Just the drawing room to go, maybe chance a look around for the safe, and then he’d be out of here.
As he went back into the hall a light, shining from halfway up the stairs, blinded him.
‘Stop right there, you bloody bastard, or I’ll shoot!’ a coarse male voice that sounded like it meant business yelled at him. ‘I will shoot! I assure you!’
Archie froze. Dazzled with light and panic.
His brain swirled with confusion. How? How the hell?
He thought of Isabella. His promise. Doing night work as a security guard.
He was shaking, totally panic-stricken. Could he run with his loot?
‘One move and I’ll shoot, you scumbag! Stay right where you are!’
Archie knew just one thing, clung to that one thing. The man would not shoot him in the back from fear of being prosecuted. Still gripping the sack, he spun and fled towards the kitchen.
‘Stop! Stop right there! Stop! I will shoot!’
In the jigging light of his torch beam, Archie sprinted around the island unit, across the kitchen and through into the conservatory. He reached the patio door, pushed it further open and ran through out into the night air.
Free!
He knew that the far end of the Frys’ land ended at the woods. He began to sprint towards them.
Then the ground disappeared under his feet.
For a fleeting instant there was just nothing. He was falling.
Then he was underwater, choking on warm, chlorinated water.
Ridiculously warm, like being in a bath, his brain messaged him, for just a fraction of a second, before he got another message.
This time it was delivered by a pyjama-clad old man, standing at the edge of the swimming pool, as Archie broke the surface, gasping for air and coughing up water. Martin Fry was shining a flashlight and pointing a double-barrelled shotgun down at him.
‘Don’t even think about trying to get out,’ the old man said. Then he kicked Archie hard in the face as he made a last, desperate try.
18
Wednesday, 25 September
Chastened by Cleo’s rebuke last week, but taking on board what she had said, Roy Grace had managed to catch Glenn for an early coffee the day after their drink and persuade him to ditch the idea of sending Siobhan flowers.
To his relief, Glenn had come to much the same conclusion, telling him that although they’d spent the night at their separate flats in the city, he’d spoken to Siobhan at length and apologized, and told her she should go ahead with her piece for the Argus, although he still had some private doubts. Nearly a week later, Roy was pleased to see his friend seemed a little less despondent today, but he still had a mountain to climb on the bigger family issue that was creating such a divide at the moment.
At 9 a.m., seated at the table in the conference room of the Major Crime suite, he made a note of the date and time in his investigator’s notebook, then, addressing his assembled team, he said, ‘OK, good morning, everyone, this is the second review meeting of Operation Canvas, and I’m pleased to say we have made some significant progress during this past week. Before we get onto that, I don’t know if any of you saw on the serials that Archie Goff was nicked last night after breaking into a country mansion near Bolney?’
‘That old dinosaur!’ Potting exclaimed. ‘He’s still around? He’s knocking on a bit, isn’t he?’
‘Like you, Norman?’ Velvet Wilde said, making herself laugh out loud.
‘Thanks, Velvet, very witty,’ Potting said.
‘Just saying.’
‘Children!’ Roy Grace addressed them. ‘Let’s not get personal, OK?’
‘Sorry, boss,’ the DC said.
‘It’s about time they binned Archie and threw away the key,’ Polly Sweeney said, then added with mock sympathy, ‘Bless his little cotton socks!’
Archie Goff had been on the police radar as a serial country house burglar for as long as Roy Grace had been in the police. He remembered, early on as a young PC on Response, being one of several officers who had attended after he’d triggered an alarm in a mansion in Dyke Road Avenue. ‘I’ve checked the records and Archie was last released from prison on 2 October 2015, just two weeks before Charlie Porteous was robbed and murdered.’
Sweeney raised her hand and Grace nodded at her. ‘Yes, Polly?’
‘From memory, I don’t think Archie Goff’s ever been known to use violence in his burglaries, boss,’ she said.
‘Correct, Polly. I’ve checked his recent records and he usually goes after jewellery, silver and small high-value antiques. He’s been known to steal art, small-sized pictures, but I’ve been reading through his case files and interviews earlier this morning and although he’s never been a grass, he has admitted in the past to stealing items to order. While he’s in police custody we should talk to him. I’d like you and Jack to interview him, scare him a little about being implicated in murder, and see if he says anything useful.’
‘Yes, boss,’ she said.
Alexander turned to Potting. ‘Why dinosaur, Norman?’
‘Because that’s what crims like him are,’ Potting replied. ‘Career burglars are a dying breed. Today’s younger generation have much easier pickings with drug dealing or internet scamming, but they’re scum compared to the likes of him. Polly’s right about him never using violence. I nicked him once and he was scrupulously polite. He actually said, “It’s a fair cop, guv”.’ Potting looked around. ‘When did anyone in this room last hear a villain say that outside of a re-run of Dixon of Dock Green?’
Smiling, Grace leaned over his shoulder and pointed at a large photograph that had been added to a whiteboard behind him. It was an elaborate, beautiful painting depicting two lovers in a forest, sun-dappled trees, a waterfall and hundreds of daffodils. It was in an ornate frame and looked as if it might be very old. ‘We believe this is the picture Charlie Porteous had with him at the time of his murder.’ He turned to Stanstead. ‘Over to you, Luke.’
‘I’ve been in contact with an organization, the Art Loss Register, which as its name indicates is a pretty definitive list of all known stolen or lost works of art. I’m informed it’s the most respected database in the art world by all dealers who are offered a painting – or any other object of art – for sale – kind of like their first port of call. Its principal, Julian Radcliffe – incidentally, a very charming and helpful man – was contacted on Thursday, 1 October 2015, by Charlie Porteous, who he said was a regular client that he had a lot of respect for. Porteous asked him to check on a number of paintings he had been offered, which was a regular occurrence. Porteous emailed photographs of them, one of which he had identified as a possible work of the eighteenth-century French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard.’
Stanstead turned to the photograph of the painting on the whiteboard. ‘This picture.’
‘The bloody paparazzi got me having a quiet picnic with my lover!’ Potting said.
Everyone grinned, except Velvet Wilde. ‘Which one are you, Norman?’ she asked. ‘The one having a pee behind the tree in the distance?’
That brought a laugh from the whole team, including Grace. Then, serious once more, he said, ‘Excellent work, Luke. What did Radcliffe report back to Porteous?’
‘That painting wasn’t on his radar, sir. I spoke to him yesterday and he told me that, while there is documented evidence that Fragonard created a series of four paintings of the four seasons in the 1770s, acquired by an aristocratic French patron a few years before the French Revolution, there has been no sighting of them ever since. He admits it is possible that they might have survived and still exist, but he couldn’t possibly tell from this photograph whether this was a genuine painting by Fragonard or not.’