‘Everything in here is owned by a man called Charles Saatchi,’ Dougie said.
‘What? The advertising bloke?’
‘Yes.’
Saatchi & Saatchi. Yeah, Frankie had heard of them. Brothers. Just like him and Jack. Oh, apart from the fact they were stinking rich and successful, of course.
‘He’s one of those important collectors we were discussing . . . the kind who can make or break an artist just by buying their work. The rest of the art world takes note of what he does. What Saatchi endorses, other collectors want to buy as well.’
‘And he endorses all this, does he?’
‘Every piece. They’re his. It’s him who’s organized this exhibition here. And that, of course, means that the Royal Academy is endorsing every piece in here too.’
‘Meaning all of these might soon be worth a fortune . . .’
‘Precisely.’
‘No wonder they’ve got all those coppers stationed outside. That’s what they’re unloading from those lorries, right? All this?’
‘Quite so.’
Dougie was still staring at him. But whatever that playfulness had just been in his eyes, it was now gone.
‘There’s one more animal I want you to see,’ he said.
‘What?’
He led Frankie over the back of the room and stopped in front of a plinth. Frankie smirked and then sniggered. The artwork – if you could call it that, which yeah, if it was in here being exhibited, then he guessed you could – consisted of what looked like a cute little Jack Russell dog. Standing up on its hind legs, it was holding up a protest placard with the letters ‘R.I.P.’ written on it.
‘Bloody hell, is it real?’ Frankie said. ‘Is it stuffed?’
‘Well, it doesn’t look too happy to me.’
A joke. Frankie turned to Dougie to check, but there was no smile there.
‘And let me guess,’ Frankie said. ‘I’m somehow meant to relate to this specifically, am I? Because of what you told me on Sunday, about who’s in charge and what I am?’ Frankie couldn’t bring himself to say the actual words . . . your dog.
‘No.’
‘No?’ Frankie was surprised.
‘It’s by an artist called Savid Digley,’ Dougie said.
‘It’s actually pretty funny, isn’t it?’ Frankie said. ‘When you think about it.’ A kind of silent protest, against . . . well, how fucked up we’re all going to end up . . . and how nobody really cares. Or that’s certainly what it was saying to Frankie right now.
‘Even better, it’s portable,’ Dougie said.
‘Portable?’
‘As in carry-able.’
‘Yeah, I do know what that means. And why’s that such a good thing?’ Frankie asked. But even before Dougie answered, he suddenly, hideously, already knew.
‘Because you, my faithful hound, are going to steal it for me,’ Dougie said.
6
Frankie stood in the courtyard of the Royal Academy with the sun burning down on him as Dougie Hamilton walked away. Because you, my faithful hound, are going to steal it for me. That bastard. That total loony bastard.
He turned to Viollet. ‘And what about you? You not going with him?’ Like the lapdog you are. Not that he was any better. Christ, more like worse.
‘I’ve still got work to do here,’ she said, waggling a silver camera at him, no bigger than the palm of her hand. ‘Neat, huh? It’s digital. So small you’d hardly even know it was there.’
Meaning none of the security guards inside would know it was there either, or what she was photographing, let alone why.
‘You already knew about it then? Why he bought me here? His big idea?’
‘Who said it was his idea?’
‘What, you’re telling me it was yours?’
‘I’m not telling you anything you don’t need to know. Or haven’t you worked that out by now?’
Frankie shrugged. What difference did it make whose idea it was? He was screwed either way.
‘You should get going,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you got a tournament to run?’
He really hated her then. ‘And so that’s it, is it?’
‘What?’
‘He just gets to drop that bomb on me . . . about what he wants me to do . . . about his insane idea . . .’ To steal half that bloody stuff in there. Frankie nearly said it out loud. Because, oh no, it wasn’t just that little doggy Dougie had his beady eyes on. It was half a dozen other pieces. He’d got a whole goddamn shopping list he wanted Frankie to deliver. ‘And then he just expects me to sit back and wait for further instructions?’
For the first time today, Viollet raised her shades. He saw it again in her eyes, that flash of recognition, that look. Without warning, she reached out and gripped his jaw in her hand.
