by L. S. Hilton
I made a few futile, frantic passes at my face and hair in the pearly gleam of the bathroom mirror. Not the moment for a quick dye job. If Angelica recognised me then the whole sale would be blown, and without that . . . The memory of Salvatore digging his pit in the hot, hard ground flashed irrationally behind my eyes. Absolutely nothing for it but to brazen things out. Buy some time, at least. I swiftly gathered my hair into a messy bun. I’d never made it to the Siderno hairdresser and, after months of neglect, it was looking distressingly like Judith’s old barnet. As I twisted my head to shove the grip in, the silvered tissue of the scar on my cheek caught the light. I had got used to covering it with concealer, but I hadn’t bothered with make-up for the plane. Judith Rashleigh hadn’t had a scar. Using a lipstick and a cotton bud, I intensified it very slightly, just enough to make it stand out. The only other thing I could do was dial up the Euro-lilt in my accent. The backstory I had invented for Elisabeth Teerlinc had her down as Swiss. I picked up the service phone.
‘Zis is Miss Teerlinc in 203? Please tell Miss Belvoir that if she’d be kind enough to wait for me in the Fumoir, I’ll be down in a moment.’
It was just after seven, a decent time for a drink. The art deco opium den of the bar was dimly lit, and moreover had a strict no-photographs policy. Alvin Spencer’s obsession with selfies hadn’t worked out too well for him.
Angelica rose to greet me as I entered the bar. Just as tall and blonde and spikily slender as I remembered, she was wearing a witty Dolce & Gabbana maxi-dress, a print of farfalle. My own cotton shirt and jeans felt crushed and dingy with travel – Angelica’s ability to make me feel awkward and irritated hadn’t diminished. Good. I held out a stiff hand.
‘Elizabeth Teerlinc. I’m so sorry, I wasn’t expecting – you must be?’
‘Angelica. Angelica Belvoir. Rupert sent me over to welcome you. We’re, like, sooo excited!’
So far, so gushy, but there was an alertness in her eyes that hadn’t been a big feature when she was drifting round the department.
‘Rupert?’
‘Oh, yah, sorry. I used to work at the House, but I’m freelance now. I’ve come back to, like, maximise on their social media profiles?’
‘Amazing!’
A waiter set down two glasses of champagne. We sipped, I smiled expectantly.
‘So, yeah, amazing, right?’
I went right on smiling. I wasn’t going to make it easy for her, although my heart was banging so loudly I was surprised she couldn’t hear it over the faint tinkle of undemanding classics from the piano in the lounge. Angelica sat a little straighter. I toyed briefly with glassing her with my champagne flute and making a dash for it.
‘Ooops! Nearly forgot – Rupert asked me to bring you these.’
Three catalogues for the July sale, with a glossy insert on Woman with a Fan II. She looked gorgeous, truly gorgeous. I flipped politely through the other pages.
‘We’ve got the de Kooning too, of course, and some other fabulous things, a Cezanne, a Utrillo.’
‘Wonderful.’
‘So,’ Angelica continued, scooping a handful of hair off her face in a familiar gesture, ‘obviously we’re really keen to get going on publicising the sale, and your fantastic discovery. It’s going to be huge!’ She began explaining her ‘strategy’ for Instagram, but I cut across her.
‘Angelica,’ I said, ‘it sounds weird to ask this, but do you know a guy called Alvin Spencer?’ If she was suspicious, better take her by surprise. She paused. I scanned her face. Wrong-footed, but not astonished.
‘I’m so glad you asked that. Your name was familiar, I’d seen it on Facebook. I did try to write to you, last year, but . . .’
I’d taken down Gentileschi’s social media account soon after Alvin and I got acquainted.
‘I’ve been making some changes – buying for private clients. But I ask about Alvin because he came to see me at the gallery, in Venice. Last year, I think? Nice guy, how’s he doing?’ Light and breezy as you please.
‘Oh. I’m sorry, this is really, like, awkward. He, um . . . he passed away.’
