The buzz at a private view rarely reflected the quality of the art. It was a measure of the artist’s fame or notoriety, and there was no chance of acquiring either of those assets over the age of 35. If you hadn’t impinged on the public consciousness by that age you were finished, at least until you were good and dead. There was nothing more a gallery could do for you.
Of course Duval hadn’t said anything to Martin. At this stage in the proceedings they couldn’t afford further delays. The rest of the pictures would have to be ready for the February auction and the timing was tight. To be honest, in the present state of his finances it was becoming a struggle even to scrape together the necessary to pay Pat Phelan his paltry £3,000 a shot. What was keeping Duval going was the thought of the October auction and the quantitative easing it would bring.
He picked the Derain off the easel and sniffed it. Getting there. He’d take it in for Nigel to look at next week. There was still the faintest whiff of linseed about it, but he’d wear aftershave. If God was merciful he’d give Nigel a cold.
Duval sat down at the piano and lifted the lid. He’d been playing it a lot since it had been down here. Over the music stand he could see a row of Phelans, a series of the Thames around Rotherhithe painted while the docklands were in the throes of redevelopment. He stood up, took down the one on the end and turned it over, as dealers do, to look at the back. The words ‘Iron Parthenon’ were scribbled on it.
The Parthenon in question was a trio of iron columns supporting the remains of a ruined jetty. It had a Piranesian grandeur about it, towering blackly above the disintegrating hull of an old Thames barge beneath. You could only distinguish the water by the misty V-shape carved between the near and far bank of the river, where the angle of a crane rose through the fog. The paint-handling was tremulous, the touch was tender but the drawing had a grasp of iron. There was something about the little picture, a certain feeling, a sense of life quivering in the shadows.
Duval knew how many years of squinting at colour it took an artist to breathe life into shadows. Yet in the shadows this picture would remain.
He propped it on the music stand, sat in front of it and picked out the opening bars of a Chopin nocturne. The yellow sky above the blackened Parthenon was a tangled mass of jagged, swooping strokes that shrieked abandonment like seagulls’ cries. There was nothing he could do with the Phelans, but they suited his mood.
Chapter XXXI
Orlovsky prowled up and down the line of dot paintings leaning against the walls of his Islington office like a tiger eyeing visitors through the bars of its cage and deciding which of them to have for breakfast.
“Imodium, Strepsil, Bazuka, Lemsip, Fisherman’s Friend…” he snarled into the speakerphone transmitter, “where’s the invention, the mystique in that? You can’t even come up with a decent title. Parma Violets? They went out in the 1950s. What did you do, go through your grandma’s bathroom cabinet?”
There was a crackly silence at the other end.
“Your artists haven’t grasped the basic requirement: anonymity. You shouldn’t be able to tell one painting from another. These paintings are as different as chalk and cheese, or…” he flapped his arms in search of a better analogy, “smarties and sugared almonds. The point is,” he scowled at a grid of orange and brown dots propped alongside a pastel study in pinks and mauves, “all the colours should be different within each picture. The colourways shouldn’t differ from each another,” he slipped involuntarily into textile terminology, “although each painting should be subtly unique so that the viewer is challenged to spot the difference. The random nature of the colour selection is what gives the works universality. They go with any décor.
“Did you buy remaindered paints, or what?”
Trust the schmuck to economise even on that.
“I provided the artists with the full range of paints,” Martin Phelan’s voice came over the speaker. “I was told to give them a free hand and these are the shades they chose.”
“And another thing,” Orlovsky pulled open a drawer of his desk and got out an eyeglass, “the finish is shoddy.”
He bent over a painting and scanned its surface.
“All your dots have compass holes in the middle. Cosmas would never let a painting leave his studio in this state. He cares about workmanship. That’s the key to his success, attention to finish. Billionaires don’t buy paintings with holes in.”
“They buy Lucio Fontana,” offered Martin. “In the context of medication you could see the holes as twinges of pain.”
There was a knock and the shaven bullet head of one of Orlovsky’s minders appeared around the door.
“Listen sunshine, it’s more than a twinge of pain you’ll be feeling if you don’t get this load of crap out of here by tomorrow morning. And by the way, when you’re ready, my lawyers would appreciate a response to their letter.”
The minder cracked a smile as Orlovsky cut the speaker.
“Daniel Colvin to see you.”
“Who? Oh yes, the reporter from Marquette. Send him in.”
Orlovsky swiveled his office chair away from the dots as the minder returned with the reporter in tow.
“This shouldn’t take long,” Daniel smiled. “I know how busy you are.”
Orlovsky didn’t smile in reply. He noticed his visitor studying the dot paintings with curiosity and wished he had moved them. Too late to worry about that now. What did a young kid like him know anyway? He looked fresh out of college. They should have sent a senior reporter, like Crispin Finch.
The minder gestured Daniel to a chair but didn’t leave. He stood behind him looking at the rows of dots with what was, for him, unusual interest. Funny, he was thinking, if you screwed up your eyes the dots in the one on the left made a shape like a goalie’s legs performing a diving save.
