by Karen Swan
‘Do I need to point it out to you that your firm has represented my family for almost eighty years now? Your boss is like a brother to my father. Why do you insist on acting as though there are secrets? Unless you have something to hide?’
The young man, his skin now almost grey, looked between them both before turning and walking towards a painting on the back wall. He pushed down on the right-hand side of the frame and the entire thing swung back, as on a hinge, revealing a safe. He entered a code and, opening the door, returned a moment later with a long white envelope which he handed to Natascha.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking it from him and stuffing it into her bag. She laughed. ‘You can stop looking so scared, you know. You have done nothing wrong.’
Flora looked at him, expecting an explanation at least – what had been in that envelope and why had Flora been required to be present to get it? – but Natascha had left the room again and was already halfway across the office.
‘You are going with her, non?’ the man told, rather than asked, Flora, hurrying her along with an urgent tone as he saw her standing motionless. ‘You must go.’
He almost pushed her out the door and she had to jog to catch up with Natascha who was already back at the lift. Only as the doors closed and she looked back did Flora catch sight of the name of the company etched in gold across the front of the reception desk. The receptionist had a smile frozen to her face that Flora had no doubt would fall off the moment the doors closed.
‘Natascha, what did that man just give you?’ she asked, her voice rising an octave.
‘What concern is that of yours?’
‘Well, given that you just used my name and presence to get hold of it, I would say quite a lot, actually.’
The lift doors pinged open and they walked back out and into the waiting car again.
‘Natascha?’ Flora persisted, more stridently this time. Professional courtesy would only last for so long. ‘You’ve just barged into your family’s notary’s and somehow used me to get something you wanted. What was it?’
Natascha glanced up at her. ‘It is no big deal. He just gave me the spare keys to the apartment.’ And she quickly fired off the now-familiar address to Pascal who silently nodded and pulled out into the traffic.
‘But you can’t do that! You’re not supposed to go there!’ Flora cried. ‘Your grandmother has specifically barred you from doing so – she has the legal prerogative to do that.’
‘Non, she forbade my mother – not me, not my brother.’ Natascha sounded bored again. ‘Why shouldn’t I go, anyway? It belongs to our family.’
Flora didn’t know what to say. She had no idea of the specifics of Magda Vermeil’s diktats to her family or the legalities of the codicil. She was just a fine-arts specialist, there to record, preserve and classify what they found. ‘Listen, the scene is sensitive at the moment. There are a lot of valuable artworks just lying on the floor.’
‘Which is why I’m taking you with me. You can make sure I don’t do any damage. Be my witness, in case I need it.’ A hint of a sneer curled her lip.
‘Look, the fewer people going in there the better. If you want to see the paintings, of course, you can – but in a protective environment. Once we’ve moved everything to—’
‘I want to see my grandparents’ home, my heritage,’ Natascha said unconvincingly. Flora suspected the only heritage Natascha cared about was her trust fund.
‘But—’
Natascha stopped Flora in her tracks by holding up her hand, inches from Flora’s face. ‘Stop talking now.’
Flora stared at her in disbelief but Natascha was already oblivious, pressing Buy Now on the Net-A-Porter app for a punky orange-striped Fendi fur jacket from the pre-fall collection. Flora turned away in a fit of anger, her cheeks flaming with humiliation. But Natascha was oblivious – 5,000 euros and six minutes later, they pulled up outside the apartment and she ripped the keys from the envelope before bounding out of the car like an excited puppy.
‘Coming?’ she asked disingenuously, as Flora remained where she was in the car.
‘No!’ Flora pointedly turned the other cheek but she could see Natascha shrug in the window’s reflection and disappear into the building.
Flora managed to hold her ground for all of twelve seconds before she followed. It was more than she could bear to think of Natascha bulldozing through the apartment – supposedly in search of her heritage – and potentially damaging the artworks within. This was still her watch, at least until the security company moved the rest of the contents into proper storage tomorrow.
She could hear Natascha climbing the stairs on the storey above her; fitness didn’t seem to be her thing, unless running to the fridge for more vodka counted as exercise in her world.
