Chapter 46
Stryker called back thirty minutes later. He had a name and a number for Poe. Hester Flynt. He said she was expecting Poe’s call.
‘Let’s call her right this second,’ Esmerée said the moment Poe and Stryker’s conversation ended.
‘Not yet,’ Poe said. ‘I want to know who she is first.’
‘And how will—’
Poe held up his hand. Esmerée stopped talking. Bradshaw started to type. It didn’t take long.
‘Hester Flynt,’ Bradshaw said. ‘Curator of fine art at the National Portrait Gallery. She’s held senior positions at the Prado, the Louvre and the Art Institute of Chicago.
The FBI’s Art Crime Team pay her a retainer of fourteen thousand dollars a year and the NYPD’s Special Fraud squad pay her ten thousand.
She’s consulted for the Vatican and has briefed most major law enforcement agencies on how to detect forged paintings.
She believes it’s the chemical composition of the paint that is key, not the canvas. ’
‘No wonder Eric knows her. She probably has a Bat-Phone.’ Poe liked Batman. The camp Adam West one. Not the angst-filled whiners Bradshaw preferred. He was pleased with his pop-culture reference. He thought Bradshaw would be too.
‘It was Commissioner Gordon who had the Bat-Phone, Poe.’
‘You know what I mean.’
Bradshaw frowned. ‘I don’t think I do. Assuming Hester Flynt is Batman in your analogy, then surely—’
‘Jeez, lighten the hell up, Till-meister,’ Esmerée cut in. ‘Poe means that this Eric Stryker dude must consult with this Hester woman all the frigging time. That about right, Poe?’
‘It’s like you’re my personal interpreter,’ Poe said.
‘OK, so she’s well credentialled in the shady side of the art world.
But an art fraud expert isn’t what we need.
Indica said we might be able to identify the tattooist through their formal training.
We need someone who might recognise the artist by the tattoo on Esmerée’s mother’s foot. ’
‘If you and Miss Blue hadn’t interrupted me with your absurd Batman reference, Poe, I would have told you that as well as helping law enforcement, Hester Flynt has lectured at almost all the world’s major art colleges.’
‘Miss Blue?’ Esmerée said. ‘I upset you, Till-meister?’
Bradshaw ignored her.
Poe said, ‘Tilly? Are you happy for me to talk to her?’
‘I am, Poe. She’s worked some high-profile cases without her name ever cropping up. Cases where there was so much money at stake, the people standing to lose that money were doing some very nasty things. She knows how to keep her involvement hidden.’
‘Set up the call then.’
Esmerée stood. ‘You want me to wait outside?’ she said. ‘I kinda get the feeling I’m bugging the S.H.I.T. out of the Till-meister.’
‘I would like you to stay, Esmerée,’ Bradshaw said.
‘Poe said you’re a teenager and teenagers can’t be reasoned with.
That the more logical and well-considered the argument, the more you’ll break wind in my face.
I assume he was using a colourful idiom to express his point.
He does that. Therefore, each time you’re rude to me, I shall ignore you and try to be kind and understanding. ’
‘I wasn’t rude, Till-meister.’
‘I don’t like that name, Esmerée. You should call me Tilly or Matilda.’
‘Everyone needs a nickname.’
‘Poe doesn’t have a nickname. Everyone calls him Poe. Even Estelle.’
‘Well I think we should fix that. What does he like to do? What hobbies does he have?’
‘He likes listening to punk and rock music, eating Cumberland sausage and drinking beer. He also likes to shout at the grey squirrels in the trees around Highwood. He says they’re f-word …
bottomholes. They’re the only animals he doesn’t stop Edgar from chasing, even though he’s never ever caught one. ’
‘Why’s he hate squirrels? They’re as cute as a bug’s ear.’
‘Because they’re an invasive species from North America and their introduction had a disastrous impact on the native red squirrel.
He says that Sciurus carolinensis is yet another reason to dislike Americans.
Except he says f-word grey squirrels because he refuses to learn the scientific nomenclature. ’
‘Hey, I’m American.’
‘I know,’ Poe said.
‘Do you like me?’
‘Jury’s still out.’
‘Squirrel-man it is then.’
Bradshaw considered this carefully. ‘No, I don’t think so, Esmerée. It’s a very silly name and he almost certainly won’t answer to it.’
Poe smiled to himself. He’d gladly accept a stupid nickname if it meant Bradshaw and Esmerée could get on. He said, ‘If you two have stopped bonding, can you place the call, Tilly?’
‘Poe still doesn’t know how to use the phone system I installed, Esmerée,’ Bradshaw said. ‘Perhaps we should call him Homer Simpson.’
‘I do like doughnuts,’ Poe admitted.