‘Of course you did,’ Mike said out loud, raising his glass in a reluctant toast to Gissing’s plot.
Of the three of them - Gissing, Allan and Mike - only Mike could have come close to affording the paintings they were planning to steal. So why had he agreed? And not just agreed, but seemed at times to be the chief instigator - why had he done that?
‘Because you played me like a fucking Stradivarius, Professor,’ he told the empty room. Gissing had been only too happy to take a back seat - less suspicious that way. A year ago, he’d planned the exact same heist, but hadn’t had access to accomplices. But then Allan and Mike had come into his orbit, and he had probed at their weaknesses . . . assessed their potential.
And found them just about perfect.
And all because Mike had been bored. And greedy, of course - he’d coveted the painting of Beatrice . . . one thing he could never own, no matter how wealthy he became. Then there was Calloway himself, offering glimpses of a very different world. At school Mike had craved an invitation to join Calloway’s gang, its pecking order dependent on heft and ruthlessness rather than brains and guile. His first year at university, he had gone off the rails. He would pick fights in the Student Union bar. At parties he was unpredictable. He probably only won half his battles, and had eventually come to his senses. had begun to conform, to fit in . . .
‘Jekyll and Hyde,’ he muttered to himself.
One thing still niggled. Had Calloway and Gissing been in cahoots? Mike didn’t think so, which meant that bumping into the gangster at the gallery really had been an accident - almost the only unplanned event of the whole scheme. Bringing Calloway into play had been Mike’s idea, meaning the current mess was down to him. He was sure that was how Gissing would see it . . .
His head was resting against the back of the sofa, eyes closed. During the slow drive Allan and he had taken around Edinburgh, he had explained some of it to his friend, adding his own best guesses and assumptions to the mix. Allan had had to stop the car once or twice, getting things straight in his head, asking questions, refusing - at least at first - to believe what he was hearing, then slapping the palms of his hands repeatedly against the steering wheel.
‘You’re a rational man, Allan,’ Mike had told him. ‘You know this is the only way it all makes sense.’
He’d then reminded Allan that Edinburgh had nurtured Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and that Doyle’s creation Sherlock Holmes had spoken the truth when he said that once you had eliminated everything else, whatever was left, however improbable it might seem, had to be the truth.
Mike wasn’t sure whether Allan would go to the police. Maybe he, too, would return home, the better to wait out his fate. As for Mike . . . well, his fate was already here, announcing itself by way of the one creaky floorboard in the hallway.
But then he heard a voice calling his name, forming it as a question and sounding concerned.
‘Laura?’ he called back, getting to his feet. He realised he hadn’t switched on any of the lights, but none of the blinds were closed, meaning he could make her out well enough as she emerged into the room. ‘Just doing a bit of redecorating,’ he explained as she stood open-mouthed, arms by her sides.
‘What happened?’
‘A slight falling-out.’
‘Who with? Godzilla?’
He managed a tired smile. ‘What are you doing here?’
She had walked further into the room, negotiating her way around the shards of glass. ‘I’ve been trying your phone - both your phones. When you didn’t answer, I got scared. Mike, what have you gotten yourself into?’ He didn’t really need to answer. She’d picked up the portrait of Beatrice. ‘I knew it,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Knew it was you behind the heist. How did you do it?’
‘Switched the originals for copies.’ It sounded so simple and straightforward when put like that.
‘Which Gissing then verified?’ She nodded slowly. ‘So he’s in on it, too? But what about the missing paintings?’
He gave a shrug. ‘Nothing to do with me, I’m afraid. See, all the time I thought I was part of a team, I was actually being groomed as the patsy.’ He managed a dry chuckle at his own hubris. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’ He raised his own empty water glass.
‘No.’
‘Don’t mind if I . . . ?’ He made for the kitchen again, Laura following. ‘Actually, I wasn’t the only patsy,’ he went on. ‘I made the mistake of bringing an outsider on board.’
‘Calloway?’ she guessed.
‘And it was decided that
he
would make the perfect fall guy. He’s a philistine, you see, and that’s what this whole thing was about - us versus them.’
‘So Ransome was right all along . . . you and that thug were partners?’
‘Allan was in on it, too, and a student at the art college called Westie.’
‘Plus Professor Gissing,’ she added.
Mike drained the glass before answering. ‘Above all of us, yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Professor Robert Gissing. He’s done a runner with all the missing paintings.’
‘I’ve never liked him. And I was never really sure what you saw in him.’
‘I wish to Christ you’d tried warning me.’
She was still holding the Monboddo. ‘And all for this?’
‘All for that,’ he conceded.
‘Why is it so important, Mike?’
‘I think you know the answer.’
‘She looks like me, is that what you’re saying?’ Laura studied what was left of the portrait. ‘You do realise there’s something slightly creepy about that? I mean, you could just have asked me for a date instead.’
‘We had a date, Laura - didn’t work out too well . . .’
‘You give up too easily.’ She was still studying the painting. ‘Who did this damage?’
‘Hate.’
‘I’m sorry?’
He realised she didn’t know about Hate. ‘He’s a man Calloway owes money to - it’s a long story.’
Neither of them said anything for the best part of a minute. Laura broke the silence.
‘You’re going to go to jail, Mike.’
‘Believe it or not, Laura, jail’s way down my schedule of concerns right now.’
Just as Mike had done before, Laura was trying to push the canvas back into something like its original shape. ‘She was lovely, wasn’t she?’
‘She was.’ Mike agreed. Then he corrected himself: ‘She still is.’
Laura was blinking back tears. Mike wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until the world evaporated around them. He turned round and placed the glass on the draining board, then gripped the edge of the sink with both hands. He could hear her putting down the painting, then her arms were wrapping themselves around him from behind, her head resting against his shoulder.
