Doors Open

  ‘Full inventory needed?’ the museums boss was asking Alasdair. ‘Wasn’t one about to happen anyway?’

  ‘You’re not off the hook, Donald,’ Alasdair snapped back. ‘They could have walked off with anything. Most of the paintings are kept in the vaults, but the majority of your stuff is just lying there on the open shelves - especially with the influx from the Chambers Street refit.’

  The look on Donald’s face seemed to cheer Alasdair up a little. It was as if a load had been lifted.

  Not just colleagues, Ransome thought to himself, but rivals, too . . .

  ‘It’s a good point, sir,’ Hendricks was telling Donald. ‘The sooner we get that inventory underway the better. Meantime, can I ask how many people knew about the warehouse and its contents?’

  ‘The whole bloody city,’ the man called Donald grumbled. ‘This is Doors Open Day, remember? Only day of the year they could just waltz in and take whatever they liked.’ He stabbed a finger towards the contents of the van. ‘But mostly paintings, from what I can see - vaults or no vaults.’

  It looked as though Alasdair was about to remonstrate, but their attention was diverted by the diesel chugging of yet another taxi as it arrived on the scene.

  ‘Ah,’ said Alasdair, ‘here comes our resident expert.’ He strode towards the cab and yanked open its back door. Handshakes were exchanged, after which he led the distinguished-looking gentleman towards the small group. In the interim, Hendricks had noticed Ransome again and given him the benefit of a practised glower. But Ransome didn’t think his colleague would want to cause a scene - not in front of the Edinburgh establishment (Donald was even wearing a New Club tie) - so he held his ground.

  ‘Our chief curator was the victim of a street attack near his home last night,’ Alasdair was explaining. ‘But we’re grateful that Professor Gissing, head of the College of Art and no mean expert himself, has made his services available.’

  ‘Thought you’d retired, Robert,’ Donald was saying, shaking hands. Gissing said nothing by way of reply, but allowed himself to be introduced to DI Hendricks. As the conversation continued, Gissing seemed to realise he was the object of scrutiny from beyond the immediate circle. He gave a surreptitious glance in Ransome’s direction, Ransome turning away a moment too late.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about Jimmy,’ the professor was saying. Ransome remembered hearing about the mugging - guy down by the canal. Turned out the victim was an art expert. Well, well, well. And now here was Gissing . . . Professor Robert Gissing . . . friend to Michael Mackenzie . . . one of Laura’s ‘Three Musketeers’. He’d been at the auction house the same day as Calloway. And all of them had ended up in the wine bar just along the street.

  Oh, it was a small city, all right, was Edinburgh. Staring at Hendricks’ back, Ransome knew he was going to keep it all to himself, all the various connections and coincidences, the personalities, permutations and probabilities. Alasdair was explaining to Gissing that they needed to verify the identities and authenticity of the abandoned paintings and also ensure they were undamaged.

  ‘But we’ll need to dust them for prints, too,’ Hendricks was saying. ‘The thieves may have got careless.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ the friendly SOCO next to Ransome muttered for his benefit. ‘That van’s as clean as a whistle.’

  ‘Have you ID’d it yet?’ Ransome asked in an undertone. The SOCO shook his head.

  ‘It’ll have been stolen to order, though, you mark my words - probably changed the plates and all . . .’

  Ransome nodded in agreement, his gaze fixing once again on Professor Gissing. The man’s arms were folded as he listened to Hendricks. Might just have been concentrating, but to Ransome the body language was all about defensiveness. Maybe they’d fail to find any fingerprints - he’d seldom known the SOCOs to be wrong - but something was whispering a name into his ear.

  The name of Charles ‘Chib’ Calloway . . .

  20

  ‘Not too many snooker halls left,’ Calloway was telling Mike Mackenzie. ‘I mean proper ones, full-sized slate tables. Know how much they weigh? You need to check that your floor can stand up to them.’ The gangster was switching on some of the lights in the cavernous yet musty-smelling room. Mike could make out six tables, but none of them in the best of health. Two were covered with gashed and stained dust sheets while the remaining four had suffered nicks, rips and rudimentary repairs to their green baize. A game seemed to have been abandoned on one of them, Mike rolling the pink ball towards the centre pocket.

  ‘Why’s this one shut on a Saturday evening?’ he asked.

  ‘Overheads,’ Chib explained. ‘Costs me more to run than I get back. I could always put pool tables in instead, maybe a few slot machines . . .’ He wrinkled his pugnacious face. ‘But I’ll probably end up selling it. Some developer can turn it into apartments or one of those huge super-pubs.’

  ‘Why not do it yourself?’

  ‘With my reputation?’ Chib gave a cold chuckle. ‘What do you reckon the chances are of me getting planning permission, never mind a licence?’

  ‘You could bribe a few councillors.’

  Chib had picked up a cue, but found it wanting. It rattled when he replaced it in the rack. ‘Maybe a few years back, Mike. Things have changed.’

  ‘Or set up a front company, so no one knows you’re the one in charge . . .’

