Fakes and Lies

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Unit.’ Alec laughed. ‘Very military.’

  ‘Old habits and all that,’ Annie said.

  ‘And is this Alfie part of your old habits?’

  ‘Um, yes. Though he was always freelance. He did some work for Gustav, my guardian; he was first port of call for looking into anything like forensic accounting. That’s why I called him in. Freddie Jones is a little left field for Alfie but he’s your man for following a paper trail, identifying a scam …’

  ‘And we’re going to see him now because …?’

  ‘Not for any of Alfie’s skills, actually. He’s got friends who might be able to give us access to CCTV cameras. There’s nothing near us, but it’s very likely there are cameras close to where Bee lives and also near the warehouse where Freddie had his studio.’

  ‘And what are we looking for?’

  ‘Patrick texted me. I didn’t get the text until I got back to the house about an hour later. I was out walking the dogs and the mobile signal is so patchy up at the back of us that I rarely bother with the phone. He said he’d seen a blue car near to Bee’s place, two people inside. He was sure he’d seen the same car following them to the warehouse. He got a partial plate, but my bet is they’re false. Patrick said the numbers were partly obscured by mud.’

  ‘You told the police this?’

  ‘Told them, showed them the text. They took a lot of convincing. Their initial response was that Patrick and Bee argued, she gave him a shove and then fled in panic.’

  ‘Sounds plausible. I can see why they would think that.’

  ‘So do I, but the problem with having a strong initial idea is that you stop looking at other possibilities, especially when they sound as dramatic as a young woman being kidnapped. They started to come round to my way of thinking when they found Bee’s mobile, stomped by a large booted foot. And there were witnesses in one of the other warehouses who saw a blue car drive away at speed.’

  ‘So, if the police are already involved?’

  ‘Nothing will happen until tomorrow. Nothing will happen until Bee has been missing for at least twenty-four hours and all her friends and family have been contacted. The initial obvious conclusion will still be the one pursued. Am I right?’

  ‘Probably,’ Alec admitted.

  ‘And no CCTV footage will be reviewed until the initial theory has played out, will it? It takes time and manpower to sit and stare at a computer screen on the off chance. I just figured we might be able to get a head start.’

  ‘And, if you find that information, what do you plan on doing with it?’

  Annie just glanced at him and then looked away. Alec decided not to push the question. ‘I can’t imagine what Harry must be going through,’ he said. ‘When it’s your child …’

  ‘Have you ever wanted children?’

  ‘We’ve talked about it,’ Alec said. ‘But … well, it’s difficult. You and Bob?’

  Annie shook her head. ‘I don’t want kids,’ she said. ‘Bob would make a terrific dad but I just can’t bear the thought of it.’

  ‘You’d make a great mother,’ Alec told her.

  ‘Would I? I’d be so overprotective the poor little chicks would never be able to fly the nest.’

  ‘I think we all feel like that,’ Alec said, but he knew there was more than the usual anxiety in her responses.

  Annie shook her head. ‘Children are just hostages to fortune,’ she said. ‘You can’t protect them and they can’t protect themselves.’

  Alec made no comment. He knew that Annie had only been in her early teens when her parents had been killed. He could almost understand her vehemence but he was suddenly conscious of how little he really knew about Annie Raven. How much he would never ask.

  ‘Who took Bee?’ he asked. ‘You have any theories on that?’

  ‘Whoever was frightening Freddie,’ she said. ‘I’ve got one possible name but even Alfie’s not been able to help me prove a connection. Not yet.’

  ‘God help him when you do,’ Alec half joked.

  ‘I doubt God will bother,’ Annie said.

  It was late, dark outside, the wall no longer visible even though Bee thought it was probably only three metres or so away. The room too was dark. They had tried the light switch but the bulb was either blown or had been removed.

  Improbably, they had both fallen asleep, lying close together for comfort. Bee woke to find that her arms had fallen asleep too and then realized that what had really woken her was the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

  She struggled to sit up and that disturbed Sian, who was suddenly bolt upright and staring at the door.

