The Colours: A spy thriller packed with intrigue and deception

by T. M. Parris

  “I didn’t know about it,” said Pippin. “Henri and I didn’t stay together inside the Freeport. He disappeared somewhere. He must have taken it then. I didn’t see what he had. It was packaged.”

  “You think I’m STUPID?” Gustave’s shout bounced off the walls. Mme Boucher would have heard that, even if she wasn’t listening. “Henri’s dead, if you haven’t forgotten! He never made it out of the warehouse! So how does a priceless portrait, which it turns out we stole, end up disappearing into thin air?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Pippin.

  “Christ’s sake, you moron, it’s not in the van! I checked as soon as they released the list. No sign of any Van Gogh! You took it.” He pointed a long finger at Pippin’s face. “You did. You went off with Henri in the Freeport. I could tell you were up to something. Then it disappears and you don’t show up at the rendezvous. Did you think they weren’t going to publish the list? Well, they did. So now I know what a double-crossing little shit you are. You used all of us!”

  Pippin should stay calm. Pippin tried his best.

  “Clem must have taken it.”

  “Clem? How would he even know it was there?”

  “He must have been in on it with Henri. They planned it together and after you shot Henri he thought he’d take it all for himself.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Clem?” Gustave snorted.

  “Or you,” said Pippin blandly. “You could have gone through the haul and found it in there, taken it for yourself.”

  Gustave’s face moved from astonishment to contempt. “Why would I come here looking for you, if I had it already?”

  “You shouldn’t have come looking for me. Mme Boucher reads the news. She could recognise your face. She could be phoning the police right now, sending them your way.”

  Gustave flicked his head dismissively. “So why are you here? Why did you come back here but not show up at the rendezvous?”

  “I’m out. I don’t want anything more do to with this.” Somehow his voice remained steady. “You and Clem are welcome to what’s in that van. I never wanted to do this in the first place, remember? You threatened to sell me to the authorities if I didn’t. Now you’ve got your stash and made your statement, you and Clem can do what you like with it. I’m out.”

  “You think it’s that easy? That you can just walk away? We’re all part of this whether you like it or not. You’re just as guilty as the two of us.”

  “But my face isn’t all over the news,” said Pippin. “I thought ahead. I changed my appearance. I did a proper job of it. They can’t link me to it.”

  “Rubbish. They know there’s a third person, and they know you’re a thief. Even the police will work that out.”

  “Who says I’m a thief?” asked Pippin.

  And it was only then that Gustave looked around. He stood up and turned a full circle. The walls were all bare except behind his chair, where a large lurid oil painting hung in a simple frame.

  “I don’t steal anything,” said Pippin. “People give me things, sometimes. Like a Beaux-Arts trained painter with a liking for symbolism.”

  Gustave’s painting had, by some symmetry, exactly fitted the frame vacated by the Swedish Impressionist work Clem sold to finance Henri’s cooperation. Gustave stared at it for a moment. Who knew what was going through his head? Who cared?

  “Besides,” said Pippin, “you can inform on people anonymously. A lead to you would be valuable regardless of its source.”

  “You got rid of all your stuff?” Gustave seemed almost impressed. That annoyed Pippin.

  “Because I had to. Because of you. Because your stupid, ill-conceived, clumsy mess of a heist got us all dirty! I was fine before. I did things my own way. Now I’ll have to start again somewhere else. And you won’t leave me alone! You and Clem, you could have gone together, but you had to come back for me!”

  “Of course I did!” said Gustave. “You disappeared with the most valuable piece of the lot. More than the rest put together!”

  “I thought money didn’t matter. I thought that was all bourgeois exploitation.”

  “And it is! But that’s what makes it so powerful! A bunch of nobodies steals the most valuable painting in the world? It’s amazing! It’s heaven-sent! Or would be, if you joined us. Imagine the message we could send to the establishment with a coup like that.”

