The Picasso Scam
( D.I. Charlie Priest - 1 )
Stuart Pawson
Stuart Pawson
The Picasso Scam
Chapter One
Red was no longer my favourite colour. Suddenly it was the colour of danger. And blood. Is that why it was chosen to represent danger? It seemed the most important question in the world to me. Strange and inconsequential, the thoughts you have when death is only the twitch of a finger away.
The red was mine, my blood, pumping between the fingers I was clutching to my stomach as I staggered towards the doorway from the warehouse.
Behind me the shotgun exploded again as I hit the door. I cringed with fear and pain but no fiery blast came, just cold, fresh air as I fell through on to the welcome pavement outside.
Footsteps. I could see feet all around me. And voices: "He's hurt…
Call a doctor… He's bleeding… I heard a shot… What's your name?"
"What's your name?"
Somebody was shaking my shoulder: "What's your name?"
Did they mean me?
Again, gently: "What are you called, love?"
"Priest," I said. My face was pressed against the wet pavement. It was cool and friendly, and had a smell that rekindled some way-back memory.
"What did you say, love?"
"Priest," said a voice in my head, a hundred miles away. If only I could remember… "He wants a priest."
"We've sent for the police and an ambulance."
"What are you called?"
"Priest."
"Don't worry about a priest, love, let's get you to hospital. There'll be a priest there."
"No! I don't want a priest… I am a priest." The voice was a thousand miles away now, or was I just thinking it. "I am not a priest, I am… Priest… Charlie Priest. Detective Inspector Charles Priest of the… '
That smell. I could remember what it was. When we were kids we played cowboys and Indians. You had to lie on the ground and count to fifty.
When you'd been shot. When you were dead.
There are some names you forget instantly and some that you hear once and they are engraved on the inside of your skull for ever. It was three years earlier that I had first come across Aubrey Cakebread, but I knew there was no need to write the name down. Once afflicted there was no cure, like herpes.
We were driving over the Tops from Lancashire back to Yorkshire after interviewing a prisoner being held at Oldfield. I had Nigel Newley with me. Nigel was a graduate recruit seconded to CID as part of his crash course in becoming a wonderful British bobby. He was handsome, athletic, had a decent mind and spoke like a BBC news reader He was with me because nobody else at Heckley nick could stand him.
We had been entertained by the Oldfield boys all part of Nigel's training, of course and it was late. My ancient Cortina estate was protesting at the gradients. The interior was filled with exhaust fumes and the smell of an abused clutch.
"A Cortina!" exclaimed Nigel. "How come you drive a clapped-out Cortina?" For a Southerner he didn't mince his words.
"It came cheap," I said.
"I see. You mean it's all part of your cover so you can bust a gang of fluffy-dice thieves."
"Don't be insolent. The Cortina is a fine, reliable vehicle. At this very moment there are thousands of housewives snuggling up to their husbands, dreaming about the romantic evenings they used to spend in the back seat of their first company Cortina."
I crunched it into second for the last hairpin. A few moments later we crested the brow and the car sighed with relief. The fumes cleared and we enjoyed the night air.
"When I say cheap I mean really cheap," I told him. "Like free I had it given."
"On your pay, and single, I would have thought you'd have something flash," he replied.
Away to our left were the lights of Heckley and the string of other towns making up what was once called the Heavy Woollen District.
Millions of glowing specks: beads of orange streetlights and coloured window lights, like galaxies carelessly flung down to blanket the hills. We used to come up here often, when I was courting Vanessa, just to look at the lights. Well, that wasn't the only reason.
Vanessa had dreams of painting the sight, and one night we brought her paints and a canvas and she worked by the car's interior light. She was going through her Abstract Expressionist phase. The picture had a background of black and Prussian blue stabs of colour, with the lights picked out by splatters of white, yellow and orange. It was good I liked it but she made a right Jackson Pollock of the inside of the car.
"The lights look nice," Nigel confirmed.
"Yes, they do," I replied eventually.
