The Colours: A spy thriller packed with intrigue and deception

by T. M. Parris

  Clem untied him long enough to drink from a water bottle, then secured his wrists again and slammed the door shut. The van rocked as Clem climbed into the front, but there was no more movement all night. Pippin shivered in the back and was woken by the heat when the sun came up and warmed the sides of the van. Hour after hour, hotter and hotter. Clem moved about, out of the front seat and in again, talking on the phone. Out again, the door slammed, footsteps led away. Then back again and the van door opened. Clem had a baguette and a bottle of water. He untied Pippin and stood watching as Pippin ate and drank. He let Pippin out for a toilet break. Pippin saw a flat beach, wind-battered flags, rough grassland.

  “Come, sit,” said Clem when Pippin had finished. He was sitting on the back of the van. Pippin joined him. They stared out at the featureless sea, ivory with a tint of blue under a blanched sky.

  “I need that painting,” said Clem. “People want it, people from my world. You don’t say no to these people. They’re serious people. Powerful. Lots of friends around here. You tell me where it is, they take it, we’re finished. You go your way, I go mine. Don’t lie to me, Pippin. You already told me you know where it is.”

  A long silence. When would this end, this chasing of money? What did these serious people want with a Van Gogh? Would they appreciate the brushwork, admire the energy, gaze at the colours, reflect on its influence? It was just money to them, nothing else, a prize, a trophy.

  Pippin was broken. Pippin had little left to give. Pippin would not be rescued. Pippin had nobody. This should be over already. But he couldn’t give it up. Not yet.

  “I thought we were doing a deal,” he said. “You shift it, we split the prize fifty-fifty. It seems fair to me. We need each other.”

  Clem shifted his weight. The van creaked.

  “You need to understand these friends of mine. They’re Russians, you see. To them, the painting is theirs. They want it back. They know you have it. They won’t bargain. I can’t let you go until you tell me. So it’s a new deal now. The painting for your freedom. That’s the only offer.”

  He folded his arms and stared out to sea. He wasn’t a man who was afraid of silence.

  Pippin persisted.

  “You never mentioned these friends before. I thought you were just in it for the money.”

  “None of us were in it for the money. Except maybe Henri. Gustave wanted to burn all of it. I had my orders from the Russians. They heard about a plan to rob the Freeport and wanted me to be part of it. And you… well, you’re not really a thief at all, are you, Pippin?”

  Pippin stopped breathing. Clem continued in his low grainy voice.

  “I know about that. So do the Russians. They know who you met in Arles, and why.”

  Pippin could hear no sound except a faint rustling of the wind.

  “How do they know?” he asked.

  Clem shrugged. “These Russians have many friends. People who tell them things.”

  “But no one knew about that!”

  “Someone must have. In Arles, you didn’t tell your contact about the painting, or where it was. And then you returned to Nice, to your room, where Gustave could so easily find you. You make life difficult for yourself, Pippin. Time to make things easier. Tell me where you put it. Then this can come to an end.”

  Pippin wanted it to end. But still, he wasn’t sure he could let it go.

  “If all you wanted was the painting,” he said, “you should have taken it that first night. You could have driven off in the van with everything. But instead you carried on with Gustave.”

  “The painting isn’t the only thing they want. They want the man who bought it, too. They came looking for the portrait. I brought them to the van. But you’d already taken it by then. Left the empty frame behind. I knew it was you. But robbing the Freeport wasn’t your idea. It was Gustave’s. Where did that idea come from?”

  “They thought Gustave was working with someone? The owner of the painting? Why would he get his own painting stolen?”

  “To hide it from Russia,” said Clem simply.

  “And you? Do you think Gustave was secretly working for someone?”

  Clem gave a humourless smile. “Gustave was full of noise. He had no contacts in Marseille, maybe not even in Paris. When I realised that, I shot him.” He said it flat, with no emotion. “We should never have bothered with him. We should have come straight to you. Maybe you’re working for this guy they call Khovansky. That’s what they think now. That you’ve given the painting to him.”

