by Karen Swan
‘Two that we know about but there could be more. Once we start researching the other paintings, it could be more of the same. Hell, the entire consignment could have been bought from him! A job-lot deal, nice and cheap in the middle of the war.’
Angus was quiet for a long time and Flora knew he was fretting about losing out on his juicy commission that would come from successfully getting these to sale; the Vermeils weren’t going to auction anything from the apartment if this was the backstory. ‘Fuck.’ He ran his hands through his hair, pulling so tight at the roots he gave himself a momentary facelift.
But Flora didn’t laugh at the funny sight. She felt hollow inside. Last night – all of it – felt like a bad dream now. She didn’t recognize the person she’d become out there: deceitful, reckless, bitter, manipulative. That wasn’t who she was. What was happening to her?
‘Does Haas know we’ve got it? The portrait, I mean?’
Flora shook her head. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Good. The last thing we need is for him to make some sort of claim on it.’
‘He’s got a copy of the receipt showing his family sold it to Von Taschelt. It was a pretty good price too, so it would be hard for him to argue it wasn’t legit. But he does want to buy it back. He’s been trying to trace it, but obviously the trail runs cold with V.T.’
‘Jesus, we have got to establish why that Nazi’s paintings are in our client’s property.’
‘I think for the obvious reason,’ she said quietly. ‘Because they bought them from him. He was their dealer.’
‘No. I won’t accept that until we’ve got the paperwork to support it,’ he said stubbornly. He thought for a moment. ‘There’s still a very plausible chance that Von Taschelt sold the requisition to another party who then sold the lot, in its entirety possibly, to the Vermeils.’
Flora blinked back at him. A job lot sold not once, but twice, within a year? His hypothesis was a stretch of credibility to say the least. ‘It’s a tiny chance, Angus. I think we need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario that the family basically bought from him direct and profited from the Third Reich.’ She shrugged. ‘Hell, maybe that’s why Jacques’ father shut up the apartment. Maybe it was a deliberate plan. Lie low, let the dust settle . . .’
Angus closed his eyes as if in pain. ‘Holy crap, don’t even say that, please, Flora. You don’t understand the potential gravity of this. The Vermeils are Jewish. If this was to get out to the press, the public consequences for them could be huge. They stood behind the President on Memorial Day last year. I can’t . . . I can’t even begin to think about breaking this to them.’
Flora fell quiet, looking helplessly round her tiny office. The room felt even smaller at night, as though the darkness outside was pushing against the walls, contracting the space. There were no curtains or blinds to keep it out, either, and she felt conspicuous in the all-white light, as though her first-floor office had become a stage.
‘We need to see what it says in Von Taschelt’s own ledgers – I don’t care if it’s a receipt, bill of sale, whatever. We need that final link in the chain to put a bit of space between him and them. It all keeps coming back to that,’ Angus said finally. ‘Tell me you’ve heard back from the gallery in Saint-Paul?’
‘Not yet. I’ll chase them again.’
‘You said that before you went to Vienna.’
‘Yes. And I went straight to Vienna!’ she replied, frustrated. ‘And then I came straight back here. I’ve been busy, Angus. I’m not dragging my feet! And do I need to remind you it’s Sunday – supposedly a day of rest? They won’t be working, even if I am!’
‘No, you’re right. Sorry. Sorry.’ He raked his hands through his hair again. ‘It’s just, this is beginning to bother me. We’re not making any progress. If anything, we’re becoming more mired in problems.’
She didn’t reply. He was right. They were stuck. Far from distancing their clients from one of the most disgraced names in the history of fine art, they were only finding ever more links between them. Carry on like this and they were going to uncover a full-scale collusion between both parties. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s not all,’ she sighed heavily. He might as well know everything. ‘There’s something else. The night before I went to Vienna, I discovered some photos of the Vermeils’ apartment have been posted on the internet.’
‘What do you mean? How?’ His voice rose three octaves. ‘Mother of God, have we been hacked?’
‘No. They’re not our photos at all, that’s the problem. They’re on some “urban explorers” website –’ she made speech marks in the air with her fingers – ‘and before you ask, it’s some underground cult tribe thing. People go round exploring abandoned buildings and posting the photos on these websites.’
