Headcase

by Peter Helton

  Inside the car Leonard was holding his own balloon fiesta. He tried to struggle out from what appeared to be at least four airbags. He hadn’t worn his seat belt and had slid forward during the impact and smashed his knees against the dashboard. I pulled him out by the passenger door. He had trouble standing up and slid to the ground, his back to the car, and rubbed his legs, groaning.

  “Remember me, Dufossee? I was hired to find your Daddy’s paintings.”

  “Piss off, you’re fired!” Petulant.

  “It was your sister who hired me. Let’s go and ask her.”

  “You arseholes! You ruined my car and now I can’t even stand up. Wankers!”

  “Language,” Tim chipped in. Cradling the shotgun in his arms like an American Indian

  Chief he looked effortlessly menacing in a way I never seem to achieve.

  Virginia had appeared at the porticoed front door, her arms folded, her look more of disgust than concern. She didn’t move, just watched and waited. Leonard seemed to consider his options, holding his knees, grimacing with pain. He had no choice but to let me help him up. Leaning heavily on my shoulder he hopped the thirty yards or so to the house, from time to time checking out Tim’s Indian Chief impressions. The battle of wounded knees. All over bar the shouting.

  It was Virginia who did all the shouting. “You stupid, stupid man! You bastard! You stupid, stupid shit! I don’t want you back in the house, you can go and rot, I don’t care what happens to you.” She was loud but not as loud as she could have been. There was a tiredness, an edge of resignation in her voice, and she didn’t make any move to stop us as I helped Leonard inside. From the passage to the kitchen came the sound of broken glass being swept up. Perhaps Virginia had used some of the horrible lustre ware to back up an earlier argument. Best thing for it. I steered Leonard through the open door on the right, into the room with the baby grand, and dumped him on to a sofa where he crumpled into an unhappy heap. Virginia had followed us in. Dressed as she was in white silk top, slacks and delicate sandals she looked like a guardian angel who was ready to quit the job.

  Tim shut the doors behind us and broke open the shotgun. “Sorry about the armoury,” he apologized to her.

  “I don’t care if you stick it up his arse.” Leonard looked as though he minded very much. She lit a cigarette and sucked on it so hard, not a wisp of smoke re-emerged when she exhaled.

  “So you know?” I suggested.

  “All I know is that this shit of a little brother is somehow responsible for the lack of paintings on these walls. That’s why I hired you in the first place, I always suspected it was him. But he swore blind he had nothing to do with it. I wanted to believe him, I guess. Shit.”

  “Send them away, Ginny,” Leonard pleaded. “They’re going to make things worse. Perhaps I can work something out.”

  “Shut up! I want those paintings back. Every one of them. And what do you do? You run. You’ve always been the same, you useless shit. Just like the time — ”

  “Wait a second,” I interrupted. I had the distinct feeling we didn’t have time for a complete list of her sibling’s shortcomings, especially if Leonard had tried to run off somewhere. “What are you running from? Not us, you couldn’t have known we’d rumbled you.”

  Leonard looked at me, bit his lips and looked away again. He was very much the younger brother now, the only one sitting down, the grown-ups ranged around him.

  Virginia exploded into the silence. “I chucked him out, that’s why. I threatened him with the police, told him I knew it was him. He didn’t deny it but he didn’t tell me how and who.”

  “Or why?” I enquired.

  “Because he fucked up again and this time Dad refused to bail him out. His latest business is in tatters, he owes huge sums, and naturally not just to the bank. Oh no, that would be far too straightforward for Leonard. He has to get into the deepest shit on offer.”

  I turned to Leonard. “Who are you running from? Creditors? Al-Omari?”

  He looked up at me through his half-closed, swollen eyes. “You’ve no idea what Al-Omari is like. And Eely’s gone and flipped his lid. It all went to his head.”

  “Tom Eels,” his sister supplied. “My idiot brother took him into the business. He’s an ex-con and he’s got psycho written all over him.”

  “This Eely, he’s got close-cropped hair, wears a death-head ring?”

  “That’s him,” she confirmed. “Charming character.”

  I sat down and faced Leonard across the coffee table, trying not to let my anger show. “All we want is the paintings. I’m not interested in taking this to the police, that’s for your sister to decide. But I want to get to those paintings before they leave the country.”

  “Well, you can’t,” he said bleakly. “They left the country years ago.”

  Without warning Virginia jumped on him like a leopard defending her cubs. Before we could pull her off she had landed several badly aimed blows all over his body. Her brother made no effort to defend himself other than to curl up into a ball in the corner of the sofa. I got the distinct feeling this was something he had learnt to do early in life.

  It was a while before we could continue. I persuaded Virginia to organize coffee for everyone. After a few moments a kind-faced grey-haired woman in her late sixties appeared with delicate china cups of coffee on a lacquered oriental tray. Mrs Ibbs looked exactly how I’d imagined her. If I ever hired a housekeeper, she would have to look like this.

  We were all sitting down now: Tim curious, Virginia fuming, Leonard biting his lips and digging his fingernails into his thumbs, not touching his cup. After my first exposure to Dufossee coffee I approached mine with caution but it turned out to be excellent. Mrs Ibbs, unlike her charges, knew the difference between coffee and chemical warfare.

