The Collector

by Anne-Laure Thiblemont

  “I can’t help you with that, sirs. You know the art business, full of people wanting to remain anonymous.”

  “How well did you know Edmond Magni?” Combes gave his partner a nod, indicated that he’d take over the questioning.

  “Barely at all.”

  “Have you heard of a certain Alain Ozenberg?”

  “Of course, he’s well known in art circles, but we don’t do any business together.”

  “How is the market reacting to Magni’s collection potentially going on sale?”

  “I haven’t heard anything.”

  Combes moved away from the man and turned to Joseph. “What did I tell you, René. There’s a code of silence in the art world.”

  “I’m guessing they settle their scores privately, too.”

  “No doubt. If I had one of those sculptures, I’d be worried about ending up like Chartier.”

  ~ ~ ~

  As soon as the detectives left, Duverger shouted at his secretary. “Pretend that I don’t exist today. Got that?”

  He grabbed his coat and headed to his car.

  “Take me to Passy,” he told his driver.

  Duverger did have one of the three sculptures, and he knew now that he had a target on his back. But what made him furious was that he had taken the wrong route in tending to Marion. How could he have known that a mastermind would be pulling the strings, helping her and protecting her?

  The appraiser stewed as he watched Paris go by through the window. He couldn’t think of the warrior being in Marion’s hands without getting the chills. Did she comprehend the stakes here? A massacre of the market—as well as his own demise. He hadn’t sacrificed everything to watch his empire crumble.

  Gaudin looked expressionless when he answered the door.

  “Mr. Duverger. Please come in,” he said, inviting the appraiser into the parlor, where Magni had hosted his dinner party. Images of that night flashed in Duverger’s mind.

  He turned to Gaudin without even waiting for an invitation to sit down. “I know what you’ve been up to. Nobody else is aware of the terms of Marion’s inheritance. You’re colluding with her to protect your turf. I know it. I used that shaman statue to warn you. Now I’m here for the direct approach. I could jeopardize Magni’s integrity and reputation in a minute. But I’m not about to let everything get blown to pieces. You need to stop helping the girl. You’re fooling yourself if you think you can control her. And don’t think about coming after me the way you did with Chartier. I’m not the problem here, Marion is.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gaudin finally interjected. He denied the whole thing, repeating over and over that he wasn’t involved. No, he hadn’t masterminded Chartier’s slaying. No, he hadn’t helped Marion.

  His denials confused the skeptical appraiser. Duverger had expected a much more cunning and less cooperative character.

  Was he that good at hiding his cards? Gaudin couldn’t have spent all those years so close to Magni without absorbing some of his lying, cheating, and trickery.

  Duverger’s eyes gravitated toward a beautiful bronze statue. He tried to silence his thoughts as he stared at the beauty: a pregnant woman with voluptuous curves and a delicate arched back. Joseph Erhardy. Yes, she had his signature style written all over her. He hadn’t noticed this sculpture on his previous visit.

  He brought his gaze back to the even-tempered Gaudin. He’d try another tactic.

  “They’re fakes.”

  “Fakes?”

  “Yes, fakes. Perfect imitations. The same materials, the same traits, the same colors, the same shapes—fakes.”

  This was revenge enough for Duverger: seeing the personal assistant as he pictured the far-reaching effects of the scandal. He delighted in that brief moment of triumph, when Gaudin looked stupefied, as though he had to deconstruct the notion in order to comprehend it. Then Duverger realized the assistant knew exactly which sculptures were at play.

  “That’s impossible,” Gaudin said, his tone perfectly flat.

  “Those sculptures are a threat to the collection, Gaudin. They must not be out in the wild.”

  That would bring the man around. He was more loyal to Magni’s museum than Magni himself.

  “But scientists, specialists, technicians, and curators have looked at them, examined them. That can’t be. There’s one at the Louvre, for God’s sake.”

