Jennifer smiled. “It rains here too, sir,” she said. “Most afternoons at the moment, and although it looks impressive, the storm won’t last long. Very Italian, really.”
“So the owners of paradise have control over the weather, do they,” laughed Godden. “And it’s so delightfully warm,” he added, peeling off his beige linen jacket and removing his cream straw trilby. “By the way, I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but in art fraud we’re not like the more routine crime squads. With us it’s all first names. Much easier. So it’s Paul, OK?”
“Might take some getting used to after the SCF,” said Jennifer.
“I’m sure you’ll manage.”
He looked around. “What a wonderful place. Very good of you to send the car; I could easily have got a taxi.”
Jennifer shook her head. “Mario doesn’t have enough to do, so driving as far as the airport will have made his day. And anyway, it’s all part of the security system. Unknown vehicles are not encouraged to come anywhere near here, and any that try get short shrift from our team of heavies.”
“Yes, can’t be too careful. I’ve been reading up about Freneton. Dreadful woman, incredibly devious and cunning. But resourceful, I’d say.”
“Very,” agreed Jennifer. “Contingency planning is her thing; she’s obsessed by it and brilliant at it. And she has quite an intellect; it’s just a pity she can’t channel it beyond the hatred that seems to consume her.”
Godden was head of a sub-unit of the Metropolitan Police Art & Antiques Theft and Fraud Squad that dealt exclusively with high-value theft and forgery of paintings. Jennifer had met him once before in hospital in the early days of her recovery when he’d called in to tempt her into joining his unit. Given her background in art history from her university days, she took little persuasion. Godden made the job sound anything but routine, with the added bonus of dealing almost daily with collectors and getting the opportunity to see their private collections. For Jennifer, it was irresistible.
At the time of their first meeting, only weeks after the Harlow Wood case, Jennifer was making such good progress that she hoped to be able to report for active duty within a month. But then the headaches began, along with debilitating nausea when she trained too hard. Alarmed by this development, her doctors temporarily banned all exercise and subjected her to a barrage of scans. The outcome was a revised convalescence plan designed to give her brain more time to heal. About a year was recommended, much to Jennifer’s horror and disappointment.
She had spoken to Godden on Skype several times during the past few months when he’d called to ask about her progress, and each time she liked him more. Always polite, patient and never trying to bully her into hurrying back to duty, he was unlike any of the hard-bitten senior officers she had worked with in Nottingham. In his early forties, he had the air of a somewhat distracted academic, his lived-in corduroy jackets with obligatory leather elbow patches and his shock of unruly greying curls completing the picture.
Art was his passion. In every call he spent much of the time telling Jennifer about the latest exhibitions in London, or recounting a visit to a wealthy collector to see a recently acquired masterpiece that would never be likely to go on public view. If that painting happened to be from the Renaissance, he would talk excitedly and extensively about its comparative merit in relation to the artist’s other works. His knowledge was extensive, particularly regarding the more minor artists from the period, many of whom he felt were underrated.
“Take Perini, for example,” he suggested during one call that had already covered several fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Tuscan artists.
“Tommaso or Piero?” asked Jennifer.
“Er, Tommaso. Gosh, Jennifer, that’s impressive. Few people have even heard of Tommaso Perini, let alone his son. Piero is almost totally unknown outside of a few dedicated collectors.”
Jennifer smiled at his response. Tommaso Perini happened to be a particular favourite of hers. “I went to a wonderful exhibition of Tommaso’s work in Rome a few years ago when I was on vacation from uni. I adore his work.”
“If it was Rome, I’ll bet I know where many of the pieces came from,” replied Godden.
“Only one source, surely,” laughed Jennifer. “They were from the art connoisseur and collector Corrado Verdi’s collection. Do you know him?”
“I’ve met him a few times, yes. Amazing man. He has a profound knowledge.”
“So I’m told. Ced Fisher, whom I met during the Freneton case, told me about him. They’re pretty good friends.”
“Ah, Fisher. Brilliant man; turned the art world on its head. There’s hardly an insurance company worth its name who won’t insist on having his program scan any high-value works they’ve been asked to cover. He’s been of remarkable assistance to us on a number of occasions as well. Delightful chap.”
“He is,” agreed Jennifer. “His wife Sally too; they’re quite a duo. But getting back to Verdi; does he ever come to London? I’d love to meet him.”
“Shouldn’t be difficult to arrange the next time he’s over. Although I should watch your step with him, if I were you. Quite an eye for pretty young girls.”
Jennifer chuckled; Sally had told her all about Verdi. “I think I can look after myself,” she said. She puckered her lips ruefully. “At least I thought I could until I crossed swords with Olivia Freneton.”
Two hours after Godden’s arrival at the Fabrelli villa, he and Jennifer were sitting at a table under a bougainvillea-covered pergola near the clifftop as the sun set behind the villa, the sea ahead of them bathed in a dancing, golden light. Godden had been shown his room and given a tour of the villa while the brief storm Jennifer had predicted refreshed the land before rolling on its way to the south–west of the island.
“What a fabulous location, Jennifer,” enthused Godden as he took a sip from his Campari soda. “It’s going to be hard for you to drag yourself away from it.”
