The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(114)

Every once in a while I encounter people who don’t like me. This customs chap was one of those. He dwelt upon every least object in the briefcase as though he were an aged courreur pawing over his collection of pubic hairs. He left the cardboard cylinder to the last. ‘What’s this then, sir?’ he asked.

‘A picture or painting,’ I said impatiently, glancing ever and again at the baggage-hall where my fellow-travellers (if I may coin a phrase) awaited their luggage. ‘A mere copy. No Commercial Value and Not For Re-sale.’

‘Reelly,’ he said. ‘Let’s just have a look, please.’ Fretfully, I extracted and unrolled the said art-work. ‘There,’ I said, ‘it’s the Après-midi d’un Clown by Rouault. It’s in the Guggenheim or one of those places.’

‘The Weltschmerzer Foundation?’ he prompted.

‘That’s it, that’s it; jolly good. It’s in the Weltschmerzer, of course. Chicago.’

‘Oh no it’s not, sir.’

‘?’

‘It was there until last Wensdee; then some villains bust into the place, got away with a million quidsworth of this old rubbish.’

My mouth opened and shut, opened and shut, miming those soundless ‘oh’s’ that goldfish make when they want their water changed. I was spared the effort of saying something useful by a civil cough which seemed to come from behind my left shoulder. A glance in that direction showed me a large, civil chap wearing a mackintosh or raincoat. A rapid swivel of some 270 degrees showed a similar chap, wearing a benign look, behind my right shoulder.

Permit me to digress for a moment. Every sound, professional team of thieves has a ‘brain’ who plans the villainy; a ‘manager’ who puts up the working capital; a ‘fence’ who will buy and sell the loot before it is even separated from its owners; a ‘toolman’ who knows how to neutralize burglar-alarm systems and to open locks, be they ever so sophisticated; a ‘peterman’ who can use a thermic lance on a safe or perhaps inject a fluid ounce of liquid explosive and detonate it with no more noise than a sparrow farting in its sleep; a ‘hooligan’ – regrettably – who will, at need, hit inquisitive passers-by with an iron bar; a ‘bent’ night-watchman or security-firm employee who is prepared to be concussed for ￡500 and a small percentage of the take; and – this is the chap you didn’t know about – a ‘lighthouse’. Your ‘lighthouse’ takes no active part in the actual breaking-and-entering; he simply strolls about with his hands in his pockets. He has but one simple, God-given skill: he can recognize ‘fuzz’, ‘filth’, ‘Old Bill’ or any other form of copper, however plainly-clothed, at two hundred metres on a dark night. No one – least of all the ‘lighthouse’ himself – knows how he does it, but there it is. There are only three reliable ones in the whole of London and they are paid the same as the hooligan.

What I am trying to say is that, had I been born into a different social stratum, I would have made a handsome living as a ‘lighthouse’. The two chaps looming behind my shoulders were unmistakably ‘fuzz’.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘I am Detective Inspector Jaggard,’ said the chap on my left, ‘and this is Detective Sergeant Blackwell. We are from the Fine Art Squad.’ I shot another glance into the baggage hall; the carousel was beginning to rotate and my fellow-passengers were thronging around it. Suddenly I realized why my anonymous benefactor had assured me cryptically that the Rouault might well be of use to me at Heathrow.

‘Flash the tin,’ I said in my Bogart voice.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said the DI.

‘Let’s see the potsy.’ They looked at each other, smiling thin smiles.

‘Detectives here do not carry gilt shield-badges,’ explained the DI, ‘but here is my warrant-card, which is almost as impressive and, unlike the “potsy” you speak of, cannot be bought in toy-shops.’ It seemed to be a very valid sort of warrant-card. ‘It’s a fair cop,’ I said happily. ‘Lead me to the nearest dungeon. Oh yes, and perhaps Sergeant Blackwell might be kind enough to collect my suitcase while you and I go to the Black Maria. It’s a sort of pigskin job by Gucci, has my initials on it, can’t mistake it.’

‘That’ll be “C.M.” for Charlie Mortdecai, right, sir?’ said the sergeant.

‘Right,’ I said, giving him a nod of approval.

‘Then why,’ asked the DI, ‘does your passport say that you are Fr T. Rosenthal, SJ?’

Like any jesting Pilate, he did not stay for an answer but steered me courteously to one of those large black motor-cars which the better class of policeman has the use of. In a minute or two we were joined by the DS, who had found my suitcase. He did not give it to me. Nor did he drive to what you call Scotland Yard and what coppers call ‘Headquarters’ – he drove us over Battersea Bridge to that new place on the South Bank which they set up for the Serious Crimes Squad after that train-robbery (remember?) and which now houses all sorts of esoteric arms of the law. Such as, for instance, CII, which thinks up crimes before the villains do and has people sitting on the steps waiting for them. Such as, too, CI, which polices naughty policemen and is known affectionately as Rubber Heels; the late Martland’s Special Power Group or SOGPU, and, of course, the Fine Art Squad which is so highly trained that its members can tell which way up a Picasso should hang. (Picasso, of course, is no longer in a position to contradict them.) The whole place is most secure and secret, except that any taxi-driver in London will take you there unerringly.