The wild beast of Wuhan al-3

by Ian Hamilton

  She was writing while he spoke. Almost unconsciously she found herself underlining the words two years. “Frederick, it was that Jan Sorensen, the Sandman, who pointed me in the direction of Hughes.”

  “So you found him?”

  “Obviously.”

  “And?”

  “He painted a good number of the fake Fauvists.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I have a signed statement from him.”

  “Good God.”

  “And he told me that Maurice O’Toole did the others.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Locke said. “I did some more research after our last chat and the boy did have that reputation. I spoke to someone who told me that Mr. O’Toole was a whiz with Matisse and did very passable Monets and Manets.”

  Manet wasn’t on her list. She added the name.

  “So, Ava, where does this leave you?” Locke asked.

  “I’m not quite sure. I don’t have what you would call hard proof of anything. Even Sorensen’s statement isn’t supported in any concrete way other than that the paintings exist, and Edwin Hughes seems immune to threats of lawsuits or bad publicity. He tells me his brother will be an even tougher case.”

  “Remember what I told you about our business being filled with hard men? Well, they don’t come much harder than the Hughes brothers.”

  “I sense that.”

  “So what to do?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t know,” she said. “I need to do some more thinking. But look, thank you for the information. You’ve been very helpful. If I have any more questions I hope you won’t mind me calling.”

  “Not at all. My days are quite repetitive and can be a bit of a bore. Call me whenever you wish.”

  Ava closed her phone and looked out the window, down at the High Street and across to Kensington Gardens. The sky was clearing and people were walking without umbrellas. She decided to try to get in a run before the weather changed one more time. She quickly changed into her tracksuit and left the hotel.

  Ava crossed the street, entered the Gardens at Exhibition Road, and then loped across the Serpentine to West Carriage Drive. She ran north from there until she reached the jogging path. Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens ran seamlessly into each other, separated only by the Serpentine. The total area was more than six hundred acres, just smaller than Central Park in New York, and the jogging path was five kilometres long. She normally would have done one full lap after the initial two kilometres or so she had run to the starting point. Today she needed to burn off frustration, and one lap wouldn’t cut it.

  As she ran, she replayed the past few days. She told herself it was time to call Uncle, May Ling Wong, and her travel agent and head on home. Ava was halfway through the second lap when a scrap of conversation she’d had with Helga Sorensen came to mind, along with something Frederick Locke had just said to her. She headed back to the hotel.

  When she got back to her room, she wrapped a towel around her shoulders, pulled out the Chelsea-Kensington phone-book, and looked up George McIntyre, the lawyer she had dealt with on her last trip to London.

  The receptionist put her on hold. Ava hoped he remembered her and would take the call.

  “Well, well. Is this the Ms. Lee who gets phone calls from the Prime Minister’s Office?” McIntyre said.

  “Yes, Mr. McIntyre. Thank you for remembering me, and thank you for taking my call.”

  “Would you believe me if I told you I was afraid not to?”

  “No.”

  “Well, rightly so. I’m just surprised to hear from you and curious as to why.”

  “I’m calling on business.”

  “Roger Simmons again, or has Jeremy Ashton been acting up?”

  “No, different. I’d like you to do something for me, for a fee, of course.”

  “And what is that?”

  “There is — was, rather — an Irish painter by the name of Maurice O’Toole. He died about five years ago. He was married to a woman named Nancy, who died about three years ago. They had no children but there had to be an estate. Could you possibly find out for me if there was one, and if so, who inherited it?”

  “That’s all the information you have?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What part of Ireland? That does matter.”

  “Dublin.”

  “It may take a little time.”

  “Can you get back to me today?”

  “Ms. Lee, you are always in such a rush. The last time you were here we papered an agreement in a matter of hours when it normally takes days.”

  “I’ll double your fee if you can get me the information today.”

  “You don’t know what my fee is.”

  “I don’t care. I know it will be fair.”

  “All right, let me work on it.”

  “Thank you so much. You can call me on my cellphone or at my room at the Fletcher Hotel.”

  Ava jumped into the shower and took her time washing her hair. She spent another ten minutes drying it. When she came out of the bathroom, her room phone was blinking. It was George McIntyre, asking her to call him back.

  “The person you want to talk to is Helen Byrne,” McIntyre said. “She inherited everything Nancy O’Toole had. She lives in Donabate, a large village or small town — whichever you prefer — on the Irish coast about twenty kilometres northeast of Dublin.”

  “That is remarkably fast work.”

  “Not really. They’re very well organized over there; all it took was one phone call. A colleague in a Dublin firm, an old schoolmate of mine, found Nancy O’Toole in the death register and the law firm that handled her estate, all while I was still on the line.”

  “Do you have an actual address for her, a phone number?”

  “Write this down,” McIntyre said, giving her the information.

  “Is she a relative?”

  “I wasn’t told.”

  “Thank you so much, Mr. McIntyre. How much do I owe you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Please, I insist on paying you.”

  “No, I would rather have you owing me a favour.”

  “And I would rather pay.”

  “Your owing me a favour is worth more to me.”

