The Mercedes came to life with a throaty chuckle. Julian turned on his heel and walked briskly to where his Fiat was parked. The other car passed him as he keyed the ignition, and he did a three-point turn.
A wealthy English girl in a British car in Poglio: it had to be the girl who sent the postcard.
Julian could not take the chance that it was not.
He raced after the Mercedes, letting the tiny engine of the Fiat scream in low gear. The blue car took a right turn, following the west road out of the village. Julian took the same turning.
The driver of the Mercedes went fast, handling the powerful car with skill. Julian soon lost the flashing brakelights in the bends of the lane. He squeezed the last ounce of speed from his car.
When he shot past the Mercedes he almost missed it. He braked to a halt at a crossroads and reversed.
The other car had pulled in off the road. The building it was outside looked at first like a farmhouse, until Julian saw the beer advertisement in the window.
The young couple had got out and were entering the door to the bar. Julian drove the Fiat in next to their car.
On the other side of the Mercedes was a third car: another Fiat, only this was a big, prestige model, painted a hideous metallic green. Julian wondered who it could belong to.
He got out of his car and followed the others into the bar.
IV
PETER USHER PUT DOWN his safety razor, dipped his washcloth in hot water and washed the remains of the shaving cream off his face. He studied himself in the mirror.
He picked up a comb and drew his long hair back off his face, so that it lay flat above his ears and on top of his head. He combed it carefully down the back of his neck and tucked the long ends under his shirt collar.
Without the beard and mustache his face took on a different appearance. His hooked nose and pointed, receding chin gave him the look of a spiv, especially with his hair slicked back.
He put the comb down and picked up his jacket. It would do. It was only a precaution, anyway.
He walked from the bathroom into the kitchen of the little house. The ten canvases were there, bound in newspapers and tied with string, stacked up against the wall. He stepped around them and went out through the kitchen door.
Mitch′s van was parked in the lane at the bottom of the garden. Peter opened the rear doors and wedged them with a pair of planks. Then he began loading the paintings.
The morning was still cool, although the sun was bright and the day promised to be warm. Some of the precautions they were taking were a bit extreme, Peter thought as he lugged a heavy frame down the cracked garden path. Still, it was a good plan: dozens of possible snags had been foreseen and taken care of. Each of them was changing his or her appearance slightly. Of course, if it ever came to an identification lineup the disguises would not be enough—but there was no way it could come to that.
With the last canvas loaded, he closed the van doors, locked up the house and drove off. He threaded his way patiently through the traffic, resigned to the tedious journey up to the West End.
He found his way to a large college campus in Bloomsbury. He and Mitch had chosen the exact spot a couple of days earlier. The college occupied a block 200 yards wide and almost half a mile long, much of it converted Victorian houses. It had many entrances.
Peter parked on a double yellow line in a little drive which led to one of the college gates. A curious warden would assume he was delivering to the college building beside the gate—but he was on a public road, so college officials would not be able to ask him his business. Anyone else would see a young man, presumably a student, unloading junk from an old van
He opened the rear doors and took the paintings out one by one, leaning them against the railings. When the job was done he closed the van.
There was a telephone box right beside the gates—one of the reasons they had chosen this spot. Peter went in and dialed the number of a taxi firm. He gave his exact location, and was promised a cab within five minutes.
It came sooner. The cabbie helped Peter load the canvases into the taxi. They took up most of the backseat. Peter told the driver: ″Hilton Hotel, for a Mr. Eric Clapton.″ The false name was a joke which had appealed to Mitch. Peter gave the cabbie 50 pence for helping load the paintings, then waved him goodbye.
He got into the van when the taxi was out of sight, turned it around, and headed for home. Now there was no way the fakes could be connected with the little house in Clapham.
Anne felt on top of the world as she looked around the suite at the Hilton. Her hair had been styled by Sassoon, and her dress, coat, and shoes came from a madly expensive boutique in Sloane Street. A trace of French perfume was detectable in the air around her.
She lifted her arms and spun around in a circle, like a child showing off a party dress. ″If I go to jail for life, this will have been worth it,″ she said.
ʺMake the most of it—those clothes have to be burned tomorrow,″ said Mitch. He sat in a plush chair opposite her. His clenched, busy hands betrayed the strain he felt and gave the lie to his easy smile. He was dressed in flared jeans, a sweater, and a knitted bobble cap, like a faggot playing at being a workman, he had said. His hair was piled under the cap to conceal its length, and he wore plastic-rimmed National Health glasses with plain lenses.
There was a tentative tap at the door. A room service waiter came in with coffee and cream cakes on a tray.
″Your coffee, madam,″ he said, and put the tray down on a low table. ʺThere is a taxi outside with a number of parcels for you, Mr. Clapton,ʺ he added, looking at Mitch.
″Oh, Eric, that will be the paintings. Go and see to it, would you?″ Anne spoke in a perfect imitation of French-accented upper-class English, and Mitch had to conceal his surprise at the sound.
He went down to the ground floor in the elevator, and out through the foyer to the waiting taxi. ″Keep the meter running, chief—madam can afford it,ʺ he said.
He turned back to the doorman and pressed two pound notes into his hand. ″See if you can get me a luggage trolley, or something, and a helping hand,″ he said.
The flunky stepped inside the hotel, and emerged a couple of minutes later with a uniformed bellhop pushing a trolley. Mitch wondered whether any of the tip found its way into the bellhop′s pocket.
The two of them put five of the paintings on the trolley, and the bellhop disappeared with it. Mitch unloaded the remainder and paid off the cabbie. The empty trolley returned, and Mitch took the rest of the paintings up to the suite. He gave the bellhop a pound—might as well spread the largesse, he thought.
He closed the door and sat down to coffee. He realized that the first stage of the plan had been completed successfully; and with the realization came tension, seeping into his muscles and stringing his nerves tautly. Now there was no turning back. He lit a short cigarette from the packet in his shirt pocket, thinking it would help him relax. It did not—it never did, but he never ceased thinking it would. He tasted his coffee. It was too hot, and he could not summon the patience to wait for it to cool.
He asked Anne: ʺWhatʹs that?″
She looked up from the clipboard she was scribbling on. ″Our list. Name of the picture, artist, gallery or dealer it′s for, their phone number, name of the man in charge and his deputy.″ She scribbled something, then flicked pages in the telephone directory on her lap.
″Efficient.″ Mitch swallowed his coffee hot, burning his throat. With his cigarette between his lips he began to unpack the paintings.
He piled the discarded newspapers and string in a corner. They had two leather portfolios, one large and one small, for taking the works to the galleries. He had not wanted to buy ten, for fear of the purchase being conspicuous.