“Come through into my office.”
Yasha followed Belanov into the basement of the house, where an office had been built in the former cold store. The walls were thick and soundproof. This was a safe place to conduct any dangerous business.
Taking his seat on the opposite side of the desk from his host, Yasha sighed inwardly as he noticed a painting by celebrated Russian seascape artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky—a painting bought for several million dollars—propped up against a wall, vulnerable to clumsy bodyguards in big boots. Belanov followed Yasha’s eyes.
“It doesn’t look so good in here,” he said. “I think it will go in the pool house.”
Yasha nodded. No point arguing that it might be better kept somewhere less damp.
“Have you heard from your brother lately?” Belanov asked conversationally.
Yasha shook his head slowly, knowing at once that something was awry.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” said Belanov. “Having lost all his teeth like that, he probably doesn’t feel much like talking.”
Yasha felt a wave of fear but managed to stay as calm as a millpond on the surface.
“Silly boy,” said Belanov. “I told him he needed to manage his money more effectively. You have to service your debts first, isn’t that right, little Yasha? I mean, Pavel can’t keep expecting my wife’s enduring affection for him to excuse him from his obligations. In fact,” said Belanov, looking at the framed photograph of his wife on his desk, “it’s starting to count against him.” He turned the photograph over so that his wife was facedown on the blotter. “You look worried,” he said, focusing his gaze on Yasha.
“What do you want me to do?” Yasha asked, getting straight to the point.
“I want you to take a trip to Russia for me. To see a painting. A dear friend of mine wants to sell something that I am interested in. But I’m only interested if it’s the real thing.”
“What is it?”
Belanov slid a Polaroid across the table. Picking the photograph up, Yasha’s eyes widened.
“That has to be a fake,” he said.
“Well, you’re going to find out.”
“And if it’s not a fake? If it is the genuine picture?”
“You’re going to bring it back to me. I’d like it on my yacht for my wedding anniversary party in August. That should give you plenty of time.”
“You’re asking me to move a painting that, if it’s real, is stolen and could be worth more than a hundred million dollars, across international borders? It can’t be done.”
“You’ll find a way. Leonid will go with you.” Belanov nodded at one of his men, who had entered the room quite noiselessly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. It’s getting very late.”
CHAPTER 29
In Cornwall, Serena and Julian were celebrating a pretty decent windfall. Good old Nat Wilde. He really could sell anything. Arriving with Serena’s share of the loot from the sale of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the milkmaid in cash, Julian also brought with him a bottle of vintage Bollinger. Feeling like she had just won the lottery, Serena held a fan of fifties in each hand and laughed at her amazing good fortune while Julian poured the champagne into two flutes—a wedding present from Tom’s sister. Serena was glad she hadn’t smashed them over Tom’s head after all.
“I’ve got some more good news,” he told her. “We have our provenance for your little Madonna.”
“What? How?”
Julian had at last found a way to slip a note regarding the painting into the archives at Annabel’s museum. He’d told Annabel that he’d always wanted to make love among the stacks, and she had granted his wish for his birthday. Not his real birthday. That was months away. But Julian was desperate to get out of his arrangement with Annabel. The situation was becoming more and more complicated. It was clear she thought they were headed for the altar, and Julian really didn’t want to have to go so far as to jilt the silly cow.
So they made love in the stacks, and afterward, when Annabel scampered upstairs to answer her phone (which Julian was actually ringing from his mobile), he found just enough time to do what he really needed to do, which was place a copy of a letter purporting to be from the museum to his mother, thanking her for agreeing to the loan of the Madonna, in among the exhibition archive for 1973.
Serena was impressed, though of course Julian didn’t tell her exactly how he had come to achieve such a coup. She was still under the impression that his museum contact was a man.
“So you think we should go for it?” she asked him.
“Now or never,” said Julian. “I have to be honest. I’ve already let slip to Nat Wilde that I might have a Renaissance altarpiece in my possession. He’s very keen to know more.”
Serena put her hands to her cheeks, suddenly overcome with a mixture of excitement and panic. “What exactly did you say?” she had to ask.
“I described your painting. I said it looked Renaissance to me but because I’m not an expert, I couldn’t be sure it was real. I said that I found it when I went to collect the contents of a strongbox from Mother’s old bank in Exeter. I told him I had no idea what it was but that when I thought about it for a little while, I vaguely recalled having seen it in a museum. Then it dawned on me that Ma and Pa must have lent the painting to a museum for a while. If only I could remember which one …”
“And of course,” said Serena, warming to the theme, “you’re going to remember the museum where you have your contact!”
“Exactly. And when Nat Wilde researches the provenance, he will find a record of the loan right where it should be.”
“God, you’re clever.”
“We’ll leave it to Wilde to make the final decision. If he decides the painting isn’t real, no problem. I never claimed that it was. But I don’t think he’ll come to that conclusion.”
Serena chewed her lip. “I wonder what sort of price he’ll put on it.”
“It’s unattributed, so it won’t be millions, but in the tens of thousands, I should think. It’s very rare to find works from that period in such good condition, after all.”
