Clean Break

by Val McDermid

  Henry sighed. “I know. I’m sorry about that. I simply didn’t know how to tell you the truth. You’ve no idea what a weight off my mind it is to have told someone at last.”

  “Yeah, well, the Catholics wouldn’t have stuck with confession all these years if it didn’t have some therapeutic effect. The thing is, Henry, now I know for sure what I already suspected, I can’t sit back and watch you defraud Fortissimus to the tune of seven figures. I’ve done some hooky things for clients over the years, but this is a few noughts too far,” I said, the iron in my voice matching the anger inside me.

  He met my stare at last, panic sparking in his blue eyes. “You said this came under client confidentiality,” he accused. “You can’t betray that confidence now!”

  My first inclination was to say, “Watch me,” and walk. But I’d got to like Henry. And I believed him when he said he was sorry about the shit I’d been through. Besides, it doesn’t do in my business to get a name for selling your clients down the river. “Henry, this isn’t about betrayal. You’re making me party to a million-pound fraud,” I said instead.

  “But even if it does come out, there will be no suggestion that you knew about it. After all, if you’d known the painting was only a copy, you wouldn’t have made such strenuous efforts to recover it,” he argued persuasively.

  “But I’d know that I knew,” I said. “That’s the bottom line for me.”

  Henry ran a hand through his gleaming hair. “So what did you come back here for this morning, Kate? To get the truth and then throw me to the wolves?”

  His words stung. “No, Henry,” I told him sternly. “I hoped you’d tell me the truth, that’s true. But I don’t want to shaft you. What I think we can do is stitch up a deal.”

  He frowned. “You want a cut, is that it?” Luckily for Henry, he sounded incredulous. If he’d seriously offered me a bribe, all bets would have been off.

  “No, Henry,” I said, exasperated. “What I mean is that I think I can do a deal with the insurance company.”

  “You’re going to tell them I was trying to defraud them?”

  “I’m going to tell them what an honest man you are, Henry. Trust me.”

  An hour later, I was waiting to see Michael Haroun. I’d taken the time to get suited up in my best business outfit, a drop-dead gorgeous, lightweight woollen tailored jacket and trousers in moss green and gray. This was going to be such a difficult stunt to pull off that I was going to need all the help I could get. Call me manipulative, but this was one occasion where I was willing to exploit testosterone to the full.

  I only had to hang on for ten minutes, even though the claims receptionist had warned me he was in a meeting that could take another half-hour. That’s the power of hormones for you. Michael grinned delightedly at me, plonking himself down next to me on the sofa. “What a great surprise,” he said. “I hope you’ve not come to call off our dinner date tonight?”

  “No way. This is strictly a business meeting,” I told him. I didn’t let that stop me brushing my knee against his.

  “Right. Well, what can I do for you, Ms. Brannigan?” he said teasingly.

  “This is all a bit embarrassing, really,” I said.

  He raised one eyebrow. Sexy, or what? “Better get it over with, then.”

  I pulled a wry face and tried to look innocent. “I’ve just come from our mutual client, Henry Naismith. He’s finally got round to clearing out some boxes of papers that were lurking in a dark corner of the cellar at Birchfield Place. And he found something rather disturbing.” I paused for effect.

  “Not the Monet, I hope,” Michael joked.

  “Not the Monet. What he did find was a bill of sale, and a note accompanying it in his father’s writing.” I took a deep breath. “Michael, the Monet was a fake. Henry’s father had it copied a couple of years before he died. He secretly sold the original to a private collector on the understanding it would never be displayed publicly, and the fake’s been hanging on the wall ever since.”

  I’d never believed the cliché about people’s jaws dropping till then. But there was no other way to describe what had happened to Michael’s face. “A fake?” he finally echoed.

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “It can’t be,” he protested. “We had an expert go over all those paintings when we first insured Birchfield for Naismith. He authenticated all of them.”

  I shrugged. “Experts can be wrong. Maybe he was misled by the paperwork. I’m told the Monet had an immaculate provenance.”

  “I don’t believe this,” he exploded. “We used the leading expert. Shit!” He turned away for a moment. Then, slowly, he swung round to face me. “Unless we’re really talking about your client, not his father.”

  He was smart. I like that in a man, except when I’m up against him. I opened my eyes wide, aiming for the injured innocent look. “What is this, Michael? I come here telling you your company’s just saved itself a million quid payout and you’re giving me a bad time? For Christ’s sake, look at the bottom line here!”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me he’s dropping the claim?”

  “As far as the painting is concerned, of course he is. He now knows the painting was a fake, he sent me to tell you the painting was a fake. If he was as dishonest as you’re trying to make out, he could just have kept his mouth shut and pocketed the readies. Come to that, would he be paying to send me schlepping halfway across Europe in a head-to-head with the Mafia over something he knew was a copy? All Henry wants to do is set the record straight and sort out the reinsurance on what’s left of his art collection.”

  By now, Michael was scowling. “And how do we know the rest of the collection aren’t fakes too?”

  “They’re not. Henry is willing to let you do any tests you want to

  I watched his eyes as he calculated his way through what I’d just told him. After a few moments, the clouds cleared and he smiled. “I have to hand it to you, Kate,” he said. “You are one smart operator. We have a deal. We don’t pursue your client for fraud, and we reinsure, subject to more than the usual checks. In exchange for which, your client withdraws his claim in respect of his stolen Monet. Get him to put that in writing, will you?”

  I held out my hand. “Deal.”

  Michael shook my hand, holding on to it rather longer than was necessary. “I do realize I’ve been listening to Jackanory, but this is an outcome I can live with,” he said, needing to end the negotiation in the driving seat.

