False Picture Page 10

  ‘Philip’s drinking heavily and taking antidepressants, so he’s probably not thinking clearly. He took the Millais out of the flat, wrapped in a bed sheet. You did set him up with some clean bed linen when you put him in the flat, didn’t you? Yes, I thought so. Anyway, Philip arrived at a reputable gallery looking and smelling like a man who’d been sleeping on the streets …’ She went on to describe what had happened there, and how the Goldstones had inadvertently put the word around that the picture was a fake, thus ending any hopes that Philip might have had of raising money from the picture. Bea fished the photocopy out of her handbag. ‘Do you recognize the picture?’

  Velma’s hand trembled as she took the paper. ‘I think so. It hung in the hall. Her walls were covered with pictures and the lighting was bad. Sandy would know, but …’ Her face contracted, fighting tears. Finally she said, ‘I could kill Philip, upsetting Sandy this way.’

  Bea also pushed her plate aside. ‘Sandy’s the key to this puzzle, isn’t he? Your turn to talk, Velma.’

  ‘I’m exhausted. This is all too much. Why don’t I just lie down and die?’

  Bea grinned. ‘You’re a survivor, Velma. Remember how you used to flannel your way out of trouble at school? So let’s hear it.’

  Velma signalled to the waitress for coffee. ‘I’ve got to keep awake somehow. We just have to get through today, you see. They’ll operate tomorrow, although I’m having conscience-stricken pangs about pushing some other poor soul off the list, who might need the operation just as much as Sandy does.’

  ‘No more diversions,’ said Bea. ‘Start with Lady Farne making a will. Sandy was one of the few people Lady Farne trusted. I’m guessing that she made him one of the executors.’

  Velma nodded. ‘We-e-ll, yes. It’s true. He’d been on at her for ages about making a will, and finally she did so. She told him he was one of the executors and the other was a solicitor recommended by her bank. She said she’d left the bulk of her estate to charity, but that Philip would come in for a good bit if he behaved himself.’

  ‘Philip knew?’

  ‘He talked about it quite openly, but I don’t think he’d have the guts – pardon me, but I really don’t think he has – to kill her.’

  ‘So how do you think he came by the picture?’

  ‘It all makes sense now you’ve told me about his debts. He was desperate for money, so he visited his godmother and asked for help. She gave him the picture instead of money.’

  ‘And he tries unsuccessfully to sell it. Next question. Was it Sandy who found the body and reported the murder to the police?’

  The coffee came, and Velma drank it black, without milk or sugar. ‘Yes. He was dreadfully upset because he’d known her such a long time and although she was pretty odd towards the end, he was fond of her. When he got home afterwards he cried, and I didn’t think any the less of him for that.’

  ‘Did the police say when she died?’

  ‘Late on the Monday or perhaps early on the Tuesday morning before he found her. They asked him to look around, see if anything were missing, and of course as soon as he went into the sitting room he saw that her collection of gold boxes had gone. It was in a display cabinet, all rather dusty and not even locked up, can you imagine? It didn’t look as if anything else had been disturbed and of course he didn’t think to look in the cupboard to see if the picture were still there. He was very shaken.’

  ‘Presumably he then contacted her solicitor—’

  ‘Who was away on holiday. His secretary made an appointment for Sandy to see him on his return.’

  Bea said, ‘Go back a bit. What did Philip say about his godmother’s death?’

  ‘Sandy tried to ring Philip to tell him, but his mobile phone was switched off so we left a message on the landline at the flat. When he got back to us, he said how shocked he was to hear about it, and that’s when we arranged to go out for a meal together.’ Velma looked at her watch, and signalled to the waitress for the bill. ‘My treat, this.’

  ‘Velma, pay attention! When you met up, did he try to touch you for money again?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I’d no idea he’d lost his job or anything. I told him not to be silly, end of story. He said he wasn’t hungry and had Dover sole, instead of the calamari. I wish we’d had that, too. We were both as sick as dogs, and then Sandy told me about seeing the picture and not knowing what to do about it. I told him he ought to have it out with Philip so he did and came back in a terrible state. He started to have chest pains that afternoon, but we thought it was the food poisoning that was to blame. He hung around the house, getting under the cleaner’s feet, dithering.