  “You’re asking me?” Pippin couldn’t quite believe it. “You’re asking me to come back? You tried to kill me! You fired a gun at me! Why on earth would I want to have anything to do with you? Besides, I don’t have it. You should be saying all of this to Clem.”

  That set Gustave on a different train of thought.

  “Where is it? Where did you hide it?”

  “I told you, I don’t have it!”

  But Gustave was scanning the room again.

  “It’s in here, isn’t it? I think you’ve done with the Van Gogh what you did with yourself. It’s hiding in plain sight.”

  His eyes travelled round the bare walls. He stepped forward, lifted his own painting off the wall and turned it. Nothing was attached to the back of the canvas, nothing was on the wall.

  “Would have been a nice bit of symbolism,” muttered Gustave, “but no.”

  He opened the cupboard, pulled out drawers and flung their contents on the floor. The drawer in the wash stand yielded nothing either. He turned and considered Pippin, still lying on the bed, then his gaze travelled down. He dropped to the floor and scrabbled under the bed.

  “I told you,” said Pippin. “I don’t have it.”

  Gustave resurfaced empty-handed. He stood and stared down at Pippin.

  “Are you satisfied now?” said Pippin. “I’m worth nothing to you. I just want a quiet life. We can go our separate ways. I’ll say nothing if you just walk away. Keep the loot. It’s yours.”

  Gustave’s next move, a hand inside his jacket then out again, proved that Pippin had been wrong earlier.

  He did have his gun, after all.

  Chapter 28

  It was several years since Fairchild last visited the quaint and unworldly antique shop in Nice run by Max, a sometime arranger of dubious sales of artistic objects, and former thief himself. Max smiled warmly when Fairchild entered the cluttered little shop. They shook hands, old friends.

  “So how have you been, stranger?” asked Max. “I thought perhaps one of your tricky situations had been a little too tricky.”

  “So far, so good,” said Fairchild.

  Max gave him a searching look. “Your enquiry? Anything new come to light?”

  Max was one of Fairchild’s network, one of the people Fairchild had shared his story with. Max had agreed to help if he ever heard anything about the mystery of Fairchild’s parents. In return, Fairchild had done Max a few favours over the years. Max was a solid guy, trustworthy amongst thieves. More trustworthy, for sure, than some of the people whose job was to go after the thieves. Fairchild updated Max on what he now knew of the fate of his parents, and the even bigger issue to emerge, his discovery that their killer was still alive.

  “He’s thought to be the owner of Portrait of Theo,” he said.

  Max’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Well, he won’t be very happy at the moment, then. Unless it’s insured of course. In which case why would he mind that it’s been stolen by a troupe of chancers who have no hope of selling it? He has his money. That’s all it was to him.”

  “It’s unlikely to be insured for five hundred million dollars,” said Fairchild. “That’s a speculative price, probably a one-off. And besides, this fellow takes things personally. He has some grudge against me, so it seems, for what my parents did before I was even born. I can’t imagine him being satisfied with an insurance pay-out when what’s probably his biggest investment has been swiped by a bunch of amateurs. I imagine he’ll go after them.”

  “A lot of people will go after them,” said Max. “It shows what fools they are. The hotter the property, the more difficult it i
s to fence, the bigger the gap between its supposed value and what you’ll actually get. Stealing and selling art is a very poor investment strategy, my friend. I know. I did it myself for many years.”

  “So you’ve become legitimate?”

  “You buy, you sell, you make a little money each time. It’s a living. There’s a lot to be said for that. No ladders in the middle of the night, no masks, no panic every time you hear a police siren. I’m an ordinary citizen now. I recommend it.”

  Fairchild could see the attraction. But his life didn’t seem to work out that way.

  “Surely the police still consider you a person of interest in a number of significant heists?”

  “They gave up on finding enough evidence long ago. We have stalemate now. They won’t lay those things on me. In the meantime, I spent years learning the hard way that art theft doesn’t pay. So now the authorities and me, we muddle along, on speaking terms mainly.”