‘For such a handsome fellow, you really do sometimes look so terribly sad.’
‘Handsome?’ he said, thrown.
‘In a crappy boy band kind of way.’ She trailed her manicured nails down the lapel of his jacket, before running them back through her hair. Then snap, down came the shades, and she was walking away, back through the main entrance into the Royal Academy and out of sight.
‘So who was that then?’ another female voice whispered in his ear.
Frankie flinched. ‘What the –’
But then he saw who it was. Sharon Granger. Detective Granger. If she even was still a copper. Christ, it was two years since he’d last seen her. Her green eyes glinted in the pale morning sun, the same eyes he’d been trying to avoid getting caught gazing into ever since him and her had first ended up sitting in the same history class together back at school.
‘Well?’ she asked, smiling.
‘Er . . .’ Nobody, he nearly said. Stopped himself. Because if Sharon had clocked Viollet walking away from him, she’d probably seen her gripping his jaw as well. ‘Just, er . . . someone I bumped into . . . an old mate . . .’
‘Mate?’
God, he sometimes hated the English language. ‘Friend . . .’ he clarified. ‘. . . who, er, sometimes used to call in at the club.’
‘A female snooker player?’ Sharon’s eyebrows bobbed. ‘I never knew they were so glamorous.’
‘No, it was always, er, more the cigarette machine she was interested in. She worked down the road in a . . . shop . . . a store . . . an establishment . . .’
‘An establishment?’
Christ, now he was making her sound like a stripper.
‘But not any more,’ he said. ‘No, I think she quit . . . or moved on . . .’
Great, so now she was a retired stripper. Just shut up, Frankie. Stop talking. The more bullshit like this he made up about Viollet, the more she’d stick in Sharon’s mind.
Too late. Sharon was already sweeping her hand back over her short black wedge haircut, as she looked around, a glint of suspicion in her eyes. He glanced quickly round too, wondering which direction she’d come from. How good a look at Viollet had she got? And, Christ, what if she’d seen him with Dougie as well? Because she’d know exactly who he was, all right, from when she’d worked the Susan Tilley case. Plus, if she was still a cop, she’d also know he’d taken over his dead father’s firm.
‘So, you’re back then,’ he said, quickly changing the subject.
She looked her long-trousered charcoal-grey suit and polished black boots up and down. ‘So it would appear.’
‘From Hong Kong,’ he specified.
Where she’d gone to be with him. Nathaniel. Her boyfriend.
She blushed slightly. ‘It didn’t work out.’
It. As in the job she’d been promised with the Hong Kong police force in the run-up to the handover to China? Or it, as in her and Nathan’s relationship? Frankie couldn’t bring himself to ask. Didn’t want to look too much like he still cared.
He spotted it then, her cop radio, there, poking out of her jacket.
‘And what about Snaresby? You now back working for him?’
Her smile hardened. ‘T
hat’s right.’
‘And how is the great Detective Inspector? Still trying to bang up innocent people like my brother?’ No, not the time or place, but he couldn’t help himself, could he?
‘Do we really have to go through all this again? He was just doing his job, Frankie. We all were.’
‘No. Not him.’
Because, for Snaresby, it had been personal. Frankie bloody knew it. Snaresby had wanted Jack put away. Had made no bones about it. But why? He still didn’t know. Because he really had believed Jack had killed that girl? Or because he’d been working for Terence Hamilton and that’s what Terence had told him? Leaving him as one of Dougie’s sources now?
‘Can I ask you something?’ he said. Because, yeah, why not? Maybe bumping into Sharon like this was just Fate finally giving him a helping hand.
‘About what?’
‘Jack’s case.’
‘But why? It’s closed.’
‘Because I know that at the time you thought that I was somehow –’
‘Getting yourself involved? Trying to help out your brother? And getting yourself black and blue with bruises for your efforts?’ Her eyes had hardened too now. ‘Yeah, I just didn’t know how.’
‘And what about the other cops working the case? Were there any other lines of –’
‘Enquiry? Into you? Or anyone else?’
‘Yeah.’
