The Rembrandt Secret

by Alex Connor

  But she never did come back, and Marshall watched as his father finally faced the truth, ten years after her death. He watched the grief, sitting with his father in the country house, staring into country fires or country views. He listened to old memories that had never been his, memories from before his birth, and realised that inside some men there is one space for one woman. And if that woman is lost, the space is never filled again. With a father so bereft, Marshall absorbed his own grief alone, and by the time Owen invited him to talk about his mother’s death, she had been parted with. As beautiful, but out of time, as his grandfather’s old French paintings.

  His thoughts coming back to the present, Marshall prompted, ‘You said the money had gone.’

  ‘All gone,’ Owen said, nodding.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Debts.’

  ‘Debts?’ Marshall was shaken. His father had never intimated that money was tight. ‘You never said you were struggling. The last show was a success—’

  Still seated, Owen turned his face upwards to his son, fixing his gaze. ‘I’ve been cheated.’

  I’ve been cheated … The words seemed to swell in the gallery, skim along the picture rails, slide across the red silk on the walls, and then slither up the staircase into the dark beyond. A creeping sense of unease swept over Marshall, the same feeling he had had as a boy sleeping in the flat above, remembering the old story of the building. And listening for the ghost of the unknown soldier. The young man who came out at night, who walked around the gallery below, then crept up the stairs in the darkness.

  ‘Who cheated you?’

  ‘I should never have believed him.’

  ‘Who? Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Manners.’

  Manners. The name fell like a corn thresher, slicing the air between the two men. Tobar Manners, one of his father’s oldest friends and a fellow dealer. Tobar Manners, with his small pink hands and dandelion hair. Tobar Manners, quick, clever, mercurial, always so charming to his father, but another man to Marshall. Indeed, it was Manners who had told Marshall about the murdered soldier, taking delight in frightening a child with stories of a ghost and then laughing, insisting he was only teasing, but knowing that he had planted a poisonous thought. Many disturbed nights of his childhood Marshall put down to Tobar Manners. Many times, waking at a sudden noise, he blamed his unease on his father’s changeling friend.

  ‘What did he do?’

  Owen shook his head.

  ‘Dad, what did he do?’

  ‘I’ve been in debt for some time,’ Owen said slowly, the words crisp, as though he could keep back his panic by the control of his delivery. ‘Business has been bad. The collectors aren’t investing, and the auctions have been hit too. A couple of galleries have even closed down.’ He paused, grabbed at a breath. ‘In the last few years, I overbought. I came across some good paintings and thought I’d have no problem selling them. But then there was the credit crunch. Not many people buy at these times …’

  ‘But the big collectors?’

  ‘Are holding back.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘No, but not enough are investing to stop me going under.’

  ‘Christ!’ Marshall sat down next to his father. ‘What about the house?’

  ‘Remortaged.’

  ‘The paintings,’ Marshall said, feeling some panic himself, ‘sell what you’ve got. You might make a loss, but you’d raise some money.’

  ‘Not enough,’ Owen replied quietly, his hands clenched together. ‘I didn’t want to tell you how bad it was. I thought I could get out of it, I thought if … I sold the Rembrandt …’

  Slowly, Marshall lifted his head, staring at his father. The painting had been in the family since 1964, when Owen had bought it in Germany. At first he had believed it to be painted by Ferdinand Bol, a pupil of Rembrandt’s, but after numerous tests and some intensive research, it had proved to be genuine. It had been the first spectacular triumph of his father’s career. A seal on his talent as a dealer. Marshall could remember hearing the story repeated by his father, and by Owen’s mentor, Samuel Hemmings. Watch your back now, Samuel had warned him, now you have enemies.

  ‘Did you sell the Rembrandt?’

  ‘I took it to Tobar Manners …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said it wasn’t genuine. That it was by Ferdinand Bol, as we had originally thought—’

  ‘But it was genuine!’

  ‘It’s all in the attribution, Marshall,’ his father said shortly. ‘There’s no cut and dried proof—’

  ‘Samuel Hemmings backed your opinion,’ Marshall interrupted. ‘Surely his name carries enough weight?’

