Classic in the Barn (23 page)

Joking he might be, but the conversation was going in exactly the right direction. ‘That's the problem with paintings. Just like classic cars, they can be stolen to order. Have any of yours been taken?'

‘
Si
. But small ones, small time, you know. Now my paintings fetch more money, the insurance goes up, and up some more and more.' As did Giovanni's hand, managing to knock someone's glass over. When that was dealt with, he added, ‘Especially insurance this year.'

‘Why's that?'

‘More theft.'

‘Do the paintings go abroad or stay here, do you think?'

Giovanni looked mysterious. ‘Don't know. Ask Mr Burgess.'

‘Where is he?' I'd lost sight of him since my earlier spotting.

He inclined his head, and between a lot of bling and chiffon dresses I caught a glimpse of Dan, so I decided to seize the moment and go over to him. Giovanni seized another glass of champagne and stayed where he was. Celebs let people come to them; they don't do the going. I liked his style.

‘Hi, Dan.' I reached Mr Superman. He really did look like it tonight. I almost expected him to dash into the loo and come out clad in dinky boots and blue and red tights. ‘Giovanni tells me you're up to scratch with the stolen art scene,' I joked.

Dan blinked. ‘I don't think so,' he informed me cautiously.

Just my luck. A serious type. ‘Lot of art crime around now, I gather. You're an artist. Does it worry you?'

Very suspicious now. ‘Yeah. Rupert, anyway. In the art business, you get used to being offered fakes too.'

‘Interesting.' I might as well be polite.

‘No one fakes mine.' Mighty chuckle from Superman, at which I did my best to double up with mirth. I was so successful that Rupert came over to share the fun.

‘Just having a good laugh about art crime,' I told him merrily.

He gave me an odd look. ‘A most amusing subject,' he managed. ‘Except, of course, if you're the victim.'

‘Not likely to be in that position.'

‘You may be soon. Giovanni tells me you have several of his paintings.'

‘Good news,' I said heartily, wishing I'd never started this conversation. I didn't want the art crime to include Frogs Hill, and I was none too sure of Rupert. ‘
Is
Giovanni right about theft increasing again?'

‘Undoubtedly. There was the Rubens from Pulbright Hall a couple of weeks ago and a Constable.'

‘And Talbot Place in Suffolk, of course,' I threw in knowledgeably. ‘Looks like organized crime by the same operator.'

‘Could be.' Dan put his oar in too. ‘And that place in Sussex.'

‘The same outfit, I would think,' Rupert said, going on to talk about the different levels of theft. The major works would be stolen for ransom, and the next level down would be sold abroad where they're not so well known. ‘And of course,' he added, ‘there are the maverick thefts stolen sometimes merely for the thief's desire to have something beautiful in his possession. If you can't afford to buy it and are keen enough, it's one option to pinch someone else's.'

I thought of the Lagonda, I thought of a Cord Beverley, I thought of a Porsche 356, translated their value as beautiful and desirable objects into art terms, and understood what he meant.

‘Do you get approached with hot canvases?' I asked as casually as I could, but not sure where I was going with this.

The answer was quick in coming and very clipped. ‘Stolen no, fakes yes.'

By the time I'd drunk my one ritual glass of champers and another to keep it company, I decided I would leave. There was no chance of a cosy dinner with Giovanni and/or Rupert, as the latter had made it clear that Giovanni was his property that evening. I wasn't sure that Giovanni was too keen on this outcome, but business is business, and he is the first person to agree with that. I was disappointed that not much seemed to have emerged from the evening other than getting me away from the problems of Frogs Hill. Except, perhaps, that I had been able to note that Dan and Rupert seemed on very good terms.

Taxi or foot? The long walk back to the car in the evening air would be good for me, so I chose that. Giovanni offered a last ditch attempt to accompany me, but Rupert scotched it, and indeed I did too. The rate he was drinking, I didn't want him falling down in the gutter, so we made arrangements to meet in Kent. He told me Rupert was holding an art show for charity in Kent tomorrow week, and he'd promised to attend with one or two of his paintings.