‘Oh God! How terrible. Was he ill? He seemed . . .’
So then all I had to do was listen as Angelica explained the tragedy of Alvin’s disappearance. I discreetly signalled for another couple of glasses, which took us up to the discovery of Alvin’s body in Italy. I made the conventional noises of disinterested sympathy, keeping my eyes on her face, occasionally touching her arm.
‘It’s just . . . really sad,’ she concluded. ‘He was so sweet, and he had such a passion for art. But he couldn’t . . . he just couldn’t battle his addiction.’
‘Devastating,’ I agreed. There was an air of bewilderment about Angelica’s story, of disbelief that something so actually nasty had happened in her vicinity.
‘But, can I ask you something?’ She leaned forward. Here it comes.
‘When I saw you, I was sure I recognised you. Obviously I remembered the name. You don’t know someone called Judith, do you? Judith, er . . . Rashford, or something?’ Her casualness only showed how carefully she had planned the question.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of her.’
‘It’s just, sorry, I hope you don’t mind me saying, you look really like her. She used to be at the House.’
‘Maybe I have a doppelganger!’ I twinkled. That had been the word Alvin had used. Angelica seemed to scrutinise me in the red glow of the Fumoir lamps.
‘Actually, not really. You’re much prettier, Elisabeth!’
I touched my hand to my cheek, suddenly wishing the room was brighter.
‘That’s so sweet. I feel really self-conscious about this. Skiing accident when I was a kid!’
‘Oh you poor thing – I’d never have noticed. I’ve got one too! On my knee. Kitzbühel when I was ten.’
Now the conversation was on the slopes, Angelica seemed much more relaxed, even convinced. And she was here to suck up to me, after all. Once we’d done five minutes of various Alpine resorts, she explained about a planned photo shoot, which would then be ‘dripped out’ on social media to encourage interest in the sale. Sky News wanted an interview and there had been enquiries from several weekly magazines. Which meant I was going to have to call my mother. Fabulous. I’d been out of England too long; the changes at the House should have warned me to expect an all-singing, all-dancing media fest, but then I’d had other things to think about. Now I was supposed to be doing an effing podcast about Gauguin. When I had been working at the House, it was expected that sellers would wish to remain anonymous – ‘Property of Lady’ or the name of a dealer was sufficient information for the catalogue. In the past, sales had been relatively discreet affairs – the big money might have attracted attention, sure, but only after the fact. Now, however, everyone was famous, everyone was singing desperately into the bedroom mirror, wanting to be chosen, wanting to make it to the final. Angelica, who, she proudly informed me, had 33k followers on her own Insta account, was clearly much more evolved in this respect than I was. I told myself it was nice that she’d finally found her niche, if you could call taking selfies at charity fashion shows a career, but even to me that sounded bitter. What was it about her that made me feel so . . . provincial?
At least we’d called a truce on the identity parade for the moment. Still, when I finally left the Fumoir, longing wearily for a cup of proper English tea and my bed, I felt her eyes on me as I crossed the lobby, and my spine felt cold.
*
‘All right, love! How are things?’
My mother and I went through the regular routine of our irregular conversations – the weather (crap) what she’d been up to (nothing much) what was going on round the estate (the usual).
‘Listen, Mum. I’m in London.’
‘That’s nice, then.’
‘Yeah. Look, there’s something I probably should have told you earlier.’ I heard her breathe in sharply.
‘Nothing se
rious. It’s just . . . well – I’m here to sell a painting. Through my gallery.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘It’s going great. It’s just, when I set it up, I changed my name. Ages ago now. And there’s going to be some stuff in the newspapers about the sale. I didn’t want you to be shocked.’
She paused.
‘Mum? Are you there?’
‘Sorry, I was just putting the kettle on. Look, I understand. It’s best. What with . . . with what happened.’
What happened being that Judith Rashleigh’s biggest claim to fame in Liverpool was being found with the dead body of her five-month-old baby sister in her arms.
‘OK, then. Thanks.’
Another feature of our little chats was the terrible hiatus at the end.