  ‘Samuel is a controversial historian, you know that. What he says is accepted by some people and vigorously denied by others.’

  ‘Usually when there’s money involved.’

  At once, Owen flared up, his unruffled urbanity overshadowed by hostility.

  ‘I know what you think of the business, Marshall! There’s nothing you can say about it I haven’t heard before. You made your choice to have nothing to do with the gallery or the art world. Fine, that was your choice, but it’s my life, and despise it all you will, it’s my passion.’

  The argument was worn thin between them. Owen might be committed to art dealing, but Marshall wasn’t blinded to the realities of the trade. And trade it was. A hard, tight little trade where a pocket of honest men traded with a legion of those without scruples. Dealers who had inherited galleries, working cheek by jowl with titans who had bought their way in. Deals brokered between old-school traders and the hustlers who drafted in dummy bidders to up the price on a gallery’s painting at auction. Not that all of the auction houses were blameless; the process of burning was well known. If a painting didn’t reach its reserve, it was supposedly sold, but instead it was burned, put away for years until the market had either forgotten about it, or presumed it had been put back on sale again by a private buyer. That way no famous name was seen to lose its kudos and market value. Because market value was imperative. For every Cézanne that scorched through its reserve and set a new benchmark, a dozen other Cézannes in museums and private collections rose in value. Over the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties the art market had inflated the value of Van Gogh to such an extent that one purchaser had to put his painting in store for twelve years for insurance reasons. Art was being priced out of the galleries and off the walls into the steel tombs of bank vaults.

  Sighing, Marshall realised that this was no time to resurrect the old argument and moderated his tone. ‘So Manners said it wasn’t a Rembrandt?’

  Owen nodded. ‘He said it was by one of Rembrandt’s pupils. Besides, there was no signature on the painting—’

  ‘There’s no signature on many of Rembrandt’s paintings!’ Marshall snapped. ‘That never stopped them being attributed to him. And God knows there are enough paintings with his signature that people doubt are genuine.’

  ‘Tobar was sure mine wasn’t genuine. When I asked him to buy it, he was told that it was by Ferdinand Bol. He had it looked at twice, thoroughly investigated.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘By specialists!’ Owen barked, hurrying on. ‘Tobar was so sorry. He said that he would give me as much as he could, but nothing like I would have got for a genuine Rembrandt … Jesus, I trusted him. I’ve known Tobar for years, I had no reason not to trust him.’

  Unbidden, images curled in front of Marshall. Images of Christmases, of private views, of visits to the gallery – and in every image was Tobar Manners. Always there. Sometimes alone, sometimes in a group. Manners and Samuel Hemmings, and other friends of his father’s, talking, laughing, swapping stories about dealers or customers. Gossip flirting from one glass to another; snippets of information traded over caviar and canapés; cankers of venom floating into greedy ears.

  ‘What did he do?’ Marshall asked finally.

  ‘He bought the painting off me.’

  ‘And?’r />
  ‘I just heard,’ Owen said blindly, ‘I just heard about it. The sale in New York. Someone showed me the catalogue, and there is – was – my painting. The same one Tobar had bought from me as a Ferdinand Bol. Only it wasn’t. It was in the catalogue as a Rembrandt. It had been sold as a Rembrandt.’ His words were staccato, gunning his story out. ‘Tobar Manners gave me a fraction of its value! He cheated me!’

  Shaken, Marshall stared at his father. ‘Have you talked to him? Confronted him—’

  ‘He said it wasn’t his fault!’ Owen replied, his voice raised, anger making bright spots of colour on his cheeks.

  ‘He said he had sold it on to someone as a Ferdinand Bol, and they had cheated him!’

  ‘You don’t believe him, do you?’

  ‘Of course I don’t believe him!’ Owen hurled back, getting to his feet and walking over to the window.

  To his amazement, Marshall could see that his father was shaking, his elegant body trembling, his hands clenching and unclenching obsessively.

  ‘It made a fortune at the auction,’ Owen went on. ‘Broke all records for an early Rembrandt. My painting made a fortune. A fortune I could have saved the business with. A fortune that was mine! Jesus Christ,’ he said desperately, ‘I’m finished.’

