Playing With Fire

Phil had suggested that McMahon and Gardiner were involved in some art forgery scam, an ill-advised and illtimed attempt to come up with a Turner watercolor that had been lost for over a century. A

A

Why? What possible reason could he have had, unless lying was an essential part of his character? If it was, it could easily be put to criminal purposes. This Giles Moore had claimed to be studying art history, and according to Elaine Hough, had seemed to know plenty about the subject, whether he learned it at university or not. Was this, then, the person who had assumed William Masefield’s identity when hiring cars for meetings with McMahon? Meetings about their scam. Because she was certain it was he, not McMahon or Gardiner, who was the brains behind it. And was this person Whitaker?

But again the question remained: Why had Moore-Masefield-Whitaker, or whoever he was, killed the goose that laid the golden eggs – McMahon? Unless… unless, she thought, the Turners weren’t part of his master plan, and he believed they would ruin everything and expose him. Phil had said that any forger worth his salt goes for lower-level stuff, artists who fetch a decent price but don’t draw too much attention to themselves, like Turner or Van Gogh. And Phil should know. He was in the business. An expert. Dead artists were a better bet, too, especially if they’d been dead so long that nobody living had known them, because the provenance was easier to forge. So who was it?

Winsome walked by with a handful of papers she had been keying into HOLMES.

“Anything?” A

“My fingertips are bleeding,” said Winsome. “I don’t know if that counts as anything.” She dropped the papers on A

“Son of Sam?”

“Like that, yes.”

“Fancy a drink?”

Winsome gri

A

Banks felt irritable when he got back to his cottage that evening. It was because of his argument with A

He was trying to decide whether to get back to his Eric Ambler or watch a European cup match on TV when someone knocked on his door. Too late for traveling salesmen, not that there were many around these days, and a friend would most likely have rung first. Puzzled, he put his glass aside and answered it.

Banks was surprised, and more than a little put out, to see Phil Keane standing there, a smile on his face, a bottle clutched in his hand. He’d wanted to talk to Keane again, but not in his own home, and not now, when he was in need of solitude and relaxation, and the healing balm of Schubert. Still, sometimes you just had to take what you were offered when you were offered it.

“May I come in?” Keane asked.

Banks stood aside. Keane thrust the bottle toward him. “A little present,” he said. “I heard you like a good single malt.”

Banks looked at the label. Glenlivet. Not one of his favorites. “Thanks,” he said, gesturing toward his glass. “I’ll stick with this for now, if you don’t mind.” No matter how paranoid it seemed, he felt oddly disinclined to drink anything this man offered him until he knew once and for all that he was who and what he claimed to be. “Would you like some?” he asked. “It’s an Islay, cask strength.”

Keane took off his coat and laid it over the back of a chair, then he sat down in the armchair opposite Banks’s sofa. “No, thanks,” he said. “I don’t like the peaty stuff, and cask strength is way too strong for me. I’m driving, after all.” He tapped the bottle he’d brought. “I’ll have a nip of this, though, if that’s all right?”

“Fine with me.” Banks brought a glass, topping up his own with Laphroaig while he was in the kitchen, and bringing the bottle with him. If he was going to have a heart-to-heart with Keane, he might need it.

“You know,” said Keane, sipping the Glenlivet and relaxing into the armchair, “when it comes right down to it, we’re a lot alike, you and me.”

“How do you get that?” Banks asked.

Keane looked around the room, blue walls and a ceiling the color of ripe Brie, dimly lit by a shaded table lamp. “We both have a taste for the good things in life,” he said. “Fine whiskey, Schubert, the English countryside. I wonder how you manage it all on a policeman’s salary?”

“I do without the bad things in life.”

Keane smiled. “I see. Very good. Anyway, however you work it, we have a lot in common. Beautiful women, too.”

“I assume you mean A

“A

“You weren’t.”

“But you’re not happy about it. I can see that. Are you going to tell her?”

“About Helen?”

“Yes. She told me about your little visit yesterday.”

“Charming woman,” Banks said.

“Are you?”

“Don’t you think it would be better coming from you?”

“So you haven’t told A

“No. I haven’t told her anything. I’ve been trying to decide. Maybe you can help me.”

“How?”

“Convince me you’re not a lying, cheating bastard.”

Keane laughed. “Well, I am a bastard, quite literally. I admit to that.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Look,” Keane went on, “the relationship Helen and I have is more like that of friends. We’re of use to one another. She doesn’t mind if I have other women. Surely she told you that?”

“But you are married.”

“Yes. We had to get married. I mean, she was an illegal immigrant. They’d have sent her back to Kosovo. I did it for her sake.”

“That’s big of you. You don’t love her?”

“Love? What’s that?”

“If you don’t know, I can’t explain it to you.”

“It’s not something I’ve ever experienced,” Keane said, studying the whiskey in his glass. “All my life I’ve had to live by my wits, sink or swim. I haven’t had time for love. Sure you won’t have a drop of this?” He proffered the bottle.

Banks shook his head. He realized his glass was empty and poured a little more Laphroaig. He was already feeling its effects, he noticed when he moved, and decided to make this one his last, and to drink it slowly. “Anyway,” he went on, “it’s not a matter of whether Helen minds if you have other women or not; it’s how A