  “I haven’t given it to anyone,” said Pippin. “I’ve hidden it.”

  It was enough, now, he thought. He could give it up now, finally walk away.

  “Where?” Clem’s rasping voice dropped to a new low.

  “I took it home.”

  “Home?”

  “Back to where it came from. Where it belongs.”

  Clem looked blank.

  “It’s in Arles. In the hospital. Where Van Gogh stayed, after he… in an upstairs room.”

  “You give me the exact name,” said Clem. “The exact location. They will send someone. When they find it – I let you go.”

  “You promise?” Pippin heard his voice break.

  Clem heard it too. He nodded. “I promise.”

  Pippin told him what he wanted to know. Clem locked Pippin back in the van and made a phone call. Then nothing. More nothing. The sun went down. It got cold. Another long night shivering in that van. What did it mean? Pippin thought he knew what it meant. The painting wasn’t there any more.

  No more visits from Clem. The next morning the engine started and they set off. Another unbearably long journey. It was always Clem they should have looked out for. Gustave was just noise, wind in the trees, a storm passing overhead. Clem was the tide behind the waves, the bricks that made up the wall, the rock on which they built their mad little scheme. Clem was often silent but always had a plan, had his orders right from the start.

  Hours went by of long flat driving. Then a change. Uphill, round bends, winding up and up. Third gear, second gear. A slowing down. The crunch of an unmade road. Then a stop. Voices, Clem and an intercom. A pause, a jerk back into movement but slower. A sweep around, almost a full circle, then they came to a halt. Clem got out and opened the back. He untied Pippin and flung the doors wide, stepping back to get a cigarette out. He lit it and took a drag, looking up at the sky.

  Pippin rubbed his wrists and ankles. He shuffled to put his feet on the ground and almost fell as he tried to stand. He took a few steps forward and felt dizzy. He looked around. It was daylight, afternoon maybe. They were on a wide driveway in front of a flight of steps. At the top, a row of white columns and in the middle a heavy wooden door. Green gardens were laid out all around, manicured lawns, topiaried bushes, ornamental trees in terracotta pots. The building stretched away, white and rectangular, large windows framed with climbing plants, their flowers saffron and plum. Behind the house the ground dropped away and the sea rose to an ultramarine horizon.

  Clem was still watching him.

  “There’s no point in running,” he said. “The grounds are fully secured and guards are patrolling everywhere. You can’t get away.”

  Pippin nodded. He wasn’t sure he could run anyway.

  “Your place?” He wanted to see if Clem would smile.

  Clem didn’t. “Belongs to some friends.”

  At that moment the door opened. Two men walked out and stood at the top of the steps. Big, well-built men, tattoos on their arms, hair short like Clem’s.

  “Good friends?” asked Pippin, his mouth dry.

  “Russian friends.”

  They all stared at each other.

  “Don’t make this messy,” said Clem. “The painting isn’t where you said it was. They checked.”

  He looked around. “This place we’re in, it belonged to the guy who stole the painting. Khovansky. They got the house back, and now they want the painting, and they want him. It’s a very nice house. Very ex
clusive. Very private. Nobody comes here.” He stared at Pippin. “No more lies, Pippin. They will get you to talk. Look after yourself. I give you this advice.”

  Clem’s face was dark as he stepped back. The two Russians came down the steps and took Pippin by the arms.

  Chapter 51

  They were speeding back towards Marseille. It was a plush car, of course. Leather seats, tinted windows, the works. Rose wouldn’t have expected anything else from Grom. The man sitting next to her was ruthless in the pursuit of his own ends. He had a generous sense of his own worth.

  “Go on, then,” said the man she’d spent the last six months trying to bankrupt. “Ask me how I came to be on your tail. I know you want to know.”

  Rose wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “You’re the kind of person who needs to be congratulated, are you? Told how clever you are?”

