by Simon Brett
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ve found three of the missing paintings, sir.’
‘WHAT!!!?’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Interview with Mr Reginald Winthrop conducted at Dover Police Station on 17 September. Also present Detective Inspector Craig Wilkinson, Detective Sergeant Hercule Hughes . . . Funny, I didn’t know you were called Hercule.’
The Sergeant blushed. ‘My mother was a great fan of Agatha Christie, sir.’
‘And saw you becoming a great detective too, eh?’
‘I’m not sure that—’
‘A great detective is one who is prepared to put in a lot of hard slog – and also one who obeys orders, Hughes. Oh, it’s fine for your amateur Belgians with fatuous curly moustaches to keep going off at tangents and “following their instincts”, “listening to the little grey cells”, but a good copper does what he’s told and when he’s—’
‘Sir,’ Sergeant Hughes whispered, ‘this is all going on tape.’
‘Yes, yes, of course it is. Mmm.’ Wilkinson cleared his throat. ‘Interview commenced at 3.17 p.m.’
The Inspector gazed into space, apparently not seeing the nervous man in a beret who sat on the other side of the table. The silence lengthened, until Sergeant Hughes made a pointed cough.
‘Hmm?’ Wilkinson seemed to have difficulty dragging himself back from his reverie. In fact, it had been prompted by something he himself had said. ‘Fatuous curly moustaches’. Maybe on him that kind of thing wouldn’t look fatuous. If he didn’t trim his for months and trained it and covered it with pomade . . . whatever pomade might be – apple juice, he wondered . . . anyway, if he did all that, the effect might suit him rather well. And people would certainly remember what he looked like. Perhaps it was through his physical appearance that Craig Wilkinson could make his mark . . .?
‘Don’t you think we should get on with the interview?’ Hughes prompted again.
‘What? Oh yes.’ Wilkinson fixed the painter with a beady eye. VVO looked away shiftily. ‘Mr Winthrop, we have talked at length to your wife, who maintains that she knew nothing about the contents of the van, other than the holiday luggage and other equipment whose packing she supervised. She says she knew there were three of your paintings in the back, and assumed that you had packed them with a view to trying to open up new markets for their sale on the continent. She denies knowing that there were expensive Old Masters hidden behind your artwork. And . . .’ the Inspector concluded, ‘I am inclined to believe her. For that reason, she has been released from our custody.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ said VVO grumpily.
‘I know you know that, but I am merely reiterating it so that all information that might be required is recorded on the tape. Now, Mr Winthrop, although I am convinced of your wife’s innocence, I have yet to be in the same happy state with regard to your own involvement. I find it very hard to believe that you were unaware of what you were carrying in that camper van.’
‘Well, I was. I’ve told you. Why don’t you listen?’
‘I do listen, Mr Winthrop, but I’m afraid what I hear does not leave me any more convinced. Whoever framed those pictures of yours must’ve known that the other paintings were fixed behind them. Of course, we will be checking the frames for fingerprints . . .’
VVO hadn’t considered that possibility. It really could screw things up; he had no doubt his fingerprints were all over everything. Still, they hadn’t checked them yet. If he kept on protesting his innocence, maybe they could be persuaded to believe him. It was a long shot, he knew, but he had to play for time. Once Truffler Mason and the others heard what had happened, he was sure they could start some kind of damage limitation operation. His own stupidity, the arrogant assumption that he could sail so close to the wind and get away with it, had landed him in this pickle, and now it was up to him to ensure that he didn’t make the situation any worse. The main thing, he knew, was not to mention any names of other people involved.
VVO brought himself back to the present. Inspector Wilkinson was speaking again. ‘Maybe you have some explanation of how the paintings got to be there, Mr Winthrop . . .? If you do, I’d be fascinated to hear it.’
‘I bought them like that,’ he replied brazenly. ‘I usually buy canvases ready prepared, and those three must’ve had the stolen paintings hidden in them before they came into my possession.’
‘I see,’ said the Inspector, in a way that suggested he didn’t see at all. ‘Well, of course we can check with your supplier. Was it the place you usually use?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could we have the name, please?’