Julian picked up his champagne flute to toast her.
“To a formidable team,” he said.
Julian had no idea how much it meant to Serena when he referred to them as being a team. It was wonderful to feel part of a partnership again, especially since every day seemed to bring a new reminder of how she had failed in her partnership with Tom.
Divorce proceedings were well under way. From time to time, the idea that it was actually happening, that she and Tom were legally parting ways, still took her by surprise. But he had been living with Donna for well over eighteen months now. Tom’s mother, who still called a couple of times a week to talk to Serena and her granddaughter, had given up telling her favorite daughter-in-law that Tom would realize his mistake and crawl back. Instead, Joyce started to tentatively mention Donna in her conversations with Serena about Katie’s weekends in London, which was when Joyce got to see her. It was clear that Joyce was preparing herself for Donna to become Tom’s second wife.
“She’s actually really very nice,” Joyce muttered one day.
Well, that was more than could be said for Donna’s lawyer, who was now Tom’s lawyer too. Serena’s own solicitor was utterly cowed by the vile woman, who seemed to have made it her personal mission to ensure that Serena limped away from her marriage with less than she had brought into it. Serena noticed from the headed notepaper that Tom’s lawyer, Beverly Grange, was a Mrs., and Serena wondered how it was possible to remain married when you spent all day stripping people of any illusions they might have about the enduring nature of love and romance. Did Beverly Grange go home at night and tell her husband that she had just billed her client a year’s worth of school fees to settle an argument over a silver serving platter worth five hundred quid?
While the lawyers’ letters were flying back and forth, it suited Serena very well to have Julian turn up with a case full of cash. Mrs
. Beverly Grange need never know.
But it was more than the money. Julian’s presence inoculated Serena against the worst of the divorce. As time went on and Tom refused to come to a reasonable agreement as to how to split their assets, she knew that they were heading for court. And if they got to court, the gloves would be off. Tom had already warned her, in the heat of an argument, about his wanting to take Katie out of school so that she could accompany him and Donna to the Hamptons, that if it came to it, he would be more than willing to tell a judge how “mentally unstable” Serena was. As far as she could tell, this diagnosis of mental instability was based solely on the fact that she didn’t always agree with him, but as ridiculous and groundless as she knew it was, Serena worried that a judge would think otherwise.
On the other hand, Julian made her feel human. He made her feel beautiful. He made her feel talented. He made her feel loved. She trusted him. When they made love, Serena felt fully herself again. She was no longer the downtrodden wife who had sent her husband running into the arms of another woman with her dowdiness. She was the free spirit Tom had fallen for. Serena sensed that the painting of the Little Madonna had given her part of herself back too.
When he went back to London the next morning, Julian took Serena’s little Madonna with him, wrapped in the scruffy old cloth in which he had delivered the original piece of board, for extra authenticity. As she waved him off, Serena said a little prayer. Please let my work be good enough to fool Nat Wilde. Julian muttered a similar prayer. Not least because he wanted—no, needed—to break up with Annabel before the next weekend, when he had promised to go with her to her parents’ house. The prospect of sitting across a dinner table from Annabel’s father made him more nervous than his upcoming appointment to show the Madonna to Nat Wilde.
After a night with Serena and with a night of Annabel ahead of him, Julian wondered why so many men thought it would be good to have more than one wife. Personally, he was exhausted by the very thought. He understood why alpha-male lions seemed to spend so much of their time asleep.
Julian called Nat Wilde from the service station at Membury. Wilde took his call at once.
“Julian Trebarwen. How the devil are you?”
“Good, good,” said Julian. “I’ve got the Madonna I was telling you about. I could be in London in two hours or so. Shall I bring it straight to your office?”
Wilde paused.
“No,” he said eventually. “Don’t bring it here. Not to the office. Bring it over to my place later. I’ll be home from six-thirty. You know where I live.”
Julian agreed to the rendezvous. Leaving the “priceless” Madonna wrapped in her rags on the backseat of the car, he scuttled across the rain-swept parking lot into the service station itself. He had a pee, then bought a coffee and a sausage roll, which he ate sitting next to a window, watching the rain.
God, he thought as he looked out on the gray, gray landscape. How on earth did my life get so bloody complicated?
CHAPTER 30
Mathieu Randon’s plan to sell his art collection to fund his good works was swinging into action. His assistant Bellette issued invitations to the world’s best auction houses to pitch for Randon’s business. He had met with and decided against most of the big names, and thus invitations were sent out to a second tier of smaller houses, including, in London, Ludbrook’s and Ehrenpreis.
“Fuck me,” said Nat Wilde when he heard that Randon had summoned him. “I thought the old bugger was dead.”
Carrie was rather less surprised when she received the call from Bellette. After reading that article in Vanity Fair, she had taken the initiative and contacted Randon’s office. She was pleased that her overture had been taken seriously.
“Where would Monsieur Randon like to meet me?” Carrie asked in immaculate French.