“Not at all,” replied Jennifer, stretching out her legs. “I can only have so much of paradise; I need something to stop my brain atrophying.” For the time being, she was keeping her Russian studies to herself.
“Excellent,” said Godden. He sat up and fixed his eyes on hers, his demeanour now businesslike. Jennifer registered the change with excitement. She wanted nothing more than to get back to work after so long.
“Before we discuss what I’ve got in mind for you,” began Godden, “and why I wanted to discuss it here, well away from the office, why, in fact, I don’t want you coming to the office at all, I want to give you some general background.
“The world of high-value art and its collectors is not all it may seem, not all rich benefactors supporting or funding art museums, encouraging young talent and so on. Obviously, and thankfully, a lot of that does exist, but there are many facets to this particular gemstone.
“There are, for example, many collectors whose portfolios are established for purely financial reasons; they have no real interest in art at all. Their objective is to see their investment rise in value; their paintings are just another commodity. I don’t have much time for such people, but they are harmless so long as they are honest about how they acquire their paintings and how they sell them. If, as sometimes happens, they fall into the category of benefactors too, then everyone gains.
“But then there are the secretive types, those who want to possess a painting and hide it away from the world, especially one by a famous artist or an old master. This happens a lot with what one might call the newly rich set, in Russia or China, for example. There are all sorts of reasons, fear of theft or damage being one, but another is that some of their works may have been illegally acquired. Sometimes this can be through a sponsored theft from a gallery, but more often than not, it’s theft from another private collection, especially one where paintings have also been illegally obtained. You see, the victims of such thefts are in a sticky position: they can’t report their loss if what was stolen was itself illegally acquired. It
’s murky, messy, and played for very high stakes. The annual world value of the market runs into billions, and most of the time the world at large is completely unaware of it.
“Interwoven with all this is the forgery market. Now, you might think for well-known works, forgery wouldn’t be much of a problem. After all, everyone knows the Mona Lisa and where it is. It would take not only a remarkable forger but also an amazingly slick con man to persuade someone he had the real Mona Lisa for sale. But famous paintings do get stolen and some are never recovered. If one of those is offered for sale on the black market, it could be the real thing or it could be a forgery. Clearly the potential buyer is in something of a quandary since he can’t go to legitimate authorities to have it verified; he has to rely on his own sources, ones he knows he can trust.”
Jennifer nodded her enthusiasm. “And of course they can’t call on the likes of Ced Fisher to verify the paintings.”
“No,” agreed Godden, “they can’t, as much as they’d like to. Fisher’s program has been a game-changer for the legitimate art world, but for players in the shadowy world of high-value art forgery, it’s not available.”
“I should imagine the people on the forgery side wouldn’t want their work to go anywhere near Ced,” said Jennifer.
Godden smiled. “Of course not, no. But the potential buyers would love to. This is why use of Fisher’s program is now very tightly controlled. In the early days, he could run it from his house, but that’s all stopped following a few approaches made to him by some dodgy people. It has now been made public knowledge that the program is carefully protected, access to it requiring the presence and cooperation of at least three people.”
Jennifer frowned. “Do you think Ced is in any kind of danger from his program. I mean, of someone kidnapping him, or worse, his family, and forcing him to write another copy.”
Godden waited before answering, playing with his glass. Jennifer felt he was weighing up what he could tell her.
Finally he nodded, as if to give himself approval. “Yes,” he said, “it is recognised as a potential problem, and although he was resistant to start with, he’s now been persuaded to comply with the recommendations of the security people. When was the last time you saw the Fishers?”
“I went to their house a few times last year when I was hunting for information to clear Henry’s name. I haven’t been back since the injury, clearly, but I speak to Sally from time to time on the phone. She told me some time ago they were moving.”
“That was one of the recommendations,” said Godden. “Their new place is far easier to monitor. Before they moved in, it was gutted and fitted with some pretty hi-tech security. Beyond that, I’m not in the loop; it’s none of the squad’s business. But I do know, and this is certainly confidential, that Fisher has some interesting connections in the shadowy world of national security who look after him, so the threat to him and his family is contained. This includes watchers who apparently love the posting since they spend hours running or cycling when he or his wife are out doing the same, mostly without them knowing they are there. It’s regarded as excellent training for them, so everyone wins.”
Jennifer laughed. “He’s a fitness fanatic; they both are, and I expect now Sally has had their second child, she’s back in the routine as well. I’ve been trying to get them to come here, but Ced’s always so busy.”
“It would be the perfect place for them since your security is pretty top notch.”
Godden finished his drink.
“Another one, Paul?” asked Jennifer.
“I’ll wait until I’ve finished my little lecture, I think,” said Godden. “Got to keep a clear head. Now, I’ve given you a very sketchy outline of the art sales and forgery world; there’s a lot more in a paper I’ll give you later. Makes fascinating bedtime reading.”
“Can’t wait,” replied Jennifer, rubbing her hands together.
“OK,” said Godden, “I know you’re wondering what my unit gets up to and how we see you fitting in; what your role might be.”
Jennifer waited, saying nothing.