  “Alas, it is. Magni was the reference. With his reputation, the curator certainly didn’t look close enough. You’d be surprised how often that happens. They are top-notch forgeries. The craftsmanship is excellent.”

  “Marion would lose everything if she reported the fakes. Her entire collection would be tarnished. Have you told her?”

  “Marion’s a loner, a maverick. She lives in the moment. I could never trust her enough to conspire with her. She could go rogue too easily.”

  Duverger decided to skip to the chase.

  “He was the one who sculpted them.”

  “Magni sculpted fakes? I don’t believe so. No, that’s impossible. What would be the point?”

  “Good God, Gaudin, wake up!”

  “But he could afford the real thing.”

  “You don’t get it at all, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “Magni was fed up. He had worked his whole life to become an unrivaled force. And he was. No one could stand in his way or question his choices. Eventually he got bored, Gaudin! He wanted to have fun, mix it up. And to that end, he was willing to present fakes as genuine and absolute paradigms.”

  “That’s bullshit. Pseudo-psychology,” Gaudin spat out. “Magni wouldn’t have risked losing everything just for the sake of having a little fun.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Need I remind you of what he always said? ‘Art is like pâté. You know instantly whether it’s good or not. You don’t need to understand how it’s made to want it.’ You heard him say that, right? He looked down on idlers—people who are incapable of forming their own opinions. Shit, Gaudin, surely you saw this coming. Magni couldn’t have made a more blaring proclamation of contempt for our kind. He embraced Umberto Eco’s dogma as his own—the ‘absolute fake’—the fabrication of something better than the real thing—Las Vegas and Disneyland—to make people feel good and turn a big profit.”

  “He could have selected the ugliest sculpture out there and elevated it to an icon. Why would he resort to sculpting forgeries?” Gaudin argued, unwilling to admit the truth.

  “You know I’m right.”

  Duverger stood up, ready to play hardball. He had just demolished Gaudin’s house of cards, and now he needed to convince him that his viewpoint was valid. He walked around the couch, then stopped and looked the assistant in the eye.

  “You’re living in a bubble, an imaginary world. You’d rather feed your manservant convictions and deny reality. But the truth is knocking at your door. You can’t escape it—the truth about Magni, his subversion, his harshness, his hatred for mankind, his violence, his cruelty. You really need to get that through your thick skull. He cheated you, took you for a ride.”

  “Do you have proof?”

  Without saying a word, Duverger headed to his briefcase and took out a file.

  “The Oxford laboratory confirmed his fraud,” Duverger said, handing over the documents. In a quiet voice he added, “I wanted that sculpture. I wanted it because it had belonged to him. I, too, came face to face with my flaws.”

  “This is madness,” Gaudin whispered. “Every piece passed the thermoluminescence test.”

  “Those tests aren’t bulletproof. Magni knew their weaknesses and exploited them.”

  “How?”

  “He exposed the fake pieces to ultraviolet light to age them. He knew the light would miss certain parts of the pieces, like nostrils and underarms. But he also knew that most labs don’t test an entire object, and the tests aren’t exhaustive. His method wasn’t foolproof, but he was betting that the pieces would pass inspection. It’s only beca
use I insisted on a painstaking examination that Oxford discovered the truth.”

  Duverger wanted to be done with this. As Gaudin continued to examine the papers, the appraiser walked over to the bronze statue. He resisted an impulse to pick it up and touch the heavy breasts, delicate neck, and full hips. The assistant straightened up in his chair and shot him several nervous glances. “Look at that,” Duverger said to himself. “He’s like a jealous lover.”

  “If you think about it, Magni’s scheme is diabolical,” Duverger said, still admiring the bronze. “He calculated everything. And now, even from beyond the grave, he’s taking aim at us—through his daughter. Are you listening to me, Gaudin? He wants to use his daughter to create so much suspicion, the market won’t be able to do anything but collapse.”

  The room was completely silent.

