The search engine responds immediately, there are over ten thousand hits. I’m amazed frankly that something like this exists where anyone can just upload a picture and click search, but the tech isn’t quite there yet. As I scroll through the images the faces it’s retrieved are not the same man as the one in my photo. There are similar traits in each hit: hair, skin tone, the shape of the jaw or the brow but there’s always something different too. It looks like the robots aren’t going to replace us just yet, the human eye is still a better judge.
I scroll through each of the images, page after page. I start to reconcile myself with the reality that I’m not going to find him when I come across a picture of a man with greying hair in a loud Hawaiian shirt. He looks much older than the Carlos in my mother’s photo but the features of the face look right. I click on the image and follow it to the webpage the image is on. It’s a webpage for a jazz club in downtown Miami. I can see the full photo now, the man is sat with two others, both similarly dressed. There’s a caption under the photo: “Our evening management team: Salvador Silva, Luis Rivera and Carlos Azevedo.” It’s him.
The webpage looks old and clearly hasn’t been updated for a while. I dig some more and it quickly becomes apparent that the club has long since closed. It doesn’t matter though, I have Carlos’ surname and with that I can track him down. Resident addresses are public records in the US. It will take time, but it can be done. I’d like to have Kim help me but I don’t want to risk getting asked questions about where this name came from, so this is all on me.
I start with the US City Directories database, I focus on New York and Miami. I find eighteen registered Carlos Azevedo’s in the two cities, but it shows all of them are aged under thirty except one in Miami who’s eighty-four. So it looks like my Carlos lives elsewhere now. It’s either that, or he’s undocumented, or he’s left the United States entirely.
I make a call to the US Citizenship Services Office to check his immigration status and find out whether he’s still in the country. Unsurprisingly there’s a long queue. I let the call run in the background and try to get on with some other things while I wait. Eventually I get through to a lady called Gladys and tell her what I’m trying to do. She warns me before we get started that there will be a lot of Carlos Azevedo’s, but I ask to see what comes up anyway. Sure enough she comes back with over two hundred hits for Carlos Azevedo’s registered as currently living in the United States, but when she filters out everyone less than sixty and older than seventy it’s down to only two. This feels very close, but the states they’re listed in are Alaska and Iowa. Something doesn’t feel right. As I think for a moment Gladys says that she can also see a Carlos Azevedo that was registered in Miami and the date on the birth certificate would have made him sixty-four now, but he died three years ago. I pray it isn’t the man I’m looking for.
I get what details I can about this man from Gladys, thank her and hang up. I have to do a little more digging but a final call to the care home in Miami where the man died confirms it, my mother’s Carlos died three years ago with no next of kin. It’s a dead end, no pun intended.
It’s very disappointing. The better part of a day spent and no reward. I tell myself it’s only one lead, there will be others, but it was my best lead. I try to put it out of my mind, I haven’t got time to be disheartened. I console myself with the prospect of Yuliya Steinberg’s drinks tonight, there will be more leads there. I pack up my things and go freshen myself up for the party.
Yuliya Steinberg lives in a grand apartment in a mansion block on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the home of the old world and old money of New York. Her apartment is on the twelfth floor which in most places would be pretty high up but in New York it feels like you’ve barely left the ground. She’s something of a celebrity in the art world, but she never leaves Manhattan so I’ve never met her before. She has a gallery downtown where her staff work but I’m told she very rarely goes there as she must be in her eighties now. Instead New York comes to her.
She was at the top of my hitlist of people to speak to in New York but without Hiroki I never stood a chance of getting through the door to see her, getting an invite to this little gathering tonight is a real coup. I realise I’m pinning a lot of my hopes on speaking with her, the Carlos lead is gone and Kim’s and my other research is otherwise yielding very little to pursue.
Entering her apartment I hear her before I see her. Age has not dulled any of the woman’s vitality. She’s holding court with a few society types circled around her. I wander over and try to quietly join the group but as soon as she sees me she calls me out.
“Do I know you?” She says in a haughty sort of New York accent.
“No, we haven’t met before. My name is Eloise Witcham, I run the Roth Auction House Private Sales team in London.”
“Ah yes, you’re here with Hiroki, she wouldn’t shut up about you. So you’re the new Victoria. Well that’s good news, the woman didn’t know art from her elbow. Awful woman, couldn’t stand her.”
She then reaches out and grabs my hand firmly and pulls me towards her.
“Come with me darling, I want to show you something. These luvvies can entertain themselves for a few moments without us.”
She takes me through into another room which looks like she uses as her study, it’s a cluttered mess of a space. The walls are filled with even more paintings than the rest of the apartment, a couple of easels are stood in one corner and there are piles of books on the floor stacked on top of each other. By the window there’s a small partners desk which is buried under a mountain of papers.
“Thank you very much for inviting me tonight.” I sound like a polite little schoolgirl.
