Mac thought it the most beautiful and most heart-breaking thing he’d ever seen.
‘We’ve found her,’ old Nikos said, the tears flowing down his cheeks.
His grandson embraced him and held him until the tears stopped.
‘She is beautiful indeed but what now?’ Monty asked, being practical.
‘I suppose we should notify our governments?’ young Nikos suggested somewhat tentatively.
This suggestion didn’t go down well with Monty.
‘What? Then you’d all have to go down to the National Gallery to see it. It would stay there for the next fifty years or so while they bicker about it who owns it. No that won’t do, not at all.’ He seemed to have a thought. ‘Didn’t my father say that you used to have a procession at Easter?’
Old Nikos nodded.
‘Well, you’ve got three days or so to get it back then, haven’t you?’ Monty said with a big smile.
Both old and young Nikos smiled too. Mac was totally amazed, somehow it wasn’t what he’d have expected from Monty.
‘How will you do it?’ Monty asked.
‘We know someone at the Embassy here in London who might be able get it out of England in the diplomatic bag,’ young Nikos replied.
‘Another cousin?’ Mac asked with a smile.
‘No but he comes from our town. It’s as important to him as it is to us.’
‘What will you tell them?’ Monty asked.
Mac could see he was concerned in case anyone might mistake his father’s motives.
‘Yes,’ old Nikos said as he rubbed his chin. ‘We need a story.’ He thought for a while. ‘What about this?’
He told them all his idea. Mac thought it was brilliant and with a few tweaks they all agreed what they would say.
‘Well, you’d better get going then hadn’t you?’ Monty said.
Old Nikos hugged Monty again and young Nikos did the same. Old Nikos shook Helena’s hand with feeling. Young Nikos shook her hand too and seemed to take his time about it.
‘Come on, we must go,’ old Nikos eventually said with urgency.
Young Nikos tore himself away and picked up the icon. Before he left the room he stopped and looked back. Helena had turned around and didn’t see the expression of longing on his face.
The room must have been silent for at least a couple of minutes. They all looked at each other as though to ask ‘Did that really happen?’
Monty cleared his throat.
‘Well, who’d have thought that then?’
‘Monty would you like a drink?’ Helena asked.
‘Yes, a whisky and make it a bloody stiff one please.’
Mac declined as he was driving.
‘Yes who’d have thought that?’ he said again. ‘Mr. Maguire, I’d like to thank you for your part in all this. I’ve been thinking about my father quite a lot recently, now I think I know why.’
‘You did the right thing Monty. I was very, very proud of what you did just now.’
‘It was nothing really. How could I worry about giving away something that I never knew I had? I just hope it does them some good, I really do.’
‘But you did find something of value tonight, didn’t you?’
Monty’s eyes brimmed again.
‘Yes and something more valuable to me than all the paintings in the world.’
Helena came back with two glasses. She gave one to Monty.
‘If you both don’t mind I think I’d like to read this again,’ Monty said as he picked up his father’s letter.
Helena and Mac left him in peace.
‘I’ll show you out,’ she offered.
‘That letter has really affected Monty,’ Mac stated.
‘Yes, he and his father were very close. I think it always pained him a little that his father would never tell him about the war though.’
‘And now he has and from out of the grave at that.’
Helena was about to open the door when Mac asked her a question. One he knew he had to get the answer to before he left.
‘You and Dr. Nicolaou, you’ve met before, haven’t you?’
Helena took her hand off the door latch, looked up to the ceiling and then sat down on the stairs nearby.
‘Yes we’ve met before. We met just the once and it lasted exactly twenty eight minutes. We both attended the same Medical School. I was finishing off my studies, he was a researcher. We must have been there together for at least a year but we never bumped into each other until his leaving party. That’s strange, isn’t it?
Anyway I went to his leaving party to give a friend something. She said she’d be definitely there. So I dropped in on my way to work, the night shift at the local hospital. My friend wasn’t there but Dr. Nicolaou was. We talked for twenty eight minutes and then I had to go. I felt a real connection there, something I can’t explain. Anyway he was flying back to Greece for a year’s sabbatical so I figured that it wasn’t meant to be. I’ve thought about him since though.’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘And now you meet again,’ Mac said.
‘Yes and he’s flying back to bloody Greece again, isn’t he?’ she said, the frustration clear in her voice.
Helena seemed to be quite upset about someone she’d only met twice and fleetingly at that. Mac gave it some thought.
‘Well at least you know where he lives. You know I’d bet that, with a little persuasion, Monty would love to go to Agiou Athiris is a week or two, get to see where his father spent so long during the war. Of course he’s old now and he’ll need someone to help him…’
Helena jumped up, a big smile on her face. She gave Mac a kiss on the cheek.
‘Thank you Mr. Maguire. I think that’s an absolutely excellent idea.’
As he drove home Mac wondered how it would all turn out. Would the icon really restore some hope to a town battered by the storms of austerity? Would Helena get to meet young Nikos again and, if she did, how would it turn out? Mac would just have to wait and see.
He looked at his watch. It was only two o’clock.
