Up To Byron

5

Up To Byron

    In the event we did not drive from Adelaide, SA, to Byron Bay, NSW. I had looked it up online. The driving distance by what was presumably the best route appeared to cross an immense stretch of Australian nothing and was 1942.2 kilometres long, which translated to 1206.83 miles and took just over twenty-one hours. If, Jim admitted, one was a robot. Do it over two days, mate: easy. Mm. Over ten hours’ driving each day plus, since we weren’t robots, comfort stops, and lunch? Not sensible. Added to which we’d have to get back, and there was the Melbourne Cup coming up very soon, and in short I did not intend to lose four days. We’d fly. I conceded that the guns were a problem, yes. After some head scratching, Jim worked it out. He had cousins in Brizzie—if ya look at the map, mate, it was actually only a hop, skip and jump to Bryon, just over the state border. His cousin Perry was also a member of a gun club; actually, in his day he’d been in the Aussie team in the Commonwealth Games: rifle shoot. Eh? Nah, ’course he wouldn’t kick up, in fact he’d probably volunteer to come, too!

    Er… Why not? We flew to Brizzie, and met Perry Hawkes—in fact were greeted joyously by Perry Hawkes, who combined the serious, steady demeanour of all great shots with the sort of go-getting energy that was needed to get you into any sport at that level. He earned his living, Jim had revealed on the flight up, as a wine merchant. Um—not a wholesaler, like um, Liquorland or them, he elaborated: just sells wine and port and stuff.—I nodded, and made a mental note that he’d be a useful contact for Trethewin Estate.—Well, ya might not think it, Jim added, with all the big boys in the game, but he was doing pretty well. Not the sort of stuff that he, Jim, could afford, but there was money around in Brizzie.

    Brisbane certainly looked as if there was money around, yes. Bright, sparkling, high-rise, modern, busy. And tropical. I removed my suit jacket and stayed like that. Miles more humid than SA, was it, Jim? Mm.

    Perry was unlike Jim physically: where Jim was only average height and fairly chunky, with a round, undistinguished face that one would never notice in a crowd, Perry was tall, slim, wide-shouldered, and good-looking in a hard, chiselled way. He’d be about Jim’s age, pushing fifty, I supposed, but he was very clearly damn fit. He had pepper and salt hair, clipped short, and shrewd brown eyes.

    And quite a choice of guns. Before we set out he took us to his gun club and had me try out the Walther PPK/E that I’d selected—or rather, had it try me out. I got the nod. Jim was told he was out of practice, mate, too much sitting on your bum in the office, but allowed to borrow a chunky Beretta Cheetah, the 84FS model, which I’d have said was a bit heavy in the hand, but which he was happy with, and Perry himself selected one of his Mauser rifles and a neat little Walther TPH .22, noting it didn’t have the stopping power of some but it was an old friend. And he’d like to sight the rifle in if we were gonna need him to cover us, but it was an old friend, too, they’d be jake. Yes, well, given that Jim had revealed that Perry had started off his career with a stint in the Australian Army, not a regular soldier, no, think in your terms his mob’d be like the SAS, mate, I was in no doubt of that.

    I had somehow envisaged Perry’s wife as one of those tall, tautly muscled Australian women that one saw in their sports teams—beach volleyball came to mind, all stringy long arms and immensely long legs—but Junie Hawkes was the direct opposite. She was a lot younger than him, short, plump, cuddly, with a mop of dark curls clipped very short at the back and sides but rioting madly on top, a very modern look that somehow suited her round, smiling, tanned face to a T. Their little girl, Tanya, was very like her, with the same dark curls and big brown eyes.

    I’d expected on first setting eyes on her that Junie would fuss over Perry’s taking off with his guns and his cousin. I was wrong.

    “Just bring the silly buggers back in one piece, Alex, if you can!” she said with a laugh, as having made sure that Perry had plenty of drinking water in the giant fawn 4x4 with “Hawkes Fine Wines” on the door, and reminded him not to go near “that poncy restaurant in Byron that gave you food poisoning that time,” she waved us off. Er—us and Fifi, Perry’s dog.

    Fifi was even more of a surprise than Junie. Not a French poodle, no. A large German shepherd—the dark-coated sort. Retired, was she, Jim? Uh-huh. She was in the back seat with Jim, I’d been awarded the front seat on account of my longer legs.

