by Peter Helton
‘Look, I’m really not a habitual house-breaker. I’m a private investigator, as well as a painter . . .’ I started rummaging in my jacket pockets for a business card while Connabear tightened his bony grip on the polished walnut stock of the gun. When at last I managed to fish one out it was damp and dog-eared and looked like I’d found it in the street somewhere.
He took the proffered card reluctantly but the expression on his face brightened as he looked at it. ‘Honeysett. You’re the chap who found that woman who was imprisoned in the old railway station, that made national news, Nikki Somebody or other. I remember seeing your picture.’
‘Nikki Reid.’
‘That’s her. Worked for an estate agency. So . . . this story you told me is really true? About the boy?’
‘I’m afraid it is. I messed up the first burglary they asked me to do, well, the burglary went all right but then I got mugged on the way home . . .’
‘Nowhere is safe . . .’
‘So it seems. And . . . so they changed their demands. They gave me your name and address and told me to steal that stamp and now I messed up this burglary too.’
‘I’d say so. You’ve no idea who the kidnappers are?’
‘None. I don’t even know if it’s one or many. I get phone calls from mobiles, a scratchy voice making demands. I feel just a little under pressure to get this right and I’m constantly getting it wrong. If you don’t mind me asking, who would know that you own copies of the Penny Black?’
He chuckled. ‘Many, many people. I was quite an active collector and even people I dealt with in the course of my business had often heard that I collected stamps.’
‘What was your business, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Not at all. Bunting.’
‘Bunting? Is there money in bunting?’
‘Certainly. Decorative bunting, corporate bunting, national bunting, international bunting, point of sale . . . And not just bunting, we did banners and flags and flagpoles. Static flagpoles, portable flagpoles, indoor flagpoles, outdoor flagpoles. But after my wife died I sold the business to a big digital printing firm and retired. I’d only kept the business that long for something to get me out of the house. If you get my meaning.’
I said I probably did. ‘It was common knowledge then that you owned a Penny Black.’
‘Yes, and you’d be surprised how many people thought it was worth a fortune.’
‘So, since I failed to steal yours to deliver to the kidnappers . . . for a couple of hundred I could just go and buy one somewhere? In a stamp shop?’
‘Well, it might not be that easy. It might take a while to get hold of a copy, especially a decent one, but then I don’t suppose you’d care whether it was a fair one or not.’
‘Certainly not. I think the kidnapper has proved that he knows even less than I do about stamps. But I would need it quickly. You did mention earlier that you owned more than one copy?’
‘I did. Oh, I see . . .’
‘Yes. I’m wondering if you would sell me one of them.’
He looked at me for a moment as though the request I had just made was the most insulting thing he’d ever heard, then he suddenly widened his eyes, shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t see why not. How do you propose to pay for it?’
‘Would you accept a cheque?’
For some reason he seemed to find this quite amusing. At last he cracked open the gun. He had only loaded one cartridge, which I decided to interpret as a sign of supreme confidence. He stood it on the blotter and leant the gun carefully against the wall before opening a desk drawer and producing a leather-bound book. From its protective pages he pulled a small clear plastic wallet that contained one of the little unprepossessing stamps. He slid it across. This one didn’t look quite rectangular.
‘It looks wonky,’ I complained.
He snorted contemptuously. ‘You’re not really in a position to be picky about these things. Yes, it’s wonky, as you say. They weren’t perforated then, so the postmaster would cut the stamp out of the sheet for you and wouldn’t always be very accurate about it. It affects the value now, of course, but then nobody much cared, I should think. A carelessly cut Penny Black is the cheapest, and that’s what you’re getting.’
I dug out my crumpled cheque book from where it had disappeared into the lining of my jacket, straightened it out and asked to borrow a pen. He shook his head, sighed, opened the drawer again and selected a gold ballpoint pen for me. It looked expensive and felt satisfyingly heavy in my hand. It was about to feel even heavier.
I made the cheque out to Rufus Connabear. ‘How much do I owe you?’ I asked far too lightly.
