Domina

by L. S. Hilton

  ‘Aren’t we going to offer one to Stravinsky?’ I remarked conversationally. It seemed in keeping with this deranged cocktail party. ‘He’s eleven graves along.’

  Elena snorted. ‘Hah. Old plagiarist.’

  Not my most successful gambit.

  ‘So you were a dancer?’ I tried.

  ‘Not much of one. For a few years I wanted to get into the Bolshoi Academy, but I wasn’t good enough. And then I met Pavel.’ She snorted again and drained her vodka. ‘I thought we could talk here.’

  ‘Fair enough. It wasn’t the first time you saw me, was it, Elena? That evening at the beach house? And we didn’t meet at Carlotta’s wedding either. You first saw me on Mikhail Balensky’s boat.’

  Balensky, known as ‘The Man from the Stan’, was a notor-ious arms-dealer-turned-businessman who had invited Steve to a party when I was staying on the Mandarin. Carlotta had posed as Steve’s fiancée while I conducted a little industrial espionage below decks. I have a good recall for faces, and Elena’s, deeply tanned and unfortunately made-up, had jumped out at me as soon as I ran the memory.

  ‘Quite right. That’s why I assumed you were a – tart, you say?’

  The bells of the fat miniature basilica were chiming eight along the avenues of graves.

  ‘Won’t the cemetery be closing now?’

  Elena smiled wryly ‘We are enjoying a private visit, courtesy of Pavel. I might as well take advantage while I still can. So?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘So. In 2007 Rostropovich’s collection came up for auction at one of the big houses in London. The sale was cancelled at the last minute because a Russian buyer purchased the pieces in their entirety for about twenty-five million dollars. He promised to return them to Russia, a patriotic gesture that made him very popular. Shall I carry on?’

  Elena hardly appeared to be listening. She was rummaging in her bag again. ‘You want to frighten me,’ I continued, ‘because you are frightened yourself. You want a picture that you can hand over to the Russian state as collateral for your protection. Like the businessman did with the Rostropovich pieces?’

  She looked up and smiled, offering me a couple of photocopied papers. ‘You are very quick.’

  ‘Either you’re quick or you’re dead.’

  ‘What?’ She looked absurdly startled.

  ‘Nothing. Sorry.’

  I glanced at the papers she had produced. Printouts from the online edition of an Italian newspaper; a report on the murder of an English art dealer, Cameron Fitzpatrick, in Rome; a short French article on the ongoing police investigation of a mysterious death in a hotel near the Place de l’Odéon, Paris. I was familiar with them both.

  ‘Looks like we’re both pretty good at research. Can we get on with this, please? I’m cold.’

  ‘Have another drink.’

  What Elena said next made me choke on it.

  ‘My husband has a Caravaggio drawing.’

  She might not have cut it as a prima ballerina, but she had a real talent for theatrics.

  ‘That’s impossible. Everyone knows that. Caravaggio didn’t draw – he was famous for it.’

  ‘Nonetheless.’

  ‘It must be a fake – it has to be. Whatever he’s told you –’

  ‘He has told me nothing. He and Balensky bought it, together. That is the picture I want.’

  ‘I saw a Caravaggio, but it’s a copy. A brilliant one, but a copy. Your husband knows that.’

  ‘That’s not the picture I mean. This is a drawing. Made here, in Venice.’

  ‘Elena, Caravaggio didn’t draw, and he never came to Venice. I don’t know what you think you know, but if you think I am going anywhere near this, you are wrong. Totally wrong. I’m sorry about your difficulties, if you really have them, but I’m leaving now.’

  I stood and began to walk purposefully towards the dock.

  ‘Wait. I’m sorry. Please wait.’ In the fading light she looked like a funeral statue herself, in her unwieldy gown, her hand again at her throat. Something about the appeal in her voice made me pause in the still, greying air.

  ‘Really, I’m not trying to threaten you. I don’t care who you are, or what you have done. I know how my husband found you. It was something to do with that man, in Paris.’ Elena’s voice was wild – it occurred to me that she’d started on the vodka much earlier than I’d noticed. I’d had enough experience with my mother to recognise the signs. She had started to cry, pawing restlessly at her eyes as the tears made tracks in her bronzer.