  ‘Help me sit,’ Bee said. ‘My arms are dead and I can’t move.’

  Sian grabbed her shoulders and hauled her up just as the door burst open and a bright light shone in their eyes.

  Bee was grabbed and hauled off the bed. Seconds later, she was gone and the door locked once more. Sian leapt towards it, hammered on the wood. ‘Where are you taking her? Don’t take her away, don’t leave me here. Don’t hurt her!’

  She could hear Binnie laughing at her and then the sounds subsided and the silence fell again. The room was dark and dead and Sian was alone.

  Bee was hauled unceremoniously along a narrow corridor and into a lobby area and then up a flight of stairs. The door opened on to a hall. They were no longer in the service area, Bee realized, and must now be in the main house.

  She made an effort to notice everything she could, commit to memory anything that might identify the house. If she got out of here – when she got out of here – she’d make sure she could tell the police as much as she humanly could.

  She was taken through into a study or library and pushed down into a chair. Finally, the man Sian called Binnie took a knife, leaned her forward and loosed her hands. For several minutes Bee sat still, unable either to move or to take notice of her surroundings as the blood flowed back into her dead arms and hands. She let out a sob, then, angry with herself, took a deep breath and looked up.

  A man stood beside an ornate fireplace with a cut glass tumbler in his hand. The liquid in the glass glowed a rich amber. He’s posing, Bee thought, the idea coming unbidden into her head. He wants me to be impressed.

  Somehow, that was funny. Not so funny she was going to risk laughing at him, but funny enough for her to grasp it like a straw lifebelt and hang on.

  He wasn’t tall and she pegged him at maybe late thirties. Hard grey eyes and light brown hair that was thinning so he had the start of a widow’s peak. His shirt was very white and his trousers very dark blue. They looked like part of a suit. He wore what she found herself thinking of as the obligatory gold watch.

  She wanted to yell at him, to demand impossible things, like him letting her go or at least telling her what the hell he was doing, bringing her here. Instead she said quietly, ‘That bastard killed my friend.’

  The man looked from her to Binnie. ‘Did you?’

  Binnie shrugged. ‘Probably.’

  ‘OK. It doesn’t matter. Miss Jones, Beatrix. Though I understand no one calls you that? Bee, then?’

  He sounds like a bad Bond villain, she thought. She had realized that as long as she could keep having these random, almost irrelevant thoughts, she might just about be able to hold it together – and Bee was very determined to try and hold herself together.

  ‘I suppose he killed my father too,’ she said.

  ‘And what makes you think that? I understood he had a heart condition. He smoked and drank far too much, did old Freddie. Always had.’

  ‘That’s not what killed him,’ Bee insisted. ‘I know it was you.’

  ‘You think it was me; there’s the difference. Now.’ He set the glass down and picked up a straight-backed hall chair.

  Bee had noticed several of them out near the stairs when she had been dragged into the study. He sat down opposite her.

  ‘Your father had something of mine. He’d been doing some work for me, but he failed to deliver the last piece. I
’d like it.’

  ‘Talk to the solicitor. He’s the executor.’

  ‘Funny,’ the man said. ‘Now, Bee, the object I’m looking for is a painting. Freddie didn’t get the chance to finish it before he died, but no matter. I paid for it, I want it.’

  He’s nuts, she thought. ‘So, if you’d paid for something, it would be yours, wouldn’t it? All you’d have to do is ask for it. It would be in Dad’s order book.’

  ‘No, you’re not getting this, are you? I ordered something “off the books”, as they say. Freddie would not have a record of it. I think you might know where it is? Hmm?’

  ‘If I don’t even know what it was …’

  ‘A painting. A Madonna and child with St Anne. Small, about the size of an A-four sheet of paper. On board. Poplar, to be exact, and with a border worked in gesso – though he might not have got that far. I only ever saw the preliminary drawings. Ring any bells?’ He paused, looking closely at her. ‘Oh, I can see it does. Good.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I’m glad we’re on the same page, singing from the same hymn sheet, seeing eye to eye.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘So, where is this picture? Tell me and I might see my way to letting you go. Or I might not. But I might at least see my way to not letting my friend here loose on you. No sense of proportion, our Binnie. None at all.’

