The Plot Thickens

by R. A. Spratt

  ‘What do you think is going on?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Maybe it’s the overseas parents feeling really guilty about not being here,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Maybe it’s a money laundering scheme,’ suggested Uncle Bernie. ‘That’s usually what’s going on when people are overpaying tens of thousands of dollars for something.’

  ‘But it’s hard to launder money through a school’s books,’ said Friday.

  ‘Unless you’re the Headmaster,’ said Melanie.

  ‘If the Headmaster had extra money, he would launder it through his bookie,’ said Friday.

  ‘Maybe it’s a construction scam,’ said Uncle Bernie. ‘The company building the pool could be in on it.’

  The Headmaster took the stage. ‘Thank you all very much for coming, especially the parents who bid on paintings. Your generosity is very much appreciated. The students at Highcrest have long enjoyed the finest quality polo pitches, cricket grounds and classrooms – it’s good to know that they will soon enjoy a state-of-the-art heated indoor swimming pool as well.’

  Everyone applauded, partly with enthusiasm and partly to hurry the Headmaster up.

  ‘If you won the bidding on an item, please step forward,’ said the Headmaster. ‘Miss Priddock will take your payment – cash or credit card will be accepted – then you can take your painting home. The paintings won by phone bidders will be packaged up and shipped to their addresses first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Stop!’ yelled Friday.

  The Headmaster groaned. ‘Urgh, I knew this was going too well. Heaven forbid we have a school occasion where Miss Barnes doesn’t interrupt and turn everything on its head.’

  ‘I cannot allow this to continue,’ declared Friday as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd.

  ‘What?’ said the Headmaster. ‘You can’t allow the school to hold a successful fundraiser?’

  ‘No,’ said Friday, ‘I can’t allow large-scale fraud to take place.’

  Chapter 20

  The Truth Revealed

  Now the crowd was muttering excitedly. This was proving to be the most entertaining school function of all time. The massive nude mural had been wonderful. The champagne was a nice touch. Now the promise of a huge scandal had everyone energised.

  ‘We should be charging people $50 a head for tonight’s dramatic entertainment,’ said Mr Hambling.

  ‘I know,’ agreed Mrs Cannon. ‘In just two hours we’ve had way more action than an entire Jane Austen novel.’

  Friday had made her way up onto the stage.

  ‘Would you like the microphone, Barnes?’ asked the Headmaster sarcastically.

  But Friday was terrible at picking sarcasm.

  ‘Yes, that’s probably a good idea,’ said Friday. ‘It will save me having to yell.’ She took the microphone from the Headmaster’s hand and turned to face the audience. ‘No one will be taking home any of these paintings tonight.’

  ‘But I just paid $200 for my son’s awful painting of a rosebush,’ complained Mr Patel.

  ‘Dad,’ moaned Patel, clearly embarrassed.

  ‘You can’t take them home,’ said Friday, ‘because they are all evidence.’

  ‘Of what?’ asked the Headmaster. ‘Large-scale art appreciation?’

  ‘No. What has happened here tonight has been an elaborate charade to commit massive tax fraud,’ said Friday.

  ‘Have you been sniffing the craft glue, Barnes?’ said Mr Brecht. ‘I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life.’

  ‘How else do you explain these ludicrous prices?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that I am the country’s most famous artist?’ said Mr Brecht. ‘This event has been publicised globally on the internet and in established art community periodicals. These bidders are paying a premium for the paintings because they want a painting by one of my students.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Friday, ‘but I don’t think so. Binky, could you please fetch my painting of the football match?’

  Binky found Friday’s painting and put it up on the easel.

  ‘I think it is much more likely,’ continued Friday, ‘that the bidders have paid a premium for these paintings because of what’s underneath.’

  Friday reached over to the painting and started picking at the corner of the paint.

  ‘What are you doing!’ exclaimed the Headmaster. ‘Someone’s paid good money for that!’

  Mr Brecht lunged forward and grabbed Friday by the arms. ‘Stop it!’ he bellowed.

  ‘Let her go!’ hollered Uncle Bernie. People leapt out of his way as he started storming towards the stage.

