Blood in Grandpont (DI Susan Holden 2)

Holden shook her head.

‘Me neither. But my sister went last year. And you know what most surprised her?’ Fox paused, though not because he expected an answer. He wasn’t above wanting a bit of attention. ‘It was so bloody small. She’d always thought it was this huge great canvas, and in reality it was tiny. So what I’m saying is, maybe this painting we’re looking for isn’t so big.’

Fox was pleased with himself, and even more pleased with his boss’s reaction. She was nodding like one of those dogs that people put on the back of their cars. Like that Churchill dog. Almost dementedly. ‘Right!’ she said.

‘So, my point is that it could be almost anywhere in this office. In Mrs Russell’s desk drawers, for example, or up on those book shelves, or maybe tucked behind the catalogues, or.…’ and then he stopped talking, for his eyes had alighted on some flat brown paper packages on the desk to Sarah Russell’s right. He moved over and stretched out an arm.

‘They’re waiting to be picked up,’ Sarah Russell said calmly, her hand moving protectively on top of the pile, as if daring Fox to touch them. ‘In fact, if DHL don’t arrive very soon, I’ll have to ring them.’

‘We’ll have to open them first, madam,’ Fox said bluntly.

She turned in appeal to Fox’s superior, but Holden merely smiled. ‘Lawson,’ she said cheerily, ‘perhaps you can help Sergeant Fox.’

Eventually, they found the painting, though not in the pile of packages that were due for collection. It was located by Fox on the topmost of the shelves, inside a plastic supermarket bag and wrapped in hessian. He reached it down just as Dominic Russell and DC Wilson walked through the door bearing coffees.

‘What are you doing?’ Dominic asked rather pointlessly. Given that four detectives had arrived with a search warrant, the answer was obvious. No one made any attempt to respond, however, for at that moment all their eyes and attention were on the painting that Fox had just unwrapped on the desk. ‘Bingo!’ he said, when he saw it.

‘Is that what you were looking for?’ Dominic tried again to elicit information, but again there was no answer.

‘I presume this belongs to you, sir, does it?’ Holden asked, ignoring his question, but asking her own.

‘Well, sort of.’

‘I’d like you to explain what you mean by that, Mr Russell. But I’d like you to do that down at the station in a more formal setting.’

‘Is that really necessary?’ This time the question came from Sarah Russell, riding belligerently to her husband’s aid. ‘He has a business to run. We’ve been very cooperative so far, and I really cannot see why—’

But Holden’s patience was at an end. ‘Enough!’ She spat the word out like the exasperated teacher of a class of 11-year-olds, suddenly desperate for silence. ‘Mrs Russell, your husband has three minutes to get himself ready, and then he will be leaving with us in order to help us with our enquiries. In the meantime, we will drink the coffee he has so kindly provided.’

‘And while you are drinking our coffee,’ Sarah riposted, ‘I will ring his solicitor.’

‘Perhaps you can explain to my client and to myself the precise reason why you have called him in for questioning.’ James Turley, solicitor at law, spoke with a clipped diction that spoke volumes of his background. Public school certainly, Oxbridge probably. In fact his tie would have told Holden that he had attended Queen’s College, Oxford, had she been interested in such collegiate details. But Holden had no interest in his tie, or his expensive suit, or his ostentatious gold cufflinks or even his rather poncy manner. They served only to irritate her.

‘Certainly,’ she smiled. ‘Sergeant,’ she prompted, briefly turning to DS Fox, sitting to her right at the table. Fox responded by r

emoving the painting from its package and placing it on the table in front of Turley and Russell.

‘We found this on the premises of D.R. Antiquities, the business run and owned by your client. When asked if it belonged to him, he replied: “Well, sort of.” A photograph of this painting was found on the mobile phone belonging to Jack Smith, a plumber who was found dead yesterday in a house in South Oxford. He had been murdered.’ She paused, for at this moment she was more interested in watching the face of Dominic Russell than engaging in verbal fisticuffs with Turley.

To be fair, as Fox later said, either Russell was genuinely shocked by this news or he was a bloody good actor. Certainly, his habitually flushed face seemed to pale, and his mouth gaped open in an impressively convincing display of surprise. His first verbal reaction was to address his solicitor: ‘This is ridiculous, James. Quite ridiculous!’

‘So if you don’t mind, Mr Turley,’ Holden said, determined to keep the momentum going, ‘I’d like to ask your client some questions. And then we can rule him out of our investigations, unless, of course, his answers lead us to rule him in.’

Turley shrugged at Russell, and then turned back to Holden. ‘I am sure my client is happy to assist the police in any way he can.’

‘In that case, Mr Russell, can you explain what you meant when you said you sort of owned the painting?’

‘Well.’ The fingers of his hands, which had been face down on the table, began to tap a rhythm on the table. It was the beat of something that Holden vaguely recognized, but couldn’t place. Was that what he did, she wondered, when under pressure or playing for time or maybe telling a lie? Or all three together. ‘I’m the temporary owner, if you like. The intermediary.’

‘You mean, like a fence?’

Russell flushed back to his more normal colour. ‘What are you implying?’

‘There’s no need to be alarmed,’ Holden said with a smile. ‘I’m implying nothing. I’m just trying to understand what “sort of” ownership means. Because of the job I do, I’m familiar with how a fence operates, and so I was merely seeking to clarify your terminology.’

‘The hell you were, Inspector,’ Turley broke in. ‘One minute you say you want his help in connection with a murder enquiry, and the next you’re implying he receives stolen goods without any evidence to support such a preposterous idea.’

‘In that case, I apologize,’ Holden said quickly, conscious she had pushed her luck. ‘I didn’t mean to, but that does still leave us with my original question unanswered. So perhaps I can rephrase it. Who owned the painting before it came into Mr Russell’s possession? And can I see the paperwork?’