“Oh, I’m sure you’re fully aware of the details, sir.”
Dillon left the words hanging for a moment, before going on.
“I mean to say that anyone who is into serious art collecting would know that it was Vermeer’s The Concert that was stolen along with others on March 18, 1990. From a private museum in Boston.”
“The Gardner Museum, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That comes as something of a shock. You see my painting, I’m reliably informed, is an extremely good copy which I purchased in 1997. So how can you possibly be sure it is the original painting?”
“We can’t, sir. But like I said, we do have to follow our lines of enquiry as a matter of course. We would have to call in an expert to be certain; someone from Boston who knows the painting intimately would have to fly over. I must admit, sir, that I was hoping that it wouldn’t come to that. By the way, where did you buy it?”
“Not in America, Mr. Bateman.”
Hart’s voice had taken on a hard edge.
“And I can assure you that all of the documentation is in order and that it came through customs without any problems. All the way from Italy.”
“Well if that’s the case, sir, I don’t see the need for any further questions at present. Oh, but there is just one more thing, sir. Did you purchase any other paintings from this source in Italy around the same time as the Vermeer?”
“No, the dealer was only offering the copy of The Concert, Mr. Bateman. Cost me around one and a half million pounds, as a matter of fact. Quite a large sum of money for a copy, as I’m sure you’d agree. But it’s the only one that I’ve ever seen that could be mistaken with ease for the original.”
“Well, thank you for your time, sir. I think we’ll leave it there for the moment.”
“If we need to take it further I’ll come back to you. You’ve been extremely helpful.”
“I would like to make it perfectly clear that this painting is a copy. It is something that makes very little difference to me financially and is not something I would take any kind of risk in order to possess. You do understand that, don’t you? The transaction is fully documented and open to any scrutiny whatsoever.”
“I’m sure it is, sir. Even a painting as notorious as this Vermeer wouldn’t be the first one stolen to then be sold on as a copy. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you. But if I can be of any further help, do feel free to contact me. May I have your name again?”
“Bateman. Goodbye, sir.”
Dillon closed his mobile phone and thought he had not really found anything out, and was no further forward. But at least Hart wasn’t being evasive and in fact had been extremely forthcoming with information. Dillon smiled. I wonder how you knew.
He got up and crossed to the wall of glass on the other side of the room, went out onto the balcony and took in the view across the rooftops of London. This was exactly what Dillon had paid for and he wasn’t ever disappointed by it. He stood gazing at the city spectacle for a few moments, glanced at the Omega Seamaster on his wrist, and then went back inside.
Havelock was going to throw one of his wobblers when he found out about Dillon’s phone call to Hart. But no matter. Dillon was used to taking chances, pushing his luck when others around him wouldn’t, for fear of upsetting the status quo. He quickly showered, picked out a dark blue pin-stripe suit from his wardrobe, a white shirt and his old regiment tie. Thirty minutes later, he was sitting in the rear of a London cab on his way to a meeting with his boss, Edward Levenson-Jones.
That evening, when Issy returned and whilst Dillon prepared and cooked a meal for them both, he told her about his phone call to Hart that morning.
She listened in shocked disbelief.
“You’re supposed to be a highly trained intelligence officer. The work you chose to do requires you to be invisible to the rest of the world. And yet you decide to break every rule in your own rulebook. Jake, what were you thinking? All you’ve achieved is to warn Hart and insult his intelligence with one reckless telephone call. Dunstan will be pleased. Have you told him yet?”
“I’ll get to Havelock later.”
“Jake, I love you to bits. But I really think you’ve blown this one. I have to deal with the likes of Charlie Hart every day of the week, and he’ll check you out and discover that you don’t exist anywhere in the records of that insurance company you sometimes use as a cover.”
“Oh, I do exist there. My details are on the company’s personnel database, thanks to Vince Sharp. But hopefully I will have stirred him up a bit, and if there is anything to stir up, he’ll soon want to find out what’s going on. I don’t need to tell you, Issy, that people like Hart genuinely believe they’re above all the common laws. So let’s not pass judgement just yet and see what happens.”
“You’re positively mad. It could have been anyone phoning him.”
“But anyone didn’t. He believed that it was a senior investigator with Worldwide Art Underwriters of London and acted accordingly. Had it been Jake Dillon he’d have told me to sod off and would have threatened me with the police. Come and eat this, I’ve been wanting to try this for a while. By the way, the pasta was freshly made this afternoon. So enjoy.”
As Issy sat down he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She didn’t reply, trying the pasta instead. She knew him far too well and his ploy was to take her mind off what he’d done. It wasn’t like Dillon at all. Granted he was reckless, that’s what gave him the edge on his peers and counterparts alike. But, normally, he would have a clear plan in his head, and nothing as vague as this, which worried her immensely.
Charlie Hart sat alone that evening, as he frequently did. Solitude was something he could cope with. Reclusiveness sometimes had its advantages. After Dillon’s call he had emailed Worldwide Art Underwriters of London to discover that they did in fact have a Mr. Bateman, but that he was currently on a case in Argentina and would not be available for another two weeks. That partly explained the withheld mobile number, but not entirely.
He walked down through exotically landscaped gardens to the water’s edge. Boarded the luxury power cruiser he’d had delivered only a few weeks ago, and went up to the upper deck with a large gin and tonic. He felt the chilled feeling of uncertainty run through him. He had aroused someone’s interest and that was something he’d managed to avoid for many years. Whoever had phoned him was professional and had handled it very well. But what sort of professional was he and who was his employer?
He went and lay down on his bed in the main stateroom, gazing up at the watery shadows rippling across the ceiling. He’d left the curtains pulled back to allow the moonlight into the cabin. Because suddenly he wanted to avoid total darkness for fear of stirring up feelings he’d not felt for many years. It was as if the clock had been turned back. And he’d always looked forward. To look back into the past was a definite road to disaster and he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to cope with it.
The anxiety that he was feeling had created confusion and self-doubt in his mind and drew a veil over reality. His thoughts became a farrago until he was not even certain who he was, and a cold sweat had broken out all over his body. A moment later, almost startling himself, he snapped out of the trance-like state, got up and went straight to the bathroom. He stood in front of the mirror, gazing at himself, appalled at what he saw — an old, grey-faced man looking back at him with fear in his eyes. Where had the street brawler gone; the man who was never frightened of anything? Hart could feel himself teetering on the edge, and had never been closer to walking away from it all as he was at that precise moment. He could move away, far away. But would his fears remain behind? He went through to the galley and made himself some hot chocolate, and sitting at the centre island with all the lights on, started to mull over two things that had taken place that day to unnerve him.