When he unscrewed his eyes he found Orlovsky’s glaring at him. He shifted his focus to the back of Daniel’s neck.
“I can give you 10 minutes,” said Orlovsky, pulling up his shirt cuff to expose the face of his Patek Philippe. “Shoot.”
The reporter started with all the obvious questions. Why this moment for a global dot painting retrospective? Was it the last gasp for a series that Byrne had warned he would be discontinuing in a couple of years? What was the explanation of the works’ international success? Had there been any development in the paintings? Again, Orlovsky saw him looking around the walls. Did Byrne have a new diffusion line in the pipeline?
Between each question Orlovsky consulted his watch. The cub reporter was wasting his time. He could have found all of this out from the press release, if he’d bothered to read it.
“Is Byrne the only one of his generation you think will last?” was the kid’s next question.
“If I’m honest, yes,” was the dealer’s reply.
“Then why are you buying the Wise Collection?”
The question hit the dealer smack between the eyes.
The minder stiffened and shifted his gaze to Daniel’s ears, which were turning pink.
“Buying the Wise Collection? Are you crazy? Wherever did you get that preposterous idea?”
“From Godfrey Wise’s widow, at the weekend.”
For the first time in the interview Orlovsky looked at Daniel, assessing his capability like a firearm.
“Then all I can say is that the old girl has lost it. Grief will do that to a woman, especially after the shock and embarrassment of her husband’s death. You should have spoken to the Wise boys, they’re the ones in charge. Call yourself a journalist? Do some proper research.”
He nodded at the minder.
“Now, if you don’t mind, you’ve wasted enough of my time. Tell Fay next time she wants an interview not to send an intern straight out of journalism school.”
The minder pulled back Daniel’s seat and took his elbow with a vice-like grip to escort him out.
Orlovsky watched them go.
He’d handled it badly. He shouldn’t have let himself
get rattled, but it had come out of nowhere. He might live to regret his involvement with the Wise Collection. That’s what you got for generous impulses; they should be resisted.
How much did the kid know? Not much, he suspected. What he certainly didn’t know – and only Orlovsky’s accountant was aware of – was that the dealer had borrowed money to buy the collection against the promise of a Russian exhibition at State.
There were influential business interests in Russia who felt strongly that Russian contemporary art was undervalued by the west. In fact these interests felt so strongly about it that they took the undervaluation as a personal affront. As things stood, Russian-speakers were still responsible for 90% of investment in Russian contemporary artists, a situation that was going to have to change if the market was ever going to take off. Sales of work by Russian artists in London auction houses the previous year had represented less than 2% of the total. Unless the Russians broke into the British and American markets, their prices would never get off the ground.
There was work to be done, and Orlovsky was ideally placed to do it. He had helped his Russian friends in the past with a spot of laundry and they were ready to help him in return. Everything now hung on the State Gallery show. If the show derailed, his backers would be disappointed and they didn’t handle disappointment well.
Chapter XXXII
By 7pm the preview for RDV’s Boegemann sale would be in full swing, but Fay Lacey Piggott – the woman known in the trade as Network Southeast for her dedication to social linkage – was still at her desk. The joke was unfair on Fay, who was a lot more punctual, although tonight she’d be missing the speeches and perhaps, in these times of austerity, even the champagne.
To be perfectly honest, she wasn’t that bothered. She’d seen it all where Boegemann was concerned – there were only so many shades of grey a girl could take – and any VIPs who turned up to this evening’s reception would have been at the State exhibition a few months before.
Been there, done that. So the little black dress she had collected from the dry cleaners that morning was still hanging on the back of her office door, its plastic cover bloating in the air from the fan heater she had switched on against the autumn chill.
Outside Fay’s office window it was spitting with rain. Inside, the editor’s mouse scurried over the face of her hot pink Marilyn mouse mat, whiskers twitching with unusual nervous excitement.
She’d been right about Daniel. This was dynamite. Suddenly it all made sense; the story held water. But could Marquette run it? That was the question.
The loss to advertising revenues was difficult to predict. Things were bad enough in that department already; they could hardly get worse. Orlovsky had friends, but he also had enemies. And personally speaking, there were no loyalty issues. Orlovsky had always politely ignored Fay; he was funny with women. He preferred to deal with Crispin. That’s how funny he was.
One thing for sure, the revelation wouldn’t improve relations with the State Gallery, although no shame attached to their acceptance of a gift in good faith. In the current climate, rather the reverse. In the middle of an arts funding crisis a public gallery could only be congratulated on a massive saving to its acquisitions budget.
The advantages, Fay reckoned, outweighed the risks. If they broke the story in the next edition of Marquette, it would be front-page news in the following day’s papers. It was the sort of scoop a niche magazine editor dreams of. And for a flagging circulation it would be a shot in the arm.
The mag went to press the day after tomorrow, but it was doable. She’d get the article lawyered first thing in the morning.
Fay prided herself on a talent for quick decisions that she’d always felt was wasted in her job. Things would need to be shifted around. She consulted the flat plan. If she spiked Crispin’s page 8 story on the burgeoning Russian art market – of which she’d seen precious little evidence – and moved the page 1 feature on the proposed modifications to the State extension to page 8, she could clear the front page.