    “She was supposed to go to her handler,” said Perry, his eyes on the road. “Bloke in ’is late thirties. Known ’im for yonks. Invalided out, bullet in the spine. Well, some blokes cope, go in for paraplegic games—basketball or even wheelchair footy. Fifi copped a couple, too, poor ole girl, but she recovered well, only the vet reckoned her off shoulder’d never be the same again and she was getting on, so they retired her. Only then poor bloody Brett, he shot himself.”

    “Oh, God,” I said in horror. “I’m so sorry, Perry.”

    “Thanks. Well—ya know. These things happen; and he didn’t have much to look forward to. The wife couldn’t take it, she left him. She was a fair bit younger than him: thought she was marrying a war hero, kind of thing. Can’t blame ’er, really, I suppose: didn’t have the brainpower to realise what she might be taking on.”

    “Had the sort of bloody mum that didn’t have the sense to encourage her to stick it out, neither,” put in Jim. “Two little kiddies, too. Well—they wouldn’t of been too bad financially, there’d of been his pension, but there you are. So Perry said he’d take Fifi.”

    “Yes, I see.”

    “Yeah, well, no-one else stuck their hand up,” said Perry drily. “Junie was a bit doubtful, with Tanya being tiny—she was only crawling—but, well, I think Fifi thought she was some sorta pup!” he said with a little laugh. “Took to her right off, didn’t even mind when the kid got into her dog bed with her.”

    “Yep. You oughta see the photos!” said Jim with a smile in his voice. “Cute as a bug.”

    “Yeah. It helped, ya see, Alex,” Perry added.

    “Yes, I do see. She’s a lucky dog.”

    “If you’re wondering how the Hell she got landed with such a dumb moniker as Fifi, it was the breeder’s little kid,” Jim put in.

    “Yeah,” Perry agreed. “Her full brother got ‘Wolf’. Before you say anything,” he added drily, “he’s soft as butter: they sent him for the training but he was hopeless!” He laughed. “Fifi’s the one with the guts and the nous. You oughta see her when we’re on a roo hunt!”

    I didn’t gulp but it was a near-run thing.

    “She can scent ’em from miles away,” Jim explained. “Then they get down in the undergrowth and wriggle their way along until ’e gets a clear shot. I have tried to explain they don’t need to do it these days, there’s a meat section in every supermarket, but somehow it hasn’t sunk in.”

    “Hah, hah,” I replied weakly.

    “You got a dog, Alex?” asked Perry

    “Mm. A Labrador. Pooch. He’s an old dog now: nearly fourteen. Doing fairly well: bit of arthritis, that’s all. My ex,” I admitted, not having meant to say any such thing, “got him as a pup and lost interest completely when he started to grow.”

    “Yeah? Not an unfamiliar syndrome,” said Perry, very dry.

    I smiled a little. “No.” Perry Hawkes, it was more than clear, was just as intelligent and just as much on the ball as his cousin, never mind the down-home manner they shared.

    Ginger Bay turned out to be a tiny coastal village a little way north of Byron Bay. It had a couple of motels, a couple of takeaway joints, and a small supermarket, but not much else apart from a stretch of silver sand. It wasn’t yet the holiday season, so we managed to get in at a motel, and rang the contact. Elizabeth Young, proprietor of Art for Art’s Sake in Byron. Be one of them arty-tarty crafty shops, Jim explained. She was uneasy about meeting us that evening, so we arranged for first thing tomorrow morning. No, he wouldn’t be suspicious, she was sure. And he didn’t like her friend who lived near Ginger Bay, Lisbet, she’d tell him she was meeting her. Jim duly warned her to phone the friend and get her to cover for her, and hung up, scratching his head.

    “She gonna duck out of it?” asked Perry.

    “We-ell… Not sure.” Jim looked at me. “How far can he wind the ladies round ’is little finger, ya reckon?”

    “How far is there, Jim?” I replied sourly if not perhaps with anatomical correctness.

    “Goddit. We can but try.”

    We were about to leave for the rendezvous next morning when the motel office rang through to tell us there was a visitor for us. We exchanged dubious glances, and went along there.

    The visitor was a tall, rangy, fit-looking, very tanned woman not unlike my early inaccurate mental picture of Perry’s wife, but older: in her fifties. Most unlike Anson/Brownloe/Andrews’s usual fans.

    She gave us a hard look. “You the types expecting to meet Elizabeth at the milk-bar?”

    We agreed we were.

