The Hogarth Conspiracy

by Alex Connor

  The Australian’s sexual greed was legendary. His private plane was a personalized brothel, servicing him as he traveled the world. From London to New York, the Far East to Dubai, and back to his home in Sydney, Bernie Freeland conducted his business with frequent interruptions for sexual gratification, using Viagra for longer trips and vials of amyl nitrate for a shorter hit—even, on occasion, crystal meth.

  All this Oliver Peters knew from the gossip over the last decade. And all this was the reason why he normally never would have accepted a journey in Bernie Freeland’s plane. The cancellation of the flight home from Hong Kong and the prospect of waiting over twenty-four hours for another had persuaded Oliver—feeling weak and desperate to keep his illness a secret—to accept the proffered invitation.

  Once on board, he had found two other art dealers availing themselves of Freeland’s generosity. Both men were known to him. Kit Wilkes was the illegitimate son of James Holden, MP, and Lim Chang, a Chinese dealer in ceramics, was an enthusiastic buyer of British art. Oliver had suspected that Lim Chang was as keen as he was to get back to London and as uncomfortable with his surroundings. But Kit Wilkes had been another matter. Sleek as a water vole, with pale green eyes and a full Cupid’s bow of a mouth, Wilkes was a languid bisexual whose constant travels and hops over the equator made short work of the world. Often accompanied, Wilkes paraded his boys in their Ralph Lauren uniforms or his nymphets in all their prim pubescence, but he was more of a voyeur than an active participant. Wilkes had an obsession with hygiene and was known to demand a full examination of every male or female he hired; a certain Texan, Dr. Eli Fountain, provided the service from his offices in Wimpole Street. No one slept with Kit Wilkes who hadn’t been examined thoroughly first.

  A jolt in the plane made Oliver grab the edge of the sink to steady himself. Despite his reputation, Kit Wilkes was traveling alone—had even refused an invitation to watch Bernie Freeland and the three girls on board, preferring to try to sleep, resting his narrow head against one of the plane’s windows. At one moment, caught in sunlight, his gaze had flickered briefly over to Oliver, his green eyes momentarily as yellow as the skin of a gecko.

  The plane jolted again. Oliver heard the sound, louder now, of the women laughing and screaming playfully.

  “Why don’t you have some fun? I won’t tell anyone,” Bernie Freeland had said earlier, pointing through an open door to the girls sitting on the huge divan in a cabin that was decked out as a bedroom.

  Wretchedly embarrassed, Oliver had smiled his regal smile and shaken his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “No one would know.”

  But they would, you bastard, Oliver thought, suspecting that Bernie Freeland might have the bedroom taped, every sound recorded. What a splendid way to secure business: provide the services of a call girl to sweeten the deal. Or, if the client was unwilling to deal, blackmail him into submission afterward.

  “No thank you, Bernie. The lift home is more than enough.”

  He had seen Bernie Freeland’s expression shift as he looped one arm around Oliver and guided him to a seat beside the bar at the far end of the plane. Surprised, Oliver had felt the weight of the Australian’s arm and winced inwardly, wondering if Freeland could feel his loss of body tone, the giveaway wasting of muscle.

  But Freeland’s mind had been elsewhere. Sipping a tonic water, Oliver had glanced around. Kit Wilkes was asleep, and Lim Chang was talking to one of the call girls, a redhead perched on the side of his seat.

  “You okay?”

  Smiling stiffly, Oliver had nodded. “Fine, thank you.”

  “You buy anything in Hong Kong?”

  “No.” Oliver studied the man’s broad, tanned face, the dark mustache that disguised a corrected hair lip. “Did you?”

  “A Corot. Nothing else.” He jerked his head toward the private compartment, knowing he was embarrassing his companion and enjoying it. “That redhead, Annette, gives the best blow job in Europe. And the brunette in the back is at this moment going down on the other girl.”

  His expression unreadable, Oliver had stared at the Australian. I’m being eaten alive by cancer, he had thought, medicated so heavily that sex is a memory. I can’t get an erection even if I wanted to. So I can look at you with your big, pumped body and your private plane—and not envy you in the least.