‘And who posted these?’
She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. They’re all anonymous – they’d be busted for trespass otherwise.’
‘Oh Christ!’ He rubbed his face in his hands. ‘You’re telling me there are photos of that entire art haul for just anyone to see?’
‘No,’ she corrected him quickly. ‘No, the photos aren’t of Apartment Eight – it’s Apartment Six.’
‘The empty one?’ Angus brightened up immediately. ‘Well, that’s OK then! There was nothing in there of interest.’
‘Except for the portrait! That’s what I’m saying – Noah Haas could see this.’
Angus paused. ‘Well, there’s a chance, of course, but it’s hardly the same disaster scenario as the haul upstairs being leaked. Can you imagine if people were to find out about that? The press would be all over it. It would be the Munich case – damn, what was his name?’
‘Cornelius Gurlitt,’ she muttered.
‘Yes, him. It would be him all over again – that and then some! The Vermeils are a big deal. No, no, this is all fine – it’s just a painting on a bed in an empty apartment. Why should anyone be interested in that? Let these explorers have their fun. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.’
Flora bit her thumbnail.
‘Stop looking so worried, Flora. It’s fine,’ he laughed.
She was worried, though. ‘I’m just . . . uneasy,’ she said, trying to find the right words. ‘The more I think about it, the more I think Travers lied to me about which apartment was discovered. He said it was Number Eight but you went in there with me, Angus – it was clear no one had been in before us. And then there’s the whole issue of Natascha being given the wrong keys – again, by an office junior who’s out of the loop.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I don’t think the family was supposed to know about the apartment downstairs. I think Travers deliberately handed over the wrong keys – the ones for Number Eight – to prevent them from knowing about it.’
‘But why? There’s nothing in the apartment downstairs, except for the painting on the bed. Why keep that a secret from them?’
‘I know,’ she winced, shaking her head. ‘I don’t get it either. But I just know something’s not right. There’s too many things that are . . . off.’
‘And do you believe Elvis is still alive too? And that Marilyn was murdered?’ he quipped, stretching his arms out wide, distorting the diamonds on the front of his jumper. ‘I never would have had you down as a conspiracy theorist, Flora,’ he tutted. ‘Look, you said yourself papers have gone missing from the drawers in Apartment Eight. That means someone else was in there besides us. That means there were two sets of intruders – the explorer guys downstairs, and the others upstairs. I know it’s bad luck but let’s look on the bright side here – we’re bloody lucky they didn’t nick the art!’
She exhaled, feeling like a dog chasing its own tail. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘I know I am. Look, it’s late over there and you look like you haven’t slept in days. Go home, chill out and if you do nothing else tomorrow, get hold of that bloody gallery in Saint-Paul. Fly down there and storm the damned archives yourself if you have to. We’ve waited long
enough. The answers we need are in those vaults, I know it. This isn’t as complicated as we’re making it.’
We? Or her? Was he passing the buck here?
He saw her concern and looked away guiltily. ‘Look, you should know I spoke to Lilian yesterday. I know you’re leading this project and I wasn’t stepping on your toes, but you were in Vienna and she couldn’t get hold of you.’
‘Just say it, Angus.’
‘She’s insistent the painting goes into the Christie’s sale.’
‘Well, it can’t,’ Flora shrugged, nonplussed. ‘Not until we’ve sorted this out.’
‘That’s the problem – we’re out of time. The deadline was last night . . . and I’ve already done it.’
Flora’s expression changed. They’d only talked about it on Friday night. There had been no mention of the deadline being twenty-four hours later. ‘But . . .’ The penny dropped. Suddenly she understood why he had booked her on the first flight to Vienna, rushing to get her out of Paris and keep her out of the way whilst he negotiated with the family over her head to submit the painting. This hadn’t come from Lilian at all. Angus was thinking about one thing only – that overdraft.
‘It’s fine, Flora,’ he said, seeing her understand and holding up his hands. ‘It’s all going to be fine. But that’s why I need you to get a shift on with the gallery, OK?’
