Harry Kipling had sat in the pub, deep in thought, nursing his single pint for much longer than he realized. It was 7.15 p.m. when he left, and the pub had filled up a lot in the past hour. He texted Freya that he was on his way.
Twenty minutes later he pulled the Volvo up on the forecourt of their house, in the gap Freya always left for him between her Fiat and his Hilux pick-up, and hurried to the front door. As he let himself in, she greeted him with a kiss, but looked concerned. ‘You’re late, darling, I was worried. How was your day?’
‘Sorry, had to have a drink with the quantity surveyor, Adrian, to discuss Vine Cottage.’
‘How did it go?’
He smiled and nodded. ‘Good. I have some interesting news! How was your day?’
‘Not great.’
He followed her through into the kitchen, and opened the fridge door. ‘Glass of wine?’
‘A large one, I need it.’
He unscrewed the cap of the South African Chenin blanc and poured a generous amount into a glass, then took a can of beer, popped it open, and carried both drinks over to the island unit. As they perched on the bar stools he asked, ‘What’s happened?’
Freya held up her phone and tapped the yellow LibreLink app. ‘Tom’s high-glucose alert has been pinging constantly all day. I think he’s going through one of his binge-eating moods,’ she said.
Harry shrugged. ‘Darling, we can’t blame him. Poor lad, all his mates are scoffing sweets and eating junk food crap and swigging sugary drinks, and he’s having to eat like a monk.’
‘There’s plenty of good choices he could make,’ she said.
Harry shook his head. ‘Not when all his mates are eating Haribo Tangfastics, Skittles or Fruit Pastilles, and chips smothered in ketchup, there aren’t. I remember when I was his age, that’s all the kind of stuff I wanted to eat.’
‘You weren’t a Type-1 diabetic, your pancreas could cope with all that rubbish. Tom’s can’t. I rang the head, and he really wasn’t that helpful. He said he’d tried to keep an eye on him, and insisted there are healthy options in the school canteen. I gave him a low-sugar meal when he came home tonight, grilled cod, broccoli and mash, and he looked at me like I was trying to poison him. He ate the mash, pointedly left the fish and broccoli, then took a Magnum from the freezer and went up to his room.’
‘He’s just trying to make a point.’
‘A point? What point?’
‘That he’s fed up being diabetic. That he feels it’s unfair, that he’s been dealt a shitty hand, which he has.’
‘And your point is?’
‘He’s pretty good most of the time. Every now and then he thinks, to hell with it! He’s a bright guy, cut him a little slack. He’ll get it, in time.’
She looked at him dubiously. ‘Now, Harry. Now’s the time, right? Diabetes attacks the extremities. If he doesn’t take care of it now, when he’s older he risks losing toes, having legs amputated and going blind.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve been reading up a lot about diabetes. Whatever he does now is OK, not great, but OK. Once he’s north of thirty is the time to really start watching it.’
‘I hope to hell you’re right,’ she said. She sipped some wine, looking dubious. ‘So, you said you have some interesting news?’
He smiled. ‘I had a call from a guy at Bonhams, the auctioneers. Barnaby Jackson – one of the people I took the picture to. He said they’re having a major sale of paintings from that period in January, and they’d like to include ours!’
‘He did?’
‘He qualified it by saying if it is genuine. But he suggested that even if they couldn’t establish its provenance as a genuine Fragonard before the sale, they could put it in as “Fragonard or School of Fragonard”, and was confident it would go as that for somewhere between £200,000 and £750,000.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘So you are happy to forget trying to find the other three Fragonard Four Seasons paintings?’ she asked.
‘If you are, I am.’
‘You know I am, we’ve already discussed it endlessly. I’m not interested in millions, however nice that might be. Let’s get what we can for it now, and enjoy the money, right?’
‘Right!’ Harry agreed. ‘I’ll take it up to Bonhams tomorrow and they’ll have it for safe keeping.’ He opened his phone and called up the diary.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I know it should be OK in that place in Worthing, but you do hear of these places being raided or burned down.’
‘And auctioneers never burn down or get raided?’ he said, smiling.
‘I guess – I... I’m just jumpy about everything at the moment.’
‘Oh shit,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I’d forgotten I’m playing golf tomorrow – a charity tournament for the Martlets Hospice. I’ll take it on Wednesday or maybe Thursday, there’s no rush.’
‘The sooner we don’t have to worry about it, the better.’
‘We don’t need to worry about it now, darling, right?’
She shrugged.
80
Tuesday, 5 November
There was a palpable sense of excitement at the start of the 8.30 a.m. briefing of Operation Porcupine. The feeling that they were closing in on the suspects. And it seemed to Roy Grace that almost everyone in his team assembled in the conference room had something urgent to say. He started with Potting, who was signalling with his arm like a batman at an airport.
‘Norman?’
‘Chief, I met with Ricky Sharp last night and offered him the five hundred quid bung you got sanctioned. He confirmed he had collected Goff from prison but insisted he was just doing a favour to an old mate. I told him I needed more information if he wanted the money. After a little hesitation he took it. He informed me the garage in which the Audi A6 was parked for some days had been rented by a gentleman called Ross Briggs.’
‘Did he give you a description of him?’
‘He did, chief, a bit reluctantly. Said he was muscle, spoke with a London accent and, here’s the bit that I like, he was wearing an emerald ring that was, in Sharp’s view, the size of a knuckleduster.’
‘Twin brother of one with a red ring?’ Grace asked.
‘I asked him, and he said Ross Briggs was the only person he dealt with, and he told me he had no idea if he had a brother or not and wasn’t interested in finding out.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘Other than telling me to fuck off, not really, chief, no.’
There was a roar of laughter from Jon Exton.
‘But I think he knows more than he’s letting on, chief.’
‘He’s given us more than enough to be getting on with for now. Excellent, Norman,’ Grace replied, then looked down at his notes. As he did so he was interrupted by the financial investigator, Emily Denyer. ‘Sir,’ she said. ‘I have some information on a Maurice Briggs which I think is significant.’
‘Tell us, Emily,’ he said.
She held up a sheaf of printouts. ‘What I have here are copies of the most recent tax returns from Stuart Piper and from his company, of which he is the sole shareholder, Art Recovery UK Ltd. Among the employees of the company are listed a Maurice Briggs and a Ross Briggs.’
‘The twins?’ Potting queried. ‘Port and starboard?’
‘Could be,’ Grace said and turned back to Denyer. ‘Good work, Emily,’ he said, then nodded at DS Alexander, who had his hand raised and was looking bleary-eyed. ‘Yes, Jack?’
‘Sir, I finally got the car park videos released to me late yesterday, and I’ve been viewing them since, through the night. I’ve been looking at all the vehicles that arrived and left the car park one hour either side of the time Archie Goff drove his Astra in there. There’s one vehicle which strikes me as possibly significant, a Mercedes G Wagon, index GU57 APN. It arrived four minutes after Archie Goff’s Astra, and departed twenty-five minutes after the last CCTV sighting of Goff in the Lanes.’