbert didn’t volunteer a reply, so I did. ‘We can’t be sure,’ I said. ‘To begin with, Truscott was bearing down on him brandishing a gun. It may have flashed through his mind that the game was up and Truscott could turn Queen’s evidence. Alternatively, he may have realised that Rudi had given the game away, and shot him in anger. Another possibility is that he’d intended to kill him all along, once he had no further use for him. We’ll never know the truth.’

  I looked at Annabelle and we exchanged smiles. She was wearing a navy-blue pinstriped suit with red blouse and accessories and looked incredibly beautiful. Her skirt was shorter than I would have expected, displaying a pair of elegant knees that gave me a pain in my operation. I wasn’t complaining; I just wanted to sit there for ever, basking on the edge of her limelight.

  ‘That’s it,’ announced Gilbert. ‘No more shop talk. Have you seen the price of cauliflowers lately, Annabelle? That’s what we ought to be doing: growing cauliflowers.’

  She laughed at him. ‘Could I just ask one more question?’ she said.

  ‘You, Annabelle, can ask as many questions as you like.’

  I was going to have to watch Gilbert; he was as bewitched as I was.

  ‘This Truscott man. Why did he approach Charles in the first place? What was he thinking of?’

  ‘Good question,’ replied Gilbert. ‘I’ll let my trusty lieutenant answer that one.’

  I lowered my cup. ‘Vanity,’ I said. ‘Truscott had a very desirable lifestyle. He’d stopped lecturing and lived by his paintings – his copies of other artists’ works. He’d sell to dealers, at an inflated price, without making any claims or telling any lies. They’d show the pictures to gullible gallery owners, again being somewhat frugal with the truth. There’s nobody easier to cheat than a greedy person who thinks he’s pulling a fast one. The painting would find itself on somebody’s wall, credited to one of the masters. Truscott wasn’t satisfied with that, though. He wanted recognition for himself, and it was gnawing at his heart that he didn’t get any. There’s a popular belief that artists are only famous after death. When Cakebread came to him with this scheme he saw it as a way of making a million or two, then vanishing, presumed dead, after leaking the information that the Art Aid paintings were really his work. He wanted the best of both worlds. I was the stooge he chose to make the leak.’

  ‘I see. Or I think I do. And the real paintings were traded for drugs in North Africa?’

  ‘Tha
t’s right.’

  ‘Were any drugs recovered?’

  ‘Yes, quite a haul. Mrs Cakebread spilt the beans to save her own skin.’

  We said goodbye to Molly and Gilbert in the car park and I drove Annabelle back towards the Old Vicarage. On the way she asked me about the Picasso. ‘Will they be able to tell which is the real one?’

  ‘No problem; they’ll just X-ray them both.’

  ‘Won’t the canvas be different on the modern one?’ she said.

  ‘Not necessarily. There are thousands of cheap Victorian paintings about. Just about every house sale has a few. Truscott would buy them all, just for the canvas and the frames.’

  ‘You’re very knowledgeable about art.’

  ‘Not really, and I did attend art college. Maybe it wasn’t a complete waste of time after all.’

  I let the car freewheel to a halt outside her gate. My hand was hovering on the ignition key, wondering whether to stop the engine, when she said: ‘Do you mind if I don’t ask you in, Charles? It is rather late and …’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I lied, comforting myself with the thought that bishops’ widows have to keep up some sort of appearance.

  ‘Thank you for inviting me out, I’ve really enjoyed myself. And I’m so pleased that you’re recovered.’

  ‘Thank you for coming. And … well … thanks for enquiring about me. That’s what helped me through the long days.’ And the endless nights. She pulled the handle to open the door.

  ‘Annabelle …’ I said, ‘shall I try for those tickets for the next concert?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like that,’ she replied, and leant over and kissed me on the cheek. Then she turned and got out, as my fingers trailed down the sleeve of her jacket.

  On my first day back I arrived in the office bright and early, but everybody else was already there. They’d bought me a box of After Eight chocolates, a bottle of Albanian sherry and a rather nice bunch of carnations. They all said they were glad to have me back and one or two asked to see my scars.

  ‘Sorry, private viewings only,’ was my stock reply. I opened the box of chocolates and passed them to Maggie.

  Nigel had moved on and was now a uniformed sergeant in Halifax. Tony Willis had been promoted to full inspector, and would be leaving now that I was back. I’d be sorry to lose him. There was a new face, though, hovering on the edge of the group.

  ‘Who’s the dishy blonde?’ I whispered to Sparky.

  ‘Helen Chatterton,’ he replied. ‘Just joined us this morning.’

  ‘That’s right, I remember her. She started at the same time as Nigel Newley. He said she had …’ She certainly didn’t look as if she had halitosis that could raise the dead.

  ‘Said she had what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I suppose I’d better have a word with her.’

  Sparky introduced us. She was polite, with an air of efficiency that hid any nervousness she might be feeling. I gave her the latest printout of unsolved mysteries and told her that I’d see her after the morning meeting. People were starting to drift away. Somebody thrust the chocolate box into my hands; it was empty.

  ‘Just a minute, please,’ I shouted. Everybody turned to face me. I stood on a chair for greater effect. ‘Before you all go I’d just like to say two words …’ I held the After Eight box above my head and turned it over. The empty brown wrappers tumbled around my head and settled on my shoulders. ‘Greedy sods!’ I yelled.

  Upstairs it was more of the same, for about a minute, then we got down to business. I was brought up to date with happenings in the division and told where to give priorities. The rustlers were still at their dirty deeds, but more so.

  ‘It’s not just someone knocking off the odd lamb for the deepfreeze,’ Gilbert told me. ‘It’s on a commercial scale now. The hill farmers are already going through a bad time; this could break some of them. Put it higher up the list, will you, Charlie?’