  “I can smell MI6 a mile off.” It sounded like he was going to tell her anyway. “I saw your people in Monaco, hanging around my flat. Had you followed to your place in Nice.”

  That didn’t tally. Ollie and Yvonne were good at what they did. So was she. And it didn’t explain why the moped rider was already following her in Nice just after they arrived.

  “When I heard you were involved I wasn’t surprised,” he was saying. “I guessed they might have got you involved. That’s how they work. If someone has an ‘in’, they’re persuaded to make best use of it. You have an ‘in’ with me, they reasoned. Probably that slimy tart Walter. Ergo, I’m your responsibility. You’re so blindly ambitious you ignored how warped that really was and took the role anyway.”

  Rose had multiple reasons to be afraid of this man. But no way was she going to let it show.

  “An ‘in’? Is that what you call it when someone tries to kill you?”

  He feigned surprise. “You mean Georgia? I didn’t try to kill you. I put you in a situation where you might easily have died. It was immaterial to me whether you actually did or not. You’re unimportant. You know that really. That’s why you’re so keen to develop your career. It helps you make you think you’re somebody. But actually you’re nobody. Ordinary. Boring Surrey stock. Middle-class nothing.”

  “Whereas you are terribly important, I can tell. You’ve spent your life trying to prove it by messing up other people. As long as you’re doing something exceptional it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. The suffering of others, even complete innocents, is irrelevant, if it demonstrates your greatness.”

  He seemed to find that funny. “It really cut you up, didn’t it, your Georgian experience? Crammed into that fortress with the shells raining down day and night. Plenty of innocents suffering there. Of course you blame me for it all.”

  “You set me up. You tricked me into going there. For some feud that had nothing to do with me. Some baseless grudge against John Fairchild. I was just an instrument.”

  “You’re welcome to blame me if you want. You were stupid enough to go there, and ignore all the obvious signs that it was a trap. And your idiotic boss Craven.”

  That rankled. Her Moscow boss Peter Craven was a good all-round guy, but he had to return to the UK after being shot by one of Grom’s thugs.

  “I didn’t prompt Russia to invade Georgia,” Grom continued. “That was the Kremlin. I don’t make people what they are. Greedy, cruel, insecure, bitter. I see all that and I make something of it. You do the same. We were both trained by the same organisation, after all.”

  “I’m not like you. I do this for a purpose.”

  “Ah, the ends justify the means! That’s important to you, isn’t it? National security. Saving lives. It makes you sleep better at night about the things you make people do.”

  “I don’t suppose sleeping at night has ever been a problem for you.”

  “No, it hasn’t.”

  “So where are we going?”

  He ignored the question. “I’d like to see it, please. My painting.”

  She gave him a blank look.

  “Oh, come now, Rose. You came to Arles to pick up the painting. Why else would you come all the way out here when the rest of your unit is off trying to cover fourteen positions at once? You made some arrangement with one of those thieves, you picked it up, and it’s in your bag. And I want it.”

  He held his hand out. Rose hesitated, then got it out and passed it to him. He unrolled it on his lap. A thin piece of paper had been placed on the surface of the paintwork to protect it. Inside was a tube keeping the whole thing rigid. It was, given everything, reasonably well protected although a professional art courier would probably have been horrified.

  Grom removed the paper and examined the painting, a thoughtful expression on his face. Rose looked across, curious at this object they’d all been chasing for so long. She’d always only seen great masters framed and on the walls in art galleries. This little piece of canvas seemed inconsequential presented like this. Unbelievable what it was worth.

  “Amazing,” said Grom, echoing her thoughts. “I mean, it served a purpose. I needed to offload money. Silly, silly money but I shifted it. That’s what art is good for, all a big conceit but useful. I can’t see much merit in the piece itself. Some nutcase failure of an artist who happens to have caught on in recent years paints a fond portrait of his doting over-indulgent brother, and the world swoons. I suppose you love the thing.”

  That last was directed at Rose.

