by Anna Porter
“How many other bidders are there for the painting?” she repeated.
“Not sure, but I saw your old friend Grigoriev at the private airport getting out of his Gulfstream, and I think Waclaw is here too. He believes this picture used to be in Poland before the war, but he has no proof. If he had papers to prove it had been there, we would not all be here wanting to buy it. Instead, there would be a battery of lawyers fighting over some ancient estate. The Poles are persistent about the ancient estates of their aristocratic szlachta and the priceless valuables that found their way into the hands of the occupying Germans. Remember the Lanckoroński collection? First dismembered with the partition of Poland, then confiscated by Reichsmarschall Göring when the Germans walked into Vienna. Isn’t that a beautiful church?” The setting sun coloured the spires gold and amber. The central rose window shone blue and silver.
“Very Gothic,” Helena said.
“If you are still here on Saturday evening, you might like to accompany me to the organ recital — one of the largest pipe organs in Europe.”
“I have never heard of a Gentileschi in Poland.”
“The story goes back a long way. Waclaw thinks it was bought from someone in Naples during the time when there was no Poland.”
“Does he have a theory about where it’s been since 1945?”
“If he does, he didn’t tell me, but he did carry on a bit about the Russians and the Germans. Waclaw Lubomirski is from around Częstochowa, and one of his ancestors was a voivode, a member of the szlachta, the highest social class. His family goes back to the fifteenth century. They collected art through the centuries. Memling. Botticelli. There is that famous painting of Warsaw by Canaletto. As you know, Waclaw has been obsessing about stolen art from Poland for decades, and he listed a Gentileschi in an interview about missing art in Polish collections. Gizi has asked you to authenticate the painting. I assume that’s why you’re here. Have you any idea why the lawyer was killed?”
“No,” Helena said. “Did Gizi, as you call her, say anything more about him than that he was hired for her divorce?”
“No, but Magoci had a nasty reputation. He could have been killed for some other reason than his meeting with you. On the other hand, it’s possible that one of us wanted him out of the way. Or, more likely, wanted you dead. Your authenticating that painting may not be in everyone’s best interest.”
“The husband?”
“He, for one, but let’s say I am keen to buy it for a good price. If you get involved and insist that it is by a famous artist, the price will go up, so I no longer have a bargain. In fact, your being here could cost me millions of euros, and I may not be happy with that.”
“Did you, by any chance, try to have me killed?” Helena asked.
Vladimir laughed. “Would I be sitting here with you if I did? Would I be waiting for you with champagne and flowers?”
“Perhaps,” Helena said.
“Would you consider giving me your best guess about the Gentileschi before you tell anyone else? For example, if you gave me just four hours’ notice, I would gladly compensate you for your time. You know I am the soul of discretion, no one need know, and I would pay you double Gizi’s fee.” When Helena didn’t reply, he continued, “Okay, make it triple.”
The beer was delicious, but she did not feel comfortable sitting out in the open with Vladimir. “Thanks for the drinks,” she told him, and started out toward the Quai des Pêcheurs. “I have work to do.”
“Just between us, do you think it’s a Gentileschi?” Vladimir asked as he rose to his feet.
Helena shrugged. “Too soon to tell.”
“For a not insignificant sign of my appreciation, would you keep me informed?”
“Maybe,” Helena said. “If you help me find out who killed the lawyer. And why.”
Chapter Seven
Attila was equal parts concerned and pleased with his success in finding Helena. Concerned because if he could find her, others with more resources could also do so; pleased because he could warn her about the police investigation. The scarf, draped over her head and tied under her chin, was a little too colourful for a modest religious woman, and the wraparound sunglasses lent her the film star look. That it was almost dark made the sunglasses unnecessary unless they were a statement by someone famous added to the overall effect of someone who, while not wanting to be recognized, wished to be stared at. With her lithe body and high forehead, she seemed to be flaunting her desire to be mysterious.
He had been nursing an espresso at the outdoor bar facing the Hôtel Cathédrale when he spotted her striding along the square, her backpack dangling casually by one strap, stopping only to check the lineup at the cathedral’s special entrance, open only for those planning to attend services. Tonight’s was Evensong. There were only four people ahead of her. She waited, said something to the guard at the door, and disappeared into the darkness before Attila had a chance to stop her.
* * *
Earlier, he had returned to the residence to check that Iván was back. The Vaszarys had been sitting in the blindingly white living room, she on the sofa, he in the armchair, both with large martinis. The only hint of trouble between them was that neither of them had been talking when he entered. He had known few other couples with such a calm approach to their impending divorce. Tonight they seemed to share a taste for vermilion — his three-piece slim-cut suit was paired with a red shirt and matching fob; her form-fitting dress with a slit up the side was also a striking red. All of it looked very expensive, if a bit theatrical. Rumour had it that she liked a French couturier, and he had his suits made by a tailor in Rome. How they could afford such luxuries on government salaries would have been puzzling elsewhere. In Hungary, everyone took it for granted that the European Union’s lavish funds were siphoned off for the benefit of the party faithful.
