He nodded. ‘When you empty the van, sweet one, just stack the plastic crates. I’ll stow the contents tomorrow. If I’m tired, you must be exhausted.’
No point in arguing. ‘Would you like supper in bed?’ I’d microwave the last of those frozen healthy meals.
‘Absolutely not! We have some standards, this bear and I, and eating in bed falls far beneath them. Wake me at eight, prompt.’
There was much more to do than simply stack the crates, of course, though it was clear that Mary and Paul had kept on top of the emails and prioritized those that needed a response from me or Griff. There was also a little job I had to do that Griff didn’t need to know about.
‘Little gold frames,’ I greeted Titus.
‘That miniature of yours in one, is it?’
‘I never thought! But there’s a Hilliard on the loose somewhere that needs one.’ I explained, but kept everything nice and anonymous.
He whistled. ‘Good wheeze that. Something you’d do again and again. Like at the V and A, for instance. Or the Wallace Collection. Even the Tansey Collection, if the bastard risked the same MO in Germany.’
I might have whistled too: there were times when Titus could still surprise me. ‘In fact,’ I concluded for him, ‘anywhere there were unsupervised study areas for people who appeared to be bona fide students or scholars. ‘I’d better go and look at mine,’ I said – but I said it to a dead phone.
Getting out the ready meals triggered something in my brain. Something alarming. Nothing to do with the food itself, or with Marks and Spencer. A sort of non-memory, if you like, of a time when I associated a late meal with fear. But it swam away and allowed the microwave to do its usual mundane and invaluable job.
Happily fed and watered, Griff retired to the living room. There he sat very still, his post-supper glass of red wine untouched beside him, and the miniature I’d bought at auction – was it only ten days ago? – in his lap. He put down his eyepiece. ‘It’s a very serious crime, faking hallmarks. Heaven knows what the penalty would be. But that’s what you fear may be the case here.’ He touched the miniature, or rather its frame, which, despite my fears, looked authentic enough: just a little battered, just a little scuffed.
‘Would it be a worse crime than stealing a masterpiece and passing it off as a very inferior product?’
‘Why should anyone do that? I fear, my love, that since my operation my thought processes have become painfully slow.’
‘Because if you wanted to sell a named item – let’s say a Hilliard or an Isaac Oliver – at auction or to a respectable dealer or even a respectable private collector, you’d have to have proper provenance. Detailed provenance. And somehow I don’t think Nicked from the private collection of Tobias Byrne would quite hack it, do you?’
He sipped slowly. ‘So if you sell it as part of a poor lot, you get rid of it with very few questions asked. I begin to see. And you’d bring in a reasonable amount of money – not a huge sum, but if you paid nothing for it in the first place, at least something.’
‘Exactly. Actually, I think the first miniature I saw at Brian Baker’s probably was a Hilliard, maybe even Toby’s Hilliard, rather than a school of Isaac Oliver, despite the intern’s verdict on it. But because it was one of a batch from a collection somewhere in the Midlands no one bothered to raise an eyebrow.’
‘Not even Brian? He’s usually most meticulous.’
‘He is – but he’d dumped a lot of work on to his unpaid intern, remember.’
‘So you think this lad’s been slipshod? But ultimately it’s Brian’s responsibility, my love. If what you suspect is true, of course.’
‘Big if. Dangerous if, possibly – because people won’t like being caught out, will they?’ Or even suspected. I shivered, and not just because we’d left the central heating off while we were away and the cottage was taking its time to warm up again. I’d been on the receiving end of enough little scares recently to tell me that I’d annoyed someone, even if I’d not understood who. Had that woman who’d made me take refuge in the Indian takeaway – ah, that explained my frisson of fear earlier! – really been tailing me? Puck’s Mrs Fielding, perhaps? It had been bad enough when I’d been on my own – what would it be like if I had Griff to worry about?
Pushing the fear to the back of my mind, I said tentatively, ‘Do you think, after all he’s been through today, Toby would still send me a copy of the Hilliard he’s lost? Because I’d recognize it. I know, I know: I should have thought of this when we were with him.’