  ‘Come on, Elena, it’s getting cold. We’ll go to my flat and I’ll get you some coffee.’ The flat was the last place I wanted her, but she was too sloppy for a public place. I put my arm firmly around her shoulders, kept my voice firm and gentle as I had so often done, all the times I’d had to haul my mother to bed. ‘Come on. Let’s get you back.’

  *

  Elena knew. Yermolov knew. If I didn’t fix this somehow, I couldn’t continue my life as Elisabeth Teerlinc. And Yermolov had humiliated me. He had played me, and the thought of it sparked a tiny, long-forgotten flame inside. Since I couldn’t plausibly dispose of Elena, I had to use her. If I didn’t, Yermolov could destroy me, and she knew it.

  *

  She threw up over the side of the launch on the crossing, which seemed to clear her head. I asked the boatman to get us as near as he could to the piazza, and explained to the goon that I was going to help Mrs Yermolov into some fresh clothes, as she was feeling unwell. He positioned himself outside the street door of my flat. I wondered if it was the first time he’d been there. Letting us in, I took a quick, suspicious sniff at the air, but smelled nothing except Cire Trudon’s Spiritus Sancti. I asked Elena if she was hungry, but she shook her head impatiently, so I made coffee, adding sugar to hers. I fetched a pair of sweatpants, socks and a jumper and told her to slip them on, then we sat side by side on the chaise. After washing her face, and in the simple clothes, she looked much younger. I saw again how lovely she must have been.

  ‘They have been here,’ I began. ‘Your husband’s people. Moving stuff around.’ I wasn’t going to let on exactly what stuff, or what message I thought her husband could have been sending.

  ‘I thought so. That’s how they work, at first. Him and Balensky.’

  ‘And they bought this supposed Caravaggio drawing together. They’re friends then?’

  ‘Friends, colleagues, but not anymore. They made a lot of money in property together back in the day, in Moscow.’ I recalled Masha’s story about the way Yermolov dealt with inconvenient tenants. Knowing he was involved with Balensky, who had brazened out a fairly foul reputation, made me wonder.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘They haven’t been friends since this.’ She used her now bare toe to scoot her handbag across the floor towards us and unfolded the second newspaper clipping.

  ‘This man, the man who died in the hotel room? He worked for my husband. Also for Balensky.’

  ‘I knew him as Moncada.’ There didn’t seem much point in pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about. Especially since I hadn’t actually killed him.

  ‘You were there, the night he died, yes?’

  I nodded, slowly. ‘I was selling him a picture. I took it to the hotel, in the Place de l’Odéon, yes. I left before the – murder.’

  ‘My husband knew that. His people were watching the hotel. There was another picture there; the Moncada man was waiting to hand it over on behalf of my husband and Balensky. Then this Moncada was killed. But when my husband tried to find the picture, it was gone. Balensky double-crossed him, he thought, with you.’

  ‘Hang on. Your husband thinks I took his Caravaggio? That’s why he pursued me?’

  ‘I think so. He thinks you – cheated him. You and Balensky.’

  ‘This is nuts. Besides, I didn’t. I really didn’t.’

  ‘This is what I know about you. A woman named Judith Rashleigh is questioned by the Italian police in connection with the murder of an art dealer
, Cameron Fitzpatrick. The woman sets up an art gallery in Paris, registered under the name Gentileschi. The woman is then seen leaving a hotel where another man has been murdered, carrying a picture. Then . . . pouf! – Gentileschi appears as a gallery in Venice, now registered to Elisabeth Teerlinc. And the picture is missing.’

  ‘How do you know all this, Elena? It’s bizarre. I thought you said you and your husband were separated?’

  ‘We are estranged, yes. But officially still married, while he gets things ready. I am permitted –’ she snorted the word contemptuously – ‘to continue to live in our homes, for the present. But we don’t cross over. That evening in France, I had come unexpectedly. I wanted to talk to him.’