He rang Tim who was all up for knocking off early and meeting him at the Magnets.
Mac was glad. He had a whopper of a story to tell him.
Chapter Thirteen
Friday – Two days to Easter
Mac awoke very late that morning. He’d gone to bed quite early so he reckoned he must have needed the sleep.
He sat on the edge of the bed trying to get his mind to focus. Somehow yesterday’s events seemed more like one of the surreal lucid dreams that he had from time to time. He remembered that he was due to meet with Jimmy Carmichael and was glad that he had a few hours free before he had to do that. He said a little prayer and then stood up and checked his pain levels. They weren’t too bad. He showered and shaved and, after some coffee and toast, he went to the cemetery to tell Nora everything that had happened.
It was nearly mid-day by the time he’d finished. He decided he might as well do some research on Thomas Pierson until it was time to go and pick up Jimmy.
Born in St. Ippolyts, the young Pierson was taken to New York as a teenager when his family moved there. He attended Columbia University, where his father was a professor, and he did a degree in Fine Arts. Pierson was quoted as saying that his real education was hanging out with people like Warhol and Rauschenberg in the sixties New York art scene. He found a photo showing a young Warhol dressed in a leather jacket and sunglasses. It was taken in the famous Factory and in the background a young long haired Pierson could be seen leaning against a wall. He also found a portrait of Warhol that Pierson had painted in the early seventies before he left New York for good. It was now hanging in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. He read that, for all that, Pierson’s work could never be classified as Pop Art, it was something else entirely. No-one knows why but he suddenly left America and went back to the family home in St. Ippolyts in the mid-seventies. He never left England again. He painted many local scenes in Hertfordshire and
also in Devon but his most sought after works were his ‘memory paintings’ of New York. All done in St. Ippolyts but they were recognisably of a New York that no longer existed.
Mac looked hard at a number of Pierson’s paintings but he wasn’t sure what he made of them. It was a though he was looking at a scene through some sort of distorting lens.
He came across a recent article which pointed out that Pierson’s popularity was likely to grow now that he was dead. With no more works possible those remaining would become even more valuable. The author illustrated this point by noting that the day before a work of Pierson’s had sold for more than twice its reserve price.
Where there’s money there’s usually trouble, Tim always said. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his alarm going off. It was time to go and get Jimmy.
He was standing outside the pub, not leaning against a wall or slouching but standing straight and still. When he climbed into the car Mac noticed that he had no bag with him.
‘No tools, Jimmy?’
Jimmy smiled.
‘Only the one between my ears. Hopefully we’ll have no need for tools today. The best way to get into any safe is to find the code. We should try that first. Anyway if I have to crack it I’ll need a good look at it first.’
Mac took his word for it. He knew when it came to safes Jimmy knew what he was talking about.
The house in St. Ippolyts was large and rambling. The central part was very old and, over the centuries, bits and pieces seemed to have been added on at random.
A woman in her sixties opened the door. Her grey hair was neatly cut and she was elegantly dressed in black trousers and a white blouse. Mac noticed that she had very fine, high cheekbones.
‘Mrs. Symonds?’ Mac asked.
He gave her his card. She looked a bit puzzled.
‘I’m sorry but I wasn’t expecting anyone,’ she replied.
‘Didn’t Mrs. Lynn tell you I was coming? She’s hired me to open her father’s safe.’
‘No she didn’t but, then again I’m not surprised, everything is so up in the air at the moment after the funeral and all. Now I think of it I do remember her mentioning that she needed to get the safe opened but I thought she was going to leave it until she got back from Devon. You’d better come in then,’ she said holding the door open for him and Jimmy.
They followed her through a short maze of corridors and up some stairs. They found themselves in a long room that had windows all down the side and in the roof. Paintings lay piled on one another and one half-finished one stood on an easel.
She noticed Mac looking at the painting.
‘He hadn’t painted for quite a while, the dementia,’ she explained. ‘But in the months before he died it all came back to him. He couldn’t remember what had happened an hour ago but he could remember his time in New York and so he painted that.’
Mac looked at one that was propped up against a wall. It was a street scene. It was night and a young woman,a prostitute possibly, stood on a street corner while behind her the traffic, big old American cars, swept by. Her face caught the light and Mac thought he could sense a quite chilling sort of blank despair in her expression. Mac had no idea if it was any good but it was definitely very powerful.
‘Is this one of his recent works?’ Mac asked.
‘Yes, he did that the week before he died.’
‘I’d guess that Mr. Pierson’s works being so valuable that they’d all be on some sort of inventory. Is that right?’
‘Yes, except for these later ones of course. I was just happy to see him painting again. Tom could be a right sod at times but when he was painting he was like an angel.’
She smiled when she said this. Mac suspected that there was more to her relationship with the painter than just being an employee. He also had a good idea that the paintings Danielle had stolen must have been some of these more recent ones. If they’re not on the inventory then they don’t exist.
They followed the housekeeper to a door at the end of the long studio. She held it open for them.
‘There it is,’ she said as she pointed to the corner of the room. ‘Can I get you anything?’
Mac shook his head.
