The Art of the Matter

‘He lives at his old address with a punk-style girlfriend, enough metal in her face to sink a cruiser, peroxide hair in spikes, hardly your computer-literate type.

‘As for the actor, he seems to have vaporized.’

‘This is the year 2000,’ protested Slade. ‘People cannot vaporize any more.’

‘That’s what we thought,’ said the gumshoe. ‘We can trace any bank account, any credit card, car document, driving licence, insurance policy, social security number – you name it, we can find the address of the owner. But not this one. He is so poor, he hasn’t got any.’

‘None?’

‘Oh, he collects Unemployment Benefit, or he used to, but not any more. And the address the Social Security people have for him is the same you gave us. He has an actor’s union Equity card; same address. As for the rest, everyone is computerized nowadays except this Mr Trumpington Gore. He has gone straight through some crack in the system and disappeared.’

‘The address I gave you. You went to it?’

‘Of course, sir. First port of call. We were men from the borough council, enquiring about arrears of council tax. He’s quit and gone. The bedsit has been taken over by a Pakistani minicab driver.’

And that, for Slade, was the end of a very expensive trail. He presumed that with £5,000 in his trousers the invisible actor had gone abroad, which would account for every detail the private investigators had, or more accurately had not, brought him.

In fact Trumpington Gore was two miles away in a café off Portobello Road with Benny and Suzie. All three were becoming worried. They were beginning to understand the sort of levels of pressure an angry and wealthy Establishment can generate.

‘Slade must be onto us,’ said Benny as they nursed three glasses of cheap house wine. ‘Someone struck up a conversation with me in a pub a few days ago. My age, but reeking of private fuzz. Tried to bring up the affair of what happened to Darcy at the saleroom. I played dumb as a brick. I think it worked.’

‘I’ve had two following me,’ said Suzie. ‘Alternating. I had to stay away from work for two days. I think they’ve left off.’

‘How do you know you shook them?’ asked Trumpy.

‘I finally turned on the younger one and offered ’im a blow job for twenty quid. He went down that street like a ferret on skates. I think that persuaded them I’m not much with a computer. Not many computer people are on the game.’

‘And I fear I have had the same,’ murmured Trumpington Gore. ‘Two private dicks’ (the phrase sounded strange in the voice of Sir John Gielgud) ‘came round to my humble abode. Claiming to be from the council. By a mercy I was practising my craft. I was in role as a Pakistani minicab driver at the time. But I think I should move.’

‘That apart, we are running out of money, Trumpy. My savings are gone, the rent is due, and we can’t take any more off you.’

‘Dear boy, we have had our fun, we have taken a sweet revenge, perhaps we should pack it in.’

‘Yes,’ said Benny, ‘except that the shit Slade is still there, sitting on my career and a million of your money. Look, I know it’s a lot to ask, but I have an idea . . .’

JULY

On 1 July the Director of British Modern and Victorian paintings at the House of Darcy received a polite letter, apparently from a schoolboy of fourteen. The youth explained that he was studying art for his GCSE exams and was particularly interested in the Pre-Raphaelite school. He asked where he could see the best works of Rossetti, Millais and Holman Hunt on public display.

Mr Alan Leigh-Travers was a courteous man and dictated a prompt reply answering the youthful query in full. When it was typed up, he signed it personally in his own hand: Yours sincerely, Alan Leigh-Travers.

The most prestigious institute in London for the study, identification and authentication of works of art was undoubtedly the Colbert Institute, and deep in its basement lay the scientific laboratory with its formidable array of investigative technology. The Chief Scientist was Professor Stephen Carpenter. He too received a letter. It purported to come from a graduate student preparing her thesis.

The writer explained that she had chosen as her subject the great attempted art frauds of the twentieth century, and the gallant role of science in exposing the work of the fraudsters.

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nbsp; Professor Carpenter was happy to reply and to suggest she read his own work on that very subject, available through the institute’s bookshop in the foyer. He too signed his letter personally.

By the 7th of the month Benny Evans had two genuine signatures and samples of handwriting.

Suzie Day knew her boss had once been one of the country’s most skilful computer hackers before he did his spell in prison, turned legitimate and started to create security systems aimed at preventing or frustrating attempts to hack into his clients’ systems.

Suzie asked him over lunch one day if he had ever, during his period as a guest of Her Majesty, come across another certain type of fraudster. He shrugged in ignorance and pretended that he had no such knowledge. But the man had a mischievous sense of humour and a long memory.

Three days later Suzie Day found a piece of paper tucked into the keys of her personal machine in the office. It simply said: Peter the Penman. There was a phone number. Nothing else was ever said.

On the 10th of the month Trumpington Gore let himself into the back door of the House of Darcy, the one approached from the rear loading yard. It was a self-closing door, operated from the outside only by a keypad, but Benny still remembered the number. He had often gone in and out that way to reach the cheap café where he occasionally took his lunch breaks outside the building.