  ‘And you found out about this – this business?’

  ‘I am a good spy. I’m Russian, no? When I knew Pavel wanted to divorce me I needed information,’ she added with a bitter little laugh.

  Startling though Elena’s knowledge was, her account left me . . . almost relieved. If Yermolov’s scare tactics were aimed at getting me to return a picture I didn’t have, I could quickly correct the misapprehension. The picture I had carried to the hotel in the Place de l’Odéon had been a small Gerhard Richter, legitimately purchased at auction by Gentileschi. It was a pity that I hadn’t attended the sale in person, as auctions are taped and I supposed that way I could have shown him myself bidding for it, but the provenances were on record; they had to be, as I had given the painting to Dave, who had been my friend back at the House, where he had worked as a porter after leaving the army. Thanks to some connections which had proved very useful to both of us, he and his wife had moved to a pretty village near Bath, where he had retrained as an art-history teacher. The Richter had been sold to fund their move to the country. I explained as briefly as I could.

  Elena’s hands were uncreasing her clippings again. She seemed to have a talismanic faith in them.

  ‘I accept your story, Judith. But I want the Caravaggio. You have secrets – I told you, I don’t care about them. Nor, I imagine, does my husband, if he knows you are not a thief. I would like you to offer to find the picture for him, and when you find it, to tell me where it is. That’s all.’

  ‘What is this? Ocean’s Eleven? Why would I do that, Elena?’

  ‘If you do not agree, I will tell him I have been here.’ She nodded at the window, reminding me of the presence of the goon beneath us. ‘Such a coincidence! Both friends of dear Carlotta. And I will tell him I have seen the picture, and he will kill you first and look for it afterwards. Or I could suggest to the Italian police that they reopen a certain case, ask you why you are living under fake papers. And also – this is the one I like – because I think you will.’

  She was threatening me, but she was also offering me a game, of sorts. In a way I didn’t dislike the idea of helping her get one over on Yermolov. Not for her sake, but for mine. For now, I played along, if only because I so desperately needed time to think.

  ‘OK, Elena. Checkmate. Though I can’t understand why your husband would want to divorce you. You’re brilliant.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘Yes, I was, once.’

  11

  I agreed to meet Elena the next day for lunch at the café above the Guggenheim Collection. Most of the night was spent hunched over my laptop. Every now and then I’d jump at a creaking board or the scratch of one of the ubiquitous Venetian rats in the plasterwork, but now that I knew the source of their presence, Yermolov’s ‘ghosts’ no longer troubled me. I had other things to worry about, namely the source who had identified me in Paris.

  The night I had met Moncada in the Place de l’Odéon, he had also been working for Yermolov and Balensky, transporting the supposed Caravaggio to them. I already knew that Balensky was dodgy, and it didn’t exactly surprise me that Yermolov’s past was less squeaky-clean than it seemed. Moncada was Italian mafia; he moved dubious pictures, and a Caravaggio ‘drawing’ was nothing if not dubious. So Moncada could have informed the oligarchs of his meeting with me at the hotel. But Elena had also said that someone had seen me leave with the picture. That couldn’t have been Moncada, because he was in the room on the fourth floor, being strangled by Renaud. The someone else was the person I needed to find, and Elena was a distraction. Simply contacting Yermolov and telling him I didn’t have the Caravaggio was pointless. Firstly because he had no reason to believe me, and secondly as, until I discovered the source, I would never be free of the trail left by that stupid text.

  The problem with going along with Elena’s plan was that the idea of the picture itself was preposterous. All the experts I consulted on Caravaggio were unanimous that he had never drawn – at most he may have pricked pinholes in his canvases to mark out the placement of his models – but there was some disagreement as to whether he had visited Venice. In the online archive of the London Library I found a journal article by a Venetian professor which dismissed the idea, which I copied onto my phone to show Elena. I had to get her off my back, contact Yermolov and explain the misunderstanding, then set about discovering the source. Any thoughts of revenge on the oligarchs were self-indulgence, though I did permit myself a few little fantasies as to what I would do to them as I walked over to the Guggenheim.

