That was when we sold the Lego.
‘Would it be true to say,’ said Tone, ‘that Mr Hughes was having financial problems before he disappeared?’
I said, ‘He has not disappeared.’
They all looked at me. Mam was glaring.
I said, ‘My dad has not disappeared. He’s just gone to Harlech.’
‘Dylan . . .’ said Mam.
‘He works in Diggermania,’ I said, and went upstairs.
I could hear Mam arguing with them for ages. I tried to listen to what they were saying. Minnie came bothering me with her Crime and Criminals book.
‘Look at this one,’ she said.
I wasn’t interested.
‘Just look. This guy is Lord Brocket. He had loads of debts, but he also had loads of Ferraris.’
‘No one has loads of Ferraris.’
‘He did. Have a look.’
I was still trying to listen to what Mam was saying but, I have to admit, the Ferraris were distracting. This man had had the first-ever road Ferrari, Niki Lauda’s F1, a 340 America, and a Maserati Birdcage.
‘And he couldn’t sell them because no one could afford them. But he needed the money. So what did he do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He pretended they’d been stolen and then claimed on the insurance.’
‘How do you pretend a car has been stolen?’
‘Well, you could drop it in a crusher . . .’
‘He didn’t! Ferraris? No. That’d be the worst thing ever. No. No one could crush a Ferrari.’
‘No. He didn’t. If you’re doing an insurance job, never do anything irreversible. Just in case they don’t pay out.’
‘So?’
‘So he buried them.’
‘Buried them?’
‘Yeah. Buried them in the ground. Genius, eh?’
I had to admit, it was quite good.
‘Just like Dad,’ said Minnie, ‘in the Case of the Mini in the Pavilion.’
‘What?’
‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? He got into a bit of financial trouble – like Lord Brocket – and – like Lord Brocket – he decided to do an insurance job. Our Dad’s a bandit.’
‘No, he isn’t.’
‘Yes, he is. And Barry and Tone got suspicious so he went on the run. Our dad’s a bandit—’
‘Be quiet.’
‘You see this pull-out chart of Master Criminals? It’s wrong. All this lot – Ronnie Biggs, Jonathan Wild – they all got caught. That’s how we know they’re criminals. The real Master Criminals, they don’t get caught. No one even knows they’re criminals. Like Dad.’
‘I said, be quiet.’
‘I bet Manod doesn’t have the lowest crime rate. I bet we’re just better at it. We don’t get caught. I’m telling you, Dad is a bandit and now he’s in hiding.’
I yelled at her again to be quiet. ‘You’re talking rubbish.’ But I was thinking, What if she’s right? And I’ve just told Barry and Tone where Dad is.
It got worse. After Barry and Tone had gone, Mam came upstairs and explained that they worked for our insurance company. They were pleased that the car had been found so they didn’t have to pay out, but they now had a number of other concerns. For instance, why the car had gone in the first place. Plus they had found out that Nice Tom had once tried to rob the garage he now worked in, which they thought was a security risk.
‘You’re not going to sack Tom?’ said Minnie.
‘Not directly,’ said Mam. ‘They said they were also aware that valuable paintings from the National Gallery were crossing the forecourt on a regular basis and they regarded this as an unacceptable insurance risk. They said they weren’t able to insure us any more unless we paid them thousands of pounds, which we can’t. Plus they bought our last drop of petrol. So we’re closing down.’
‘Closing down!’ We both said that together.
‘But. . .’
‘Please don’t argue.’
But I had to argue. ‘Couldn’t you just stay open not insured, like the boating lake?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve had enough,’ said Mam. And she took the baby and went to bed.
24 June
Cars today:
SILVER FORD MONDEO TDCi ESTATE – Richardson’s
Weather – persistent, incessant, heavy rain
Note: CRIMINAL TYPES
Even though we were closed now, I still kept writing the petrol log. Obviously there wasn’t so much to write in it because we had no petrol. But some things just seemed so important, you had to write them down. Like when this Mondeo (top speed 127 mph) came. It was the TDCi, the one with the push-button shifters on the steering wheel. I went out to see what he wanted. I’d forgotten we weren’t the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel any more. He waved at me, opened the boot and took out a ‘FOR SALE’ sign. He nailed it to the telegraph pole where we used to put up the special offers.
