A Bed of Scorpions

by Judith Flanders

  I got myself to the kitchen only five minutes later than I’d promised, and Jake slid a mug of coffee towards me. There were case notes, files, and documents all over the table: he had to have been working for hours, maybe all night. I looked to see if he’d changed his clothes, but realised I had no idea what he’d been wearing the day before.

  He was moving papers around, thinking how to begin, and I understood why when he spoke. ‘It wasn’t Celia Stein. She was with Merriam and the show’s curator the entire time. When your 999 call was logged, the three of them, and Jim Reynolds, were talking to four members of’ – he checked his notes for the term ‘the working party, which seems to be what the people who hang the pictures are called. There was a problem with a painting in one room, and the whole room had to be rehung. She was taking photos with her phone. We’ve looked at the time-stamps. There isn’t even a five-minute gap, and everyone agrees that no one else had her phone.’

  I started to speak and found I had no voice. I tried again. ‘Are you saying that two people hate me that much?’

  All of Jake’s formal manner vanished. He was around the table, and I was on his lap before I’d finished the sentence. He hugged me tight. ‘Sweetheart, no one hates you.’ He waited until I took a breath. ‘People kill out of hatred. But that’s not what this is. It’s not.’ He stared at me, to make sure I understood. ‘Someone is afraid. There is no reason to attack you except fear, and the only fear they can have is of exposure. We need to work out what it is you know.’

  I took another breath. I don’t know why someone wanting me dead because they were afraid of me was better than someone wanting me dead because they hated me, but it was. Fear I could deal with. I gave a small nod. I’m OK, it said.

  Jake moved back to his files. ‘The most obvious thing you know is the colophons, although how anyone knows that, I don’t know. There’s something else we’re missing. I’m going to go over everything once more, and then I’ll need to interview you officially again. I don’t know when. The office will call Helena.’ He looked shamefaced. ‘I don’t know who it will be. You realised, last night …’

  He didn’t finish, so I did it for him, as bluntly as it would be said if his superiors found out about our relationship. Right before they sacked him. ‘… that you should have withdrawn the moment you discovered the case concerned your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend? Yes. I didn’t before, which was stupid of me. We can keep it like this for the moment. But you need to straighten it out afterwards. I don’t want to be your dirty little secret.’

  He gave me that same sweet smile. ‘That talk we’re going to have “later”?’

  ‘That one.’ I smiled back. ‘Not to change the subject, but I need to go and get my things together.’ I raised my hands pacifically, stopping the words I saw coming. ‘You can drop me on your way to work, and I promise I won’t leave the building unless you need me to be interviewed. And then I’ll order a cab. Or if you don’t need to talk to me again, I’ll do the same to come home. Believe me, I’m frightened enough to listen to you now.’ He still looked as if he wanted to argue, so I went for the jugular. ‘I’m too afraid to stay at home alone.’

  There wasn’t an answer to that, so we went.

  It didn’t really matter where I was, as it turned out, because I wasn’t capable of doing any work. I told Miranda I was diverting my calls to her, and she should only put through Helena or Jake’s office. She looked deathly curious, but didn’t ask any questions.

  I closed my office door, and tried to move in logical steps. I may not be smart, but I’m stubborn. Frank and Werner Schmidt were dead because of something to do with the Stevenson estate. That had to be the start. That there were forgeries in the estate also had to be a starting point. That Celia had something to do with it, ditto. Spencer Reichel’s connection to Celia, and to Matt Holder, came into the mix, although how or why was not clear.

  In truth, I’m not stubborn. I’m pig-headed. And going over and over the same facts was really pig-headed. It wasn’t helping, I was just too stupid to know when to stop. When Miranda put her head around the door, it was almost a relief. ‘Sam, I know you said you didn’t want any phone calls, but there’s someone downstairs for you.’

  I reached for my diary. Had I forgotten to cancel an appointment? I looked. No.

  ‘Who?’ I was mystified. Publishing doesn’t do drop-ins.

  ‘He says his name is Sam, but he won’t give a last name.’ Sam? I didn’t know a Sam. ‘When I told Bernie that you weren’t seeing anyone, he said you’d see him. I went down, because he wouldn’t say where he was from, or what it was about. He’s …’ her teeth worried at her lips. She wasn’t sure how to phrase the next part. ‘He’s young. Not old enough to be working.’

