Detective Inspector Aaron Cardigan peered over Sergeant Finial’s shoulder at the fuzzy monochrome image that the computer monitor displayed. It showed a back street overshadowed by vast neo-classical buildings without windows; an estate car was parked in the street, tailgate open. Finial clicked onto the next image: it showed a man struggling under the weight of what looked like a urinal. It was a urinal. Whether he was unloading it from the car or loading it was unclear; he seemed about to drop the heavy urinal. Thank god he didn’t, mused Cardigan.
Finial looked over his shoulder and Cardigan nodded. The next image appeared and showed the car with the tailgate closed and the figure of a man, presumably the one who had been carrying the urinal, climbing into the driving seat. With the tailgate closed it was possible, just, to make out the registration of the car.
“Lucky,” said Cardigan. “It’s a wonder that camera was pointing where it was, and it’s a bigger wonder we can actually read that. Who’s the car registered to?”
Finial consulted a scrap of paper. “It’s registered to one Arthur Roland Turner, he’s a Crakethorne man. Telemark Street.”
“Car stolen?”
“Not reported so.”
“Maybe he simply hasn’t noticed yet. Can’t see this being a local job. Go and see him, see what he’s got to say.”
Later, Cardigan was occupying himself staring out of the window at the rain-swept concrete of Crakethorne Plaza. On the other side of the square – ridiculously renamed a plaza by the Crakethorne Now! development committee – the bluff exterior of Crakethorne institute glowered through the lunchtime gloom. Only that morning it had been the victim of an audacious robbery, a robbery which could not have come at a worse time for the institute, which was then struggling for funds and had been banking on the exhibition of important works of Dadaist art to revitalise its finances. Titans and Atlanteans prowled around the cobbles, their blue-black diesel smoke ameliorated by the rain. The silver-birches planted around the underpasses nodded their head in the wind which whistled around the aluminium frames of Cardigan’s office windows. He sat with his coat on. He felt out of his depth already: he didn’t really understand what had been stolen, he preferred murders: they were more straightforward. He sighed and looked at the CCTV stills that Finial had printed for him. The man in them looked faintly familiar, too familiar to allow Cardigan to enjoy his coffee, and so he stared and hoped for an inspirational thought.
Finial knocked and creaked into the office. He put his hands on his hips and stared out of the window for a moment, sharing Cardigan’s reverie. Finial was unlike Cardigan: he was young and fit, Cardigan was not; Finial was keen and enthusiastic, Cardigan was jaded and tired; Finial had an open mind, Cardigan jumped to conclusions and stuck to them; Finial drank black tea, Cardigan drank milky coffee.
“When was it stolen then?” asked Cardigan.
“It wasn’t,” replied Finial, Cardigan looked at the picture of the car and frowned.
“Cloned?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“It belongs to Turner.”
Cardigan went back to looking out of the window. “Well,” he said, the word purged of any meaning.
“Turner’s downstairs in the interview room and he admits he took it. We should speak to him. We should also speak to Hoard.” Hoard was the Crakethorne Institute’s curator.
“Why Hoard?”
“Well, we have a problem: Turner’s cleaned the signature off. We need to know how we can identify the correct piece without the signature.”
“Well surely there can’t be two of them, can there?”
“There’re three.”
“Three?”
“Yes. Perhaps you should hear from Turner exactly what’s happened.”
Cardigan stood up and tucked his notebook under his arm. He looked at Finial properly for the first time. “Perhaps I should. Let’s go and see him.”
Turner was sitting on a steel chair at a steel table under the steely lights of the grey-painted breeze-block interview room, wringing his hands and darting worried glances here and there. His lips moved rapidly, as though he might be praying or cursing, and he tapped his feet on the floor rapidly. As Cardigan and Finial entered the room he pushed his greying hair out of his eyes and half stood and half held out his hand but then, when neither policeman made as though to shake hands, sat down again in confusion.
“Well then Mr Turner,” said Cardigan, looking at his notebook even though there was nothing in it, “what have you been up to?” He remained standing, leaning against the cool wall. Finial sat down and rested his elbows on the table opposite Turner.