    “Right. I’m a friend of hers: Lisbet Hall. She doesn’t want to meet you anywhere in public. She’s waiting for us over at my dump: it’s just over the hill. Come on: bloody Bredon Archer won’t turn up there: something musta given him the idea that I can see right through him, the slimy creep.”

    “See? B.A.,” said Jim to me unnecessarily. “The bugger must think ’e’s invincible or somethink.”

    “Puts it well,” said Lisbet Hall drily. “Come on. It’s quicker on foot, but we can drive  round if ya like.”

    “We’ll drive,” said Perry before anyone else could speak.

    Out by his 4x4 he said to Jim and me: “You types can go in the back. Fifi’ll be all right on the floor. Just don’t let her do her trick of lying on your feet, she’s no lightweight. –Now, just lift your arms up, thanks, Ms Hall, and turn round slowly.”

    She gave him a very dry look and said: “Wanna pat me down as well?” but obeyed. As she was wearing a tired once-tan tee-shirt, tucked in, and a tight pair of jeans, it was fairly evident that she wasn’t carrying a weapon. He then made her haul up the legs of her jeans, and checked her ankles.

    “My name’s not Bredon Archer, mate,” she said coolly, “but I gather his isn’t, either.”

    “What is it, a knife or a gun?” returned Perry, apparently unmoved.

    “A knife. Sets his feminine fans all a-flutter. Gave Elizabeth a demo of his throwing skills, wouldja believe? –You gonna handcuff me in case I give you a karate chop on the way?”

    “Why not?” he replied stolidly and to my horror produced a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket, pulled her arms behind her back, and put them on her.

    “Um, Perry, mate, I’d say she was genuine,” said his cousin uneasily.

    “You’re the one that trusted Ronny Little when he said he was only gonna borrow your Swiss Army knife,” replied Perry stolidly.

    “I was ten,” said Jim limply.

    To my utter astonishment Lisbet Hall at this gave a shout of laughter. “He’s got you there, mate! Come on, if we’re going let’s go, for Pete’s sake, or Elizabeth will’ve lost her nerve, and I don’t think my partner’s old dad is gonna bother to stop her taking off for the high hills. –Open the ruddy door, mate!” she added impatiently to Jim, who was nearest.

    Weakly he opened the front passenger door and she got in.

    Lisbet lived on the next beach along from Ginger Bay: by road this entailed heading out of the village almost to the main highway, turning right, that was, north, driving past what Jim identified as not fields of ginger but fields of broccoli, and then following a dusty track towards the coast. Her home was a misshapen shack, apparently built of bits and pieces, with rooms added on as and when. It faced onto a long stretch of silver sand which was open to the four winds: there was almost no shelter, apart from a lowish promontory at the Ginger Bay end of the beach and a higher one to the north.

    It was not, however, a windy day, and we joined the elderly man and the plumpish woman who were sitting outside the shack in the sun. He had an ancient sagging cane chair and she had an upright canvas-seated folding one composed largely of aluminium tubes. Jim and I scored its brothers, Perry was awarded a battered old wooden upright thing which was clearly accustomed to being left out in all weathers, and Lisbet herself, Perry having removed the handcuffs, sat in another sagging basket chair.

    The old man greeted us with: “It’s not her ya wanna clap the cuffs on, ya flamin’ nongs, it’s that bastard that’s been victimising Elizabeth. Personally I’d take ’im out in the boat and drop ’im overboard.” He was a grim-looking old fellow and appeared perfectly serious.

    “That’s also an option, Andy,” returned Lisbet calmly. “Andy MacMurray,” she explained. “This is Elizabeth Young. –Dunno the blokes’ names,” she added.

    “I’m Jim Hawkes; we spoke on the phone,” said Jim, “and this is me cousin Perry. This bloke here’s me assistant, he’s only along for the ride. Sorry Perry went and cuffed your friend, Ms Young: Overkill’s ’is middle name.”

    Elizabeth Young was quite a pretty woman for her age, which was probably somewhere between forty-five and fifty—older than the so-called Tony Brownloe, if he’d been telling the truth about his age back when he’d been calling himself Broderick Anson. He’d be fortyish now. She had chin-length greying brown curls, pleasant pale blue eyes, and a lightly tanned complexion with pink cheeks. Her face was round and soft-looking, and it wasn’t hard to guess that her personality was equally soft. The sort of woman, alas, who more or less begged to be taken in by a con man.

    “The dog’s Fifi; she won’t hurt you,” said Perry, as she was looking from him to his pet and shrinking back in her chair.

    “No, ’course not, she’s very well trained,” Jim added quickly.

