Fakes and Lies

by Jane A. Adams

  Bee laughed at him, recognizing what it was he saw. ‘I love this place,’ she said. ‘I’m dreading having to clear it out.’

  ‘Bob and I will help you, we told you that.’

  ‘I know, and I’m grateful. I suppose I just keep putting it off. Somehow it’s like getting rid of Freddie if I get rid of all the stuff in this place but I don’t have any option. My little flat is far too small to fit any of this stuff in and Freddie’s house is much too far from anything for me to want to live there, so that’s got to go too. I’ve got that to clear out and put up for sale as well.’

  She bit her lip anxiously and Patrick took a closer look at the stacks of paper, canvases and panels propped against the wall, drawers filled with inks and pens and paints and jars of brushes set on the side. ‘I think he might have been a bit of a hoarder,’ he said cautiously.

  She laughed. ‘Just a bit. The thing is I don’t know what to keep, I don’t know enough about what he was doing. I’m not an artist and though I loved his work, to be honest I’m a bit more like my mum. She always wanted me to study medicine, like she had.’

  That, Patrick owned, was his idea of hell, but he understood that everyone was different. He opened another drawer and began to rummage inside. This one seemed to be full of photo references, colour swatches and pebbles. He took out a stone and held it out to Bee. ‘He’s got enough in there to start a small rockery. What were they for?’

  She took it from him, weighing it in her palm. ‘He just liked to pick up stones,’ she said. ‘Wherever we went, he’d come back with a pebble. Mum said he used to do it when she was with him, drove her mad. He used to pile them up in a big bowl and when the bowl got full he tipped them out into the garden. He was like a kid in some ways.’

  Patrick nodded, thinking of his own collection of small pebbles, something he’d been doing since he was a kid. He had thought about it just as an artist thing, but Naomi did the same. Though she chose them for the way they felt and Patrick for the way they looked. ‘We’d best get on and find what we came for,’ he said. ‘I’ve a feeling it might take us a while.’

  She nodded. ‘I think most of it’s in those drawers over there. There’s another portfolio and that has the sketches in for a Madonna.’ She frowned suddenly.

  ‘What is it?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘Did you knock those letters on to the floor?’

  Patrick looked where she indicated. A half dozen letters lay on the floor near the layout table. ‘No, I’ve not been around that side.’

  ‘No, you’ve not, have you? Maybe Danny came up for something and knocked them over. I forgot to take them with me last time I was here.’

  She picked them up and flicked through the envelopes quickly before laying them back on the table. ‘They look like bills and junk mail. I’ll have a squint at them and then give the bills to the solicitor. Thankfully Freddie made his solicitor his executor so I don’t have to sort out all the financial stuff. I wouldn’t know where to start. It was bad enough after Mum died, and she’d done most of it for me.’

  Patrick stared at the letters for a moment, wondering if she was right and Danny had knocked them off the table. If not, then someone else had been here. Bee had told him about the night she was here when she thought she’d heard a noise downstairs. She’d brushed it off, but now that nag was back in Patrick’s brain and he wondered again about the blue car that had seemed to follow them.

  ‘Are there any windows here? I mean that we can actually look out of?’

  ‘Um, yeah, in the ground floor office. They face out towards the front, not where we came in. The door should be undone.’ Then she frowned. ‘Why, you worried about something? You’ve been a bit odd since we got here. You thinking about that car again? It was probably just coincidence, you know. Why would anyone be following us here from Bob’s place? You make it sound like someone followed me from home.’

  She smiled at him, trying to reassure them both, and Patrick nodded. Maybe he was overreacting, he thought, and he said, ‘You’re probably right. I suppose I’m just being a bit nervy.’

  She looked at him curiously and then came over to where he stood and opened one of the big plan drawers. She withdrew a cardboard folder and laid it on the table and then took out another stack of drawings. ‘I think these might be what we want.’

  Patrick touched the stack gently and then began to sort through it. ‘These are beautiful.’