  “Done,” she said.

  Ava hung up the phone and threw on a clean black Giordano T-shirt. She picked up her cellphone, checked the incoming call list, and saw a Chinese area code. May Ling Wong.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and dialled Helen Byrne’s number. If this didn’t work out, then Ava’s next calls would most certainly be to Uncle and May Ling.

  “Ms. Byrne, my name is Ava Lee. I’m calling you about Nancy O’Toole and Maurice O’Toole.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “No, you most certainly don’t, and I apologize for calling out of the blue like this.”

  “What kind of name is Lee?”

  “Chinese.”

  “You don’t sound Chinese.”

  “I’m Canadian.”

  “I have a brother who lives in Canada, in Hamilton.”

  “Hamilton is quite close to the city I live in.”

  “What is it you want with Nancy?” Helen said with some force.

  “I understand you inherited her estate.”

  “I’m her sister. We were close all our lives.”

  “It must have been difficult, her dying so young and so soon after Maurice.”

  “Cancer is a terrible thing.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Now you still haven’t told me what you want with Nancy.”

  “It’s actually Maurice I’m more interested in.”

  “That useless piece of shit?”

  “Yes, him.”

  “I never understood what my sister saw in him, never. He didn’t work a day in his life, just painting, smoking, and drinking. He didn’t womanize, thank God, but I always said that was because no other woman wanted anything to do with him.”

  “Still
, your sister obviously loved him.”

  “She did that.”

  “And he did make some money.”

  “Oh, the last few years weren’t so bad for that. He left her comfortable, though a lot of good it did her. She died of lung cancer, poor girl, and she never smoked a day in her life. It was second-hand smoke, the doctor said, that killed her. I always thought it was Maurice’s way of reaching out to her from the grave.”

  “I’m not fond of smokers myself,” Ava said, trying to find some common ground.

  “Well, they’ve passed all these new laws here. You can hardly smoke anywhere outside your own house.”

  “Canada is the same.”

  Helen paused. “What is it you want with Maurice, then?” she finally asked.

  “I’m trying to trace some paintings he did for a client of mine. I was wondering if he left any records behind and if Nancy kept any of them, maybe passed them down to you.”

  “I’ve got a shed full of it.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My garden shed is stuffed with his boxes and things.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Nancy couldn’t bear to part with his things after he died. She hung on to it all. She lived here with me and kept it in the shed. I just haven’t bothered getting rid of it.”

  “Do you know what’s in those boxes?”

  “Paper.”

  “What kind of paper?”

  “I have no bloody idea. It could be anything. Maurice was a real pack rat — he never threw anything away.”

  “Ms. Byrne, is it possible that I could stop by to take a look at those papers?”

  “You’d come all the way from Canada for that?”

  “Actually I’m in England right now.”

  “Still, that’s an awful lot of trouble for Maurice’s leftovers.”

  “Ms. Byrne, this is quite important to my client. He has some art that he thinks was painted by Mr. O’Toole, and he wants it confirmed. I am prepared to pay you for any assistance you can provide.”

  “How much are we talking about?” she said swiftly.

  “How about a thousand dollars?”

  “We use euros here.”

  “A thousand euros then.”

  “All right, Ms. Lee, bring the cash with you and you can poke away in Maurice’s boxes to your heart’s content.”

  “I’m going to try to catch a flight out of here this afternoon.”

  “Do you have my address?”

  “I do.”

  “We’re about fifteen kilometres from the Dublin airport. Any taxi driver will know where Donabate is.”

  “Do you mind if I drop by when I get in?”

  “As long as you bring the money, you can come at midnight if you want.”

  (20)

  At a quarter to four Ava stepped outside at Dublin Airport into wet, cold, mean weather. She was beginning to think that all of Europe was sitting under one giant rain cloud. She pulled a Steinum sweater from her bag and put it on.

  She had called Helen Byrne as soon as she could turn on her cellphone and was now officially expected. She lined up at the taxi stand; to her right was a mass of people huddled inside a fenced area, partially hidden by small trees. “Stupid smokers,” the woman in front of her said. “They call that area Sherwood Forest because of the trees. Those idiots would stand there even if it was hailing on them.” She was holding a large umbrella and moved it towards Ava so they were both covered.

  “Thank you so much,” Ava said.

  “Are you Vietnamese?”

  “No, Chinese-Canadian.”

  “There are lots of Vietnamese in Dublin these days. Them and Poles. Don’t know what restaurants and hotels would do without them. Shut down, probably.”

  The line moved quickly, and Ava was in a taxi before most of the smokers had finished getting their fix. She asked the driver to take her to Donabate. “A pretty little town,” he said. “The surrounding area, Fingal, is just as nice.” Ava couldn’t see any of it through the rain and mist. “The town is on a peninsula overlooking the Irish Sea,” he went on. “It has some fine beaches.” Ava wondered how many days a year those beaches could be enjoyed.

  The cab stopped in front of a small whitewashed cottage four doors down from a miniature Tesco and six doors from a Boots store. Ava paid the driver, walked up to the front door, and gave the brass knocker a solid rap. She pressed close to the house, trying to keep dry.