    “She could have a drink of water, if ya like,” said Lisbet to Perry.

    “No, she couldn’t,” he replied instantly.

    She shrugged. “Just as you like. You types fancy a cup of drugged tea?” she asked us, poker-face.

    “Yeah, great, thanks!” said Jim quickly. “Just ignore him.”

    “I am,” she replied, getting up. “I won’t be a tick,” she added to Elizabeth, heading indoors.

    Elizabeth looked at us nervously. Andy MacMurray stared at us stolidly, his square-jawed, typically Scottish face expressing nothing. Well—grimness, yes. Nothing else.

    “It’s really good of you to agree to talk to us, Ms Young,” said Jim in his cosiest voice.

    “That’s okay,” she replied faintly, glancing at him quickly, then returning her gaze to Fifi at Perry’s feet.

    I got up, saying nothing, and sat down on the scruffy turf beside the dog. “Good girl, Fifi,” I said. She looked at me enquiringly but otherwise didn’t react. “Good girl, that’s right!” I patted her. She moved her tail a bit.

    Elizabeth swallowed. “She—she really is tame, then?” she said in a trembling voice.

    “Yes,” I agreed, smiling at her.

    “Aw, Hell, yeah! You should see ’er with Perry’s little Tanya—she’s six,” Jim explained. “Lets her ride on her back and steer her by her ears! Fifi kind of adopted her when she was tiny, ya see.”

    “Substitute pup, we think,” added Perry.

    “Oh,” she said in awe. “I see. So—so was she mothering her?”

    “Yep,” the cousins agreed.

    She nodded, and smiled weakly. “I see. I’m not used to dogs.”

    Possibly the understatement of the year, but we all nodded kindly.

    “So, can you tell us about this bloke we think may be Tony Brownloe?” asked Jim. “How long have you known him?”

    She went very pink but said readily enough: “Um, I think he must have come up here almost straight away.” She told us the date when he’d first come into her shop, and Jim nodded, agreeing that’d fit. He’d been staying in Ginger Bay, not Byron itself, at the Marine Breezes Motel, which he’d said was very nice, and the people who ran it very pleasant, but being all on your ownsome wasn’t much of a holiday, really.

    Old Mr MacMurray at this gave a loud snort, and who could blame him?

    She smiled wanly at him. “Okay, Andy, it was a line, and I was a sucker… Only he seemed perfectly natural.”

    Jim encouraged her to go on, and by the time Lisbet returned with a trayful of mismatched mugs, we’d got it that this Bredon Archer had expressed great interest in the contents of her shop and seemed to know a lot about art. He’d also managed to let her know that he was at a loose end and wouldn’t mind finding a job in those parts, and actually, if she was interested, had a few paintings to sell that he’d inherited from his gran.

    “What?” I said in spite of myself.

    “So far about two dozen,” noted Lisbet grimly, sitting down and distributing mugs. “Yours has got sugar in it,” she informed Elizabeth. “Have a biscuit. Carbohydrates are good for shock.”

    “I’m all right,” she replied, nevertheless taking a biscuit and politely passing the plate.

    “Want yours in a bowl?” said Lisbet to me on a dry note.

    “No, thanks, I’ll get up.” I gave Fifi a last pat and resumed my seat.

    “Don’t feed her,” Perry ordered me, his chiselled features as usual expressionless.

    “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

    Elizabeth’s round face had fallen. “Isn’t she allowed treats?” she asked sadly.

    “Yeah, but she’s been trained never to take sweets from strangers,” he replied drily.

    She went very pink and bit her lip, obviously not knowing whether this was a joke or not.

    “Especially not homemade biscuits that are full of cannabis or LSD or both,” noted Lisbet. “–You eat?” she asked suddenly, offering me the plate.

    “Yes, thanks,” I replied, taking a homemade drugged biscuit.

    “They’re actually full of real butter and sugar,” murmured Elizabeth on an apologetic note.

    Lisbet sipped her tea. “Yeah, since I took up with George I eat like a plutocrat.”

    “Knock it off,” said Andy unexpectedly, sounding bored. “You two gonna tell them about the stuff the sod suckered Elizabeth into taking off ’is hands or not?”

    “Um, they’re just paintings,” said Elizabeth weakly.

    Lisbet eyed me thoughtfully. “A mixture. There’s three that look as if they date from Federation—that’d be the Edwardian period to you, mate—ladies in white dresses, lots of hair and frightful hats.”