  Sensing his father’s despair, Marshall tried to calm him. ‘Look, you can sell your stock – everything you’ve got. There are thousands of pounds hanging on these walls, you can raise money that way.’

  ‘Not enough.’

  ‘It must be!’ his son replied, feeling a sinking dread. ‘Call your collectors, auction what you’ve got. Ring your contacts. There must be some way to get money—’

  ‘It won’t be enough!’ Owen snapped, control gone. ‘I have debts you don’t know about. Debts to many people, some of whom are pressuring me now. I can’t afford the upkeep on this gallery. I kept thinking that things would improve, and then times got tough for everyone. People still bought, but much less over these last months. I can’t shift the stock, Marshall, I can’t raise money. There was only the Rembrandt left. It was always in the background, like a safety net. I knew that would raise enough to pay off the debts and get me straight again. But Manners …’

  He stopped talking, his anger drying up, and an eerie calm came over him before he spoke again. ‘He won’t admit it, but he did cheat me. He lied to me, knowing I was in trouble, he lied to me … How many times did that man come to my home? How many times over the years did I help him out? Lend him money to tide him over when he was struggling?’

  Owen was no longer talking to his son, just staring at the desk in front of him. ‘I’d only been here for a few weeks when Tobar Manners introduced himself. Your mother never really took to him, but I always thought that that was because he could be spiteful about people, and she never liked gossips. And when your mother died, Tobar was very kind …’

  He was a leech, Marshall wanted to say. My mother saw it, and so did I, even as a child. And he wasn’t smart, nothing like as talented as you. So how did he manage to dupe you? You could run rings around him once. You laughed at him with Samuel Hemmings. Not unkindly, more indulgent. But you let him in, too often and too close. God, why were you so stupid with the most treacherous of men?

  ‘I’ve got a bit of money put away. You can have that.’

  ‘No, I can’t take anything from you,’ Owen replied, then smiled sweetly, as though the offer momentarily obliterated the seriousness of his situation.

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Manage, somehow.’ He was trying to fight panic, to press a lid on the scalding tide of his own despair. ‘I’ll talk to the accountant and the bank again.’

  ‘Will they help?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe …’ he replied, back in control again. The father, not the panicking man. ‘Don’t worry about me. I was just so shocked by what’s happened. I shouldn’t really have troubled you, got you worried. I’ll find a way round this.’

  Unconvinced, Marshall looked around the gallery. ‘You need a change. You should get out of here for a while, Dad. It’ll help you think. I could come and stay with you at Thurstons for a bit. I don’t need to get back to Amsterdam straight away.’

  ‘It might …’

  ‘It would do you good.’ Marshall pressed him. ‘We can talk if you want, or you can just relax.’

  Owen nodded but averted his gaze. He was embarrassed to be seen as a failure by his son. Embarrassed and ashamed that he had panicked, crying like a child. After all, what could Marshall do? He hadn’t the money to rescue him, and couldn’t have guessed at the full plunging extent of the debts … He had never been a gambler, Owen thought, he should have known. Should never had fallen into the trap of over-buying, then relying on a friend to get him out of trouble – even a friend he had helped, a person who owed him a debt of honour. The shock of his imminent ruin fizzed inside Owen’s head, along with the queasy realisation of his own stupidity. He knew that the painting was genuine. He had looked at it for years, treasured it, admired it, petted it like a favourite child. It had never been a follower’s work. It had been painted by the Master’s hand. And he had sold it short. Confused and panicked, he had listened to a cheat and been treated as a fool.

  ‘You need to get away from here,’ Marshall said, breaking into his father’s reverie.

  ‘It’s jinxed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The gallery,’ Owen said softly. ‘When I bought it, I knew about the rumours. Nothing succeeded here for long. People came and went. Perhaps there is a ghost …’

  ‘Bull shit.’

  To Marshall’s surprise, his father laughed. ‘I wish I was like you, Marshall. I really do.’

  ‘I always wished I was more like you,’ his son said honestly, touching his father on the shoulder. ‘We could go to Thurstons tonight—’

  ‘I can’t,’ Owen cut in hurriedly. ‘I can’t just run away.’

