manager, in Manchester, is a Mr.
Rollison. He's already had a claim from Wheatley and he smells a rat.'
'He's not letting the grass grow under his feet, is he? What's the claim for?'
Nigel paused for maximum effect, then told me: 'A cool three hundred thousand pounds. Two hundred and twenty-five of which are for the contents. Wheatley claims that the place was stuffed to the rafters with antique furniture.'
I shook my head with disbelief. 'How many times do the prats think they can get away with it?' I wondered aloud. 'So what's happening next?'
'Mr. Rollison has asked Wheatley to see him this afternoon. Wheatley claims to have an itemised list of everything that was in the place, and Rollison has asked him for it.'
I allowed myself that second smile. 'We need that list,' I said.
'In the morning,' replied Nigel. 'I've an appointment with Rollison at nine o'clock.'
'Get your coat,' I told him, rising to my feet. 'It's dinner time.
I'll buy you a Tomlinson's pork pie in the Golden Scrotum.'
I went to Manchester with Nigel. I didn't want to steal his glory, but I'd contacted the fire brigade and arranged to visit the burned-out ruin afterwards, with Sub Officer Des Brown, of Green Watch. Or was it the other way round? To say Mr. Rollison met us with enthusiasm is a bit like saying that Dante was quite pleased to see Beatrice. He pumped our hands and ordered coffee.
'Do you think it was arson?' he eagerly asked.
'No idea,' I replied, before Nigel could open his mouth. We were both studying copies of the list that Mr. Rollison had ready for us. 'We think some of these items may have er originated in our area.'
'You mean they were stolen!' he declared.
'Now, now, Mr. Rollison, that's not what I said. Let's just say we're … interested.'
The lists contained brief descriptions of items of furniture, date of purchase, name of dealer or auction house and price paid. Appended to it were photocopies of all the receipts.
'It's a very comprehensive list,' observed Nigel. 'He obviously didn't keep the receipts in the warehouse.'
'Did you see the originals of the receipts?' I asked.
'Oh, yes,' replied Rollison. 'He brought the originals, but wouldn't let me keep them, which is reasonable enough. I had them copied here.
They looked genuine to me.'
We finished our coffees and thanked Mr. Rollison for his co-operation, recommending that he didn't rush to pay out until he'd heard from us.
'What do you suggest I tell the investigation department, Inspector?' he asked.
'The truth, Mr. Rollison,' I replied loftily. 'It's always the best policy.'
On the way to the fire station I asked Nigel if he knew anything about antiques.
'No, not much,' he said, with characteristic understatement, adding: 'My mother has a couple of nice pieces.'
'Really?' I replied, stifling a smirk. 'In that case, from now on you're the station's expert.'
We'd had the foresight to take our own Wellington boots. Des Brown supplied us with yellow plastic safety helmets and took us in a station van to the warehouse. It was a narrow building, four storeys high, in a long terrace that had been purpose-built for another industry in another age. The ground-floor windows and door were boarded up, and black streaks of soot reached upwards from them. First impressions were that it had been an inferno.
'You were lucky to contain it to the one building,' I observed.
'Yeah,' Des replied. 'Fortunately the ones on either side are empty, so we were able to get into them and cool the walls. These places are well built structurally, but there's a lot of timber inside. They're a headache to us, but the whole area's scheduled for redevelopment. The sooner the better.'
He'd taken a jemmy from the car boot and was levering off the boards from the door. When they were removed he went through and we followed.
The first floor had vanished completely. Above that were just blackened ribs to indicate where the others had been. The roof was intact apart from one small patch where the sky was visible. The air was still hung with smoke, and when you looked up the light from the empty windows created a cathedral effect.
'Where did it start, Des?' I asked.
'We don't know. The story is that there was a small office over there, where you can see the stairs were. It was stuffed with cardboard boxes and other combustibles…'
'Like cans of paraffin?' I interrupted.
'Possibly,' he replied, with a smile, 'but plastic bottles leave less evidence. Anyway, they think they may have gone home that evening and left the electric fire on. The cat was roaming around… et cetera, et cetera. It's a good story; we can't fault it.'
'Did your forensic people find anything?'
'Fraid not. Too much water damage.'
I gazed at the floor with dismay. It was a tangle of charred joists, partly submerged in black slurry. I gestured towards Nigel with my hand. 'Nigel's our antiques expert,' I explained. 'Okay, Nigel, tell us what we're looking for.'
Nigel took a moment to gather his breath and his thoughts, then began:
'Well, most antique furniture, and this was furniture, is held together by glue and well-made joints. The non- combustible parts are the fittings, such as hinges, handles and escutcheons. These were usually made of brass, and should have survived the blaze, other decorative features might be made from marble, glass or…'
'Right,' I interrupted, 'let's see what we can find.' I kicked my feet in the mess, feeling for anything small and solid. It was a hopeless task and a difficult situation. We were trespassing on another force's territory, which made it impossible for me to call in a search party, and we were looking for something that we didn't really want to find.
The temptation was to make a desultory search, find nothing and regard it as success.
Des saved the day. He was grinning broadly when he announced: 'I've an idea; how does this sound? We've some job-experience kids with us this week, all said they want to be firemen. It's a pain in the backside finding things for them to do non-stop questions all day long. I could send them down here this afternoon, with a supervisor, and tell them to sift everything metallic out of that lot. Would that be a help?'
We accepted the offer like a banana republic dictator accepts a medal.
In return we offered Des his lunch, but were pleased when he declined.
We cleaned up in the fire station, and after a quick mug of tea and a laugh with Green Watch stormed back over the Tops to our own side of the lines.
An auction house in Leeds had supplied one of the expensive pieces on the claim. I sent Nigel on a preliminary recce to see them. If the search of the ashes showed that there had been some valuable stuff in the building then we were barking up the wrong tallboy. But if our instincts were right, we had no time to waste.
I wrote a brief report and spent the afternoon shifting paperwork. Much of it was the usual comical stuff: vernacular accounts of the exploits of our clients, complete with expletives. Some of it wasn't funny at all, just part of the endless procession of the sad, the mad and, occasionally, the bad that passes through our hands. Sparky came in, looking weary. He'd been interviewing witnesses at an unsuccesful bank robbery.
'Any luck, Dave?' I ventured.
'Fantastic,' he declared. 'He was black, or maybe white; between five feet four and six feet, and possibly walks with a limp. He's wearing a very distinctive coat: one side of it is leather and the other is an anorak.'
'That narrows it down. Tell me, do you know what an escutcheon is?'
'No, Charlie, but I'd have it looked at if I were you.'
Nigel arrived just before five. 'I saw Mr. Somerby himself,' he told me. 'He's a lot younger than I expected; must be the son. He was amazingly helpful and open. He remembered the escritoire it's a writing desk because they'd had it in for a quite a while. They were trying to sell it for an old lady. It was a beautiful item but her reserve was too high. They'd put it through auction a couple of times before without it moving.'
'Did he say what the reserve was?' I asked.
'Yes, seven and a half thousand. When Wheatley started bidding Mr.
Somerby recognised him. Apparently he'd been going round the sales for over a year, buying the best items,