“I’ve told your friend here already, I didn’t think it was stealing, I thought it was being thrown out, it was just there by the door, I’ll be very happy to give it back – they can have them all if they like.” Turner looked from Finial to Cardigan, appeal in his eyes.
“So you admit you took this piece from the Institute?” said Cardigan, laconically studying his shoes, which needed polishing.
“Yes, but I’ve said, I didn’t realise it was stealing, I thought it was rubbish.”
“And yet you stole it?” said Cardigan.
“Explain what happened in full, just as you did to me,” said Finial, and leaned back in his steel chair. It squealed on a joint in the tiled floor and Turner jumped. “Nice and slowly, leave nothing out.”
Turner took a moment to compose himself. He wrapped his fingers tightly together and crossed his feet under his chair and looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Right,” he said. He addressed himself to Finial since Cardigan was still occupied with his shoes. “Right, I’m the caretaker at the Prince’s Finger Inn, on Kremlin Street. We’re renovating the toilets that lead off the main lobby – they’re quite famous, grand Edwardian ones. You might have been in them.”
Finial nodded. Cardigan made a positive sound.
Turner went on: “Well, yesterday morning I dropped a full can of paint onto one of the urinals – they’re all original, but we’d taken them off the wall while we did the decorating. It broke clean in half. Must have been cracked already. I thought it’d be easy to find a replacement, but it isn’t – I’d been everywhere in Crakethorne yesterday looking for one, but I couldn’t find one to match. This morning I was going to look in this place in Peasefurnace for one, but on the way I drove down the street at the back of the Institute and saw one exactly like the hotel’s just lying there just inside the back door. I couldn’t believe it. It was just there with a load of other rubbish – wine racks, bits of bike, you know – so I thought it was being chucked out and it’d be alright if I had it. There wasn’t anyone around so I just put it in the car and took it back to the hotel. Like I say, I didn’t think it’d matter: I thought they would think the dustmen had taken it along with the rest and that no-one at the hotel would need to know I’d smashed the original.”
“And what did you do with it when you got it back to the hotel?” prompted Finial.
“I gave it a bit of a clean and put it back on the wall with the others. Looks bloody good. Exact match.”
“Yes. Quite,” said Finial.
“You cleaned the signature off it,” said Cardigan, walking up to the desk and staring at Turner. “Why the devil did you do that?”
“I thought it was graffiti,” said Turner, indignantly. “How the hell was I to know it was art? I thought ‘R Mutt 1917’ must be whatever those little shits that ruin the station do – what is it? You know, a tag – I thought it must be somebody’s tag. And if it was so bloody valuable why did they just leave it sat by the back door for anybody to take? Why the hell wasn’t it looked up in a glass case somewhere?”
Cardigan turned his back on Turner and walked across to lean his forehead on the wall. Turner had a point. It should have been locked up safe.
“And you’re certain you can’t remember which one it was?” Finial asked, gently.
“No. A urinal’s a urinal, however old it is. I moved them around a few times – I had the painting to finish this morning before I put them up.”
Cardigan turned around. He had the impression of the brickwork on his already wrinkled face, but you wouldn’t have laughed at him. “Right. We’ll talk to you again in a while. Finial,” he beckoned and Finial followed him out of the room.
In the beige of the corridor Cardigan stood close to Finial and hooked a finger through his colleague’s buttonhole so that he couldn’t move away. He spoke quietly so that nobody passing could hear what was being said. “Where’re the urinals?” he asked.
“Locked up downstairs.”
“And where’s Hoard?”
“I think he’s waiting in one of the meeting rooms.”
“Right. What’ve you told him?”
“I’ve told him we’ve made an arrest.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Good, let’s go and have a word with Hoard.
Hoard was gazing through the Venetian blinds and the glass screen that separated the meeting room from the corridor with undisguised contempt. Thin and leathery, he sat erect in a brown tweed-upholstered chrome-framed chair with his hands folded in front of him, watching the police administrative staff milling around outside. Over his shoulder rain clamoured for attention at the window, in the distance the bulk of the Crakethorne Institute loomed, affronted.
