‘Surely they’ll spot it,’ Maggie said dubiously.
Jack warmed to his theme. ‘Adam reckons that in every gallery around the world, fifty per cent of the paintings are fake, even more with old masters.’
Maggie was taken aback. ‘And that’s what Adam is doing, faking old masters?’
Jack couldn’t hide his enthusiasm. ‘Yes, he’s collecting old canvases, frames and even nails. He’s got boxes of them from different centuries, and when I was over there earlier today, he was burning frames in a bonfire. When I left, he had a jar to collect the ashes, which he was going to use to age the canvases.’
‘Bloody hell, Jack, can you hear yourself? He’s faking paintings, and you seem to admire him. You should walk away as fast as you can. What if he’s not as smart as you think? What if people do know he’s back and he’s being watched? You could be caught up in what he’s doing.’
Jack sighed. ‘You still don’t understand... I’ll be right back, don’t go to sleep.’ As he hurried out of the bedroom, Maggie lay back and closed her eyes. She felt herself dropping off. She jumped when Jack barged back into the bedroom with his laptop.
‘I was looking at stuff on the internet with him and it got me Googling for myself... honestly Mags, when you start to look at it, you’ll be amazed’. He got into bed beside her and propped the laptop between them. He opened an article about fakes and famous artists. At first Maggie just wanted to tell him she’d look at it in the morning, but after reading a couple of paragraphs she quickly got sucked in.
‘This one, Tom Keating: can you believe he faked over two thousand paintings by over two hundred artists. He even did a Rembrandt. And look at the next guy, John Myatt. He’s done Chagall and Giacometti, and look... here’s his copy of a Matisse with the real one beside it.’
‘OK, I’m impressed.’
Jack smiled as he returned to the screen. ‘I thought you would be.’
‘No... I’m impressed with you. Listen to yourself reeling off artists’ names as if you’ve been an expert all your life.’
Jack grinned. ‘Look at this guy, he’s Dutch and got fed up with critics dismissing his artistic ability so decided he’d show them up by faking a Vermeer. He was going to admit it was his work but then decided to fuck them all by painting six more. He sold them worldwide for around sixty million dollars.’
Maggie was properly hooked now, looking at the photographs of famous fakes as Jack scrolled down through the article. ‘OK, now look at this guy’s work, Modigliani. Just as I was about to leave tonight, Border showed me three identical paintings. He asked me which one was the original, and it was almost impossible to tell them apart, but I said I thought it was the one in the middle, and guess what? I was right.’
‘How much is it worth?’
‘Hang on.’ Jack did a quick search. ‘Bloody hell, the original would set you back millions. Adam’s dealer rang while I was there, and I think he said they were all sold. I helped him get them ready to be shipped.’
Maggie laughed. ‘So my policeman husband has been helping an art forger pack up his fakes!’ She lay back and closed her eyes. ‘Right, I really am going to sleep now. Maybe when I wake up I’ll find this has all been a dream.’
Chapter 11
The next morning, after another peaceful night, Jack woke up feeling refreshed and energised. After a quick shower he went into his office and spent the morning looking at videos about forgers and ordering books from Amazon, along with The Third Man DVD. At 11 a.m. he wandered down to the empty kitchen, dressed in old jeans and a T-shirt, as he was expecting Marius to drive them to collect the larger pieces of furniture for the loft.
Maggie got back from her run with a sleeping Charlie in his pram to find Jack eating a bacon and egg sandwich and wondering where the hell Marius was.
‘Oh, yeah. I forgot to say. He had a problem with his van. He’ll call you when it’s fixed. Sorry.’
‘Oh, right.’ Jack pretended to be disappointed, thinking he could go back to his office to watch more videos.
‘And me and your mum are interviewing some cleaners this afternoon,’ Maggie added.
‘Daisy had eight puppies last night!’ Penny shouted from the hallway, closing the front door behind her. She came into the kitchen, taking off her coat. ‘Ah, they are cute, Jack. You should have seen Hannah’s face light up at the sight of them.’
‘No way,’ Jack said as he forced his breakfast plate into an already full dishwasher. ‘There’s quite enough going on here without getting a puppy.’
Penny wasn’t quite ready to give up though. ‘It’s a Labradoodle. The poodle side means they are very clever. Mind you, the Labrador side can mean they’re also boisterous.’
‘I don’t care what breed it is. We are not having one. You need to make sure Hannah knows it, Mum. No umming and ah-ing or she’ll talk you round.’
‘I’m afraid Jack’s right,’ Maggie said.
Jack wrapped his arms around her. ‘You see, we agree on something. I’ll disappear when you two start interviewing the cleaners unless you need me to do anything.’
Maggie hugged him back. ‘You can make me a nice cup of coffee.’ She surprised him by adding in a whisper, ‘Then I’d like to sit with you in your office and watch one of those art fraud videos.’
He grinned. ‘You go up and I’ll bring your coffee.’
Janet Williamson was in the prison infirmary when the alarm went off, signalling an emergency in cell block four, cell fourteen. She quickly picked up her medical bag to accompany the male nurse and prison officers onto the wing.
They found Rodney Middleton face down on his bunk bed, as she knew they would. Janet waited for the male nurse to examine him. Middleton appeared comatose, his eyes wide open and staring, while his body was stiff.
‘He’s OD’d on God only knows what,’ the nurse said. ‘His pulse is very low. We need to get the doctor.’
‘He’s not on duty until this afternoon,’ Janet told him, moving to Middleton’s bedside as the nurse turned him onto his back. She removed a vial of naloxone from her bag then, gently moving the male nurse aside, bent over Middleton, broke the seal and squeezed the contents into his nasal passages.
‘Come on, Rodney,’ Janet spoke quietly and calmly. ‘There’s a good lad, just breathe in. You’re going to be all right. Come on, big breaths. There you go.’
Rodney jerked upwards, blinking rapidly, and then fell back against the pillows. Janet checked his pulse and blood pressure as he slowly began to regain his senses.
‘Back with us, Rodney? How are you feeling now?’
‘What happened? What the fuck happened to me?’ he gasped.
Janet turned to the male nurse. ‘I’ve spoken to Doctor Zardari about making naloxone a stock drug. It was lucky I had some on me. We had so many ODs at Holloway.’
With the emergency over, they headed back to the infirmary.
‘I’ll report it to the doctor when he gets here. And someone will have to talk to Rodney to find out what he’s been using. He’s prescribed some heavy-duty painkillers, so he could have stored them up to get high. Or maybe he’s being passed something at visiting. Sneaky bastards, all of them. All we can do is make sure he swallows his meds, so if you’re on duty handing out the tabs to that wing, check his cheeks and under his tongue. I’ll check who he’s got visiting him.’ The male nurse nodded his understanding before leaving Janet to write up her incident report. Once she was alone, she closed her eyes and sighed heavily. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the sachet with ‘1’ written on it. ‘Come on Janet, come on,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Think of New Zealand.’