    “Actually they’re very pretty, and I’ve had several enquiries about the artist,” said Elizabeth, trying to smile.

    Jim was eying me uncertainly. “What about the rest?”

    “Well, like Lisbet says, they’re a mixture, really, Mr Hawkes. There’s two that are in the style of Sidney Nolan—but they’re not his, of course!” she added quickly. “I don’t think they’ll sell, four people have already told me they’re not real Nolans. Um, several landscapes—views of a beach. They’re quite nice, I’ve already sold two. I couldn’t identify the artist, but a lady came in to look at a still life of flowers in a vase that was in the window and she got very cross and said that in her opinion it was a copy of a painting in the Art Gallery of South Australia and the beach ones looked like hers too and if I’d bought them as originals she thought I’d better, um, look again. But they weren’t signed and Bredon didn’t know who they were by. Um, the artist she meant was Kathleen Sauerbier, you might not have heard of her.”

    We looked blank.

    “Um, no. She was from Adelaide and she lived in Melbourne for a long time, too. Most of her stuff in the galleries dates from the 1930s, though I think she carried on painting for a long time. She only died in 1991—I looked her up—but she was nearly ninety by then. She, um, she was what they call a Modernist.” She swallowed hard.

    “Muddy palette, some sort of vaguely Impressionist influence, occasional hardish outlines reminiscent—with a telescope and a lot of imagination—of Picasso and his mates,” said Lisbet very drily indeed. “Sort of thing that inspired the public of the day to say a kid of two could do better than that. Modernist in that she was some way off representational as the 19th century understood it, but still stuck to still lifes, landscapes and I believe portraits, though I’ve never seen one of those—but definitely not abstract.” She directed her dry gaze at me. “In case you were wondering, a muddy palette is very typical of that style of Australian art of the 1930s. How anybody could sit out under the SA sky and paint something that came out in subfusc yellowish fawns and smudged blue-greys is beyond me.” She shrugged.

    “Did she?” I asked neutrally.

    “Known for it. Out on the beach for hours.”

    “I see.”

    “That all?” asked Perry.

    “Well, no,” Elizabeth admitted. “There’s quite a lot more. Mostly horses. I’ve put them on display, with the Cup coming up, only the—the sort of people we get in Byron aren’t all that keen on that sort of thing, really. Um, I don’t know anything about equine and equestrian art, really. They look sort of English, but then, that’d be the style, wouldn’t it?”

    “Yes,” said Lisbet, again eyeing me. “I’d put a couple of them down as Munnings, but I’m just an ignorant Aussie that’s only ever seen his stuff in books.”

    “There’s a few online… I think maybe the best ones are in private hands,” murmured Elizabeth dubiously.

    Lisbet this time gave me what was definitely a mocking look. “Would that be right?”

    “I’m no art expert, I’m afraid, Ms Hall,” I replied politely.

    “Any of Phar Lap?” asked Jim.

    Elizabeth gave a started giggle. “I don’t think so, Mr Hawkes!”

    “Pity, might have made yer fortune for you. Or are you selling on commission?”

    “Um, partly. The equine paintings are all on commission but not the others.”

    “Well, I don’t know a thing about art, except I think this Sydney Nolan was the bozo that painted Ned Kelly worse than any kid of two could do, that right?” he pursued. She nodded limply, trying to smile. “—Yeah. But I’d say you been suckered but good, Ms Young.”

    “Right,” Lisbet agreed. “Even if they were all signed and genuine, they wouldn’t sell in Byron: not trendy or way-out enough. –Anybody want this last biscuit? Sure you won’t have one?” she said sweetly to Perry.

    “No, thanks.”

    She shrugged and took it herself. “Maybe your obbo could give me a hand with the washing up?” she said to Jim through the biscuit. She swallowed. “Since he’s only here as an observer.”

    He blinked. “Uh—yeah! Sure. –Couldja?” he asked, avoiding my eye.

    “My pleasure.” I got up and took Perry’s untouched mug, what time Lisbet piled everything else on her tray.

    The interior of her odd little dwelling turned out to be just as eccentric as the outside, but oddly comfortable-looking, with a nice semi-bay effect of a front window affording a large shelf for putting things on, rather than a sill proper. A divan bed was pushed hard against the wall underneath it, doing duty as a sofa. Judging by the bookshelves lining the other walls this was the main room. She led me through to the kitchen. It was equally bitsy and piecey, with an ancient wood-burning stove that at a conservative estimate must have been twice her age, an elderly fridge which some enterprising hand had painted bright yellow, and a minute sink of the type usually seen in caravans.