‘Take care, Mum.’
‘Tara then, Judy. Love you.’
‘No you don’t,’ I whispered after she’d hung up.
*
After the makeshift arrangements at the farmhouse, the slip of the Pratesi bed linen on my skin felt wonderful, but even an astronomical thread count couldn’t soothe Angelica’s image from my brain. What were my options? Disposing of her might not be difficult, but it would be stupid. Some sort of blackmail? Da Silva had arranged the discovery of Alvin’s body convincingly – Angelica appeared to swallow the overdose story without question, but might there be something else da Silva could do, some secret we could invent to compromise the family? Yet why would Elisabeth Teerlinc be concerning herself with such things? To attack Angelica would be to expose myself.
I rolled over yet again and stared at the ceiling. At least my mother had made no fuss. She had always been the weakest point in the rickety bridge between my past and my presents. The practical thing would have been to get rid of her years ago, but I’d somehow never found the time. I doubted she’d talk, and even if she did it would only be to a load of pissheads in the pub. Yet, with social media, it would only take one twattering busybody to connect the long-forgotten piece in the Liverpool Echo with the face that was sharing a joke with Eamonn Holmes on the sofa and Judith Rashleigh’s cover would be worth less than her ‘Gauguin’.
What were the odds? I seemed to have spent most of the past five years asking myself that question. Refusing Angelica’s planned publicity could look suspiciously shady. But I’d spent a long time burying my old self – I didn’t look very much like her and I sounded nothing like her, so as long as my dear old ma kept her trap shut, I reckoned the odds were pretty good. Angelica had nothing to go on but a coincidental resemblance, diminished perhaps by the scar. All I could do, all I had to do, was appear serene.
I closed my eyes serenely for a few moments. Then I flicked on the light and grabbed the catalogue. Woman with a Fan II had a full page in the centre, the other half of which was occupied by the other star picture, de Kooning’s Intersection. The abstract work seemed dull and rickety next to Li’s radiant colours, though the photo couldn’t capture their subtlety, the infinitesimal shifts in their depth. My fingertips circled over the page like a medium reading a tarot card, harder and faster until I caught a nail and the thick paper shred a sliver of its surface in the bottom left corner, where the model’s wrap flowed into the frame. It recalled the moment in Essen, Li stooped over, trying to get a shot of the original canvas edge, that bloody midget interrupting us. And then I sat bolt upright. MacKenzie Pratt. Angelica had mentioned a picture by Maurice Utrillo. The Pratt collection was comprised primarily of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. Very slowly, I turned the pages. My fingers left smears of sweat on their thick pale margins. I found the Utrillo, quite average, one of his innumerable Montmartre street scenes. Though I knew what I was going to see, I forced myself to read the name of the seller. ‘Property of Ms Mackenzie S. Pratt.’ S for spy, S for spite, S for sabotage. Mackenzie had a picture in the sale, which meant Mackenzie would be in town. And I knew that the little scrape I had made in the paper was at precisely the point of the Gauguin’s weakness. The brushwork. The only thing I had ever doubted. The House had missed it, taking the brushwork as a whole, seeing what they dearly desired to see. But if there was a flaw, it was there. Waiting for the dissenter, the someone who didn’t want to believe. As she had made clear, Mackenzie hated Gauguin. And she had seen us.
17
My instinct was to run over to the House first thing the next morning and check the Gauguin, but after a night of fitful sleep and roiling dreams I thought better of it. Especially if Angelica’s beady eye was on me, any suggestion of uncertainty could alert suspicion. The pieces for the July sale were to be displayed over a three-day viewing the following week: Mackenzie Pratt would doubtless attend the cocktail party the House had arranged for the opening night, so until then my doubts about her and Li’s brushwork would have to wait. Instead, I spent the morning on Bond Street, giving my Gentileschi credit card the most vigorous workout it had seen for a year. As I made my way methodically through the boutiques, I couldn’t quite brush away the feeling that I was arming myself for a last stand, but then if the fat lady was going to sing, she might as well do it in Saint Laurent. Swinging into the Claridge’s lobby around noon, my phone rang. A helpful concierge dashed forward to catch my bags as I struggled to answer it.