  But he hadn’t said it.

  “You’re married, aren’t you?”

  Oliver had nodded.

  “Are you happy with her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course,” Freeland repeated. “I’ve got no one to share my life with. Well, whores, but no one special. And I’m thinking that if this plane crashed now, no one would really care if I died.”

  Oliver had been more than a little worried that the conversation might slip into mawkishness.

  “I’m sure you have many friends.”

  “In this business?” Bernie had exclaimed. “You are fucking joking! You can’t have friends in the art world. Too many people trying to get their hands in the same till at the same time. I was offered a Turner in Dubai—Dubai, of all bloody places—but before I got back to the broker, he’d sold it. Whole deal completed in an hour.” He sniffed. “That’s technology for you. That son of a bitch was on his BlackBerry faster than the naked eye could follow.”

  “It’s not like the old days,” Oliver replied, shifting in his seat. “You took your time then—”

  “Time’s money,” said Bernie, cutting him short. He threw a glance in the direction of the “bedroom” and continued. “These whores, for example; their madam—Mrs. Fleet—knows almost as much about art as we do, but instead of running a gallery, she runs flesh. Uses the girls as bait or to close a deal. You talk about contacts? Fleet has contacts in the art world you and I could only dream about. All the dealers use her, but you won’t find one who’ll admit it.”

  “Well—”

  As Oliver attempted a reply, Bernie carried on, warming to his theme. “Imagine the kind of pillow talk that goes on between the girls and their punters. Imagine how much Fleet tucks away for use at a later date or to sell on to the highest bidder. Her and her girls are like the fucking Resistance in the war, except the girls don’t do much resisting.”

  After that conversation, Bernie Freeland had ordered dinner for himself and his guests before moving back into the bedroom—where he still was, judging from the sounds coming through the washroom wall.

  Oliver urinated into the bowl, flushed the toilet, and rinsed and dried his hands. He didn’t want to leave the bathroom, didn’t want to reenter the hothouse atmosphere of the jet. But embarrassed and out of place, he slowly made his way back to his seat just as the call girls emerged and went over to the bar. In their underwear, they eyed the newly awakened Kit Wilkes—who instantly waved them away—then turned their attention to the other men.

  The redhead, Annette Dvorski, began talking to Lim Chang as the brunette, Marian Miller, sat down next to Oliver.

  “Can I do anything for you? Can we?” Marian Miller asked, taking in Oliver’s expensive clothes and rightly assuming him to be married and rich. “Anything you want?”

  “ Er … no. Thank you, no.”

  The girl—tipsy and smelling of sex—rested her hand on Oliver’s thigh. She pouted when he removed it, saying, “You’re not like Bernie’s usual friends. In fact, you don’t even like him, do you? He could turn out to be a real fly in the ointment.”

  Unnerved by the remark and wondering what she was implying, Oliver took a moment to reply.

  “We aren’t friends,” he began tentatively. “We’re colleagues.”

  Shifting in his seat, he listened to the plane’s engine and began to feel the rip of pain building inside his stomach. Before long he would have to take more medication, then wait for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes in which the pain would build, the race on to see how severe it could become before the medication took effect, curtailing the message traveling from Oliver’s stomach to h
is brain, crushing the synapse telegram and muffling the spasm.

  While he waited for that relief, the journey began to seem interminable as a slight blond girl slid into the seat beside Marian. She took a sip of wine, then ran her tongue over her bottom lip; the third girl, Liza, sat down opposite Oliver. They were both pretty and knowing and wanting to talk to stave off the boredom of the long flight. And they both realized that Sir Oliver Peters wasn’t going to be screwing anyone.

  “You an art dealer?”

  “Yes.”

  Marian Miller nodded. “It’s worse than politics, isn’t it?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The art world. You’re all so nice to each other’s faces, but you stab each other in the back at the first chance.” She had a faint Scottish accent and a tight line about her chin. Oliver realized she would lose her looks quickly as her face hardened with age. “I’ve never heard about your gallery, though …”

  Oliver tried to smile but failed.