“Any friend of Hiroki’s, darling is a friend of mine.”
My eyes are sweeping across the dozens of different paintings lining the walls, each a little window into a different world.
“I remember Victoria in the beginning, she was quite charming actually. Make sure you don’t let them do the same to you darling, you’re lovely just the way you are.”
“I think it’s already too late for that.”
“Oh nonsense, I get the feeling you have passion for the work, that’s more than Victoria ever had. She just liked the parties. Just remember that in the end it’s all about the work, if you remember that then you’ll go far.”
She stops to look at a painting on one of the easels, which on closer inspection I can see is a Moreau.
“I don’t really like this.” She says dismissively.
“Oh? What don’t you like about it?”
She thinks for a moment and starts reaching for the words to express herself before simply saying: “It.”
She’s clearly brought me in here for a reason. She’s trying to play it cool but I can tell she’s building up to something. Suddenly she comes out with it.
“You and I we can help each other I think. I can send a lot of my clients your way, a lot of good business for you. And I have plenty of pieces that I’m sure would be fantastic for some of your clients.”
I think this is what Viktor was warning me about.
“Let’s face it, some of the private sales clients rely entirely on what you tell them.”
“I wouldn’t sell anything to a client I didn’t think was right for them.”
“No of course not. And I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do that. I just want to be able to highlight certain pieces for your consideration for your buyers. Right now for example I have some fantastic pieces by a wonderful new New York artist Julian Zaber.”
“I can look into it for our London business. But we’ve been asked for everything in the US to go through the auctions team, not us. The auctions team is very much the focus in the US.”
“Of course, but I’m sure if one or two items were sold quietly through Private Sales no one would mind.”
“Viktor was pretty clear that…”
“Oh, don’t worry about Viktor. There’s lots of rumours flyi
ng around about him.”
“Really? About what?”
“Oh I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s probably all lies. What I heard someone say is that he’s unhappy at Roth, doesn’t feel appreciated by the board after everything he’s done for the place.”
“I’m surprised. I would have thought the board loved him considering our latest results.”
“I think it’s just some of the old cronies they still have in there, the ones who haven’t died yet. They think he’s a bit of a fly-by-night character, isn’t maintaining the traditions of the place… but as I say, it’s probably just a rumour, so don’t listen to a word I’m saying. Let’s get back to the others, they’ll all be wondering what I’ve done with you.”
When we come back to the room I can see Hiroki in full flow with a large group of prospective clients. “So what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever had come to auction?” asks one of the enthralled group.
“Ooh, too many to choose. I think it would have to be a collection of Victorian era sex toys.” Hiroki teases. Cue general ‘eew’ sounds from the group.
“The most expensive thing?”
“Diamonds.”
“The thing you most wanted to keep for yourself?”
“Diamonds!”
Yuliya keeps me close to her, clearly her little sales pitch to me isn’t over just yet.
“So what brings you to New York, darling? I could hardly ever get Victoria to come over here.”
“I have a client that I’m trying to locate a painting for which I think may have found its way over here.”
“Ah so you’re playing detective. And so what’s the painting you’re looking for then?”
“The Portrait of the Lost Child by Albert Polignac.”
“My god, you as well?!! What is it about this painting that all of a sudden everybody’s interested in it?”
“Who else is interested in it?”
“Geoffrey Webb came here yesterday and said exactly the same thing.
Geoffrey’s beaten me here too. I ask myself how it’s possible, but if he’s made it to New York and spoken with the police already then it’s not much more of a stretch that he would be reaching out to Yuliya to see what he could find.
“Well I’ll tell you what I told Geoffrey, for all the good it will do. I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea about the painting, our paths have never crossed. Geoffrey wasn’t very pleased with me, but I made him promise he’d come back tonight. He’s milling about in here somewhere. Let’s find him and you too can thrash it out, I love a bit of sport.”
She leads us around the room through the various faces. Geoffrey’s standing in a far corner of the room talking to a couple of rather bookish looking men, one short and bespectacled and the other dressed in bowtie and tweed blazer in that way all men from American academia seem to dress.
“Geoffrey, Geoffrey. Look who I have for you. The competition! Another treasure hunter. She’s younger, smarter and far more beautiful, I don’t see how you stand a chance.”
Yuliya seems to enjoy the idea of us as sport for her amusement, the two of us facing off against each other with her as some sort of arbiter to the whole thing.
Geoffrey turns around and sees us, he doesn’t look surprised to see me. “Oh I wouldn’t count me out just yet Yuliya, there’s a bit of life left in the old dog yet. Good evening Eloise, always a pleasure.”
Quite the different tone to how he last spoke to me. I have no intention of trying to keep up the same charade.
“I’m surprised to see you in New York Geoffrey, I assumed you’d just send one of your little minions to look for the painting. I’m honoured that you’ve deigned it necessary to get involved yourself to try and beat me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, my dear. Your painting is not the only game in town. But as I was over I thought I’d stop by to see Yuliya on a few things.”