  When I went down to the office again Sergeant Jenks was waiting with Helen. He said: ‘It’s good to have you back, Mr Priest. I made a list of all the people who rang to see how you were. Thought that perhaps you might like to thank them. Mind you, most of ’em are villains. That lady – Mrs Wilberforce – she rang every day at first, when it was touch and go.’

  ‘OK, I’ll ring her, er, them. Thanks for the list.’ He left and I turned to Helen. ‘Right, Helen. It’s your first day with us and my first day back. What have you decided we should concentrate on?’

  She pursed her lips and tilted her head in a thoughtful manner. ‘We could always go see Mrs Wilberforce,’ she suggested.

  ‘Er, no, that can wait. I was thinking more along the lines of … you know, crime.’

  I was close to her now, as we pored over the printout. I took a long, deep inhalation. The ganglia along my nasal passages went on to red alert. Helen pointed at various offences, mainly burglaries, and spoke intelligently about them.

  I took another slow breath. Airborne molecules reacted with receptors and sent impulses spinning to my brain. I could smell … summer breezes wafting across the meadows of Provence; the forest at Kielder after a rain shower; all the spices of Araby. Pheromones bombarded my senses, triggering reactions in other parts of my body. That bastard Newley had been winding me up.

  ‘Yes,’ I croaked, struggling to adhere to the company’s guidelines, ‘that’s all good stuff. However, we’ve been instructed to give more priority to the sheep-stealing. It’s getting out of hand. So far, we’ve concentrated on the sharp end of the crime: kept observations, looked for tyre tracks, that sort of thing. Maybe we ought to be investigating the disposal end of it.’

  ‘Talk to the butchers, see if they’ve been offered cheap lamb chops,’ she suggested.

  ‘That’s the idea. I’ll show you where most of the offences were committed, to give you an inkling of what we’re up against; introduce you to the farmers; then you can do the leg work. OK?’

  ‘That’s fine by me, sir.’

  ‘Rule number one – and we don’t have many – cut out the sir.’ I pulled my jacket back on, curled the corner of my lip and said: ‘OK, Frank. Let’s go.’

  Helen looked at me, nonplussed. ‘Pardon?’ she said.

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Steve McQueen,’ I explained, ‘He said that, in Bullitt.’

  She thought about it. ‘No he didn’t. In the film he was called Frank – Frank Bullitt. He didn’t say it to himself; his partner said it to him.’

  ‘You’re right.’ I stabbed at her with a forefinger. ‘OK – you can be Steve McQueen, I’ll be the little Mexican. Let’s go!’

  If you enjoyed The Picasso Scam, read on to find

  out about the other books in the

  Charlie Priest series …

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  The Mushroom Man

  There’s nothing Detective Inspector Charlie Priest hates more than a case involving children. When Georgina, the eight-year-old daughter of local businessman Miles Dewhurst, goes missing, Charlie and his colleagues soon start to fear the worst. Charlie’s suspicions are focused on Dewhurst and, in a race against time to find Georgina, Charlie’s life is further complicated when it seems a killer is targeting clergymen. Three have died suddenly, and a picture of a Destroying Angel mushroom has been left beside the body of the latest victim. But why would a serial killer focus on men of the cloth?

  The Judas Sheep

  Detective Inspector Charlie Priest is officially on sick leave, but this brief break from work comes to an abrupt end when Mrs Marina Norris’s chauffeur is found dead from unnatural causes – namely a blast to the head from a Kalashnikov. Meanwhile, big-time drug smugglers on the Hull–Rotterdam run demand his attention. His contact, Kevin, is a lowly cog in the great smuggling wheel, and easily hoodwinked into believing that Charlie’s line of business is similar to his
own. But the real villains are not such pushovers, and when Charlie uncovers a connection with his previous enquiry he realises that he’s on very dangerous territory indeed.

  Last Reminder

  Hartley Goodrich has been found dead in his armchair, right beside the flowerpot that caused the gaping gash in his head. There’s little doubt that this was murder, and when Detective Inspector Charlie Priest discovers that Hartley’s financial advice had lost his clients a small fortune, there’s no shortage of murder suspects either. But is the case all it seems? The enquiry reopens an investigation that fizzled out years before, involving diamonds, drugs and stolen gold bullion … and plenty of danger to boot. But when everything he holds dear is threatened, Charlie knows he can’t stop digging until he’s found out exactly what’s been going down on his patch …

  Deadly Friends

  When Dr Clive Jordan’s dazzling career is brought to an abrupt end by a bullet, his colleagues are devastated – especially the female ones. If the doctor hadn’t been as discreet as an undertaker’s cough, Detective Inspector Charlie Priest would suspect a jealous husband. But it’s not going to be that simple. Charlie knows for certain there’s a killer on the loose – and almost certainly a rapist as well. The chances of bagging either of them seem slim, but Charlie’s a lot tougher and smarter than his affable manner indicates, and that’s bad news for the villains on his patch.

  Some by Fire

  Charlie Priest was a newly promoted sergeant on the Leeds force when he was called to the scene of a tragic fire, deliberately set. Now a DI in nearby Heckley, Charlie jumps at the chance to reopen the investigation when a message left by a suicide victim suggests a new lead. Meanwhile, Charlie’s under pressure to apprehend the burglars who’re playing a dangerous game with wealthy elderly couples. By a combination of luck, detective work and, Charlie would say, soaring flights of the investigative imagination, he is soon closing in on the perpetrators of both crimes. But a cornered villain can be dangerous for a copper who’ll take every kind of risk in the hunt for justice.