  Bee shook her head. She knew well enough that he’d never let her leave. That the best she could do was play for time and pray for help. ‘I never saw it,’ she said. ‘The last thing I saw Dad working on was a landscape with horses, follower of Stubbs. He was painting a pair from an old photograph. He had a digital print of the other one in the studio and—’

  ‘Yes, I know all about that. He finished that piece weeks before he died. The one I’m interested in—’

  ‘I told you, I never saw it. I didn’t see Dad for a couple of weeks, I’d been away. I never went to the studio after he finished the landscape.’

  The man studied her for a moment and then got up and moved back to the fireplace. Posed once more with his whisky glass.

  ‘Binnie,’ he said, and gestured towards her.

  ‘No!’ Bee screamed and tried to get up, but Binnie was quicker.

  ‘Just one should do it. She’s not that brave or that tough.’

  Binnie took her hand, separated out her little finger from the rest. Bee screamed again as the finger broke.

  ‘That will do.’

  Binnie stepped back and the man poured a second glass of whisky. He resumed his place opposite Bee.

  She cradled her damaged hand, sobbing quietly. She tried to summon one of those soothing irrelevant thoughts, but none came.

  Instead, a half-remembered conversation popped into her memory. Sitting at the table at Bob Taylor’s house, Bob had said something about a half-finished painting on the easel in her dad’s studio. The day he’d gone there with Antonia Scott.

  ‘Shall we try again? Here, drink this, it will take your mind off the pain.’

  He proffered the glass. She shook her head.

  ‘As you will.’ He tipped the contents into his own mouth and set the empty glass down on the floor. ‘Now, try again.’

  Bee hesitated. An idea was forming but she was reluctant. How could she drag more innocent people into this? She had seen what had happened to Patrick. But the more she thought about it, the less of a choice she felt she had.

  ‘Bob Taylor has it,’ she said. ‘He went to the studio with Antonia Scott to fetch some paintings my dad was restoring. He saw the painting, that it was half finished and unprotected. He took it for safe keeping. I think it’s in his studio. But I’ve not seen it. I didn’t go into his studio when I went to his house.’

  ‘And why did you go to his house?’

  ‘He was a friend of my dad’s,’ she said, on safer ground now. ‘I’ve got to clear my dad’s house and studio, and the studio he had at home. I didn’t know where to start or what to keep or what might be valuable. I thought if I asked Bob to help me …’

  He thought about it. ‘That sounds plausible. And what were you and that boy doing there today?’

  This time the lie was based on truth so it was also easy. ‘Bob said he wanted any preliminary drawings for the Madonna. He said he wanted to get a feel for what Freddie intended. He worked with my dad, knew his style. I think he wanted to finish it for him. In his memory, you know? He didn’t know it was yours. How could he?’

  ‘How could he indeed? Well, that’s a nice thought. I’ll have to bear that in mind. You see how easy things can be when everyone just cooperates.’

  TWENTY

  Alfie Kounis lived in a clifftop house on the outskirts of a small village. Alec did not recognize the name of Inscliffe, but then the settlement was so small you might have driven through it and never noticed it. Alfie’s house was small too, just a very small cottage built in local stone and almost overshadowed by a second building that was revealed when the security light came on. It looked, at first glance, like a double garage, but without the up-and-over doors.

  The door opened straight into the living room and Alfie, barefoot and wearing tracksuit bottoms and a loose shirt, motioned them to sit down. Alec glanced at his watch and noted that it was almost one in the morning.

  ‘Sorry about the time,’ Annie said. ‘But as I said on the phone, we need a bit of help.’

  ‘Sit down. I’ll get some coffee and you can tell me what you need.’

  Alfie seemed unperturbed by his nocturnal visitors, Alec thought.

