Authors: Warren Slingsby
Things were still fuzzy. She drove toward the edge of Glasgow, vaguely aware she was following signs for Edinburgh. As she got toward the open road, she wound the driver’s and passengers's windows down and let air rip through the car. She breathed deeply for the first time today. Fresh air after the confined atmosphere in the hotel room with its dead occupant felt invigorating and liberating. It tussled her hair around her face and out of the window as if she stood atop a huge cliff. It would have looked crazy to anyone who saw, but the roads were dead. With the noise of the engine, it was deafening, but it was starting to blow away the fuzziness. She could just hear her phone ringing above the cacophony, but still was in no mood to talk to anyone. What would she say? She didn’t know why she was in Glasgow, how she got there, why she was with a dead guy and who the dead guy was. She drove for a short while following signs on a kind of auto-pilot. Before she knew it, she was on the M8 motorway. All she could remember for the last 10 minutes or so was looking at her blackened eye in the mirror and wondering, if and how, she could cover it with makeup. She stuck to the middle lane and tried to be as inconspicuous as it was possible to be in a white Lamborghini. At least, she didn’t look like the typical type of person who would steal a car like this. She drifted along with the ambient traffic, passed a traffic police car driving at about 60mph in the slow lane and it made her panic. She needed to get off the motorway. Taking the next exit (after indicating precisely), she drove south along country roads until she hit the A71 and picked up signs for Edinburgh again (21 miles).
Hitting the countryside, the roads were empty, she pushed her foot down and the car shrieked forward toward Edinburgh. The car oozed raw power and she loved it. No police car could keep up with her if she decided she wanted to get away from them. She looked at the speedometer and it read 130mph. Way faster than she’d ever been in a car and yet she felt a sense of control over this unlike she currently had over her the rest of her life. She eased off the throttle and dabbed the brakes gently until the speedometer came back to read 60mph (the national speed limit, she reminded herself) and tootled onward. Had she left any clues behind? She was definitely in danger as she was involved with Joseph (somehow) and some bad people were after him, plus she’d nabbed the cash. She didn’t think she’d left any clues should the police get involved. She was driving a huge great clue, but that was a different matter somehow.
As she drifted along the deserted roads,
a fragment of a snippet of dream came to her. She was with a stranger, who could have been Joseph, in an unknown place. They were on their way somewhere, she wasn’t sure where, but they were at the sea, yes, on a cliff. It was incredibly windy there as it was in the car right now. Perhaps this is what brought the dream back to her. In fact, the place felt strangely familiar. Not like it was an actual place she had been but like it had featured in many of her dreams, a place she often went. It felt dangerous, but exciting and fun at the same time. Unlike dreams where there seemed to be frustration or anxiety, this was a good place. He was laughing at her, but in a good way, like she was making him laugh. Off in the sea, something was moving very fast like a powerful boat, leaving a jet stream of white water behind it. The boat was on its way to the same place that they were going. It seemed to be somewhere further along the coast, not a town but some type of a craggy bluff that stuck out into an ultraviolet ocean. They saw the boat arrive at the bluff, but they were still a way off. That was as much as she could remember for now. She tried to replay the chapter in her mind, but she could not remember anything before or after this walking along the cliff.
She jumped as a blue hatchback full of young lads overtook, peeping the horn as they were alongside. They pulled in sharply in front of her and the car lolled from side to side on its suspension under its heavy load of testosterone fuelled occupants. The two teenagers in the back looked back through the rear window and were laughing like this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. It brought her back from her dream and she focused once again on the road. ‘I’ll show you little dick heads’ she thought. She scanned the road ahead. It was clear for half a mile or so. She dropped the car from sixth to third gear, re-gripped the suede covered wheel hard and pushed down on the accelerator, not flat to the floor but enough to make the car jump, leap and howl forward past the teen filled Honda. They wanted to race and the driver also dropped several gears and floored his charge, however it wasn’t really a fair fight in power or weight. Janet’s white sports car flew up the road; spitting out white lines at the Honda as she put an ever increasing chunk of space between them. What was wrong with her? She’d never driven like this in her life, had she? She had never overtaken anything before. It was addictive though. As she crested the next hill to which the boys had not yet begun climbing, a wide grin broke out. Then out of nowhere - chevrons and a sharp corner. She was going far too fast. She’d never make it. She hit the brakes hard whilst steering into the corner. Any other car would have gone straight ahead on the corner and through the wall into the field. But the white sports car seemed to grip down onto the road with all its wheels and flew round the right hander with a screech of tyres. She felt she could have hit the corner even faster and the car would still have flown around it. Lapping it up. Almost like it was enjoying the challenge. It filled her with even more gusto. She adjusted her rear view mirror so she could see how far back they were but they were out of view, probably at the bottom of the hill still. She came off the brake and squeezed the accelerator once again. As the speed increased, so did the width of the grin across her face.