  My eyes opened wide. Sam. Viv’s Sam. ‘Seventeen or so? South-East Asian, dyed blonde hair, trousers around his bum?’

  Now Miranda’s eyes popped wide too. Her ‘not old enough to be working’, I realised, had been a euphemism for, Isn’t he a bit young for you but what else could he be? She recovered quickly. ‘That’s him.’

  I picked up the phone. ‘Hi, Bernie. Is Sam still there for me? Ask him to come up to the first floor.’ And I was off down the corridor like a shot, Miranda pretending, very discreetly, that she was going to the loo, and following hard behind.

  I got to the head of the stairs as Sam was coming into sight. ‘Hey, Sam. Thanks for coming.’ I wasn’t going to say more there. Seventeen-year-olds were not part of our daily lives. Everyone at every desk we passed was watching.

  He was a quick study. He nodded, as though he dropped by publishing offices every day of the week, and then he put out his hand. Grown-ups shook hands. So we did.

  As we walked past the kitchen I paused. Office manners. ‘Do you want something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?’

  A very quick study. ‘I don’t suppose you have a beer?’

  ‘No beer. That’s why this is called “work”, not “fun”.’

  ‘Damn.’ And we smiled. For some reason, we understood each other.

  When we got to my office I closed the door and sat, waving him to the visitor seat. He took his time, looking at the wall of books, the files. ‘This is what you do?’

  ‘I work for a publisher. We make books.’

  ‘My sister reads.’ In the same tone you’d say, My sister likes Mongolian throat-singing.

  ‘It happens. There’s no shame in it. Not even a Twelve-Step Programme that I know of.’

  ‘Girl stuff. Romance.’

  He wasn’t ready to sit down yet. I poured myself coffee from my coffee-maker, waving the pot at him in question, giving him time. Then I sipped quietly. He’d tell me whatever it was when he was ready.

  ‘I saw her.’

  I sat forward so fast I sloshed hot coffee all over my hand. ‘Shit.’ I wiped it quickly, never taking my eyes off him. ‘Where? When?’

  He sat down now. My desk faced the wall, so that when I had a visitor I swivelled round and there was nothing between us. I hitched my chair forward, and we sat knee to knee.

  ‘Yesterday. Around nine o’clock. On the High Street. I was going to the kebab shop. You know, the good one?’ He paused questioningly. I didn’t, but I nodded. ‘She was going into the restaurant next door. It’s Italian. Expensive, my mum says.’

  I sat back, crushed. This wasn’t going to help. Someone in a restaurant. How did that identify her the next day?

  ‘I tried to ring you on the number you gave me.’ He looked at me accusingly.

  I started to reach for my phone – had I even checked my messages? – and then I remembered. I had no handbag, so no phone. The armed response unit had decided it was essential to hold onto my tampax to make sure I didn’t detonate them and destroy democracy as we know it. I can’t say I exactly followed their reasoning, but when I had been on my own I was too traumatised to argue; by the time Helena arrived, I’d forgotten. All I had now was twenty quid I’d borrowed from Jake that morning. Everything else, p
hone, credit cards, money, was in the death-grip of the police.

  ‘There was a problem last night. The police have my bag, and it has my phone.’

  ‘You were arrested?’ I’d gone up in his estimation.

  I grinned. ‘Nah. Questioning. My mum’s a lawyer. She was there to see fair play.’ Then I sobered up. ‘Thank you for coming and telling me. That’s really kind of you. I guess we can keep an eye out for the woman there. Or maybe the police can ask at the restaurant.’

  He was insulted. ‘I didn’t let her go.’

  ‘You followed her?’

  Now he thought I was just plain stupid. ‘Course I did. Me ’n’ my mates.’ He shrugged. ‘We went to the kebab place and had something to eat while we waited for her to come out.’

  I didn’t know how to put this diplomatically. ‘Didn’t anyone notice you?’

  He grinned again. ‘Everyone. But no one. Everyone hates kids hanging about, and no one pays any attention to us except to say we’re a nuisance.’

  He was right. People walking past, or looking at them through the restaurant window, would have thought, Bloody kids, drinking and eating and making noise on the street. Not a single one would have been able to say what any of them looked like.

  I stared up at him, puppy-dog eyes. ‘Tell me you saw where she went.’

