Over My Dead Body

Chapter 15

‘Were you followed?’

‘No,’ said Booth Watson. ‘After we turned off the motorway I didn’t see another car.’

‘The day you do, I’ll have to be on the move again.’

‘Where to this time?’

‘I already have somewhere lined up that I could move into tomorrow. But General Franco was here for twenty-seven years without anyone finding out about this place. By that time the commander will be dead, and DCI Warwick will have retired.’

‘Amen to that,’ said Booth Watson, as he opened his briefcase and took out several files. ‘Where shall I start?’

‘By proving Lamont is worth his exorbitant consultancy fee.’

‘As long as he has someone on the inside, he’s worth keeping on the payroll,’ said Booth Watson, ‘provided we remember that he’d plant drugs on his grandmother if he thought there was something in it for him.’

‘Are he and Roycroft an item?’

‘I’m fairly sure their relationship is based on nothing more than a mutual interest in money.’

‘So they’re not sleeping together?’

‘Sleeping partners, yes, but sleeping together, no. The last time they met, Roycroft left the pub drunk, and Lamont dropped her off at her place before going home.’

‘Did she have anything worthwhile to pass on?’

‘She brought him up to date on the cold cases Warwick’s team are working on.’

‘Am I one of them?’ demanded Miles.

‘No. You seem to have been forgotten. Your name didn’t even come up.’

‘Long may that be so,’ said Miles. ‘Is Lamont also keeping an eye on Josephine Colbert?’

‘Yes,’ he said after extracting another file from his bag. ‘It would appear that she and DI Hogan are an item. They’re seeing each other three, sometimes four, times a week. It’s begun to produce results. Or, more importantly, no results.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She confirmed that Hogan is working on two of the five cold cases, Abbott and Roach. She’s been told to report any other names he mentions and, so far, you’re in the clear.’

‘Has she asked Hogan if he’s ever heard of Captain Ralph Neville?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Booth Watson. ‘That would blow her cover straight away, as well as yours. As long as Hogan doesn’t mention your name, or Captain Neville’s, we can be confident your file’s still gathering dust in Hayes, where it belongs.’

‘I can assure you Hogan’s wasting his time if he’s trying to finger Terry Roach,’ said Miles. ‘No one in the East End would ever consider giving evidence against that man.’

‘You’ve come across Roach?’ asked Booth Watson, sounding surprised.

‘I was in prison with him. Not a man to cross, as two or three of my fellow inmates found out when they took a shower and discovered that blood is thicker than water.’

Booth Watson gave an involuntary shudder.

‘So, you think Miss Colbert is worth a thousand pounds a week?’ said Miles as he lit a cigar.

‘Think of her as an insurance policy, even though the premium doesn’t come cheap.’

‘Women never do,’ said Miles. ‘Speaking of insurance policies, what’s Christina been up to lately?’

‘She’s been keeping her side of the bargain,’ said Booth Watson. ‘After her meeting with Beth Warwick, she came back with two fascinating pieces of information.’

Miles looked interested.

‘The Fitzmolean has recently been offered Caravaggio’s Fishers of Men by a Lord McLaren, but they couldn’t meet his asking price.’

‘Which was?’

‘Twenty million pounds.’

‘Why’s he putting one of Caravaggio’s most famous works on the market when it’s been in his family for generations?’

‘Having to put, is the answer to that question. It seems that the seventh Lord McLaren has been saddled with extortionate death duties.’

‘How extortionate?’

‘Twenty-two million, seven hundred thousand pounds.’

‘So now we know what he’ll be prepared to sell the painting for,’ said Miles.

‘You’re interested in buying it?’

‘Of course I am, but I’ll need someone to represent me because, unlike Christ, I can’t rise from the dead.’

Booth Watson smiled, ‘I’d be delighted to act on your behalf.’

‘I’m sure you would, BW,’ said Miles. ‘You said Christina had come up with two pieces of information.’