  ‘Binky!’ cried Friday. ‘Peel off the paint, now!’

  Binky was not the most agile thinker, but he was excellent at doing as he was told. And Binky had a lot of respect for Friday. He held her in even higher regard than the Headmaster, although not quite as high as his regard for the rugby coach. He saw the corner of paint that Friday had peeled up and he pulled.

  Friday’s entire painting of a football match started to pull away like a rectangular banana peel. Everyone fell silent when they saw what was underneath. A savagely powerful expressionist painting of a pigeon.

  ‘Behold!’ declared Friday. ‘An original Lysander Brecht!’

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ asked the Headmaster.

  ‘Mr Brecht is in far greater financial trouble than you may have realised,’ said Friday.

  ‘I knew he had tax debt,’ said the Headmaster. ‘That’s why he took a teaching job.’

  ‘Yes, but people in tax debt often owe money to other people as well,’ said Friday. ‘Like the bank that gave him a car loan. They repossessed his red sports car, but only after he used it to swindle Mr Maclean out of $10,000.’

  ‘Why is this the first I’m hearing about this?’ asked the Headmaster.

  ‘Then there was the kidnapping attempt,’ continued Friday.

  ‘But that was Marcus Welby,’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Friday, ‘but the two fake police officers came to this school asking to see a tall, thin, red-haired fourteen-year-old boy. It was actually you who matched the description to Marcus Welby. But that description would also match Epstein Smythe.’

  ‘It does?’ asked the Headmaster.

  ‘It might surprise you to know,’ said Friday, ‘that black with blue tips is not Epstein’s natural hair colour.’

  This obviously hadn’t occurred to the Headmaster because he now looked at Epstein’s head, clearly very puzzled.

  ‘The men had been spying on the school for some time. They’d been seen in the woods by the golf course and watching with binoculars,’ said Friday. ‘Ian thought they were criminal connections of his father, but in fact they were looking for Epstein.’

  ‘But why would anyone want to kidnap Epstein Smythe?’ asked the Headmaster.

  ‘Because he is Mr Brecht’s son,’ said Friday.

  ‘Now, Friday …’ blustered the Headmaster.

  ‘There’s no point denying it,’ said Friday. ‘There is too much evidence to support my assertion. Mr Brecht and Epstein arrived on the same day. No doubt Epstein’s tuition was part of Mr Brecht’s payment package. They are both tall, attractive red-heads. Although Mr Brecht’s faded auburn hair is more white than red these days. Epstein claims he loathes art, a typical teenage rebellion against his father.’

  ‘I didn’t want to pander to his ego,’ said Epstein angrily.

  ‘And yet you have inherited your father’s great artistic talent,’ said Friday. ‘Which is why you were able to perfectly graffiti so many pictures around the school. That was you, wasn’t it? You vandalised “The Red Princess” because the red-haired baby is a portrait of you. You didn’t want anyone to notice the resemblance and tease you. Then, like so many criminals, you developed a taste for the crime. You kept graffitiing more and more pictures. But it did mean that you had to smash your fitness tracker so no one could follow your movements.’
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  Epstein nodded.

  ‘It makes sense,’ said Friday. ‘The only other person talented enough to do it is your father, and he’s too preoccupied with eating cheese, dating Miss Priddock and avoiding debt collectors to indulge in such an intricate practical joke.’

  ‘Debt collectors?!’ exclaimed the Headmaster. ‘I thought his pay cheque to teach here was going to cover that.’

  ‘Mr Brecht owes money to the tax department and his car loan provider. It would not be surprising that he owes money to even more unsavoury types who resort to kidnapping children to get their money back,’ said Friday. ‘Which is why he has been using the art auction as an opportunity to smuggle his paintings out of the country,’ said Friday. ‘So that he won’t have to declare the income he earns to the tax department.’

  Mr Brecht let Friday go and backed away. ‘You’re not going to believe her, are you?’ said Mr Brecht. ‘It’s a crazy accusation.’

