Laura considered this. ‘I suppose so,’ she eventually conceded, winning a conciliatory smile from Ransome.
‘We’re agreed then?’ he checked. ‘This is going to be kept between us?’ As she nodded, he stood with pen poised against his notebook, and at the same time asked her how she’d been keeping of late…
6
Gissing seemed in no hurry to tell his story. He was swilling the malt around in its glass, nosing it now and then as if reluctant to take that first fragrant sip. It was too early in the day for Mike, and Allan was due back at the office, having lied about meeting a client for coffee. He was stirring the froth that covered his cappuccino and making regular checks of his watch and mobile phone.
‘Well?’ Mike said, for the third or fourth time. His own drink was a double espresso. It had come with a little almond biscuit, which he’d placed to one side. The Shining Star was near empty – just a couple of women taking a break from their shopping. They were at the other end of the room, well out of earshot, purchases at their feet. Electronic music was playing through the speakers, but kept just audible.
Gissing reached across and placed his fingers around the biscuit, proceeding to dunk it in the whisky. He started sucking on it, eyes gleaming with humour.
‘I’d better get back,’ Allan started to say, shifting in his seat. They were at the same booth as a week ago. Same waitress, too, though she hadn’t seemed to remember them.
Gissing took Allan’s hint. ‘It’s actually pretty simple,’ he began, a few crumbs flying from the corners of his mouth. ‘But you head off if you like, Allan, while I tell Mike here how to steal a painting without really trying.’
Allan decided he could manage a few more minutes. Gissing, having finished the biscuit, tipped the glass to his mouth and drained it with a satisfied smack.
‘We’re listening,’ Mike told the professor.
‘All the galleries and museums in this fair city of ours…’ Gissing leaned over the table, resting his elbows on its surface. ‘They don’t have room to display even a tenth of their collections. Not even a tenth.’ He paused to let this sink in.
‘With you so far,’ Mike commented drily.
‘And those sad artefacts sit unloved in the dark… they sit there for years, Michael, and no one ever sees them.’ Gissing started to count on his fingers. ‘Paintings, drawings, etchings, jewellery, statuary, vases, pottery, carpets, books – from the Bronze Age onwards. Hundreds of thousands of items.’
‘And you’re saying we can walk off with a few of them?’
Gissing lowered his voice still further. ‘They’re stored in a huge warehouse on the waterfront at Granton. I’ve been there on several occasions, and the place is a bloody treasure trove!’
‘An itemised, inventoried treasure trove?’ Allan speculated.
‘I’ve known stuff get wrongly shelved – it can take months to track a piece down.’
‘And it’s a warehouse?’ Mike watched Gissing nod. ‘With guards, CCTV, maybe a few German Shepherds and some razor wire…?’
‘It’s secure enough,’ Gissing admitted.
Mike smiled – he was enjoying this little game. The old man seemed to be enjoying it, too, and even Allan was looking intrigued.
‘So what do we do?’ Allan asked. ‘Dress up as commandos and storm the compound?’
It was Gissing’s turn to smile. ‘I think we can deploy a soupçon more subtlety, Allan, dear boy.’
Mike leaned back and folded his arms. ‘Okay, you’re the one who knows this place – how would someone get in? And even if they did, how come nothing would be noticed as having walked out with them afterwards?’
‘Two excellent questions,’ Gissing appeared to concede. ‘To answer the first – they would walk in through the front door. More than that, they would have been invited.’
‘And the second?’
Gissing held his hands out, palms showing. ‘Nothing would be missing.’
‘The one thing “missing” from all of this is any notion of reality,’ Allan complained. Gissing looked at him.
‘Tell me, Allan, does First Caledonian ever take part in Doors Open Day?’
‘Sure we do.’
‘And what can you tell me about it?’
Allan shrugged. ‘It’s exactly what it sounds like – one day a year, a lot of institutions open their doors to the general public so they can take a look around. Last year, I went to the observatory… year before that I think it was Freemasons’ Hall.’
‘Very good,’ Gissing said, as if to a prize pupil. Then, to Mike: ‘You’ve heard of it, too?’
‘Vaguely,’ Mike conceded.
‘Well, the Granton warehouse is another participant – I’m assured they’ll be throwing their doors open again to the masses at the end of this month…’
‘Okay,’ Mike said, ‘so we can just walk in as members of the public. Walking out again might be the problem.’
‘That’s true,’ Gissing agreed. ‘And I’m afraid such things as guardrooms and CCTV are outwith my area of expertise. But here’s the rub – nothing’s going to be missing. Everything will appear to be just the way it was.’
‘See, you’ve lost me again,’ Allan said, fiddling with his watch strap and starting to text his secretary.
‘There’s a painter…’ Gissing began, breaking off as a shadow loomed over the three of them.
‘Getting to be a regular occurrence,’ Chib Calloway said to the silenced table. When he stretched out a hand for Mike to shake, Allan visibly flinched, as though a punch were about to be thrown. ‘Has Mike here told you we were at the same school?’ Calloway had slapped a hand down on Mike’s shoulder. ‘We did some catching up the other day – didn’t see you at the sale, Mike…’
‘I was standing at the back.’
‘Should’ve come and said howdy – might’ve saved me making a prick of myself by heading up shit creek without the necessary paddle.’ The gangster laughed at his own joke. ‘What’s your poison, gents? This one’s on me.’
‘We’re fine,’ Gissing snapped. ‘Just trying to have a private conversation. ’
Calloway returned the stare. ‘That’s not very friendly now, is it?’
‘We’re fine, Chib,’ Mike said, trying to defuse whatever was threatening to start. ‘Robert’s just… well, he was in the middle of telling me something.’
‘So it’s sort of a business meeting?’ Calloway nodded slowly to himself and straightened up. ‘Well, head over to the bar when you’re finished, Mike. I want to pick your brains about the auction. I did try asking that tasty auctioneer, but she was too busy counting the shekels…’ He turned to go, but then paused. ‘And I hope the business you’re discussing is all above board – walls have ears, remember.’
He returned to the bar and his two bodyguards.
‘Mike,’ Allan said warningly, ‘suddenly you and him are buddies?’
‘Never mind about Chib,’ Mike replied quietly, eyes on Robert Gissing. ‘Tell me more about this painter.’
‘Before I do…’ Gissing reached into his jacket pocket for a folded sheet of paper. ‘Here’s something I thought you might like.’ Mike opened it up while Gissing spoke. It was a page torn from a catalogue. ‘Last year at the National?’ Gissing was reminding him. ‘The Monboddo exhibition – that’s where Allan introduced us, if you remember.’
‘I remember you bending my ear about Monboddo’s strengths and weaknesses.’ Mike stopped talking as he realised what he was holding.
‘This was your favourite, wasn’t it?’ Gissing was saying. Mike just nodded. It was a portrait of the artist’s wife, painted with such passion and tenderness… and looking uncannily like Laura Stanton. (Someone else he’d met for the first time that night.) Mike had thought he might never lay eyes on it again.
‘This is in that warehouse?’ he asked.
‘Indeed it is. Went straight back there after the retrospective. What does it measure? No more than eighteen inches by twelve, yet they can’t find regular room for it on their walls. And such an exquisite piece. You start to see what I mean, Michael? We’d be freeing them, not stealing them. We’d be doing it out of love.’