‘Now, let’s see. The stamp’s not worth all that much, let’s say six hundred? No, make it seven hundred.’
‘But I thought you said an indifferent copy might be had for a couple of hundred?’ I protested.
‘That depends where you buy it,’ he said pointedly. ‘And not if you’re in a hurry. And you’re in a hurry, Mr Honeysett, wouldn’t you agree?’
I admitted it. He slowly and deliberately rubbed his stubbly chin. ‘Okay, then there’s the break-in. How did you get in here?’
‘Through the kitchen. I broke a couple of little panes in the half-glazed door,’ I admitted.
‘Well, they’ll have to be replaced, I’ll have to call someone out and you know what they’re like when they have to come all the way out to the sticks. Another hundred at least. And then there’s the question of disturbing my sleep. Have you any idea how difficult sleep is to come by when you get to my age? A good night’s sleep ought to be worth at least a couple of hundred. I tell you what, let’s make it a nice round figure, a thousand pounds. Yes, I think I could live with that.’
I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, then thought better of it and made out the cheque. When I handed it over he first read it attentively, then dropped it carelessly into the drawer as though it was just any old bit of paper. ‘If it bounces, you’ll get another chance to admire the James Purdy. Now . . .’ He checked the paper-thin gold watch on his wrist. ‘You’ve got what you came for, I’ve got what you owe me and it’s now half past four in the morning. I wish you and the poor boy all the luck in the world but I also wish you’d go home now, Mr Honeysett.’
Which I did. With the Penny Black hidden deep in the lining of my jacket I trudged through the night back to the Norton. The rain had lessened but it was still so black out there that having nothing but a tiny LED light to fight off the darkness seemed a little foolhardy. The cloud might not have been but my mood was definitely lifting. I had achieved what I set out to do, even if the manner in which I’d done it was quite unexpected. Connabear was a very cool customer. As he let me out of the house – through the front like a normal person – he’d asked me to let him know about the outcome and I’d promised to do so, even though I had the irksome feeling that, whatever the outcome, he’d probably see it on the front page of his daily paper first.
The Norton was not a happy bike when I got to it. I really should have found better cover for it. I had to pump the kick-starter at least twenty times before the engine decided to catch and it backfired every couple of minutes all the way home.
There really was no point in going to bed at this hour. Annis grumbled from deep inside the bed somewhere when I came out of the shower and woke up just long enough to ask ‘Did you get it, hon?’ and promptly fall asleep again.
With sunrise still an hour away I assembled a celebratory breakfast – French croissant, Irish butter, Scottish smoked salmon and Ethiopian coffee – that appeared to have more air miles than your average prime minister. We ought to do something about this, go completely local, I thought with a guilty sigh, though finding someone who grew coffee in Somerset might present a bit of a problem. But then later that day I would be presented with a challenge that would make growing your own coffee look like child’s play.
Chapter Fifteen
Waiting.
Waiting, smoking, maki
ng tea and waiting. The four of us around the kitchen table, the Penny Black, Louis’s passport to freedom, lying in the centre. Smoking, waiting, coughing, clock-watching.
Waiting, they say, is the worst part of it, but I wasn’t so sure. Could no news really be good news? Would there ever again be good news for Jill?
Tim, who had simply out-raced his shadowers in the TT to get here, dabbing a moistened finger at tiny breadcrumbs on the table and absentmindedly transferring them to his lips; Annis turning the empty coffee mug in front of her between thumb and middle finger, round and round; the nameless cat digging his claws into my sweater every time I moved slightly to make myself comfortable on the hard wooden chair; me, tapping a cheap biro against a notepad where I would write down the next set of instructions. Waiting.
The phone trilled. Tim’s finger arrested halfway to his mouth, Annis gripped the mug. I reached for the phone and the cat held on tight.
‘Honeysett.’
‘Did you get it?’
‘I did, but it wasn’t easy.’ I was thinking of the cheque in Connabear’s desk.