‘Elisabeth? It’s Rupert. How are you? Are they making you comfortable?’
I’d managed to get my head around Rupert’s newfound bonhomie, but I didn’t think I’d ever get used to being anyone but ‘Er’.
‘Wonderful, thank you. And you?’
‘Well, things are moving – there’s been some press already today. Angelica Belvoir said the two of you had had a nice chat?’
‘She’s super, isn’t she?’ I chirruped grimly.
‘So, I wondered if you might be free for supper with me at my club this evening?’
‘Of course, Rupert.’
I wondered which of the Establishment strongholds on Pall Mall it would be – the Athenaeum, the Travellers, with its famous library? Or maybe Brooks’s, which I remembered Rupert used to favour for his afternoon nap?
‘Super. It’s, er . . . Soho House, actually.’ Rupert was clearly pretty chuffed about that. He was really moving with the times.
‘Lovely.’
‘So, 76 Dean Street at eight?’
‘I’ll look forward to seeing you.’
*
The story of the discovery of Woman with a Fan II had made three nationals as well as the early edition of the London Evening Standard. I read through them in the pedicure chair at the Elemis spa that afternoon. The Gauguin was described as being the property of an Italian bank, but Elisabeth Teerlinc and Gentileschi were mentioned in each, along with prices for previous Gauguin pictures, the details of the upcoming sale and speculation about the reserve, the basic price set for the picture. It was a curious feeling, to see something I had invented, both the picture and the person, in black and white. Five hours later, steamed and creamed and waxed and trimmed, Elisabeth Teerlinc emerged as poised and polished as the woman Judith Rashleigh had once dreamed of becoming. I had forgotten how long that shit took. As I was shopping, I had tried to remember what Judith Rashleigh might once have worn. After I’d stopped cringing at the recollection of my own immature taste, I considered that Rupert and Angelica had only ever seen me in my old black work suit, so I kept my new purchases to a range of tasteful neutrals. I’d had a few inches lopped off my hair, which I was going to wear pinned back at all times, the better to show off the little scar. It wasn’t much, but as I examined myself in the mirror before meeting Rupert, the woman in the scarf-necked white Gucci blouse, with her austerely bare face, bore only a marginal resemblance to the shabby junior expert I had once been.
Arriving first, I took a table under the heaters on the ground-floor terrace of the Georgian building to get a fag in before Rupert appeared. The club felt huge, floor after floor of restaurant spaces and drawing rooms, each of them an artfully painted distillation of matcha-sipping hi
pster cliché. A guy at the next table in Nudie jeans and George Michael frosted flicks was grumbling to the waiter about the ‘no Macs after seven’ rule. Rupert’s concession to another club policy – no suits – consisted of removing his jacket and tie, which produced an unpleasant billowing effect around his flanks as he squeezed himself between the group of unique individuals at the bar.
‘Just signed up for this place,’ he gloated as he handed me a glass of champagne. ‘Got them all over now – Istanbul, Mumbai.’
‘It’s . . . pretty cool, yes.’
‘So,’ he leaned forward and I grabbed the stem of my glass before his gut sent the table sideways.
‘You’ll be pleased to know we’ve agreed the reserve for our girl. Two hundred.’
‘That’s good,’ I said, as calmly as though I made ten per cent of two hundred million every day.
‘And we’ve been sending out some fluffers.’
‘Fluffers?’
‘Little joke in the department. You know, teasers, for the major clients.’
I did know. I’d written a few teasers in my time – lavish descriptions of the investment value of paintings to encourage serious buyers to sign up for paddles. What I didn’t know was if Rupert knew where the term ‘fluffer’ came from, but then, looking at his expectant leer, I had a sinking feeling that he did.
‘And we’ve had a pretty impressive response. Including a request from Heydar Zulfugarly.’ He leaned back to enjoy my reaction.
‘The oil guy?’
‘The very same.’