Hoard had been supplied with a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits and left to his own devices; his demeanour was not one which invited company; he had not touched the tea or the biscuits.
Cardigan took a moment to look at Hoard through the glass before he entered the room. He was not encouraged: he had been hoping for a limp-wristed academic, but Hoard looked determined, as though he wouldn’t be fobbed off easily. Cardigan entered the room, followed by Finial, and shook Hoard’s hand. He didn’t like these meeting rooms with the glass walls – if an argument developed the administrative staff had a grandstand view of it. He had a nasty feeling that Hoard might be the sort that might start just such an embarrassing argument.
“Well?” demanded Hoard.
“My name is Detective Inspector Cardigan,” said Cardigan, and perched on the edge of the desk in order to try to intimidate Hoard. Hoard stood up and marched about, regaining the height advantage. Finial stood by, his hands folded behind his back, silently contemplating the carpet tiles.
“Well, Detective Inspector Cardigan,” said Hoard, obviously unimpressed, “what progress have you made?”
“We have made a great deal of progress. We have some questions for you, just at the moment, though.”
“Questions? What sort of questions?” He seemed to think he was being accused of something.
“Simply routine questions about the object which has been stolen,” said Cardigan, making deprecating movements with his hands.
“Routine questions,” repeated Hoard, looking with incredulity from Cardigan to Finial, “about Fountain? What can be routine about any question about Fountain? The only question can be how anybody could have the audacity to steal it from under our noses!”
“We simply need some information regarding identifying marks. Often works of art are stolen in order to allow counterfeits to be made. We must check that we have found the correct piece.”
“You have all the necessary information,” said Hoard. “I take it that this line of questioning means that the piece has been found.”
“We believe so.”
“You believe so? What do you mean by that? Has it been damaged?”
“Not damaged, as such: cleaned.”
Hoard narrowed his eyes and stopped marching. “Cleaned?”
“Yes. Cleaned. The signature has been cleaned off.”
Hoard looked to the ceiling and swore and then his head sank into his hands. After a moment’s silent reflection he turned to Cardigan and asked: “But it’s otherwise undamaged? The piece is otherwise intact?” He seemed punctured, deflated: moribund.
Cardigan nodded. “Is there any other way of identifying it? Of checking that it’s the right one?”
“Well, no,” said Hoard, gesturing emptily, “but how many urinals like that can there be left?
“How many indeed?” agreed Cardigan.
“And it was only stolen this morning – a counterfeit couldn’t have been made that quickly, and if it was stolen to make a counterfeit, why would they clean off the signature?” Hoard was trying to reassure himself. It was almost working.
“How many indeed,” said Cardigan, and smiled. “Can it be restored?”
“I expect it’ll be a relatively straightforward process,” said Hoard, quietly gazing out of the window at the rain. “I suppose that we must be pleased that no greater harm has come to it.”
“Quiet so,” said Cardigan. “If you wait here I shall arrange for you to see it directly. Finial, follow me.”
Cardigan and Finial left the meeting room and strode to the lift. Neither of them spoke until they were in the mirrored safety of the lift and descending to the basement.
“Sir?” said Finial.
Cardigan turned to Finial and smiled. “We can look good here,” he said. “We can solve this in a morning. I smell promotion for the both of us.”
Finial said nothing; the lift doors opened and he followed Cardigan along the dim corridor that led to the secure storerooms. Cardigan unlocked the room which held the urinals and led Finial inside. He looked down at the three urinals with his hands on his hips and a faint smile on his lips. “Which one do you think it is?” he asked.
Finial shrugged. “They all look the same.”
“Where was the signature?”
“Just on the lip on the left hand side.”
Cardigan scrutinised the urinal. The room was dark, so he used his torch, which was powerful. “I can’t see any trace on any of them. You?”
Finial looked closely, too. “I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps Turner’s lying.”
“What, you think he’s got the real one stowed away somewhere and these are all just urinals?” Cardigan thought about it for a minute. “You didn’t sound very convinced when you suggested it.”