Vaszary’s appointment to the Council of Europe had been predictable for a consistently vocal advocate of the government’s policies on wall-building at the southern border and ejection (by force if necessary) of all refugees. In his famous Szeged speech, he had suggested that separating children from their parents had proven to work in the United States, where the steady influx of migrants had eased once border guards put children, irrespective of age, into separate concrete holding bins. If the Americans could do it, why not the Hungarians?
Vaszary’s career moves had included ordering the imprisonment of illegals who had managed to cross the border, arresting anyone who aided refugees, and fomenting the appearance of a national crisis in order to gain votes for his deeply authoritarian prime minister. Cynics in Budapest’s cafés were betting that Vaszary would become the Council of Europe’s commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management. It would be hilariously appropriate, and an exemplary way for the government to make a joke of the Council of Europe’s responsibilities. That position was still open, and the prime minister was strongly urging representatives of other nations to back his choice. The Belgians and the Norwegians were stubbornly opposed.
Attila had never been involved in politics, but he loathed brutality, and he had made unhappy noises about the prisons for refugees. All the more puzzling that he had been chosen to babysit the Vaszarys in Strasbourg.
“How were your meetings in Paris?” Attila asked.
“Better than we had expected,” Iván said. “The French don’t much like us.”
“Are you going out tonight?”
Vaszary shook his head.
“We are expecting guests,” Gizella said with a little smile. “No reason not to be civil.”
“We won’t need you,” Iván said. “It’s a couple of the Brits who share our enthusiasm for Brussels.”
Neither of them had mentioned the dead lawyer.
* * *
When Helena came out of the cathedral’s exit door, she seemed to have lost her easy stride. In fact, she was limping. Her
left arm was extended down her left side, the right arm crossed over her chest, supporting the left, as if she had walked into a door, or been hit hard. He stood up to help, but she shook her head so vigorously she almost dislodged the sunglasses.
She sat very carefully next to him, her back straight, her arm still extended, smiled, and ordered a coup de champagne from the passing waiter.
“What’s happened?” Attila inquired.
“Other than the incident on the boat, you mean?”
“Of course the . . . incident,” he whispered, “but what just happened in the church?”
“The cathedral? Not much. I had to retrieve something.”
“But you are hurt,” he said.
“Hurt? No. Perplexed.”
“That means what?” he asked, exasperated. “You were limping just now. Did someone . . . ?”
“Perplexed means mystified, baffled, bewildered by what happened today. I barely arrive in Strasbourg — for a little job you hired me to do — and a man I am with gets killed; I discover that the painting I am to study is to be sold in three weeks or less; I then run into a very rich Ukrainian I have known who is bidding—”
“Azarov?”
“Of course. He is a collector.”
“A criminal who should have an international warrant against him. But Interpol is too chicken to issue one. Perhaps now that they have a Russian at the top, it will be easier to get a warrant out on that man.”
“On the other hand, it will be damned near impossible to have any warrants issued for Russians, and Vladimir told me Piotr Grigoriev is also arriving and god knows how many—”
“Vladimir?” Attila’s voice rose. “Since when do you call him Vladimir?”
How had Attila become so childishly possessive? “I’ve always called him Vladimir,” Helena said.
“My turn to be perplexed?”
“No. It’s your turn to explain what the hell is going on here.” Helena drank her champagne in one easy swallow. “But first I have someone to meet inside,” she said, tossing €10 on the table then limping into the hotel’s entrance.
Attila ordered a draft beer and settled down for a long wait.
Louise was ensconced in one of the hotel’s high-backed lobby chairs, her hair held up by a couple of large pearl-tipped pins, her light mauve dress fanned out around her, her feet tucked under her, fully engrossed in her iPad. Despite her actual age of fifty-one, she looked like a child lost in a video game. When she saw Helena, she stood, turned into her businesslike self, handed her the small black plastic case with the usual variety of wigs and passports, gave her a piece of paper with the Vargas research, and suggested, quietly, that since Helena had been photographed on a tour boat with the murder victim, it would be a perfect decision for her to go home to Paris and resume working for Christie’s or the Tate, since both had requested her services to confirm that a couple of Renaissance paintings were, in fact, what they seemed. James had obtained a provenance, but he didn’t trust it.
“I will call him today,” Helena said.
“I had hoped you would,” Louise said. “I’ve also bought you two burner phones at the train station. They’re in the bag with the rest of your stuff. Will you be coming home today?”
“Not today.”
Louise offered her a small quick smile. “Saw your Hungarian friend outside,” she said. “He is not very observant today. Didn’t see me walk past him.”
Helena suggested Louise stay the night at the Hôtel Cathédrale, but Louise had already booked a room in a B & B closer to the railway station. She had always been frugal. Besides, she planned to return to Paris early the next morning. She had travelled a great deal in her youth, and she was no longer interested in sightseeing. Helena, who was secretive about her own past, never inquired about Louise’s, but during the six years that Louise had worked for her, some fragments had emerged. Several were set in India, others in Japan and Australia, Russia and Sweden. She had mentioned a man once — someone who had always brought her flowers. She was efficient, unruffled by whatever happened, and reliable, with no great interest in art except as a means of making a living. When Helena hired her, she had given “secretarial at the Orangerie” as her last job description.