  ‘But if you got away you’d clear your head.’

  Owen sighed. ‘There are things to do. I have to see to a few things here before I can leave.’

  ‘All right,’ Marshall agreed finally. ‘Then let me stay here and help.’

  ‘No,’ Owen replied, straining to smile. ‘I should never have got you involved. It’s not your worry, I just panicked that’s all. You’re right, Marshall, there is a lot of stock; perhaps I can raise enough to pay back some people.’

  ‘What about asking the bank for a temporary loan? Just to tide you over?’

  Mirthlessly, Owen laughed. ‘They didn’t seem to think I was a good bet.’

  ‘Then let me go and talk to my bank.’

  ‘No,’ Owen said, almost harshly. ‘Leave it be, Marshall. Just talking to you has helped. I’ll go through the stock tomorrow and draw up some figures. There are some people I can talk to …’ He trailed off, looking around him. ‘The Rembrandt would have sorted all this out, paid back all my debts. It sold for a fortune, did I tell you that?’

  Surprised, Marshall nodded. ‘Yes, Dad, you told me.’

  ‘Manners cheated me.’

  ‘So why don’t we confront him together?’

  His face set, Owen shrugged his shoulders. An odd gesture, resigned and feckless at the same time. ‘What’s done is done. I know this business, I made enough money out of it myself—’

  ‘Not by cheating people.’

  ‘No,’ Owen agreed. ‘And not by cheating friends.’ He paused, then straightened up, smoothed his hair, his urbane charm restored. ‘It might not be hopeless.’

  ‘Are you sure that there’s nothing I can do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Owen said calmly. ‘You go to Thurstons and I’ll come at the weekend.’

  Marshall nodded. ‘I’ve some business to see to first, but I’ll come back and we’ll go together. OK?’

  ‘OK, OK.’

  Relieved, Marshall touched his father’s arm. ‘When you get away from here you’ll feel different, I promise. It will all be different by the weekend.’ />
  3

  Teddy Jack was drinking tea made with two teabags, and four spoonfuls of sugar. Made by the fleshy woman at the Tea House on the corner, opposite St Barnabas’s Church. She made it better than anyone else, and winked when she passed it to him. Gratefully Teddy patted her bottom, the soft flesh under her polyester skirt yielding to his hand. Taking another gulp, he wiped his mouth and beard with the back of his hand, then watched the workers coming and going from the main entrance of Smithfield Market.

  Teddy could remember the place twenty years earlier, when he had just come out of Strangeways, having served two years for assault. His mother had said at the time, if you want to amount to nothing, carry on the way you’re going. There and then he’d decided that he wanted to amount to something – something more than cheap food, a worn bed in a council flat on the ninth floor, with a view of the gasworks. Divorcing a wife who had borne another man’s child while he was in prison, Teddy had left the North for London.

  He came down, regaled with all the usual tales of the capital’s streets either being crammed with gold or sleaze, depending on who he spoke to. But he had found neither. Perhaps his impressive physical size had warned many off; or perhaps it was his manner, which had been affable and threatening at the same time. Either way, Teddy Jack had started his new life washing up in a big London hotel. By the end of the month he had taken a smelly flat in Beak Street, Soho, sandwiched between the rooms of two working girls and above an all-night chemist with a relentless stream of addicts – the most desperate getting their stuff and immediately shooting up in the doorway of Teddy’s flat. When he’d caught them, they hadn’t done it again.

  Teddy had then cleaned out the flat and got rid of the smell, fitted a new window where a mouldy board had been, and soon the working girls took to Teddy. After another month he had been ‘married’ to five different girls, his husband status warning off pimps and keeping the punters in line. In return Teddy had been rewarded with blow jobs or quickies, and for a time he had even fancied himself in love with a diminutive Asian girl – until she had stayed with him one night and emptied his wallet. After that, none of the working girls had ever slept over at Teddy’s again. They had visited, talked to him in the Formica bleakness of the galley kitchen, or asked to use his bath, but they had only been friends, not lovers. Teddy was always a quick learner.