‘No . . . or I’d have carried on looking into them . . .’ She didn’t blink as she said it. ‘ . . . and you . . . and kept on until I got to the truth . . .’
He believed her. Meaning Dougie was bluffing, the lying lawyer bastard. Whatever sources he had couldn’t do shit about opening any old investigations into Frankie, because there hadn’t been any. Meaning all Frankie had to do was get hold of that pistol and Dougie wouldn’t have anything on him at all.
All he had to do . . . Hah, if only it was going to be that simple, eh?
‘Why?’ Sharon asked.
‘Why what?’
‘Why are you asking me this? Why now?’
A good question. And one he suddenly had a mad urge to answer too. To just tell her what that crazy bastard Dougie was up to . . . and about how he was forcing Frankie to help him . . . to tell her about that pistol with his prints on it too . . . but to tell her why they were on it . . . and that, yeah, the cops might have nailed the right person for the murder of Susan Tilley, but there’d been someone else behind it too, someone who’d got off scot-free.
But what if she didn’t believe him? Or what if she did, but no one else did? What if Dougie slipped that pistol to the cops and Frankie ended up going down for life for something he’d never done? It was too big a risk to take.
‘I don’t know, it’s just . . . a long story,’ he said, ‘something for another time.’
She pursed her lips, annoyed he was holding back. ‘So what are you –’
‘Doing here?’ Frankie said. ‘Oh, you know . . . it’s just one of those places I like coming to . . .’
‘No change from school there, then, eh? Still the wannabe artist at heart?’
‘More like never gonna be,’ he said, relieved to be moving the conversation on. Relieved too that she hadn’t seen him with Dougie, or she’d definitely have mentioned it by now. ‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘You here on duty? I noticed the other lads out front.’
‘Yeah, we’re putting on a bit of a show of force for this new exhibition they’re putting on . . . they’re worried there might be trouble.’
‘Trouble?’ Frankie’s ears pricked up.
‘One of the exhibits . . . it’s a giant image of Myra Hindley, would you believe it, made up out of smaller images of a kid’s hand?’
‘Hindley as in the Moors murderer?’
‘I know, I mean, it’s hardly surprising it’s upsetting people, is it? Or I don’t think so, anyway. But the organizers won’t hear of leaving it out. It’s almost like they’re willing to court the controversy it will bring. No publicity’s bad publicity, isn’t that what they say?’
But before Frankie could answer, another voice butted in: ‘And look who it isn’t. Mister Frankie James, no less, no more.’
Frankie didn’t need to turn round to discover who this one belonged to. He already knew. Snaresby. Detective Inspector Snaresby. Sharon’s boss and the on–off bane of Frankie’s life. Only very much on now, of course. Because there was absolutely no sodding way he’d forget Frankie having been here today, and once the news of the heist went public, he’d link him right to it.
‘DI Snaresby,’ Frankie said. ‘Funny, isn’t it, how every time you turn up, I’m about to leave?’
‘Indeed it is.’ All six foot six of Snaresby glared down at him through unblinking grey eyes. ‘It’s almost as though you had an aversion to me.’ Snaresby’s chapped lips peeled back over his Cheddar yellow teeth. ‘Which I’m certain, of course, isn’t true. Because on top of my obvious natural charms – something I’m sure our mutual acquaintance Sharon here can vouch for?’
‘Er, absolutely, guv,’ she said, eyes glued to her shoes, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here.
‘Yes, on top of those, it wouldn’t be remotely in your interest now, would it, to be getting on the wrong side of me?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I kind of thought that’s where you liked me most.’
Snaresby ignored the comment. ‘Particularly with your tournament coming up so soon.’
Frankie remembered the visit he’d got from Snaresby last year outside the Ambassador. The Detective Inspector had raised the subject of the Soho Open back then too and had warned Frankie to keep in with the right people. His exact words. But meaning who? The council? Or Tommy Riley? Frankie had guessed the latter, seeing as he’d not heard a peep out of Snaresby on the subject since Tommy and Listerman had taken their stake in the business. But even if Snaresby was working for Riley on some level, did that mean he couldn’t be working for Dougie Hamilton too? As one of his sources? And if he was, did he already know why Frankie was really here today?