‘But at least you’ve thought of it now. Shall I phone Richard and ask for his help? It might be better if he suggested it to Toby.’
Passing him the phone and his wallet, I nodded gloomily. ‘If I’m right, it’ll mean no end of trouble for Brian and Helen. And for Tris. Police – no way out of it.’
‘And you’d rather nothing was done? That you didn’t keep your promise to Toby? Who looked to me, incidentally, as though he was in very poor health.’
‘So I’ve got to restore Toby’s picture to him before he dies? Oh, Griff. That’s under the belt!’
He had the grace to blush, and applied himself to the phone. I worried a hangnail while he did so. If it was the picture I’d seen, then the trail leading to the new buyer, who’d no doubt bought it in good faith and would be dead miffed to lose it, should be easy enough to follow.
‘Richard will phone Toby for you. And he sends his profound apologies for being what he calls abrupt with you earlier today. Oh!’ He picked up second ring. ‘Oh. Oh dear. Thank you very much. We’ll hope to hear from you soon, Richard.’ He looked at me. ‘There’s no reply from either of Toby’s phones. Richard’s going round there now.’
For Richard, read Charles, no doubt.
Eventually, I made Griff go to bed, with his Kindle and Tablet Bear for company. I busied myself with the computer, supposedly sorting the business wheat from the advertising chaff.
It must have been nearly midnight when the phone actually rang. Charles. To say he thought he’d got to Toby in time. The paramedics had revived him, and he was now in intensive care. Charles would wait at the hospital until there was hard news. Then he said something odd: ‘I wish it hadn’t ended this way, Lina.’
That was all. He’d cut the call before I could ask him what it was.
TWENTY-FOUR
There was no point in hanging about, so I headed off to bed. Griff was dozing over another Georgette Heyer paperback, always his comfort food when he was stressed. The bear sat beside him, an empty bubble in the pack of tablets. One of them at least had had some medication.
Next morning, before I could change my mind or get diverted, I texted Carwyn Morgan. Huge big SOS. Really need help.
Understatement it was not, but surely that would do it?
Mary – no Paul, of course, since Tuesday was golf day – arrived before Griff was awake, let alone up. I was terrified and kept popping my head round the door. Was he going to die in his sleep? He’d been under so much stress. But now I was under some too. The phone rang with news from Richard – who’d no doubt slept in his own comfortable bed while Charles had hung around at the hospital – that Toby still hadn’t regained consciousness, though the medics insisted he was stable. Perhaps this wasn’t news to tell Griff.
By eight I was ready to shake Griff awake, but the front doorbell, rung loud and hard, might have saved me the trouble. It was Carwyn Morgan, waving at the security camera. He was flourishing a brown paper bag. Bless him, he’d only brought croissants, which were still warm.
Perhaps it was the smell of these, or perhaps the sound of an attractive young voice, that brought Griff, splendid in his most theatrical dressing-gown, downstairs. Despite what he’d said yesterday, he helped himself to coffee and swept back up to his room; soon we heard the shower running and his accurate but now reedy tenor treating us to gems from the opera.
‘Before breakfast,’ I said, which could have applied to Carwyn’s arrival or Don Jose’s aria
from Carmen.
‘SOS sounded serious,’ Carwyn said with an encouraging smile. He sat opposite me at the kitchen table, dolloping Griff’s best strawberry jam on the side of his plate but declining butter. He grinned to see me pour his coffee into an eighteenth century handless can, but didn’t demand a mug.
‘It was meant to. And this time it’s not problematic horses but a stolen miniature.’ I explained as succinctly as I could. ‘The sad thing is I have a horrible feeling that a miniature I bought as one of a lot the other day might be stolen too.’ I took a deep breath. ‘At one point you tried to get me to grass up my friend Titus Oates. I insisted he was on the right side of the law. In fact it was he who warned me that someone was making gold frames and asked me to alert DCI Webb, but …’ I gave an extravagant shrug. They’d not had the time or the inclination to pursue it, had they? ‘I wouldn’t mind betting that this miniature was removed from its frame at the museum or wherever it ought to be and rehoused, as it were.’