Helena told the receptionist that she was checking out of her hotel, claiming an urgent business matter in Paris. She agreed that there would be no refund on Mrs. Vaszary’s deposit, went to her room to change into black leggings, a long chocolate-brown shirt, a short auburn wig with hennaed highlights, and black running shoes. She inserted the Swiss mini into her belt and the knife in its holster up her sleeve. She applied a pinkish layer of Revlon cover-all makeup, orange lipstick, extra-thick eyeliner and mascara, stuffed the rest of her clothes, wigs, and passports into her suitcase, and strolled through the lobby. She was pleased that the receptionist she had spoken to less than two minutes ago gazed at her with interest but no recognition.
She checked into the Régent Petite France as Marianne Lewis, an American tourist who would stay for only a couple of nights, then she would likely take a tour on the Rhine. “I would just love to see the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg,” she said. It was not until she was settled in her pleasant room with a view of a park that she called Christie’s. She told James she would accept his offer to come to London in a week and look at the painting their New York office thought was a Raphael, but, meanwhile, could he let her know whether there were some unaccounted-for Artemisia Gentileschi paintings.
“Gentileschi?” James’s usually controlled voice rose on the eschi. “You have seen one?”
“I am not sure,” Helena said. “But there is a chance.”
“There is always a chance,” James said, his voice giving away the effort it took for him to sound calm. “Not Orazio?”
“Some of her early work was mistaken for Orazio’s, but I doubt this one is his. Why?”
“The Getty bought an Orazio for $87 million. Artemisia is worth less. But it could still be good to have one to sell.”
“Will you look into it then?”
“What period?” James asked.
“From 1593 on.”
“Her whole life? Including her time in Naples?”
“Yes. There are a couple of known paintings from 1612, when she was only about seventeen. This Judith and Holofernes is stylistically advanced, so, if it is hers, I have to assume she had been painting for some years, but I can’t be sure, so we need to do a broad sweep. In one of his letters, Orazio claimed that she was already accomplished at age twelve.”
“I’ll check with Rome, Florence, and Naples,” James said, “where we know there are documents about her early work. She was much discussed even then, as you know. Do you want me to have someone go back to the transcripts of the trial?”
Artemisia had been raped by her father’s friend, the painter, Agostino Tassi, a fact not disputed by anyone except Tassi and the court. The legal arguments were conventional for that time. The case had been brought by her father in 1611. The charge: deflowering his daughter, thus besmirching his own good name. Artemisia was interrogated, tortured, her fingers tied to a wooden post and twisted. Tassi endured only some polite questioning, but he did have to serve a short time in jail.
“Yes, that could be helpful. It’s been a long time since I looked at the transcripts. There might be some clues there. She had been working in Orazio’s studio long before the rape,” Helena said, “and the trial mentions a dozen paintings to explain why she was in the studio while Orazio was absent. Even if we take Orazio’s boasting about her work as a twelve-year-old, I have always assumed that she was painting on her own from before the age of fifteen, I think. Otherwise Orazio would not have hired Tassi to teach her perspective. Why bother if she was not already an artist?”
“Have you seen it yet?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I need to do some tests.”
“But what was your feeling when you saw it?”
“That it’s a very arresting work. I can’t afford to have feelings about it. Not yet.” But James was right. There was always that first impression, even before checking a painting’s provenance, or submitting it to analysis. And that feeling about the Vaszarys’ painting was that it was authentic.
Helena’s next call was to Arte Forense in Rome. She had worked at the Rome laboratories when she was setting up a Titian show at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches. She had had doubts about a couple of the paintings, but no one had been willing to offend the galleries that had so generously lent their works. Andrea Martinelli at Arte Forense had been the only one willing to run tests for her. Fortunately, only one had turned out to be a forgery. The other had at least been from Titian’s studio and finished by his students.
Then, in 2008, they had both attended the United Nations International Conference on Organized Crime at Mont Blanc. A fine skier and eager to get away from the conference’s dullest presenters, Andrea had suggested to Helena that they could escape to the mountain, and their collegial relationship grew into a friendship they both valued.
Helena knew that criminals often used art as collateral for arms, drugs, and often money laundering. She knew this might be what had happened to the Judith she was looking at, if Andrea’s lab proved the painting’s authenticity.
Andrea had once been on the trail of a Caravaggio purloined by a couple of thieves from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily. The thieves may have been acting on orders from a Cosa Nostra boss. They certainly were not sophisticated. They had cut the canvas away from the heavy frame so they wouldn’t have to carry it. The crude hacking would have damaged the painting irreparably, which may be the reason no trace of it has ever been found on the black market, or anywhere else. And the hapless thieves may have incurred sufficient displeasure over the botched job to have been executed by their boss.