‘Coincidence, Jack?’ Potting interjected.
Alexander threw the DS an irritated glance at the interruption. ‘Not when its index checks out, Norman,’ he said with clear satisfaction. ‘The vehicle is registered to Stuart Piper’s company.’
‘Well done, Jack,’ Grace said. ‘So, not all roads lead to Rome. Some, it seems, lead to this Stuart Piper.’
‘We should go and nick him, don’t you think, boss?’ Branson said.
‘On what charge?’ Grace asked.
‘Conspiracy to murder?’ Branson ventured.
The Detective Superintendent shook his head. ‘What we have is mounting up, but I don’t think we have enough evidence yet to convince the Crown Prosecution Service to bring a prosecution. The evidence against both Piper and the two Briggs brothers is looking strong, but – excuse the pun – there’s a bigger picture here. I have the sense these twins might be little more than Piper’s pawns. All the evidence against all three of them, at present, is circumstantial.’
He turned to Branson. ‘Glenn, how’s your knowledge of French artists of the fête galante period?’
‘About as comprehensive as my knowledge of hydrogen cell technology, boss.’
Grace smiled. ‘You have one hour to bone up on that period, then we’re going to pay Stuart Piper a visit and have a friendly chat with him.’
‘Did I tell you I failed Art GCSE?’ Branson said.
‘Now’s your chance to redeem yourself.’
81
Tuesday, 5 November
Roy Grace sat in the passenger seat of the Ford Focus, tight-lipped as Glenn drove, wondering, as he always did, why he’d again let his friend loose behind the wheel. ‘How did your swotting up on the fête galante go?’
‘Pretty good. Antoine Watteau; Jean-Baptiste Pater; Jean François de Troy; Jean-Honoré Fragonard; Nicolas Lancret; Pierre-Antoine Quillard.’
Glenn’s reciting the names had the effect Grace had hoped of slowing down his driving. A few minutes later they arrived, to his relief, and with little thanks to the talent of his chauffeur, at very swanky wrought-iron gates. A discreet plaque fixed to the wall, with gold letters on a black background, said BEWLAY PARK.
Glenn put down his window, pressed a button on the control panel, and gave as good as he got back to the disembodied voice who challenged them. The gates opened and they drove through and up a long avenue of plane trees, with lawns that were almost impossibly green on either side.
‘Reckon the grass is dyed, boss?’ Branson said, driving now at a civil pace.
‘Hand-painted,’ Grace replied. ‘Every blade.’ Then he saw in the mirror of his sun visor that they had an escort behind them. A matt black Mercedes. Branson had seen it, too.
‘Stop!’ Grace instructed.
Branson obliged, stamping on the brake a little too keenly, bringing the Ford to an abrupt halt. The Mercedes stopped behind them in a squeal of tyres.
Roy Grace unclipped his seat belt, climbed out and walked up to the off-roader. As he approached, the driver’s window slid down, and he saw a piece of shaven-headed muscle with stupid sunglasses, all in black, with a smaller, fatter thug beside him. ‘Can I help you guys?’ Grace asked facetiously. ‘Are you lost, is that why you’re following us?’
‘Keep driving,’ the muscle behind the wheel said in a surly voice.
Grace pulled out his warrant card and held it up a few inches from the man’s eyes. ‘Can you read English?’
‘I can read English.’
‘Good. Now here’s the deal. Stop following me or I’ll start following you, twenty-four-seven. You won’t even be able to go to the toilet without a pair of eyes on you. Do you understand?’
He got a sullen nod.
Smiling, Grace said, ‘I don’t like being followed, understand? So turn around and sod off. And I’m giving you just sixty seconds to do that before I nick you for threatening a police officer. Are we good?’
Without replying, the driver began reversing the vehicle, searching for a space between the trees to turn. Grace climbed back into the Ford.
‘Respect!’ Branson said.
Grace grinned. ‘Drive on, Macduff.’
A short while later, Piper’s vast mansion came into view on the far side of a circular driveway around an ornamental lake, across which a pair of black swans glided with supreme elegance. A powder-blue convertible Rolls-Royce was parked outside the front door.
‘Reckon anyone could acquire a place like this from honest money?’ Branson asked, eyes wide open, pulling up behind the Rolls. Its number plate had a combination of letters and numbers arranged, illegally close together, spelling out ARTMAN.
‘A few rock stars and tech gazillionaires,’ Grace replied. ‘Or inheriting it from an ancestor.’
‘None of these, from what we know about Stuart Piper,’ Branson said. ‘Must be a lot of dough in art.’
They walked up the steps to the imposing white front door. It was opened, as they reached it, by a hunk of beefcake, all in black, with a coiled earpiece, a large emerald ring on his right hand, and an expression that was about as hostile as a face could look before imploding into a thousand fragments. ‘Mr Piper don’t see no one without an appointment,’ he said, repeating what they’d heard through the speakerphone at the entrance gates.
‘Well,’ Grace said, smiling pleasantly and holding up his warrant card, ‘I think he’d be smart to make an exception for us.’ Then he made a play of looking closely at the man’s hand. ‘Nice ring.’
As he spoke, a figure appeared down the hall, who looked every inch this man’s identical twin. And wearing a ruby-red ring.
‘My colleague will take you to Mr Piper,’ he said.
‘Colleague?’ Grace said. ‘Or brother?’
There was no answer.
The two detectives followed the twin with the red ring along an oak-panelled corridor lined on both sides with framed paintings that were clearly old and probably important, Grace thought.
‘Jesus, this reminds me of National Trust houses Ari liked to visit,’ Branson said, referring to his ex-wife, ogling both the pictures and marble busts in recesses.
Grace nodded. ‘See yourself living in a place like this?’
Branson shook his head. ‘I reckon the heating bill’s more than my annual salary. You?’
Grace shook his head. ‘Nope, wouldn’t fancy spending all my weekends mowing the lawns.’
A pair of double doors ahead of them were opened and ruby ring ushered them into a cavernous room with a domed ceiling. A lean man of about sixty, with an expressionless face, immaculately dressed, sat behind a beautiful desk, flanked on each side by a stationary Dalmatian dog. Neither animal reacted as Grace and Branson entered.
Piper stood up, his eyes cold, his face steely. Confident in his grand setting, Grace thought, he addressed them. ‘Yes, gentlemen, what can I do for you?’
‘Stuart Piper?’
‘Yes.’
Grace held up his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Superintendent Grace and my colleague is Detective Inspector Branson from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team.’
Piper waved an arm at the two chairs in front of his desk. ‘Have a seat, officers – or should I say, detectives?’ His expression revealed nothing. ‘So, I’ve got an upgrade, eh?’
‘Upgrade?’ Grace was finding his complete lack of expression unnerving. He rarely found people’s eyes hard to read, but this man’s were.