  ‘Normally I would agree with you,’ said the Headmaster. ‘But over the past year I have learned that Miss Barnes’s crazy accusations are almost always true.’

  ‘And how else do you explain the painting under the painting?’ asked Friday. ‘You told us you primed the canvases yourself. It would have been easy for you to use a special acrylic paint that would protect your own painting but peel off easily when it arrives at the bidder.’

  ‘My paintings are worth far more than the mere thousands that have been bid here tonight,’ said Mr Brecht.

  ‘That’s because all they are paying for tonight is just the packaging and handling,’ said Friday. ‘The real payment for your pictures would have been transferred to your bank account in some tax haven, like the Cayman Islands.’

  ‘You can’t prove anything,’ said Mr Brecht.

  ‘I think she already has,’ said Sergeant Crowley as he mounted the steps towards the stage. He picked up Jessica Bastionne’s picture of a frog and pulled at the corner of the painting. He soon had the whole picture peeling away to reveal a landscape of a beached whale. ‘The paintings are here. An art analyst will be able to confirm that these are yours, and in this day and age of computer technology it’s never been easier to send money overseas, but it’s also never been easier for police to electronically trace the movement of money overseas.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Mr Brecht.

  ‘I’m saying that I am arresting you for –’

  Sergeant Crowley never got to finish his sentence. Mr Brecht grabbed the Headmaster, shoved him hard at the sergeant, knocking both men over, and started to run. He leapt off the stage and was out the door in a millisecond. But Friday was quick on his heels.

  Friday had never been athletic, but weeks and weeks of burpees every morning had had an effect. She actually managed to keep up with Mr Brecht as he ran out to the school parking lot. He yanked open the door of his old station wagon and only just shut the door in time as Friday caught up with him and started pounding on the window.

  ‘Mr Brecht, come back!’ yelled Friday. ‘You’ll never get away with this!’

  Mr Brecht ground the gears of his car, trying to find reverse, when suddenly his car lurched backwards. Friday jumped back in time before he could run over her toes. But Mr Brecht did not get far. Unfortunately, as was characteristic of the parents at Highcrest, a lot of them had parked very selfishly. They were a self-important group at the best of times, but when hurrying to get to a school event that they didn’t really want to attend, none of them thought that the unsaid rules of a parking lot and common courtesy applied to them. They had parked each other in terribly. So as Mr Brecht hurried to get away, there wasn’t enough room for him to back up properly, and he slammed into a brand new Mercedes SUV.

  Everyone winced. By this time, the whole gathering had left the school hall and congregated outside to witness the spectacle.

  Mr Brecht threw the car into gear and accelerated forward. But there was a Porsche in the way, and he scraped all along an entire side of its paintwork as he tried to turn towards the entrance. He finally got his car away from the Porsche only to rear-end a BMW. In the next two minutes Mr Brecht managed to scrape, bang into or outright smash up a Lamborghini, two Volvos, an antique Jaguar, three Audis and a Toyota Corolla before he finally gave up, threw open the door of his car and set off running.

  Friday chased after him. ‘Stop!’ she called.

  But Mr Brecht ran faster. The school gates were a good eight hundred metres from the front of the school building, and eight hundred metres is a long way when you’re trying to run at full pace. Especially if you are an artist too sophisticated to engage in exercise, and whose arteries are clogged due to eating an inordinate amount of cheese. Mr Brecht was soon coughing and gasping for breath. Friday was gaining on him. By the time he reached the school gates, Friday was close on his heels. He leapt up to start climbing over, and Friday slammed into the fence and grabbed his foot.

  ‘Let go!’ yelled Mr Brecht.

  ‘No!’ yelled Friday, clinging to his foot even tighter. But then her grip slipped as Mr Brecht’s shoe came off in her hand.

  Mr Brecht pulled himself up higher onto the fence. Friday wasn’t giving up. She leapt up and grabbed his other foot.

  ‘Let go!’ Mr Brecht yelled again.