‘The Fitzmolean is mounting a Frans Hals exhibition next autumn, and Mrs Warwick has asked Christina to loan the museum The Flute Player for six weeks.’

‘It’s not hers to loan,’ said Miles defiantly.

‘Which is why I would counsel you to do so.’

‘Your reason?’

‘Mrs Warwick would then be convinced the collection is in Christina’s hands and, more importantly, so would her husband.’

‘Fishers of Men by Caravaggio,’ said the tour guide, ‘is without question the pride of the McLaren collection. Although the central figure in the painting is Christ, the eye goes immediately to the fishermen in the boat. The eminent art historian, Sir Kenneth Clark, wrote that the look of shock when the Apostles first see Christ walking on water can only be described as genius.’

‘What’s it worth?’ asked a young man wearing a T-shirt displaying a Warhol.

‘It’s quite simply priceless,’ said the guide, trying to hide his disdain, which raised a smile from an elderly gentleman seated in a wheelchair, his legs covered by a tartan rug.

‘Although,’ continued the guide, ‘it may interest you to know that the first Lord McLaren purchased the masterpiece from a dealer in Milan in 1786 for fifty guineas, and on returning to Scotland he hung it here, in the dining room, where it has remained to this day.’

Not for much longer, thought the man in the wheelchair.

‘That concludes the tour,’ said the guide, ‘which I hope you have all enjoyed.’ The generous round of applause that followed suggested they had.

The guide gave a slight bow before saying, ‘If you would like to visit our shop, enjoy some light refreshments in the café, or walk around the grounds, please feel free to do so. I hope you all have a safe journey home.’

The old man in the wheelchair thanked the guide and gave him a handsome tip, before his nurse pushed him slowly out of the dining room. ‘I’d like to visit the shop,’ he said.

‘Of course, sir,’ she replied, and followed the signs. The old man purchased a postcard of Fishers of Men and an illustrated catalogue of the McLaren family collection, before the nurse took him back to his waiting limousine. He spotted a young policeman in plainclothes who didn’t give them a second look, as a chauffeur and the nurse helped the old man out of the wheelchair and into the back of the car.

As the limousine drove slowly out of the grounds, the old man turned to the first page of the catalogue, which displayed the McLaren family tree from 1736 to the present day. The first Lord McLaren, it seemed, had made his fortune in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, and his interest in art, which had begun as an amateur, became a passion during his middle age and, following ‘the European Tour’, an obsession: when he died in 1822, his collection was considered to be among the finest in private hands. By the time the limousine pulled up outside the entrance to Aberdeen airport, the old man had come to the end of the first Lord McLaren’s life.

An attractive airport hostess took over from the nurse and wheeled the elderly gentleman to the front of the queue for customs. Once his passport had been checked, he was taken straight to the waiting aircraft.

During the flight home, he learnt how the second and third Lord McLarens had added Turner, Constable and Gainsborough to the collection, enhancing its growing reputation. The old man was among the last to leave the aircraft after it had landed, and by then he’d discovered how the fourth Lord McLaren had discovered the Impressionists, and acquired a Monet, a Manet and two Matisses before he passed away.

While he was being wheeled towards customs, he became engrossed in the fifth Lord McLaren’s desire to purchase works by his own countrymen to hang alongside the Italian, French and English masters, so McTaggart, Raeburn, Peploe and Farquharson were added to the collection. Sadly, the sixth Lord McLaren showed no interest in art, only in fast cars and even faster women, which resulted in several of the paintings having to be sold to cover his extravagances. When he died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-three, he left his only son the title and no choice but to part with the Caravaggio if he hoped to keep the taxman at bay.

The old man progressed slowly through customs. By the time he reached the arrivals hall, he’d also reached the end of the book.

His chauffeur wheeled him out of the airport to his waiting car, which was parked in the disabled zone. He opened the back door for his master, who got out of his wheelchair, walked across to the car and climbed into the back seat. Lazarus would have been proud of him.