  ‘I told him he ought to go to the police about Philip but he didn’t want to, of course.’ She bit her lip. ‘We almost quarrelled about it. It was the first time we’ve ever had a difference of opinion. I put it down to the calamari and thought he’d be better next day, but he wasn’t. I wanted him to go to the doctor, and he said he would if he didn’t pick up soon and that I ought to keep my appointment at the dentist and he was out of cash, too, so would I get some for him. I was the teensiest bit cross with him, so I did go to the dentist, and then I thought I might as well have my nails done and do a bit of shopping. I wasn’t punishing him or anything, but it seemed a good idea to give him a bit of space. Only when I got back I found he’d been to see the solicitor and that really put the kybosh on everything, because Lady Farne had made a second will, superseding the first, and leaving the Millais to Philip but not a penny more.’

  ‘So it is his property, and it is a genuine Millais?’

  ‘Oh, yes. But everything else now goes to Sandy.’

  Bea’s mouth dropped open. ‘What?’

  Velma nodded. ‘Exactly. Then I realized that he’s been looking after her all these years and, well … he was fond of her, you know. And she must have been so disillusioned about Philip. So it made sense. Not that my poor boy wanted all that money. But you see what it looks like, don’t you? It gives him an excellent motive for knocking her off. He didn’t, but he can’t prove it because he often spends his afternoons round and about, calling on people. He found her. He inherits. He’s number one suspect. I was going out of my mind with worry until I thought you might be able to help.’

  She started to hyperventilate, and Bea grabbed her wrist. ‘Breathe deeply. In and out. In and out. That’s it. Velma, you’re strong. You can cope, for Sandy’s sake.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Velma downed half a glass of water in a couple of gulps. ‘I’m being stupid.’

  ‘That’s the last thing you are, Velma. You’ve always been a quick thinker. As soon as you learned Sandy was a suspect, you contacted me and threw Philip to the lions, rather than tell me about the danger that Sandy was in.’

  Velma gave a little wriggle. ‘It wasn’t quite like that …’

  ‘Yes, it was. You told me you thought Philip had done it, while denying that you did. A perfect Velma ploy. Did you want me to give him away to the police, or were you going to do it yourself?’

  Velma wriggled again. ‘It was a holding action. I didn’t know what to do. Sandy was so ill, not fit to be questioned, and I didn’t really know anything.’

  Bea leaned back in her chair. ‘Now I see why the police are so keen to talk to you both.’

  Velma grimaced. ‘I can stall them till after the operation, but I suppose I’ll have to speak to them sometime. Advise me, Bea. Do I tell them what I suspect, or pretend I’m an empty-headed blonde?’

  Bea rubbed her forehead. ‘If we could only find Philip … has he any girlfriends?’

  Velma looked at her watch. Mentally, she was on her way back to the hospital. ‘Huh? He never introduced us to anyone. I really don’t know.’ She gave the waitress her platinum card, and passed her hand over her eyes. ‘I could sleep for a week, but I must get back. He keeps saying “Sorry” and I say I’m sorry, too, but it doesn’t seem to help. I tell myself that this time tomorrow we should know whether he’s going to live or die.
Only another twenty-four hours.’

  ‘We’ll probably be able to get some clues from Philip’s mobile phone this evening or tomorrow.’

  Velma wasn’t listening any more. She retrieved her card from the waitress and stood up, ready to go. ‘Money’s no object, Bea. Find Philip, and then we’ll work out how to get the police off Sandy’s back.’

  He’d had to take the phone call in the pub, when he could hardly hear himself think.

  Bad news. Van was pressing for the stuff. Not only the boxes but also the miniatures. Well, Liam would play ball and get Charlotte to carry the boxes. That was all arranged.

  Could he arrange for the Maggie girl to take the miniatures over at the same time? She’d go if Zander went, too. Zander might not want to play, but then, he’d no idea he’d been carting stolen goods around for Rafael, had he? When confronted with that information, Zander would have no choice but to do as Rafael said. The girl had as much sex appeal as a giraffe, but there was no accounting for tastes.