Flora, ascending the stairs two at a time, caught up with her on the third floor. Or rather, she saw Natascha disappear into an apartment on the third floor, her long legs scissoring out of sight down a long, dark, dusty hall.
What?
She braked to a stop. No. How? This wasn’t right.
But the door was open, Natascha out of sight.
‘Natascha?’ she called after her. ‘You can’t go in there.’
No reply.
‘Natascha! Get back out here now!’
Silence.
‘For God’s sake,’ Flora muttered, taking a single step over the threshold, as though afraid to follow, her hand tracing the number 6 on the open front door, her fingers finding the key in the lock . . .
Wait, what? The key fit? It was the key for this door?
She could hear Natascha’s footsteps on the stripped floors as she barged from room to room. ‘Natascha!’
Slowly, she began to walk down the hall, sure she must be tripping. This made no sense. She doubted her own mind. Was she the one mistaken? She stared back at the door – at the brass 6 – and then back down the empty hall; she passed bare rooms, thick with dust and nothing else. She found Natascha in the bedroom at the front of the building. A wooden bedstead – no mattress – stood in the room, beside a crate.
‘Is that it?’ Natascha demanded, her hands on her hips.
Almost as though in slow motion, Flora looked at the painting lying face up on the slats of the bedstead. What was going on? Was this some kind of game? She walked towards the bed, noticing a toy on the floor beside the crate.
But that wasn’t what she was interested in. Her eyes were almost immediately drawn back to the solitary painting lying on the bones of the bed. Its beauty was luminous and all the more startling for being found here, alone – a portrait of a woman, Edwardian period, her green eyes shaped like pear-cut emeralds, her russet hair twisted and fashioned into an intricate topknot, the exquisitely rendered silk of her peacock-blue dress modulating through teal to turquoise to sea-green, with top notes of gold flecks. On one elegant hand was a gold signet ring, on the other a ruby, the vermilion scratch shocking against the creaminess of her skin, like blood in the snow.
Flora’s eyes flicked to the bottom corners, looking for a signature, but there wasn’t one that she could see and she turned it over and checked the back – nothing. No gallery sticker or dealer name, no exhibition number, no clue to reveal who this woman was, nor who had immortalized her. Immediately Flora knew this rendered the painting almost worthless on the open market but she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a more beautiful portrait.
‘You said there were hundreds of paintings here!’ Natascha shouted, dragging her from her immersive thoughts. ‘I heard you. I stood behind the door and I heard you!’
But Flora wasn’t interested in Natascha’s confession. All her concentration was folded inwards as her brain tried to process what her eyes were showing her. It wasn’t just that the apartment was almost entirely empty . . . ‘I don’t understand. You had a key?’
‘Don’t try and play the innocent with me! What have you done with them?’
‘Done with what?’
‘My family’s paint
ings! Where have you hidden them?’
‘I haven’t hidden anything!’
‘Then explain to me where are the hundreds of paintings in my grandparents’ apartment,’ Natascha said sarcastically, holding her arms out wide and indicating the empty space. ‘What have you done? Where are they?’
Flora blinked back, understanding precious little more than Natascha did. But without saying a word, she unfurled her index finger and pointed to the ceiling.
Chapter Seven
Flora stood by the front door, refusing to play ball. She wouldn’t be part of this; she wouldn’t be Natascha’s tour guide. It wasn’t as though she knew what the hell was going on anyway. She couldn’t make sense of what had just happened: another key, another apartment, another painting?
Her finger traced the brass figure 8 on the door as Natascha prowled the rooms, sated now by the haul – her heritage – before her, idly flicking through the stacked paintings like someone at a retro vinyl store.
Her face upon first entering the apartment had been a picture itself – for a girl born into a life of mirrored hallways and twenty-foot ceilings, it had been a shock for her to see the reality of her grandparents’ early lifestyle: dark wood panelling, stripped pine floors, low ceilings. They had been by no means poor but it was a far cry from the rarefied echelons the family inhabited now. If Natascha felt dismay, however, she didn’t show it, instead laughing at everything – the ragged silk curtains, the fusty coats in the cupboard, the pickle jars in the larder.