‘Don’t go too far away,’ Jimmy said. ‘We might need some information.’
‘Just shout and I’ll come. That’s what I used to do for him.’
She smiled a sad smile and left them to it.
Mac noticed that a look of wonder had grown on Jimmy’s face as he gazed at the large safe that took up a whole corner of the office.
‘My God it’s a Chatwood and an old one at that! I never thought I’d get to see one of these.’
He ran his hand lightly along one of its edges as though he were caressing the steel box.
‘What’s so special about it?’ Mac asked.
He was quite curious.
Jimmy smiled the first smile since they’d met.
‘They produced one of the first safes that couldn’t be drilled through, two half inch steel plates with a layer of molten steel and manganese in between. I really hope I don’t have to crack this one, it’s a beauty. The combination lock was probably fitted later.’
‘So what do we have to do first?’ Mac asked.
‘Perhaps nothing. The key’s in the lock so let’s just check that it isn’t open. You’d be amazed how often I’ve found safes left unlocked.’
He tried the door. It didn’t open.
‘It was worth a try. So, as it’s got a Mark IV Manifoil combination lock fitted, we need to search the room for the code. If he had dementia it’s highly likely he would have written it down somewhere.’
‘What would the code look like?’ Mac asked. ‘Six digits like in the films?’
Jimmy smiled.
‘Could be if they’re all over ten. There are only four numbers for this one and the last one is always zero so, in reality, we only need three. However we have from one to ninety nine so there’s quite a choice.’
Mac rummaged around the office and passed everything with a number on to Jimmy. After an hour they’d tried everything and the safe was still locked.
‘Time to shout,’ Jimmy said. He went into the studio and shouted, ‘Mrs. Symonds!’
A couple of minutes later she appeared. She looked at the shut safe.
‘No luck yet?’ she asked.
‘No. It doesn’t look like he’s written it down anywhere so it must be something memorable, something he’s not likely to forget. I’d like you to write down all the important dates you can think of, birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, everything. Can you?
She thought for a moment.
‘I’m pretty sure I can remember most of them.’
She spoke as she wrote.
‘That’s Tom’s, Cathy’s and Dan’s birthdays and then there’s Ella’s birthday. She was Cathy and Dan’s mother. They were married on this date and this was the date she died. Let’s think…’
She sucked the end of the biro.
‘Oh yes this was an important date, the date of his first exhibition.’
‘You’ve forgotten one,’ Mac said. ‘What about your birthday?’
She smiled and shook her head.
‘I’ll put it down if you like but Tom never could remember my birthday.’
Mac watched silently as Jimmy tried all of the numbers backwards and forwards. It took him quite some time as the dial had to be turned five times clockwise for the first number then four turns anti-clockwise for the second number then three clockwise and two anti-clockwise for the last two.
‘It’s not any of these,’ Jimmy stated after he’d tried the last one.
‘So what else might the code be?’ Mac asked.
‘Well dates are usually the most popular but it could be anything really. It’s usually something personal, something that could never be forgotten. If it’s something like his locker number at school then we’re sunk.’
Mac had a little niggling thought at the back of his head. It wa
s something Mrs. Symonds had said, what was it? Yes he had it.
Jimmy had a puzzled expression on his face as he watched Mac count on his fingers.
‘Try 4-1-14,’ Mac said.
Jimmy did. He smiled again as the door came easily open.
‘How did you get that?’ he asked.
‘It was something Mrs. Symonds said. Tom Pierson’s daughters are called Catherine and Danielle but she called them Cathy and Dan. I knew that Danielle was her father’s favourite so…’
‘Very clever, Mr. Maguire.’
‘Anyway here you go Jimmy. I’d have never gotten anywhere near it without you.’
Mac took the cheque for five hundred pounds he written our earlier from his pocket and gave it to Jimmy.
‘Thanks, this really helps,’ Jimmy said.
‘Oh before you go there’s one question I’ve been dying to ask you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That last robbery you carried out, the one where you got caught, how come they never found a note?’
‘The ‘You have been taxed’ note?’
Mac nodded.
‘I managed to shred it,’ Jimmy replied.
‘But they checked the shredder and found nothing.’
‘Well as the man I was robbing was a guest of the country as it were, I thought I’d be kind. I got it translated into Arabic.’
Mac laughed out loud.
They shook hands and, Jimmy being Jimmy, he left without saying any more.
Mac took a look inside the safe. There were a few slim manila folders and a large plastic wallet so crammed with documents that it couldn’t be shut properly.
He decided not to shout for Mrs. Symonds and went looking for her instead. He carried the folders awkwardly under one arm. As he passed through the lounge he saw a framed photo of the two sisters on the wall. They were very alike except that one of them had blonde hair. For some reason Mac stopped and looked very hard at the photo. He wasn’t sure exactly why.
‘The blonde one is Danielle,’ Mrs. Symonds said from behind him. ‘It isn’t her natural colour but she always wanted to be different to her sister. She said they looked too much alike.’
Without taking his gaze from the photo he asked, ‘What’s Danielle really like?’
The Weeping Women (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 3) Page 12