  He must set up a meeting with Liam and Zander for later that evening. No excuses accepted. Now where should he meet them? Certainly not at the flat. Ah … he’d been meaning to visit a prospective target out in the sticks, someone who was reputed to have a nice collection of medals. Easy to transport, medals. He’d written asking to visit some time ago – the usual thing, a query on insurance – and hadn’t intended to firm up a date till he’d got the other stuff out of the way. However, he could kill two birds with one stone this way; a ‘talk’ with the medal collector followed by a meeting with the others at the nearest Tube station afterwards.

  He scribbled notes to himself.

  One: Liam must tell Charlotte that Philip had contacted him, and would be back next weekend.

  Two: Rent a car for the journey, pay by cash.

  Three: Liam must order the tickets for the Eurotunnel on line.

  Four: Liam to arrange hotel accommodation. Two doubles? Whatever he fancied.

  The boxes of goods were already packed, ready to be slipped into the girls’ luggage. He’d give them a generous amount of spending money for the trip. Why not? It would be worth it. He was the grand master of this game, wasn’t he!

  Eight

  Sunday afternoon

  What do you do on a sunny Sunday afternoon? Take a stroll in the park. Go off in the car to meet with some friends. Visit relatives.

  Bea hadn’t any close relatives except for her son Max – who seemed to be incommunicado – didn’t want to take the car out, and was feeling peevish.

  Maggie and Oliver had deserted her, she’d lost some important papers, and was going to get into trouble with the police for withholding evidence.

  She missed Hamilton.

  She decided to walk back home from the hospital. It wasn’t too far, she needed the exercise, and maybe the rhythm of walking would provide her subconscious with the time to work on the questions that were rolling around in her head.

  Her shoes were comfortable enough, weren’t they?

  She set off up the road, and stopped. No, her shoes were not comfortable enough. She limped to a bench and got out her mobile phone to try Max. Once more into the breach, dear friends. Once more she got his voicemail. Oh where, oh where has my little boy gone? Gone, gone, far away. In the company of his anorexic, ambitious, fake-blonde wife. Out chatting up the constituency grandees, no doubt.

  She delved into her handbag and came up with the card which the gnome-like antique dealer had given her the night before. He’d said she could ring at any time, day or night, and she had one important question to ask.

  ‘Mr Goldstone, it’s Bea Abbot here. You said there’d been no hue and cry after the Millais – and no, I haven’t got a line on that yet, except to learn that it’s genuine and that Philip had been left it in Lady Farne’s will – but has anyone been trying to sell a collection of small gold boxes?’

  The phone quacked excitedly. ‘Ah, yes. Mrs Abbot, I was hoping you’d ring. You know that the police update us regularly about stolen art treasures? Nowadays I seldom concern myself with such things but your visit inspired me to look through the recent lists and there they are; twenty gold snuffboxes, stolen from the Farne collection. The coincidence hit me immediately. Did the boy take them as well as the picture? To think we had him on our premises, under our very hand!’

  Bea picked her words with care. ‘The man who found the body noticed that the collection of boxes had disappeared, and reported it to the police. But he didn’t realize that a picture was missing until much later, because the last he’d seen of it, it had been stashed away in a bedroom cupboard. Days later, he discovered it had gone missing, but for family reasons …’

  ‘Ah, family reasons. That I understand. This boy Philip is a member of his family, no?’

  There was no point in trying to hide the truth from this man. ‘Yes. That is, he might be. Let me outline a theory. Lady Farne’s flat was stuffed full of antiques; pictures, objets d’art, snuffboxes, some really good jewellery and so on. She lets someone into the flat and he walks out with the snuffboxes. He ignores everything else – even the easily portable stuff like her jewellery – but takes a picture out of a bedroom cupboard. Does that make sense to you?’

  Silence. ‘Mmhm. Mmhm. She had a safe, perhaps? He had no time to crack it?’

  ‘There was a safe which she didn’t use because she’d forgotten the combination, so the jewellery was on show, not in any secure place. The boxes and the picture were taken, but nothing else. What does that sound like to you?’