  The door swung open wide and Ava almost fell inside. “You’re not what I expected,” a woman said.

  Neither are you, Ave thought as she stared up at a tall, gangly woman wearing jeans and a red fleece top zipped to the neck. For some reason she had imagined a small, thin, grey-haired old lady. Helen’s hair was dyed blonde, dark at the roots, and combed over to one side. She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties, though it was hard to tell through the thick layer of makeup.

  “You’re young,” Helen said.

  “Not as young as I look.”

  “And I thought you’d look more professional somehow.” Ava glanced down at her training pants and running shoes. “Did you bring the money?”

  She passed Helen the wad of euros she’d withdrawn from the ATM at the airport.

  “Come in,” Helen said.

  Ava put down her bags in the narrow hallway.

  “Do you want to go directly to the shed?”

  “Please.”

  The cottage was tiny, with no more than six rooms. They walked past two closed doors on either side to the back, where the kitchen door opened onto the yard. There was an empty pizza box on the counter. “That’s the shed; the door is open,” Helen said. “There isn’t a light in there and it will get dark in a couple of hours, so you’d better work fast.”

  The shed couldn’t have been more than three metres square, big enough for a lawnmower and some basic gardening equipment. Ava pushed the door open and was immediately hit by a musty smell, the kind that damp paper generates. Geez, she thought, all that way for this.

  Four rows of cardboard boxes were stacked against the far wall, three boxes high. She opened one and saw a row of neatly hung files, each of their tabs clearly marked. Her spirits rose. Then she noticed that the boxes were dated, starting with 1984-85 and the last dated 2004. She loved tidiness.

  She scanned the tabs in the most recent box. Many of the files contained mundane documents, business expenses, bank statements. There was a file marked Jan Sorensen. She opened it and saw copies of all the correspondence that had gone back and forth between the two men. There was another marked Hughes Gallery. And one identified Derain. She opened it with a touch of excitement. Inside was a complete record of the life of a painting: the letter from Glen Hughes requesting the work; Maurice O’Toole’s reply; an invoice for the finished work, sent to an address she didn’t recognize; and a Polaroid photo of the painting itself, with the completion date and a title written across the bottom. You beautiful man, she thought.

  She pulled down another box and opened it to find an almost exact duplicate of the first, except instead of Derain, there were tabs for Braque and Dufy. The Dufy file was as complete as the Derain. Ava removed the lids from two more boxes and found more of the same. Drops of water began to fall on her head and on the files. Great, she thought, looking up at a small leak in the ceiling. Ava thought about asking Helen if she could take the boxes into the kitchen and work there, and then thought better of it. She didn’t want the woman standing over her shoulder as she looked through them, and she knew she was going to have to make copies — lots of copies.

  She made her way back to the house. Helen was standing in the kitchen with a bottle of beer in her hand. “Back so soon?”

  “We need to talk,” Ava said. “I can’t work in the shed. What I’d like to do is take the boxes to my hotel and work there. It’s going to take me a day, maybe longer, to work through them, and I have to take notes and make copies.”

  “What hotel?”

  “I
don’t have one yet, but give me a minute and I will.”

  Helen nodded.

  Ava called her travel agent in Toronto. “I need a hotel in Dublin, Ireland. I want a suite, something with a proper work area. Book it for two nights.” She turned to Helen. “So you’re okay with this?”

  She shrugged and Ava saw she was doing her own calculations. “Look, we can do a different kind of deal, you know.”

  “What are you thinking?” Helen asked.

  “I’ll buy the files from you.”

  “Now why would you do that?”

  “I’ll be wanting to have some of the original documents rather than copies. Instead of doing this piecemeal, why don’t we strike a deal for the lot?”

  Helen sipped her beer, her eyes suspicious. “Have you found something in those boxes, I mean, something valuable?”

  “Ms. Byrne, you can go through each and every box before I take it away.”

  Helen winced. “Not bloody likely. So, okay, assuming you want to buy them all, what kind of price are we talking about? I mean, you were willing to pay a thousand euros just to look at them.”

  “Another thousand.”

  “Ten thousand sounds better.”

  “Ms. Byrne, without me that paper is junk,” Ava said.

  “Five thousand.”

  “I’ll give you two.”

  Helen nodded. “When can I see the money?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Then the files stay here until then.”

  “Please, Ms. Byrne, don’t make me waste my evening. Let me take at least a couple of boxes tonight. The balance can stay here until you get your money.”

  Ava’s cellphone rang. She listened, said “Thanks,” and then turned to Helen. “The Morrison Hotel on Ormond Quay. Do you know where that is?”

  “Centre of Dublin.”

  “That’s where I’ll be. Come by tomorrow anytime after eleven with the rest of the boxes and I’ll have your money for you.”

  (21)

  Ava’s suite at the Morrison gave her a jolt of deja vu. It had the same bold, bright minimalist look as the Fletcher Hotel — black-and-white furnishings with bright red cushions and duvet cover. But instead of looking down on Kensington Gardens, the view was of the River Liffey flowing slowly by.