  ‘You have to face up to your crimes,’ said Friday through gritted teeth as she desperately clung to Mr Brecht’s foot. Mr Brecht tightened his grip on the gate with his hands, lifted his free foot from the railing and stomped down on Friday’s face. Friday’s nose exploded in pain. Mr Brecht wrenched his foot out of her grasp and she fell back onto the gravel driveway, now clutching both of his shoes. Friday couldn’t see much anymore because her eyes filled with tears, one of those inexplicable things the body does when it’s struck in the nose. But she did make out a flurry of movement as someone leapt over her and grabbed Mr Brecht around the waist. Friday blinked several times.

  It was Ian. He was now dangling from Mr Brecht’s belt as Mr Brecht dangled from the gate. Suddenly Mr Brecht’s grip gave out, and both of them came tumbling down right on top of Friday.

  When Friday woke up, she was lying on the grass. She could see twinkling lights above her. At first she thought this was a symptom of concussion, then she realised she was literally seeing stars because it was night time and she was outside. She turned her head to see Mr Brecht. He was also lying down, but unlike Friday he was face down with his hands handcuffed behind his back.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Friday turned the other way to see Ian crouching over her. She was about to say she was fine, but she temporarily forgot how to speak when she realised that Ian wasn’t wearing a shirt. He was getting very muscly for a thirteen-year-old.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ian asked again.

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?’ asked Friday. Friday’s voice sounded nasal to her own ears, and she couldn’t breathe through her nose at all.

  ‘Because you’re lying on it, nitwit,’ said Ian. ‘And you’re supposed to be the hyper vigilant one.’

  Friday’s brain processed this information. She was lying on the ground but she wasn’t wet. The ground should be dewy at this time of night, so obviously she was lying on something.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ asked Friday.

  ‘No, running down here to save you warmed me up,’ said Ian.

  ‘So is Mr Brecht being arrested?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Yes, apart from the art fraud it turns out he’s been charging his outrageously expensive cheese to the school account,’ said Ian. ‘Plus, he did commit assault.’

  ‘Who to?’ asked Friday.

  ‘You,’ said Ian. ‘Maybe it’s more serious than we realised. Apart from the broken nose, perhaps you’ve got brain damage.’

  ‘I’ve got a broken nose?!’ Friday exclaimed. She reached up to touch her nose and immediately regretted it. The dull ache in her head instantly turned to a splintering sharp pain in her face.

  ‘Ow,’ said Friday weakly.

/>   ‘Don’t worry,’ said Ian, ‘Mr Fontana reset it for you while you were unconscious.’

  ‘Mr Fontana?! Why not the nurse?’ asked Friday.

  ‘He runs quicker than the nurse,’ explained Ian. ‘He was the first one down here to help restrain Mr Brecht. Then when the nurse did get here she asked him to do it because he’s the rugby master, so he’s had loads more practice resetting noses than she has.’

  ‘Does it look all right?’ asked Friday.

  ‘At the moment it looks purple and swollen like an eggplant,’ said Ian.

  Tears welled in Friday’s eyes and she could not contain the first sob to bubble up inside her.

  Ian looked more alarmed than he had facing a violent art criminal. ‘Don’t do that!’ said Ian. ‘It’s fine. People break their noses all the time. You’ll be able to breathe normally again in a day or two.’

  ‘I don’t want a broken nose,’ said Friday, definitely weeping now. ‘My face was plain enough to start with.’

  Ian sighed. He sat down on the grass alongside Friday and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Your face is just fine.’

  Friday blinked up at him through her tears. Ian wasn’t smirking or rolling his eyes or doing any of the other telltale things he did when he was being sarcastic. Friday’s chin trembled as she struggled to smile at him. Perhaps he really did think she looked fine.

  Ian smiled back. His big, radiant, handsome smile. ‘Besides, you can always grow your fringe really long so that no one can see your nose. Or perhaps get a bigger hat.’ His eyes had their familiar cheeky look. He was teasing her now. Friday was too tired to think of anything clever to say in retort, so she weakly reached out and hit Ian instead. Which she immediately regretted because she found touching his bare chest very disconcerting.

  ‘Here come the paramedics,’ said Ian. ‘Try not to flirt with them the way you’ve been flirting with me.’