So that was that. The end of the Snowdonia Oasis.
Tom turned up for work, even though Mam had told him not to and even though there was no work to do. He said, ‘Maybe I could feed the chickens or take Max for a walk or—’
‘Tom,’ said Mam, ‘one of the reasons they withdrew our insurance is that we had a criminal type working here. Namely you.’
‘But I’m not a criminal type, Mrs Hughes. Mr Hughes said—’
‘Mr Hughes – in case you hadn’t noticed – is not here. And has not been here for some time.’
‘So it was all my fault.’
She looked at him for a minute. Then she said, ‘Yes.’
I said, ‘No, it wasn’t.’
She said, ‘You be quiet.’
Tom had gone by then.
‘What did you say that for?’ said Minnie.
‘It made me feel better,’ said Mam.
Sometimes someone would drive up, but when they saw the ‘CLOSED’ sign, they’d back up and turn around again. Even the hens seemed to be sulking. They sat in their hutch all day and Donatello stopped laying (Michelangelo never started).
A couple of times Tom went by on his bike. At first we thought he was just confused, then we thought it was nostalgia. Finally we got the idea that he wanted to talk to us.
After school he was waiting for us on the porch of the pavilion in the park, wearing his Turtles crash helmet. He said, ‘I think I’ve got a Master Plan.’
‘Go on then.’
He looked around to make sure no one was listening. There was just a duck on the putting green. He whispered, ‘Nick a painting.’
‘I knew you were going to say that!’ said Minnie. ‘You’ve been planning that right from the start, haven’t you?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ said Tom. ‘I’m reformed. Or I was reformed. It’s just I can’t think of anything else we can do now.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ said Minnie.
‘Just that really. Nick a painting.’
Minnie said, ‘The boxes are in a quarry underground, Tom. It’s only got one entrance. The reason the government has put them there is so they can’t be nicked. And that’s exactly what they can’t be – nicked.’
‘Oh,’ said Tom.
I said, ‘You’ve got to stop trying to solve problems by robberies. Look what happened when you tried to rob our garage.’
‘Nice things happened when I tried to rob your garage. Your dad gave me a job.’
I said, ‘I’m not sure the National Gallery will take the same approach. My dad is special.’
‘Yes, he is,’ said Tom. ‘All the same, it’s got to be worth a go.’
‘I’m not sure you’re right about that.’
‘‘The only time the paintings are vulnerable is when they’re crossing our forecourt,’ said Minnie. ‘We’d have to gain access to the van, maybe when it was getting petrol. And we haven’t got any petrol. And anyway, the painting in the van is going to be on the gallery wall in London first thing the next morning, so everyone w
ould be looking for it almost right away. If you were going to get away with it, you’d have to replace the one in the van with a plausible copy.’
Tom and I stared at her.
I said, ‘You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?’
‘From time to time,’ said Minnie.
Next morning, Tom came riding past the garage again. He saw me looking and tried to make some kind of signal with his hands, and fell off his bike. I went out to help him. ‘Meet you after school,’ he said. ‘Same place.’
When I went back in, Mam said, ‘What did he want?’
‘Nothing. He just fell off his bike.’
Tom was sitting in the pavilion in the park with what looked like a pile of Monopoly boxes on his knee. Only they weren’t Monopoly boxes.
‘I was thinking about what you said, Minnie, about how if you stole a painting you’d have to swap it for a copy.’
‘And?’
He tipped the boxes up so we could see the covers. ‘Painting by numbers,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said Minnie, ‘painting by numbers. Right.’
‘Your mam is short of money. The paintings up there are worth millions. We could nick one and swap it for one of these.’ He had three pictures to choose from. One was of a collie dog. One was of an alpine scene. One was of a vase of flowers.