We were coasting downhill. The Cortina was a lot happier going downhill. I wasn't the brakes were about as much use as a plough to a fish farmer.
"I had a messy divorce," I explained. "Left me cleaned out, with a big mortgage. A friend gave me this to help out. It's been a godsend."
"Sorry, boss," he said. "I didn't mean to pry."
"Don't worry about it," I replied. "It's over. From now on it can only get better."
We rolled on in silence for a while. "Are you in a hurry to get back?"
I asked.
Nigel said he wasn't.
"Good. So let's go looking for rustlers. You know all about them, I suppose?" No harm in reminding him of the pecking order. There had been a spate of sheep-stealing lately. Lambs had gone missing, and one had been found staggering around with a crossbow bolt sticking through its neck. Nigel was familiar with the basics of the case. I swung off the main road and followed a much narrower one for about a mile, to the area where the injured lamb had been found. When we reached a crossroads I parked in a gateway, behind a dry-stone wall. In one of the angles made by the roads stood a telephone box. It was the old-fashioned type, and the light was on inside.
I filled Nigel in on the details. The farmer had found the lamb and tyre tracks near the box. It was a slim chance but that was what detective work was all about: put yourself in the right place and then be patient. Besides, I didn't want to go home. A fellow officer is not my first choice for company on a Friday night, but at this hour it was the best I was going to get.
"What the devil is the phone box doing up here?" asked Nigel.
"Saving lives in winter," I replied, 'and winning a few votes for the councillor who put it there. It's supposed to be the loneliest box in the country."
We got talking about the job. I told him about the old Heavy Woollen District, and how the low property prices and fine old Victorian houses seemed to be attracting a certain type of criminal who had an eye for privacy. The area had also spawned a disproportionately high number of multiple killers.
"Don't make the mistake of thinking this is the sticks," I told him.
"Crimewise, this is the land of opportunity. Every one of those lights we could see from up the hill has a story to tell, and plenty of 'em's illegal."
"Is it true you were the youngest-ever inspector?" he asked.
I laughed. "Probably not, but I was young. Now I am quite definitely the longest-serving inspector."
"What went wrong?"
"Who knows?" I said. Apart from me.
Nigel was okay. I decided to expand a little. Maybe it would do me good. "I started out as an art student but I didn't seem to fit in.
When I finished I decided I wanted a complete change, so I came into the family firm. Dad was a Dixon of Dock Green desk sergeant at Heckley for donkey's years. He died of cancer, but I made him happy in the end. I'm glad about that. Now I'm beginning to think that I don't fit in again. It's only taken me until now to realise it." This was getting serious. I grinned at him: "Maybe I'm just shiftless."
We could see the lights of an occasional vehicle wind up the main road and vanish over the Tops.
"I'd rather be here with the other new starter," I said. "No offence, but she's better-looking than you."
"Helen Chatterton?" said Nigel. "She is good-looking. Got brilliant marks at college. Pity about the halitosis."
"You're joking?" I winced at the thought of it.
"No way. She could knock out Schwarzenegger at ten paces, providing the wind was right."
"Poor kid. Remind me to take her off my Christmas card list."
A pair of lights was crawling up the hill, brilliant beams sweeping through the cold night air.
"He's taking it a bit steady," I commented.
"Probably an elderly Cortina," suggested Nigel.
"Can't be," I replied. "They don't have a warm yellow glow like these."
The lights hesitated at the end of the lane, then swung our way.
"Bingo!" I cried. "We could be in business."
The car came slowly towards us, then stopped outside the telephone box and switched off its lights.
"It's a Roller!" exclaimed Nigel under his breath.
A burly figure got out of the Rolls Royce and waddled towards the phone box, barely visible in the meagre illumination it gave off. His silhouette hunched over the coin box and I saw the handset come up to his ear. After two or three seconds he let it fall from his hand, turned, and walked back to his car.
"What the heck is he playing at?" I wondered softly.
The Rolls Royce did a U-turn, bumping over the verge, and set off back towards the main road.