  He was regretful. ‘They drove off, so we couldn’t follow her. But …’ He held out his hand. Written in biro on the palm was a registration number.

  I pumped my fist. ‘Yes.’ I wanted to kiss him but I thought he’d faint.

  ‘It wasn’t her car, though: she wasn’t driving.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. This is a huge help.’ I copied the number down. ‘You are my hero, Sam. Thank you. And thank you for coming all the way here to tell me.’ I paused. ‘How do I get in touch with you? I want to pass this on to the police. I’ll say again, if it’s connected the way I think it is, I don’t think the hit-and-run will matter much. But if they need to speak to you – um, my boyfriend is at Scotland Yard.’

  He considered that. ‘A copper’s missus.’

  I laughed out loud. ‘I’ve never thought of myself that way. And we’re not married so I’m nobody’s missus. What I meant was, it won’t be the local PC Plod who will be looking at this.’ I suspected that this would make it better, not worse, but I wasn’t sure. It did.

  He nodded, and picked up the pen and wrote his mobile number beside the registration number.

  He looked around, as if he’d suddenly realised he was in a small, enclosed, and very unfamiliar space with a woman old enough to be his mother, but he couldn’t work out the mechanics of getting away. I stood. ‘Thank you again,’ I said, and moved to the door.

  As we passed the assistants’ desks in the space outside, I said, ‘Hold on a minute.’ Publicity was just around the corner, and I went and scanned their shelves, grabbing half a dozen titles. ‘I’ll order you up some new ones,’ I called to the intern looking daggers at me. These were advance copies to send out to newspapers for reviewing, and no one was supposed to take them, although everyone did. She wasn’t appeased, but she didn’t have the seniority to challenge me outright, either. While I was at it, I filched a T&R bag and dumped everything in, returning to Sam. In the thirty seconds I’d been gone, Miranda had befriended him. He was leaning against her filing cabinet, chatting and entirely at ease.

  ‘Here,’ I said, handing the bag over. ‘For your sister. I don’t do anything I think you’d like.’

  He put his head on one side. ‘Motocross?’

  ‘You’re just saying that because of the way I dress.’ It took him ten seconds to work out that that was a joke, and by that time, he and I and Miranda had got to the front door.

  ‘See you,’ he said, slinging the bag on his shoulder. Job done.

  ‘And I’m taking early lunch, if that’s OK,’ said Miranda.

  I’d said ‘Sure’, and was halfway up the stairs before I looked at my watch. Eleven o’clock, Miranda? I hoped to God he was eighteen. A young-looking twenty would be even better.

  Back in my office, I rang Jake. Voicemail. I hung up, and emailed instead. ‘The boy who saw the hit-and-run came through. He saw the woman again on the High Street. She got into a car, not hers,’ and I added the registration number. Then I thunked myself on the forehead and added. ‘Also, I’m never going to make inspector. I have no idea what the boy’s last name is, and forgot to ask. First name Sam, and I have his phone number. According to neighbourhood gossip he’s been “in trouble” with the police. He says he’ll talk to you, though. Let me know.’

  Then I thought about last night again, and sent him another email. ‘Dear DI Field, Yesterday evening a neighbour who witnessed the hit-and-run I was involved in on Castleton Street last Saturday saw a woman he recognised as the driver. He saw her get into a car in Camden, and although she wasn’t driving, he took down the registration number (attached), in the hope that it will help to identify her. I’m afraid that for the moment he isn’t willing to give a statement. Yours, Samantha Clair.’ If the hit-and-run ever became part of a case, Jake was going to need to show how he got the information that led to an arrest. Paperwork. Registration numbers. Phone numbers. All documented. Documentation was good. I admired my own neat and tidy files. And then I sat up again. Documentation.

  Miranda was at ‘lunch’, so I rang down to Bernie. ‘Will you order me a cab on the company account, to come as soon as possible? I’m going to Aldermanbury, and it will need to wait for me afterwards and take me on.’ I’d pay T&R back, but I didn’t have enough cash to get me to the City in a cab, and I’d promised Jake I wouldn’t use public transport.

