by Karen Swan
He turned on the ignition suddenly, revving the throttle like some petrol-head teenager, over and over again so that she couldn’t hear what Noah was saying. But it didn’t matter. She suddenly understood that what mattered was what she said. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said, holding Xavier’s stare, refusing to concede so much as a blink. ‘I’d love that.’
Chapter Fifteen
It was late when she awoke. She had forgotten to set her alarm and slept well for once, falling into a deep and dreamless oblivion, her sodden clothes still in a heap on the floor by the foot of the bed. She could tell by the breeze that fluttered in through the open window that last night’s thunderstorms had cleared yesterday’s oppressive humidity and from the silence that hummed through the apartment, she deduced she was alone.
She lay there awhile, feeling strangely optimistic. The sky was a celestial blue, airy tendrils spinning through it, and she had a sense of having transitioned from the past few weeks’ state of chaos to one of calm. Today would be the day everything would get better. Today would be the day they’d get their answers. She thought of Freddie – today was the day for truth to win.
She grabbed her phone and fired off a text to Ines, asking her to brunch.
Ines’s reply came back in seconds. She was on!
Flora threw back the duvet and climbed into the shower, feeling the water wash her clean and rinse away the grime of Vienna.
Vienna –
She remembered Noah’s phone call last night, his invitation, another date. She closed her eyes and let the water run over her face; she would need to call him back and set him straight. There was no point in wasting each other’s time. She never would have said yes if it hadn’t been for Xavier Vermeil harassing her.
Ines was already at the café by the time Flora ran up, her hair freshly dried, her dress catching the wind. Ines were stretched out in the plastic-wicker chair as though it were a sunlounger, her bare legs tanned and long in cut-off denims, a cigarette pinched between her fingers as her arm dangled out limply, hair splayed as though there’d been a small explosion.
‘Hey,’ Flora said brightly, pulling out her chair.
Ines lazily opened an eye and grinned. ‘Hey, yourself,’ she said, pulling herself into a slightly more upright position, tucking her legs in so that Flora could get to the table. ‘You look perky.’
‘Thank you. I slept well.’
‘You slept long. I wasn’t sure whether to wake you.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t. I needed the rest. Angus was right – I’ve been running on empty for too long.’ ‘Angus? Huh. And how is he?’
Flora knew Ines found Angus uptight and almost colonial in his Britishness, rarely ever moving beyond his ‘network’ of old school chums for work and play. As someone who had cast off her own privileged tribe for a bold new set as well as mindset, she was barely tolerant of his sort.
‘Stressed. What’s new?’ she said lightly, catching the eye of the serveur and ordering two espressos, some croissants and orange juice.
‘What’s he got to be so stressed about? You’re riding high, aren’t you, thanks to the mighty Vermeils?’ Ines took a final drag from her cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray, blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth. Her fingers were adorned with multiple delicate gold rings – one shaped like an arrow, one bent to spell amour in looping, unbroken script, another a triple-stacked style with a central spine that ran down the back of her finger – and enormous gold triangle earrings winked in her hair.
‘Oh, you know Angus, he isn’t happy unless there’s a drama to fuss about. He’ll always find something.’ Her tone was deliberately dismissive; she wasn’t going to fret about their overdraft. Today was the day everything got better.
She looked down the street, watching the pedestrians clustering together by the traffic lights, shirtsleeves rolled up, sunglasses on; her eyes followed the cyclists meandering lazily down the road, baskets on their bikes and the wind lifting their hair. The whole city seemed in love with summer today.
Ines watched her watching them. ‘So how was Vienna?’
Flora brought her attention back to her friend. She smiled. ‘Fine. Not dull.’
‘Did you get what you needed?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Flora’s tone gave away the innuendo and Ines – a moment later – gave a sudden gasp.
‘Oh my God, what did you do?’ she asked with delight, clutching Flora’s forearm.
Flora shrugged. ‘I slept with him.’
