The Colours: A spy thriller packed with intrigue and deception

by T. M. Parris

  “The police are surely going to know what was taken,” said Rose.

  “Absolutely,” said Fairchild. “The question is whether the Freeport management company will want that made public or not. On the one hand they’ll be shining a light on the holdings of their clients, something a user of a Freeport is not going to welcome. For every item, there’ll be endless speculation about who owns it, which could be embarrassing for some of them. On the other hand, publishing the list of stolen items will make it much more difficult for the thieves to sell them on. Although, they may well have their buyers lined up already.”

  “Stealing to order?” asked Rose.

  “Sure.”

  “They would have needed to know what was in there,” said Rose.

  “They did,” said Yvonne, staring at her laptop screen. “They’ve just announced the identity of the man who was found shot in the warehouse. He was an employee at one of the clearing agents.”

  “So he was working with them?” asked Rose. “The inside man?”

  “What was his name?” asked Fairchild.

  “Murat. Henri Murat.”

  “That’s the guy who showed me round.”

  “So how did he end up dead?” asked Rose. “That couldn’t have been part of the plan. Not his plan, anyway.”

  “Could he have been abducted or forced by the thieves?” asked Ollie. “Maybe they got in under false pretences and put a gun to his head to get to what they wanted.”

  “Could be,” said Fairchild, “but that would have made stealing to order more difficult. Without a willing participant on the inside, they wouldn’t know what was there in advance. Even if they did, it’s not that easy. There are half a dozen clearing agents in Monaco. They’ll know what their own clients have deposited, but none will have a complete inventory of what’s in the place. Only the management company will have that, or possibly customs.”

  “That means they might not have had any idea what was in there beforehand,” said Ollie. “Just taking pot luck.”

  “But why risk so much when you have no idea of the value of what you’ll end up with?” said Rose. “Besides, they managed to rob a secure facility in the heart of a built-up area during the day. And got away, which does suggest they knew what they were doing.”

  “Not all of them,” said Yvonne. “One of them is dead. And I’m seeing reports that an alarm was sounding. They must have had to leave in a hurry.”

  “We don’t know for sure that they’re in the wind,” said Fairchild. “We only know what’s been released to the press. The police may be closing in already.”

  “They might not have planned to shoot the clearing agent,” said Ollie. “Maybe something went wrong.”

  Maybe, maybe, maybe. Rose was getting agitated. This theft was a surprise. She didn’t like surprises.

  “There must be CCTV inside the Freeport. Also of the surrounding streets, the major roads, routes out of the region. Analysis of the bullets as well. I assume they’re no longer in Monaco. Will the Monegasque and French police work together on this?” The question was addressed to Yvonne.

  “I expect so,” said Yvonne. “They have all kinds of protocols, since Monaco is basically surrounded by France. I can contact Paris Station and find out what I can.”

  “Tell them as little as possible,” said Rose. “We’re meant to be low-profile. It doesn’t help that the place we were the most interested in is now featuring on CNN.”

  “There’s a possibility that Sutherland might have engineered this,” said Fairchild.

  “Why would Grom steal his own painting?”

  “Because he knew the Russians were after it. It’s one of the few assets he has that’s still out of their grip. Maybe he wanted it to disappear altogether.”

  “Well, it’s only worth something if he can sell it,” said Rose. “It’s a pretty notorious painting. Even more so, if it was part of today’s stash.”

  “It’s possible if you know the right people. Selling stolen art is always more difficult than stealing it, but it can be done. I do have a few contacts in the less formal sphere of the art world.”

  “Why does that not surprise me?” said Rose.

  “Maybe it was the Russians,” said Ollie. “Stealing the painting to get it away from Grom. We know Russian crime syndicates are active all over the Riviera.”

  “Or it could be completely unconnected,” said Yvonne. “Remember, we don’t know if the Van Gogh was stolen. We don’t even know if it was in the Freeport at all.”

  “Right, so it was Grom, or it was the Russians, or it was some random group,” said Rose. “We kind of need to know a lot more than this.”