  Then I called Helena. She was in a meeting. I left a voicemail, and emailed her as well, to drive the point home: ‘I’m on my way over now. We NEED to talk. Get Aidan.’ I emailed Jake again too. ‘On my way to Helena (yes, by cab, from T&R’s regular company, don’t worry). Have turned something up. No phone/access to texts or emails, so let H. know when you want us. Sooner would be better than later. For you. P.S. If you wrestled my handbag away from your fellow plods you would have my lifelong devotion. And I would have a way to contact you.’

  And I went downstairs to wait for the cab from the safety of the reception desk.

  Helena was still in her meeting when I got to her office, but her assistant told me she’d said she’d be as quick as she could, and I was to wait in her office. That suited me. I took one of her legal pads and had roughed out a summary of my ideas by the time she appeared.

  She had also done as I’d asked and got in touch with Aidan. Despite what must have been a frantic day at the Tate, my urgency had been conveyed, and he was there within the half-hour. Helena’s meeting ended only minutes later. She was her usual calm self; Aidan was not. He was angry and frightened. Two weeks ago, he’d found his partner dead. Now the gallery was up to its neck in forgery. I’d seen him the day after Frank had died. I’d spotted the first forgery. Someone had attacked me twice. This, said his look, is your fault.

  I barely waited until they’d sat down. ‘We’ve been looking at this from the wrong end,’ I said. ‘As soon as the forgery surfaced, the death of Werner Schmidt meant that we looked at him as the most likely source.’ They nodded. ‘But we left out a more important element of forgery.’ I turned to Aidan. ‘Why aren’t there more forgeries than there are?’

  He looked blank.

  I shook my head at myself. I wasn’t being clear. ‘Not Stevensons. In the world. Why don’t more people forge paintings? It’s not that difficult, is it? Particularly with contemporary art, which is often factory made. Why doesn’t someone produce, I don’t know’ – I waved my hand, as though it would help me grasp a name from the air ‘Donald Judds by the score? They’re just boxes. If you had the measurements of one, and some plywood, you could probably knock one up in your garden shed.’

  He looked contemptuous: You pulled me out of meetings for this? ‘And then what do you do? Stand on the street corner
and say, “Oi, mate, I’ve got a luvverly Judd for you here. Usually a tenner, but I’ll do it for you for £7.50”? Sam, you know perfectly well, you can’t sell a painting without d—’

  He was exactly where I wanted him to be. ‘Without documentation. Werner Schmidt could turn out the most beautiful Stevensons in the world. But without the paperwork, they were worth no more than a poster from the Tate’s shop.’ I turned to Helena. ‘I hadn’t realised until Aidan explained last week, how much documentation each artwork needs. Not just the provenance, the sales’ records, but valuations, customs and transport dockets, duty paid, and so on. You can track a picture forever with paperwork. And if those papers are in order, there is nothing to it: the artwork is, by definition, legitimate.’

  Aidan was now seeing where I was going, and looked as though he was going to lose his breakfast. Helena was impassive. Lawyer face. I went on. ‘Myra James is Merriam–Compton’s registrar. She is, as Aidan phrased it, the “paperwork queen”. She could produce any paperwork that was needed. And,’ I suddenly remembered, ‘she and Frank were also the two who knew the Stevenson holdings the best. She was ideally placed to let Schmidt know what was selling well, what would fetch a good price, and then make sure the pictures he produced were backed up by the appropriate documents. In fact, I can’t imagine how it could have been done without her.’

  Aidan crumpled. I can’t explain it, but when I said Myra’s name, he just – got smaller. ‘No,’ he said now. But it wasn’t denial. It was, Please, make this not be true.

  Helena continued to look attentive, as if I’d told her that I would be going to the beach for my holiday that year, instead of my usual city-break: an interesting idea. ‘Yes.’ She looked at Aidan. ‘She was with you at the Tate yesterday, Sam said. Was she with you the whole time?’

  Aidan pulled himself together and thought. ‘No. There was a problem with a picture that was supposed to come from Germany. Because of the new government indemnity scheme …’ he waved it away; too much detail. ‘There was a problem with a loan, and the picture’s not coming. That’s why we were rehanging that room. The Irish Museum of Modern Art stepped in and offered us a replacement from their collection. Myra stayed while we hung a dummy, for size, to see if it would work, and when it did she went back to the gallery to sort out the paperwork while we redid the rest of the room.’ He realised what that meant, and looked over at me. ‘I don’t know the timings exactly, but—’