Only when she nonchalantly went to light a cigarette in the hall was Flora forced to abandon her post and act, snatching it away from her and sending up prayers of relief that the Renoir and Faucheux were already in safekeeping, far away from this spoilt girl’s pithy curiosity.
‘You can’t smoke in here,’ she cried, scarcely able to believe anyone could be so stupid, her eyes falling to a stack of canvases – now flicked to the floor – in the dining room over Natascha’s shoulder. ‘And don’t touch anything,’ she said testily as Natascha walked off again with a careless shrug. Didn’t the girl have any clue about the value of these pieces? Their fragility after over seventy years in seclusion?
Flora was replacing the canvases against the wall when she heard Natascha’s throaty screech of delight come from the drawing room and knew that she had found Gertie.
‘Flora!’ Natascha called, her tone almost friendly, as though she’d completely forgotten that she’d driven Flora across the city against her will, made her complicit in (possibly illegally) gaining access to the property, held a hand up to her face to silence her. ‘Look at this!’
Flora walked in and almost fainted on the spot. Natascha was sitting astride the ostrich, her long, bare legs wrapped around the bird’s neck as though she were Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball. ‘Now this I’ve got to have!’ she shrieked, wiggling her shoulders and throwing her head back. ‘My mother will detest it!’
‘Get off it, Natascha,’ she said firmly. Though she herself was only six years older than Natascha, she felt as though she had to be mother. This girl was like a toddler, with no sense of boundaries.
‘Why?’
Why? Flora wanted to scream. Had there ever been a more stupid question? ‘Because your parents have entrusted the care and safekeeping of everything in this apartment to the agency, and until we have signed it all off, the ostrich is strictly off limits. So I’ll say it again – get off the ostrich.’
‘Non,’ Natascha said defiantly, a bead of light dancing in her eyes. She lived to defy, it seemed.
Flora sighed, marched across the room and stood in front of her, hands planted firmly – and warningly – on her hips. ‘Natascha, get off Gertie. I mean it.’
‘Gertie? Who is Gertie?’ Natascha asked, baffled.
Flora coloured up. ‘I meant the ostrich.’
‘You have given it a name?’
‘Of course not. Don’t be so ridiculous. Gertie is an English slang word for ostrich.’
A moment pulsed in silence as the two women stared at each other.
‘No, it isn’t!’ Natascha cried, bursting out laughing.
Flora felt the red thread of her temper snap. ‘I said, get off her!’ she cried back, grabbing Natascha’s nearest arm and pulling it away hard, so that the girl lost her balance and fell sideways. Unfortunately, her legs remained tightly gripped round the bird’s neck and Gertie toppled with her, onto her.
Natascha began shouting and swearing furiously in French but she wouldn’t let go of the bird, even now, her legs gripping it even tighter.
‘I said, let go!’ Flora shouted, pulling at her arms. ‘You’ll break her!’
‘Get off me!’ Natascha cried, beginning to scream as though she was being murdered.
‘Then let go!’
‘What the fuck is going on?’
The voice made them both jump, stop and turn. At the sight of the man standing in the doorway, Natascha went limp and stopped struggling. For a moment, Flora thought it was the neighbour from the apartment across the street, but this man was taller, leaner, with shaggy black hair and deep-set grey eyes, a squared-off chin and bevelled cheekbones. He looked like a Viking and Flora felt herself go limp too, albeit seemingly for a very different reason.
‘Xav!’ Natascha cried, beginning to struggle again and saying something that to Flora’s ear was incomprehensible (though in fact she felt she’d lost the power of speech, full stop, not just her command of the French language). Flora stepped back as Xavier crossed the room and effortlessly lifted the stuffed bird off his sister, freeing her.
Natascha scrambled to her feet, dishevelled and furious. Flora had no idea what she was saying to him; she felt the rug had been pulled out from under her again. Two shocks in ten minutes was not what she needed on three hours’ sleep and only a sushi snack. She took another step back, away from the two of them, feeling distinctly outnumbered.