VVO gave it, thinking that when – if ever – he got out of his current mess, there was one highly respectable artists’ materials supplier he wouldn’t be able to use again. Still, it was all taking time, all part of his delaying tactics.
‘Incidentally,’ the Sergeant suddenly interposed, ‘you described them as “stolen” paintings, Mr Winthrop. Neither of us said they were stolen. How did you know?’
The older detective looked daggers at his subordinate. ‘The very question I had been about to ask, Hughes – if you’d given me time.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
Wilkinson stared again into the artist’s eyes. VVO again turned away. ‘So, Mr Winthrop, how did you know they were stolen?’
Bluster seemed to be the appropriate response. ‘Simple, old-fashioned common sense, Inspector! How many Old Masters do you know of which aren’t either in museums or private ownership? And on the rare occasions they are moved around, it’s in security vans, not stuffed down the back of other paintings. Of course they were stolen!’
‘You may have a point,’ Wilkinson conceded.
Sergeant Hughes leant forward. ‘Does the name “Pargeter” mean anything to you, Mr Winthrop?’
‘Will you please not interrupt, Hughes!’ the Inspector snapped. ‘I am the senior officer present. I should dicate the direction this interview takes.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I just thought, possibly catching him off guard with a sudden question might—’
‘You’ve watched too many cop shows, Sergeant.’ Wilkinson turned to VVO with a polite smile. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘No problem.’
‘Right,’ the Inspector went on. ‘Does the name “Pargeter” mean anything to you, Mr Winthrop?’
‘As in “Mrs Pargeter”,’ Sergeant Hughes added eagerly.
‘No, Hughes, not as in “Mrs Pargeter”. As in “Mr Pargeter”, Mr Winthrop?’
‘No.’
‘If I’d said “Mrs Pargeter”, would that have meant any more?’
‘No.’
‘What about the name “Bennie Logan”? Does that mean anything to you?’
‘No.’
‘Fritzi the Finger?’
‘No.’
Hmm, thought Inspector Wilkinson ruefully, this is going to take a long time. VVO, though with rather more glee, had exactly the same thought.
Wilkinson ran a finger along the line of his moustache. Maybe he should trim it, after all.
Chapter Thirty
Mrs Pargeter put the newspaper down ruefully. She’d read the report, and it had brought home to her the extent of her short-sightedness. Someone called Reginald Winthrop had been arrested for trying to smuggle stolen paintings out of the country. ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ was all she could find to say.
‘It wasn’t your fault, Mrs Pargeter,’ said Hamish Ramon Henriques gallantly.
‘No, of course it wasn’t,’ the loyal Truffler Mason agreed.
‘Yes, it was.’ She looked around HRH’s office, the expression on her face as near as it ever got to gloomy. Through the half-open door, she could see neatly uniformed Sharons and Laurens and Karens busy about their business. Mrs Pargeter sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have given VVO the job. I was guilty of sentimentality.’
HRH shrugged. ‘Well . . .’
She continued her self-recrimination. ‘My husband wouldn’t
have made that mistake.’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘“In dealings with employees,” he always said, “be always compassionate, but never indulgent.” And of course, as ever, he was right. Don’t worry, I’ll learn,’ said Mrs Pargeter through gritted teeth.
‘Of course you will,’ the travel agent reassured.
‘I’ve spoken to Deirdre Winthrop. I thought she’d be absolutely devastated, but in fact she’s too angry for that. “Serve Reg bloody well right!” were her precise words. “That’ll teach him to try and play the hero. What did he imagine – that his flirting with danger was going to turn me on? He should know by now, after twenty-four years of marriage, the only thing that turns me on is a nice quiet life.” Of course she didn’t know anything about the paintings in the back of the van.’
‘No,’ said Truffler. ‘And I gather VVO’s taking the whole blame himself. Apparently he’s clamming up on the police, refusing to give the names of anyone else involved, claiming he was working alone.’
‘Which is good news for us,’ HRH observed.