"Wait there," I ordered, and jumped out and ran towards the box. The handset was swinging on the end of its wire. I grabbed it and put it to my ear.
"Hello, hello," a voice was saying. An Asian voice. "Is anybody there? What do you want?"
"Hello," I said. "Who is that, please?"
"This is Hassan's Taxis. Do you want a taxi?"
"Hassan's Taxis," I repeated. "Where exactly do you operate from?"
"We are in Welton," he told me. "Do you want a taxi?"
"No," I replied, 'no thanks," and hung up. I sprinted back to the car and leapt in. "C'mon," I said, 'let's get his number." I gunned the Cortina out of the gateway and down the lane. Nigel was scrambling for his seat belt.
"Oh, no!" he cried. "Please God, not a chase. Not in a Cortina!"
We rattled and jarred down the bumpy track. "It's an old trick," I told him. "This time of night on a Friday is a busy time for taxis.
Find a quiet phone box, dial a rival firm, put a couple of quid in the slot and leave the phone off the hook. It's supposed to keep their line tied up for quite a while."
"Does it work?" he asked.
"I'm not sure, now. Popular folklore says it does. It certainly worked in the past, when it was all done by wires."
We swung on to the main road just in time to see the Rolls's taillights vanish over the brow towards Lancashire. The familiar scorching smell stung our nostrils as the Cortina struggled with the gradient. Nigel started making low groaning noises.
"Don't worry about it," I told him. "I've seen Bullitt three times." ' Bullittl Was that a talkie?"
"Yes, and in colour."
"That's right my dad told me about it. He said Steve McQueen's car had six hubcaps."
"It probably had brakes, too," I said. I decided to do some boasting.
"Actually, I've got a Jaguar back home in my mother's garage."
"Then why aren't we in that?" he moaned, bracing himself against the dashboard as we slid round a right-hander.
"Because it's in a worse state than this. It's in a thousand bits. I'm supposed to be restoring it."
As we levelled out on to the Tops, the taillights came back into view.
They were much closer. Mr. Rolls was obviously not in a hurry.
"We'll just get his number, then back off," I said.
We caught him on the downgrade without any heroics.
"Personal number," commented Nigel, "ABC, very nice."
"Can't be too many of those about," I suggested.
Nigel rose to the bait like a hungry trout on the Day of the Mayflies. "Nine hundred and ninety-nine, I suppose," he told me, modestly.
We pulled off at the first left turn and as soon as the Rolls had vanished we headed for home.
"We'll check it out Monday morning," I said, adding: "That's your job."
When I arrived at the station on Monday morning, Nigel was hovering around the front desk. I asked him what he was doing there.
"PC Riley has just asked me to watch things, sir, while he goes to the bog. He says he's got a bad stomach."
"Okay, but I want you on parade in five minutes."
We don't actually have parades in CID, but we still use the term. It just means 'be there', so that we can discuss the previous twenty-four hours' happenings. I sprinted upstairs and stood looking out of the front window. Shortly, a young woman appeared carrying a small parcel in front of her, and walked in through the front entrance of the nick.
I could visualise the scene.
"I would like to report some lost property," she would be saying. Nigel would then make out the proper forms, give the lady a receipt and tell her when she could claim it if the rightful owner didn't. As soon as she had gone Riley would reappear.
After parade and the sub divisional Officers' management meeting, better known as morning assembly, I asked Nigel what had been in the parcel.
"I was a bit surprised when PC Riley opened it," he told me. "It contained a packet of six Lyons individual chocolate Swiss rolls."
"What did he do with them?" I asked.
"He ate one. That really shook me."
"Only one?" I enquired.
Nigel looked sheepish. "He gave me one. I ate one, too."
"You ate some evidence," I stated.
"Lost property, not evidence, sir."
He looked uncomfortable, as if his entire future had been blighted by a wayward Swiss roll.
"Never mind that for now. Have that Rolls Royce checked out."