  ‘Yeah, he was good, wasn’t he?’

  More than good, Patrick thought. The head of the Madonna was sketched in sanguine with chalk highlights and there was a delicacy and sensitivity that reminded him of the greatest Renaissance artists. The drawings were made with such tenderness; Freddie must have loved creating this.

  ‘So,’ Bee said, ‘how much of this stuff should we take with us?’

  ‘I suppose all of it,’ Patrick said. ‘Do you have a spare portfolio? It won’t all fit in the cardboard folder and anyway, we shouldn’t risk these getting wet if it starts to rain while we’re packing up.’

  ‘There’s probably one behind the sofa, but we could do with a box to put the smaller stuff in.’

  Patrick went in search of a portfolio while Bee foraged for a box. He tried not to get distracted by all the treasures in Freddie’s studio and had to admit to himself that even though he felt sorry for Bee with all her problems, he was actively looking forward to helping clear this place out. He hoped she’d remember her promise that any paints and brushes and stuff that she didn’t need, or that Bob didn’t want, Patrick could have. Art materials were expensive and he had seen equipment here that he could never have afforded and would be very reluctant to ask his father for, even though Harry would undoubtedly have bought it for him. Harry didn’t really understand what Patrick did and how much he needed to do it but he’d been fully supportive. It was funny, Patrick thought, the way people turned out. In Harry’s working life he had always been involved with figures and now he was a self-employed accountant. No one was quite sure where Patrick’s artistic tendencies had appeared from. Bee had a father like Freddie and yet she took after her mother and, as she had once put it, couldn’t draw for toffee.

  He retrieved the portfolio and brought it back to the table. There were a few sketches already in one of the pockets, but he left them there and simply arranged the other drawings as carefully as he could inside. ‘Shall I put the letters in here too, so you don’t forget them?’

  ‘Good idea.’ She had found a box that had held printer paper and into this she put the smaller sketchbooks and some of the loose drawings. Freddie clearly had a tendency to scribble on anything and Patrick was amused to see that a study for the child Jesus had been made in biro on the back of an envelope.

  ‘You think that’s it?’

  ‘I think so, but didn’t Bob want samples of paints and stuff?’ She looked around, somewhat bewildered. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  Patrick studied the jars stacked on shelves. Some contained already ground pigment and others the minerals that Freddie would use to make his colours. He had a shrewd idea of which ones would be relevant, but unless he knew what oils and resins Freddie was mixing them with …

  ‘I think Bob’s going to have to come down,’ he said. ‘I can make a guess, but if Freddie made his own paints, then unless he was copying a standard recipe it’s probably a bit beyond me. I’ve been grinding some of my own for my copy of the painting, but I’m still learning.’

  She nodded. ‘I think this will do for now. You want to bring the car round the back so we can load things more easily?’

  Patrick hesitated. ‘Maybe you should come down with me.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’

  He could see that she was going to accuse him of paranoia but then the unease grew in her eyes as she remembered that her father had also been afraid. She nodded. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘I’ll come with you to get the car.’

  He followed her down the stairs, out of the side door and around the b
uilding. There was no sign of the blue car; no sign of anyone. The sky was a lowering grey but it was not yet raining and with luck they’d get the car packed before it did. He drove across the grass verge and the paving and into the little bay at the back where the rubbish bins were kept. The refuse lorry came in from the main road through the big gates, she told him, but they weren’t usually unlocked apart from on bin collection day.

  He’d suggested that she padlock the door when they left and was relieved that she had done so without further question. Patrick suddenly realized that he’d be glad to get out of this place, that suddenly that sense of uneasiness had increased. He looked around again but could see no one, and he tried to ease his anxiety by texting both Bob and Annie to let them know that he and Bee were on their way back. There had been no reply from Annie, as yet. She was probably still out. He reached to bolt the door as they went back inside.

  ‘We’re only going to be a minute,’ she protested. But he bolted it anyway.