‘Surely not a museum! Their security—’
‘Is probably no better than Toby Byrne’s, which is really excellent. After all, metal and tag detecting equipment isn’t designed to pick up vellum.’
‘But someone would notice a gap.’
‘There’s so much art work of all sorts in museums and galleries that never sees the light of day that it’s possible that store number three, or whatever, is never opened except by request. And don’t forget that guy who made quite a good living by filleting bits out of rare books and selling them at auction – it was a very long time before they caught up with him.’
‘It was.’ He nodded sadly. ‘And all those beautiful books ruined …’ Was he fishing for information about Pa and Titus? If so, all he got was another can of coffee. ‘May I see this miniature of yours?’
‘Maybe in my workroom?’ I mimed sticky fingers. ‘Another of your croissants first?’
‘What about saving them for Griff?’
‘Dear boy,’ Griff declared from the doorway, making us both jump, ‘since my life-saving surgery I find I have to treat life like one long Lent. So it will be wholemeal toast and Benecol spread for me.’
I pulled a face. ‘Right out of bread.’
‘So baking will be my first task this morning. In the meantime, perhaps just one. Thank you, Carwyn. But no jam and no butter, thank you. Any news of Toby Byrne?’ he flashed at me.
‘Unconscious but stable.’ I turned to Carwyn. ‘The trouble is, while Toby is ill, he can’t supply you with a list of the scholars and students who had access to his collection. He can’t supply us with a copy of the one that was stolen either.’
‘A neat segue from you to us,’ Carwyn said with a dry grin.
‘If my miniature is stolen property it gets very personal.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to anything so lovely,’ Carwyn breathed, cupping the miniature – which he, too, had picked out instantly from the others – in those gorgeous hands and tilting it backwards and forwards under the strong lights. He reached to switch them off. ‘These things should never be exposed to high light levels, should they?’
‘Not for long, at least. Any idea who the subject might be?’
‘He’s got a very strong look of Charles the Second, hasn’t he?’ He looked me straight in the eye. ‘Do you want me to take this into protective custody, as it were? Just in case?’
‘Just in case it gets nicked or just in case it was nicked?’
Now my treasure, along with its companions, was out of the house, I actually felt happier. With Griff producing delectable smells, and popping into the shop to gossip with Mary, I could put my head down to my restoration work without having to worry. Possibly. At least when I came up for air it was to feel relieved that at last other people were taking my worries seriously, with two police forces involved. Clearly, Toby had been robbed; clearly, they no longer suspected me. It would be their job, not mine, to hurtle round museums and auction houses checking records, and their unpleasant task, not mine, to break it to people who thought they’d got a bargain that they’d probably fallen in love with someone else’s property. Huge plus.
Possibly.
Unless I put it about on Twitter and Facebook that I was no longer hunting thieves and fraudsters, then no one would know. In any case, since a lot of criminals were pretty bright, even Pa (on a good day), it wasn’t impossible that one or two of them would think back on conversations with me and do the right sums. I sighed. In any case – thinking about the phone call that had indirectly got me out of Toby’s strongroom – the police weren’t necessarily going to be on the trail of the white horse forgers. I’d best phone Rob Sampson to apologize for not getting back to him earlier, hadn’t I?
‘You’d better come and see what you’ve done,’ he said. And ended the call.
Carwyn was there before me, and so were several other officers. After all, Rob’s emporium was within spitting distance of his local police station. So far all the discussion was outside, in the narrow street, while the SOCOs hunted round inside. They couldn’t make out why a total stranger should turn up and demand to speak to the owner of what was now a completely trashed shop. The only thing that didn’t seem to have been broken was the white Beswick horse with the damaged hoof. Rob caught my eye imploringly: what he wanted me to do was all too clear. Could I fix it for him? And say nothing?