I settled down at the small mountain of paper on my desk. I thumbed my way through the pile, looking for money, offers of bribes or letters from pining young ladies. None. It was one of those Mondays. Nigel was back before I had done anything constructive.
"How about this?" he said, looking a little brighter. "ABC belongs to one Aubrey Bingham Cakebread, of The Ponderosa, Welton."
Welton was on the outskirts of Oldfield, on the posh side. It was also the home of Hassan's Taxis. I thought about things for a while. "Ring your new-found friends in Oldfield," I told him. "Thank them for their hospitality and then ask them if they have anything on Mr.
Breadcake."
"Cakebread, sir," interrupted Nigel.
"Tell them about the phone box. Don't expect much back, it's just background information. It may help them they're having near gang warfare between the taxi companies."
Nigel turned to go back to his desk, then changed his mind. "Mr.
Priest, er, do you think I ought to do anything about the chocolate rolls? Maybe buy a new box?"
I hated being called sir and Mr. Priest. It made me feel old. Worse, it made me feel my age. We were expected to stick to the formalities, though, when we were in the station. I rocked back in my chair and put one foot on the desk. If I'd been a hat man I would have pushed it to the back of my head with a forefinger. I smiled at him and told him he had been set up.
"The woman is Riley's sister," I said. "She's the manageress of the confectionery shop on the corner. The chocolate rolls weren't lost. I have every confidence that she put the money for them in the till.
Sometime this morning Sergeant Jenks will request an audience with you and give you a bollocking. Tell him to get stuffed, but politely, of course."
When Nigel was summoned to Sergeant Jenks's office he was met by a tableau reminiscent of curtain-rise on the second act of one of Agatha Christie's lesser works. J
enks was standing with a small carton containing four chocolate rolls held in front of him. Riley was standing to attention with his nose up at a ridiculous angle.
"Come in, Newley," said Jenks. "Riley was just telling me about this lost property. Now then, Riley, what 'appened to the other two chocolate rolls?"
Riley stood stock-still and silent.
"I demand an answer, Constable Riley!" shouted Jenks.
"Constable Newley ate them both," he blurted out.
"Is that so?" hissed Jenks, turning to Nigel.
It was cruel, it was vicious. Lifetime enmities could be created by this well-rehearsed scenario, but he would meet a lot worse on the streets.
"Yes sir!" said Nigel, without hesitation. "I ate them both." He couldn't resist adding, "They were excellent."
Jenks tried valiantly to rescue the situation. "Then what do you suggest we do when somebody comes in to claim them?"
"Two possible approaches occur to me, sir. We can either nip out and buy a new packet, or alternatively deny all knowledge and tell them to piss off."
Jenks paused for a second as the feeling of defeat registered, then said: "In that case we may as well eat the rest. Have a chocolate roll."
Meanwhile Helen Chatterton was having her initiation ceremony in the town mortuary, where she had been taken on the pretext of an identification. When a white-sheeted corpse sat up she collapsed in a gibbering heap. Halitosis that can move the dead is not to be sniffed at.
Eventually Nigel returned to the office and filled me in on the Cakebread saga. Cakebread was now a pillar of Oldfield society, after a shaky start involving a GBH and extortion charge. Now heavily into property and road haulage. Seen at all the posh charity dos. Married to an ex-beauty queen. His pride and joy, though, was his taxi firm, ABC Taxis. He had started out with them they were his ticket to legitimacy. In return, I told Nigel that as long as he was with me he was a detective. He didn't take orders from uniformed constables, no matter how senior, unless I okayed it. He was as green as a seasick tree frog, but he'd learn if the sadists didn't get to him first. He seemed grateful for the clarification.
Just before lunchtime I received a call from the DI at Oldfield. "We decided to lean on Mr. Cakebread a little," he told me, 'let him know we have long memories. He took great pleasure in telling us his exact whereabouts on Friday evening. He and his lady wife were slumming it on your side of the continental divide, at a charity bash in the Heckley Dining Club, as the personal guests of Chief Constable Ernest Hilditch and his delightful wife, Nora."
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