The Picasso Scam dcp-1

by Stuart Pawson

  "Good," I replied, nodding my approval. "Good. I'm sure she'll appreciate it. Tell me, what's her second favourite: the white horses galloping through the waves, or the Burmese lady with the green face?"

  "You're a sarcastic bastard," he hissed. "You always were. But we won't have to put up with you for much longer."

  "Why? What are you going to do?" I asked. It seemed a reasonable question. I was genuinely interested.

  "You'll find out."

  "I'd never have thought of you as a killer, Rudi," I told him.

  "I'm not'

  "Aren't you? What about old Jamie?"

  "Who's old Jamie?"

  "You remember. The tramp whose body we found in your cottage. We've been looking for you for his murder."

  Fear flickered across his face for a moment. The gun wavered alarmingly. "I didn't kill him," he hissed. "He… died."

  "Did he? And what did you do to help the process? Give him a litre of Bell's and tell him to get it down? It amounts to the same thing in my book."

  His eyes flashed up towards the TV monitor and he smiled. "Fortunately, Priest, your book is not the one we're working from."

  I followed his gaze. The big door was open and the Rolls was coming through. As it slid shut again Truscott said: "Get up, it's time to go." He pointed towards the exit. "Walk slowly, and don't try anything."

  I walked slowly. Very slowly. I was hoping he'd come up close behind me, but he was wary.

  "Faster!" he snapped.

  We were approaching the painting, which was angled away from us, towards the outer door. I glanced back at him and said: "Yes, it's a really nice picture." We'd reached it now. I went on: "It needed a few small alterations, though, so I made them for you. I hope you don't mind."

  I grabbed the top of the easel and turned it so he could appreciate my handiwork. With the lights on it wasn't La Gioconda any more; it was Barbara Cartland, after being ravished by the Chipping Sodbury chapter of Hell's Angels.

  His face contorted in horror: "You bastard!" he screamed.

  One second later the picture, with easel still attached, hit him in the mouth and I was out through the door.

  Cakebread was opening the boot of the Rolls. He looked up when he heard the commotion and his natural look of self-satisfaction turned to panic when he saw me. I was down the stairs in three leaps and already running when my feet hit the ground. Truscott fired. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete in front of me, nearly hitting Cakebread.

  "Three seconds, dear God," I prayed. "Three seconds, that's all I ask, with my hands round his throat."

  I nearly made it. With five yards to go Cakebread delved into the boot and spun in my direction. I found myself charging towards the pitiless black orifices of a sawn-off shotgun.

  Plan B. It wasn't much, but it was all I had. I executed a body-swerve and change of direction that would have graced any football field in the world, and headed for the door. But you can't outrun a twelve-bore.

  The noise, the pain and the impact all hit me at once. The blast caught me in the right side, spinning me round. My legs tangled and I went down. The only thought in my head was 'keep moving'. I rolled over and over. Then I was scrabbling forward on my hands and knees and finally on my feet again. I thumbed the door catch with my free hand the one that wasn't holding my guts in yanked it open and spilled out on to the welcoming pavement.

  Penny Throstle owns a craft shop in the new riverside development at Oldfield. She sells rugs and blankets that she weaves herself on a Victorian floor loom, purchased when the company that had hitherto owned it fell victim to advancing technology and cheap imports. She was given the option to buy the three similar ones in the mill at the same knockdown price, so she took those, too. The intention was to use them for spares, or restore them for sale to another small operator.

  Fortunately she did neither, and all four are now in use.

  The rugs are usually hung on walls as decoration, being far too expensive to walk on or throw over the bed. Her designs come from all around the world, as well as the original ones she develops herself. Ms Throstle was doing quite nicely, thank you, until she made a rug for Mr. Rahkshan. Now she is doing very well indeed.

  Mr. Rahkshan is a silversmith, and owns the shop next door. He is a Muslim. One day, in a period when Ms Throstle was beguiled by the geometric patterns of Islamic art and producing beautiful works under its heady influence, she made Mr. Rahkshan a prayer mat. Her motives were not purely spiritual she fancied him madly. The design was based on five lines, radiating from a point halfway along one side. Mr.

  Rahkshan was captivated when she explained how it worked. You simply placed the mat on the floor, with the appropriate line pointing in the direction of the sun; then, as you knelt on the mat, you were automatically facing towards Mecca.

  It was only accurate, of course, when within a few hundred miles of Oldfield. The design would have to be modified for use in other parts of the world. Mr. Rahkshan proudly showed the mat to his friends. As well as having direction-finding capabilities it was also a thing of beauty, for Ms Throstle had invested her best efforts, plus a few prayers of her own, in it. One week later he gave her a firm order for twenty similar mats, at an extremely agreeable price, with promises of more to follow.

  A month later later they became partners alas, only for business purposes went mail-order and put the other looms into use. They were inundated.

  "The secret of a good reputation," Mr. Rahkshan would say, 'is to produce a good-quality article and deliver it on time. Then you can charge what you want," and he would give his tinkling laugh that entranced Ms Throstle. The trouble was, they had received so many orders they might have difficulty in achieving the second premise.

  Simply packing all the rugs for posting was a gargantuan undertaking.

  Fortunately a little factory that made cardboard cartons came to the rescue. They were in Welton, joined on to the back of ABC House, domicile of Aubrey Cakebread.

  Business for them was desperate; they were rapidly coming unstuck at the flaps. When Mr. Rahkshan asked them to make boxes for the mats, they gladly offered to pack, address and post them, at a small extra cost. It was a satisfactory arrangement all round. The grateful staff worked all weekend to process the latest order. They finished it late Sunday afternoon, and had just left the factory and were walking down the cobbled lane alongside ABC House, on their way home, when I burst into their midst.

  There were about six of them. They were gathered around me, trying to comprehend my gibberings, when Cakebread appeared at the side door. He was brandishing the shotgun, no doubt with two fresh charges up the spouts, and looked intent on murder. The alley should have been deserted at that time of day. When Cakebread saw the crowd he panicked and fled back inside. I don't know if Penny Throstle's mats ever do any good for the people who pray on them, but there is no doubt that they saved my life.

  Cakebread had killed Truscott with the second barrel. He jumped into the Rolls and fled through the front entrance. The poor gate man was dozing in his hut when the car smashed through the barrier. He hadn't even known that his boss was in the place. It was a long time, though, before I learned all this.

  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. Okay, 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 painte
d 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 Bear-da."

  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 un authorised take-off and headed south. The tower alerted us and the R.A.F and various tracking stations, and he was shadowed all the way. When it was obvious that he was making for foreign parts the R.A.F asked the Americans for assistance. Apparently our planes are too fast and the helicopters haven't the range. The Yanks had an 10 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?"

  That's right."

  "Were any drugs recovered?"

  "Yes, quite a haul. Mrs. Cakebread spilled 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 free wheel 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 i
n, 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 leaned 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 print-out 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.