  Chib gave another chuckle, warmer this time. ‘Listen to yourself, Michael - maybe we should swap places, eh? You seem to be thinking more like a criminal every day.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because I am a criminal.’

  ‘So you are,’ Chib agreed with a slow nod. ‘And how does it feel?’

  Mike shrugged. ‘Ask me again further down the line.’

  Chib had made a circuit of the table. He now gestured towards the package under Mike’s arm. Mike laid it flat on the dusty green baize and carefully undid the brown paper. He had wrapped it himself, hoping to make it look less like one of the works recovered from Marine Drive, just in case he was pulled over and asked to open his boot. Chib had sent two more texts before Mike had decided to get their transaction out of the way, leaving Allan in the penthouse awaiting Gissing’s return.

  ‘An extremely good example,’ he told the gangster, ‘of late-period Utterson.’

  ‘I’d still rather have had something by Jack the Vee.’ But Chib took his time studying the painting, running a finger along the edges of the canvas. ‘Not very big, is it? They look bigger when they’re framed.’

  ‘They do,’ Mike agreed. ‘Speaking of which . . .’

  ‘I know, I know - I can’t go taking it into a shop, tell them I want a nice new surround for it. And I can’t put it up anywhere it might be noticed.’ He affected a disappointed sigh. ‘Hardly worth the effort.’ Then he smiled and looked at Mike, eyes twinkling. ‘My youngsters were okay? Did as they were told?’

  ‘They were great.’

  ‘The shooters?’

  ‘Worked a treat. We handed them all back afterwards.’

  ‘I know.’ Chib paused for a moment, folding his arms. ‘Had half a mind you might hang on to yours - seemed to be forming quite an attachment to it. I’ve still got it if you want it.’

  ‘Tempting,’ Mike confessed. ‘But better all round if they just disappear.’

  ‘Agreed. So nobody got hurt, eh?’

  ‘It was a piece of cake.’ Mike found himself laughing as he ran a hand through his hair. ‘If I could do it again, I’d grab twice as much.’

  ‘Getting a taste, eh, Mikey?’

  ‘We couldn’t have done it without you.’

  Chib picked up his Utterson and pretended to study it. ‘I still say you could just have swapped the paintings - no need for the stunt with the van.’

  ‘How would it have looked if we’d gone into that warehouse and come out again without anything being missing? This way, they think they’ve got back what was taken and that means they’ll be relieved rather than suspicious.’

&
nbsp; ‘Thinking more like a criminal every day,’ Chib repeated. ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘They’ve got the professor at the scene. He’ll be in the process of verifying that the recovered paintings are the originals.’

  ‘And they’ll take his word for it, just like that?’

  ‘They’ve no reason to doubt him. Besides which, he’s the only expert they’ve got.’

  ‘If I’d known how gullible these sods were, I’d have done something like this long ago.’

  ‘You didn’t know someone like Westie, though - the plan depended on him, and it was the prof’s idea to bring him in.’

  ‘Will Gissing’s nerve hold, do you think?’ Chib placed the painting back on the green baize.

  ‘He’ll be fine.’

  Chib seemed to ponder this. ‘You did well, Mike. Makes me wish we’d teamed up years back.’

  ‘The actual plan was Gissing’s, remember.’

  Chib ignored this. ‘What about your other mate?’

  ‘Allan?’ Mike watched Chib nod. ‘Allan’s fine.’

  ‘Sure about that? See, the thing is this - we’re connected now, aren’t we? And out of the whole lot of us, the only one I trust is me.’ He stabbed a finger towards himself and then Mike. ‘I need to be sure none of you lot will start blabbing if the cops come asking.’

  ‘Won’t happen,’ Mike stated.

  ‘I don’t even know this Westie, but in my experience students are always bad news.’

  ‘Thing is, he doesn’t know anything about you.’

  ‘So where does he think the shooters and my lads came from? Out of thin fucking air?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be the inquisitive sort.’ Mike decided that Chib need not know about Alice. ‘You don’t . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Utterson - I just thought you’d be more excited.’

  There was a sound at the door. A thin smile spread across Chib Calloway’s face. ‘Now I’m excited,’ he said. Then he sniffed and rubbed his nose. ‘Seeing how you’ve developed a taste, Mike, I thought you should be part of this.’

  Mike started to get a bad feeling. ‘Part of what?’

  But Chib was ignoring him and heading for the door. He unlocked it and in stepped a very tall ponytailed and tattooed man, incongruous in a powder-blue suit and shoes with no socks. Chib led this new arrival over to the table, where Mike was pulling his shoulders back, trying for a bit more height and heft.

  ‘This is Mr Hate,’ Chib was saying by way of introduction. ‘Hate, I’d like you to meet the friend I was telling you about - you could even call him an associate of mine - Mike Mackenzie.’

  The way Chib said his name told Mike something was going on. The man called Hate meantime ignored him altogether, giving Mike the chance to study him more closely. There was a dotted line across his throat, and when he rested his meaty hands against the edge of the snooker table, Mike saw that the word HATE had been tattooed along both sets of knuckles.

  ‘This is the collateral?’ Hate was saying, ignoring any niceties.

