Picture You Dead

75

Monday, 4 November

Daniel Hegarty, in his paint-spattered smock, stepped back from his easel, which he had set up in the bright living room. It was where he liked to work on fine days, the dogs curled up asleep close by. He was putting the finishing touches to the Lowry painting he’d been commissioned to do by a radio celebrity.

Nice work, five thousand quid for something that had taken him just three days. Half a dozen spindly bookies, each sporting a trilby at a jaunty angle, stood on their stools beside their boards displaying betting odds, bagmen to their right, while racegoers in their finery paraded in front of them.

It had been a very long morning, after the unwelcome intrusion earlier, but he smiled with some satisfaction looking out across the Saltdean vista, which he could now see through sparkling windows. And thanks to the window cleaners, Kilgore and his men had been shown a clean pair of heels.

But he was deeply upset about the trauma Natalie had been put through, and she would no doubt have a few choice words about his promise to her of going straight, when she returned from her shift with the Samaritans. But maybe she’d appreciate the situation when he told her what the truth really was. He grinned again at the knowledge. His little guilty secret. Hegarty one, Kilgore nil!

He was feeling hungry, and as he now needed to leave the painting for an hour, while the cocktail of chemicals he’d just brushed on did their work in ageing the picture, it was a good time for lunch. He would make himself a ham and tomato sandwich on sourdough, using some of the delicious Serrano ham he’d bought from a local deli, and maybe a small beer to steady his nerves, and inspire him to dash off a few convincing saleroom marks on the rear of the canvas this afternoon.

The doorbell rang. Instantly the dogs raced up the stairs in a tornado of yapping. He frowned, not expecting anyone. Probably a new book he had ordered from Amazon to help him with a very lucrative fresh commission, copying a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting for a rogue middleman he’d known for years, Ron Patchouli, as slippery as the oil but less fragrant.

The fixer, who had handed him the picture along with a down-payment of £10,000 in cash, had told him the copy was for a wealthy Saudi client who loved the English poet and artist’s work. Hegarty knew the painting, it was famous, considered one of Rossetti’s finest works, and formed part of a collection in a Midlands stately home. ‘Is this hot?’ he’d asked him dubiously.

‘Nah,’ Patchouli had replied brazenly. ‘We’ve only borrowed it!’

Rocky and Rambo raced ahead of him up the stairs and began jumping up and down against the front door. Warily, he peered through the spyhole, in case it was Kilgore and his boys, and saw two people standing outside, a portly man in a suit and a smartly dressed woman beside him. Engaging the safety chain, he opened the door a crack, and above the yapping of his dogs asked, ‘May I help you?’

‘Mr Daniel Hegarty?’ asked the female with a Belfast accent.

‘Who are you?’

The man held up a warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Potting and Detective Constable Wilde from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team. Could we have a word with you, sir?’

‘Is this about the body?’

‘We won’t take up too much of your time, sir,’ the female officer said pleasantly. ‘We appreciate you’ve probably had your fill of police around here in the past twenty-four hours.’

Unhooking the chain and grappling with the dogs at the same time, Hegarty let them in, closing the door quickly to keep the dogs safe. Immediately the female detective kneeled and began making a fuss over both of them, while her male colleague stood looking at them warily.

‘Do they bite?’ Potting asked.

‘Yeah,’ Hegarty replied. ‘All dogs bite, that’s how they eat. But it’s all right, they’ve already had a whole postman today, so they’re not hungry.’

As he led them through, Hegarty heard a voice and a crackle of static behind him, then indicated for the detectives to sit at the table at which he and Natalie had, just a few hours earlier, been held captive by Kilgore.

The female officer stopped to look at the Lowry on the easel. ‘I like that – is this the kind of painting you do?’

Hegarty waved his arms expansively around the room, pointing at a Picasso, the Banksy and a Caravaggio. ‘I like to think I can turn my hand to pretty much any artist,’ he said. ‘Like art, do you?’

‘I do.’ Then she gave him a pointed look, her voice turning sharper. ‘When it’s genuine.’

He laughed. ‘You’ve come to the wrong place then.’

The one with the cheap suit and gruff voice looked up at the Banksy on the wall. ‘Two coppers snogging – what’s that about?’

‘Two million quid, if it’s the original,’ Hegarty retorted facetiously.

Potting cleared his throat, then focusing on the purpose of their visit asked, ‘Mr Hegarty, does the name Archie Goff mean anything to you?’

He thought for a moment. The name rang a very faint bell, maybe somewhere way back in the city’s criminal community. He shook his head. ‘No, why?’

‘He was the unfortunate person you found yesterday morning on the pavement outside your house. We are trying to establish whether his body was put there at random or whether you might have had some connection with the deceased.’

‘You’re a detective?’ Hegarty said.

Potting gave him a wary look. ‘I am, yes.’

‘Well, Detective Sergeant Potting, I was the one who found the body yesterday morning. Don’t you think if I knew him, if I recognized this Archie Goff, I’d have said so?’

‘Unless you had something to hide,’ Potting fired back sharply. He leaned across the table a little closer to Hegarty and, watching his face carefully, asked, ‘Does the name Stuart Piper mean anything to you?’

The hesitation before Hegarty replied was enough. Further confirmation came as, shaking his head and smiling politely, he raised a hand and scratched his hair at the back of his head. Both signs, Potting knew, might indicate someone was lying.

‘No, no, it doesn’t,’ he answered.

‘Are you certain, Mr Hegarty?’ Potting pressed.

‘Stuart Piper, you said?’

‘Correct. You’ve never done any work for him in the past?’

Hegarty felt a flash of discomfort. Something in the expression of the two detectives indicated they knew more than they were letting on at this moment. ‘Stuart Piper?’ he repeated, feigning deep thought. ‘Actually, that name does ring a bell.’ Then, as he lapsed into deep thought again, he was no longer feigning it. And he had to mask his smile as he came up with his response. ‘I’ve not dealt with Piper directly, but there is a gentleman you might want to talk to. He’s an American, based here, name of Robert Kilgore. Nasty piece of work; you might find it helpful to have a word with him.’

‘Where might we find him?’ DC Wilde asked.

‘I believe he’s employed by Mr Piper. But I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention I told you that.’ He shot both detectives a look which they acknowledged.

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ Norman Potting said.

‘What kind of dealings with Mr Kilgore did you have?’ DC Wilde pressed.

Hegarty shrugged. ‘None that I was very happy about.’

‘Can you expand?’ she asked.

‘Client confidentiality,’ he replied with a wink.

‘Do we gather you don’t care for Mr Kilgore?’ Potting asked.

‘You could say so,’ Hegarty replied with a grin. ‘And I’m not faking it.’