  They fetched the portfolio and the box from the studio and paused on the mezzanine landing to look back and check they’d got everything they needed. Then they heard a sound. It was the same kind of sound that Bee had reported hearing the last time she was here. The scrape of metal on metal.

  They looked at one another. ‘It’s OK, you bolted the door,’ Bee said, but her voice was shaking.

  ‘The sound didn’t come from the side door,’ Patrick said. ‘It came from near the office.’ He looked down over the railing of the mezzanine landing to try and see what might have caused the noise but a second later there was a pounding on the stairs as someone came running up. Neither Patrick nor Bee had a chance to react. Patrick was vaguely aware that Bee had screamed and that the box had been knocked out of her hands. He grabbed for the railing but he was already off balance, and then someone shoved him hard. Patrick knew he was falling.

  Then the impact of the concrete floor, and he knew nothing more.

  SEVENTEEN

  Annie hadn’t read Patrick’s text until she got back from walking the dogs. Bob had checked his phone and seen the message that the two young people were on their way back but they were both now getting a little anxious because Patrick and Bee had still not returned. She tried phoning but got no answer from either Patrick’s phone or Bee’s. Bob was busy painting when she went through to the studio and he didn’t notice her until she was right beside him and halfway through a sentence. Sighing, she plucked one of the buds out of his ear and started again.

  ‘Something up?’ Bob asked.

  ‘Like I just said, Patrick and Bee haven’t come back yet. Bob, it’s been more than an hour since he texted. It’s only about a forty minute drive.’

  Bob shrugged. ‘So? They’re not babies, Annie. They probably got distracted, went off somewhere else. Went for a coffee or whatever young people do these days.’ He’d meant to lighten the mood. He could see the anxiety in her eyes and realized that this wasn’t just Patrick being late, this was Annie being worried, and those two things were quite different. Annie had an instinct for these things.

  He washed out the brush that he was holding and wiped it on a rag. Then he wiped his hands too, spreading the Prussian blue paint over his palm.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Annie said. She picked up a clean rag and wiped him down again. ‘That will have to do for now. Come on.’

  Bob followed her into the hall and grabbed their coats. Annie ushered the dogs into the kitchen and closed the door on them. Dexter had a tendency to chew the front door mat, left to his own devices, but he was fine in the kitchen with his bed and his toys. Bob noted that she had taken the car keys, that she intended to drive. ‘Best buckle up, then,’ he muttered under his breath. Annie was a bit of a lead boot.

  He slid into the passenger seat and they were off before he’d even fastened his seatbelt. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what’s got you in a tizzy?’

  ‘I’m not in a tizzy. I told you, they’ve just not come back yet. I was worried. I am worried. And that text about the car. What if he’s right, what if they were followed?’

  ‘And you don’t think they’ve gone somewhere else? You really think something’s happened?’

  She nodded. ‘Patrick texted me before that, reckoned they might have been followed. Then he texted me again, said it was his imagination and the car had turned off and there was no sign of it when they got to the warehouse. But I could tell he was worried. When he texted to say they were coming back he … sounded relieved.’

  ‘How can someone sound relieved in a text?’

  Annie just looked at him and Bob shrugged. But her anxiety had infected him now. Freddie had been threatened, according to his daughter, and Freddie was now dead and so was Antonia Scott. ‘I should have gone with them,’ he said.

  ‘We both should have gone,’ Annie agreed. ‘Bee has been to the studio so many times since Freddie died, it never occurred to me …’

  ‘And they’re probably fine.’

  They drove the rest of the route in silence, Annie focused on keeping up her speed on a wet road and Bob’s mind wandering between the painting he had left behind and the nagging thought that he had not cleaned the rest of his brushes – though he felt annoyed with himself that he should even be thinking about that. He kept telling himself that Patrick and Bee were fine, that there was nothing to worry about and that Annie was overreacting, but the other part of his mind, the part that knew his wife, told him that Annie never overreacted.