  “Hello? Cat still got your tongue? You do realize that trying to pass off an ordinary-looking piece wouldn’t have satisfied him. He had to craft objects that looked priceless. You had your misgivings, didn’t you? Don’t tell me otherwise. I’d find that hard to believe.”

  Duverger didn’t need an answer. Worry was written all over Gaudin’s face. Yes, Magni’s assistant had entertained his own doubts, but he had put them out of his mind. Now he had proof that his hunch was right all along.

  “We have to keep any rumors from spreading,” Gaudin whispered, handing the papers back.

  “That’s exactly why—” Duverger hesitated for a second. “Marion must be stopped. She’ll lead us straight into a wall. You shouldn’t have stopped my men at the pool.”

  Gaudin didn’t respond.

  “We have to decide. Eliminate the sculptures or eliminate Marion. We don’t have a ton of options here.”

  ~ ~ ~

  A jolt of fear shot up the assistant’s spine. So Duverger was the one behind the attack on Marion. And now the appraiser was trying to strike a bargain with him. But Duverger wasn’t thinking. With those detectives poking around, making either Marion or the sculptures disappear would be like playing Russian roulette. Gaudin was finally beginning to see things clearly, and he was getting angry. He had been Magni’s watchdog. He had tended to everything the man had asked him to do, and just a minute earlier he had proposed a cover-up. That was then. Now he wanted out of this mess. Preferably a way out that would allow him to take revenge on the employer who had put him in an untenable position. He would sabotage Magni’s scheme.

  “We have to inform the press. Tell them the objects are fakes,” he said.

  “Are you nuts? You want to mess with Magni?”

  Duverger had his hand on the bronze. A clear attempt at intimidation. Gaudin was silent for a few moments, trying his best to avoid taking the bait.

  “I want the same result as you,” he finally said.

  “You still don’t get it.”

  “One day or another someone will find out, and they’ll talk.”

  “You’re not saying a word. Got it? Not a word!” the appraiser shouted, pointing his finger at Gaudin.

  “Duverger, listen to me. It would be best to take control of the situation now, and cut out the cancer before it spreads.”

  “Because you believe in transparency? Is that your plan to help you sleep at night?”

  Duverger was tensing up.

  “A disclosure of this magnitude would have an unbelievable domino effect. Is that what you want?”

  “We’d be taking a risk, yes. But the reaction might not be as dramatic as you fear. The media will feast on it for two or three days, and then they’ll move on to something else.”

  “We’re not taking the risk.”

  “You think taking out Marion will be more effective and make less noise than just coming clean? Think again. Murder her, and the reporters will come out in droves, and before you know it, they’ll be all over Magni and the sculptures. You’re going down a very treacherous path.”

  “Gaudin, she already has two pieces. That’s all it takes to make her a threat.”

  “You’re too scared to be thinking straight.”

  “There’s good reason to be scared when you’re dealing with a man who’s as narrow-minded as you.Keep your mouth shut. That’s all I’m asking. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “I will not stay quiet.”

  Gaudin barely had time to register the fury on Duverger’s face. All he saw was the bronze woman raised above his head. He tried to shield himself from the blow, but his hands were too fragile a defense. Before his head exploded, he closed his eyes and imagined the warrior with emerald tears. Gaudin knew no one would shed any tears for him.

  20

  “I want to feel your breasts, Marion. I want to smell your hair. I want to be deep inside you, to taste your mouth, and your neck. I need to feel your breath, hear your screams.”

  After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Alain Ozenberg whispered, “Meet me, now.”

  Marion listened to the message on her voicemail one more time. It was blunt, racy, explicit, exciting, erotic, and surprising. How could she not respond to that? If only he knew. He was a force of nature shaking up so many feelings inside her. Something sharp and painful—the sense of losing herself. But also something new and precious: an awareness of excitement and sensitivity. It was incredible how she loved his passion, his way of breaking through a barrier separating two worlds: the wild and the refined. Incredible how she loved the way his voice changed when he caressed her body.

