Picture You Dead

78 Monday, 4 November

It was 7 p.m. when Daniel Hegarty, meticulously applying fake saleroom markings to the rear of the Lowry painting, was distracted by Rocky and Rambo going crazy with excitement and running upstairs. Moments later he heard his wife’s voice.

‘Good boys, good boys! Has your daddy fed you or has he forgotten again?’

With a twinge of guilt, Hegarty realized he’d been so absorbed in his work he’d clean forgotten the dogs liked to eat at 6 p.m.

‘He’s a right bastard, isn’t he?’

‘I heard that!’ Hegarty retorted as she came down into the living room.

‘Have you fed them?’ she asked, walking over and kissing him. She looked drawn and pale, which was not surprising. She had gone to work to help her deal with what had happened and try to get things back to some sort of normal.

‘I was just about to!’ he fibbed.

‘Of course you were,’ she retorted, with only the faintest hint of sarcasm.

‘How did it go?’ he asked.

She shook her head as she pulled off her gloves and bobble hat then shrugged out of her coat. ‘It was a good thing that I went in. Two hours on the phone, but I think I saved someone’s life. He was seventy-three and had lived with his mother all his life. She did everything for him, cooking, making his bed, and probably wiped his bottom, too. She died two months ago, and he decided he didn’t want to go on living without her. But before he topped himself, he wanted my advice on who he should leave her estate to, which was signed over to him. A jerk of a distant cousin, their only living relative, or charity. I think I convinced him to go and enjoy himself, maybe take a world cruise, and think about leaving the money to charity when he died.’

‘Good thinking.’

‘So did you call the police?’ she asked.

He hesitated before replying. ‘No.’

Natalie rounded on him. ‘What? A bunch of thugs invade our home, threaten us both, we’re only saved by the presence of the window cleaners, and you haven’t called the police?’

‘Let me finish,’ he said. ‘I was about to, when two police officers turned up.’

‘And you told them what happened? What did they say — what did they do? Are they going to arrest those bastards?’

‘I need to explain something to you, darling,’ Hegarty said.

‘I’m listening,’ she replied. ‘It had better be good.’

‘It’s good. You’re going to like it.’

When he had finished telling her, Natalie shook her head. She didn’t like it. She did not like it one bit.

79 Monday, 4 November

Harry Kipling had sat in the pub, deep in thought, nursing his single pint for much longer than he realized. It was 7.15 p.m. when he left, and the pub had filled up a lot in the past hour. He texted Freya that he was on his way.

Twenty minutes later he pulled the Volvo up on the forecourt of their house, in the gap Freya always left for him between her Fiat and his Hilux pick-up, and hurried to the front door. As he let himself in, she greeted him with a kiss, but looked concerned. ‘You’re late, darling, I was worried. How was your day?’

‘Sorry, had to have a drink with the quantity surveyor, Adrian, to discuss Vine Cottage.’

‘How did it go?’

He smiled and nodded. ‘Good. I have some interesting news! How was your day?’

‘Not great.’

He followed her through into the kitchen, and opened the fridge door. ‘Glass of wine?’

‘A large one, I need it.’

He unscrewed the cap of the South African Chenin blanc and poured a generous amount into a glass, then took a can of beer, popped it open, and carried both drinks over to the island unit. As they perched on the bar stools he asked, ‘What’s happened?’

Freya held up her phone and tapped the yellow LibreLink app. ‘Tom’s high-glucose alert has been pinging constantly all day. I think he’s going through one of his binge-eating moods,’ she said.

Harry shrugged. ‘Darling, we can’t blame him. Poor lad, all his mates are scoffing sweets and eating junk food crap and swigging sugary drinks, and he’s having to eat like a monk.’

‘There’s plenty of good choices he could make,’ she said.

Harry shook his head. ‘Not when all his mates are eating Haribo Tangfastics, Skittles or Fruit Pastilles, and chips smothered in ketchup, there aren’t. I remember when I was his age, that’s all the kind of stuff I wanted to eat.’

‘You weren’t a Type-1 diabetic, your pancreas could cope with all that rubbish. Tom’s can’t. I rang the head, and he really wasn’t that helpful. He said he’d tried to keep an eye on him, and insisted there are healthy options in the school canteen. I gave him a low-sugar meal when he came home tonight, grilled cod, broccoli and mash, and he looked at me like I was trying to poison him. He ate the mash, pointedly left the fish and broccoli, then took a Magnum from the freezer and went up to his room.’

‘He’s just trying to make a point.’

‘A point? What point?’

‘That he’s fed up being diabetic. That he feels it’s unfair, that he’s been dealt a shitty hand, which he has.’

‘And your point is?’

‘He’s pretty good most of the time. Every now and then he thinks, to hell with it! He’s a bright guy, cut him a little slack. He’ll get it, in time.’

She looked at him dubiously. ‘Now, Harry. Now’s the time, right? Diabetes attacks the extremities. If he doesn’t take care of it now, when he’s older he risks losing toes, having legs amputated and going blind.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve been reading up a lot about diabetes. Whatever he does now is OK, not great, but OK. Once he’s north of thirty is the time to really start watching it.’

‘I hope to hell you’re right,’ she said. She sipped some wine, looking dubious. ‘So, you said you have some interesting news?’

He smiled. ‘I had a call from a guy at Bonhams, the auctioneers. Barnaby Jackson — one of the people I took the picture to. He said they’re having a major sale of paintings from that period in January, and they’d like to include ours!’

‘He did?’

‘He qualified it by saying if it is genuine. But he suggested that even if they couldn’t establish its provenance as a genuine Fragonard before the sale, they could put it in as “Fragonard or School of Fragonard”, and was confident it would go as that for somewhere between £200,000 and £750,000.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘So you are happy to forget trying to find the other three Fragonard Four Seasons paintings?’ she asked.

‘If you are, I am.’

‘You know I am, we’ve already discussed it endlessly. I’m not interested in millions, however nice that might be. Let’s get what we can for it now, and enjoy the money, right?’

‘Right!’ Harry agreed. ‘I’ll take it up to Bonhams tomorrow and they’ll have it for safe keeping.’ He opened his phone and called up the diary.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I know it should be OK in that place in Worthing, but you do hear of these places being raided or burned down.’

‘And auctioneers never burn down or get raided?’ he said, smiling.

‘I guess — I... I’m just jumpy about everything at the moment.’

‘Oh shit,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I’d forgotten I’m playing golf tomorrow — a charity tournament for the Martlets Hospice. I’ll take it on Wednesday or maybe Thursday, there’s no rush.’

‘The sooner we don’t have to worry about it, the better.’

‘We don’t need to worry about it now, darling, right?’

She shrugged.