‘It’ll have been stolen to order, though, you mark my words – probably changed the plates and all…’
Ransome nodded in agreement, his gaze fixing once again on Professor Gissing. The man’s arms were folded as he listened to Hendricks. Might just have been concentrating, but to Ransome the body language was all about defensiveness. Maybe they’d fail to find any fingerprints – he’d seldom known the SOCOs to be wrong – but something was whispering a name into his ear.
The name of Charles ‘Chib’ Calloway…
20
‘Not too many snooker halls left,’ Calloway was telling Mike Mackenzie. ‘I mean proper ones, full-sized slate tables. Know how much they weigh? You need to check that your floor can stand up to them.’ The gangster was switching on some of the lights in the cavernous yet musty-smelling room. Mike could make out six tables, but none of them in the best of health. Two were covered with gashed and stained dust sheets while the remaining four had suffered nicks, rips and rudimentary repairs to their green baize. A game seemed to have been abandoned on one of them, Mike rolling the pink ball towards the centre pocket.
‘Why’s this one shut on a Saturday evening?’ he asked.
‘Overheads,’ Chib explained. ‘Costs me more to run than I get back. I could always put pool tables in instead, maybe a few slot machines…’ He wrinkled his pugnacious face. ‘But I’ll probably end up selling it. Some developer can turn it into apartments or one of those huge super-pubs.’
‘Why not do it yourself?’
‘With my reputation?’ Chib gave a cold chuckle. ‘What do you reckon the chances are of me getting planning permission, never mind a licence?’
‘You could bribe a few councillors.’
Chib had picked up a cue, but found it wanting. It rattled when he replaced it in the rack. ‘Maybe a few years back, Mike. Things have changed.’
‘Or set up a front company, so no one knows you’re the one in charge…’
Chib gave another chuckle, warmer this time. ‘Listen to yourself, Michael – maybe we should swap places, eh? You seem to be thinking more like a criminal every day.’
‘Maybe that’s because I am a criminal.’
‘So you are,’ Chib agreed with a slow nod. ‘And how does it feel?’
Mike shrugged. ‘Ask me again further down the line.’
Chib had made a circuit of the table. He now gestured towards the package under Mike’s arm. Mike laid it flat on the dusty green baize and carefully undid the brown paper. He had wrapped it himself, hoping to make it look less like one of the works recovered from Marine Drive, just in case he was pulled over and asked to open his boot. Chib had sent two more texts before Mike had decided to get their transaction out of the way, leaving Allan in the penthouse awaiting Gissing’s return.
‘An extremely good example,’ he told the gangster, ‘of late-period Utterson.’
‘I’d still rather have had something by Jack the Vee.’ But Chib took his time studying the painting, running a finger along the edges of the canvas. ‘Not very big, is it? They look bigger when they’re framed.’
‘They do,’ Mike agreed. ‘Speaking of which…’
‘I know, I know – I can’t go taking it into a shop, tell them I want a nice new surround for it. And I can’t put it up anywhere it might be noticed.’ He affected a disappointed sigh. ‘Hardly worth the effort.’ Then he smiled and looked at Mike, eyes twinkling. ‘My youngsters were okay? Did as they were told?’
‘They were great.’
‘The shooters?’
‘Worked a treat. We handed them all back afterwards.’
‘I know.’ Chib paused for a moment, folding his arms. ‘Had half a mind you might hang on to yours – seemed to be forming quite an attachment to it. I’ve still got it if you want it.’
‘Tempting,’ Mike confessed. ‘But better all round if they just disappear.’
‘Agreed. So nobody got hurt, eh?’
‘It was a piece of cake.’ Mike found himself laughing as he ran a hand through his hair. ‘If I could do it again, I’d grab twice as much.’
‘Getting a taste, eh, Mikey?’
‘We couldn’t have done it without you.’
Chib picked up his Utterson and pretended to study it. ‘I still say you could just have swapped the paintings – no need for the stunt with the van.’
‘How would it have looked if we’d gone into that warehouse and come out again without anything being missing? This way, they think they’ve got back what was taken and that means they’ll be relieved rather than suspicious.’
‘Thinking more like a criminal every day,’ Chib repeated. ‘So what happens now?’
‘They’ve got the professor at the scene. He’ll be in the process of verifying that the recovered paintings are the originals.’
‘And they’ll take his word for it, just like that?’
‘They’ve no reason to doubt him. Besides which, he’s the only expert they’ve got.’
‘If I’d known how gullible these sods were, I’d have done something like this long ago.’
‘You didn’t know someone like Westie, though – the plan depended on him, and it was the prof’s idea to bring him in.’
‘Will Gissing’s nerve hold, do you think?’ Chib placed the painting back on the green baize.
‘He’ll be fine.’
Chib seemed to ponder this. ‘You did well, Mike. Makes me wish we’d teamed up years back.’
‘The actual plan was Gissing’s, remember.’
Chib ignored this. ‘What about your other mate?’
‘Allan?’ Mike watched Chib nod. ‘Allan’s fine.’
‘Sure about that? See, the thing is this – we’re connected now, aren’t we? And out of the whole lot of us, the only one I trust is me.’ He stabbed a finger towards himself and then Mike. ‘I need to be sure none of you lot will start blabbing if the cops come asking.’
‘Won’t happen,’ Mike stated.
‘I don’t even know this Westie, but in my experience students are always bad news.’
‘Thing is, he doesn’t know anything about you.’
‘So where does he think the shooters and my lads came from? Out of thin fucking air?’
‘He doesn’t seem to be the inquisitive sort.’ Mike decided that Chib need not know about Alice. ‘You don’t…’
‘What?’
‘The Utterson – I just thought you’d be more excited.’
There was a sound at the door. A thin smile spread across Chib Calloway’s face. ‘Now I’m excited,’ he said. Then he sniffed and rubbed his nose. ‘Seeing how you’ve developed a taste, Mike, I thought you should be part of this.’
Mike started to get a bad feeling. ‘Part of what?’
But Chib was ignoring him and heading for the door. He unlocked it and in stepped a very tall ponytailed and tattooed man, incongruous in a powder-blue suit and shoes with no socks. Chib led this new arrival over to the table, where Mike was pulling his shoulders back, trying for a bit more height and heft.
‘This is Mr Hate,’ Chib was saying by way of introduction. ‘Hate, I’d like you to meet the friend I was telling you about – you could even call him an associate of mine – Mike Mackenzie.’
The way Chib said his name told Mike something was going on. The man called Hate meantime ignored him altogether, giving Mike the chance to study him more closely. There was a dotted line across his throat, and when he rested his meaty hands against the edge of the snooker table, Mike saw that the word HATE had been tattooed along both sets of knuckles.
‘This is the collateral?’ Hate was saying, ignoring any niceties.
‘This is it,’ Chib agreed.
‘And I am supposed to believe it is worth how much?’ The accent was Scandinavian, but Mike couldn’t place it more exactly.
‘Mike here is the expert in that department,’ Chib was saying. Mike’s eyes bored into his, but Chib was far from being fazed.
‘It is a piece of shit,’ the giant concluded.