‘I come to Frogs Hill and admire my pictures,' he informed me disarmingly. ‘I tell you what a fortune you hold, Jack.'

I believed him. I'd just glimpsed the price list.

I like cities at night. They come to life in an entirely different way from their daytime personas. There's something about walking along darkened streets while lights are on in the houses and buildings around you, even if they're only business lights left burning for sales and security reasons. Even the cars going past look mysterious, and when one turns off along the minor roads and alleys one has the sense of walking through centuries of history, especially in London. In the past one wouldn't have dared to walk through alleys even in the West End without risking being garrotted or stabbed. Some things never change.

To avoid walking through the Park, I headed for Admiralty Arch and then down to Charing Cross and Hungerford Bridge. By the time I reached Villiers Street, however, I was beginning to have an uneasy feeling that I wasn't alone. Of course, I wasn't speaking literally. There were plenty of folk around, but as I went up the steps to the bridge, the prickle was still there. By walking alone, one's basic animal senses have a chance to speak for themselves, and mine were beginning to awaken. One is rarely alone in London at night, and yet it's amazing how suddenly one can find oneself deserted. As it was unlikely that someone was choosing exactly the same route as I was, at exactly the same pace, to get back across the river to the car park, I came to the reluctant conclusion that I should not be musing about the history abounding in Villiers Street but about my own safety in case Slugger Sam had fancied a day in London. The hairs on the back of my neck were definitely prickling, and it was nothing to do with my crew-cut hair. The river looked peaceful enough, but halfway across the bridge I stopped and looked round. Nothing untoward. A few people were strolling in the same direction as me, and several coming the other way, but no one I recognized.

Relief was followed by a slight regret that this wasn't going to be High Noon, with my enemy marching steadily towards me in the middle of the River Thames, in order to slug it out on Hungerford Bridge. That rang a faint bell in my mind, which I couldn't place. I didn't stop to write a sonnet on the beauties of the view, however, like dear old Wordsworth on the next bridge upriver. Instead I quickened my pace to the other side. There were still late concert-goers outside the Festival Hall, and looking down on them it could have been a scene from Lowry, pinhead figures scuttling away for trains and taxis.

Lowry. Art.
Stolen
art. Now that, I thought, was something that would have suited Polly down to the ground.

And then I did a double take. I'd been asleep at the starting switch.
It worked
! It fitted. It was the answer at last. Polly's love of art, her love of adventure . . . I'd leave the ethics out for the moment. So sure I was right, I stood stock still under the bridge. This was a different scene altogether, like walking into a dark El Greco, and I quickly moved on. Here one could all too easily have a rendezvous with a gun or destiny.

The bell rang in my mind again and this time sharply. Even I couldn't miss it.

My dream. The Formula 1 front line rushing towards me at Brand's Hatch. The people in the stands had not been waving but warning me. You're on the wrong track, they'd been yelling. And so I had been. The
Lagonda
. I'd been following will o' the wisp stories about buried cash and laundering money in the Lagonda. But those spaces in the car, the one behind the rear seat and even the one above the petrol tank. Not used for money. Used, surely, oh surely, for
canvases
.

And that was when it hit me. For real. From behind.

I hadn't been wrong. Someone had been following me. Someone had it in for me. It was not a cosh this time; it was an arm round my neck about to strangle me. Luckily, I was on firm ground here thanks to my oil days. A back kick, a thrust forward and a twist, and it was the other chap lying on firm ground. I hadn't laid him out though, and there'd be no ripping off the mask to reveal who it was. He was up immediately and had me again in his grip, but again I manoeuvred my way out. This time he made off, as some brave folk were coming to my aid. Panting and coughing, I supported myself by the car-park fence, while solicitous people murmured about muggers and gangs and ringing the police. No gang, this. Too much of a coincidence. My attacker had been Dan Burgess's height, but not his build. Not Slugger Sam's either. Nor Rupert Stack's – though I played with the idea. I wasn't sure about him.

