Mike thought he could see the blood rising up Laura’s neck, colouring her cheeks. She gave a little cough and paused between lots, taking a few sips of water and scanning the room for signs of interest. There was little enough atmosphere, and oxygen seemed to have been sucked from the place. Mike could smell the dust from antiquated picture frames, mixed with tweed and floor polish. He tried to guess at the secret life of each painting, at the journey they had made from imagination to sketchbook, sketchbook to easel. Finished, framed, displayed and sold. Passing from owner to owner, handed down as an heirloom, perhaps, or dismissed as worthless until rescued from a junk shop and restored to glory. Whenever he bought a painting, he made sure to spend time examining its rear end for clues - chalked measurements calculated by the artist on the frame; a label from the gallery where the first sale had been made. He would check the catalogues, tracing the line of ownership. His latest purchase, the Monboddo still life, had been painted during a trip to the French Riviera and brought back to Britain, shown as part of a group exhibition in a townhouse in Mayfair, but only sold a few months later by a small gallery in Glasgow. That first purchaser had been the scion of a tobacco family. Much of this information had come from Robert Gissing, who had written more than one monograph on Monboddo. Daring a glance in Gissing’s direction, Mike saw that the arms were folded, the face stern.
But something was happening at the front of the saleroom. Calloway had raised a hand to make a bid on something, and Laura was asking if he had a paddle.
‘Do I look like I’m in a canoe?’ Calloway responded, bringing laughter from those around him. Laura apologised that she could accept bids only from those who had registered at the reception desk, and explained that there was still time if the gentleman wanted to . . .
‘Never mind,’ Calloway said, waving the offer away.
This seemed to relax the room, and things perked up even more with the next lot. One of the Matthewsons: sheep in a snowdrift, late nineteenth century. Laura had mentioned at the preview that there was interest in it, and now two telephone bidders were going head to head, focusing the attention of the room on the members of staff who held the receivers. The price kept cranking up and up until it was double the top estimate. The gavel eventually came down at eighty-five thousand, which would do no harm at all to Laura’s bottom line. This seemed to give her a renewed confidence and she made a well-received joke, which in turn brought a little more life to the room as well as a delayed guffaw from Chib Calloway. Mike flicked through the next few pages of the catalogue and saw nothing tempting. He squeezed past the crush of dealers next to him and shook hands with Gissing.
‘Isn’t that,’ Gissing muttered with a nod towards the front of the room, ‘the rogue we had the run-in with at the wine bar?’
‘You can’t always judge a book by its cover, Robert,’ Mike whispered into the professor’s ear. ‘Any chance of a word later?’
‘Why not now,’ Gissing shot back, ‘before my blood pressure gets the better of me . . .’
At the far end of the hallway were some stairs leading upwards to floors where antique furnishings, books and jewellery were displayed. Mike stopped at the foot of the staircase.
‘Well?’ Gissing prompted.
‘Enjoying the sale?’
‘As little as usual.’
Mike nodded slowly, but couldn’t think how to start the real conversation. Gissing smiled indulgently.
‘It’s been preying on your mind, Michael,’ he drawled. ‘What I said to you that night in the wine bar. I could see that you understood straight away, understood the absolute validity of what I was proposing.’
‘Not a serious proposal, though, surely. I mean, you can’t just go around stealing art. For a start, First Caly wouldn’t be too thrilled at the idea . . . And what would Allan say?’
‘Maybe we should ask him.’ Gissing sounded serious.
‘Look,’ Mike argued, ‘I agree it’s a nice thought - I like the idea of planning some sort of . . . heist.’ Gissing, listening intently, had folded his arms again.
‘It’s been preying on
my
mind, too,’ he said eventually. ‘For some considerable time - as you say, a nice little exercise for the grey cells. It occurred to me early on that First Caly wouldn’t do, their security’s too good. But what if there were a way to emancipate a certain number of paintings without them even being noted as missing?’