  “I could go back to the clearing agents,” said Fairchild. “I’m a client. I can legitimately ask some searching questions about the security in there and how this came to happen. Maybe we can figure out how they did it, which would tell us a lot more about who they are.”

  “Good idea.” Rose was grudging, but it would probably help. “How are things going with Grom’s apartment?”

  “We should be okay. I’ll have some news imminently.”

  “What kind of news?”

  He held her gaze. “Good, I hope.”

  “We don’t have all the time in the world, Fairchild.”

  “I appreciate that. This is the property market we’re talking about.”

  In the corner of her eye she saw Ollie and Yvonne exchange glances.

  “Anyway,” said Ollie. “If these thieves are just some third party and they did take the Van Gogh, I don’t envy them. They’re going to have some pretty determined people on their tail. As well as Grom and the Russians, their insurance investigators, the police—”

  “Anyone else whose stuff they took,” said Fairchild. “Which could include me.”

  “And us,” finished Rose. “I don’t much fancy their chances. But if they’ve got the Van Gogh, we need to find them. Before anyone else does. So let’s get moving.”

  Chapter 20

  It was Clem who knew about the lock-up. A row of garages in an out-of-the-way estate where no questions would be asked, no cameras recording. It was after dark by the time the van pulled up. When Pippin and Gustave climbed out, they had no idea where they were.

  Clem told them.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Gustave. “We’re back in Nice? We’ve been driving for hours! I thought we were heading for Paris!”

  “Too many cameras,” said Clem. “Too many toll roads. We went west, then I double-backed and brought us east again on a different route. Smaller roads. They won’t expect that.”

  “But this is the last place we should be!” Gustave was pale. “The police have our faces. People might recognise us!”

  “Then we don’t go where people know us,” said Clem. “Hole up somewhere. Don’t go out at all. Pippin’s okay. No one will recognise him.”

  Pippin would be okay once he ditched this disguise. Even so, knowing they were back in Nice made his palms sweat.

  “I can’t believe it! This wasn’t our plan at all.” Gustave was blustering. “Paris, that was the plan! I’ve got contacts there! We could get help! Not this tiny gossipy little town right on the doorstep! We’re wanted by the police, Clem! For theft!”

  “And murder,” said Clem. “That wasn’t part of the plan either.”

  That silenced Gustave. Clem lifted the up-and-over door of the lock-up, climbed into the van and reversed it in. Gustave and Pippin stood in the yard side by side. Pippin couldn’t bear to even look at Gustave. Gustave fidgeted but said nothing. Clem closed and locked the up-and-over and put the key in his pocket. They stood, the three of them, looking at each other.

  Gustave was calmer now.

  “Okay, well, we need a new plan,” he said. “I admit, it shouldn’t have gone like that, but it did, and now we all have to stick together and trust each other. I know people in Marseille. There are some possibilities there. We meet here in twenty-four hours. That’ll give me some time to check them out.
We stay hidden till then. And Christ, think, we did it, didn’t we? We robbed the place! Think of what’s in the back of that van!”

  A silence. Pippin had to give the guy some credit. Shocked, subdued, cornered, he still assumed he was in charge, was still trying to give them a pep talk.

  “Stay strong, both of you,” said Gustave a little awkwardly. “Until tomorrow.”

  He walked away. Clem and Pippin exchanged a brief glance, then Clem too paced off. Pippin watched their backs disappear in different directions before sloping off another way.

  In some shadowy corner he jettisoned his facial hair and padding. He stood looking up at the colours of the night. Vincent would see a troubled sky, every shade of violet, blood-red purple to ashen, pale sulphur and malachite. It was a sky under which one could ruin oneself, Vincent would say. Pippin already had a plan. Gustave was arrogant and unstable. He also seemed to be overlooking the fact that Clem had the keys to the van and the lock-up. What neither of them knew was that Pippin didn’t always need a key.