  Knowing that Al-Omari’s hire car was due back so soon had made me jumpy but the news that the paintings were out of our reach had calmed me down again. “How could they have left the country years ago?”

  “The paintings that were stolen were fakes. The real ones went a while ago,” Leonard said weakly. He didn’t dare look at his sister, concentrating instead on his hands. “No one ever noticed. Dad’s eyesight’s not what it was and Virginia knows nothing about art. And the fakes were very good, as long as you didn’t look at the back of the canvases. It started with one, but Al-Omari wanted more and more. Once I was in, they wouldn’t let me stop.”

  “You wanted to stop?”

  “I wanted out ages ago. But Eely wouldn’t let me, for a start. He’s mental, every bit as vicious as Al-Omari and Nadeem. They do this everywhere. Usually it’s straightforward theft but I wouldn’t let them. So we came up with the idea of replacing the originals with forgeries.” Virginia snorted with contempt. “I thought I was going to inherit them anyway, Dad had been ill for so long…it was more like borrowing from myself, from the future.”

  “Then why steal the fakes?” I wanted to know.

  Virginia sighed. “Because Dad hasn’t got long and he suddenly decided to leave the paintings to the nation. It would all come out then, of course.”

  “So they had to disappear or it would come out that I had been involved.” Leonard groaned. “And they decided they wanted the fakes as well. Real art, fake art, it doesn’t matter. It all sells in Arab countries, as long as they’re figurative, preferably nudes since there’s an injunction against depicting Allah’s creation. They’re selling to rich Muslims who really don’t give a shit about the Koran. I mean, they’ve got zillions of oil dollars, they want all the trappings of wealth. And that includes paintings, Western art. It’s just like the Nazis, they vilified modern art in public but kept the stuff they confiscated for themselves.”

  “What about my paintings? Why buy those?” I thought I already knew but wanted to hear it confirmed.

  “Yours? Wrapping paper. Your stuff goes over the top, then into a modern frame. It means they’ve got legit documentation for what they export. Same with all the others they
nick. They picked on you because you’re prolific and they can get roughly the right sizes.”

  They can be an incy bit larger, Simon had said. “So why all the panic?”

  “Because of you lot, of course. They got rattled and are taking their business elsewhere. Most of it comes from Italy anyway, only some collectors specialize in British art. But Eely really went apeshit. He’s not all there, you know? He wants everything “cleaned up”. He says he’s never going back inside, so “no loose ends”. And you and your lot seemed to turn up everywhere, here, the warehouse, the forger’s cottage — ”

  “The forger’s cottage? You mean Alison, Alison Flood?”

  “That’s her.”

  Alison’s new car, the new white goods. I worked so hard to afford the cottage, you’ve no idea how hard. No wonder she couldn’t show us her latest work. “So it was Eely who searched her studio when I was there. Why?”

  “I told you, he’s gone round the bend. He’s convinced the woman made other copies. Or has kept some failed ones that could give the game away if she tried to flog them. Whatever. He wants everything destroyed, he’s paranoid. He looked for copies in your place too. And the pictures that woman took when she turned up here. They followed her, trying to figure out how she fitted in. Eventually they saw her leave the photos at a restaurant. Then you arrived to pick them up. So they knew you were behind it. We assumed you’d long figured it all out.” This was not the time to set the record straight. I let Leonard run on. “They got the photographs back from your place. But Eely thinks everyone’s out to get him. Gave me these as a warning, in case I squeal.” He pointed at his bruised eyes. “And now I’ve squealed,” he trailed off.

  “Keep doing it. Where are the Saudis now?”

  “I’ve no idea, honest. They never tell me where they hang out. They come to me. I think they’ve probably gone by now, at least I hope so. But it’s Eely who scares me the most. I knew you were getting closer, close enough to get yourself clobbered by him. I’m sure he’d have killed you if this one hadn’t turned up.” He jerked his head in Tim’s direction. I certainly shared that conviction. “He’s completely out of order. I’m not going to hang around and wait for him to blow up in my face again.”

  “Of course you’re not, you’re coming with us,” I said cheerfully.

  He stared at me in genuine horror. “What for? No way! If he sees me with you he’ll go apeshit. He’ll kill me.”

  “Don’t worry, we came well prepared.” Tim lovingly patted the stock of his shotgun in confirmation.

  “It’s that or the cops and protective custody.” I shrugged. “It’s all the same to me, matey. Take your pick. I’ve too many questions to ask and not enough time to sit around here.”

  Tim and I stood. Leonard reluctantly unfolded himself and rose too. He looked like a man about to go for the long drop. I realized I would have to watch him like a hawk or he’d disappear at the first opportunity. In the hall, Virginia called me aside. She had recovered some of her brusque business manner, so I knew what was coming. “Do you believe him? About the paintings being lost, I mean?”

  “I do. He’s right, I’m afraid.”

  “No chance of retrieving them?”