  “These Freeport raiders still have this lesson to learn, it seems.”

  Max gave him a knowing look. “You have some active interest in the matter too?”

  “You mean, apart from the fact that their most valuable trophy was owned by the man who killed my parents? You’re right, Max, as ever. It turns out that they swiped something that belongs to me while they were stumbling about in there. It’s not worth a lot, but I want it back.”

  “Well. You will have some competition to get to them first.”

  The bell dinged and a young couple came into the shop and browsed for a while. Fairchild and Max chatted about politics, mutual acquaintances and wine until the couple left empty-handed.

  “So, what do you know, Max?” asked Fairchild. “With your credentials in the black market, I’m sure you would’ve heard something.”

  Max shook his head. “I’ve made it clear for many years now that stolen goods aren’t my area. Full provenance is what I need. Then maybe I can help. I know one or two collectors after all.”

  “So you have no idea about any of the people who were involved?”

  Max looked wistful. “People don’t come to me asking for advice, you know. Besides, if they did, I would advise them not to do it. Now if I had to put money on it—”

  The bell dinged again. It was late morning now, and the tourists were starting to appear in the streets, meandering after long late holiday breakfasts. It was a while before the conversation could continue. Max even made a sale. Eventually they were alone again.

  “So tell me, Max,” said Fairchild. “Who would your money be on? I have great respect for your financial decisions.”

  “You’ve seen the photos that have been circulated. One of them looks familiar to me. And it fits, the element of theatre about the whole escapade. An artist called Gustave Fournier has been hanging around here a lot. Likes to sound off about the commercialisation of the art world.”

  “Well, he has a point. But why would that make him want to rob a Freeport? He’s proving that he’s just as financially driven as anyone else, isn’t he?”

  “He’d do it as some kind of statement. Or that’s what he’d say. The word is that in Paris he was involved with some group of left-wing extremists. Anarchists, basically. Blow up the establishment, that kind of thing.”

  “What’s he doing down here?”

  Max shrugged. “Maybe Paris got a little hot. I get the impression he was trying to create a similar cell here, but with a focus on the art world. He was wasting his time with me, of course. None of this is new, though. The police must surely have him in their sights already.”

  “Okay,” said Fairchild. He paused. Max must have some reason to mention Fournier above and beyond all that.

  “Not long ago,” Max said, “Gustave was hanging around in here and a guy came in. Very unassuming, didn’t say a lot. Had something to shift.”

  Max paused. He was milking Fairchild’s interest, as he liked to do.

  “What was it?” Fairchild asked.

  “It was a Chinese bronze vessel dating from the twelfth century BC.”

  “That’s very precise. Wouldn’t you need more time to verify that?”

  “Not in this case. I recognised it. It was stolen from a museum in Rouen a few years ago. It never resurfaced. Not amongst any of my people. No approaches of any kind. And some nobody walks in here trying to get a few Euros for it. Intriguing.”

  “So did he get a few Euros for it?”

  “Not from me. I told you, dealing in stolen artwork is a bad idea. But what he did get was a lot of interest from Gustave. In fact, when this boy made a sharp exit, Gustave went after him.”

  “And then what?”

  “No idea.”

  “Gustave knew the vessel was stolen?”

  “I may have mentioned that to him, yes.”

  “So Gustave was interested in an art thief?”

  “Well, however that boy got his hands on it, it wasn’t legitimate. That was Gustave’s interest.”

  “This guy, did he give a name or say anything about himself?”

  “No. He was a careful person. Very careful.” Max’s eyes rested on Fairchild.

  “Description?”

  “Young-looking, thin. Glasses. Small. Nothing noticeable. The opposite of Gustave, who can’t blow his nose without making a speech.”

  “You think this man is involved?”

  Max paused. “I think there’s more to him than on the surface. I think he’s interesting. That’s all.”