  Alfie set a tray with coffee and cake and sandwiches on the low table in front of the settee on which Alec had flopped. He suddenly realized how tired he was.

  ‘I thought you might be hungry,’ Alfie said. ‘Unless Annie’s changed a lot,’ – he turned to address Alec – ‘she never turns down an opportunity for food.’

  Alec suddenly realized that he was starving. He had grabbed something quickly at lunchtime but had then driven home, and there’d been no time afterwards to eat or even to drink. He took advantage now, while Annie filled in the details for Alfie, telling him about Patrick and the blue car and her encounter with the police at the warehouse.

  ‘When you told me you needed CCTV access,’ Alfie said, ‘I made a few calls. If you give me the addresses I can go and set things up, and we can piggyback on one of the security systems close to the warehouse. We’re lucky, it’s quite a large area of real estate and the owners have a centrally controlled system that can be remotely accessed. My friends have managed to hack into that and I think we should be able to pick something up from the main system near Bee’s house.’

  Alec must’ve looked sceptical because Alfie said, ‘People think CCTV is a closed system and the camera systems themselves are, but the data is most often saved to a hard drive and that hard drive is usually on a networked system. Most computers have internet access so ultimately all of the systems are linked to a mainframe or central hub somewhere. All you need is access to the main computer network. It’s like …’ – he paused, thinking of an analogy – ‘it’s like once you’re on the main motorway system, one way or another that links to everywhere else.’

  Alec wanted to ask about the legality of that but he bit down on the question. He didn’t want to know and he found he was eager to see what Alfie was actually capable of.

  Alfie disappeared for a while and Alec guessed that he’d gone into the building that wasn’t a double garage. He and Annie finished the sandwiches and the coffee and started on the biscuits and cake. Alec made a few calls of his own; he still had good friends and ex-colleagues in the local force who might be able to get things moving at their end.

  Annie was watchful, listening to the one-sided conversation.

  ‘I’m grateful for the food. I’ve not had time to eat anything,’ Alec told her. ‘I’ve just managed to get hold of DS Dattani. He’s a good man and a good officer. Apparently there’s a CCTV camera just across the road from the warehouse where Bee was snatched. He’s arra
nging for someone to start reviewing that now. He’s going to give me a call.’

  Annie nodded and picked up another biscuit. ‘Alfie believes in feeding people. It’s a habit he picked up from his mum. You can’t go to Alfie’s mum’s house without being fed. Frankly, I think it’s a habit more people should cultivate.’ Annie grinned at him. ‘And he’s right, I am always hungry.’

  Alec looked sceptically at her; she stood about five feet six, slender and willowy. Her mass of dark hair, tumbling past her shoulders in thick waves, looked almost too heavy for her slim frame.

  Alec called Naomi at the hospital again but there was no news. She too promised she’d ring as soon as she had anything to tell. Alec hated waiting.

  Alfie returned and motioned them through to what he termed his workshop. Inside the brick building were separate areas, clearly laid out for different activities. Alec recognized the soldering station and in the corner a professional looking computer setup with multiple screens and a control console that would not have looked out of place in a recording studio.

  Annie had given him the approximate times that they were looking for, estimating from journey times and when Patrick had picked Bee up that morning. There was nothing available in the narrow street but the lights on the corner had a camera mounted above them and that was the first time they saw the blue car. Patrick’s little red hatchback came into view and then a few seconds later the blue car followed.

  They picked both cars up again a couple of streets away and then the sightings became more frequent as they headed through the centre of town. They were lost when they turned off the main road and on to the B roads towards Annie and Bob’s house.

  Alfie had been busy grabbing any promising looking frames from the video and was now examining them. As Patrick had reported, the number plates were partly obscured by mud and there were definitely two people inside the car. A heavyset man and a small blonde woman, but it was hard to see their faces.

  Picking up the action at the warehouse, they watched as Patrick parked and then later as he drove over the verge and into the yard at the back. They saw both young people leave the car, go inside and close the door.