‘From a bank vault?’
Gissing shook his head. ‘Nothing so onerous.’ He patted his distended stomach. ‘Do I look like I could break into a bank?’
Mike gave a little laugh. ‘This is all hypothetical, right?’
‘If you say so.’
‘Okay, then enlighten me - where are we stealing these paintings from?’
Gissing paused a moment, running his tongue along his bottom lip. ‘The National Gallery,’ he said at last.
Mike stared at him for a few seconds, then gave a snort. ‘Yeah, right, absolutely.’ He was remembering his encounter with Calloway:
Anyone ever tried breaking into this place?
‘No need for sarcasm, Michael,’ Gissing was saying.
‘So we just waltz in and then out again, and no one’s any the wiser?’
‘That’s pretty much the size of it. I can explain over a drink, if you’re interested.’
The two men stared one another out. Mike was the first to blink. ‘You’ve been mulling this over for how long?’
‘Probably a year or more. I’d like to take something with me when I retire, Mike. Something no one else in the world has got.’
‘Rembrandt? Titian? El Greco . . . ?’
Gissing just shrugged. Mike saw Allan emerging from the saleroom and waved him over.
‘Maybe that Bossun you bought wasn’t such a bad punt,’ Allan informed him with a sigh. ‘One’s just gone for thirty-eight K. This time last year he was lucky to break twenty . . .’ He looked from one man to the other. ‘What’s up with you two? You look like kids who’ve been caught with their hands in the sweetie jar.’
‘We were just going to have a drink,’ Gissing said. ‘And maybe a little chat.’
‘What about?’
‘Robert here,’ Mike began to explain, ‘has been stating his intention to lift some paintings from the national collection without their absence being noticed. A little retirement gift to himself.’
‘Beats a gold watch,’ Allan agreed.
‘Thing is, I think he might actually be serious.’
Allan focused his attention on Gissing, who offered a shrug.
‘Drink first, talk later,’ the professor said.
Detective Inspector Ransome watched the three men leave the auctioneer’s and head just half a block along the street to a basement wine bar called the Shining Star. He recognised one of them - the one he’d seen a few days back, drinking coffee with Chib Calloway in the National Gallery’s café. First a gallery and now an auction house. Ransome had checked the notice in the window: the sale had commenced at 10 a.m. Calloway had arrived twenty minutes early, buying a catalogue from the receptionist and being pointed in the direction of the actual saleroom. What the hell was he up to? He’d brought Glenn and Johnno with him, as if some deal might be about to do down. Johnno had come out for a cigarette about fifteen minutes in, looking bored, checking for texts and calls on his mobile. No chance of him spotting Ransome, who was standing eighty feet away behind one of the pillars outside the concert hall.
But with no clue what was going on.
He was on his own today. Ben Brewster was back at the station, working through a heaped in-tray. Ransome’s own desk wasn’t exactly empty, but the phone call tipping him off could not be ignored. And now he had two for the price of one: Calloway, and the handsome, well-dressed man. He was torn between going to the wine bar, maybe overhearing something, and staying put. He wished now he’d dragged Brewster out with him.
It was another half-hour before the auction house started to empty. Ransome watched from behind his pillar as Calloway emerged, flanked by Johnno and Glen, Johnno lighting up at the first opportunity. But Calloway seemed to change his mind and darted back inside again, leaving the two goons to roll their eyes. Couldn’t be easy, working for a nutter like Calloway. Johnno and Glenn both had form. They’d served time at Saughton Prison and further afield - casual violence; threats; intimidation. Johnno was the less predictable, the one likely to reach for the switch marked ‘berserk’; Glenn had at least a bit of sense about him. Did as he was ordered, but otherwise kept pretty quiet.
