‘I knew he was trying to tail me that day we bumped into one another at the gallery.’
‘So he might have seen us there?’ Mike asked, not really expecting an answer. ‘That’s more than a little worrying.’ He stared at Ransome’s picture for a while longer, then called Gissing back.
‘Houston,’ he began by saying, ‘we do indeed have a problem.’
The man who called himself Hate had brought a laptop with him on his trip to Scotland. In fact, he never travelled anywhere without it, though he was careful to keep nothing on its hard drive that the police of any country he visited might find interesting. With the painting by Samuel Utterson – the possibly worthless painting – stowed in the rental car’s boot, he fired up the laptop and got to work, accessing the internet and running a search on the artist. If he failed to be convinced, he might visit a bookshop or library, seeking further information. The man back in the snooker hall – Mackenzie, if that was his real name – had warned that the painting was stolen. Well, that wasn’t Hate’s problem, was it? His problems only started if it turned out to be worth less than Calloway owed. Hate needed to know, and that might well mean asking someone. In fact, it would mean showing them the painting… which could bring further potential problems.
Hate had already texted his client with news that he had taken receipt of the Utterson. Like him, they’d never heard of the artist. Again, not an insurmountable problem – money was money. A search of the BBC’s regional news site showed that a warehouse belonging to the National Galleries of Scotland had been broken into earlier that day. But ‘a number of paintings’ had been recovered afterwards. It was not known if anything was still missing. Hate tugged at his ear lobe as he considered his options. He could feel the little hole where one of his earrings usually rested. When off duty, he preferred denims and a T-shirt, but knew that the suit unnerved people – or rather, the combination of the suit and the man inside it unnerved people. Hate couldn’t wait to get home. He disliked Edinburgh. It was all surface, a kind of street con – showing visitors one thing while easing the cash from their wallets without being noticed. All the same, at least the galleries and museums were free of charge. Hate had visited a number of them, looking at paintings. He’d hoped the exercise might pay off, hoped it would help him spot a fake. But all that seemed to happen was, members of staff followed him round, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. Perhaps they were expecting him to take a knife or razor to one of their precious canvases. Calloway, the first time he’d mentioned the possibility of collateral to Hate, hadn’t said where the painting would come from. Hadn’t mentioned an artist’s name. Hate didn’t recall Utterson from any of the galleries he’d visited, but he knew now from the internet that the man was collectable. Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonham’s – they had all sold examples of his work in the past couple of years. The highest price paid at auction had been three hundred thousand pounds, so maybe the man called Mackenzie hadn’t been exaggerating. On a whim, Hate decided to run a search on Mackenzie’s name, too.
And found almost as many hits as for Samuel Utterson himself.
One of which took Hate to a magazine’s website and photos of Mackenzie’s penthouse apartment. There looked to be some nice paintings on the walls. And it was the same guy, no doubt about it – there was a small photo of him – a man of wealth and taste, as Hate’s favourite song might have put it. Hate tugged on his ear lobe again. He was going to have to rethink his opinion of Charles ‘Chib’ Calloway. The man might be a boor, an oaf, an ugly, low-life specimen.
But he had a good class of associate.
Laura was at a dinner party in Heriot Row. The host had just sold two paintings at Laura’s auction, but neither had achieved the top end of estimate. As a result, Laura had been expecting to have her ear bent, but thankfully all anyone could talk about was the heist – its audacity, its stupidity, and how close a call it had been. She had thought about asking Mike Mackenzie to be her date for the evening, but had been unable to summon up quite enough courage. As a result, the host and hostess had placed her next to a lawyer whose divorce, as it turned out, was still a fresh and painful wound, to be anaesthetised only with alcohol. The call on her mobile had come as blessed relief towards the end of the pudding course. She’d mumbled an apology for not having had the foresight to turn the thing off, then had plucked it from her shoulder bag, stared at the screen, and told the room that she had to take it. Walking briskly into the hallway, she’d expelled breath noisily before holding the phone to her ear.
‘What can I do for you, Ransome?’
‘Not interrupting anything, I hope?’
‘Actually you are – a dinner party.’
‘I’m hurt I didn’t make the guest list…’
‘I’m not hosting.’
‘I could still have chaperoned…’
She let out another sigh for his benefit. ‘Is it anything important, Ransome?’
‘Just wanted to pick your brains. It’s to do with the Granton warehouse. I’m guessing you’ll have heard.’
Laura raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re working on that?’ She had to step aside as one of the liveried waitresses – hired for the evening from an agency – wheeled a cheese trolley towards the dining room.
‘I’m not alone,’ Ransome was saying. ‘Your friend Professor Gissing is lending a hand, too.’
‘He’s hardly my friend…’
‘But he is some sort of authority?’
‘Depends on the period.’ Laura saw the hostess’s head peer around the doorway and nodded to let her know she was nearly finished. ‘I’ve got to go, Ransome.’
‘Could we meet later for a drink?’
‘Not tonight.’
‘Other plans, eh? Who’s the lucky man?’
‘Bye, Ransome,’ Laura replied, ending the call. She entered the room again and made another apology. The lawyer got up to help her into her chair.
‘Nothing untoward?’ he asked solicitously, face reddened with drink.
‘No,’ she reassured him. Who the hell said ‘untoward’ these days? Well, Robert Gissing almost certainly did. She wondered about Ransome’s call. Was Gissing really the best qualified man for the job of checking the paintings? She doubted it. She remembered the last time she’d seen him, in the doorway during her auction. Mike had made his way towards him and the two men had then left, Allan Cruikshank following soon after. It was Allan who’d introduced her to Mike, the evening of the Monboddo retrospective opening party. She seemed to remember he’d introduced Mike to Gissing that night, too. She’d been talking to Mike, enjoying his company. And, by his body language, he’d seemed to be enjoying hers. But then Allan had brought the professor over, and Gissing had begun the job of monopolising the conversation, droning on about ‘the importance of taste and discrimination’. Eventually, Laura had moved to another part of the gallery, connecting with other people she knew, but still feeling Mike’s eyes on her from time to time.
You’re only a couple of months out of a two-year relationship, she’d told herself. Don’t you dare give in to the rebound…
‘A piece of brie, Laura?’ the hostess was asking, knife hovering over the cheese trolley. ‘And quince or grapes with that?’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Laura said, aware that the lawyer’s eyes were lingering on the swell of her chest as he poured her more wine.
‘You used to have a Monboddo, didn’t you?’ another guest was asking the host.
‘Sold it a decade back,’ she was informed. ‘School fees…’ The host gave a shrug of the shoulders.