Plane Justice by H.C. Hannah

Author:H.C. Hannah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: H.C. Hannah
Published: 2017-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was a few minutes before midnight when Graymond and Alicia bid goodnight and thanks to Kam and made their way down the steps of Borja’s Mayfair townhouse to the waiting Bentley Continental which had miraculously appeared on the street from the underground carpark. There was a light dusting of snow on the salted pavement and a gust of icy wind blew a scattering of frozen leaves across the quiet road. As he pulled away from the kerb, Graymond glanced at Alicia who appeared to be deep in thought. He concentrated on the road for a few miles before breaking the silence.

‘How about some music?’

Alicia, her attention brought back to the present, looked at Graymond with amusement.

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘We could listen to some late night love songs on the radio,’ Graymond said with a sideways grin at Alicia. She tried not to smile.

‘Which jail did they put you in again? Was it the Soft Shell Institution for the tenderhearted? I thought you were supposed to be an insensitive, emotionless ex-con.’

‘I am,’ Graymond replied, ‘I just forget to keep up the act sometimes.’

They were headed east along the Victoria Embankment. The glittering lights of the London skyline were reflected in the Thames River to their right, a mirror image of colours blended and blurred into one another like a child’s painting. The traffic was moving fast and Graymond briefly went silent as he manoeuvred the Bentley out of the way of an ambulance approaching rapidly from behind with blue lights and shrieking sirens. Once he had resumed the normal direction of travel, he spoke again.

‘So detective Clayton, what’re your thoughts from this evening?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ Alicia said slowly, ‘except that the key to this whole thing is our mystery cosmetic surgery man.’

‘Agreed,’ Graymond replied. ‘Something Kam said got me thinking; she was talking about forged paintings: paintings made to look like something they’re not. She was saying how much work people go to in order to prove that a piece of art on the outside is the real deal, but underneath, it’s something quite different. It’s portraying a totally different image to what it really is.’

‘You mean a bit like cosmetic surgery?’

‘Exactly. We definitely need to bear in mind that there is someone, somewhere involved in this who is not as they seem, physically, at least.’

‘But finding him is easier said than done,’ Alicia replied.

‘Which brings me to something else Kam mentioned,’ Graymond continued. ‘She said there always needs to be a paper trail. Sometimes in the art world, there isn’t, and that’s one of the things that alerts dealers to the fact that a painting may be a forgery. But in the case of private cosmetic surgery clinics…’

‘They’ll have all kept meticulous records, in one form or another.’ Alicia interrupted him.

‘Right,’ Graymond said. ‘If we could only find out which private clinic our man attended for his treatments and work out a way of accessing the records…’ His voice trailed off in thought.

‘It’s a great idea, Gray, but we’re talking nearly twenty years ago.

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