Mrs Pargeter did not comment on this assertion, but, shaking her head again at her own lack of judgement, went on, ‘He was really asking for trouble, volunteering to go through Customs this side of the Channel. I suppose, like Deirdre said, he got some kind of kick out of it – same as a kid gets playing “chicken” on a railway line.’
‘I’m sure that was it, Mrs P,’ Thiffler agreed. ‘You often find that with inexperienced villains – first time they’re allowed to do something on their own, it kind of goes to their heads, they get really excited and well out of order—’ Catching a frosty beam from the violet-blue eyes, he concluded lamely, ‘or so I’ve heard.’
Mrs Pargeter sighed. ‘Anyway, what’s done is done. Let’s hope VVO continues to be uncommunicative.’
‘He will, don’t worry,’ said Hamish Ramon Henriques. ‘Having screwed up the actual job, there’s no way he’s going to screw up his behaviour while under arrest as well.’
‘Hope you’re right. In the meantime,’ Mrs Pargeter continued pragmatically, ‘I’ve organized legal representation for him.’
‘Who’ve you got?’
‘Arnold Justiman.’
Hamish Ramon Henriques and Truffler Mason nodded approval. Arnold Justiman’s legal skills were without parallel. It was said that he could have organized a driving licence for Blind Pew, and got the charges against Jack the Ripper reduced to fines for overdue library books. ‘Nothing but the best,’ said HRH.
‘No,’ Mrs Pargeter agreed. ‘My late husband let Arnold deal with all his legal affairs.’
‘And very well he did it too,’ said Truffler. ‘But for Arnold, you’d have seen even less of your husband than you did, wouldn’t you?’
Another mild frost settled over Mrs Pargeter’s expression. ‘I’m sorry? I don’t know what you mean, Truffler.’
‘No. No, of course not.’ He moved hastily on to distance himself from the moment of embarrassment. ‘What’s odd about the whole business is who was in charge of the investigation.’
‘Eh?’
‘Jukebox Jarvis has done the usual checks in the police computers as to what happened down in Dover, and it turns out VVO was interviewed by none other than our old friend, Craggy Wilkinson.’
‘Really?’ This was a shock to Mrs Pargeter. After the reassurances given over the dinner at Greene’s Hotel, she had rather dismissed the Inspector from her thoughts. ‘Do you think we’ve got him wrong? Do you think he’s actually shrewder than his track record suggests?’
‘You’d think he’d have to be,’ HRH replied, ‘by the law of averages. But I still don’t see him working something like this out on his own.’
‘He didn’t do it on his own,’ said Truffler. ‘He’s got a new detective sergeant working with him. Keen, cocky young lad, I gather, glories in the name of Hercule Hughes. I reckon he’s the one behind VVO’s arrest.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Pargeter.
‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs P. We’ll just keep an eye on the youngster, that’s all. Craggy Wilkinson on his own offers no danger. Craggy Wilkinson with an intelligent young sidekick could prove to be more of a challenge.’ Truffler Mason gave a mournful grin. ‘But don’t give it another thought. Forewarned is forearmed. We’ve got it covered.’
‘Oh, that is nice to know.’
‘Yes.’ Truffler stroked his chin. ‘What we must try and work out, though, is what effect VVO’s little disaster is going to have on the people who got away with the rest of the paintings.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well . . .’ Truffler pointed to the newspaper report. ‘There’s no way now they don’t know that someone else is interested.’
‘And you’re afraid this may make them speed up their plans and start selling off the goods?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
As he spoke, Truffler Mason nodded gloomily. So did Hamish Ramon Henriques. To her annoyance, Mrs Pargeter found herself giving a gloomy nod too.
Truffler shook his huge head to jolt himself out of the communal despondency. ‘I think I’d better go and check it out,’ he said.
The Alsatian lying by the padlocked gates of the breaker’s yard snored evenly. From the corner of his slack mouth dripped bloody juices from the drugged meat he had so eagerly wolfed down.