Ines’s jaw dropped open. ‘With Xavier?’
Flora’s jaw dropped open too. ‘W . . . what? No! Why would you say that? Why would you think I’d—’ she blustered, so furious and indignant and flabbergasted all at once that she could scarcely take a breath.
‘OK, sorry, sorry. I just thought . . .’ Ines shrugged and tailed off. ‘So who then?’
‘The guy I travelled out to meet in Vienna!’ Flora said crossly, as though Ines should have known this.
‘You slept with a client?’ Ines asked, looking even more shocked.
‘He’s not a client,’ Flora corrected her quickly. And now he never will be, she thought to herself, remembering her last view of the Renoir hanging in the bedroom as she lay in the bed. ‘We were just following up a lead for the provenance.’
‘Even so, that is not like you.’
‘Yes, well, maybe I’m tired of . . . being me. It hasn’t been much fun lately.’
‘And was he? Fun, I mean?’ Ines asked, leaning right in on the table, her head resting in one hand.
‘Well, I’m not sure “fun” is the word I’d use for him. He’s older, but . . .’
‘It was good, yes?’
Flora smiled, giving a tactful shrug.
Ines looked delighted. ‘Do you like him?’
‘Well, I went to bed with him, didn’t I?’
Ines hooked an eyebrow. ‘Got a photo?’
‘Of course not!’ Flora burst out laughing. ‘I didn’t take a selfie of us in bed together!’
‘Why not?’ Ines laughed back, arms in the air questioningly. ‘Are you going to see him again?’
‘No. He called me, actually – last night.’ Xavier Vermeil shot through her mind again. She pushed him straight back out. ‘He’s flying in this week and wants me to join him at the Concours d’Élégance at Chantilly but –’ she shook her head, exhaled slowly – ‘I’m going to call him later and say I can’t make it.’
‘But why?’ Ines gasped.
‘Because there’s no future in it. He’s in Vienna and I’m here, for one thing. And when we’re not, he’s in New York and I’m in London.’
‘So? You just said he’s flying in. If you li—’
Flora stopped her by placing a firm hand on her arm. ‘Ines, I know what you’re about to say, but it’s not going to happen between us. He’s very nice, I had a great time. But it just was what it was. Nothing more.’
Ines groaned, dropping her head onto her outstretched arm so that her face was almost touching the table. ‘When will it ever be anything more with you?’
Flora didn’t reply. The waiter had brought over their coffees.
Ines looked up at Flora, her head still resting on her arm. ‘I just don’t get it. You’re twenty-seven years old, completely gorgeous. All these men everywhere are falling madly in love with you – and you never want to know!’
‘Excuse me! It’s not my fault if there isn’t a connection there,’ Flora protested.
Ines sat up straighter. ‘You know Stefan’s still mad about you, right? Bruno says he’s always talking about you.’
Flora shot her a sideways look, rolling her lips inwards. ‘Look, Stefan’s a great guy. But what do you want me to say? He’s just a friend.’
‘But they’re always just friends with you. How can you be this old and never have been in love? I just don’t get it!’
‘Clearly,’ Flora muttered. ‘And for the record, I’m not that old.’
‘It’s odd, that’s w
hat I’m saying. Most people have been in love by now. Most people have had their hearts broken.’
‘Oh, well then, I’m gutted to have made it this far unscathed,’ Flora replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
‘Contrary to every love song out there, heartbreak is good for you. It makes you grow.’ Ines jabbed a finger thoughtfully at her. ‘You know, perhaps your expectations of what love actually is are unrealistic.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘It’s not about rooms full of roses.’
‘I’m fully aware of that.’
‘It isn’t always convenient either. Or maybe that person isn’t who you imagined you’d fall for. And it’s very rarely the love-at-first-sight thing. I didn’t even notice Bruno the first few times I met him and look at us now.’
‘Impossible not to,’ Flora quipped.
‘What I’m saying is, perhaps you might find a connection with this guy if you gave him half a chance. You obviously liked him enough to jump into bed with him.’