I suddenly remembered that Nice Tom used to be called Daft Tom.
‘Painting by numbers,’ said Minnie.
‘All we have to do is find a painting up there that looks like one of these, and swap it.’
Minnie pulled out the one of the vase of flowers and looked at it.
‘Tom,’ I said, ‘remember what Minnie said? Even if you did nick a painting – which you couldn’t – how would you get rid of it? Who do you know with twenty-five million pounds?’
Tom looked thoughtful – like he was going through his mental address book, looking for forgotten millionaires.
I said, ‘You know, Tom, maybe the insurance people were right. Maybe you are a criminal type.’
‘I’m not! I even paid for these . . .’ He pointed to the painting-by-numbers sets.
‘Tom,’ said Minnie, ‘this is not a good idea.’
Tom stared at her. ‘But you were always telling me to go and steal a painting.’
‘I was only joking. This isn’t going to work.’
Tom could argue with me. No one can argue with Minnie. He didn’t say anything. He just seemed to shrink. ‘I know. I know it’s not. I just wanted to do something. There must be something I can do! It’s all my fault.’
Then Minnie said something which was meant to be kind but maybe was a fateful mistake. She said, ‘We might as well make the picture anyway, just in case.’
Tom did his famous big smile and offered her the boxes. ‘Which one?’ he said.
She chose the vase of flowers.
When we got back home, we looked in the Revised and Expanded. The vase of flowers was in there. It was based on a real painting in the National Gallery. It was called Sunflowers, by Vincent Van Gogh. It was the most valuable painting in the whole gallery.
‘Jesus Jellybeans,’ said Minnie. ‘Bang on the money. If we had a plan, this would be going according to plan.’
‘Except we don’t have a plan.’
‘No. We don’t. That’s right.’
We decided to make the picture in the workshop. We told Tom it was because it was all top secret and no one was supposed to know. Really, it was so that Mam wouldn’t see him and lose her temper with him again.
The paint comes in little numbered pots. The picture is split up into little numbered shapes. All you have to do is match the colour to the space. We decided to have a colour each so that we’d get it done quicker. So I was yellow ochre (9). Minnie was burnt umber (4) and Tom was crimson lake (13). At first it was just spots of bright paint on a big board.
‘It looks like different flavours of chicken pooh,’ said Minnie, and we all laughed. ‘Like the hens have pigged out on icing and then come in here and just let go. Like they had a big pooh party.’
Mostly we were quiet and concentrating. It felt like we were doing something about the garage, and even though we weren’t really, that was still a good feeling. We thought we didn’t get much done the first day, but when we came back the next morning we realized we were nearly halfway there. You could already tell what it was supposed to be. That got us moving faster, like when you’ve nearly finished a jigsaw and you’re racing for the last piece.
It was unanimously decided that Tom should paint the last number. It was a dab of vermilion (15) on one of the leaves. The effect was immense. It made the whole picture look like a painting. A painting that we’d painted. We were so proud, we stood there staring at it for about five minutes. Minnie went and got the Revised and Expanded so that we could look at it next to a photo of the original.
‘That’s amazing,’ said Tom. ‘No one could tell that wasn’t the proper one.’
‘Except,’ said Minnie, ‘ours is wet.’
‘Oh, yeah.’
And then she said – but I wish she hadn’t, ‘Then again, it will dry.’
And it did dry. Each morning we’d look into the workshop. By Sunday it was dry. It looked even more like a painting. It looked a lot like the painting.
Mam sent Minnie and me down to Mrs Porty’s for a pint of milk. I noticed that they had a new window display in Curl Up N Dye. It was mostly big bottles of shampoo with wigs on top. It looked like an invasion of tiny, hairy aliens. But with nice hairdos. Like tiny aliens going to a wedding or something. Minnie said, ‘If we did have a plan, the next thing would be for you to ask Lester to send Sunflowers to London and ask him if he could show it in our garage just like before, so that we’d have an opportunity.’