    She dumped the tray on the red vinyl-clad bench beside it and said in a horribly neutral tone: “Does the word ‘Munnings’ mean anything to you?”

    “I think you know it does, Ms Hall.”

    “Yeah. –I looked you up, Mr Cartwright,” she said abruptly.

    “I see.”

    She swallowed a sigh. “When this Tony Brownloe thing blew up and Elizabeth came and bawled all over us and said she was sure bloody Archer was him, I got online and read up about the arson, and the sale of Trethewin. There wasn’t much about the buyer—you’re not an Aussie,” she noted drily, “but I checked up. The pic was a bit out of date, some formal thing taken for your firm, but you haven’t changed noticeably. Then I dug a bit deeper and it mentioned you own some choice pieces of Brit equine art as well as a couple of racehorses.”

    “Mm.”

    “You’ll enjoy the things in Elizabeth’s gallery, then,” she said drily. “Mind you, Munnings had his off-days, from what I’ve seen.”

    “That’s certainly true. It’s not always easy to say what’s a bad Munnings and what’s a fake, but I’m pretty sure that the stuff he left behind in his studio, that’s never been on the market, went to The Munnings Art Museum. There could be some sketches and studies floating around, but almost all of them will have provenance if one looks for it.”

    “Gotcha. So it’s fifty to one these are all fakes?”

    “I’d say a hundred to one.”

    “Right. So is our little mate Bredon Archer aka Tony Brownloe the forger, or just the middle man?’

    “I think, though I’m not sure, that any fake Munnings he may have got hold of in Australia will date back to the 1970s.”

    She looked wry, but not surprised. “In that case they’ve pretty much come home. This place used to belong to one of my uncles—the mad one. He and a mate were into art forgery for quite a while before he went mad. In his later years he made a small fortune over in Byron out of the driftwood sculptures that his loving family considered to be a symptom of his madness. –I think the mate was actually the driving force in that partnership, but I’ve no idea what happened to him.”

    “I see. Thank you. Can you remember his name?”

    “The name he went by was Henry Heys—H,E,Y,S, not H,A—and while there’s nothing illegal in signing your name H. Heys-smudge, there’s a great deal that’s illegal in signing it H. H,E,Y,S,E,N.”

    I must have looked blank, because she explained: “Pronounced ‘Hy-son’: Hans Heysen, one of Australia’s best-known artists of the later 19th to early 20th century. Lived in South Australia, painted endless studies of gum trees. Well,” she said, shrugging, “they’re the best of a bad lot, if you don’t count the occasional Tom Roberts that managed to bring the thing off, but to my mind they still tend to look like an English artist’s impression of the Australian landscape. None of them could escape their training, ya see.”

    “I do see, yes,” I said, looking at Lisbet Hall with considerable respect.

    “I don’t remember ever seeing the Heys bloke in person, but I’ve got a snap of him and Uncle Bruce. I haven’t shown it to Elizabeth. Hang on.”

    She went out, to return with a small black and white photograph. “The one with the beard’s Uncle Bruce.”

    I looked at it in silence.

    “Whaddaya reckon?” said Lisbet at last.

    “That,” I said flatly, “is so-called Brownloe in lovelocks that would have done Woodstock credit, or I’m a Dutchman.”

    “Yeah. Good looks run in families same as crookedness, eh?”

    “Yes. I’m afraid Jim and I didn’t dig into his family connections once we’d found he’d suckered his cousin into vouching for him when he got the job at Trethewin, and had pinched the poor little chap’s car for his getaway.”

    “Right. Uh—not an old Kingswood, was it? –Holden Kingswood?”

    “No, a newish Mitsubishi. Silver-grey.”

    She shrugged. “Musta suckered someone on his way up, then. –Nice classic job, lovingly restored, sort of thing a grieving widow would be happy to swap for a neat little Jap tin can. Huge and unwieldy to drive, impossible to park with all that on behind, and a gas-guzzler. Whereas the ladies love him in it. It’s a bright pink, I tell a lie, a bright fuchsia, all the chrome flashing almost as much as his teeth.”

    “That,” I said grimly, “sounds very like him. He drove—” I broke off.

    “What?” said Lisbet mildly.