Flora didn’t answer. It had been circumstance that had pushed her into bed with him – not chemistry, not connection. She’d been lonely and upset and far away from home. She’d been pushed to the point of exhaustion and was weary of being upset. She’d wanted a little comfort, a little release. That was all.
Ines slid another cigarette from the packet and lit it. Flora reached for her coffee.
‘That’s a nasty bruise,’ Ines murmured, her eyes on the inside of Flora’s arm.
‘What is?’ Flora asked, checking her tricep and finding four brown oval imprints on her skin. ‘Oh. I wonder when that happened.’
‘Vienna?’ Ines asked lightly, arching an eyebrow craftily.
But the bruise was too old for that. Flora felt her stomach tighten as she remembered Xavier’s strong grip outside the town house when he stopped her from falling down the steps. ‘Yes, maybe,’ she murmured, Xavier Vermeil back in her head. Again.
She looked at Ines. ‘Tell me – why did you think I’d slept with Xavier Vermeil?’
Ines glanced at her. Then shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said after a pause. ‘I really don’t . . . it was just the first thought that came to me.’
‘Odd thought given that I barely know the man.’
‘Well, you barely knew the other guy, to be fair,’ Ines winked at her.
‘Yes, but I haven’t had a stand-up blazing row with him.’
‘That is true – another reason why you should definitely see him again,’ Ines giggled, ducking out of the way of the sugar cube that Flora aimed at her head.
Flora was at her desk half an hour later, a green juice untouched beside her and splitting into watery layers of sediment like a pond-water sample as the ringtone beeped in her ear.
‘Attlee et Bergurren,’ a woman said in a quiet, clipped voice.
‘Hello. Is this Attlee and Bergurren Gallery?’
There was a slight pause, possibly at the idiocy of the question. ‘Yes. How may I help you?’
‘Hello, yes. My name’s Flora Sykes. I’m a fine-art adviser working in Paris for a client. I wrote to you last week requesting information from the archives you hold for the former Von Taschelt Gallery in Paris?’
‘. . . Yes.’
‘So I was wondering if you had any information for me yet? It really is quite urgent now.’
There was a pause. ‘Just a moment, please.’
She waited as the woman put the phone down on the desk, her footsteps sounding hollow as she walked away over a stone floor.
Flora bit her lip and twiddled her pen, waiting.
Eventually, the footsteps came back.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi. Hi, yes,’ Flora said, sitting to attention.
‘I am afraid we could not find what you were looking for, madame,’ the woman said briskly, getting straight to the point.
‘. . . What?’ Flora asked, her voice scooped out and hollow.
‘Your letter requested all sales after 1943. We have nothing after 1942.’
‘But I thought you had the sales ledgers?’ Flora blustered. ‘It says on the Getty site . . .’
‘Only up until 1942. There is nothing after. No papers at all.’
Flora fell silent, the sound of rushing blood hammering in her ears. This couldn’t be right. ‘All the papers were lost?’
‘It was the war, madame. Very much was lost during the bombings.’
‘I see. Yes . . .’
How the hell was she supposed to break this to Angus? It was a disaster, the last hope gone. The chain was incomplete, the evidence they needed lost after all; they couldn’t prove that the Vermeils were the legal and rightful owners of the painting, merely that they were in possession of it. Would the French legal system recognize the old adage of possession being nine-tenths of the law?
‘I’m sorry?’ she asked, realizing the woman was still talking. ‘Could you repeat that?’
‘I said, you could perhaps enquire with the estate’s notaries. There’s a chance they may have some further information. Sometimes they have some paperwork in historical cases like this.’
‘Oh. Yes,’ Flora replied, without enthusiasm but picking up the pen again anyway.
‘The number is 1 44 49 65 20. Travers et Fils. Ask for Lionel Travers – he is the senior partner.’
The pen dropped from Flora’s hand.
‘Lionel Travers is the notary for the Von Taschelt estate?’ she croaked.