  “I know what it’s worth to you,” she said. “It’s pretty much the only thing you’ve got left. They’ve taken everything else. Lose that as well, and you’re a debtor. It doesn’t sound all that clever to me.”

  Grom’s face seemed to set. So that was what Grom looked like when he was angry. Perhaps she should have a greater sense of self-preservation but she didn’t have much to lose. He could kill her any time if he chose to.

  “So what’s your plan now?” she asked. “Why do you need me? You’ve got the painting. This isn’t about Fairchild again, is it? You may be disappointed there. I sent him away, you see. He’s probably long gone by now. So whatever you do to me would achieve nothing except satisfy your own sadistic urges. Again.”

  Grom was still looking at the painting. His hand hovered over it and traced the direction of the brush strokes. Maybe he was more appreciative of this masterpiece than he was letting on. He gave Rose a dismissive glance.

  “You may have some value to someone. We’ll find out, I expect.”

  They’d skirted Marseille and were still going east, towards Nice, but on the coast road now. There was no point sitting there in silence. She may as well find out what she could.

  “You’ll be wanting to get out of the country now, I guess.”

  “That’s your interrogation technique, is it?”

  Lightly said, but heavy on the irony. She tried another tack.

  “Okay, how about this for a question? Why did you betray your country? What had Britain ever done to hurt you? Where did that even come from?”

  He looked up, less dismissively now. “You have a lot of faith, don’t you, in good old Blighty. How far back do you remember? Oh, you probably weren’t even born. You don’t know about standards of living in the fifties, the sixties, the seventies. It wasn’t great, let me tell you. America had it all but good old GB was neither one thing nor the other. Didn’t want socialism but didn’t much like capitalism either. There was a lot of propaganda about the USSR. Sure there was censorship, but let’s be honest, how important is freedom of speech? Most ordinary people have nothing of interest to say anyway. In the Eastern Bloc, if you kept out of trouble you could enjoy a good education, a good healthcare service, a guaranteed job. Was that so bad? You could travel as well, to anywhere on that side, which was a lot of countries back then. Countries people in the West were embarrassingly ignorant of. Still are. All dog food and gulags, that was the image everyone had. Our home country, Rose, has always had a blind faith in its own rightness, perpetuated by a narrow gene pool of public schoolboys who had no idea what life was
really like in an inner city high rise, in slum housing or some grim town with no economy. It was all self-preservation really.”

  They were gradually ascending a switchback road, each turn revealing stunning views of the coastline, towns perched on green hillsides, beaches nestled within sweeping bays.

  “Baloney,” said Rose. “You’re not interested in the ordinary man. You have no principles whatsoever. This was personal. Something pissed you off. You just don’t want to say what it was. Maybe you don’t even know. Or maybe it was nothing. You wanted to feel important, have an influence, sing to the world, only you had no tune. Maybe that was all there was to it. Then after you started, you perpetuated it by continuing with some grudge in an attempt to give your life meaning. Fairchild’s parents – why go after them ten years later? And why target their son? He had nothing to do with any of it. You were looking for a fight. What’s that line from Macbeth? ‘Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’”

  “Got a lot to say, haven’t you?”

  “What’s that, an old-fashioned view of women? We should shut up, should we? I was rather thinking you’d gone a bit quiet yourself. Maybe there are some things you don’t want to talk about.”

  She was playing with fire, baiting the guy. But he might give something of himself away. A pause, then:

  “John Fairchild. You like to hold him at arm’s length but you owe him a lot, actually. You’d have lost your job if it weren’t for him. What would you be now? A bank clerk? An insurance saleswoman? But no, he saved you from all that and became your way back in. Then your peripheral involvement in all of this gets you some big promotion. One you don’t deserve, that’s pretty obvious. Yes, you’ve done well out of John Fairchild. But you won’t be honest about it. That’s the modern woman, isn’t it? Just as dependent on men as you ever were, but you won’t admit it any more. You sent him away? Nonsense. The idea that someone like you could send someone like him away! As if he’s on a leash.”