  ‘The man who took the boxes is not the man who took the picture. The man who took the boxes is a professional thief.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bea. ‘That’s what I was thinking, too. Not one but two people removed things from the flat. We’ve all been so carried away with the idea that Philip stole the picture that we haven’t really looked at the bigger picture. Tell me; if you were a professional burglar, how would you have gone about stealing the boxes?’

  He grunted out a laugh. ‘You think I have an understanding of the criminal classes? Well, perhaps I do. This man you are thinking of, he comes prepared. He has a buyer for the boxes already. He is no amateur. He understands that he has to deliver the goods in perfect condition. These are priceless gold boxes, many of them inlaid with jewels. Some of them date back to the eighteenth century, from the court of Louis XIV.

  ‘This man knows that gold can be scratched, that jewels can be knocked out of their settings. He would have brought something with him to wrap them individually, so as not to reduce their value. The collection would probably have been on a plane out of Heathrow that night. They would be sold, perhaps, to a private collector somewhere on the Continent. We may never seem them again.’

  Bea said, ‘This man you are describing is not Philip. Granted, Philip’s in financial difficulty, but he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer and if he’d wanted to steal from Lady Farne, he’d have taken the jewellery as being the easiest to dispose of. Instead he goes into a bedroom cupboard and removes a second-rate Victorian portrait. I think we can take it that Philip did not steal the boxes.’

  ‘It’s not second-rate, but I see what you mean. It’s not one of Millais’ well-known pictures, though of course it has a certain value. The jewellery would have been easy to sell, as would the boxes – to the right customer. So yes, it was a foolish thing to take the Millais, which is not easy to sell. And to wrap it in a bed sheet! The height of folly! I would like a word with that young man.’

  ‘So would I. Next question. Would you have heard if any of the boxes had been offered around over here, say to someone less scrupulous than yourself?’

  ‘Possibly, but it’s more likely they went abroad.’

  ‘And the frame? Has that surfaced anywhere?’

  ‘Sadly, no. I have set a whisper going around that the picture is definitely a fake, which should deter any of my colleagues from offering for it. They know I’m interested in the frame, and the likelihood is that they�
�ll contact me if the picture is offered to any of them. We do these little favours for one another in expectation that they will be returned in due course. I believe I’ve enough credit to expect a return.’

  Bea reflected that if the police were told about the picture, it would make life even more difficult for Philip. Which way would he jump? Towards the police or away from them? He couldn’t expect help from his father … or could he? Before Bea had left Velma’s house, she’d listened to the messages on the answerphone and there’d been a number of hang-ups among the usual calls from friends and neighbours checking on the times of a community association meeting, making a date for a coffee morning, that sort of thing. Were the hang-ups from Philip, trying to get through but afraid to leave a message?

  Mr Goldstone was still speaking, and Bea had lost the thread of what he was saying. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Trying to think what’s best to do.’

  ‘Relax, dear lady. The police will be looking for those boxes, even though it is probably too late to catch the thief moving them out of the country. As for Philip, my guess is that he will surface sooner or later, probably having flogged off the frame and the picture separately for a few pounds. I would like to be optimistic about seeing the picture again, but I fear that on this occasion I cannot offer you much beyond my condolences.’

  ‘As in … his death?’

  ‘No, no.’ The little man was disturbed by this. ‘At least, it is my sincerest wish that does not happen, although I have a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Bea. ‘We’ll keep in touch, right?’

  She switched off her phone, reflecting that she’d been using it a lot lately and it might need charging up that evening; but no, it was still registering almost full. Good. She looked about for a taxi to take her home. Walking in these shoes was not an option.

  Sunday evening

  Bea poached a couple of eggs for supper and ate them in the kitchen with the newspaper propped up in front of her. She channel-flipped through television programmes for a while, but nothing held her interest. She couldn’t do anything about the things which were on her mind. Max didn’t ring. Nor did Maggie. Philip’s mobile phone lay on her desk, charging itself up, but the messages on it were inaccessible. She refused to tackle routine business letters on a Sunday.