  ‘This is it,’ Chib agreed.

  ‘And I am supposed to believe it is worth how much?’ The accent was Scandinavian, but Mike couldn’t place it more exactly.

  ‘Mike here is the expert in that department,’ Chib was saying. Mike’s eyes bored into his, but Chib was far from being fazed.

  ‘It is a piece of shit,’ the giant concluded.

  ‘A piece of shit worth around two hundred K on the open market,’ Mike stated.

  Hate gave a snort and picked up the Utterson - none too gently. Mike feared the stretcher might snap. The big man turned it over, examining it.

  Collateral, Mike was thinking. He’d suspected as much, and this had to be the ‘Viking’ Johnno had mentioned that day in the car. Calloway had no interest in the painting. Not really. Instead, he was about to hand it over to this monster, a monster who now had Mike’s name and would forever link him to the painting. If it turned out not to be worth the figure quoted, would things turn nasty? He knew now that this was why Chib had made sure Hate knew his name . . . why the gangster had wanted Mike here when the deal went down. We’re connected now. Hadn’t Chib said so himself? And if flak was coming, Chib wanted Mike as his human shield.

  Mike Mackenzie, what the hell have you got yourself into?

  Hate meantime was sniffing the surface of the painting - actually sniffing it!

  ‘Doesn’t smell so old,’ he commented.

  ‘None of that,’ Chib chided him with a wag of the finger. ‘You think I’d try to pull a cheap stunt? Get someone to verify it if you don’t believe me - Mike here knows someone at the College of Art.

  Christ, now he’s trying to drop the professor in it, too!

  Mike held up a warning hand. ‘The painting is stolen - I’m sure you know that already. Watch tonight’s news if you need persuading. But the only way anyone - anyone - will find out is if it starts to be seen by people.’

  ‘So I am supposed to trust you?’ Hate’s eyes were milky blue, the pupils tiny shards of darkness.

  ‘You could go online,’ Mike found himself suggesting. ‘Check other works by the artist - he’s pretty famous. Find out what they’ve been fetching recently at auction. Samuel Utterson - there’ve been exhibitions, books about him . . .’

  Hate looked from one man to the other. ‘Two hundred thousand pounds,’ he intoned slowly.

  ‘Don’t go getting any ideas,’ Chib said, wagging his finger again and forcing out a short laugh. ‘It’s just temporary security - the cash is coming.’

  Hate fixed him with a gaze. ‘You’ve still got your men out looking for me, haven’t you? Otherwise you’d be a fool. But they won’t find me, Mr Calloway. And if they did, they’d soon wish they hadn’t.’

  ‘Understood,’ Chib said.

  Hate turned his attention back to the painting he was still grasping, and Mike feared he was about to punch a hole through it. But he placed it back on the table instead - actually with a reasonable attempt at gentleness, which told Mike the man was at least halfway convinced - and started to wrap the brown paper around it.

  ‘So we’re cool?’ Chib asked. It was only because of the relief evident in his voice that Mike realised how nervous the gangster had been ever since Hate’s arrival.

  ‘That is something I will need to ask my client.’ Hate was tucking the package beneath his arm.

  ‘No way I can let you walk out of here if we don’t have an understanding. ’ Chib’s relief, it seemed to Mike, had quickly turned to bravado.

  Hate just stared him out. ‘Then you’ll have to stop me,’ he offered, heading for the door. Chib looked around him, his eyes alighting on the rack of snooker cues. But when he glanced in Mike’s direction, Mike gave a shake of the head before calling out a question towards the giant’s back.

  ‘Why English?’

  The man stopped and half turned his head.

  ‘Your tattoos - the word “Hate”,’ Mike explained. ‘Why English?’

  The only reply was a shrug of the shoulders before the door was yanked open and slammed shut again. Mike waited for the echo to die, then nodded towards the snooker cues.

  ‘Maybe if they’d been nine-millimetre.’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust a nine-mil to stop that fucker.’ Chib rubbed a hand down his face.

  ‘In your line of work, you do meet the most congenial people.’

  ‘Not much worse than the ones you meet in any other business.’

  ‘That may be true,’ Mike conceded, and both men laughed, releasing the tension in the room. ‘By the way,’ Mike added, ‘whatever it is - I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Clever sod like you, Mike, my guess is you’ve already worked it out. I owe some money on a deal - the Utterson buys me time.’

  ‘I know it happens with the mafia and Old Masters.’

  ‘Well, now it happens in Edinburgh, too. You want a drink?’ There was a bar area in one corner. Chib unlocked one of the cupboards and p
ulled out a half-empty bottle of whisky and two tumblers. Mike brushed dust from a stool with the palm of his hand before sitting down.

  ‘In a funny way,’ he offered, ‘it actually makes sense.’

  Chib drained his glass and exhaled. ‘What does?’

  ‘If the painting’s not in your hands, the police haven’t a chance of finding it in your possession.’

  ‘That’s true - maybe they’ll try running Hate in instead.’ Chib gave a snort and poured himself another. ‘Sure you don’t want to swap professions?’