Quintin Jardine - A Coffin For Two

She glared at me, but I stuck to my guns. ‘We can’t do that, for Christ’s sake. How do you think the curator might react if we show up on his doorstep with a print of an alleged Dali that doesn’t appear in any catalogue of his work, and isn’t mentioned in any biography of the man?

‘At the very least, he’d throw us out. At worst, he’d think we were forgers and would call the Guardia Civil. You and I have applications in the pipeline for resident status. I doubt if they’d be confirmed if we were banged up in Figueras nick!’

She looked at me, her ‘man or a mouse’ glare. ‘Nonsense. We’ve got our letter of engagement from Mr Scott. We can show him that.’

‘Sorry, but that’s cobblers. Who’s Scott to him?What would that letter mean?’ I eyeballed her across the table. ‘Anyway, there’s another scenario. What if Scott’s picture is the real thing? A genuine, uncatalogued, unknown Dali? I’ve seen the original, and it’s some piece of work. You might think that the print looks great, but believe me it’s two-dimensional in comparison.

‘He said it himself. If it’s genuine, it’ll be worth millions. So, if it’s genuine, how come it shows up in Ronald Starr’s very discreet, very private auction in Peretellada? And how come our client picks it up for a trifling two hundred and sixty thousand? I’ll tell you why. Because stolen works of art will sell for about one tenth of their true value on the black market.

‘I doubt if it’s occurred to our client, or he wouldn’t have given me this print to wave around the countryside, but if Gavin has bought himself a genuine Dali, then it’s a pound to a pinch of pig-shit that it’s stolen goods.’

She looked at me. ‘So should we take it to the police?’

‘Fine, let’s do that. Let’s tell the Guardia the whole story. Then a few things might happen. They might simply laugh at us, and that would be all right. Or, they could confirm that the thing is a fake and start a hue and cry looking for the forger who’s putting the Dali industry at risk. Last but not least, they could authenticate it and issue an international warrant for our client’s arrest on a charge of handling a stolen masterpiece.’

Prim surrendered, with an ill grace. ‘Okay, Mr Clever. So what should we do?’

I paused, savouring my victory. ‘We should find Mr Ronald Starr, and ask him the questions that Gavin Scott left unasked when he bought the picture, because he wanted the thing so much that he just switched his brain off. If he was an agent at the auction, who was the principal? And how did he or she come to own it? While we’re looking for Starr, we should ask a few general questions about Dali, and about anyone who might be up to imitating him.’

‘Ask questions of whom?’ she asked, grammatically.

‘Of other artists, of course. And I think I know where to find some.’ I reached across and squeezed her hand. ‘You were right about one thing, though, my dear one. It starts with Trevor. Tonight, we’re dining out.’

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but the rest of the day we spend getting this business of ours into shape. You said that you had other correspondence.’

I nodded, and retrieved my document case from its pocket in my flight-bag, in the bedroom, where Prim had dropped it the night before. I showed her our three enquiries, and talked them through with her.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you should do the one in Tarragona. I’m not so sure about taking on both the others though.’

‘Why not?’

She frowned. ‘They both want quick responses. We don’t want to spread ourselves too thin.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘These are both Edinburgh companies. If we give them a prompt effective service, they might tell their pals about us. If we give them the bum’s rush, or crap service, they’re sure to tell their pals about that. If we find ourselves short of hours in the day, then we hire casual help.’

‘Yes, but what about admin, and invoicing, and so on?’

‘No problem. I’ve persuaded Jan to come in with us, to handle finance. She’ll do all our billing in Scotland, routed through Jersey, and she’ll handle first responses to enquiries, like she did with these and with Gavin Scott. That’s okay with you, isn’t it?’

There was a silence for a while, which worried me for an instant, until I realised she thought I’d take her approval as read. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said finally. ‘I’ve got no problem with that.’ She paused. ‘Shirley Gash might help us. Not that she needs the money, but she did say that she’s desperate for things to do with her time.’ She stood up from the table. ‘I’ll get the computer, and we can draft our responses to these people.’

I watched her as she strolled back into the living-room and picked up the lap-top. All at once my eye fell on a piece of paper on the floor. ‘Hey,’ I called to her. ‘We forgot about that fax from last night. Bring that too.’

She nodded and bent to pick it up. ‘It’s from someone called Gregor, at Laing’s,’ she said, glancing at the heading. She read on down the page. By the time she re-emerged on to the terrace, her mouth was hanging open in a silent gasp, and her eyes were wide with surprise. She handed me the fax without a word.

I read it aloud.

Hi Oz,

I had an immediate response from the manufacturers to your enquiry. Giorgio of Beverley Hills gentleman’s wristwatch, serial number 930100, was sold on February 22, last year, by Jackson’s of Bristol.

The registered owner is Mr Ronald Starr, of 126 Glannefran Hill, Mold, Clwyd, Wales. He should be pleased to hear from you.

I leaned on the terrace wall, freshened-up coffee in hand, gazing out across the sun-washed mountains. ‘Christ, Ms Phillips,’ I said, over my shoulder, ‘but we’re some investigators, are we not. Imagine, finding Ronald Starr as quickly as this.’

Behind me, Prim laughed ironically. ‘Sure, it’d be great, if he wasn’t dead. And also, if we hadn’t lost him again. Or had you forgotten that?’

‘You must be joking. Misplacing a skeleton is not something that slips your mind after a few days.’

I turned and sat down beside her again at the table. ‘You realise, don’t you, love, that Gregor’s fax makes this a completely different situation. For openers, it means we’re looking for someone else.’

‘Possibly,’ she said, ‘but not necessarily.’

‘How d’you make that out?’

‘Maybe the man in the coffin was the host at Gavin Scott’s dinner?’

I shook my head. ‘Look, Scott’s evening at Peretellada took place late in June, three months ago. Suppose the auctioneer was killed the day after, and the body buried up there by the church. When Miguel and I saw it, the skeleton was clean. Like, I mean there were no … bits … on it.

‘Now I know we’ve had a hot, humid summer, with a few heavy rainstorms at night. I know the coffin lid was open. I know that with the movement of earth you get around here, it wasn’t buried that deep for all that it was a Roman relic. Yet still; you’re the one with the medical background. You tell me, could that corpse have deteriorated to that extent in such a short time?’

She thought about it for a while. ‘I’m a nurse, Oz, not a pathologist. I’m no expert in rates of decomposition. However, I have worked in Africa, in a war zone, and I have come upon bodies that had been lying in the open for up to four months.’ She shuddered. ‘None of them were in the condition you describe. Even with vultures and other scavengers, none of them were as clean as the skeleton you described. There were always … bits … left.’

She paused. ‘Okay. Starr bought his watch a year and a half ago. Maybe the man in the coffin stole it before he was murdered. Maybe the real Ronald Starr was the man at the auction.’