Flora couldn’t believe what she was hearing. To save his sorry arse, he’d submitted the Renoir for sale in the splashiest and most important Impressionist auction of the year, in spite of the fact that its high-profile Jewish-benefactor owners couldn’t prove their ownership, only their business dealings with the Third Reich? Did the family even know how this was risking their reputation? She shook her head, knowing they couldn’t; there was no way they would have sanctioned it. No, Angus was flying solo on this, hoping everything would work out OK and in time.
The man was mad! Or desperate.
‘We need it to sell, Flora,’ he said, reading her mind. ‘The bank’s getting shirty.’
‘Oh Jesus, Angus!’ she whispered.
‘Look, the answer’s in Saint-Paul, I know it is. It’s always in the most obvious place. Speak to them in the morning and then go to the house at four p.m. Now the Renoir’s in the sale, Lilian’s requested a full update. She’ll be expecting to celebrate.’
Flora’s eyes widened. ‘But what if I don’t get anything out of the gallery? What am I supposed to tell them then? That their father did business with the Nazis?’
‘Look, that’s not going to happen. Why would that happen? If the Getty Index says the records are in Saint-Paul, then they’re in Saint-Paul. It’s fine.’
‘And if they still haven’t located them for me by four p.m.?’ she pushed. ‘What then?’
‘If the gallery still can’t get its arse into gear, then . . . then think of something. Tell them his father bought those paintings from a little old lady who fed the birds in winter and left her house to the city’s orphans . . . I don’t care! Tell them anything, anything but the story we’ve got right now. It’s the truth but not the whole truth. There’s more to come, I can feel it.’
The night felt thick, stilled by the weight of the heat, the trees drooping as though nodding in sleep, and as she stepped outside the office, she felt thunder in the air. She had a sense of worlds colliding, of there being just too much in the atmosphere – the very air she breathed overly full.
Traffic had thinned to a midnight trickle and though taxis drove past at regular intervals, she didn’t raise her arm for a quick ride home. She needed to clear her head and try to think straight – so she walked. She walked past the parked cars and dark apartments, the shut boutiques with their bright windows, the cliques of students queuing to get into the clubs, the tourists falling out of restaurants, the deserted streets where graffiti littered the walls.
She walked down streets she didn’t know, through areas she didn’t recognize, oblivious to the sound of her own feet on the pavements, the commentary of what she was going to tell the Vermeils the next day running in a loop through her mind. Only when she heard the sound of glass breaking and a sudden shout coming from a narrow side street just ahead did she stop, suddenly aware of her recklessness. She turned on her heel uncertainly.
‘Do you need a ride?’
Flora glanced over at the scooter dawdling beside her, wondering who could think she’d be enough of an idiot to get on a bike with a complete stranger.
Xavier Vermeil was looking back at her, sitting astride the bike. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t scowling either and for a moment – only one – she forgot that they hated each other.
‘No,’ she said, suspiciously. What did he want? ‘I don’t need a ride.’
He looked down briefly, raised his black eyes to her again. ‘You sure? It can get pretty dangerous around here this late.’ He glanced towards the end of the street where the raised voices – several of them now – were yelling, a scuffle breaking out.
She took in the sight of his gypsy-dark hair falling wild around his face, no helmet on, naturally. In the dim light, she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes – nothing new there – but she could make out the defiant jut of his lips. It seemed odd that he should be offering her help and yet appearing so reluctant to do so in the same breath; he had the resentful look of a toddler forced to share his sweets. ‘You seriously expect me to accept help from you?’ She was quite sure it would feel a lot more dangerous sitting on the back of that bike with him, than it would walking down a dark street alone. ‘I’ll take my chances, thanks.’
She turned and began walking again.
She waited for the sound of the engine to ignite, the throttle to flare up, the inevitable roar of the tiny engine as he accelerated away from her – but it didn’t come.
For several minutes, she didn’t dare look back – she didn’t want him to see her wondering about him – but curiosity finally won out and when she turned, she was astonished to see him ‘straddle-walking’ the bike a few metres behind her.
