Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(31)
“Possible. But less likely.”
“This stuff in the archive,” Vincent asked, “I assume you’ve vetted all the staff?”
“With the proverbial fine-tooth comb. No, we’re positive it’s an outsider.”
“And this has only happened at the Tate?”
A quick shake of the head. “The British Council and the V & A, too, though on a much smaller scale.”
“An operation of this kind,” Resnick said, “all the preparation involved, expertise, it can’t come cheap. What kind of profits are we talking here?”
“A Ben Nicholson watercolor, quite small, could easily fetch up to twenty thousand pounds. One of Mitchell’s large canvases, especially since she died, find the right buyer and you could be looking at twice that.”
“And how long would one of these forgeries take, the painting itself?” Vincent asked.
Jackie Ferris laughed. “Someone who knew what they were doing. Seriously skilled. Maybe a six-day week. Now can we take a walk outside so I can smoke?”
Below them, a few bikers were already enjoying a pint on the cobbles outside the Trip to Jerusalem; to the east, the flat roofs of People’s College gave way to the more ornate buildings on the edge of the Lace Market, and beyond those, the sails of Sneinton Windmill showed white against the rising red brick and dark tile of terraced houses and the clustered green of Colwick Park.
“What I’m not quite clear about,” Vincent asked, “is exactly how you see Grabianski fitting into all this. I mean, a couple of stolen paintings, that’s what he’s trying to get shot of. He’s not a forger, he’s a thief.”
“And people like Snow and Thackray, show them an opportunity to make serious money, and they’ll deal in whatever they can get. Selling a couple of Dalzeils to some collector who just wants to tick them off and keep them in his vault, that’s easy money. Most likely helps to finance the rest.”
“Grabianski, though …” Vincent persisted.
“Look,” Jackie Ferris laid her hand on his arm, “we’ve tried getting close to Eddie Snow before. It’s never worked. Send in someone undercover and Snow smells them out before they’ve as much as shaken hands. Your Grabianski’s already inside. We just have to keep him as close as we can. You do. At the very least, he can help us pull Snow in for receiving stolen goods. And who knows …” a quick smile lit up her alert face, “… if we’re lucky, we might get more. Okay?”
“Okay,” Vincent smiled back. “Why not?”
“Whatever it is that’s worrying you,” Holly said, moving her hands over Grabianski’s body, “I’m glad I don’t have it on my conscience. Right across these shoulders, here along the neck, you’re seized up as anything.” She pressed down hard with her thumbs. “Feel that? I can hardly shift it at all.”
Grabianski could feel it okay. Bright little shafts of pain biting into his upper body. But as for something worrying him, surely she had it wrong. Aside from the fact that since he had taken Eddie Snow to the security vault and shown him the paintings, he had not heard a thing. It’ll take a while, Snow had said, setting things up. I’ll get back to you soon as I can. And Resnick—nothing would convince Grabianski that the detective inspector had made the trip down to London merely to tease him with the possibility of picking him up for lifting the Dalzeil paintings. No, he knew Resnick: just didn’t know yet what he had in store for him.
“Are you sure you’ve been doing those exercises I showed you?” Holly asked, driving a thumb into the space between collar-bone and shoulder-blade.
“Ummph,” Grabianski mouthed into white cotton.
“Every day?”
“Uum.”
“Well, when we’re through I’ll show you another one for the lungs. Forefinger and thumb together, big breath, throw your arms wide, and come forward hard on your bent front leg. It’s good to do in front of an open window.”
Do that in front of an open window, Grabianski was thinking, and I just might throw myself through.
Seventeen “How many words d’you know for vagina, Charlie?”
Resnick spluttered with surprise and set the cold penne arrabiata he was snacking on aside.
Hannah was sitting in her customary position, feet drawn up beneath her on the settee, lamp angled down behind her head, reading. For a change, no music was playing. The house was quiet, sealed in by the dark outside.
“I suppose,” Resnick said, “you’ve a good reason for asking?”
“Prudish, Charlie?”
“Probably.”
After several months of sleeping together, they both knew that to be true.
“This book I’m reading.” Hannah held up a slender hardback, the head and bare shoulders of a young woman filtered through blue on the cover, and across her skin, in red and lower case, the title, in the cut. “The woman in it, the one telling the story, she teaches English …”
“Like you.”
“Not at all like me. At least, not a lot. For one thing, she’s working in New York. Anyway, she’s writing this book, academic, about slang, different dialects. Every time she hears a new word, a different usage, she notes it down.”
“Like a word for vagina?”