Picture You Dead

29

Saturday, 28 September

When Harry and Freya reached the grimy old Volvo estate, they thanked the two security guards who’d escorted them to the car park. One of them, a cheeky chappie, had carried the painting for them. As he handed it to Harry, he jabbed a finger at the carrier bag and quipped, ‘Didn’t know you could buy old masters in Lidl.’

‘Only on their special-offer days,’ Harry retorted, smiling from ear to ear. He was walking on air, this was a dream! An absolute dream! In a minute he’d wake up, and yet, as he rested the painting down on the grass and rummaged in his pocket for the car keys, the two guards waiting patiently, saying they would keep watch just to make sure no one followed them out of the car park, Harry knew it wasn’t a dream, it was real. And the possibility that he and Freya might now be rich was real.

‘Shit.’ He dropped the keys onto the ground, kneeled and retrieved them, then his hand was shaking so much he fumbled for some moments to hit the button on the key fob. Finally the locks thunked. He opened the front and rear passenger doors to let some of the heat out, then hesitated for a moment about where to put the painting. It had been in the boot, inside the tailgate, on the way here. But what if someone rear-ended them? he wondered. For safety he placed it between the front and rear seats, wedging it with the two pillows they always kept in the car for long journeys.

Easing himself behind the wheel, he thanked the security guards again, and as Freya belted herself up, he tried to push the ignition key in. And failed. His hand was still shaking too much. ‘God, I don’t know if I can even drive,’ he said. ‘I’m like – I’m just jangling!’

‘Want me to?’

‘No, I’ll – I’ll be – you know.’ He shrugged, tried and missed again.

‘A couple of deep breaths, darling,’ Freya said.

He tried again, conscious of the guards still waiting, succeeded, twisted the key and the engine fired. He drove slowly over the bumpy grass until they reached the road, then pulled out onto it in the direction of Brighton.

After a few moments he glanced at Freya and said, ‘Can you believe it? Incredible, eh? We might be rich – as in seriously rich! We might be multimillionaires!’

She gave him one of those smiles she always did when he got over-enthusiastic, and which annoyed him because they felt so damned patronizing. ‘Harry, there’s a very big if. You heard what the expert said – Mr Desouta: If it can be proven to have actually been painted by Fragonard himself.’

‘Darling, he’d never have said that unless he was pretty certain.’

She gave him a sideways look. ‘What the Antiques Roadshow team have to do is make good television. There’s a reason why it’s called Antiques Roadshow – because it’s a show. They need the wow factor, they want the audience watching to get a thrill; you saw how he milked it for the cameras.’

‘Did he?’

‘You didn’t?’

‘Anyhow,’ he said with a sly grin, ‘I put a bottle of bubbly in the fridge last night, just in case. I think we should pop the cork when we get home.’

She shook her head. ‘Let’s save it. I don’t want us to build up our hopes. He told us to take it to Christie’s or Sotheby’s to get it looked at properly, and that they might be able to tell us if it is genuine or not.’

‘I’m planning to do that first thing next week,’ he said.

‘Can you afford the time? I thought you were on a deadline with that loft conversion. Aren’t you on a penalty if you don’t finish it by next weekend?’

‘Afford the time? I can leave Darryl in charge for the day, it’s all down to him and Phil at the moment for the next two days.’ Darryl was his main carpenter, trustworthy and reliable, as was Darryl’s assistant, Phil. ‘Anyhow, whoever I take it to will probably need me to leave it with them. I’ve got to sort out Steyning on Monday, but I can whizz up to London first thing Tuesday and be back down by midday.’

‘On the train?’

He shook his head. ‘No way, I’m not risking doing something dumb like leaving it or getting it bashed in a packed carriage. I’ll drive it up.’ He reached across with his left arm, took her hand and squeezed it. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this, my love, a really good feeling. Don’t you?’

Freya shrugged. ‘I do but—’

‘But what?’

‘You know what they say: if something seems too good to be true, then that’s probably right.’

‘Yeah? You know what they also say? Stay away from negative people, they have a problem for every solution.’

She shook her hand free. ‘Thanks, Harry, that’s not a very nice thing to say.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Love is All Around’ began playing on the radio.

Harry turned the volume up. ‘Our song!’

They’d had it playing in church when they’d got married.

She smiled fleetingly. ‘OK, so how did you mean it?’

Harry drove on in silence, without answering, nodding his head to the music, the sun high in his rear-view mirrors. Freya was right to be cautious, of course she was. But this just felt – so – so good. ‘Maybe just a glass of Prosecco tonight?’ he suggested. ‘We’ll keep the champagne for when it is confirmed, yes?’

‘OK.’ Then she said, ‘Just supposing the painting is genuine – just supposing.’

‘Yes?’

‘We should put it in the hands of a top auction house, right?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. And I’m wondering.’

‘Wondering?’ Freya said.

‘Whether we should hang on to it. Just for a while, you know. You heard what Desouta said, that on its own, if genuine, it could be worth five million, but if part of the complete set of the Four Seasons paintings it could be worth multiples of that – like ten or twenty million or even more.’

She nodded. ‘It’s a nice dream, but how on earth would we start looking for the other three – even if they’ve survived?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how the art world works. But if what we’ve found is original, who’s to say the other three aren’t out there somewhere? Maybe three other art collectors or museums that have one or more of them? Someone who has all three of the others who would jump at doing a deal?’

Freya shook her head. ‘You are right, my love, we have no idea how the art world works. And we don’t know anyone who does.’

‘We do,’ he replied. ‘I built an extension on his house in Saltdean, and did his loft conversion, about three years ago. He paid us in cash, fastest payer we ever had!’

‘Daniel Hegarty? The guy you called about the nail varnish?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘But he’s a complete crook, isn’t he?’

‘No, he was once, but not any more. He’s considered the best art forger in the country, if not the world. He can copy any painting and make it look even more authentic than the original. Collectors use him to make copies of paintings they own that are too expensive to insure, so they hang his copies in their homes and store the original in a bank vault.’

‘So how could he help us?’

‘I talked to him a lot when I was working on his house. He knows the art world inside out. I think he is the guy we need.’

‘To find the other three Fragonards?’

Harry shook his head. ‘Maybe even better than that,’ he said. ‘I have a plan. Trust me.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re going to commission him to forge the other three?’

He shook his head. ‘Just trust me.’