Snaresby extended a lanky arm from his creased suit jacket and checked his watch – a Breitling, the exact same model that Frankie had noticed a number of Tommy Riley’s associates sporting, the kind of posh ticker people got as rewards for long service.
‘Sharon, would you do me a favour?’ Snaresby said. ‘My car . . . I do believe I forgot to put my permit on the dash as I left the house this morning.’ He handed her a set of keys and a pound coin. ‘Would you mind checking and, if it’s not there, top up the meter, there’s a dear.’
The patronizing prick. Sharon didn’t exactly look well chuffed at being given this task either. Hardly the kind of cutting-edge detective work she’d signed up for. Rolling her eyes, she walked away.
‘I’ll see you around then, Frankie,’ she said.
Frankie nodded. He wanted to watch her, had to tear his eyes off her. Snaresby might be a prick, but he was an observant one too. Frankie didn’t want him getting into his head. Snaresby looked him up and down. Retrieving a grubby handkerchief from the pocket of his baggy trousers, he wiped the sweat from his balding head.
‘Left your toupee at home too, did you?’ Frankie asked.
‘Oh, very droll.’ Snaresby’s tongue darted out over his lips. ‘And how is the imaginatively titled Soho Open progressing?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’
‘I am pleased.’
Frankie didn’t like the wolfish smile that came with this. ‘You are?’
‘Well, of course. I mean, on top of naturally wanting to encourage honest entrepreneurship and all forms of community cohesion within my manor, I have secured myself a ticket. Or indeed a pair of them. For myself and my good lady wife.’ Snaresby pulled out his polished Zippo from his jacket pocket and sparked up a cigarette. ‘She’s quite a fan of the baize, you know, is Mrs Snaresby. Snooker loopy, she is. Loves that Jimmy White, she does. We’re both looking forward to it very much.’
Frankie stepped back to avoi
d the plume of smoke Snaresby was now blowing his way.
‘Switched to menthol, have you?’ he said.
‘Oh, you do have a good memory,’ Snaresby grinned.
‘It’s more the stink of the Juicy Fruit gum you’re normally chewing that I remember,’ Frankie said. ‘This comes as a pleasant relief.’
‘Oh, no, I’ve not given that up.’ Snaresby hooked his little finger inside his mouth and fished out a spitty grey wad of gum on the end of his grubby fingernail. ‘It’s just this one’s been in there so long I’d forgotten it was there at all. But thanks for reminding me. A medical friend did warn me that smoking and chewing simultaneously can be hazardous to one’s health.’
Frankie winced as Snaresby wrapped the gum up in the same handkerchief he’d wiped his forehead on and tucked it back into his pocket.
‘What?’ Snaresby asked, catching him staring. ‘Waste not, want not. I thought your generation were all over that kind of recycling lark.’
Frankie just glared. The Juicy Fruit wasn’t the only thing about Snaresby he’d not forgotten. While reading the Old Man’s case files last year, he’d discovered that Snaresby had been one of the chief investigating officers who’d put the Old Man away. Or fixed the evidence against him, more like, was how Frankie saw it . . . the Old Man’s prints that had ended up all over the cases the looted safety boxes had been emptied into . . . the confession of the gang’s leader, who’d then hanged himself in prison before the case had even gone to trial.
‘So how do you feel about people dying twice then, Inspector?’ Frankie said. A question he’d been itching to ask him to his face since he’d last seen him, just to see how he’d react.
Snaresby took another long pull on his smoke. ‘Ah, yes. You’re referring to my former colleague, James Nicholls, I infer?’
‘The one you told me was dead.’
James Nicholls and Craig Fenwick had been the other two officers who’d worked with Snaresby on the Old Man’s case. Fenwick had since moved to Australia, but last year Snaresby had told Frankie that Nicholls was dead. Only he hadn’t been, had he? Because Frankie had then discovered he was living in Kew. Only the same day Frankie had gone there to visit him and quiz him over whether he’d helped stitch up the Old Man, Nicholls had topped himself. Just a coincidence? Fat bloody chance.
The Break Page 7