  There was no sign of Patrick’s car at the front of the warehouse so they got out and walked round the back. It was parked instead in a little yard, close to dustbins and a locked gate, but the small door outside the warehouse was open. They ran inside, calling Patrick’s name.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Bob knelt at the young man’s side.

  ‘Don’t even try and move him,’ Annie warned. She was already on the phone, calling the police and the ambulance.

  ‘He must have fallen from up there,’ Bob said, indicating the mezzanine floor. ‘That’s a hell of a drop.’

  ‘Fallen? More likely pushed.’

  ‘You can’t know that.’ Bob was desperate for this to be an accident. ‘I’ll go up, check she’s not there. Check she’s not been hurt too.’

  ‘OK, but be careful not to touch anything.’

  She crouched down beside Patrick and took off her jacket. He was still alive but he was deathly cold and deeply unconscious. There was nothing she could do apart from lay the padded jacket gently over his chest. She rubbed her arms; her jumper was warm but the warehouse seemed suddenly freezing cold.

  ‘Oh, Patrick,’ Annie said softly. ‘What on earth have we got you into? Harry will never forgive us. I will never forgive us.’

  Bob clattered back down the metal stairs. ‘She’s not there. But the stuff they were obviously bringing back is scattered all over the landing. So if she’s not here, where the hell is she?’

  ‘My guess? Someone’s taken her. Taken her and left Patrick to die.’

  ‘No, no, no. That’s not going to happen. He’s going to be all right, Annie. He’s tough, he can come through this.’

  But Annie was looking at the blood pooling around Patrick’s head and matting his hair; she had felt the coldness of his fingers and his pulse, slow and irregular. She knew there could also be heavy internal bleeding and hoped that the fact that he was still alive, maybe more than an hour after he’d fallen, was a promising sign. If he’d bled out internally, he’d already be dead and cold, not alive and cold.

  ‘Sirens,’ Bob said. ‘Police or ambulance? I’ll go and look.’

  ‘Sounds like the paramedics,’ Annie said.

  Bob stood up and ran out of the building to meet them and Annie stroked Patrick’s fingers. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she told him. ‘Patrick, listen to me, you are going to be fine. You hear me? You are going to be fine.’

  The paramedics came in and Annie stepped away so that she would not interfere with their work. Bob came to st
and beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re freezing,’ he said and took off his jacket, wrapping it around her.

  Then the police arrived and Bob and Annie went and sat in the police car and gave the officers an account of what had happened, as far as they knew it. Annie could tell that the police were sceptical about her kidnap theory; she could see the idea forming in their heads that Bee and Patrick had maybe had some kind of quarrel, which had led to a more violent argument and maybe a shove that sent him over the railings. That the girl had then run off in panic. That they would soon find her. The officer cautiously put this into words as the most likely scenario.

  ‘If that’s the case,’ Bob objected, ‘then why didn’t she take his car?’

  ‘Maybe she panicked, couldn’t find the keys. Maybe the keys are in his pocket. Sir, I don’t know what happened any more than you do but it’s possible, don’t you think? Young people tend to act impulsively.’

  ‘Someone took her,’ Annie said slowly and precisely. ‘Someone came and took her away.’

  ‘And why would they do that?’ the officer asked. He was distracted momentarily by one of the other officers tapping on the window and then pointing to the ambulance. ‘Looks like they’re ready to leave,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to drive you there – I know it’s been a shock – or do you want to follow in your car?’

  ‘We’ll follow in our car,’ Bob said. Annie nodded.

  They had already spoken to Harry and told him what they could but kept it simple: Patrick had been involved in an accident at the warehouse, had fallen from a height and was now being taken to hospital. Annie called Harry again as they got in the car. She got no answer, and so assumed he must be driving. She left a message on his voicemail telling him that they were on their way and would meet him there. Harry would be frantic, she thought. Harry and Patrick were closer than most fathers and sons.

  Don’t let him die, Annie thought. She was not a great believer in God but just now she was willing to take any additional help, even from an imaginary being.