Free Out of the Night by Dan Latus

him work it out for himself.
    Bill finished his coffee quickly and got up to leave. ‘Nothing more from your side?’ he asked.
    ‘Nothing.’
    Just Meridion House. I’d already mentioned that. It might be something, or it might be nothing, but my mind was easier knowing that Bill had it on his to-do list. It would be less difficult for him to look into than it would be for me. Besides, I couldn’t do everything. It was time he did some digging himself.

15
    I found The Cleveland Contemporary Art Gallery with a few minutes to spare. It was in an old building, once the offices for a trolley bus depot. The conversion, presumably by Jac Picknett, wouldn’t have been cheap. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t afford top-of-the-range security and had come to see me instead.
    I walked round the outside first, sizing up the job. I began by assuming the existing security was next-to-nothing. There was a lot of glass in the revamped building and I wondered if any of it was extra special. It didn’t look it. Just toughened glass, with window locks a child of ten could break. Maybe a child of eight, given that we were in the centre of Middlesbrough.
    The interior was pleasant enough, and suitably atmospheric. It looked, in fact, like my idea of an art gallery. Plain walls with lights illuminating a handful of paintings. Plush red carpet. A man in uniform who opened the door for me. A smart-looking young woman behind a big reception desk. A couple of possible clients, or more likely window shoppers, eyeing a small bronze of a skating woman in Victorian garb, long skirt and coat flowing behind her as she held on to a bonnet with one hand.
    ‘Yes, Mr Doy,’ the receptionist said with a welcoming smile. ‘Ms Picknett is expecting you. George will show you the way.’
    She beckoned the doorman, who seemed glad to have something different to do. He nodded, gave me a quick smile and gravely led the way down a corridor and up some stairs.
    Jac greeted me in a friendly, if rather formal, way. She even seemed pleased to see me.
    ‘Mr Doy,’ she said, rising from behind her desk. ‘How good of you to come.’
    ‘We did arrange to meet.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘At this time, too.’
    ‘Yes, of course we did. I was expecting you. Would you like coffee?’
    ‘Later, if you don’t mind. I’d prefer to make a start.’
    ‘Of course. How would it be if I gave you a quick whistle-stop tour? It won’t take long. Then I can leave you to do what you need to do.’
    ‘Sounds good. It’s Frank, by the way,’ I said with a smile.
    She inclined her head graciously. ‘Frank.’
    ‘And it’s good to see you again. Did I say that already?’
    ‘I don’t think you did, no. But thank you. I feel the same way.’
    So we were off to a good start. That’s always promising with a new client. It saves a lot of hassle.
    The tour didn’t take long. She was right about that. The gallery was a nice place, but small. How could it be anything else without some mega corporation behind it?
    ‘Mostly, we show paintings by modestly known artists that we know will sell,’ Jac began as we set off down a long,narrow room that had once probably been a corridor. ‘We are a business, after all,’ she added.
    I nodded. Then I paused to look at a nice watercolour of a stretch of the Cleveland coast.
    ‘That’s not far from where I live,’ I told her.
    ‘Really? Lucky you!’
    She smiled a melting smile that endeared her to me, and turned away again. I happily followed her long, straight back as she smoothed her way gracefully across the carpet. It was then that I realized how extraordinarily slim she was. I could have circled the waistband of her black skirt with my hands. Not the white blouse above, though; she was well built in that way.
    We moved on to enter a larger room that was given over to seascapes in oil.
    ‘We do well with these, too,’ she said. ‘The Northeast is still a sea-faring region at heart.’
    ‘Gifts for retired master