  After an hour he came back via a different route and watched for a while. The place remained deserted. He believed Clem about the lack of cameras. But either of them could come back at any time. His only cause for hope was that despite Gustave’s motivational words, neither Gustave nor Clem had any idea what was in the back of that van.

  The up-and-over lock he picked easily. Inside he closed the door behind him and got out a torch. The van doors took longer but he had the right gear with him. He only wanted one thing from the van. He fumbled and rearranged the other stuff, the bigger, grander stuff, but none in the same league as the modest package he eventually laid his hands on.

  There was barely space on the floor of the lock-up to lay it straight. He had to do this very carefully. Tensed for the slightest noise, he slit open the packaging and slid out the Van Gogh, his trembling hands making the torchlight wobble.

  Don’t look at the painting. Turn it over. Do what you have to do, Pippin. On the back he prised off the tape and worked the frame loose. None of this cutting pictures out of frames. That was hooliganism, not theft. Eventually, the frame came loose and he could pull it away and turn the canvas over. He allowed the torchlight to rest on the portrait for a second. In that light it looked colourless and bland. Just a bit of oil on a piece of canvas. Half a billion dollars. Half a billion! Sitting there in front of him. He shook himself out of it and rolled the canvas up, barely breathing. Using tape discarded from the frame he secured it and put it in his backpack, inside a plastic Carrefour bag. He reconstructed the frame and put it back inside the packaging, back inside the van with everything else arranged just as before.

  As he lifted the up-and-over, Pippin half-expected Clem to be standing there in front of it. Why wouldn’t the man come back now and make off with the lot? After what happened, he didn’t owe Gustave anything. Clearly he knew how to sell the stuff. Or maybe Gustave himself would be there, wandering around the place with his purple waistcoat and his fake moustache and his bitterness. But no one was there and Pippin sloped off again, as Pippin liked to do, leaving everything looking just as it did before.

  He went back to his room and stashed the painting under the bed. Well, Clem was right. No one would expect the thieves to still be around here. No one had seen Pippin’s face. No one would look under Pippin’s bed for a half-billion-dollar painting.

  He splashed water on his face, got into bed and didn’t sleep at all.

  Chapter 21

  Noah phoned early, when Zoe was on the train to work. She let it go to voicemail then called him back while she walked from the station to the bank.

  “Hey, Noah!” She tried to make it sound bright. No need for little brother to know how much she’d been worrying.

  “Hey, sis! You all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m all right. What’s new?” It was the wrong time of day for a social call.

  “So, it’s all cool here. The money and that, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”

  That sounded fishy. “What do you mean, don’t worry?”

  “I mean, don’t worry. Epée is cool about it. He spoke to me.”

  “He spoke to you? When?”

  “Last night, after football practice.”

  Zoe’s heart sank. “Oh, man.”

  “No, seriously, Zoe, it was fine. He said forget about the money, we’re all square. It wasn’t serious anyway. Just a couple of his people playing a joke.”

  “A joke?”

  “Yeah, I know. But that’s what he said. And if any of his people caused any trouble I should let him know. You still there?”

  Zoe had taken ten steps without saying anything. “This was Epée himself?”

  “Yeah. Epée himself. I think it’s okay, sis.”

  Zoe wasn’t so sure. “It’s not some big game they’re playing?”

  “There’s a rumour going round that Epée got a visit from some shit-hot woman from Paris who knocked him into line. But he’s too embarrassed to admit he was pushed about by a woman.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yeah. Or maybe a couple of women. But whatever.”

  She remembered Anna’s words in the bar the other night. I know about bully-boy gangsters. You leave them to me.

  “This woman, what was she like? Black, white, French, something else?”

  “Hey, I don’t know! I just heard a rumour, that’s all. Some hard-ass tart with her own crew got him into an alleyway and bent his ear. No one knows exactly what about, but he’s as meek as anything now. He’s gutted. He knows people are laughing behind his back.”

  “Yeah, well that doesn’t matter to you, does it? Long as you’re out of their sights they can laugh at each other all they like.”

