The long process began with four technicians, two of them half-way up ladders, while the other pair had their feet firmly on the ground. Between them, they walked the masterpiece off the wall in a slow, controlled descent, a few links of its chains at a time. William noticed that Lord McLaren appeared to age visibly as he stared up at the dark rectangular space that marked where the pride of his family’s collection had hung for the past two hundred years.
When the bottom of the frame was at waist-height, the four techs lifted it off its chains and lowered it gently onto a set of foam bricks, then rested for a few moments before placing it into a specially prepared travel frame. This unique piece of craftsmanship had been constructed by a carpenter who’d never seen the canvas, but had been supplied with the exact measurements of its ornate gilt frame.
Once the painting had been fitted securely in place, a protective layer of polythene was stretched taut across the surface before the team of technicians, supervised by Mr Benmore, manoeuvred the travel frame into a fortified external crate, constructed by the same carpenter; a delicate undertaking that required skill and strength in equal measure. Mr Benmore’s final responsibility, after checking there could be no internal movement during its long journey to Barcelona, was to securely fasten the crate’s wooden lid with an electric screwdriver. Ross counted all twenty-four screws.
After a thorough inspection, Mr Benmore declared himself satisfied, and allowed his team a tea break.
Twenty minutes later, they were back in action. Two of them lifted the crate a foot off the ground, while the other two positioned a wide skateboard underneath. After the crate had been gently lowered onto the skateboard, it was wheeled slowly out of the dining room and along the corridor towards the front door. Correx sheeting had been laid out along the route to protect the marble floor.
When they reached the entrance hall, William glanced across at the laird, his arm around an elderly woman who he recognized. She was holding back tears for the dear departed.
He noticed that the painting remained upright from the moment it was packed into the crate, until it was strapped into place in a climate-controlled, air-ride suspended truck, to ensure that the Fishers of Men couldn’t fall out of their boat.
They never exceeded thirty miles an hour on the twelve-mile journey to Aberdeen airport.
William and Ross followed behind in an unmarked police car. A private jet awaited them at an airport where private jets are more common than commercial aircraft.
Mr Benmore was the first out of the truck, and once again he supervised the technicians as they painstakingly transferred the painting into the plane’s hold, where it was strapped in – still upright. He and the insurance broker never took their eyes off the wooden crate until the door of the hold was heaved into place. Four passengers climbed aboard a jet bound for Barcelona.
When the plane landed on Spanish soil a couple of hours later, they found Lieutenant Sanchez waiting to greet them on the tarmac.
He was equally well prepared. Under the anxious direction of Mr Benmore, four policemen in overalls unloaded the crate from the hold and strapped it upright into a padded, temperature-controlled van.
Ross sat next to Sanchez in the front, while Mr Benmore, Mr Posgate and William climbed into the back. William tapped the divide, and Sanchez set off at a funereal pace for the final part of the journey.
? ? ?
Booth Watson had flown in on an earlier flight that morning to keep his monthly appointment with his most valued client.
He found Miles in an unusually exuberant mood, as he waited impatiently for his latest acquisition to arrive. The two men sat in the drawing room facing a large empty space on the wall above the fireplace, where Fishers of Men would reside.
‘While we’re waiting,’ said Faulkner, ‘bring me up to date on what’s happening in London.’
‘Some good news, and some not so good,’ said Booth Watson, as he opened his briefcase and extracted the inevitable files. ‘I fear the reports your tart has been passing on to me can no longer be relied on. But then you never consulted me about her in the first place.’
‘Get on with it,’ said Miles, barely hiding his irritation.
‘A couple of weeks ago at Marylebone Old Town Hall, Josephine Colbert married Detective Inspector Ross Hogan, the man you’ve been paying her to seduce so we’d be kept informed about what Warwick’s team were up to. She’s now clearly a fully paid-up member of that team.’
‘Take her off the payroll immediately,’ said Faulkner, his irritation turning to anger.