‘Stop whingeing. Okay, sit on it, and make sure it doesn’t get nicked. I’ve got another little task for you.’
‘What do you mean, another task? The deal was that I steal the Penny Black and you let Louis go. Stick to our bargain, I fulfilled my side of it, now y—’
‘Shut up, Honeysett! I told you before, I make the rules and you do as you’re told. Now listen carefully. Your next job. Your last job. I really don’t think you’ll need to write this down, I’m sure you’ll remember this. You will nick the little Rodin sculpture from the Victoria Gallery.’
I stood up and my chair skittered noisily across the tiles. The cat jumped off my lap and galloped away. ‘Is this a bloody wind-up? You can’t be serious.’ Worried faces looked up at me. I bit my lip.
‘Oh really.’ The voice softened dangerously. ‘I somehow thought you might say that. So maybe you would like to write this down so you can remind yourself any time you need to: so far the boy’s in one piece. If you don’t want me to send you bits of the annoying brat in the post to stiffen your resolve, Honeysett, then you’ll do as you’re told. You got that?’ The faint voice had become poisonous with anger. However much I tried I found it impossible to place it. It could be anyone, anywhere. I had always presumed the owner of the voice to be male, but the more I thought about it the less sure I could be even of that.
‘Got it,’ I confirmed.
‘You’re the one who fucked up the Telfer thing, so you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. So here it is: the exhibition is on for another week. That’s how long you’ve got to get the Rodin out and I’ll swap you the kid for it.’
‘That’s what you said when you told me to get the goddamn stamp.’
‘I’m not bloody ready for you. You keep that stamp safe, get the Rodin out and by then I’ll be ready to do the swap and I’ll be out of your hair. I’ll be out of everyone’s hair and gone for ever.’
‘I can’t see how it can be done. It’s a museum, not some two-bit private gallery. They’ve got excellent security, I presume.’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary. And you have a reputation to live up to, Honeysett. You got into the Telfer place all right. Just a bit careless on the way home, I’d say. You got the Penny Black out of Connabear’s place. You’ll manage this one too. And if not then you haven’t lost a thing, all you have to do is explain to mummy dearest that you fucked up and her boy is toast.’
‘Let me talk to the boy. I must have confirmation that he’s alive before –’
‘You don’t need a fucking thing, all you need to do is shut up and deliver. You do as you’re told and that’ll keep your letter box free of nasty surprises.’
‘I won’t need any reminders, thanks,’ I assured him.
‘Good boy. Now get cracking, you got work to do. I’ll be watching.’ The connection was cut.
‘Well? What did he say?’ Annis asked impatiently. ‘What does he want now?’
I sat down heavily. ‘They want me to steal a sculpture in exchange for Louis.’
‘What?’ Tim and Annis said almost together.
‘There’s a temporary exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery. It’s got a bronze of a dancer by Rodin in it and they want me to nick it.’
Tim groaned with heavy premonition. ‘What next, the crown bleeding jewels?’
‘Our last task, apparently. We’ll exchange the stamp and sculpture for the boy.’
Annis looked straight into my eyes and gave a minute shake of the head. ‘Victoria Art Gallery, that’s . . . big.’
‘Big mistake, if you ask me,’ Tim insisted.
‘I told Jill to expect complications and last-minute glitches, but I’m not sure how she’ll take a setback like this.’
‘I’ll tell her, if you like,’ offered Annis. ‘I’m better with the tears and tissues.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it. Tim?’
Tim had been staring out of the window. ‘Hn? What?’
‘The Victoria Art Gallery?’
‘Oh yes. Utter madness.’
‘This isn’t Norway, you know, where you can just waltz into a museum and help yourself to the Munch painting of your choice,’ Tim complained. ‘How often has it been nicked now? Three times? You get the feeling they don’t like The Scream much. Perhaps we should see if the exhibition goes to Oslo.’
