Clean Break

He drove a top-of-the-range Citroen. “Company car?” I asked, looking forward to the prospect of being driven for a change.

“Yeah, but they let me choose. I’ve always had a soft spot for Citroen. I think the DS was one of the most beautiful cars ever built,” he said as he did a neat three-point turn to get out of the parking area outside my bungalow. “My father always used to drive one.”

That told me Michael Haroun hadn’t grown up on a council estate with the arse hanging out of his trousers. “Lucky you,”

I said with feeling. “My dad works for Rover, so my childhood was spent in the back of a Mini. That’s how I ended up only five foot three. The British equivalent of binding the feet.”

Michael laughed as he hit a button on the CD player and Bo

“You into computer games, then?” I asked. Time to check out just how much I had in common with this breathtaking profile.

“I have a 486 multimedia system in my spare room. Does that answer the question?”

“It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it that counts,” I replied. As soon as I’d spoken, I wished I was on a five-second-delay loop, like radio phone-ins.

He gri

The interior looked like flea market meets Irish country pub, but the menu had me salivating. The waitress, dressed in jeans, a Deacon Blue T-shirt, big fuck-off Doc Marten boots and a long white French waiter’s apron, showed us to a quiet corner table next to a blazing fire. Okay, they only had one vodka, but at least it wasn’t some locally distilled garbage with a phony Russian name.

As our starters arrived, I said ruefully, “I wish finding Henry Naismith’s Monet was as easy as a computer game.”

“Yeah. At least with games, there’s always a bulletin board you can access for hints. I suppose you’re out on your own with this,” Michael said.

“Not entirely on my own,” I corrected him. “I do have one or two contacts.”

He swallowed his mouthful of food and looked slightly pained. “Is that why you agreed to have di

“Only partly.”

“What was the other part?” he asked, obviously fishing.

“I enjoy good scoff, and I like interesting conversation with it.” I was back in control of myself, the adolescent firmly stuffed back into the box marked “not wanted on voyage.”

“And you thought I’d be an interesting conversationalist, did you?”

“Bound to be,” I said sweetly. “You’re an insurance man, and right now insurance claims are one of my principal interests.”

We ate in silence for a few moments, then he said, “I take it you were behind the story in the Chronicled”

I shrugged. “I like to stir the pot. That way, the scum rises to the surface.”

“You certainly stirred things around our office,” Michael said dryly.

“The people have a right to know,” I said, self-righteously quoting Alexis.

“Cheers,” Michael said, clinking his glass against mine. “Here’s to a profitable relationship.”

“Oh, you mean Fortissimus are going to hire Mortensen and Bra

He gri

“Speaking of which,” I said. “I spoke to Henry this afternoon. He says your assessor had just been there.”

“That’s right,” Michael said cagily.

“Henry says your man put a very interesting suggestion to him. Purely in confidence. Now, would that be the kind of confidence you’re already privy to?”

Michael carefully placed his fork and knife together on the plate and mopped his lips with the napkin. “It might be,” he said cautiously. “But if it were, I wouldn’t be inclined to discuss it with someone who has a hot line to the front page of the Chronicle.”

“Not even if I promised it would go no further?”

“You expect me to believe that after today’s performance?” he demanded.

I smiled. “There’s a crucial difference. I was acting in my client’s best interests by setting the cat among the pigeons with Alexis’s story. I didn’t breach my client’s confidentiality, and I didn’t tell Alexis anything that wasn’t already in the public domain. She just put the bits together. However, if Henry acted on your colleague’s suggestion and I leaked that to the press, it would seriously damage his business. And I don’t do that to the people who pay my mortgage. Trust me, Michael. It won’t go any further.”

The arrival of the waitress gave him a moment’s breathing space. She removed the debris, rewarded by Michael’s grateful smile. “So this would be strictly off-the-record?”

“Information only,” I agreed.

The waitress returned with a cheerful smile and two huge plates. I stared down at our plates, where enough rabbit to account for half the population of Watership Down sat in pool of creamy sauce. “Nouvelle cuisine obviously passed this place by,” I said faintly.

“I suspect we Mancunians are too ca

“And is it that Mancunian ca

“Nothing regional about it,” Michael said. “You have to have a degree in bloody-minded caution before you get the job.”

“So you think it’s okay to ask your clients to hang fakes on the wall?”

“It’s a very effective safety precaution,” he said carefully.

“That’s what your assessor told Henry. He said you’d be prepared not to increase his premium by the equivalent of the gross national product of a small African nation if he had copies made of his remaining masterpieces and hung them on the walls instead of the real thing,” I said conversationally.

“That’s about the size of it,” Michael admitted. At least he had the decency to look uncomfortable about it.

“And is this a general policy these days?”

Slicing up his vegetables gave Michael an excuse for not meeting my eyes. “Quite a few of our clients have opted for it as a solution to their security problems,” he said. “It makes sense, Kate. We agreed this morning that there isn’t a security system that can’t be breached. If having a guard physically on-site twenty-four hours a day isn’t practical because of the expense or because the policyholder doesn’t want that sort of presence in what is after all his home, then it avoids sky-high premiums.”

“It’s not just about money, though,” I protested. “It’s like Henry says. He knows those paintings. He’s lived with them most of his life. You get a buzz from the real thing that a fake just doesn’t provide.“