‘Sure.’ There was a trace of humour in Piper’s voice now, but it was not reflected in his face. ‘A couple of weeks ago, I was visited by a humble Detective Sergeant and a Detective Constable. Now I get a Detective Superintendent and a Detective Inspector. I’d call that an upgrade. Enough to have me turning left on an aeroplane, instead of slumming it in economy, wouldn’t you say?’
Piper didn’t look like a man who ever slummed it in economy, Grace thought, but didn’t rise to it. ‘Our colleagues came to ask you if you’d ever had any dealings with the late art dealer Charlie Porteous,’ he said. ‘You said you had not. You also said you had no idea why one of the persons we believe may be connected with the murder of art dealer Charlie Porteous in October 2015 had your number on his phone.’
Piper fixed his cold eyes on each of them in turn. ‘Well, it’s good to know you detectives have such a joined-up team. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me that I already know, or have you just taken a jolly ride out into this beautiful part of the countryside for fun, and to piss away taxpayers’ money instead of doing the job we pay you for, of catching criminals?’
Grace glanced at Branson and could see he was riled as he was too by Piper’s arrogance. He cut to the chase. ‘Mr Piper, you employ two identical twins, Ross and Maurice Briggs. Is that correct?’
‘What does that have to do with anything, officer – sorry, Detective Superintendent?’
‘Quite a bit actually, Mr Piper. An Audi A6 vehicle linked to the murder of Mr Porteous has been also linked to your employees.’
‘So?’
‘You informed our colleagues, DS Potting and DC Wilde, that you had no knowledge of Charlie Porteous, owner of the Porteous Fine Arts Gallery in Duke Street, and had never had any dealings with him.’
‘Correct.’
‘Would you say you have a good memory? I’m aware you had an unfortunate incident in your life back in 1979 when you suffered a very severe assault, leaving you with multiple head injuries. You never suffered from an impaired memory subsequently?’
‘My memory is excellent,’ he replied flatly. ‘Pretty much photographic if you really want to know.’
‘Well, if that’s the case, I’m surprised you’ve forgotten this.’ Grace pulled a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket, laid it on Piper’s desk, opened it, smoothed it out and passed it across to him.
Piper took it and stared at it impassively.
‘I imagine you have the original somewhere, for safe keeping, for insurance purposes?’ Grace questioned.
‘It’s a receipt from the Porteous Fine Arts Gallery, dated 15 May 2014, for two sketches by Pierre-Antoine Quillard,’ Glenn Branson said.
‘Not that long ago to remember,’ Grace added. ‘Especially not for someone with photographic recall.’
To Piper’s credit, Grace thought, the man handled the potential bombshell with aplomb. ‘Oh, those – to be honest those are utterly insignificant, mere ephemera.’
‘You paid £150,000 each for two pieces of ephemera?’ Branson quizzed.
Piper stared back at him so coldly, both his eyes could have been glass, Branson thought. Even though they had the man on the back foot, his gaze chilled him. ‘Detective Inspector,’ he said, ‘most of the art I buy is in multiples of million pounds. You’ll have seen some of my collection on the walls as you walked along the corridor.’ He waved his arms expansively around the room. ‘You can see more of it here. I rarely pay less than five million for a work, and much of what I acquire is well north of twenty million. You’ll have to excuse my small memory slip for the purchase of a couple of insignificant sketches, made by my associate.’
‘Would that be Mr Robert Kilgore?’ Grace asked.
‘You two clearly have been doing your homework, haven’t you? Let me explain something. Robert Kilgore, who looks out for works of art of the fête galante period for me – the period I collect above all others – has a budget I give him, along with a figure below which he doesn’t need to obtain my sanction.’ He glanced down at the receipt. ‘These two sketches fall well below that threshold. If your enquiry is about these two sketches, you’d best go and talk to him.’
‘Can you give us his contact details?’ Branson asked.
‘Really?’ Piper retorted. ‘You mean I have something you don’t know? Top detectives – two of Sussex’s finest – and you’ve spent all this time, come all this way for a phone number? You could have just called me.’ His lips parted, just a fraction, to reveal his veneered teeth. It could have been a smile or a snarl, Grace thought.
‘Thank you, Mr Piper.’ He stood up, followed by Branson. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
‘Any time, detectives. I’m a big supporter of the police, you know. If you ever need a donation to the Sussex Police Charitable Trust, just ask.’
‘We’ll bear that in mind,’ Grace said.
‘Very big-hearted of you,’ Branson added.
‘I’m all heart,’ Piper replied.
82
Tuesday, 5 November
On the top-right corner of the CCTV on his computer monitor, Piper tracked the movement of the silver Ford Focus heading down his drive. The gates opened. The car pulled out into the road and turned right. Immediately the gates began to close.
The two detectives had gone, but he had a worrying feeling they were not going away for long. It was 11.35 a.m. He picked up the internal phone and pressed a button.
‘Bobby, I want you to phone Harry Kipling’s mobile, find out where he is. Make out you’re a potential customer and you need an urgent quote on a job, a big one, make some shit up that will excite him. Find out his movements – what time he’ll be home this evening, say he’s been highly recommended but you have to make an urgent decision and could you pop into his house this evening – it’s the only time you can do, yadda, yadda, yadda. Get him to agree an appointment at his house tonight, understand what I’m saying?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then get your arse in here along with the boys.’
Piper put the phone down and stared at the monitor again. At the closed gates. Then he tapped his trim fingernails on the surface of his desk, tap-tap-tapping out the same monotone beat he always did when he was anxious. Hoping to hell he wasn’t already too late.
83
Tuesday, 5 November
On the occasions when Harry played a blinder of a first half at golf, the wheels invariably fell off on the back nine. But not this time, no sir! In today’s charity four-ball, he’d held it together, scoring two birdies as well as being in the running for closest to the pin on the seventeenth.
Now seated in the dining area of the Dyke Golf Club, surrounded by his pals, he was feeling stuffed after a decent and heavy late lunch of roast pork followed by blackberry and apple crumble. He was still on a high of excitement about the potential of the Bonhams sale, and had confided about the painting’s possible value to his teammates, who seemed genuinely pleased for him. Happy days!
He was sipping a cup of strong coffee as Bob Sansom and Roger Moore, the organizers of the event, stood up and made their way to the table laden with trophies to begin the prize-giving. Then he felt his phone, on silent, vibrate in his pocket.
Tugging it out, he saw it was Freya.
He answered it and stepped away from the table. ‘How’s your day been?’ she asked.
In the background he heard Bob Sansom announce they’d raised over £25,000 for the Martlets Hospice.
‘Brilliant!’ he replied. ‘We scored forty-two – which puts us with a really good chance of a prize – we might even have won!’