  “From Saudi Arabia? None at all. Even with Al-Omari in custody and a full confession we wouldn’t get them back. We’re not talking local criminals receiving stolen goods, here.” What we were talking about were very rich and powerful people in secretive and undemocratic societies, with a medieval justice system, where the rich are able to hide behind a thousand veils of influence and patronage while ordinary thieves have their hands chopped off. Only the religious police would show any interest in finding the paintings, and they would happily destroy them on the spot if they clapped eyes on them. “For the sake of your insurance the police should be told now. Keep my name out of it if you can. I must warn you, though, your insurer will only pay out if you’re prepared to have your brother officially charged with the theft. I don’t see how you could keep him out of it.”

  She considered this for a moment. “I feel I should leave that decision with my father. If it was up to me…” She opened her arms in a gesture of defeat, then held out one slender hand for me to shake. “Thank you, Mr Honeysett. Please send me your bill.” I certainly would.

  Tim followed my car as before. Next to me Leonard had sunk deep into the passenger seat trying to become invisible. It took another threat of delivering him straight to the police station to get Eely’s address out of him, and it nearly wasn’t enough. The little toad never realized how hard I had to fight the impulse to thump him. Everyone else already had. How had he managed to get himself involved with a character he feared and loathed so much? Debt, of course. Leonard had needed money to save his drinks business. With his father unwilling to bail out another failing business venture and the banks refusing point blank to extend his loans, he looked for alternatives. And stumbled on Mr Eels in a pub, freshly released from a stretch of two and a half for aggravated burglary; who boasted that it had all been worth it, since he had a tidy sum stashed away. Leonard in turn boasted to him about his brilliant mail order drinks business. No doubt at that time Leonard had felt superior to the uneducated young man, but that would change. Soon Eely’s money disappeared without showing the promised returns. Eely became threatening and started making “arrangements” to recoup his losses. Like delinquent children they began by stealing small items from Starfall House, uncatalogued silver and valuable china pieces which were never missed. Al-Omari arrived on the scene later. How did a small-time thug like Eely find a man of Al-Omari’s calibre?

  “We sold the stuff we nicked to an antiques dealer in Walcot Street who didn’t ask questions. But when Eely mentioned there might be paintings and what they were he didn’t think he could handle it by himself. He brought in Al-Omari and Nadeem. From then on we had no say in what happened.”

  I knew only one antiques business in Walcot Street by name. “Austin Antiques?”

  Leonard was gratifyingly impressed. “Jesus. Yes, it was. Skinny guy with a natty little beard. He takes a cut, of course. Everyone takes a bloody cut. And because I owed Eely and others, not to mention the bank, one painting made no impression on my situation. But now I was in, don’t you see? They wouldn’t have let me pull out if I’d wanted to. So we started borrowing them in pairs.

  The woman in Cornwall was good. She’d only need the originals for a weekend, then continue from a series of photographs, all digitally mapped, colour matched and what not. She knows her stuff, all the techniques and colours those painters used. Then we’d swap them over when they were dry.” Considering the amount of money I had made from providing the “wrapping paper” for the stolen paintings, the profits had to be astronomical. It was the oldest law of economics: supply and demand regulate price. Anywhere in the world a painting is worth whatever someone is prepared to pay for it. In Saudi Arabia of course the demand for a near unobtainable commodity like figurative art, especially nudes, meant prices well beyond anything Western collectors, even obsessive collectors, were prepared to pay. And so churches and palazzos in Italy, monasteries in Greece, country houses in England and Scotland kept on emptying. It was part of the constant flow of desirable goods around the planet: plundered icons from Russia and the Balkans going west, stolen luxury cars from Britain and mainland Europe going east; paintings from British collections disappearing to the Middle East along with the four-wheel drives that vanish from the supermarket car parks; badly safeguarded artefacts from Italy going to the four corners of the earth and Asia’s cultural heritage being dismantled for general distribution. The carnage goes beyond mere theft; sometimes whole monasteries are torched to mask the disappearance of a couple of artefacts. Even the pious community of Mount Athos had its fair share of suspicious fires…Did I mention I hate art thieves?

  What rankled even more than having my own paintings abused to smuggle stolen masterpieces, even fake masterpieces, out of the country was the fact that I was powerle
ss to bring the originals back. Fortunately I had never deluded myself about my chances of recovering them.

  We parked behind the Holburne Museum, which at this moment had more Gainsboroughs on show than you could shake a stick at. All safe and snug, of course.

  Tim carried the shotgun, wrapped into his raincoat. He looked desperately suspicious to me but the sunbathers on the grass and the families at the tables around the minute tea house were magnificently self-absorbed. As ever, the tea house had more visitors than the museum it belonged to. No one gave our little procession a second glance.

  It took all of Tim’s diplomatic skills to charm Leonard out of my car (“I have your sister’s express permission to stick this gun up your arse, remember?”). We kept him firmly sandwiched until we arrived at Eely’s basement flat on the west end of Darlington Street, opposite the little church of St Mary the Virgin.

  “What car does he drive?” I asked.

  “He uses the van from the business. White box van. Says Sulis Wines on all sides. He usually parks around the corner, in Edward Street.”

  Tim loped off to check while we waited out of the line of sight from the basement windows. “What kind of gun does he have?” I wanted to know next.