It was a couple of minutes before Calloway re-emerged. He was talking to a woman Ransome recognised. Calloway gestured along the street, suggesting a drink maybe, but she was shaking her head, trying to be polite. She accepted his handshake and headed back indoors. Johnno patted his boss on the back, as if to say: worth a try. Calloway didn’t seem to like that, snapped some remark back at him. Then the three men started making their way towards - well, well, well - the selfsame wine bar. Decision time again, and this time Ransome didn’t hesitate. He crossed the road and threshold both, smiling in the direction of the receptionist as he followed Laura Stanton into the deserted saleroom.
Not quite deserted, actually: chairs were being stacked by staff in brown overalls. Telephones were being unplugged from wall sockets. A lectern was being dismantled, plasma screens taken down. Someone had handed Laura a sheet of numbers, with a total circled in red at the foot of the page. Her face was difficult to read.
‘Hiya, Stanton,’ Ransome said. It took her a moment to place him, then a tired but genuine smile appeared.
‘Ransome, long time no see.’
The two had been in the same year at college, shared a mutual friend so tended to be at the same parties, the same nights out. They’d lost touch for over a decade, until a reunion had taken them to their alma mater. A few more reunions had followed, though they’d last bumped into one another months back at a jazz concert in the Queen’s Hall. Laura stepped forward now and pecked him on both cheeks.
‘What brings you here?’ she asked.
Ransome was making a show of studying the room and its contents. ‘I remember you saying you worked for an auction house . . . didn’t realise you actually run the show.’
‘You’re way off the mark.’ But she sounded flattered all the same.
‘If I’d arrived a bit earlier, would I have caught you in full flow?’
‘More of a constant trickle.’ She glanced at the sheet of numbers. ‘Markedly up on the winter sale, though, which is encouraging . . .’
‘I’m not interrupting?’ Ransome tried to sound concerned.
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘Only, I was passing and I thought I saw you enjoying a tête-à-tête with Chib Calloway.’
‘Who?’
He met her stare. ‘You know, the gorilla with the shaved head. Was he shopping for anything in particular?’
She knew who he meant now. ‘Didn’t seem to have much of a clue. He was asking at the end, how did all the bidding work?’ Her face tightened. ‘Is he in some sort of trouble?’
‘Since the day he climbed out of the cot. You’ve never heard of Chib Calloway?’
‘I’m assuming he’s not some distant relation of Cab?’
The detective reckoned this deserved a smile, but it was gone by the time he spoke. ‘Streak of violence a mile wide. Fingers in many and sundry dirty pies.’
‘Is he trying to launder money?’
Ransome’s eyes narrowed. ‘What makes you ask?’
She gave a shrug. ‘I know it happens . . . I mean, I’ve heard of it happening elsewhere, other auction houses. Not here, though, God forbid . . .’ Her voice drifted away.
‘It’s something I might look into.’ Ransome rubbed the underside of his jaw. ‘I’ve half a feeling one of his “associates” brought him here today.’
‘There were two of them,’ Laura started to correct him, but Ransome shook his head.
‘I’m not talking about the performing monkeys - they’re called Johnno Sparkes and Glenn Burns. They provide muscle for Calloway when he doesn’t feel like doing his own dirty work. No, I mean the tall fellow, wears a suit well, brown hair combed back from his forehead and over his ears. He left here with a big bear of a man in green corduroy and another guy, skinny, short black hair and glasses.’
She smiled at the description. ‘The Three Musketeers - that’s how I always think of them, they seem to get along so well, even though they’re different.’
Ransome nodded as though this made perfect sense to him. ‘Thing about the Three Musketeers, though . . .’
‘What?’
‘As I recall, there were four of them.’ Having said which, he took out his notebook and asked Laura for their names.
‘Wasn’t one of them Porthos?’ she teased. But the detective, her old drinking chum from college, was past jokes and attempts at humour. Anxiety flashed in Laura’s eyes. ‘There’s no way any of them would have anything to do with a character like that,’ she said defensively.
‘Meaning there’s no reason you shouldn’t give me their names.’