Art, I said to myself as I sat in the car, wondering whether I felt as good as I'd assured my rescuers I did. Art, and Polly. Of course. But where did I go from here? And how hard would someone try to stop me next time?

NINETEEN

I didn't waste time dreaming that night. I had to make progress, and quick. I slept like the log my attacker had done his best to make me into and arose on Saturday morning knowing just where I was going and what I was after. There was only a week to go before Rupert's art show on the thirteenth, and that seemed an unmissable opportunity to check out my new lead on Polly's death – tentative lead, I reminded myself, but it hadn't escaped me that wherever I turned I eventually came back to Rupert Stack. Stolen art? He had a golden alibi for the time of Polly's death. I had brooded over this on my way home last evening, but I was forced to concede that there was no way he could have hosted that meeting on Tuesday morning and been down in Kent shooting Polly an hour later. Theoretically possible, but the authorities aren't keen on private jets taking off from Piccadilly.

A thousand questions popped up. Was Polly still involved in the business when she died? If, that is, she ever was. Once again I seemed to be jumping so speedily from one leaf to another that Frogs Hill could have been named after me.

Could that pocket at the rear of the Lagonda really have held masterpieces of art? Again, theoretically possible, and if Polly were involved it would be much more likely than its having been used for money laundering.

First port of call was the Lagonda. Cursing the time it took to negotiate all my new security measures, I opened the barn doors and found her safely inside gazing out at me with those mournfully inadequate eyes. No doubt about it, this lady deserved something classier than laundered money inside her. Nevertheless, she looked as if butter wouldn't melt in her engine, let alone have canvases illicitly behind her rear seat and on top of her petrol tank.

Seeing the Lagonda there steadied me for some reason. Fantasy began to dissolve and a more chilling picture arose. The more I looked at that so innocent-looking seat, the more I could picture Polly and Mike's lives – and perhaps deaths – as they had really been. Polly, lacking adventure after her former high profile job, and Mike, game for risk at any cost, could well have been smuggling stolen canvasses or drawings across the Channel. Their frequent trips to continental car shows would hide the rare trips on less innocent pleasures, although visits to receivers could also have coincided with the shows. The game, as they saw it, would have extra spice as they faked the photos for that make-believe album to prove their presence at these innocuous events. If this were not just a scenario but fact, would it make me think the less of Polly? My bones were telling me that it was indeed fact. That made me all the more frustrated because, having been deprived of Mike, she had been killed when her love of life might, just might, be returning.

But there lay the nub of it. Did she die because she was still playing Mrs Art Thief, or was it because of what she might have discovered about Mike's death? I remembered yet again that look she had given the car when I had first met her. Of course she had loved that Lagonda. Of course she didn't want to get rid of it; for her it conjured up her whole marriage to Mike and all they had been through together. She would still keep it registered in order not to draw attention to a sudden disappearance, but she removed the number plates and logbooks from the car itself in case of unwelcome visitors. Such as me. That made me gulp, and it took a moment or two to see the Lagonda clearly again. There seemed to be some kind of mist over my eyes.

Forward, I told myself. I played with the notion that there might be or had been a Leonardo or Van Gogh hidden in Polly's barn, and that, not a pile of banknotes, was what the rumours of missing money were all about. Money would tie with an art racket, of course – all too well. The downside was that in that case Polly must have known about it. I couldn't wait to get to Greensand Farm and back to the barn.

I gave the Lagonda a last loving pat. No doubt DI Brandon's forensic lab could find proof of presence of canvas or paint in the car, but even without that I was increasingly sure of what it had been used for. Next stage, if she and Mike were the brains behind the thefts, there must still have been – and still be – others involved. After all, Mike was undoubtedly a car dealer, and Polly lived in Kent, not London. Neither of them could physically have shimmied through windows at dead of night to carry out the actual thefts. It was possible, therefore, that they'd conducted the whole operation from Greensand Farm, although unlikely. Polly might still have been running it, but I was inclined to think not. I couldn't see her dealing in getaway cars and the likes of Mason Trent. And the last question, and perhaps the most important: did Bea know anything about her mother's involvement? I couldn't believe she did.