‘What are you going to do, Mike?’
‘Run away,’ he said, only half joking. ‘With you, if you like.’ What were the alternatives? He could hand the money over to Calloway and Hate, as requested, but they would always have a stranglehold on him, and he doubted he would see an end to the payments until the well was dry. Then there was the curator - when he turned up dead, or merely mangled, the police would have something else to investigate. And with Ransome’s input they’d soon be visiting the penthouse flat with difficult questions for its owner.
‘I’ll call Ransome,’ Laura stated. ‘You must see it’s the only sensible option.’
Mike turned towards her. ‘Sense hasn’t played much part in this so far,’ he said. Her arms stayed loosely around him. Their faces were only an inch or so apart, but there was something moving in the shadows of the living area. Mike looked over Laura’s shoulder.
‘Don’t let us stop you,’ one of Calloway’s henchmen drawled, adding for his partner’s benefit: ‘That’s twenty notes I owe you.’
The other man smiled. ‘Told you, didn’t I? The flat’s worth checking, no matter what the boss says.’ Then, to Mike: ‘You going to give us any trouble, Mackenzie?’
Mike shook his head. Laura had released her grip on him and had swung round to face the two intruders. ‘But she’s not part of this,’ Mike explained. ‘Let her go, and then I’ll come with you, anywhere you like.’
‘Sounds reasonable.’ Glenn and Johnno were in the kitchen now. ‘Mr Calloway should be fronting one of those TV design shows, shouldn’t he?’ Johnno said. ‘Renovations while you wait . . .’
Both men laughed at this. Their eyes were on Laura rather than Mike. He placed a hand on her arm. ‘Off you go, then,’ he instructed.
‘And leave you with these two animals?’
‘Just go!’ He gave her a little nudge in the back. She glowered at Calloway’s underlings.
‘I happen to be an old friend of DI Ransome’s. Don’t think I won’t run to him if you touch so much as a hair on Mr Mackenzie’s head!’
‘Bad move, Laura,’ Mike muttered.
‘He’s right, missy - means you’ll be coming with us now . . .’
Mike lunged at the two men, yelling for Laura to run. But Glenn brushed him to the floor while Johnno took Laura’s arm and spun her round, his other hand muffling her cries. Mike was up on one knee when a foot caught him under the chin, launching him backwards to sprawl across the kitchen floor. Glenn knelt on him, and Mike felt his organs want to explode. There was a grin on the face behind the fist, and then the fist itself connected with the side of Mike’s jaw. He had a moment to register that he was spinning towards unconsciousness. He wondered if his boat was waiting for him.
And also if he would ever see Laura again.
34
Ransome woke up and knew that was his lot. It was almost five - not bad for him; he’d managed four and a half hours. Mrs Thatcher, he seemed to recall, had got by on as little if not less. He left Sandra in bed and padded towards the bedroom door, leaving the landing light off as he made his way downstairs. In the living room, he turned on the lamp next to the sofa and reached for the TV remote. He knew that checking the news headlines on Teletext and Ceefax would keep him occupied for ten or fifteen minutes. After that, there was either Sky News or BBC24 on Freeview. He peered through the inch-wide gap in the curtains. The street outside was silent. Years back, whenever he woke up early he took delight in heading into town, stopping at bakeries and all-night cafés, listening to cabbies telling the story of their night’s work. But Sandra had started complaining that he was waking her and their neighbours both, revving the car as he reversed out of the driveway. Not too many of his colleagues had ever met Sandra. She didn’t like official functions or parties or the idea of the pub. She worked in NHS admin and had her own group of friends - women who would attend talks in bookshops and museums, or plan outings to foreign films and tea rooms. Ransome’s theory was that she felt she should have done better at school, maybe gone beyond secretarial college - a university degree, perhaps. She gave off an air of quietly simmering dissatisfaction with her lot, and he had no wish to compound this with early-morning engine noise, even though none of the neighbours had actually ever complained to him about it.
The kettle might wake her, too, so he stuck to a glass of milk and a couple of indigestion tablets. The faint peeping noise in the hallway he put down to a small bird outside, but when it persisted he knew he was wrong. His jacket was hanging up behind the front door. The coat rack had been Sandra’s idea, and woe betide if he draped his clothes over the end of the bannister or on the backs of chairs. His mobile was in the inside pocket. The noise wasn’t because it needed charging. It was a message from the previous evening. Donny was a guy Ransome knew who worked at the Criminal Records Office. The message was succinct: PHONE ME. So, having gone back into the living room and closed the door tight, that was exactly what Ransome did.
‘Donny, it’s me.’
‘Christ, man, what time is it?’
‘I just got your message.’
‘It can wait till morning.’ Donny was coughing and spluttering.
‘Spit it out,’ Ransome commanded.
‘Give me a break.’
Ransome listened as Donny got out of bed. A door opened and closed. More coughing and loud sniffles. Another room had been reached, the rustle of papers.
‘Got it here somewhere . . .’
Ransome was at his own window, staring at the outside world again. A fox cantered down the middle of the road, for all the world as if it owned the place. This time of day, maybe it did at that. Ransome’s street was quiet and tree-lined. The houses were from the 1930s, which kept prices low compared to the Georgian and Victorian properties only half a mile away. The area had been called Saughtonhall when Ransome and Sandra had moved in, but solicitors these days tended to say Corstorphine or even Murrayfield instead, in the hope of adding a few thousand to the price. Sandra and Ransome had even joked for a time about whether their street qualified as ‘South Murrayfield’ or ‘South South Murrayfield’.
Any further south and we’d be on the doorstep of Saughton Prison
. . .
‘Take your time, Donny,’ Ransome muttered into the phone.
‘Here we go.’ A final flourishing of paperwork. ‘Right nasty piece of work.’