  But no, something was off. His name was coming up too many times. What was his real connection to all this?

  For now, the sculptures demanded her attention—and her involvement. Marion had gone home to change clothes before meeting with Laurent Duverger. Chris had given her tips for shooting holes in the appraiser’s game. Her friend had done some additional analysis on the sculptures. They were definitely fakes.

  A real murder over a replicated object, real fortunes paid for clones, real cops investigating the crime of receiving stolen duplicates, a real will and testament bequeathing imitations. That pretty much summed up Magni’s legacy. Her father had given her nothing, nothing but chaos and ruin. And if she exposed the sculptures’ true nature, she would have nothing.

  Still under Ozenberg’s influence, she was tempted to drop everything and cancel her meeting with Duverger. But she couldn’t afford to lose any time. Combes was hot on her trail. If she wanted to claim all three sculptures, she would have to act fast. Once that was done, she’d be free to decide on the issue of selling.

  Marion knew she was charging into the lion’s den. But being aware of the dangers and moving ahead anyway gave her a rush. And that feeling, which she had already discovered with Ozenberg, was liberating. No longer a timid and scared little girl, she had the sense now that she could meet a threatening situation and master it. And so, on this afternoon, the challenge was dealing with Laurent Duverger.

  He would wait for her at two o’clock at the Elsa photo gallery in the Verdeau Passage, where he was handling an appraisal. Marion was familiar with the area. Just five years earlier, the place had played a role in her professional life. It was there that she had met a collector who, moments after acquiring a photograph by Gustave Le Gray, had burned it right in front of her and the gallery owner. Two hundred thousand euros up in smoke without the slightest trace of guilt on the buyer’s part. She had sworn on that day to never again interact with collectors. The irony of fate. She was now the heiress of the world’s most famous collector.

  ~ ~ ~

  As she approached the well-lit gallery with its large glass windows, she had no trouble making out owner Marc Chastagne conversing with Laurent Duverger. The place hadn’t changed a bit over the years. It still catered to mainstream clients who liked everything out in the open, rather than the privileged few who were accustomed to viewing their prospective purchases in private rooms and secretive galleries. The art dealer barely deigned to greet Marion. Looking both excited and relieved to be ending his side of the conversation, Duverg
er drew her by the arm to a corner of the shop.

  “Let’s go get coffee—some place close by,” he said in a tone that was welcoming—practically ecstatic. “I’ll be back,” he told the owner, who seemed to be trying his best to keep up a good front. His smile was friendly but tense.

  “You have my sculpture, don’t you?” Marion said as soon as they were seated. She didn’t intend to dillydally or get bogged down in foreplay. She wanted to take the appraiser by surprise if that was still possible.

  “Yes, I have it,” he said as he nonchalantly removed his leather jacket.

  A waiter carrying a silver tray came over to their table.

  “Are you selling it?” Marion asked, keeping a tight grip on her victim, who immediately ordered a hot chocolate.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you have the other two?”

  “Why does that matter?” Marion was giving the direct tactic her all, while the man was hedging.

  “We’ll pretend you have them.”

  “Okay, let’s say I have them.”

  “I will lend you mine for the time it takes you to testify that you, indeed, have all three.”

  Marion was panicking inside, but she wasn’t about to let Duverger see it. She had no reason to trust him, and deep down she understood that he was hiding something.

  “In exchange for what?” she asked at last.

  “Afterward, you’ll give me the two sculptures.”

  She suppressed a shiver, aware that she had to march straight in and lie without messing up. “They’re worth a fortune—”

  “That’s not all,” the appraiser interrupted. “I want exclusive rights to the appraisal.”

  “If I sell!”

  “I’m not twisting your arm.”

  “It would be a sort of guardianship.”

  “Call it whatever you want.”

  “What about George Gaudin?”

  “He won’t have anything further to say in the matter.”