I could. Whether I would …
Rob must have taken my silence as a negative. He pointed at me. ‘It’s her fault. She said there were dodgy Beswick horses in circulation. So when I was offered one, knock-down price, I said no. And told them why. They seemed to take it on the chin, but I came back this morning and found this.’ He gestured at the shards around him. He looked me in the eye. ‘Why didn’t you keep your fucking trap shut? I’d have offered them a couple of hundred, take it or leave it, and that would have been that.’
Carwyn said gently, ‘It wouldn’t, you know. Would it?’
‘You think everything I’m offered—’ He shut up abruptly. Sensibly, if he’d been going to add that he’d not just been offered suspect items, but had bought them and gone on to sell them.
‘My colleagues here will do all they can to discover the people who did this,’ said Carwyn. ‘Ashford’s got plenty of CCTV, and they’ll know who to look for. The problem is, the people that came with the baseball bats or whatever may not be the ones who tried to sell you the horse. I’d like you to tell me all about them – unless you’ve got a security system yourself that might have taken some helpful shots?’
He shook his head despondently. ‘Shop wasn’t making enough to keep it up, was it? And then the insurance people upped the rates …’ He spread his hands.
So he wasn’t covered. I was almost in tears. And then I thought of what even dear, kind Griff had said about him – that he was ripping off old people when he knocked at their doors and offered to get rid of the rubbish in their attics. Rubbish! Personal treasures, not worth a mint but far more than the peanuts he offered. And I’d bet that decent white horse over there that the best stuff never ended in this tatty shop, but got sold on to other unscrupulous dealers. Or even, of course, to people like Griff and me. To think I’d once cleaned his windows!
‘I’ve got some mugshots on my computer,’ Carwyn continued. ‘Would you like to come along to the police station and we’ll have a look at them? I’m sure they’ll find us a room and you a cup of tea. And they’ll be able to give you the name of professionals who’ll clear up this mess in no time.’
‘At a price, no doubt,’ Rob said bitterly. ‘No, I’ll have to sort this out myself.’ He looked hard at me. Did he expect me to get busy with a brush and spade?
‘Tell you what,’ I heard myself saying, ‘if you like, I could repair that white horse. My usual terms,’ I added firmly, holding his eye. ‘In other words,’ I added to Carwyn, ‘that all restoration is declared to the purchaser. In writing. May I have a word before you go?’
He raised h
is eyebrows but stepped away from the knot of other officers.
All the same I dropped my voice. ‘I did mention this horse business to a fellow dealer in Yorkshire, whose husband’s a Trading Standards officer, so they might be worth contacting. And one of my colleagues says that there’s an art potter in Totnes who’s suddenly flush, after years on his uppers. As he said, Totnes is a long way from Kent …’
‘If you were in his position, would you foul your own nest? Or stable?’ he added with a smile to die for.
‘No. But there’s such a rash of them round here. And don’t forget the guys from Hastings were dead keen to get their horse back.’
‘I’ll get straight on to that. Which shop?’
‘Don’t know. And Paul’s playing golf today. This is his mobile number.’
Copying it, he continued, ‘Did your Devon contact give you a name?’
‘No. But there can’t be all that many potters in Totnes, can there?’
‘You’ve got to be joking! Tap and they’ll come out of the woodwork.’ He snorted. ‘Still, that’ll be Devon and Cornwall’s problem, not ours. And their budget,’ he added, with another wonderful grin. More seriously he added, ‘How reliable is your colleague?’
‘At least as reliable as Titus,’ I said, turning on my heel and walking briskly away.
I’d got to the car park before he caught me up.
‘Look, Lina, you must know we’ve had an eye on Titus for some time. But I have to tell you the word is he’s gone straight.’
‘Gone?’
‘And the word also is that he’s done this for you. Are you – are you seeing him?’
For a moment I couldn’t speak – I just stared, goggle-eyed. ‘Me? Titus?’ I managed. ‘He’s – he’s—’ Hell, I nearly said he was a career criminal. ‘He’s old enough to be my father.’
Mistake. I got a very old-fashioned look at the word father. But I mustn’t give him an inkling that I knew what he was on about. Change the subject!
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