  “Sure, but like I said, Zo, it’s cool. I want to meet this woman, though. She sounds like she rocks. You should be into that, sis. You’re always on about girl power.”

  Noah was right, Zoe thought, as she sat at her desk that morning. She did go on about girl power. It must have been Anna. Couldn’t be a coincidence. Wow, what a result! Those gangs bled people dry once they got hooked in. But one visit and everything seemed reversed. How did she do it? Not just intimidation. That would only work if you were there all the time and built a gang as big as Epée’s. She must know things. Found something out. Had something on him. Knowledge is power. She said that herself, didn’t she?

  Zoe rifled half-heartedly through the paperwork in front of her. Their clients. Criminals. Not all of them, but some. Most, maybe. Men like Epée. No, not like Epée. Like the people who pull Epée’s strings, the people he takes his money to, the people who supply him with the drugs and whatever else, the shady people who don’t hang around in the quartiers nords but set it all up, keep it going, push the product and take the gains and see it stack up and up in these accounts where it disappears and comes back again as yachts and apartments and Italian clothes and vintage champagne. Respectable people in their fast cars, important people. Criminals. And here are all of us, servicing their every need, clinging to them because of the money they have, or else falling into line because we don’t feel we have a choice. But do we? They’re powerful and we’re powerless. That’s right, isn’t it?

  But maybe not. Maybe if you have a little knowledge, if you know one or two things, you have power. Anna changed everything almost overnight. She wasn’t afraid. She knew these people, she said. And she proved it. Zoe opened the file again and turned the papers more slowly. Zoe knew things. Zoe knew how this all worked.

  On her computer she looked up the name again, like she had before. Igor Yunayev. Igor was a bad man, so Anna said. She said it with some emotion too, like she’d met the guy or something. Zoe accessed the bank account for Smart Russia Holdings, the Monaco entity at the heart of his network. But this might not be the only heart. He could have networks like this in a dozen other places. Even just this one was worth tens of millions.

  She scrolled down the list. All these transactions were authorised by herself and M. Ber
nard. That just meant that their signatures were on the blank forms that got printed up with all the details and put in the file. Money in, money out. Big money. Where did it come from? Where was it going? Most of the payees and donors were generic company names like this one. Money going round the world, hidden away. Private. Secret. Enabled by people like M. Bernard. And her.

  She looked again at the Monaco address for Yunayev and checked it out on the map on her phone. A penthouse right in the heart of Monte Carlo, one of the most sought-after addresses. Non-citizens working in Monaco could only ever dream of living in a place like that. She knew how much it cost; the rent payments came out every month. Smart Russia was paying the rent. Smart Russia had signed the contract. Smart Russia was the tenant. It must have been set up by someone here at the bank. With her authorisation. She stared at the photos of the building on the street view map. It was five, maybe ten minutes away from where she was sitting right now. An idea started forming in her mind.

  Chapter 22

  The concierge on duty at one of Monte Carlo’s most prestigious apartment buildings was nudged out of a long boring afternoon by an attractive young black woman claiming to need access to the penthouse. To measure up, she said. For new curtains and upholstery. Nothing wrong with the old ones, he just got bored of them. That sounded about right for a Monaco millionaire. He said the concierge would let her in, she said. Well, it was the first he’d heard of it. Strange, she said. She was told the man himself wasn’t going to be there but the concierge had keys and would know about it. It would only take a few minutes. Well, there was no need anyway, the concierge said, because he’s in. He’s upstairs at the moment. Really, she said, looking surprised. He was sure, though, because the penthouse had its own lift. Only goes up to that floor. So he remembered the guy coming through, especially as he’d never seen him before. A bit of an absentee, so the others said. What a waste, having all that space up there and never being in it.

  Anyway, the concierge called up, even though she tried to stop him, saying she didn’t want to interrupt. But the guy answered straight away. No problem, he said, after a slight pause. Send her right up. So the concierge pointed her over to the lift and she seemed very unsure, but in she went. You see all sorts in this job. These millionaires are all over the place. Makes you wonder how they got so rich to start with.