‘Yes, madame. Is there a problem?’
But Flora had already hung up, her hands in her hair as she paced the tiny office, leaning against the walls and pushing herself off again as though she was bouncing on them.
She closed her eyes, trying to still her mind, trying to find rational answers to the questions it instantly raised – this, another unwelcome link between the Vermeils and Von Taschelt.
There was no doubting now that they had known each other, but the question was, how well? Had they been in a fully disclosed alliance with one another, Von Taschelt buying cheap and selling low to François Vermeil? How far-reaching was the business relationship, how many paintings involved? She squeezed her eyes shut at the memory of the hundreds of artworks stacked in the apartment. Oh God, how many of them were going to throw up this tainted connection? How many families – fleeing, desperate – had been involved?
She stared with laser-beam intensity at a hairline crack in the opposite wall, her brain in overdrive as she allowed the revelation to settle. So Lionel Travers’s father had been the notary for both Franz Von Taschelt and François Vermeil. Was it really such a huge coincidence? Two rich, influential men; one rich, powerful lawyer? Of course not. The circles these people moved in were necessarily small, elite and exclusive and they shared more than just lawyers, always hiring the same party planners or valets from the same agencies. In fact, it might have been more unusual if they hadn’t known each other.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t troubled by Travers’s dual involvement in this. His behaviour at their meeting had snagged with her at the time – his obstructive guardedness, his intimidating silences punctuated only by even more intimidating sarcasms. Little wonder he’d been so cagey! Had he guessed it was only a matter of time before she linked these two clients – one now nefarious, the other highly esteemed – together? Wouldn’t it just have been easier for him to disclose to her there and then that his father’s two clients had been in business together? How much longer had he thought he could keep it a secr—?
And then it hit her.
The empty drawers . . . the missing papers on the desk . . . the evidence that would have proved the shady deals. Travers had taken them! Of course he had. It was why he had blocked her in that meeting at every turn. Von Taschelt’s reputation was in ruins, any connection with him now toxic whilst the Vermeils, society darlings, were the big-ticket clients that kept Travers et Fils at the top. It stood to reason that Lionel Travers would get rid of anything that could tie the two names togeth
er, even if it rendered a priceless art fortune worthless at a stroke.
Reeling from the realization, she went back to the computer and quickly brought up the photos of the apartments she’d taken in the first twenty-four hours. She may not have the paperwork to prove her theory but she was sure she remembered seeing it there. Hadn’t she photographed it when she’d first walked in? Oh, but why hadn’t she looked properly when she’d had the chance? Why had she allowed herself to be so distracted by the art when the backup material she needed for them had been staring her in the face? She would surely never find it now. If Travers was trying to protect his company’s reputation then at the very least he’d have hidden any incriminating paperwork, if not destroyed it altogether. She felt sickened as she remembered his disingenuous question that day in his office. ‘We are on the same side, are we not?’ But they weren’t. He’d been working against her since she’d arrived, interfering with her investigations to safeguard his own interests. She’d never be able to complete the paper chain now. The Renoir would have to be withdrawn from sale and the agency’s overdraft would continue to grow.
She tabbed down the photos quickly, knowing it was pointless. Even if she had unwittingly captured an image of some of the paperwork on the study desk, it was highly unlikely it would be clear enough for the writing to be legible, much less pass as evidence of provenance.
She came to the photos of the study and blinked as the proof that she wasn’t wrong beamed back at her in high-definition colour – papers in chaotic piles were clearly visible, strewn across the top of the desk. She scrutinized them in turn, squinting to see if any of them could be magnified, blown up times ten, times a hundred . . . but she was out of luck. Her attention had been anywhere but the desktop, instead focusing on the expensive leather books, the decaying curtains . . . Success had been within her grasp but she hadn’t realized the game that was being played as she tiptoed through the dust. Angrily, she jabbed the ‘down’ key hard, watching as the pictures flew past in a blur.