Bellette replied in perfect English. “He has requested that you join him on the Côte d’Azur. On his yacht. The Grand Cru.”
“That will be fine.” Carrie betrayed no hint of excitement. She wanted Bellette to be clear that she was used to dealing with people who had yachts. She wanted Mathieu Randon to be sure that she was a professional who could handle the wealthy without getting flustered. Inside, however, she was very excited indeed. The Grand Cru might not have been the biggest yacht in the world, but it was definitely one of the most beautiful boats plying the Med right then.
“You are to fly to Nice next Thursday,” Bellette continued. “And stay overnight at the Hotel du Cap in Antibes. Monsieur Randon will send a tender to fetch you from the hotel jetty the following morning at eleven-thirty sharp.”
“Of course,” said Carrie, flicking to the correct page in her calendar and seeing that, thank goodness, she had a very light couple of days. Mostly in-house stuff. Meetings that could easily be set back or brought forward. She would be in France whenever Randon wanted her.
“I’ll email you with the travel arrangements.”
“I wonder,” Carrie asked Bellette, “if it would be possible for me to see an inventory of the work Monsieur Randon is hoping to consign.”
“That’s not possible,” said Bellette. “He would rather talk you through the collection himself.”
Damn it, thought Carrie as she put down the phone. That was not helpful. Like most of her peers in the auction world, Carrie was a generalist. She knew a little about a lot of things. When visiting a client such as Mathieu Randon, she would generally study up on their collection before she arrived, cramming her head with facts that would remain just long enough to convince the potential client that she knew more about Rembrandt or Picasso or Giacometti than anyone else in the business. She wondered if Randon was being deliberately difficult, in order to suss out what she really knew. Well, she would do her best to short-circuit that ruse. She called Jessica into her office.
“I need you to track down every piece of information you can about Mathieu Randon. I want you to find out which dealers he’s bought from before. I need to know as much as you can possibly find out about his taste.”
• • •
Nat Wilde tasked Lizzy Duffy with exactly the same mission.
Randon’s arrogance—getting his assistant to call up to tell, rather than ask, Nat when they would be meeting—suggested that he knew he had something special. Possibly enough to build an individual sale around. Nat salivated at the thought.
Having been asked to produce a report on the type of artwork Randon was likely to have in his collection so that Nat could pitch his presentation just so, Lizzy naturally assumed she would be accompanying him on the jaunt to the Côte d’Azur. As soon as she heard about the trip she started to plan her holiday wardrobe in her head. How hot would it be? Back home that evening she studied her winter-white body in the bathroom mirror. First thing the next day she made an appointment to have a spray tan. She’d never done it before, but the girl at the salon, who was the same color as a fishstick, assured Lizzy that it would look “Really natural. Because it’s formulated with natural oils and stuff.”
Lizzy wasn’t entirely convinced but she went ahead anyway. The alternative, to have to wear ankle-length caftans the whole time, was not an option. If Nat was going to take her to the Hotel du Cap, one of the world’s most romantic hideaways, she wanted her body to look its very best.
Lizzy had her first spray tan session two days after Nat got the call from Randon’s office. She timed it for the end of the day so that she could sleep in the gloop for maximum effect.
“Lizzy,” said Sarah Jane the next morning. “Are you okay? You look a bit yellow.”
Yellow was not the color for Lizzy later that day when Nat thanked her for the report she had written about Mathieu Randon’s art habits.
“I’m extremely grateful. You’re such a star, Lizzy darling. So diligent. It’s great to know that the office will be in good hands while Sarah Jane and I are in the Cap d’Antibes.”
“What?” Lizzy spat the word out. “You and Sarah Jane? You’re taking Sarah Jane?”
“But,” Lizzy tried, “surely he’ll be just as suspicious if you leave me behind? I’m the natural choice for the job. He might think you’re trying to double bluff him if you don’t take me. I’m your number two.”
“Exactly,” said Nat. “Thus you’re next in line when it comes to control of the office.”
“Olivia could go to France,” Lizzy tried. “She hasn’t been on many trips.”
It got worse.
“Now, darling,” said Nat. “You didn’t hear this from me, but Mathieu Randon is an infamous ladies’ man, and alas, our sweet Olivia is no real beauty. We’re going to need every advantage we can get to bring this baby back to Ludbrook’s, and my suspicion is that Randon will find Sarah Jane slightly more enticing than Olivia and her terrible glasses.”
Lizzy didn’t know what to be most offended about: Nat’s bloody awful sexism, which he seemed to find such a joke, or the implication that Sarah Jane was more attractive than Lizzy too.
“Fine,” said Lizzy. “I’m sure I’ll be able to manage the office on my own in your absence. After all, you’re only going to be away for one night.”
“Three nights. It’s a long way to go for twenty-four hours. But two of those nights will be over the weekend, so you won’t have to worry about that.”
On the contrary, Lizzy worried very much indeed.
Lizzy’s mood did not improve when Sarah Jane came by her desk and announced that she had mislaid the paperwork relating to one of the paintings in that evening’s old masters sale.
Priceless Page 16