He cocked his head quizzically. ‘So, you actually believe there might be something of value, do you?’
She shook her head. ‘One in a million is what I said.’
‘Yep, well, right now I’ll take those odds.’
She gave him a strange look. ‘Something I should know about?’
‘No – I – you know – was just thinking wouldn’t it be amazing if we found we had something of real value. It does happen.’
‘Who was that guy you did the extension for a couple of years ago? The famous art forger – in Rottingdean?’
‘Saltdean,’ he replied.
‘What was his name – Daniel something?’
Harry nodded. ‘Hegarty. Daniel Hegarty.’
‘That’s it. He copied all kinds of artists, didn’t he?’
‘Yeah, he’s really good.’ Harry nodded. ‘These days he makes good money by faking old paintings but signing them himself – his DH signature now has kudos – he has quite a celebrity clientele.’
‘So, he’d probably know how to remove a surface painting, don’t you think? Would he tell you?’
‘Brilliant idea!’ Cricket forgotten as well as the barbecue, he pulled up his contacts list on his phone. ‘I’ll bell him.’
Ten minutes later, ending the call to a very chatty Hegarty, Harry beamed at his wife. ‘He’s told me exactly what to do – acetone and cotton buds! He says it’ll dissolve anything relatively recent, but if the painting beneath is genuinely old, it will be so hardened the acetone won’t touch it. He said to do it slowly, bit by bit.’
He shot a glance at Tom who, oblivious to the excitement, continued to lie on the sofa, the world around him blotted out by his headphones. Whether he was watching the cricket or simply staring at the back of his own eyeballs, Harry had no idea.
‘Where can you get acetone from?’ he asked.
She smiled. ‘Simples – my dressing table. Nail varnish remover.’
12
Tuesday, 24 September
The crow was old, not long for this world. Like himself. Crows were lucky, Archie Goff reflected; their hair didn’t turn grey the way his had long ago – it was now nearly white. Not that he was vain or had much to be vain about, with his ageing, beat-up face. Isabella told him affectionately he looked like a scarecrow that had been left out in too many storms.
But at least, unlike this bird, his time wasn’t up, not just yet. Not, please God, for a while yet.
The words he’d read last time he was in prison came to mind. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
And he had a big promise to keep. To his daughter, to pay for her studies through veterinary college. Ironic, Archie Goff reflected, looking down at the bird sitting, almost resigned, in a trap, that Kayleigh was studying to learn how to keep animals alive and he was paying for it by killing birds. But only crows. Nasty creatures that murdered chicks and ducklings. They were both bullies and thieves. But hey, who was he to moralize?
That was the thought he held, bending his gangly, increasingly creaky frame down, on the edge of the woods, dark and deep, as he removed the creature from the trap he’d baited the day before. It barely resisted as he placed it in the cardboard box, the top punched with air holes. There was food in the box, some strips of chicken, and a foil tray of water. Then he placed it in the bottom of his large sack, alongside the brick. ‘Enjoy your last supper, pal,’ he said, feeling sorry for the creature. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t really like killing anything. But needs must.
There had never been a shortage of crows and never a shortage of country houses to burgle in these past forty-five years, to supply him with a living. Mostly a good one but sometimes less so. But all careers had their ups and downs, didn’t they?
His times in prisons had been the downs, when he’d missed out on many of the important years when his kids were growing up, and when all three of his marriages had fallen apart. Prison itself was OK: the electricity was paid for, there was television in the cells and the grub was all right. And he had his mates, especially on those stretches when he was fortunate enough to be sent to his second home, as he jokingly called it, the local Sussex big house, Lewes Prison.
But now Archie was tired of the game. He wanted to settle down with his new love, beautiful Isabella from Cape Town, a lab technician whose hobby was belly dancing. She genuinely loved him, despite knowing his background, and he was crazy about her.
All he needed was a couple of good jobs. Maybe just one, if tonight panned out the way he hoped. And he was long enough in the tooth to know how not to get caught, these days.
Hope Manor.
Archie smiled. There was the sign right there in the name!
He checked his watch. Coming up to 4 p.m. It would be a long wait for darkness, but he didn’t mind, he loved being in the woods, surrounded by nature and all the beautiful trees, many of which had been around long before he’d been born and would still be here decades, maybe even centuries, after he was gone. He was happy to wait, he had time.
As the Irishman he’d once shared a cell with told him, When the Good Lord made time, he made plenty of the stuff.
13
Tuesday, 24 September
Hope Manor, a handsome Georgian pile five miles outside his home city of Brighton and Hove, was occupied by a couple, Martin and Juliet Fry. Their money had come from a chain of betting shops.
Archie had been tipped off by a bent antiques dealer during his last stay in prison, four years ago, that the couple spent their money on high-value antique silver objects. And that they also kept large quantities of cash in the house.
Archie had been watching the Frys’ isolated residence, just beyond these woods, for the past three weeks and reckoned he knew the movements of the elderly occupants – both even older than himself – intimately.
Their guard dog, a German Shepherd, even more ancient in canine years than the Frys were in human ones, had been put down a few weeks ago and they hadn’t yet replaced it. The gods were truly smiling on him, Archie thought. It was meant to be!
If all went to plan, tonight could net him all he needed – and more – from his fence, Ricky Sharp, who always paid him well, and from the cash – if he could find it. Enough tonight, perhaps, so he would never need to work again. He’d have a happy, successful daughter, his one kid who still talked to him, and a beautiful partner to share whatever years he still had ahead of him. And money for them to enjoy.
Finally, he’d be living the dream.
Just tonight to get through.
Sunset would be on his side. The moon was also waning – it was just a thin sliver, giving him near-perfect darkness – and he’d lucked out on the weather. No rain.
Dressed all in black, tool belt around his waist, he deposited the trap in the boot of his beat-up old Astra, concealed a couple of hundred yards away in a convenient picnic spot, then stood on the edge of those dark, deep woods, close to the wrought-iron gates of Hope Manor. They were flanked by pillars topped with stone pineapples, and he hoped – pun not intended – that Martin Fry and his wife, Juliet, would keep to their routine. And they didn’t look like they were going to disappoint. Pretty much on the dot of 7 p.m. the taxi pulled up at the fancy entrance, the driver getting out and pressing the intercom button.
As the gates opened and the taxi drove through, Archie waited a few seconds, then slipped in, unseen, behind it, instantly secreting himself behind a dense bush in the rhododendron-lined driveway. The gates, needing oiling, creaked shut.