We were leaning on the balustrade that runs along the Grand Parade, occasionally glancing up at the tall façade of the Victoria Gallery, trying to look casual in the annoying drizzle that had returned after a short interlude of broken cloud. Tim thought the guys who had dogged his steps for the past few days had for some reason given up following him. Who they were remained a mystery to him. I had a different theory, but kept it to myself. I thought it much more likely that after having lost Tim twice the incompetent pair had been replaced with a couple of specimens that knew what they were doing. I didn’t hold out much hope that we weren’t being watched right now.
Below us the river Avon fell noisily over the weir, swollen with days and days of near continuous rain.
‘We’ve got a few days,’ I reminded him urgently.
‘So you keep saying.’ Tim’s dense curly hair had plastered itself around his face in the wet, giving him an even hairier appearance. He didn’t look happy. ‘It’s sheer madness. I mean, look at it. The ground floor of the exhibition space is completely shuttered, the only way in is through the front door. So climbing in at street level is hardly going to work, is it?’ He poured scorn over my earlier suggestion that we might just smash a window and be in and out before anyone could shout ‘Thief!’ ‘If it was some piddly item in a glass vitrine then you could try a daylight smash and grab with a stolen motorbike waiting outside and take your chances. Drive the bike into the back of a waiting van outside the CCTV area and Robert’s your mum’s brother. But a statue like that must weigh three stone if you include the plinth. You can carry it but you won’t do much running with it. The first civic-minded art lover’s going to chuck her brolly between your legs and send you sprawling. Nah, not a chance. Well, let’s have a look-see then. But whatever you do don’t take your hat off. They’re bound to have CCTV in there. Once the Rodin’s gone walkies they’re going to have a close look at their videos – they probably keep about three weeks’ worth before they reuse them – and ours are going to be the two mugs CID will recognize.’ He forced a baseball cap on his own woolly curls. ‘Right, put on your reading glasses as well.’
I hesitated. ‘How d’you know I have reading glasses?’ I’d only got my first pair recently and was still a bit shy about it.
‘Annis told me. Let’s see ’em.’
‘The traitor.’ I took the glasses from their case and stuck them on my nose. I’d gone for the old-fashioned horn-rimmed specs. Well, it had worked for Cary Grant.
‘Annis was right, they do make you look intelligent. Okay, let’s go in.’
We crossed
the road, dodging traffic, and entered through the heavy double doors. As soon as I stood in the foyer I felt like a schoolboy planning a prank. Tim pushed through the next set of double doors and into the downstairs exhibition space. I sauntered in after him, trying to look as though I wasn’t part of a double act. Immediately to the left was a counter where catalogues, slides and postcards could be bought. Thankfully the blue-suited, tightly permed woman behind the counter didn’t give us a second look. Along with half the planet she was too busy looking at a computer screen. There were a fair number of people walking about, silently or talking in low voices. I tried to appear casual and bored but failed miserably. The Rodin bronze in the centre of the room was all I saw. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It seemed to get bigger the longer I looked at it. We were going to steal that? A limb at a time perhaps . . .
It was a male dancer, nude, yet curiously sexless. He stood on tiptoe on his right leg, with his other leg improbably high in the air, the right hand holding the foot; the left arm was flung into the air and his gaze appeared to be following that movement. I tried to imagine making that move and the thought alone made my tendons ache. The dancer’s face was deeply serious, which was hardly surprising; the model must have been trussed up like an oven-ready broiler to be able to hold that pose and it must have hurt like hell. It was simply called The Dancer and on loan from the foolhardy Rodin Museum in Paris. The bronze was very dark, nearly black in places, and looked extremely heavy. The foot of the figure that was in touch with the ground grew out of a highly polished mahogany base and the whole thing stood on a standard painted museum plinth in the centre of the long room. Several spotlights were trained on it from the gantry above but no particular security features were visible anywhere. It was a tantalizing twelve yards from the door which led to the foyer and the street. Maybe on a couple of skateboards . . . a distraction burglary . . . I fished out my mobile and took pictures from all angles. Photography was not allowed inside the museum, it said so everywhere, but there were enough people making enough noise to mask the annoying little ‘ketchee’ sound the camera made.