“Well I’m glad to hear you’re keeping busy, it’s very important for a man of your age. You might even think you’re busy enough that you don’t need to go around trying to steal other people’s commissions.”
“I think I’ll do as I please, if it’s all the same to you.”
I’ve had enough of the games, I try to speak to him openly and honestly.
“Please Geoffrey, why are you doing this? You don’t need to go chasing every painting. There’s more than enough work out there for both our teams. Can’t you just let this one go?”
A creeping smile spreads over his pale, thin face.
“No, I don’t think so Eloise. I’ll find the Polignac. And I think I’ll find that Kandinsky you’re looking for as well. Just because I can. Just to make sure you know the order of things in this world, and to make sure you know your place in it.”
Yuliya can’t resist to get involved.
“Oh Geoffrey you’re terrible!” Then she turns to me, “Maybe it’s best not to pick a fight with him just yet darling, he’s far too much of a brute.”
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure I know what to say. If this last week has taught me anything, it’s that everything can change in an instant. In this game you can’t afford to make a wrong step, and Geoffrey has just made a big mistake.
5
A barrage of different emotions hit me, the first is sheer disbelief. Kim is the leak, she was the only one that knew about the Kandinsky commission. There’s more than a dash of pride in me that I’ve managed to work this out, but there’s also a wave of raging anger that pulses through me at the realisation of what she’s done, how she’s betrayed us all. But I show none of it.
Quietly I slip away from the party, it’s still in full swing so I doubt anyone is going to miss me. I hail a cab and head straight back to the office. As it drives through the Manhattan night I’m too lost in thought to see any of the sights outside. When I arrive at the office I get out of the cab almost dazed, not even sure why I decided to come back here. For a moment I debate whether to just call it a night, but I realise there’s no way I can fall asleep with all this going on in my head. I tell myself I can do some detective work while no one’s around and see if Kim has left any other incriminating evidence for me to find.
Kim. Why did she do it? What am I going to do with her? I don’t have an answer to either question. For the latter I could call the police, but I doubt the New York City Police Department would have much interest in what I had to tell them. What else then? Am I just going to fire her and let her walk away from this? No, I can feel there’s something more to be made of it. For the first time I am one step ahead of Geoffrey and I have to use it to my advantage.
Walking onto the twenty-second floor of the office the motion sensors detect me and the nearby lights spring to life. There’s no else here. I walk over to Kim’s desk to see what I can find but it’s disconcertingly neat and tidy. There’s a couple of files on the desk neatly stacked on top of each other which I flick through but I’ve seen everything in them already. Her desk phone is logged in so I scroll through the phone history, but there’s hundreds of calls from this week alone and I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I start looking up some of the numbers to see if I get lucky but the ones I find are all art houses and dealers. Then a thought occurs to me about the night I was attacked. I know I left the office just after six that night. I check Kim’s phone again and scroll to Tuesday night, to see all the calls she made around that time. Kim made four calls in the twenty minutes either side of me leaving the office: two were to landlines which I can see were to dealers, one was an internal call back to the London office and one was a mobile, unlisted.
I call the mobile number, I dial *67 first to block the caller ID. It rings for a moment and then I hear “Hello?” I hang up immediately. The voice is unmistakable, it’s Geoffrey, I can even hear the sound of Yuliya’s party in the background. This all but confirms it, Geoffrey hired the man to attack me, and Kim helped him do it.
There’s a semblance of a plan beginning to form in my head now. I grab the
phone from her desk and dial down to reception. Security picks up, the only other people left in the building. When I was walking in I registered George, the security man Hiroki introduced me to that first night, was behind the desk and I’m pretty sure it’s him who’s picked up the line. I ask him to come up to the twenty-second floor. He asks if I’m okay to which I say ’yes’, and that I need to discuss a security matter with him. I hear him ask his other colleague to man the front desk, and then he duly agrees to make his way up. When he arrives I can see he’s clearly a little baffled why he’s been called up here. Not giving anything away just yet though I ask George first what his work background is, which he obliges me with. It turns out that my previous assumptions about his military background were pretty spot on. He came out of West Point military academy and after a few years’ service with the army, including three tours in Iraq, moved into intelligence where he spent eight years before moving into the private sector, because seemingly that’s where the money is in the security business. For completeness he also tells me he played in the offensive line for the college football team (which means nothing to me but I’m pretty sure the fact he’s massive and athletically built were good attributes to have in American Football).
His résumé covered and more than meeting my requirements, I begin to explain what’s happened. I tell him that I’ve discovered one of my team has been feeding a rival firm information on our clients and our commissions. I tell him I also believe that two days ago the man in charge of this rival company, Geoffrey Webb, sent a man to attack and threaten me so I would stop working on a commission he wants for himself.
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