“Well,” continued Godden, “there are two sides to what we do. The first is the public one, the one that gets talked about, the one described on any documents or websites where we’re mentioned. That side deals, among other things, with investigating any thefts or burglaries aimed at paintings, normally high-value ones. It’s not a huge caseload, but given who some of the victims are, not all the cases are made public, so there’s more to it than meets the eye. The investigations are nuts-and-bolts police work: information gathering exercises requiring legwork, interviews of victims and suspects, as they are for any crime, and in addition we use our extensive network of contacts — owners, dealers, galleries, both in the UK and elsewhere — to look for leads. Developing the types of relationships we need for this takes time, effort and maintenance, and much of my time and that of my chief inspectors is spent on the road keeping these people sweet.”
“I can imagine it’s a huge amount of work,” said Jennifer.
“It is and we can only justify the man hours spent on it because of the importance of the victims we’re dealing with. Most of them carry considerable clout and no government wants to be seen dragging its feet or skimping on supporting them. The bean counters hate us, but we carry on regardless of their acquisitive eyes gazing longingly at our budget.
“Fortunately, we’ve had some high-profile victims whose art we have managed to locate and return in very little time owing entirely to the intelligence networks we’ve set up. It shuts the finance people up every time.”
Godden coughed and looked around. “Actually, Jennifer, if you don’t mind, could I get a glass of soda water? All this talking is giving me a thirst.”
“Stay where you are,” said Jennifer, jumping to her feet. “I’ll fetch some from the fridge behind the pool bar.”
She returned with the drinks and waited while Godden took a large gulp from his glass.
“Thanks,” he said. “Now, where was I? Yes. Our operations are in many ways no different from other crime investigations that rely on intelligence, and they come with the same problems. Take drug investigation units, for example. For some of their large, complex investigations, they will try to get an officer on the inside, gradually gaining the trust of the criminals as they try to work their way deeper and deeper into whatever organisation it is. Clearly this is dangerous work: if they are discovered, it could be fatal. Drugs-related criminals are particularly ruthless.”
Jennifer was watching Godden carefully, wondering where he was going with this.
“The problem with that sort of work,” he continued, “is you can’t just take someone off operations and send him or her undercover. The criminals aren’t stupid; they have their own informants and they know who works where. It would be suicide for a young drugs squad officer to be in HQ operations one day and working undercover the next in the same area. For this reason, undercover officers are normally from elsewhere in the country on someone else’s payroll; certainly never on the unit’s they are reporting to. They remain invisible to checks, both legitimate and illegal.”
His eyes caught Jennifer’s as he watched her reaction. He knew her mind would be racing ahead. Was the thought of what he was about to say too daunting for her?
Jennifer held his eyes. “So this is the second part, is it?”
Godden nodded slowly, a wry smile at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes, it is. You see, Jennifer, there are many artists around the world who are extremely good at copying other people’s work. Mostly they do it legitimately, that is, they don’t even try to claim their paintings are originals. But the unscrupulous side of the art world is always on the lookout for such talent and whenever they find the rare man — and for some reason it nearly always is a man — who is so good his work is indistinguishable from the work he’s copying, they will woo him with promises of wealth beyond his dreams. There’s a cost, of course; there always is. It’s ess
entially a pact with the devil and once in, there’s no escape.”
Jennifer was puzzled. “But what’s the point of copying some famous old master? Surely there can only be one; you can’t have two or even three on the market.”
“Ah, but you can. You see it all depends who your buyer is and how greedy he is. And how gullible. Suppose a Caravaggio is stolen, a known one, but one from a private collection. There are plenty to choose from. Once it’s stolen, our forger makes the perfect copy. The mastermind behind this then has two choices: he can either return the real painting to the original owner in some contrived circumstance or other, or he can return the fake. His decision will depend on the expertise of the original owner vis-à-vis the buyer. Let’s suppose he returns the genuine painting to the original owner. His task now, as the consummate salesman, is to convince the buyer that he’s the one buying the original while the fake has gone to the owner. If he’s successful, the buyer will pay a fortune for it. The mastermind is confident about security since the buyer will only ever keep it for personal display, never admitting he’s got it to anyone.”
“Wow, sounds a risky undertaking. The forger will have to be good.”
“Oh, not just good, he has to be brilliant, an old master five hundred years on.”
“And these forgers exist in the UK?”
Godden pursed his lips and leaned his head slightly to one side.
“They do … yes …” he nodded, “but the particular investigation I’m setting up is not centred in the UK.”
“Roma?” asked Jennifer, the Italian connection having now crystallised in her mind.
“Firenze,” he replied.
Chapter Fifteen
“Diana, you poor dear. I’m so sorry. You must go immediately.”
Connie had listened in alarm to Olivia’s tale about her aged aunt’s unfortunate death in Brussels, her eyes glistening with tears of sympathy. The only aunts she had were hard-as-nails, acquisitive Massachusetts elite, driving their husbands to early graves with their never-ending desire for more wealth. While Connie was as rich as any of them, she had nothing else in common with a single one. Hearing her friend’s story about a zany relative for whom she clearly had great affection, she wanted to help as much as she could.
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