In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,65

door. Jik and Sarah walked out as soon as he opened it, and left me alone with him in the hall.

‘Mr. Updike,’ I said. ‘At the gallery… which man was it who sold you the Herring?’

‘Mr. Grey,’ he said promptly.

Mr. Grey… Mr. Grey…

I frowned.

‘Such a pleasant man,’ nodded Updike, beaming. ‘I told him I knew very little about pictures, but he assured me I would get as much pleasure from my little Herring as from all my jade.’

‘You did tell him about your jade, then?’

‘Naturally I did. I mean… if you don’t know anything about one thing, well… you try and show you do know about something else. Don’t you? Only human, isn’t it?’

‘Only human,’ I agreed, smiling. ‘What was the name of Mr. Grey’s gallery?’

‘Eh?’ He looked puzzled. ‘I thought you said he sent you, to see my picture.’

‘I go to so many galleries, I’ve foolishly forgotten which one it was.’

‘Ruapehu Fine Arts,’ he said. ‘I was down there last week.’

‘Down…?’

‘In Wellington.’ His smile was slipping. ‘Look here, what is all this?’ Suspicion flitted across his rounded face. ‘Why did you come here? I don’t think Mr. Grey sent you at all.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But Mr. Updike, we mean you no harm. We really are painters, my friend and I. But… now we’ve seen your jade collection… we do think we must warn you. We’ve heard of several people who’ve bought paintings and had their houses burgled soon after. You say you’ve got burglar alarms fitted, so if I were you I’d make sure they are working properly.’

‘But… good gracious…’

‘There’s a bunch of thieves about,’ I said. ‘Who follow up the sales of paintings and burgle the houses of those who buy. I suppose they reckon that if anyone can afford, say, a Herring, they have other things worth stealing.’

He looked at me with awakening shrewdness. ‘You mean, young man, that I told Mr. Grey about my jade…’

‘Let’s just say,’ I said, ‘That it would be sensible to take more precautions than usual.’

‘But… for how long?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know Mr. Updike. Maybe for ever.’

His round jolly face looked troubled.

‘Why did you bother to come and tell me all this?’ he said.

‘I’d do a great deal more to break up this bunch.’

He asked ‘Why?’ again, so I told him. ‘My cousin bought a painting. My cousin’s house was burgled. My cousin’s wife disturbed the burglars, and they killed her.’

Norman Updike took a long slow look at my face. I couldn’t have stopped him seeing the abiding anger, even if I’d tried. He shivered convulsively.

‘I’m glad you’re not after me,’ he said.

I managed a smile. ‘Mr. Updike… please take care. And one day, perhaps, the police may come to see your picture, and ask where you bought it… anyway, they will if I have anything to do with it.’

The round smile returned with understanding and conviction. ‘I’ll expect them,’ he said.

14

Jik drove us from Auckland to Wellington; eight hours in the car.

We stopped overnight in a motel in the town of Hamilton, south of Auckland, and went on in the morning. No one followed us, molested us or spied on us. As far as I could be, I was sure no one had picked us up in the northern city, and no one knew we had called at the Updikes.

Wexford must know, all the same, that I had the Overseas Customers list, and he knew there were several New Zealand addresses on it. He couldn’t guess which one I’d pick to visit, but he could and would guess that any I picked with the prefix W would steer me straight to the gallery in Wellington.

So in the gallery in Wellington, he’d be ready…

‘You’re looking awfully grim, Todd,’ Sarah said.

‘Sorry.’

‘What were you thinking?’

‘How soon we could stop for lunch.’

She laughed. ‘We’ve only just had breakfast.’

We passed the turning to Rotorua and the land of hot springs. Anyone for a boiling mud pack, Jik asked. There was a power station further on run by steam jets from underground, Sarah said, and horrid black craters stinking of sulphur, and the earth’s crust was so thin in places that it vibrated and sounded hollow. She had been taken round a place called Waiotapu when she was a child, she said, and had had terrible nightmares afterwards, and she didn’t want to go back.

‘Pooh,’ Jik said dismissively. ‘They only have earthquakes every other Friday.’

‘Somebody told me they have so many earthquakes in Wellington that all the new office blocks are built in cradles,’