“Bye bye little boys. Don’t mess with girls in white,” she looked over at the wording on the glovebox and reminded herself, “Lamborghinis.”
Millions of pin pricks of stars cut into the sheet of twilight that was descending over her. Ahead of her lay Edinburgh, where an ambient orange glow rose above the city. As she left the country side behind her, the pin pricks became fewer and fewer.
Once into the slower traffic of Edinburgh, she was aware of people staring whenever she was at traffic lights. They were alerted to the car by the exhaust’s popping and backfiring as she slowed (she wasn’t sure if this was something it was supposed to do or if there was a problem). Then the deep bass burbling noise that counted for this car’s ‘tick over’ would cause people to crane their necks to see who was driving such an outrageous car. Just Janet, a bank worker from London. She came into the city through Morningside which seemed lovely and vaguely familiar. She had been in Edinburgh before but wasn’t sure if she had been in this part of the city.
What was she going to do once she arrived at her destination? She needed to regroup, get herself together. She also needed somewhere to stay. She opened her maps app on her phone and saw a lot of hotels, but a 5 Star one just ahead looked about right. There was no need to worry about expense considering the bag next to her.
She saw Edinburgh Castle lit up in the early evening dusk. As she passed it on her right, she saw the imposing looking hotel on her left hand side which corresponded with her phone’s navigation and swept the car around to its front. The
Caledonian.
She killed the engine then rummaged in her bag for her sunglasses. She looked like (and was) a beaten women currently and it did not suit her. A smart looking man with a grey tartan kilt came and opened her car door. He also offered his hand to help her out of the car which she took as she was sitting so low down. Once out, he reached in and got the bags and place them on a trolley. This made her panic slightly, but she told herself to be cool.
“Do you have any other bags to bring in Madam?” he asked.
“No, that’s it thanks.”
“OK, just let reception know when you need your car back and we’ll bring it around for you.” A group of teenagers stopped to look at her car and tried to see what it was like inside. She was used to this type of attention now. One of the teenagers said ‘nice Lambo’ Missis’. She gave him the slightest, coolest smile possible and turned away. The valet’s assistant turned the key and the car’s engine shouted its angry growl. The teenagers were visibly shocked and recoiled.
She ignored them and entered the hotel trying to look like the sort of woman who turns up places in a white Lamborghini. And not doing a bad job (she secretly thought). At reception, she told them she needed a room and after a few questions about her ‘needs’, was offered a ‘Queen Classic’ double room with breakfast. She looked at the bag on the trolley for a second and turned back to the receptionist.
“Do you have something more like a suite?” She asked.
“Of course madam.” The receptionist looked again at the computer screen and scrolled downwards. “I have one Queen suite left.” There was no mention of cost, but Janet didn’t care. It had been a stressful day and she needed space (and time) to recuperate. She enquired about room service and was informed there would be a menu in her room (as well as a mini bar) and to dial 0 for service.
She sauntered away from the reception followed by the porter. She dropped the key into her hand bag and stuck her head into the bar area which was vast and busy with guests taking an early evening drink or snack. She liked this hotel much more than her previous residence. A few people looked over in her direction, but generally she could blend in here in her new guise as high flying Janet. She realised she was the only person wearing sunglasses and it was indoors and it was dusk, but what the hell, she drove a fucking Lamborghini.
She continued on her way to the room with the porter. After he left, she immediately put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the outer handle as she felt she would need a good, undisturbed lie in in the morning. Without looking at the menu, she rang 0 and asked for a Club sandwich, fries, mayo and a large bottle of sparkling water. She also asked for a carafe of Pinot Grigio. She was asked if she would like a newspaper delivered to her room in the morning and the man on the end of the line seemed a little surprised as she ordered ‘the Times, Independent, Mail, Guardian and the Sun, oh and the Scotsman’.
By the time she was finishing her snack (which was huge), her eyes had become weary and sore, especially her blackened eye. She took a look at it in the mirror. It had gone a more yellowish colour now. She guzzled all the water from the bottle in an attempt to flush out her system of the drink and whatever else was in there muddling her up. Her wine was untouched and would remain that way.