In the car parked inside the yard facing the gates, two men, heavies called Ray and Phil, also snored in rhythmic counterpoint. On the dashboard in front of them stood the open thermos flask which had contained their drugged coffee, and the two plastic cups they had drunk it from. In sleep, the craggy lines of the men’s battered faces had been ironed out to give them a baby-like, almost cherubic, innocence. Between them were propped up a shotgun and a baseball bat, and against these they leant in touching tranquillity. In the mouth of one of the villains was lodged an infantile thumb.
Truffler Mason’s picklocks sorted out the red Transit van’s keyhole as easily as they had the padlocks on the back gate of the yard. With a quick look around the floodlit tangle of dead cars to check he was unobserved, Truffler slipped his tall body into the back of the Transit.
Once inside, he produced a pencil torch from his pocket and ran it quickly over the van’s contents. The frames were wrapped in rugs for protection, but he could easily move these aside to check which paintings were there. It didn’t take long to match the inventory on Palings Price’s list. So far none of the art works taken from Chastaigne Varleigh had been moved on. The hoard was intact.
There was a clattering of the main gate outside. Truffler froze, switched off his pencil torch and eased forward over the partition into the driver’s cab to see what was going on. Outlined in the open gateway of the yard, backlit by spotlights, stood two burly figures. He had no difficulty in recognizing Rod D’Acosta and the other heavy who had taken the paintings from Chastaigne Varleigh. One carried a baseball bat, the other a pickaxe handle.
Rod dropped to one knee to check on the Alsatian, and rose in fury when he saw the dog’s condition. He then pointed angrily to the parked car, and the two men moved towards it.
Seeing the state of the two guards, Rod and his henchman immediately started banging on the car roof with baseball bat and pickaxe handle. The cherubic peace of the heavies called Ray and Phil was rudely shattered.
But by the time the four villains had reached the red Transit van, its doors were once again firmly locked. Truffler Mason had slipped away through the jumbled wreckage of old cars, and melted into the night.
Chapter Thirty-One
‘We need to talk to Veronica Chastaigne,’ Sergeant Hughes announced.
‘Now just a minute, just a minute,’ said his boss. ‘I’m the one who decides who we need to talk to.’
‘All right, you make the decision, but the fact remains that we need to speak to Veronica Chastaigne.’
‘On what grounds? She hasn’t done anything wrong. We can’t charge her with anything.’
&
nbsp; ‘We don’t need to talk to her as a suspect. We need to talk to her as a witness. Come on, she’s lived all those years at Chastaigne Varleigh. There’s no way that she was unaware of what there was up in the Long Gallery.’
‘We have no proof that there was anything there shouldn’t have been up in the Long Gallery.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
Inspector Wilkinson’s moustache (which he had, incidentally, decided to let grow) bristled with affront. ‘What did you say, Hughes?’
The Sergeant looked subdued. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘I should think so.’
The Sergeant looked less subdued. ‘What I meant to say was: “Oh, for God’s sake, sir!”’
Wilkinson stared narrowly at his colleague. ‘There’s a very disrespectful tone creeping into your voice, Hughes, and I don’t like it. Never forget that I am your senior officer.’
‘I don’t get much chance to forget it, do I . . . sir?’ The worm, which had always shown a propensity for at least looking over its shoulder, was certainly turning now. ‘I thought, when I joined the Police Force, that it was an organization in which people worked together.’
The Inspector removed his habitual cigarette to draw in a sharp breath through pursed lips. ‘I don’t know where you got that idea from.’
‘Listen, I was the one who got on to Posey Narker. I was the one who followed Reginald Winthrop. I suspected that he was carrying the stolen paintings and had him detained at Dover. And then what did I do? I shared my findings with you. And I just wish you’d occasionally repay the compliment.’
Wilkinson shook his head knowingly. ‘A good copper, Hughes, is not in the business of repaying compliments. He’s in the business of frustrating criminals, and he does that by relying on his experience.’
‘But, sir—’
‘You don’t have any experience, Hughes, so I’m afraid it’ll be some time yet before you can be regarded as a good copper.’
Sergeant Hughes slumped in his chair, deflated by the hopelessness of his frustration. Inspector Wilkinson sat at his desk, smiling complacently, puffing on his cigarette and occasionally stroking his slowly burgeoning moustache.