    I looked at her shrewdly intelligent, bony, honest face and found myself unclenching my fists and saying: “When I knew him in England twelve years back, under a different name, he was driving a solid, lovingly restored Rover, complete with walnut dashboard, leather seats, and an impeccable air of old-county-family solidity. Until he ran off with my wife, at which point he drove the Lamborghini I’d bought her.”

    “Shit. I’m Helluva sorry, Mr Cartwright,” she said numbly.

    “Thanks. Er—please don’t tell Elizabeth who I am. I’m not sure whether my being the purchaser of the stables was a factor in his deciding to set fire to the lot or not. It might just have been to cover up two and a half years of embezzlement, on the assumption that any new owner was going to have the accounts looked at pretty hard. But I’d rather he didn’t get to know I’m here.”

    “Don’t worry. –I presume Mr Hawkes knows the lot?”

    “Not about the art complication, no. But the rest, yes.”

    “Mm. So was Archer into art fakes back in England, too?”

    “No. This is, I think, a mixture of opportunism and the fact that he very possibly recognised the things as his father’s work. I think he might have pinched them from Trethewin: we found a few others that the former owner had stowed away, we concluded to keep them off the market. It’s possible he just forgot he had them.”

    “Out of sight out of mind: sure.”

    “Mm. There are any number of places that this new lot could have been hidden—in fact I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said slowly, “if they’d been in the stable loft. I believe Brownloe was living up there.”

    “Sounds likely. –So it’s just a weird coincidence that you bought the place he was ripping off?”

    “Very weird,” I said grimly, “but yes.”

    She nodded. “You’d better hang on to that snap.”

    “Thank you.” I put it carefully in my wallet.

    “I think we’d better do the dishes, don’t you?” said Lisbet with a grin.

    “It’d lend verisimilitude,” I agreed.

    She laughed. “Right!”

    “Did you have to behave like such a stick, Perry?” sighed Jim as we took off in the 4x4.

    “Yes.”

    “Look, it stuck out a mile they were all harmless!”

    “Yes, it did. And what if this Brownloe type had suddenly appeared on the scene?”

    “Uh—all right. Highly unlikely, but okay. You and Fifi coulda leapt up and grabbed ’im. Parched and all as ya were. Ya might at least of drunk the woman’s tea and let Fifi have some water!”

    “Bad habit to get into it.”

    Jim sighed and desisted. “Okay, it’s bloody obvious he’s Brownloe, all right. Now what?”

    “Er—now we go back to the motel: I’ve got something to show you,” I said.

    … “This photo,” I said, producing it, as Perry, having given Fifi a bowl of water, unashamedly drank off a bottle of the motel’s spring water: “was taken in the 1970s. The chap with the beard is Lisbet’s Uncle Bruce.”

    Jim took it without interest. He choked.

    “Yes,” I said.

    “But— It can’t be him!”

    “No. I’d say it must be his father.”

    “Ya mean Lisbet knows him?”

    “No. –Yes, here, Perry,” I said, handing it over as he said: “Gi’s a decko.”—“The man who looks like Brodie Andrews in lovelocks is, according to Lisbet, the man responsible for those art forgeries that he’s foisted on Elizabeth.”

    “And that you seemed to know something about,” noted Jim.

    “Yeah,” agreed Perry.

    “Er—yes. I had no idea it was relevant.” I explained about the ones at Trethewin, adding: “I don’t think it likely that the Andrews family has been secreting these others for the last four decades: I’d say so-called Brownloe found them somewhere at Trethewin.”

    “Yeah,” said Jim slowly. “That makes sense. Slept in the stable loft, didn’t he?”

    “Yes. He wasn’t sleeping rough, it was quite nicely done up as a bed-sit, I gather, but it was a large stable complex, not just a single block, and there would have been a lot of loft space. –I might just have a word with young Gavin about that,” I added slowly.

    “Kids are into everything,” Jim acknowledged. “Good observers, too. No preconceived notions, like adults.”

    “Yeah,” Perry agreed. “But getting him to tell the truth might be another thing entirely, Alex.”

    “Yes, well, it’s not terribly important now the whole complex has been reduced to ashes, but it’s just possible he knew that Andrews had found the paintings. He had a very odd look on his face when the subject of the loft came up.”

    “Worth checking. The more evidence we can get, the happier the cops’ll be,” said Jim.

    “So now do we nab the bugger, Alex, or let ’im stew?” asked Perry, his face as emotionless as ever.

    “Er—my feeling is if we let him stew, Elizabeth may well lose her nerve and tell him the lot.”

