‘What have you done with yours?’ Mike asked in return.
‘Under the desk in my study.’
‘Reckon there’s a chance the cops will miss them if they come looking?’
‘What the hell else can I do? Stick them in the bank for safe keeping?’
Mike just shrugged. Allan was looking awful. He kept wandering over to the window and staring down towards the car park, as if fearing the imminent arrival of blue flashing lights. The pair of them had stepped out on to the balcony for a cigarette, Mike trying to push away the thought that his friend might be about to jump, but glad all the same when they retreated indoors. Mike had made peppermint tea, which Allan said he couldn’t remember asking for. He held the mug cupped in both hands.
‘Help you relax,’ Mike offered.
‘Relax?’ Allan hooted, rolling his eyes.
‘How much sleep did you get last night?’
‘Not much,’ Allan conceded. ‘Tell me, have you ever read any Edgar Allan Poe? “The Tell-Tale Heart”?’
‘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.
Alice had seated herself again. She was dabbing at the spilt coffee with a paper napkin. ‘Know what it feels like?’ she asked. ‘A Tarantino film - early Tarantino - we’re the young lovers who’ve escaped with the cash!’ Having said which, she scooped up the notes and folded them into the pocket of her zip-up.
Westie couldn’t help grinning, even though he’d wanted the money for himself. Still, there was plenty more where it had come from. But he had a further warning for her. ‘We don’t go splurging too much - remember, that’s to finance you through film school. Just promise me you won’t turn any of this story into your first screenplay.’
‘Third or fourth, maybe,’ she agreed. The pair of them were still laughing as their waitress - was she Polish? - brought the focaccia toastie Alice had ordered. Afterwards, just prior to taking her first huge bite out of the sandwich, Alice commented that for once they could afford to leave a tip. Westie winked at her, then settled back to read about his exploits. He wasn’t hungry - still had paint fumes and varnish in his lungs. But he’d be happy to sit there for a while, swapping papers, ordering yet more coffee, noting the gradations in light, the lengthening shadows, as afternoon segued into evening . . .
Which was exactly what he was doing when he noticed that Alice had stopped reading and was gazing out of the window. He doubted she was seeing the same world he was. She was using the edge of her pinkie nail to prise slivers of dough from between her teeth.
‘Penny for them,’ he offered.
She gave a shrug, seemed to be considering her response, then turned to face him, leaning her elbows on the tabletop, chin resting between her cupped palms.
‘I was just wondering,’ she began, as though musing aloud for no one’s benefit but her own, ‘why they all got two paintings apiece and we only got the one.’
‘The guy who provided the muscle only got one,’ he corrected her.
‘But he wasn’t
there
, was he? He wasn’t at the warehouse, risking arrest. And look at the work you put in . . . all those days and nights . . . nobody worked harder than you, Westie.’
‘I got paid, though, didn’t I?’
She nodded slowly. ‘That’s sort of what I’m getting at. The cash was to pay for the work you did, but then you did more. You went on the raid, helped switch all those frames - you told me yourself, Professor Gissing was taking forever to do it, and nearly having a coronary in the process. It was all down to
you
, Westie, and you came good.’ She reached out to him with one hand, clasping his own in hers. There were still streaks of colour on his knuckles - traces of reds, blues, whites and greens. Monboddo’s wife had taken the longest; so many folds in the material of her dress . . . Alice’s chin was no longer supported by either hand. She was stabbing a finger against one of the newspapers. ‘Says here some of the artists would fetch high six figures.
High
six figures . . . and we end up with one lousy DeRasse.’
Westie was stung. ‘One of our favourite artists,’ he reminded her. Influenced by Mondrian, through a prism of sixties counterculture. Alice just made a face, and it was one Westie recognised: she was not going to be convinced.
‘It just seems so unfair, Westie - that’s all I’m saying.’
‘Well, it’s a bit late now to do anything about it,’ he argued, before draining his latest cup. Her eyes met his above its rim, and he felt skewered by them.
‘Is it really, though?’ she said. ‘Is it really too late?’
Westie lowered the cup slowly back into its saucer.
Mike was alone in his flat. He’d put some music on, without really caring what it was. Allan’s Coultons were on a chair next to the fireplace - Mike had never really been a fan of the man’s abstracts. Great whooshes of colour and little doodles that were ‘symbolic, like cartouches’ according to Allan. Mike had poured himself a malt and was savouring it as he studied Monboddo’s wife. Light seemed to pour from the canvas. He put down his tumbler and picked up the portrait, pressing his lips to those of the gently smiling woman. Close up, the surface of the paint was criss-crossed with hairline fractures. Too bad: he could hardly call in a restorer. Monboddo hadn’t signed the work; he seldom signed his name to anything. The show Mike had been at, the one where he’d first set eyes on the painting he was holding right now, plenty of the work on display had been given the wrong provenance until scholarship had improved. Even so, a few of the works were ‘attributed to’ or ‘school of ’. But not the wife. The wife was one hundred per cent genuine. Her name . . . He went to a shelf and took down a biography of the artist. Her name was Beatrice. The painting bore the title
A Reflective Pose
, but the sitter was definitely Beatrice - she appeared in at least four other works by Monboddo. The biographer stated his belief that the artist had painted her in as flattering a light as possible, ‘probably to make up for some transgression notably more heinous than the norm’.