The Russian art market piece could wait. If it was burgeoning, it was certainly taking its time. The story could run next month, or the month after. Next year, even.
Daniel had left early for a meeting with his thesis supervisor but Crispin was still skulking around the office, working late on a piece about Orlovsky’s global dot fest headed ‘Around the World in Eighty Dots’. Crispin was crap at headings, but she’d change it later. ‘Dot dot dot…’ was better. She’d email him her decision about Daniel’s article and attach a copy. She couldn’t suppress a smirk at the thought of poor old Crispin’s face when he read it. All the same, she’d rather not stick around to see it.
She snapped off the heater, slipped into the little black dress and, holding her framboise Louboutin platform pumps in one hand and her umbrella in the other, let herself noiselessly out of the office. Ten past seven. If she found a taxi she might just make it to the reception before the gannets finished off the canapés. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was.
Stepping gingerly out from the shelter of the porch onto the wet pavement, she wished she’d worn her flats and spared her Louboutins. Too late, she wasn’t going back in for them now. She would face Crispin’s hangdog features in the morning.
Fay pinged open her umbrella. The City had shut up shop. The street was empty except for a white transit van parked with its hazard warning lights flashing on a double yellow at the junction with Cordwainer’s Lane. The van had a logo of a speeding picture frame on cartoon wheels with the slogan ‘You’ve Been Framed’ inside it.
Funny. Fay wondered idly what a framer’s van was doing in the City at this hour. The two men in the driver’s cab were consulting something. GPS, she imagined, they must be lost. As she leaned out over the kerb to peer behind the van for approaching taxis, she thought she saw the driver look up at the lit windows of Marquette’s office on the 4th floor. It seemed a little curious but right at this moment, with the rain pissing down, her immediate concern was her framboise Louboutins.
At last, a taxi with its light on. She flagged it down with her open umbrella and clambered in.
From his 4th floor window Crispin watched the black cab swallow the rain-splattered raspberry heels and sloosh around the corner. He clicked ‘forward’ on the email with the attachment, added Orlovsky’s personal address and hit ‘send’.
Chapter XXXIII
It was the smell that struck him first as unfamiliar, the mingled scent of sanitising gel and roses. When he opened his eyes the light was painfully bright. He didn’t remember having strip lighting at home.
A curtain was pulled back and a face loomed over him. An attractive face, young, female, in designer glasses, but one he couldn’t put a name to.
“So, you’re awake! Welcome back to the world of the living. I’m Ashraf, the junior house doctor on your ward. You’re in the Whittington. You had a lucky escape.”
That explained the smell. He seemed to be in hospital.
“What happened?”
“They brought you in last night with concussion and a broken leg. Traffic accident in Finsbury Park, hit-and-run driver. A police officer is coming in later to take a statement. The paramedic said your bike was spaghetti hoops. You were lucky to get away with a broken leg.”
She checked his pulse and scribbled on a clipboard.
“CAT scans clear – no brain damage, but I’d go easy on the Sudoku for now.”
Daniel stared at her. How did she know all this stuff about him? She’d even sussed his Sudoku habit.
His head felt like a pumpkin; he remembered nothing. He reached a hand under the sheet and hit plaster just below his groin. It was his left leg, then.
“Broken below the knee, compound fracture. I wouldn’t book the skiing holiday just yet. If all goes well the long cast will come off in a month or two and you can be fitted with a casual knee-high model. But I wouldn’t start saving for a new bike yet. I recommend public transport, if you value your life.”
Daniel hoisted himself on his elbows and pulled up the pillows behind him. There was a control for adjusting the bed but he didn’t dare touch it; he felt too fragile and accident-prone. In the end the dinner lady came to his rescue. He wanted to thank her, but the stink of her trolley was making him nauseous. It was only when she had wheeled it away that he located the source of the scent of roses: a big bunch of yellow blooms with an envelope on the bedside cabinet.
He opened the envelope and pulled out a card.
“To my star reporter. Come back soon, can’t manage without you! xx Fay.”
Kisses, and an exclamation mark? From Fay?
Like water seeping through cracks, it began to leak back. His piece on the Wise Collection. Fay had liked it. He felt relief, self-congratulation even. But that didn’t explain the broken leg. Or did it?
To his fragmented consciousness they seemed connected.
He’d left work early on the excuse of seeing his tutor, not wanting to be there when the shit hit the fan. As far as he remembered he’d gone straight home to Finsbury Park. After that, a blank.
He was on his bike. Going where? Oh yes, to Lidl’s. He’d been on his bike going to Lidl’s to stock up because the fridge was empty.
What then?
He lay back on the pillows and stared in front of him. There was a print of Van Gogh sunflowers on the wall opposite, the one from Munich with the aquamarine background, and he thought how cheap and nasty it looked in its plain white frame. Funny, wasn’t it, how even the pioneers of modern art needed old-fashioned gilt frames to look imposing?
Suddenly he saw it. Crossing the junction between Seven Sisters and Blackstock Road, being splashed by drivers going past, then the picture frame on the side of the van and the impact.
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