    Perry nodded. “Yep, she didn’t come over as bitter as you’d expect the woman scorned to be, did she? He’d be off like the wind. Probably got an escape plan all ready: that type does. Don’t suppose the cops have managed to find his bank account, have they?”

    “Not to my knowledge,” I admitted.

    “Nah,” Jim agreed. “He won’t’ve put anythink in ’is own name. Prolly got a completely different identity all ready to step into.”

    Perry rubbed his lean chin. “Not Bredon Archer, then, ya don’t think, Jim?”

    “Nope. I’d say this whole jaunt is just his idea of a bit of holiday fun, mate. Gullible lady with a cosy little Byron bungalow and a nice little business thrown in as an extra.”

    Perry nodded slowly. “Mm… Look, it’d be worth having a look at that Kingswood’s papers—providing it’s got any, but ya don’t find a fully restored classic car on a junk heap. Be interesting to see what name he bought it under.”

    “Yes. Er—how do you envisage doing that, Perry?” I asked feebly.

    “Nab Andrews, then Bob’s yer uncle!” declared Jim jauntily.

    “Or something tips him off, we don’t manage to nab ’im, and we’ve lost any chance of further evidence,” noted his cousin drily.

    “Does it matter terribly, though?” I ventured.

    “Well, I’d like to know how he’s managed enough fake ID to survive in the bloody 21st-century automated age, Alex.”

    “Ya don’t think—” Jim broke off. “No, that’s mad,” he muttered.

    “What?” I groped.

    Perry sniffed slightly. “Well, there’s a chance that the dad that faked all those paintings might just of graduated to whatcha might call higher things. Fake IDs: drivers’ licences, passports, that sorta thing. Easy enough, loads of software that’d help you these days.”

    “Um, yes,” said Jim on a weak note. “Well, once a crook always a crook.”

    “It’s not impossible,” I conceded. “Um… can you get into the car without risking being spotted, though, Perry?”

    “Not in broad daylight,” he admitted. “She reckoned he parks it outside the shop in working hours, eh? And then home to her place. Do it at night, no sweat.”

    “The suburbs are full of eyes and ears, mate,” said Jim uneasily.

    “Not around two in the morning. They should both be out for the count by then, too.”

    “You’re not gonna—” Jim broke off.

    “What?” I asked.

    “His favourite trick is, he dresses up like Tom Cruise or somethink, black hoodie an’ all—”

    “Jumper and balaclava; hoodies are too loose,” he interrupted impassively.

    “Yeah, right, them, plus down to ’is all-black sneakers, and creeps into their bedrooms at dead of night and gets a look at the stuff they’ve left in their pockets or on the bedside table! I’m not kidding!”

    “Rubber-soled shoes, nothing on you that’d clink, safe as houses,” said Perry calmly. “It’s not as if the bloke sleeps with a Kalashnikov under ’is pillow.”

    “No, but that wouldn’t stop you!” cried his cousin bitterly.

    “Well, it might be useful,” I said as mildly as I could: the cousins were now glaring at each other. “On the other hand, if he gets away, what are we going to tell the police, Perry? ‘Please, officer, he’s got another ID as X that I just happened to sneak in and see in his wallet while he was asleep, please, sir?’”

    There was a short silence.

    “All right, ya got me there, Alex,” Perry conceded. “All the same, it’d be worth taking a decko. If he does scarper, realistically if we don’t have a clue what the Hell he might be calling himself, where are ya gonna start looking for him? Advertise again and get five thousand morons claiming they’ve seen him all over the country?”

    “Or that he’s doubled back to Hahndorf to have morning tea with the wife and mother-in-law—all right,” sighed Jim. “But is it worth the risk? Whadda you reckon, Alex?”

    Oh, damn. But I was, after all, footing the bill. “I really don’t think there’d be any risk of their waking up when Perry was on the job, Jim. The main risk is that if we delay too long, Elizabeth will collapse all of a heap and spill the beans.”

    He scratched his head. “Ye-ah… Can she hold out for the rest of today, tonight, and tomorrow brekkie time, ya mean?”

    “Uh-huh.”

    We looked at one another.

    “No,” said Perry at last. “We can’t risk it. We could set up surveillance, but… No. Okay, so we go?”

    “Suits me!” Jim agreed happily.

    They looked at me.

    “Okay,” I agreed in a voice that sounded hollow in my own ears. “We go.”

Next chapter:

https://deadringers-trethewin.blogspot.com/2025/07/catching-andrews.html