“How did you get involved in this?” she asked her reflection. What was going on in that room with that man Janet? She thought and gently touched the bruising and inflammation around her eye. She laid on the bed and shut her eyes. She was tired beyond belief. What had she done to her body to be this tired at this time of night? She hadn’t realised how sore her eyes had been until just now. The soreness you get when you’ve been up all night. The last time her eyes felt this way was when she’d been to Berlin with friends and they’d been to a club called Panorama? Panoramic? And they’d been there from 2am on the Sunday morning until midday on the Monday. She remembered coming out into the bright daylight and her eyes felt like they’d had salt rubbed into them.
She flicked off the TV and the lights, apart from a small reading spotlight which stuck out of the wall above her bedside table. The subdued lighting helped her relax. Her eyes felt much easier in this light.
Half sleeping, half awake. She remembered she was in a bar in... Edinburgh perhaps and someone bought her a drink. She had to find him, he was at the back of the bar on his own. She wandered through the bar with the glass of champagne and he was there. It was Joseph, but alive. Not dead and naked next to her on a bed. They talked and he was funny she remembered. Then she was gone. Fast asleep.
Two days before
They’d been tracking the painting for a while. It was a painting Joseph knew well. He didn’t particularly like it, so wasn’t too worried about the fact that once he sold it on, it would disappear from public view for ever more. The art world was particularly excited about this art sale taking place in London as Rothko’s work had been fetching record breaking figures over the last decade or so. Most Rothkos sold in the US though. He had after all been a US based artist and that’s where most of his art subsequently ended up and came up for sale.
Joseph’s contact,
Matthew
Weiss, was a private art collector whose family had an amazing collection of modern art, the bulk of it bought at art auctions around the world, usually from up and coming artists. He’d been backed by his father in the 1970s and ‘80s, as his father allowed him to use his money to buy and sell art on the proviso that he made a profit and found some interesting and valuable pieces for him. It turned out he had one of the best eyes for art in the business and had rewarded his father with excellent dividends, buying art from artists whose art was increasing in value, and selling their art as their value peaked. His father knew nothing of the art world other than he liked to make money from it. Their father and son relationship blossomed during this period of profit as he bought, kept briefly, and sold art from Lichtenstein, Warhol, Wassermann among others.
The Weiss family had not been a close one. Victor Weiss had been a busy business man who rarely made it home through the week; mainly, this was attributed to running a business with offices in three distant cities across Europe and being a hopeless adulterer with a string of long term affairs which, not unsurprisingly coincided geographically with his European offices. Carol Ann Weiss had been a society girl and was now a society lady, if such a thing existed, whose main role in life was holding parties, lunches and dinner dances with her girlfriends. Matthew had been sent away to boarding school from an early age and therefore had a fairly weak bond with his parents. In fact he resented them very strongly up until the age of 11 when he at least started to make friends and partly enjoy school. He felt a closer bond with his teachers and his housemistress, Miss Gemma, than with his parents. The bond that came from the business arrangement between father and son had therefore been very welcome and they came to love the time spent exploring their world of art.
Their relationship soured badly when Matthew sold Marcus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz’s
‘Untitled (Green on Grey)’ from 1970. The painting was a simple green block on a grey background. He had bought the painting from a collector in a private sale and his father had held on to it and indeed cherished it in his collection for 15 years before Matthew advised selling it in New York.
Even though he made a handsome profit of £1.5 million at the time, a
lmost immediately after the sale, Rothko’s work began fetching record breaking sums at auction. Victor Weiss berated his son for what he called ‘the worst timed art sale in history’. Victor Weiss had not cut his son off totally, but their relationship had regressed to what it was before, nothing more than a business arrangement. The invites to spend time at the weekends with his father on the golf course or the yacht or fishing at father’s highland retreat had disappeared into thin air. His father had a tone with Matthew which cut deep. It played heavily on his mind. That damned painting.
The relatively unknown Rothko was likely to sell for £10 to £15 million and Matthew wanted the piece back. However, he didn’t want to pay upwards of £10 million, he wanted it for a fraction of that. He was prepared to pay Joseph £2.5 million for it and he wanted Joseph to get it by any means after the auction. The only catch was that if the piece made less than £12.5M, the deal was off. It was always going to make way more than that though. The artwork was bought by an overseas telephone bidder. In the end, the bidding went to £16.7M which, as the auctioneer pointed out, reflected how rarely this artist’s work came up for sale nowadays.