  *

  Elena had her unfortunate game-face back on and was halfway down a bottle of Pinot Grigio when I arrived at the museum’s rooftop café. I poured myself some water, hoping she would follow my virtuous example.

  ‘Where’s your friend? Burgling my flat again?’

  ‘Yury? He excused himself on an errand. So I’m celebrating,’ she replied defiantly, pouring herself another glass. I took the bottle and turned it upside down in the ice bucket, followed by the contents of the glass.

  ‘Have some water, Elena. You’re no good pissed, however sorry you feel for yourself.’

  Her protestations were interrupted by the waitress. I ordered mint and fennel bruschetta and a portion of ravioli. I like to live on the edge where carbohydrates are concerned. Elena asked for a green salad, no dressing.

  ‘Elena, I’ve thought it over,’ I explained as the girl set down her depressing lunch. ‘I don’t think I can help, really. For a start, we both know that despite that – business in Paris, I don’t have the picture. I know you believe me. So it must have been Balensky. But there’s no way that whatever Balensky did or didn’t steal from your husband is worth anything. Even if I could find it for you, it has to be a fake. I was up half the night checking it out online and there’s no suggestion of such a drawing existing. I checked it out with the experts. So even if you could get this picture, because you think it represents some kind of leverage, it won’t help you in the event that you get divorced.’

  Elena was negotiating a rocket leaf. It hung from the side of her mouth as she practically snarled at me. ‘Why don’t you just kill me?’

  I’d already run through about six methods of doing precisely that, but none of them seemed viable without being discovered. Though Yermolov might offer me a reward. Maybe, though, it was the image of the two open faces of Elena’s sons underneath their boaters that had made me soft in my old age. I sat there as she champed up the salad.

  ‘I have no idea what you mean.’

  She exaggerated her accent, rolling the ‘r’. ‘What is your phrase? I know too much!’ She collapsed into a fit of giggles, snorting into her plate.

  This was getting boring, but the pumpkin and amaretti in their slippery whorls of pasta were really excellent.

  ‘Stop being stupid, please. Your husband has some extraordinary pictures – the Botticellis, for example. Surely they would be just as good? If you could get those, to give to the state?’

  She gasped down her hilarity and finally sipped some water. ‘He will give me nothing. I am sure that the drawing exists, that it is real. And I am sure that you will help me. Here.’

  Not another newspaper clipping, thank Christ. Elena was holding out her phone, open at a photograph. Or rather, a photo of a
photo.

  ‘I took this in my husband’s study. It was the day he told me I could no longer use the houses at the same time as him. He had had my things packed up and moved, as though he was sacking a servant.’

  I knew that feeling. Maybe that was why I reached for the phone and fanned my fingertips over the screen, expanding, reducing. The original photo showed a sepia-toned drawing room with a large arched window overlooking what was recognisably the Grand Canal, a heavy credenza beneath it, and next to that a stiff-backed sofa covered in what looked like a patterned silk. Above the sofa was a framed picture. I focused in, seeing what seemed to be a portrait of a woman. A bust, slightly turned to three-quarter profile, both elbows propped out as though she was leaning against something. Her hair was bundled messily on her head, her gaze cast down. I magnified the shot, observing both the spare graphic of the line and the intense, tenebristic modelling of the head, which seemed to be done in another colour from the black and white, though in the old photo it was hard to discern. The whole picture looked rippled, though whether that was the reflection from the frame’s glass or a quality of the canvas was hard to discern.

  ‘This picture was taken in the 1890s, in a pensione here in Venice. That’s the drawing.’

  ‘The famous Caravaggio?’ I stared hard, held the phone close to my eyes, back, close again. ‘It’s on cloth?’ The un-evenness in the surface of the picture looked to be produced by fabric.

  ‘Linen. That’s what it said in the notes, but I didn’t have much time.’

  ‘Notes?’

  ‘There was a letter, but I didn’t have time to photograph that. But the picture shows that it was there, over a century ago, that it’s real.’ The certainty in her voice was painful.