‘But we haven’t got a plan.’
‘No, we haven’t.’
We walked on. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what else we haven’t got.’
‘What?’
‘A frame. Our Sunflowers is on a piece of cardboard with “Painting by Numbers” written on the back. D’you think when they got it to the gallery they’d say, “Oh, no frame. That makes a nice change. We can Blu Tack this to the wall.”?’
Minnie said, ‘All right, all right.’
That night I woke up to find someone sitting on the end of my bed. I said, ‘Dad!’
‘No,’ said Minnie, ‘it’s me. Minnie.’
‘What?’
‘You were worrying about us not having a frame for Sunflowers.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘Yes, you said that we’d be rumbled if they saw it with no frame on.’
‘Yes, but I wasn’t worried about it. Because we’re not going to nick a painting and therefore we don’t have to swap one.’
‘The Misses Sellwood’s dad’s picture. The one of Elsa when she was a little girl.’
‘What about it?’
‘Got a proper frame on it.’
Which it did. A big, heavy, gold frame with leaves carved into it. The kind of frame you see in an art gallery. While everyone else was still asleep, we got the painting by numbers from the workshop, unclipped the back of Mr Sellwood’s picture and dropped our picture in. It looked amazing.
‘It looks like a masterpiece,’ I said. ‘No one would know that wasn’t a masterpiece.’
‘It would be a crime NOT to send it to the National Gallery,’ said Minnie.
30 June
Cars today:
BLUE AUDI A8 V12 – valuer from Richardson’s
Weather – rain
Note: SOME SORT OF GENIUS
Even though we were definitely still not really planning to steal a painting, we were already scared we might get caught. Like when we got home and saw this random Audi Quattro A8 V12 (top speed a remarkable 155 mph) on the forecourt, we both thought it was the police come to get us.
I said, ‘How can it be the police? We haven’t done anything yet.’
Minnie said, ‘Conspiracy.�
�
A man in a stripy suit got out and said, ‘I’m from Richardson’s – the estate agents?’
We both said, ‘Oh.’
‘You’ve already been,’ said Minnie.
‘That was just the bloke with the sign. I’m the valuer.’ He held up a camera and a clipboard. ‘Where’s your mam then?’
The Audi, by the way, has a V12 engine (like in a Bentley) and the distinctive Audi electro-hydraulic multi-plate clutch, which distributes power equally between the front and the back. So what?! It’s not interesting if you aren’t actually filling it up.
As soon as Mam took the man inside, Minnie grabbed my arm and hissed, ‘Workshop. Quick.’
I said, ‘What’s going on?’
‘If he’s going to look around, he’s going to see this.’ She pointed to our masterpiece, which was propped up in the corner on top of the tyre gauge. ‘If this is going to be a perfect crime, we’ve got to make sure no one can find any connection between us and the picture. This is a big, big clue.’
We sneaked it in through the back door. We could hear Mam showing the stripy-suit man round the kitchen.
‘Where are we going to put it? They’re going to go everywhere.’
Downstairs, Mam was saying, ‘So that’s the kitchen. This is the living room . . .’ They’d be coming upstairs any minute.
‘My bedroom?’
‘They’ll look in the bedrooms. Anyway . . .’
Before she could finish, Marie opened the door to her room and walked out. She was going to the toilet. She breezed straight past without looking at us, like a ghost. Her door was still half open.
Minnie grinned. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘no one’s going to look in there and survive.’ She grabbed the picture and added, ‘You stay here. Keep her busy if you need to.’
She dived into Marie’s room. I could hear her moving stuff around. Downstairs, the stripy-suit man was talking about the view from the living-room window.
‘Come on, Minnie . . .’ I hissed. She should be out by now. I couldn’t hear anything moving round.
The toilet flushed. ‘Minnie . . . come on . . . she’s coming.’ It was surprising how frightened I was.
The taps were running. The sink was filling up. The man downstairs was looking at the coal-effect gas fire. ‘Minnie . . . what’re you doing?’
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