‘Not easy for him to phone from the warehouse,’ Mike counselled, even though he, too, wanted to know what was happening there. He checked his watch. ‘You sure it’s okay if we go pick up the paintings just now?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘It’s Sunday, Allan. I want to be sure you’re not breaking any arrangements – don’t you see your boys on a Sunday?’
‘Margot’s taken them to London to see some show.’
Mike nodded his satisfaction with this. It was a relief that Allan wouldn’t have to try making small talk with his sons during a Princes Street shopping trip or a restaurant meal.
‘Anything else you normally do on a Sunday?’ he asked. ‘Got to keep our routines as normal as possible.’
‘You and me sometimes go for a drink,’ Allan reminded him.
‘So we do… mind if we skip that tonight?’
‘Fine by me. I feel better for talking, though. I’m glad you invited me over.’ Allan was looking around the room. ‘Now what did I do with my jacket…?’
‘You’re wearing it,’ Mike informed him.
When Westie, still hungover from the night before, checked at the cash machine, the money was in his account. Paid in full for services rendered: eight good likenesses and true… well, nine, actually, but who was counting? What mattered was that his work was busily fooling the art world into thinking the heist had failed.
‘Bloody beautiful,’ he said out loud, staring at the amount on the screen for a few seconds more. He printed out a mini-statement, then, just because he could, he withdrew two hundred pounds and marched with it into the café, where Alice was sitting in front of a stack of papers. They hadn’t got to bed till dawn and she was still bleary.
‘Front page of most of them,’ she informed him. ‘Well, the broad-sheets anyway. Some actress with new, improved udders beat you on a couple of the tabloids.’
‘Tell the whole caff,’ he warned, handing her the cash machine statement. She squealed and reached across the table to kiss him. When he drew back and lifted his cappuccino, she noticed the bank notes fanned out on top of one of the newspapers. She gave another little squeal, louder this time, and jumped to her feet to hug him. Coffee splashed across one of the front pages, but neither of them minded. In fact, none of the other customers took a blind bit of notice – too wrapped up in Sunday supplements or college textbooks, or sending messages on their phones, or listening through earphones to the latest sounds. The café was fairly new, sited beside the Meadows where the old infirmary was being turned into expensive flats. Handy for the art college, but neither Alice nor Westie was a regular. He’d picked it for that reason – and because there was a bank close by.
Alice had seated herself again. She was dabbing at the spilt coffee with a paper napkin. ‘Know what it feels like?’ she asked. ‘A Tarantino film – early Tarantino – we’re the young lovers who’ve escaped with the cash!’ Having said which, she scooped up the notes and folded them into the pocket of her zip-up.
Westie couldn’t help grinning, even though he’d wanted the money for himself. Still, there was plenty more where it had come from. But he had a further warning for her. ‘We don’t go splurging too much – remember, that’s to finance you through film school. Just promise me you won’t turn any of this story into your first screenplay.’
‘Third or fourth, maybe,’ she agreed. The pair of them were still laughing as their waitress – was she Polish? – brought the focaccia toastie Alice had ordered. Afterwards, just prior to taking her first huge bite out of the sandwich, Alice commented that for once they could afford to leave a tip. Westie winked at her, then settled back to read about his exploits. He wasn’t hungry – still had paint fumes and varnish in his lungs. But he’d be happy to sit there for a while, swapping papers, ordering yet more coffee, noting the gradations in light, the lengthening shadows, as afternoon segued into evening…
Which was exactly what he was doing when he noticed that Alice had stopped reading and was gazing out of the window. He doubted she was seeing the same world he was. She was using the edge of her pinkie nail to prise slivers of dough from between her teeth.
‘Penny for them,’ he offered.
She gave a shrug, seemed to be considering her response, then turned to face him, leaning her elbows on the tabletop, chin resting between her cupped palms.
‘I was just wondering,’ she began, as though musing aloud for no one’s benefit but her own, ‘why they all got two paintings apiece and we only got the one.’
‘The guy who provided the muscle only got one,’ he corrected her.
‘But he wasn’t there, was he? He wasn’t at the warehouse, risking arrest. And look at the work you put in… all those days and nights… nobody worked harder than you, Westie.’
‘I got paid, though, didn’t I?’
She nodded slowly. ‘That’s sort of what I’m getting at. The cash was to pay for the work you did, but then you did more. You went on the raid, helped switch all those frames – you told me yourself, Professor Gissing was taking forever to do it, and nearly having a coronary in the process. It was all down to you, Westie, and you came good.’ She reached out to him with one hand, clasping his own in hers. There were still streaks of colour on his knuckles – traces of reds, blues, whites and greens. Monboddo’s wife had taken the longest; so many folds in the material of her dress… Alice’s chin was no longer supported by either hand. She was stabbing a finger against one of the newspapers. ‘Says here some of the artists would fetch high six figures. High six figures… and we end up with one lousy DeRasse.’
Westie was stung. ‘One of our favourite artists,’ he reminded her. Influenced by Mondrian, through a prism of sixties counterculture. Alice just made a face, and it was one Westie recognised: she was not going to be convinced.
‘It just seems so unfair, Westie – that’s all I’m saying.’
‘Well, it’s a bit late now to do anything about it,’ he argued, before draining his latest cup. Her eyes met his above its rim, and he felt skewered by them.
‘Is it really, though?’ she said. ‘Is it really too late?’
Westie lowered the cup slowly back into its saucer.
Mike was alone in his flat. He’d put some music on, without really caring what it was. Allan’s Coultons were on a chair next to the fireplace – Mike had never really been a fan of the man’s abstracts. Great whooshes of colour and little doodles that were ‘symbolic, like cartouches’ according to Allan. Mike had poured himself a malt and was savouring it as he studied Monboddo’s wife. Light seemed to pour from the canvas. He put down his tumbler and picked up the portrait, pressing his lips to those of the gently smiling woman. Close up, the surface of the paint was criss-crossed with hairline fractures. Too bad: he could hardly call in a restorer. Monboddo hadn’t signed the work; he seldom signed his name to anything. The show Mike had been at, the one where he’d first set eyes on the painting he was holding right now, plenty of the work on display had been given the wrong provenance until scholarship had improved. Even so, a few of the works were ‘attributed to’ or ‘school of ’. But not the wife. The wife was one hundred per cent genuine. Her name… He went to a shelf and took down a biography of the artist. Her name was Beatrice. The painting bore the title A Reflective Pose, but the sitter was definitely Beatrice – she appeared in at least four other works by Monboddo. The biographer stated his belief that the artist had painted her in as flattering a light as possible, ‘probably to make up for some transgression notably more heinous than the norm’.
Transgression.
Heinous.
Mike’s stomach did a little flip and he decided he’d had enough whisky. Gissing still hadn’t called. But then they’d sort of agreed – contact was to be kept to a minimum. Let the dust settle. Mike placed the Monboddo back on the sofa and reached for his mobile anyway – couldn’t do any harm to send the prof a text. Keep it short and offhand, just the sort of casual enquiry any friend might send – How are you? Let’s have a drink soon. Any news your end? He turned the phone over in his hand, and almost dropped it when it buzzed. Incoming message. It was from Gissing. Mike felt his hand starting to shake as he pressed the tiny button to accept the text.