Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

“Why did you wash your clothes, Andrew?” Banks asked. “Including the anorak. You must admit that looks suspicious.”

Hurst looked at him. “I know it does. It’s just…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight. I mean, yes, of course I knew you’d find out I’d been arrested in connection with a fire. I don’t think you’re stupid. I just thought maybe that by the time you did find out about me you’d have caught whoever did it, so you wouldn’t need to look at me as a suspect. I’d been close enough to the fire for my clothes to pick up traces. They stank of smoke and turpentine. I’ve heard how good your forensic tests are these days. I didn’t want to spend a night at the police station.”

“You smelled turpentine?”

“Yes. It was in the air.”

“You didn’t tell us at the time.”

“I didn’t want to get involved.”

If Banks had a penny for every time he’d heard that from a member of the public, he would be a rich man. He stood up. “You’re bloody lucky you don’t get to spend a night in the nick,” he said, “for wasting police time.” He tossed Hurst a card. “Don’t go on any holidays just yet, and if you think of anything else that might help us, give me a ring.”

Hurst nodded gloomily and put the card on the table.

“You can get back to your Helen Shapiro now,” Banks said, and left.

Annie was always amazed when she stepped inside Phil’s cottage at how spick-and-span everything was. It wasn’t as if all the men she had ever known were slobs – Banks’s place was generally quite neat except for the CD cases strewn around the coffee table, usually next to an empty whiskey tumbler and an overflowing ashtray, when he used to smoke – but Phil’s cottage had an almost military sparkle to it, along with the scent of pine air freshener. Still, it wasn’t his main home and he didn’t spend all that much time there. She wondered what his London flat looked like. Chelsea, he’d said. Maybe soon they’d have a weekend in London. Expensive as it was, it would be a hell of a lot more affordable than NewYork, especially if she didn’t have to stop in a hotel.

“What a pleasure to see you,” said Phil, closing the door behind her.

“It’s not exactly a social call,” said Annie, smiling to soften the words. “I need your help.” She was still angry at Banks, but Phil didn’t need to know about their exchange.

Phil raised his eyebrows. “Me? A consultation? Official?”

“Approved by the superintendent, no less,” said Annie.

“But what can I possibly do to help you?”

Annie got him to fill out the necessary paperwork, then she unzipped her briefcase and laid out the Turner sketches and the watercolor, now safe inside their labeled and numbered plastic evidence covers.

“Well, well,” said Phil. “These are a surprise. Where did you find them?”

“In a fire-resistant safe in that caravan that burned down over the weekend. It belonged to a man by the name of Roland Gardiner.”

“The fire you had to leave dinner for?”

“That’s right.”

Phil leaned over and studied the drawings closely. Annie could see the concentration furrow his brow. When he had finished, he turned back to Annie. “Anything else found with them?”

“Only some money. No more drawings, if that’s what you mean.”

“No documents, letters, auction catalogs, nothing like that?”

“No.”

“Pity.” Phil took a large magnifying glass from a box on the bookshelf and went back to the sketches, studying them more closely. “It certainly looks like authentic period paper,” he said. “I might get a better sense if I could touch it, too, though.”

“Sorry,” Annie said. “It’s still to be tested for fingerprints.”

“Whose fingerprints would you expect to find?”

“You never know. We might find the victim’s. And Thomas McMahon’s, if there’s a link between them.”

“You think McMahon forged these?”

“I don’t know. That’s partly why I came to you.”

“But how would you know it was this McMahon’s finger-prints? I mean, I assume if he’d been badly burned – both of them, in fact – then their hands…”

“Well, that’s true,” said Annie. “Unless either of them has a criminal record for some reason…” Then she remembered the book Jack Mellor said Gardiner had lent him. There was a good chance his fingerprints would be on that. Or perhaps even on some object from where he used to live with his wife, on the Daleside Estate. Thomas McMahon might be more difficult, but she was sure that if they looked they’d find his fingerprints somewhere. Whitaker’s shop, for example. “We have to try,” she said.

“How do you get fingerprints from paper? I mean, if they’re not immediately visible through a magnifying glass.”

“I leave it to the boffins,” said Annie. “I think they usually use a chemical called ninhydrin, or something similar, but it’s not my area of expertise.”

“Isn’t that a destructive process? Couldn’t it damage the works? If these are genuine Turners…”

“I’m sure that’s something they’ll take into consideration. They can probably use some sort of light source – laser or ultraviolet. I really don’t know, Phil. The technology keeps changing. It’s hard to keep up with. But don’t worry, our fingerprint expert knows what he’s doing. The last thing he’d want to do is to damage a work of art, especially if it’s a genuine one.”

“That’s good,” said Phil. “Then I assume you brought these to me because you want me to tell you if they’re fake or real?”

“That would be a great help,” said Annie. “In fact, anything at all you can tell us about them would be a help.”

“It’s not as easy as all that, you know, especially when they’re covered in plastic. I mean, I can give an opinion off-the-cuff, mostly based on the style, but there are tests, other experts to be consulted, that sort of thing. And the provenance, of course. That would go a long way toward establishing whether it’s genuine or not.”

“I understand,” said Annie. “Off-the-cuff will do fine for now.”

“Well, they’re similar to other Turner sketches in the large sketchbook and pocketbook he used on his 1816 Yorkshire tour, so it might also be possible to do a bit of comparison work with some bona fide originals. Later, of course, when you’ve finished with them.”

“Was it unusual to do more than one sketch of the same sort of thing?”

“Not at all. Turner did dozens of sketches like this for the Richmondshire series. Three sketchbooks full. But that’s the interesting thing: He usually worked in the books, not on loose sheets.”

“So that’s one mark against authenticity?”

Phil smiled at her. “It signals caution, that’s all,” he said. “But genuine or not,” he went on, “this is certainly a beautiful watercolor. Look at that mist swirling around Ingleborough summit. You can almost see it moving. And there’s not a soul around, see? It’s very early in the morning, just after dawn. You can tell by the quality of the light. Turner was always very keen on reproducing time-of-day and weather conditions. And do you see that peacock in the right foreground? Marvelous detail.”

Annie had looked at plenty of paintings in her time, many with her father’s guidance, and was even a passable landscape artist herself, in what little spare time she had, but she lacked the training both in technique and in history and found she always learned something from Phil’s point of view. It was one of the things she liked about him, his knowledge of and passion for art.

“May I ask exactly what makes you think it’s a forgery?” he asked.