  “… I know about Kit Wilkes’s place. And about him. Everyone knows about him.” She beckoned for Annette to come over. Reluctantly the redhead moved toward the group.

  “Hey! Why drag me away?”

  “That prick’s not up for it,” Marian replied, jerking her head toward Lim Chang. “Why waste your time? We’re just having a few drinks and a chat here. I was just talking about Wilkes. The bastard’s pretending to be asleep again, but he’s listening. Doesn’t miss a trick.” She turned back to Oliver. “I did a party with him a while back, rough stuff. He likes—”

  “I don’t think you should tell me.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said, continuing anyway. “He was celebrating some deal in Russia, said they’d seeded a painter. Built up a whole history about some artist that doesn’t even exist. He was laughing about the killing he’d made and said that the Russians were stupid and ignorant—which he said was even worse.”

  Surprised, Oliver glanced at Kit Wilkes. Underestimating the Russians was folly. Twenty years ago they hadn’t known much about the international art trade, but now they were as well versed, as ruthless, and as rich as everyone else.

  “He’s a bastard,” Marian said flatly, turning her attention away from Wilkes and back to Oliver. “So I take it that you’ve never been on one of Bernie’s hunting parties,” she said.

  Oliver frowned. “Pardon?”

  “When there’s a big international show on in London or New York, he gets a group of dealers together with a group of whores and then gives the girls money to buy a painting. If the painting the girl buys turns out to be more valuable than the dealer’s, she gets to keep the money.” She smiled, taunting Oliver. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Money? Liza pulled off a real coup last year. Not bad for a whore. But then again, whores get to hear and find out all sorts of things.”

  They both watched Liza walk over to the bar, where she ignored the young male attendant and accepted a tray of snacks from the older man who had attended to Bernie earlier. Un-self-conscious in her bra and panties, she returned to the group and passed the platter around.

  Liza sat down and then stared intently at Oliver.

  “Jesus,” she said, sounding alarmed. “Are you all right?”

  Two

  OLIVER FLINCHED, WELL AWARE THAT THE GIRL HAD SPOTTED something, some intimation of illness. Or was it just his wretched unease with the conversation?

  “I’m fine.”

  “You just look so pale. Are you sure you’re okay?” Liza persisted. She helped herself to a couple of prawn canapés and crossed her legs in the lotus position, revealing the crotch of her panties. Oliver glanced away, and Marian turned to Liza. “I was telling Sir Oliver about Bernie’s hunting parties. How you’d gotten really lucky last year,”

  She turned back to Oliver. “God, you should see your face!” she exclaimed, her expression defiant, her tone confrontational. “You think we’re just whores, don’t you? We are, but we’re also the best, most cultured whores. I’ve a degree in the history of art, with honors, and I worked in a gallery on Cork Street until I realized I could make more money on my back than behind a desk.” The alcohol didn’t seem to have had the slightest effect on Marian’s brain; she was sharp as a tack.

  “We all work for the same woman: Mrs. Fleet. Bernie hires her girls because we fuck the best and we can talk about art—because most of her clients are dealers. We fit in, you see. We impress the collectors, make them feel at home. We know all about the auctions and the reserves and the prices raised on different works. We know dealers on the way up and those on the way down. We make it our business to know who bought what where and for how much.”

  Discomforted, Oliver smiled but said nothing. Undaunted, Marian continued.

  “We’re an open secret, part of the haggling, the extra on the side. We can make a deal. Straight sex, blow job, anal, girl on girl, S&M, golden showers…. You want it? We deliver. It’s a perk some of the biggest dealers use, an added incentive.” Her expression was cold. “So before you wonder again how some hooker knows about art, that’s how.”

  She glanced over to the bar, where Lim Chang was sipping a glass of wine, out of earshot. In the window seat, Kit Wilkes was immobile, a cashmere rug over his knees.

  “Remember Arnold Fletcher?” Liza asked. Marian shot her a warning look. “I was just about to say—”

  “Fletcher’s no worse than the other dealers.”