Of course, Matthew’s father was all above board so he couldn’t give the stolen piece back to him. It had become a point of principle, but in some odd part of his mind, he daydreamed he would have liked to hang on to the Rothko and reveal it his father on his death bed. His father’s smile returning as he held out his arms once more to embrace his son.
The reality was vastly different, however. He did not have £2.5M ‘spare’. He would be selling on the Rothko immediately and for a hefty profit. He had a private collector to whom he had passed several pieces of art that could not go through ‘public’ channels. The collector knew the score of course; he had his known collection and then he had his private collection amongst which there were several infamous works of art. Matthew also had other warm leads to some interesting pieces and one very hot lead to an extremely valuable piece. He would raise this with Joseph down the line. For now, he just needed to complete on this particular Rothko transaction. One thing at a time.
It was to make its way back over the Atlantic in the hold of a Virgin Atlantic plane from Heathrow. It would not actually get to the plane. In fact it would not even make it into the secure courier’s van. It would make it into
a
secure couriers van, however.
They had been unsure of some of the technical details of how the art courier worked, so five days earlier, they’d had a dry run. They had prepped a reproduction Warhol self portrait. It was unframed and covered in tissue paper and clipped flat in its A0 case. Arrangements had been made with their account handler at CST Couriers for pick up over the phone and then confirmed by email. CST Couriers prided themselves on being a modern, low carbon, paper-less company. This all played perfectly into the hands of Joseph and his little crew, especially in conjunction with the auction houses’ ineptitude in modernising themselves technically.
Their armoured van turned up at 10.30am on the dot. Their vans were unmissable in bright red. The C and T in blue and the S in white emblazoned across a light blue shield that doubled as a padlock. The van was spotless, as were the three men who arrived with it. One driver stayed put in the van and the other two came to the door of the office space they had rented. The men were well turned out and their shirts mimicked the van in bright red with the logo embroidered on the left chest pocket and the company’s brand line across their backs - ‘YOUR TRUST IN OUR HANDS’.
On arrival, they asked Joseph to confirm the collection reference number for security, adding it was on the email confirmation. He pulled up the email on his phone. They produced a tablet computer with a confirmation screen with the same number on. He was given a stylus and asked to sign in a box on the tablet’s screen. It all seemed secure. It wasn’t.
They were told they would be able to track the artwork to its delivery address from a link that would be emailed to them shortly. The men lifted the packed artwork carefully and carried it to the van where it was loaded and secured against the inside side wall. They said the artwork was in safe hands before they started up the engine and off they went.
An email duly arrived to confirm the artwork had been picked up along with the time and location. A link took Joseph to a page on CST’s website which showed the current location of the package.
Meanwhile, Carl and Dan were in Edinburgh for a few nights to find a lockup where they could lay low after the robbery. They wanted somewhere secluded and capable of holding two cars as well as being a place they could hide out for a while if needed. They bought the Edinburgh Evening News and scanned the classified ads for storage space. They looked at a few different places but this was the best in terms of comfort and seclusion. They may need to stay here for up to a month in the unlikely event the heat was on them.
The landlord, a man of around eighty with outrageous eyebrows and giant ears pulled the sliding doors back with surprising strength. He showed them the space and pointed out the toilet which was a bit grim, but would be useful. He asked a few questions about what they wanted the storage space for - cars (not a lie). He accepted this and told them the price per month and his terms. Three months up front in cash. He’d only accept payment in cash and would arrange to meet them in person after the three months to extend the arrangement. This all suited them down to the ground. No paper trails. He gave them two sets of keys and informed them anything they stored here would need to be covered by their own insurance.
Happy with the lock up, they set off to Stirling where they planned to bag themselves a few cars. Joseph had instructed them to get something fast but inconspicuous. They wanted something modern and reliable and Carl had some Mercs' or Audis in mind. They had done their homework and knew the areas of the town to target. This is where Dan, who at a slight 5 foot and 4 inches was very well suited to stealing cars. And the way to steal cars in a day and age of immobilisers, alarms and deadlocks was to - not steal cars. You would struggle with a modern car to get into it, if you did get in, it would alert everyone within 200 yards within seconds and if you could stop that, you’d never get the engine started by traditional ‘hot wiring’. No, the way to steal cars was to steal the keys. This way, there was no breaking of glass, you simply walked up to the car, blipped the key, started the engine and drove off as if you owned it; which you now did. Dan was very good at the ‘sneak in’. Follow someone home in the car of your choice, allow them a little time to get in and get settled down for the night, then stealthily get in and grab the keys (usually from the hall or kitchen). Nothing else, just the keys.
