Kilgore nodded. ‘I am, yes.’
‘So, any day, those fuckwit Kiplings are likely to hand it to an auction house. Sotheby’s or Bonhams or Christie’s or Phillips, right?’
‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Kilgore said.
‘They want money.’ Piper, behind his desk, tapped a sheaf of papers, with a bunch of blown-up photographs clipped to them. ‘What I have here are my notes from the report Archie Goff gave us when he first went into the Kiplings’ house. We asked him to photograph any financial documents he could find, right?’
‘We did,’ Kilgore agreed.
‘We figured from these statements that the amount we offered, fifty thousand pounds, would get the Kiplings interested — and they threw it back in our faces.’
‘Maybe we should have gone higher?’ Kilgore suggested.
‘I’ve never paid over the odds in my life, Bobby.’ There was a sneer in his voice that did not appear on his face. ‘And I’m not going to now. Archie Goff did a better job for us than we realized.’ He slid out some of the close-ups of bank statements, and held them up, one at a time.
Kilgore dug his half-frame spectacles from his pocket and pulled them on, although he had already studied all of these statements some while back. ‘He did do a good job, sir,’ he agreed. ‘It enabled us to figure out that the Kiplings’ finances could be better.’
Kilgore picked up one and studied it. In a corner of the picture, near the bank statement, was the partial image of a small yellow box, marked FREESTYLE LIBRE 2. FLASH GLUCOSE MONITORING SYSTEM. SENSOR. He looked at his boss and frowned.
‘Look at the other one, Bobby.’
It was a photograph of a paper bag bearing a chemist’s logo. On the side was stuck a prescription label, marked TOM KIPLING. Kilgore frowned again. ‘This is what, exactly?’
‘A diabetes monitor,’ Piper said. ‘I know all about it because Frank’s a Type-1 diabetic.’ Frank was his head gardener. ‘It’s a smart bit of kit — he wears a Libre sensor on his arm and monitors his blood-sugar levels through it via an app on his phone. It tells him if his sugar levels are too low or too high. If they drop too much he can pass out and if he doesn’t get sugar, die in a matter of hours. Similarly, if his sugar levels get too high and he doesn’t inject enough insulin, he can go into a coma, and again die in a matter of hours. The Kiplings’ kid is evidently, from this, a Type-1 diabetic.’
‘And you are saying what, exactly, sir?’ Kilgore asked.
‘I think you know exactly what I’m saying, Bobby.’ His lips widened a fraction into what, in Piper’s almost frozen face, Kilgore had long ago learned to interpret as a smile. ‘And what I’m also saying is that we need to move fast. This is our chance, and I’m coming up with a plan.’
75
Monday, 4 November
Daniel Hegarty, in his paint-spattered smock, stepped back from his easel, which he had set up in the bright living room. It was where he liked to work on fine days, the dogs curled up asleep close by. He was putting the finishing touches to the Lowry painting he’d been commissioned to do by a radio celebrity.
Nice work, five thousand quid for something that had taken him just three days. Half a dozen spindly bookies, each sporting a trilby at a jaunty angle, stood on their stools beside their boards displaying betting odds, bagmen to their right, while racegoers in their finery paraded in front of them.
It had been a very long morning, after the unwelcome intrusion earlier, but he smiled with some satisfaction looking out across the Saltdean vista, which he could now see through sparkling windows. And thanks to the window cleaners, Kilgore and his men had been shown a clean pair of heels.
But he was deeply upset about the trauma Natalie had been put through, and she would no doubt have a few choice words about his promise to her of going straight, when she returned from her shift with the Samaritans. But maybe she’d appreciate the situation when he told her what the truth really was. He grinned again at the knowledge. His little guilty secret. Hegarty one, Kilgore nil!
He was feeling hungry, and as he now needed to leave the painting for an hour, while the cocktail of chemicals he’d just brushed on did their work in ageing the picture, it was a good time for lunch. He would make himself a ham and tomato sandwich on sourdough, using some of the delicious Serrano ham he’d bought from a local deli, and maybe a small beer to steady his nerves, and inspire him to dash off a few convincing saleroom marks on the rear of the canvas this afternoon.
The doorbell rang. Instantly the dogs raced up the stairs in a tornado of yapping. He frowned, not expecting anyone. Probably a new book he had ordered from Amazon to help him with a very lucrative fresh commission, copying a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting for a rogue middleman he’d known for years, Ron Patchouli, as slippery as the oil but less fragrant.
The fixer, who had handed him the picture along with a down-payment of £10,000 in cash, had told him the copy was for a wealthy Saudi client who loved the English poet and artist’s work. Hegarty knew the painting, it was famous, considered one of Rossetti’s finest works, and formed part of a collection in a Midlands stately home. ‘Is this hot?’ he’d asked him dubiously.
‘Nah,’ Patchouli had replied brazenly. ‘We’ve only borrowed it!’
Rocky and Rambo raced ahead of him up the stairs and began jumping up and down against the front door. Warily, he peered through the spyhole, in case it was Kilgore and his boys, and saw two people standing outside, a portly man in a suit and a smartly dressed woman beside him. Engaging the safety chain, he opened the door a crack, and above the yapping of his dogs asked, ‘May I help you?’
‘Mr Daniel Hegarty?’ asked the female with a Belfast accent.
‘Who are you?’
The man held up a warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Potting and Detective Constable Wilde from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team. Could we have a word with you, sir?’
‘Is this about the body?’
‘We won’t take up too much of your time, sir,’ the female officer said pleasantly. ‘We appreciate you’ve probably had your fill of police around here in the past twenty-four hours.’
Unhooking the chain and grappling with the dogs at the same time, Hegarty let them in, closing the door quickly to keep the dogs safe. Immediately the female detective kneeled and began making a fuss over both of them, while her male colleague stood looking at them warily.
‘Do they bite?’ Potting asked.
‘Yeah,’ Hegarty replied. ‘All dogs bite, that’s how they eat. But it’s all right, they’ve already had a whole postman today, so they’re not hungry.’
As he led them through, Hegarty heard a voice and a crackle of static behind him, then indicated for the detectives to sit at the table at which he and Natalie had, just a few hours earlier, been held captive by Kilgore.
The female officer stopped to look at the Lowry on the easel. ‘I like that — is this the kind of painting you do?’
Hegarty waved his arms expansively around the room, pointing at a Picasso, the Banksy and a Caravaggio. ‘I like to think I can turn my hand to pretty much any artist,’ he said. ‘Like art, do you?’
‘I do.’ Then she gave him a pointed look, her voice turning sharper. ‘When it’s genuine.’
He laughed. ‘You’ve come to the wrong place then.’
The one with the cheap suit and gruff voice looked up at the Banksy on the wall. ‘Two coppers snogging — what’s that about?’
‘Two million quid, if it’s the original,’ Hegarty retorted facetiously.