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.

  80

  Tuesday, 5 November

  There was a palpable sense of excitement at the start of the 8.30 a.m. briefing of Operation Porcupine. The feeling that they were closing in on the suspects. And it seemed to Roy Grace that almost everyone in his team assembled in the conference room had something urgent to say. He started with Potting, who was signalling with his arm like a batman at an airport.

  ‘Norman?’

  ‘Chief, I met with Ricky Sharp last night and offered him the five hundred quid bung you got sanctioned. He confirmed he had collected Goff from prison but insisted he was just doing a favour to an old mate. I told him I needed more information if he wanted the money. After a little hesitation he took it. He informed me the garage in which the Audi A6 was parked for some days had been rented by a gentleman called Ross Briggs.’

  ‘Did he give you a description of him?’

  ‘He did, chief, a bit reluctantly. Said he was muscle, spoke with a London accent and, here’s the bit that I like, he was wearing an emerald ring that was, in Sharp’s view, the size of a knuckleduster.’

  ‘Twin brother of one with a red ring?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I asked him, and he said Ross Briggs was the only person he dealt with, and he told me he had no idea if he had a brother or not and wasn’t interested in finding out.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘Other than telling me to fuck off, not really, chief, no.’

  There was a roar of laughter from Jon Exton.

  ‘But I think he knows more than he’s letting on, chief.’

  ‘He’s given us more than enough to be getting on with for now. Excellent, Norman,’ Grace replied, then looked down at his notes. As he did so he was interrupted by the financial investigator, Emily Denyer. ‘Sir,’ she said. ‘I have some information on a Maurice Briggs which I think is significant.’

  ‘Tell us, Emily,’ he said.

  She held up a sheaf of printouts. ‘What I have here are copies of the most recent tax returns from Stuart Piper and from his company, of which he is the sole shareholder, Art Recovery UK Ltd. Among the employees of the company are listed a Maurice Briggs and a Ross Briggs.’

  ‘The twins?’ Potting queried. ‘Port and starboard?’

  ‘Could be,’ Grace said and turned back to Denyer. ‘Good work, Emily,’ he said, then nodded at DS Alexander, who had his hand raised and was looking bleary-eyed. ‘Yes, Jack?’

  ‘Sir, I finally got the car park videos released to me late yesterday, and I’ve been viewing them since, through the night. I’ve been looking at all the vehicles that arrived and left the car park one hour either side of the time Archie Goff drove his Astra in there. There’s one vehicle which strikes me as possibly significant, a Mercedes G Wagon, index GU57 APN. It arrived four minutes after Archie Goff’s Astra, and departed twenty-five minutes after the last CCTV sighting of Goff in the Lanes.’

  ‘Coincidence, Jack?’ Potting interjected.

  Alexander threw the DS an irritated glance at the interruption. ‘Not when its index checks out, Norman,’ he said with clear satisfaction. ‘The vehicle is registered to Stuart Piper’s company.’

  ‘Well done, Jack,’ Grace said. ‘So, not all roads lead to Rome. Some, it seems, lead to this Stuart Piper.’

  ‘We should go and nick him, don’t you think, boss?’ Branson said.

  ‘On what charge?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Conspiracy to murder?’ Branson ventured.

  The Detective Superintendent shook his head. ‘What we have is mounting up, but I don’t think we have enough evidence yet to convince the Crown Prosecution Service to bring a prosecution. The evidence against both Piper and the two Briggs brothers is looking strong, but – excuse the pun – there’s a bigger picture here. I have the sense these twins might be little more than Piper’s pawns. All the evidence against all three of them, at present, is circumstantial.’

  He turned to Branson. ‘Glenn, how’s your knowledge of French artists of the fête galante period?’

  ‘About as comprehensive as my knowledge of hydrogen cell technology, boss.’

  Grace smiled. ‘You have one hour to bone up on that period, then we’re going to pay Stuart Piper a visit and have a friendly chat with him.’

  ‘Did I tell you I failed Art GCSE?’ Branson said.

  ‘Now’s your chance to redeem yourself.’

  81

  Tuesday, 5 November

  Roy Grace sat in the passenger seat of the Ford Focus, tight-lipped as Glenn drove, wondering, as he always did, why he’d again let his friend loose behind the wheel. ‘How did your swotting up on the fête galante go?’

  ‘Pretty good. Antoine Watteau; Jean-Baptiste Pater; Jean François de Troy; Jean-Honoré Fragonard; Nicolas Lancret; Pierre-Antoine Quillard.’

  Glenn’s reciting the names had the effect Grace had hoped of slowing down his driving. A few minutes later they arrived, to his relief, and with little thanks to the talent of his chauffeur, at very swanky wrought-iron gates. A discreet plaque fixed to the wall, with gold letters on a black background, said BEWLAY PARK.

  Glenn put down his window, pressed a button on the control panel, and gave as good as he got back to the disembodied voice who challenged them. The gates opened and they drove through and up a long avenue of plane trees, with lawns that were almost impossibly green on either side.

  ‘Reckon the grass is dyed, boss?’ Branson said, driving now at a civil pace.