First up, an old guy of about fifty in a Merc’ E350 Sport in black. They followed him at a distance toward the countryside on the edge of town where he pulled onto the gravelled drive of a detached converted stable. He wandered around the side and into a door near the back as they slowly drove past and pulled up. Carl killed the lights and Dan slunk out.
“I could be a while” were his parting words. “Go a bit further up the road and keep the engine going just in case.”
It could be tricky with the gravelled drive and the noise it would make but Dan knew what he was doing. Carl moved about a hundred yards further up the road and angled his rear view mirror to get the best view of the driveway of the target house. Time ticked away and Carl started to think it was going to be too tricky and Dan wasn’t going to get a chance, but he was just biding his time. It was a clear but cold January evening and all the lights were on in the house making it very easy for Dan to see exactly what was going on. To make sure he wasn’t going to waste his time, he so so gently tried the handle on the side door. It was unlocked.
Dan was just being thorough. He was noting all the people in the house firstly and then trying to figure out what everyone was doing and where they were doing it. This was far from a typical house set up though. The driver had come in and was straight into the kitchen and started cooking. The woman who was probably his wife was in the living room watching Dog the Bounty Hunter (trashy bitch) Dan thought. Upstairs, there were lights on in one bedroom and the bathroom. Dan understood the layout of the house now and thought there were probably four people home. He sat tight and continued to observe the household activity. He worked out that if the family were to eat together, they would more than likely eat at a table which was adjoined to the living room. The man he followed home was splitting his time between cooking and setting the table.
Fifteen minutes later, four people were sat at the table. Daddy, mummy, son and daughter. Aww, the perfect little family Dan thought. Soon to be lightened of their ride. He was no different to the kids around that table and yet he’d never had this a single time in his life. Some kids get brilliant families and some just end up with scum bags. Time to take his chance. The father had been back to the kitchen once to get what looked like butter. They chatted and seemed happy.
Quiet as a mouse, Dan opened the door, walked in quickly looked around. There were no keys in the small, dark hall. He walked further down toward the kitchen and, without entering, looked around. There were several bunches of keys across the kitchen in a bowl along with a light bulb and lots of general house junk. The chunky black Mercedes key stood out from the other keys in the bowl. Dan calmly tip toed across the kitchen, picked up the bunch with the Merc’ key ensuring he made no sound and walked back to the door. He gently snook back out and just gave things a second to settle and make sure no one had heard or was following him out.
All clear, he blipped the car got in, stuck the key into the dashboard, depressed the brake pedal and pushed the illuminated Start button. The car was auto, so he stuck his left foot out of the way and engaged reverse. He immediately backed the car out and planted his foot to the accelerator, flashing Carl as he moved off at speed. The now single car family heard nothing and would remain unaware of their loss until midnight when they went to lock the door and call the cat in.
The night after was a similar set up. A detached house on the edge of town, out toward the countryside. It was dark, there were few streetlights around and they’d selected another German car, this time a smaller but faster Audi RS4 estate. Black and two years old. Dan checked the door had been left open and now looked through the windows and was going through his checks, logging who was home, what they were up to and where. This time, it was a single bloke and a teenage son. They were both in the living room playing on a racing game, flying along a city highway which fronted onto an ocean. They were totally engrossed. Dan waited for the current game to finish, the dad got up and left the room. Dan shifted his position so he could see the kitchen. All the time ensuring he remained in the shadows in case any neighbours should look out. The man got some drinks and stuck something into the oven. Looked like a couple of ready meals. He took two cans of coke back into the room and resumed his place on the sofa. A game was restarted and this was now Dan’s time. He opened the door being careful to do it slowly so that there was no sudden change in the air pressure in the house that might move internal doors. He quickly discounted that the keys could be in the long hallway. To get to the kitchen, he had to pass the living room, but they faced the opposite direction. He glanced at them, moved quickly past and was at the door to the kitchen which was a little further from the entry door than he hoped. Eyes darted around the work surfaces, but no sign. He couldn’t have them in his pocket surely? He went to the cupboards and opened them carefully to see if they were possibly hung up in one. This was taking too long. He’d been in the house for a minute which was way longer than he wanted to take, but could hear the continuing sound of engines roaring in the background. They had paused the game previously if either of the two had got up to leave the room.