  “It couldn’t have been the one who got shot?”

  “Oh no, it wasn’t him. There were photos of the man who was killed. If this boy was involved he’s still out there. But like I said,” finished Max, as more customers came in, “a lot of people will be interested in these thieves. It wouldn’t surprise me if they all ended up getting shot.”

  They shook hands. Before Fairchild was even out of the door, more customers had come in and Max was in a conversation about some trinket or other. A legitimate businessman doing a legitimate job, having left the murky waters behind him. Fairchild walked out into the sunshine and crowds, suddenly envious of his old friend.

  Chapter 29

  Zoe was doing a lot of thinking. In particular, she was considering Anna’s comments about right and wrong. She decided to finally accept an invitation to lunch from Laurence in their legal team. He’d been trying it on for weeks.

  “So what do you think?” she asked him in a playful tone, as they sat on the terrace of an Italian restaurant in front of dessert. “If something is legal, does that make it right?”

  “Ha! Not necessarily,” said Laurence, who, all the women in the bank knew, was handsome, attentive and married. “You’ve got criminal law, which governments make, and those laws are to promote a decent society where people don’t go round stealing and murdering. So, you could say, breaking criminal law is generally wrong. But, some defendants might argue it isn’t a good law, or they had mitigating circumstances.”

  “But not all law is criminal, is it?”

  “No, you have civil law, where cases are brought by individuals who feel wronged by someone. And maybe there’s compensation, but no prison. That’s there if you choose to use it, but of course a lot of the time it’s not used, even when it could be. Otherwise people like me would be very busy!”

  “So why is it used sometimes and not at other times?”

  “Well, okay. So, today, I invited you for lunch. What if after our meal I decide to run off and leave you to pay the bill? That wouldn’t be very nice, would it? Would you think of taking me to court?”

  “Of course not! I’d come back to the office and get the money out of you!”

  “Precisely. You have no need to involve lawyers because you can right the wrong yourself. But also, you would have trouble making a case as I could deny that I invited you to lunch at all, or I could claim that you invited me. Also, the costs of hiring lawyers and the time involved are simply not worth it for the price of a meal. A judge might decide it was too trivial to be
heard. Also, your reputation. It might be embarrassing, no, to expose to the world that you were abandoned like that? And maybe, you would look a fool for being vindictive enough to pursue it in that way. So, better just to let it go.”

  “So it’s not always worth it, even if someone did break an agreement they had with you.”

  “That’s right. Even when the stakes are much higher it isn’t always a good idea. There was one case, right here in Monaco. A Russian oligarch decided to buy some pieces of fine art. Spent a lot of money on some very expensive paintings. He had a dealer, a Swiss guy with good contacts, looking out for things and buying the pieces on his behalf. The dealer was making a commission on everything. But he was also selling the painting to the oligarch for much more than he was buying them. Remember the Leonardo they discovered a few years ago?”

  “I remember something about it.”

  “The dealer bought it for eighty million dollars and sold it to the oligarch for a hundred and twenty seven million.”

  “What? Wow! That’s like almost fifty million dollars in profit. That Russian must have been furious.”

  “He was, when he found out. The dealer kept doing this again and again. Eventually they think he made a billion dollars in profit from the oligarch.”

  “No! Unbelievable.”

  “Really. So, of course, the oligarch should take him to court, right?”

  “Yes, of course! For that kind of money.”

  “Well – he did. He filed civil suits in several different countries and in Monaco he also reported it to the police and invited the dealer here on some pretext. The dealer was arrested for fraud and there was a criminal investigation.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Well, of course all of this is out in the open now, so the business affairs of these two gentlemen are on display. And evidence came forward that the oligarch had become very friendly with some of the political elite in Monaco, and also some senior police officers. Lots of gifts, social gatherings, and so on. In the end his case was thrown out and he was arrested himself for corruption.”