Xavier turned to look at her. ‘You are from the fine-art agency.’ It wasn’t so much a question as a statement.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said quietly, trying to regain some dignity, pushing her hair back from her face and checking her buttons – some of them had been ripped off in the fracas and she tried to hold her blouse together.
‘And you have told my sister here that you are in charge of this collection?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘So then why was the door to the apartment wide open? Anyone could have walked in here.’ He gestured with one arm towards the cone of light pooling in the hall.
Flora stared back at him in horror. She had left her post. Left the apartment wide open. He was right – anyone could have just walked in; he had, after all. ‘I – I – it wasn’t my fault. She was about to start smoking in here. I had no choice but to stop her.’
She looked across at Natascha, only to find the girl doing exactly, defiantly that – again!
‘No!’ Flora shouted, lunging forward and swatting the cigarette out of Natascha’s pout. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? You cannot smoke in here!’ she cried, just as Natascha swung an arm and hit Flora smack in the face.
Flora gasped, her hand flying to her cheek, before the red mist descended and she slapped her back. Harder.
It was Natascha’s turn to gasp but before she could retaliate – again – Xavier stepped between them both. Natascha instead slapped Xavier on the arm as though this was some sort of attack command.
Flora retreated a step.
‘Stop it! Both of you!’ he demanded.
Both women fell silent, breathless and pumped, their hair and eyes wild, cheeks furiously red and marked with the other’s handprints, their shirts torn.
‘Apologize to my sister,’ Xavier demanded, glowering down at Flora.
She stared back at him, hardly able to believe he was serious, knowing it was futile to expect anything different. What was it Ines had said? Cokehead? Playboy? She took in his pale blue crumpled linen shirt, barely buttoned up like his sist
er’s (well, hers too now) and the tails hanging out, beige cargo shorts, suede moccasins. At first glance, he didn’t look like a society player, a multimillionaire’s scion, but she had a sharp eye from years of working closely with the super-rich and she knew the shoes were Prada, the shirt Zegna, the watch on his wrist a top-of-the-range Breitling.
‘Go to hell.’ The words were out before she even knew they were hers. She almost jumped at the sound of them. Had she really just said that to her clients’ son?
Something mercurial darted through his eyes, like silver fish in a dark pool, and she knew she’d crossed a line from which there was no turning back. None of this was her fault, but she wasn’t helping herself now either; it was as though she had stepped outside herself in their presence and become someone wild. Feral.
She felt her breath hitch as his glare blackened – surprise hardening into contempt. As the only girl and the baby of her family, she had grown up adored and yes, indulged. Throughout school and university she had always found it easy to make friends and keep them, boys and then men fell for her readily and she understood, without ever consciously considering it, that she was universally admired. So to encounter animosity as naked as this running through this man’s eyes was an unpleasant rarity. What would it yield by tomorrow? Revenge? She could well imagine what form it would take.
‘Do you want to try that again?’ he asked, folding his arms, seemingly growing an inch.
Flora tossed her head back, barely able to recognize herself. It was all over now anyway. ‘Why? Didn’t you hear me the first time?’
Oh God! What was she doing? But she couldn’t stop herself. She felt almost possessed by defiance. And she strode out of the apartment, her heels ringing on the wooden floor, her heart leaping in her chest. She had just got herself fired. Spectacularly so! The consolation that she would never have to see Xavier Vermeil or his sister again was scant indeed.
Ines giggled at her own joke and swung the hammock a bit harder. The sky was a smoky red above them, the wall of bamboo shoots on the far side of the roof terrace bending gently in the breeze, a flock of starlings swooping and pitching above the rooftops before turning as one like a page, and heading for the fiery river. It was a stunning sunset and Flora, lying beside her, tried to enjoy the moment, drowsy from a full tummy, her hand weighted with an almost-empty wine glass, but her mind was agitated and nervy, and Ines’s voice kept fading from her ear as she replayed over and over this afternoon’s showdown.