  I let him. I’d got what I wanted. I stood up. “See you tonight.”

  “Half past seven, the Market Restaurant. I’ll be there.”

  By the time I’d walked back to the office, my brain felt like a bombsite. For once, Shelley took pity on me, leaving me alone to work my way through the pile of paperwork that had accumulated while I’d been roaming the mean streets. After my recent adventures, I was longing to get back to the relative peace of a tasty bit of computer fraud or even some routine process serving.

  Alexis rang just before lunch, demanding to know what part I’d played in the dramatic arrest of Gail Morton and Desmond Halloran. Her own researches had come up with how the couple had met. Apparently, Halloran had been doing a portrait of one of Gail’s friends and she’d gone along for the session to keep her mate company. It had seemingly been lust at first sight. There was a warning, if I’d needed one, about the consequences of letting physical attraction cloud one’s judgement.

  In exchange for that nugget, I gave Alexis the lowdown as deep background, and promised her the full story on the drugs-for-art scam just as soon as the various police forces had coordinated their efforts and done their sweep-up of the villains.

  When I came off the phone, Shelley wandered into my office with a memo. “New client,” she said. “He’s got a chain of record shops in the Northwest and his stock seems to be shrinking rather more than it should be. I’ve set up a meeting for you in the main lounge of the Charterhouse at half past three. OK?”<
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  “Fine,” I sighed. “Make that the last business of the day, would you? I need some quality time with my bathroom.”

  “No problem,” Shelley said. Nothing ever is to her. Sometimes, I hate her.

  I walked through the impressive doors of the Charterhouse Hotel at twenty-five past three. The huge red bullshit Gothic building, complete with looming tower, is one of Manchester’s landmarks. It used to be the headquarters of Refuge Insurance and occupies a vast block on the corner of Oxford Road and Whitworth Street, bordered on a third side by the brown and sluggish River Medlock. Inside, the decorative glories of Victorian tiling and wood paneling have been left miraculously intact, a monument to a time when labor and materials were cheap enough to make every public building a cathedral to commerce.

  I checked at the reception desk, but no one had been asking for me, so I settled down in a chair where I could comfortably see both entrances and where anyone coming in would be bound to see me.

  At 3.32, Richard walked in. I breathed in sharply, while my stomach contracted in a cramp. At first, he didn’t see me, since he was heading single-mindedly for the reception desk. I had a moment or two to study him. He looked satisfyingly hollowcheeked, the shadows under his eyes visible even at ten yards. I reminded myself sternly that he probably hadn’t been pining, merely enjoying too many late nights on the razz with the rockers. He was wearing Levis and a baggy Joe Bloggs T-shirt under the leather jacket I’d bought him in Florence. As I watched him talk to the receptionist, I felt a pain in my chest.

  I saw the receptionist shake her head. He looked around then, and saw me for the first time. I tried to keep my face frozen as our eyes locked. He took an uncertain step in my direction, then stopped.

  I stood up and moved a couple of steps away from my chair. It was a Mexican standoff. Shackled by pride and stubbornness, we remained firm, neither willing to be the one to back down. Before the deadlock could set in stone, a familiar voice from behind my shoulder boomed out, “This isn’t High Noon, you know. You’re supposed to use your gobs.”

  I swung round to see Alexis emerge from behind a pillar. “You bastard,” I said.

  “I didn’t set this up just to watch the pair of you imitating Easter Island statues,” she complained, walking over to stand midway between us. “Now, one step at a time, approach.”

  By this time, both Richard and I were clearly fighting not to smile. In sync, we moved towards each other. God knows what the receptionists were making of the scene. When only Alexis stood between us, she stepped back and said, “I’m out of here. Get it sorted, will you? The pair of you are doing everybody’s heads in.”

  I suppose she left then. I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy staring at Richard and remembering all the reasons I felt bound me to this man. Thinking too how right he’d been to resent people’s perception of him as a wimp, when actually he’s the strongest man I know. He’s strong enough to step back and let me get on with my own life, strong enough never to make demands he knows I can’t meet, strong enough to understand that our relationship gives both of us what we need without all the crap neither of us wants.

  Somebody had to speak first, and I reckoned it might as well be me. “I missed you,” I said.

  “Me too. I’m sorry,” he added, his voice cracking.

  “Me too.” I reached out a hand across the space between us. He linked his fingers with mine. “We need to talk,” I said.

  Then he smiled, that cute smile that cut me off at the knees the first time I encountered him in a sweaty nightclub, minutes before he reversed straight into my car. “Later,” he said. “Let’s book a room.”

  About the Author

  Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community and is a graduate of Oxford University. She worked as a journalist for 16 years, the final three as Northern Bureau Chief of a major Sunday newspaper. She quit journalism in 1991 to write full-time. Since her first novel was published in 1987, she has written a further 19 and one non-fiction book.

  Val’s books are international bestsellers and have won many awards. These include the Gold Dagger for The Mermaids Singing, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anthony, the Dilys, the Barry and the Macavity for A Place of Execution, the Sherlock and the Barry for The Distant Echo and the Grand Prix des Romans d’Aventure for Star Struck. She was the first writer to be presented with the Icon of Scotland award at Tartan Day in New York. Her short stories have twice been nominated for Dagger awards and she edited a short story anthology, Endangered Species, for Arts Council England. Her work has been translated into over 30 languages and her series featuring Tony Hill and Carol Jordan has been adapted for the award-winning TV series, Wire in the Blood, which has been transmitted in almost 30 countries. She is also a regular contributor to BBC radio and founder of the Harrogate International Crime Writing Festival.

  Val lives with her son and her partner in the North of England.

  «——THE END——»