  ‘Hand-painted,’ Grace replied. ‘Every blade.’ Then he saw in the mirror of his sun visor that they had an escort behind them. A matt black Mercedes. Branson had seen it, too.

  ‘Stop!’ Grace instructed.

  Branson obliged, stamping on the brake a little too keenly, bringing the Ford to an abrupt halt. The Mercedes stopped behind them in a squeal of tyres.

  Roy Grace unclipped his seat belt, climbed out and walked up to the off-roader. As he approached, the driver’s window slid down, and he saw a piece of shaven-headed muscle with stupid sunglasses, all in black, with a smaller, fatter thug beside him. ‘Can I help you guys?’ Grace asked facetiously. ‘Are you lost, is that why you’re following us?’

  ‘Keep driving,’ the muscle behind the wheel said in a surly voice.

  Grace pulled out his warrant card and held it up a few inches from the man’s eyes. ‘Can you read English?’

  ‘I can read English.’

  ‘Good. Now here’s the deal. Stop following me or I’ll start following you, twenty-four-seven. You won’t even be able to go to the toilet without a pair of eyes on you. Do you understand?’

  He got a sullen nod.

  Smiling, Grace said, ‘I don’t like being followed, understand? So turn around and sod off. And I’m giving you just sixty seconds to do that before I nick you for threatening a police officer. Are we good?’

  Without replying, the driver began reversing the vehicle, searching for a space between the trees to turn. Grace climbed back into the Ford.

  ‘Respect!’ Branson said.

  Grace grinned. ‘Drive on, Macduff.’

  A short while later, Piper’s vast mansion came into view on the far side of a circular driveway around an ornamental lake, across which a pair of black swans glided with supreme elegance. A powder-blue convertible Rolls-Royce was parked outside the front door.

  ‘Reckon anyone could acquire a place like this from honest money?’ Branson asked, eyes wide open, pulling up behind the Rolls. Its number plate had a combination of letters and numbers arranged, illegally close together, spelling out ARTMAN.

  ‘A few rock stars and tech gazillionaires,’ Grace replied. ‘Or inheriting it from an ancestor.’

  ‘None of these, from what we know about Stuart Piper,’ Branson said. ‘Must be a lot of dough in art.’

  They walked up the steps to the imposing white front door. It was opened, as they reached it, by a hunk of beefcake, all in black, with a coiled earpiece, a large emerald ring on his right hand, and an expression that was about as hostile as a face could look before imploding into a thousand fragments. ‘Mr Piper don’t see no one without an appointment,’ he said, repeating what they’d heard through the speakerphone at the entrance gates.

  ‘Well,’ Grace said, smiling pleasantly and holding up his warrant card, ‘I think he’d be smart to make an exception for us.’ Then he made a play of looking closely at the man’s hand. ‘Nice ring.’

  As he spoke, a figure appeared down the hall, who looked every inch this man’s identical twin. And wearing a ruby-red ring.

  ‘My colleague will take you to Mr Piper,’ he said.

  ‘Colleague?’ Grace said. ‘Or brother?’

  There was no answer.

  The two detectives followed the twin with the red ring along an oak-panelled corridor lined on both sides with framed paintings that were clearly old and probably important, Grace thought.

  ‘Jesus, this reminds me of National Trust houses Ari liked to visit,’ Branson said, referring to his ex-wife, ogling both the pictures and marble busts in recesses.

  Grace nodded. ‘See yourself living in a place like this?’

  Branson shook his head. ‘I reckon the heating bill’s more than my annual salary. You?’

  Grace shook his head. ‘Nope, wouldn’t fancy spending all my weekends mowing the lawns.’

  A pair of double doors ahead of them were opened and ruby ring ushered them into a cavernous room with a domed ceiling. A lean man of about sixty, with an expressionless face, immaculately dressed, sat behind a beautiful desk, flanked on each side by a stationary Dalmatian dog. Neither animal reacted as Grace and Branson entered.

  Piper stood up, his eyes cold, his face steely. Confident in his grand setting, Grace thought, he addressed them. ‘Yes, gentlemen, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Stuart Piper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Grace held up his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Superintendent Grace and my colleague is Detective Inspector Branson from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team.’

  Piper waved an arm at the two chairs in front of his desk. ‘Have a seat, officers – or should I say, detectives?’ His expression revealed nothing. ‘So, I’ve got an upgrade, eh?’

  ‘Upgrade?’ Grace was finding his complete lack of expression unnerving. He rarely found people’s eyes hard to read, but this man’s were.

  ‘Sure.’ There was a trace of humour in Piper’s voice now, but it was not reflected in his face. ‘A couple of weeks ago, I was visited by a humble Detective Sergeant and a Detective Constable. Now I get a Detective Superintendent and a Detective Inspector. I’d call that an upgrade. Enough to have me turning left on an aeroplane, instead of slumming it in economy, wouldn’t you say?’

  Piper didn’t look like a man who ever slummed it in economy, Grace thought, but didn’t rise to it. ‘Our colleagues came to ask you if you’d ever had any dealings with the late art dealer Charlie Porteous,’ he said. ‘You said you had not. You also said you had no idea why one of the persons we believe may be connected with the murder of art dealer Charlie Porteous in October 2015 had your number on his phone.’