She stopped and stared, waiting for him to explain himself, but he simply stared back with that inscrutable, diffident expression that managed to be both defiant and louche at once.
‘What are you doing? What are you doing here?’ she cried, throwing her arms in the air, exasperated and uncertain whether his trailing her like this meant he was friend or foe. Was he trying to intimidate her, was that it?
‘I’m on my way home. And you shouldn’t be here on your own. You’re crazy to be out here like this. This is a bad area at night.’
She blinked, dumbfounded that she was supposed to believe he supposedly, suddenly, cared whether or not she was safe in the dark. ‘What do you care?’
But he made no effort to reply this time and after a minute in which neither of them spoke – as Paris slept and the sky thickened – she turned away and resumed walking. To hell with him, then. If he wouldn’t speak, neither would she.
She walked faster, feeling the sweat prickle her skin but swinging her arms more defiantly nonetheless. She tried to concentrate on other things besides him – speaking to the gallery tomorrow, getting hold of Freddie to apologize for upsetting him on Saturday – but the knowledge that Xavier was kerb-crawling behind her buzzed in her brain like an angry bee, his eyes burning into her back, daring her to turn round again, to check whether he was still there. Occasionally she could glimpse his reflection in a shop window if there was a street light shining outside but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of appearing to search. Whatever game he had going on here, she wouldn’t play.
As she turned onto the next street, a flash suddenly opened up the sky and she jumped to a halt, whimpering before she could stop herself – she’d never liked being out in the lightning. Her body tensed, looking for somewhere to hide, fearing another break of the heavens. Instinctively she turned to him – the only other person around; he stared back at her, one eyebrow arched ever so slightly, as though mocking her refu
sal of his help, as if to say, ‘See?’
Moments later, the thunder rolled across the sky like a bowling ball down an alley, bursting the overloaded storm clouds that had been building into wobbly towers and sending their floods down in a torrent. The rain fell as hard as hail, stinging her skin and soaking her clothes in moments. Her hair clung to her cheeks and she gasped as she tried to dodge the moon-silvered barbs.
Xavier laughed. At her.
He was drenched too but he appeared not to care in the least, his grey T-shirt as wet as if he’d swum in it.
‘Are you sure you don’t need a ride?’ he drawled.
Flora glared at him hatefully, quite convinced he’d speed off if she did move to accept. ‘Perfectly,’ she snapped, spinning on her heel and marching away from him again. Even faster now.
Her pretty cotton-dotted Chloé dress was clinging to her legs, her scalloped ballet flats almost collapsing on themselves, the leather saturated, but there was no point in running. Wet was wet. She couldn’t get any wetter than she now was, she thought, as she furiously raked her hair back from her face, her cheeks pink from where the front strands flicked her cheeks like tiny whips. More than that, though, she wouldn’t run from him. She wouldn’t allow him to think he’d harried her away, intimidated her. Won, in some way.
And so they wove through the sodden city in their peculiar dance, him a ruptured shadow behind her, swerving around the outsides of the parked cars as she resolutely ignored him. Well, ignored him, but she couldn’t forget him – his silence filled her head, his will a wall she had to scale, and her breath came fast as she walked, her hands pulling into tense fists.
She was on Ines’s road when her phone rang, her hand flying to her bag to get it, desperate for something to do, something to show him she wasn’t alone out here with him.
‘Yes?’ she asked, glancing over her shoulder. Xavier was crawling behind, eyes on her but slightly closer than he had been, as she had slowed to answer the call. ‘Oh, Noah, hi.’ Her heart dived. She should never have answered it! A late-night call? Who else would it be but a lover? But she had been rash, reckless, desperate to do something to divert her attention away from him. ‘How are you? . . . Yes, it was great, thanks. On time . . . Yes, just left . . . a crazy day . . . I know, on a Sunday too!’ She realized she was almost at Ines’s courtyard gate and she slowed down again, coming to a stop outside it. ‘Oh? . . . I see . . .’ Xavier rolled up, stopping in front of her now, his coal-black eyes burning with . . . what? What did he want? ‘Y-yes, of course, that would be lovely . . .’