‘We just have to hold our nerve, Allan. A few days of fuss and it’ll all die down – you’ll see.’
‘How can you say that?’ A splash of tea had spilled on to the wooden floor, but Allan seemed not to have noticed. ‘We still know what we did!’
‘Why not shout a bit louder? I’m sure the neighbours will be thrilled.’
Allan’s eyes widened. He removed one hand from the mug so he could clamp it over his mouth. Mike didn’t bother saying he’d been exaggerating for effect – the flat was pretty well soundproofed. When he’d first moved in, he’d cranked up the hi-fi then gone downstairs to ask the couple – he a restaurateur; she an interior designer – if they could hear it.
‘I’m sorry,’ Allan was muttering now from behind his fingers. He went to sit down, but his eyes fell on the paintings again. ‘You really should hide those,’ he advised, voice quavering.
‘If anyone asks, they’re copies,’ Mike explained soothingly. ‘You could do the same – stick them on a wall where you can see them… maybe the Coultons will calm you down where mere mortals like myself can’t.’
‘They’re better than any of the ones First Caly has,’ Allan intoned.
‘Yes, they are,’ Mike agreed. ‘Look, the whole point of this exercise – if you cast your mind back – was the pleasure of owning a masterpiece or two. The professor’s already convinced everyone they’ve got their paintings back. Today at the warehouse, he’ll reinforce that – nothing missing, everything accounted for. After that, the media interest will disappear in a puff of smoke.’
‘I wish I could disappear in a puff of smoke.’ Allan bounded to his feet again and made for the window. ‘What about this cop you mentioned?’
‘I wish to God I hadn’t,’ Mike muttered to himself. Having told Gissing not to say anything, he’d decided Allan actually did need to know about Ransome. They were a team, after all, and they were still mates. You didn’t keep stuff hidden from your mates. But when Mike had called him to explain, Allan had said he was coming straight over.
‘He’s already on our trail,’ Allan persisted.
‘He’s got nothing. Even if he thinks something fishy’s going on, how’s he going to prove it?’
But Allan was not to be consoled. ‘What if I give mine back? Or just abandon them somewhere?’
‘Good thinking…’ Mike bore down on his friend. ‘Then they’ll know the ones they found in the van are copies and start wondering why the esteemed professor didn’t say anything.’
Allan gritted his teeth in frustration. ‘You take them, then. I’ll give them to you. I can’t get to sleep with them in the house!’
Mike considered his options, and placed a hand on Allan’s shoulder. ‘Okay, how about this – we’ll bring them here, and I’ll look after them for a few days… maybe even a week or two, just until you start to feel good about them.’
Allan thought for a moment, and then nodded slowly.
‘As long as we’re agreed,’ Mike persisted. ‘I’m holding them for you, not taking them from you. Is it a deal?’ He waited until Allan started nodding again. ‘And we don’t tell anyone else,’ he added. ‘It’s our little secret.’
Mike did not want anyone knowing that Allan was getting the shakes – least of all Chib Calloway. He was hoping it was just shock, meaning it would wear off. On those occasions when he’d been able to study the portrait of Monboddo’s wife, he’d been unable not to see another face there – not Laura’s this time, but the man called Hate. Something told Mike that even if he were never again to be in the same room as him, he’d still be haunted by the face and figure.
The face, the figure, and those hellish tattoos.
It was, of course, no business of Mike’s who Chib chose to give his painting to, but it was dangerous. At the heist’s conception, there had only been the three friends – Mike, Allan and Gissing. Westie had been added as a necessity, but now Westie’s girlfriend was a player, too. And Chib… Chib had been Mike’s idea. It would be his fault if things started to go wrong. Chib, Chib’s four lads, and now Hate. And who knew where Hate would lead…
‘What’s on your mind?’ Allan was asking.
‘Nothing,’ Mike stated. I’m lying to him. And keeping things from him, too…
‘I’d never blurt anything out, Mike… you know that, right? I mean, we’re mates, always will be. That’s the truth of it.’
‘Of course it is.’
Allan attempted something like a grin. His face was pasty, coated with perspiration. ‘You’re so in control, Mike. Always got the answers up here.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘You got a real buzz out of yesterday, didn’t you?’
‘I did,’ Mike confessed with a smile. But meeting the debt-collector had been another, very different kind of buzz, one that told Mike he was rubbing shoulders with the big boys in the playground now.
Playing with the bullies.
They wouldn’t play fair, wouldn’t let sentiment or emotion or friendship get in the way.
Allan had slumped back into his chair, sloshing more tea. Mates… always will be. Well, you never could tell.
‘Let’s go fetch your paintings,’ Mike offered. ‘That way you can rest easy.’
‘Some sleep would be nice,’ Allan agreed. ‘How come we haven’t heard from Robert?’
‘Not easy for him to phone from the warehouse,’ Mike counselled, even though he, too, wanted to know what was happening there. He checked his watch. ‘You sure it’s okay if we go pick up the paintings just now?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘It’s Sunday, Allan. I want to be sure you’re not breaking any arrangements – don’t you see your boys on a Sunday?’
‘Margot’s taken them to London to see some show.’
Mike nodded his satisfaction with this. It was a relief that Allan wouldn’t have to try making small talk with his sons during a Princes Street shopping trip or a restaurant meal.
‘Anything else you normally do on a Sunday?’ he asked. ‘Got to keep our routines as normal as possible.’
‘You and me sometimes go for a drink,’ Allan reminded him.
‘So we do… mind if we skip that tonight?’
‘Fine by me. I feel better for talking, though. I’m glad you invited me over.’ Allan was looking around the room. ‘Now what did I do with my jacket…?’
‘You’re wearing it,’ Mike informed him.
When Westie, still hungover from the night before, checked at the cash machine, the money was in his account. Paid in full for services rendered: eight good likenesses and true… well, nine, actually, but who was counting? What mattered was that his work was busily fooling the art world into thinking the heist had failed.
‘Bloody beautiful,’ he said out loud, staring at the amount on the screen for a few seconds more. He printed out a mini-statement, then, just because he could, he withdrew two hundred pounds and marched with it into the café, where Alice was sitting in front of a stack of papers. They hadn’t got to bed till dawn and she was still bleary.
‘Front page of most of them,’ she informed him. ‘Well, the broad-sheets anyway. Some actress with new, improved udders beat you on a couple of the tabloids.’
‘Tell the whole caff,’ he warned, handing her the cash machine statement. She squealed and reached across the table to kiss him. When he drew back and lifted his cappuccino, she noticed the bank notes fanned out on top of one of the newspapers. She gave another little squeal, louder this time, and jumped to her feet to hug him. Coffee splashed across one of the front pages, but neither of them minded. In fact, none of the other customers took a blind bit of notice – too wrapped up in Sunday supplements or college textbooks, or sending messages on their phones, or listening through earphones to the latest sounds. The café was fairly new, sited beside the Meadows where the old infirmary was being turned into expensive flats. Handy for the art college, but neither Alice nor Westie was a regular. He’d picked it for that reason – and because there was a bank close by.