“Can you give me a list of his friends?”
“Friends? Roland? There was no one close. I can probably come up with a few names of people who knew him, mostly from work, but I don’t think they’ll be able to tell you any more than I can.”
“Was he secretive, then?”
“I suppose so. Just quiet, though, mostly. I don’t think he really had much to talk about.”
“Do you happen to have a photograph of him? As recent as possible?”
“I might have one or two,” Alice said. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”
Annie heard her go upstairs. She also heard her husband question her as she went. Annie sat and admired the view as two sparrows fluttered in the birdbath out in the garden. She thought she could see a hawk circling over distant Tetchley Fell. A couple of minutes later, Alice came back with a handful of photographs.
“These were taken at the last office Christmas party we went to,” she said. “Three years ago.”
Annie flipped through them and picked one of the few that was actually in focus: Gardiner sitting at a table, a little flushed from the wine, raising his glass to the photographer and smiling. It was good enough for identification purposes.
“Has anyone been around asking for him since he left?” she asked.
“No. But there was a phone call.”
Annie’s ears pricked up. “When?”
“In July, I think.”
“Did the caller identify himself?”
“No. That was the funny thing. When I told him Roland no longer lived here, he just asked me if I knew where he did live.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him. I mean, I knew where Roland was. I had to, with the divorce, the solicitors and everything.”
“Did he ever call back?”
“No. That was all.”
Interesting, Annie thought. July. Around the time Roland Gardiner started being a bit more optimistic, according to Jack Mellor, and the same time Thomas McMahon got a spring in his step. What happened last summer? Annie wondered. She asked Mrs. Mowbray a few more questions about Roland’s past: where he went to school, where his parents lived, and so on; then she left. She didn’t see Eric Mowbray on her way out, and she couldn’t say it bothered her.
“One of the main problems an art forger faces,” Phil Keane explained to Banks and Annie that Sunday lunchtime at the Queen’s Arms, “is getting hold of the right period paper or canvas.”
Banks looked at him as he talked. So this was the mysterious man Annie was now seeing? She had referred to Phil merely as a friend, but Banks sensed a bit more chemistry than Platonic friendship between them. Not that they were fawning over each other, playing kissy-face or holding hands, but there was just something in the air – pheromones, most likely, and something in the way she listened as he spoke. Not so much hanging on his every word, but respectful, involved.
Banks had noticed that one or two of the women in the place had cast appraising glances when Phil walked in ten minutes late and insisted on going to the bar to buy a round of drinks. He was handsome, Banks thought, but not outrageously so, well dressed but not showy, and he talked with the easy charm and knowledge of a habitual lecturer. He did, in fact, give occasional lectures, Annie said, so it was hardly surprising that he seemed so confident, even a bit pedantic, in his delivery. What was there not to like about this man? Banks wondered. This man who was probably shagging Annie. Let it go, Banks told himself; they’d moved on ages ago, hadn’t they? And he had Michelle.
The trouble was that Michelle was far away right now, and here was Banks sitting in the Queen’s Arms with Annie and her new fancy man, desperately looking for things to dislike. In his experience, anything or anyone who seemed too good to be true was too good to be true. Well, the man was too old for her, for a start, but then so had he been too old for her, and Phil Keane was a few years younger than he.
“Anyway,” Phil went on, “not everyone can do a John Myatt and forge modern masters with emulsion paint on any old scrap of paper he finds lying around, so the typical forger tends to be careful, especially in these days of scientific testing. He has to make sure his materials, and not just his techniques, pass all the requisite requirements. Not always an easy task.”
“You were saying about the paper…?”
“Was I? Oh, yes.” Phil scratched the crease between the side of his nose and his cheek. It was a gesture Banks immediately disliked. It said, Until I was so rudely interrupted. The pontificator’s irritation at being interrupted in his digressions. He was damned glad he’d found something to dislike about the man at last, even though it wasn’t much.
“Well, until the end of the eighteenth century, all paper was made by hand, usually from rags, and after that it was slowly replaced by machine-made paper, some of it made from wood pulp.”
“What’s the difference?” Banks asked.
“Wood pulp makes far inferior paper,” Phil replied. “It’s weaker and discolors more easily.” He leaned forward and tapped the table. “But the point I’m trying to make is that if you want to forge an artist’s work, you’d damn well better make sure you use the same materials he did.”
Banks took a sip of his Theakston’s bitter. Phil was working on a half of XP, slowly, and Annie stuck with fruit juice. “Makes sense,” Banks said. “Go on. Where do you find that sort of thing?”
“Exactly the problem. There are several places he might look for the paper,” Phil went on, “and one of the best sources is an antiquarian book and print dealer. Not everything they sell is expensive, but a lot of it is old. The endpapers of old books are especially useful, for example, and books usually have a publication date to guide you as to the age of the paper you’re using.”
“What about prints?” Banks asked. “I mean, wouldn’t some old drawings be dated, too?”
“Yes, but that’s not always reliable. They could easily be copies of etchings, made posthumously, in another country, even, and until you’ve developed a very good nose for the genuine article, you wouldn’t want to slip up by believing what you read on an old print.”
“What about canvas?” Banks asked. “Aren’t most paintings done on canvas?”
Here Phil allowed himself a slight smile, which Banks pounced on as not being entirely devoid of condescension. He was starting to like the man less and less moment by moment, and he was enjoying the feeling very much.
“Quite a lot are,” said Phil, “but the same applies as to paper, except you don’t find canvas in books. You try to seek out old worthless canvases. Quite often what you find determines which artist you forge.”
“I see,” said Banks. “And you think Thomas McMahon was a forger?”
Phil glanced at Annie, a concerned expression flitting across his face.
“Phil only said that could be one possible explanation of McMahon’s odd purchases from Whitaker’s,” Annie said.
“Yes,” Phil added. “I’m not making any accusations or anything. I didn’t even know the man.”
“Wouldn’t matter if you did make accusations,” said Banks. “McMahon’s dead. He can’t sue you.”
“Even so…”
“The problem is,” Banks went on, “does any of this have anything to do with his murder, and if so, how? Shall we order lunch?”
Phil looked around. “Look, I know a cozy little place out Richmond way that serves the most tender roast lamb you’ve ever tasted in your life.” He looked at Annie. “And I hear they do a delicious vegetable curry, too. What say we head out there?”
Mark awoke the next day still very much alive, and he realized that he probably had the fleece-lined overcoat to thank for that. Even in his favorite leather jacket, he would have been too cold in the barn. He didn’t know what time it was because he didn’t have a watch, but it was daylight, and a hell of a lot warmer than it had been during the night.