17

Saturday was Doors Open Day in Edinburgh.

There was a light drizzle and a chill breeze, but that wouldn’t deter the sightseers. For some locals, Doors Open had become as welcome a part of their year as the various festivals. They would plan an all-day itinerary, perhaps taking in the Castle or Freemasons’ Hall, the observatory or the city’s main mosque. Sometimes sandwiches and a flask of tea would be packed. The bulk of the buildings earmarked for public inspection stood in the city centre, all of it dubbed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Others lay further afield, and included a power station and the sewage works.

Not forgetting the seafront warehouse at Granton where the national galleries and museums stored their overflow. Much of Granton had yet to succumb to the modernisation evident in neighbouring Leith. Potholed roads led past trading estates and abandoned factory units. The grey North Sea could be glimpsed now and again behind some of these fences and buildings, reminding visitors that Edinburgh had yet to make the most of its largely coastal location.

Likewise, the warehouse served as a reminder that the city’s museums and public galleries, while arguably making the most of their collections, were forced by circumstances to hide the bulk of their holdings.

‘Which is what happens,’ Professor Gissing muttered, ‘when a culture gets greedy.’

He was seated behind the steering wheel of the stolen van. His disguise comprised sunglasses, a flat tweed cap, and a check shirt.

‘No corduroy today, Robert?’ Allan Cruikshank had joked nervously when they’d rendezvoused in Gracemount. Allan himself was now wearing a brown wig beneath his blue baseball cap, and had forsaken his business suit for a pair of baggy denims and a shapeless sweatshirt. The rest of the team sat in the back of the van: Mike Mackenzie, Westie, plus the four young tearaways supplied by Chib Calloway. The teenagers had decided that the only disguise they would endure was a baseball cap with the brim tugged low over the eyes, and a Burberry-style scarf to cover the lower half of the face. All anyone had heard from them so far were grunts and guttural mutterings. No names, no pack drill.

Which was just fine by Mike. He glanced at his watch again. They were parked on the side road with the view of the gatehouse. Fifteen minutes had passed since the previous tour had made its way out of the warehouse, Allan counting twelve individuals. Forty minutes they’d been inside. Twenty-minute gaps between tours, meaning the next group would start gathering in around five minutes’ time. Limited to twelve names, pre-booked. This time round, seven of those names would be fake. Seated in the front of the van, Gissing and Allan had a much better view of the arrivals and departures. No one would contemplate coming here on foot – too far from any form of public transport. A couple of cabs had arrived to pick up prosperous-looking couples, leading Mike to wonder again what the odds were of anyone he knew turning up. The prof would stay with the van, but Mike and Allan would be in the warehouse. Most of the people who bothered with Doors Open were mildly curious, attracted by the notion of passing through doors normally kept locked to the public. But this was an extension of the National Gallery – chances were, it would be art-lovers who made the trek… the very sorts of people Mike and Allan knew from the various exhibitions and auctions they attended.

Gissing had been warned – ‘You don’t step out of the van except in the direst straits.’ But now Mike was wishing the raid could be carried out without the need for either Allan or himself saying anything. Or Westie, come to that – art-lovers usually visited all the college degree shows, and voices could be identified as readily as faces. There was a thin trickle of sweat running down Mike’s spine. All these factors they hadn’t taken into account – if Chib’s crew had been briefed sooner, they could have been the ones doing all the talking. So far, all they’d been doing was listening, and Mike was afraid that the conversation between Gissing and Allan had given too many clues. They’d talked about building projects in the city and the financing of same, Allan sounding too knowledgeable. Then Gissing had started rattling on about the various art and antiquity holdings, showing he knew a fair bit about the topic. How hard would it be for the teenagers to put two and two together? If they were arrested at any point in the future, might they try cutting a deal by telling what they knew? Was the fear of Chib Calloway enough to keep them silent in the long term?

One bonus: the chippie van was locked tight for the weekend – one potential witness out of the running…

‘That’s the first two arriving now,’ Allan piped up.

Mike’s heart was pumping; he could hear the blood singing in his ears. He saw that Westie had clamped his hands between his knees, as if to stop them shaking. He’d done well, though. The van’s first stop had been his flat, where they’d loaded the fakes into the back, Gissing giving each of the eight a final once-over before declaring them ‘first class’, adding that this was also the mark Westie could be confident of getting for his degree show. This had probably been meant to relax the student, but it had the opposite effect on Mike – Chib’s lot, seated in the van as the paintings were loaded and inspected, now knew they had a student in their midst, and probably someone who taught him, too. Westie had declared himself ‘shattered’ by the experience, and he really didn’t look too good: pale and pasty and with eyelids drooping towards sleep. Mike had the feeling only caffeine was keeping him going. Last thing they needed was one of the team nodding off or losing his concentration during the actual heist.

Heist: the very word made Mike’s nerve endings jangle.

But here they were, ready and waiting.

‘Two more,’ Allan said. ‘Only one to come…’

There had been no sign of Alice in Westie’s flat. Mike had come across with the money she’d asked for, confirming that it was by way of an advance rather than extra cash, and had then driven his Maserati forwards and backwards over the video camera until it was flattened. He’d been sure to scatter its constituent parts around the city, leaving nothing to chance. But who was he kidding? There were plenty of loose ends already, with more to come. He stared down at the pile of unframed paintings on the floor of the van. As they were leaving Westie’s, he’d pleaded that no one accidentally put a foot through one of them.

‘You’ll have me to answer to if you do,’ Westie had snapped, at which Chib’s crew had just smiled to themselves. The morning had gone well so far. Mike had rendezvoused with Allan on Marine Drive at seven, leaving the Audi and travelling back to the penthouse in the Maserati. They’d toyed with their bacon sandwiches, but managed orange juice and coffee before donning their disguises – Mike had burst out laughing when Allan had walked into the living room wearing the wig, and with contact lenses in place of spectacles.

‘Got it in a junk shop,’ Allan had said of the wig. ‘Feels a bit itchy…’

At Gracemount, Gissing had been waiting, looking agitated and failing to blend in with his surroundings as he paced up and down. Mike had parked the Maserati, hoping no one would take a shine – or a dislike – to it. Five minutes later the van had arrived, with its crew of four but no sign of Calloway. Mike had exhaled in relief. He’d half expected the gangster to want to come along for the ride. He’d tried a bit of chat with the teenagers, hoping maybe to break the ice, until told that ‘Mr Calloway’ had said they should do what they were told but otherwise keep their ‘gubs’ shut.

‘Nae offence,’ one of them had added, before clambering into the back of the van. Since when it had been grunts and gutturals and a steady stream of nicotine. Which, now Mike came to think of it, was illegal, smoking having been banned in all Scottish workplaces – vans included.