  “Maybe not, but you have to admit he was desperate to get hold of that Gauguin,” Liza went on. Addressing Oliver, she said, “You’re in the business; you know how it works. Dealers are always plotting something.”

  It was true, Oliver thought. Collectors always plotted—always had plotted. In the Renaissance, they murdered to steal masterpieces, to procure the power that priceless works afforded them. In modern times, the Nazis had looted galleries, and many a dictator had bought works—through anonymous brokers—from respectable auction houses. Stolen artworks had created a feeding frenzy of their own, a rivalry as ruthless as the people drafted to run it. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Mafia connections and, later, the Russian mob had perpetuated the demimonde of the art dealing fraternity. Works were thieved to order, exorbitant prices paid to move valuable works from England to collections abroad.

  In the two decades he had been trading, Oliver Peters had been privy to many of the secrets of dealing and fakery. Collectors would show a genuine work to a buyer in a gallery and then instruct the collector to mark the back of the painting. When the picture was brought to him or her later, the collector would check it, never questioning that it was genuine because it had his or her marking on the reverse. Few ever discovered that a false back had been put on the original painting and they had in fact marked—and bought—a fake.

  And it wasn’t just pictures. Stone statues had been buried in lime and coated with urine to age them; exquisite, dainty pieces of ivory were secreted in women’s cleavages, where sweat gradually turned the material to an aged yellow. The tricks of forgery had been handed down the centuries. In trading church statues, false heads had been put on the dismembered figures in order to sell them for the highest price. The fakers—knowing that under x-ray the joins could show up as recent material—ground stone off the original statue to make a join appear genuine.

  Like many dealers, Oliver had heard of masterpieces being stolen and disappearing from sight to reemerge decades later, having hopped flealike around the globe. Copies frequently were made by master fakers, something all artists of all times had had to come to terms with. But in the reckless art world an unscrupulous dealer would pass on a fake and retain the original to sell to an anonymous collector, who would keep it out of public view. As for the runners who undertook the transportation of stolen goods, the fences who were cheated by their bosses, the myriad people who populated the fuggy underbelly of the art market, they had often been jailed or disappeared. And no one asked questions.

  Slowly, Oliver reached into his inside
pocket and took out a small bottle of tablets. Liza, noticing, offered him a glass of water and fetched it. Gratefully sipping it, he swallowed two more diamorphine.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Liza asked.

  “Just a headache.”

  “You look awfully pale—”

  “No, really; it’s nothing.”

  Nodding, she moved off to the bar, where Annette and Marian joined her for a drink. Pleased to be relieved of their company, Oliver glanced over his shoulder. Lim Chang was typing something into his BlackBerry, his concentration absolute.

  “Are you working?” Oliver asked, interrupting the woodpecker tapping.

  The man looked up, his lean features composed, his black hair punctuated by a precise parting, one narrow hand suspended, immobile, over the BlackBerry.

  “Pardon?”

  “I asked if you were working,” Oliver replied, realizing how stilted the sentence sounded coming out of the blue after hours of silence. “Did you buy anything at the auction?”

  “You were there, Sir Oliver.”

  “I was, but not all the time,” he replied, trying to recover his usual confidence. “I bid for the Gainsborough but lost it to the Getty Museum.”

  Lim Chang’s hand was still suspended above the BlackBerry.

  “I bought a Sisley.”

  “Sisley … good, good,” Oliver responded idiotically as the pain jabbed at his stomach. Smiling, he took the seat opposite Lim Chang. “Long journey, hey?”

  “Long journey,” Chang agreed.

  “Kit Wilkes has been asleep most of the time. Not as active as our host,” Oliver went on, smiling as though they shared a joke. “I can’t say I feel very comfortable.”

  There was a protracted pause. Oliver wondered if he had said the wrong thing and if Lim Chang would turn out to be a close friend of the Australian’s—and a willing passenger. But after what seemed several minutes, Lim Chang laid his BlackBerry on the small table in front of him and nodded briefly.