“I’m not. Just a thought. I checked up on him – he’s been at the Prince’s Finger for nine months, nearly, and impressed everyone with his utter unimpressiveness. I do think that what he told us is true: Fountain is one of these urinals, but which one I could not say.”
“I couldn’t say either.” Cardigan leaned against the concrete block walls and lit a cigar. “Does it matter?”
Finial laughed abruptly but said nothing.
“I mean,” went on Cardigan, blowing smoke around the room, “a urinal’s a urinal, surely. If that Hoard fellow wants to restore one of these to be a priceless work of art, that’s his folly, not ours.”
“It’s the idea, anyway.”
“The idea?” Cardigan puffed a smoke ring out over the urinals.
“Yes. It’s the idea of the thing that’s important, not the thing: it’s the questions it provokes by thinking about it. I mean, it’s not especially beautiful to look at. What’s important is that it raises important questions about art.”
“What I didn’t realise is that art’s been a load of crap for a lot longer than I thought. I thought it was all Tracy Emin and Damian Hirst’s fault, but it seems art’s been a load of crap for years and years. It’s all this,” he looked at his notebook, “DuChamp’s fault. Fountain. My arse.”
“I think it’s interesting – it makes you revaluate all of art,” Finial was squatting down and looking closely at the row of urinals.
Cardigan scoffed and stubbed out his cigar against the wall. “Sod that, which one’s it going to be?”
“I mean, it could almost be a work of art in itself, this: these three could become their own piece.”
“That wouldn’t do the insurers or our statisticians or our friend Hoard any good. And what would you call it, Three Fountains? And who’d be the artist? The pair of us? Turner? Which one’s it going to be?”
Finial stood up and looked from one urinal to the next. “The middle one.”
“Right,” said Cardigan, “you take the one on the right, I’ll take the one on the left.”
Finial and Cardigan picked up the unlucky urinals and carried them up and out of a fire exit and placed them in the boot of Cardigan’s car. “I’ll get rid of them later,” said Cardigan. “And remember, you helped me with this, so not a word to anyone.”
Finial nodded dumbly and followed Cardigan back to the interview room, where they found Turner anxiously chewing his fingernails.
“Right,” said Cardigan, striding up to Turner and jabbing him in the chest, “you’re going to be released, but if you ever do anything like this ever again, we’ll throw the book at you.”
Turner merely smiled with relief and nodded with gratitude.
Hoard, still looking distinctly pale, received the designated Fountain with eager hands. Hoard rejoiced: Crakethorne Institute would not be the laughing stock of the art world, there was still a chance to save this provincial artistic outpost: there was still a chance to preserve the reputation of the Institute and there was a chance to save the career of Hoard. Hoard would not be stopped by the mistake of an idiot caretaker. He arranged the restoration personally, discreetly, after hours, nothing in writing.
The affair seemed closed, but a few afternoons later Cardigan was sitting in his office staring at the rain and the buses in the plaza, not drinking his coffee with his new protégé Finial, who was also not drinking coffee, when he took a telephone call.
“Cardigan,” said the constable who’d taken the call, “there’s a chap on the line who’s had some urinals stolen. I thought it was right up your street.”
Cardigan paid no attention to the muffled laughter that came down the line a moment before the call was transferred. “Hello?” he said, urgently, “Hello?”
“Is that Detective Inspector Cardigan?” asked the voice, crackling over the line.
“It is.”
“Ah, hello there, this is Geraint Newcastle at The Prince’s Finger Inn.”
“Hello Mr Newcastle, how can I help you?”
“Well, we’ve had some urinals stolen – three, actually. They’re rather valuable items. Antiques. Sought after, you know. They’ve been gone a few days, actually. And our caretaker’s missing. We, well, we don’t like to cast aspersions at this early stage, but it looks like he took them when he left. We wanted to give him the chance to return. You know, give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Is this the same caretaker who was redecorating the toilets off the lobby?”
“We haven’t been redecorating anywhere, but those are the ones which have been taken. How did you know?”
Cardigan swallowed hard, the horrible realisation assailing him like nausea. “I see,” he said, and he did see, only too well. “Three urinals taken, you say?”
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