Maestra: The most shocking thriller you'll read this year

by L. S. Hilton

  I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to tell him about James, Leanne, all of it. I wanted to tell him about Dave, that I’d done it because Dave had lost his job, but that wouldn’t have been true, and somehow that mattered. I wanted to tell him about being on the outside, about feeling trapped, because no matter how brilliant or beautiful you were, there was no place in the world for someone like me. But that wasn’t true, either.

  ‘It wasn’t the money,’ I said. ‘The money was a by-product.’

  ‘Revenge?’ he smiled.

  ‘Nah, way too simple. Not revenge. Not interesting.’

  ‘Interesting. I think, that is, I –’. He broke off. Was he trying to trick me, by offering a confession of his own? Unlikely he’d try anything so obvious. It was his turn to take a contemplative slurp.

  ‘So what, then?’ he asked again.

  Because I could, I suppose. Because I needed to see if I could. Why does there have to be a logic? It’s like sex, people always wanting reasons, to know how you bloody well feel.

  ‘Can I tell you some other time?’

  ‘Sure. Any time.’

  *

  Dave came through with the catalogues, a glossy brick that must have cost a fortune to post. He’d sweetly included a cigar box containing three Wispa bars, remembering that I was always a sucker for hydrogenated vegetable fat. I felt all warm and glowy when I opened it up. In the end, though, thinking of Steve, I told Renaud I’d decided to go for the Richter: contemporary was more of a cert with new money. I had half a mind to go over to London for the sale, take old Frankie out for a celebratory drink, even, and Rupert could go screw himself, but Renaud thought it would be unwise to use my own passport.

  ‘You’ll have a new one, soon. I’m arranging it. When I’ve seen Moncada.’

  I bought a copy of Condé Nast Traveller and thought about my future. Montenegro looked promising. Or Norway. Cold – suitable for murderers.

  ‘Why can’t I just stay here?’

  ‘Don’t be dumb, Judith.’

  ‘What about my bank accounts?’

  ‘Gentileschi will just have to take on a new employee.’

  I settled on a phone bid, using the company name. We went to the FNAC to buy some headphones and Renaud set up my computer back at the flat so he could listen in. If I got the picture, it could be shipped in a couple of weeks. To compensate for missing the auction in person, I dressed for the occasion. My Chanel two-piece, black, with an artful leather camellia on the hip pocket, stockings, classic Pigalle 120s in patent leather, hair severely pinned up, red lipstick which didn’t really suit me. I put crotchless Seventies-style Bensimon panties underneath. I felt a bit of an idiot, all that to sit at my own dining table, but it was worth it for the look Renaud gave me when I strolled out of the bathroom.

  I’d applied online to bid, in Gentileschi’s name, and received a number, 38, for the telephone auction. We’d bought a chuck-away pay-as-you-go phone for the sale, the bank details were what would matter if I got the Richter. At eleven o’clock the House called to say the sale had begun. I had a pad and a pen in front of me, I didn’t know what for, just to make it seem businesslike. I’d been allowed to watch a good few sales at the House, enjoying the showmanship of the experts and the senior auctioneer, the vice-chairman of the House, and I tried to imagine the blond wood room, the tense stillness of the bidders. At 11.42 the cell rang again; the Richter was up. Renaud hunched forward over the computer, his hair a parrot’s quiff under the headphones. I wondered which of the snotty girls I’d seen in the passage way of the other place was managing the Gentileschi bid I had a childish urge to shout down the line that it was me, Judith Rashleigh, but of course I didn’t. I even put a little Fransh accent into my voice.

  The starting price was 400K. The Richter quickly raised four point five, five, five five, then six. I stayed in. The bids continued rising in increments of fifty.

  ‘I have 750,000 against you, number 38. Will you bid?’

  Renaud gave me a sharp nod. ‘Eight hundred.’ He took my hand.

  ‘Very good.’

  I couldn’t help it, I was excited.

  ‘Number 38? I have 850,000 pounds. Will you bid?’

  ‘Nine hundred.’

  Renaud was sweating, his shirt sticking to his back, his palm slippery in mine, carried along by the tension. I sat straighter, poised and cool in my perfect suit. Down the line I could faintly hear the auctioneer’s voice asking for any further bids. Pause.

  ‘We have 950,000 against you, madam. Will you bid?’

  Fuck it. ‘A million. A million pounds.’ We were into the straight now, the jockeys bobbing like monkeys, brandishing their whips for the last furlong. I was rushed.

  ‘I’m going to come,’ I mouthed at Renaud.

  I knew she would be nodding to the podium, raising one finger.

  ‘One million and fifty thousand pounds, number 38. Will you bid?’

  ‘One point one.’

  Renaud was scowling, making a cut sign at his neck. I ignored him; I was crazed.

  ‘Very good.’

  The handler was holding out her phone, so I could hear ‘Ladies and gentleman, I have one point one million pounds. Going once –’ I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath, my fingers shaking around the handset.

  ‘Congratulations, madam.’

  I pressed the little red button, carefully, let my head fall back and unpinned my hair.

  ‘We’ve got it.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  I lit a cigarette and practically sucked it down in one. Then I went and sat on his knee and rested my brow against his.

  ‘I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe it,’ I whispered.

  ‘Why not?’ I liked that about Renaud, that unlike every other man I’d ever met he was genuinely interested when I said that I felt something.

  ‘I just bought a million-pound picture. Me. It seems impossible, crazy.’

  ‘Yet you’ve done much more difficult things.’

  The high dissipated as suddenly as it had risen. I stalked a few irritable paces about the room. ‘Do you have to keep going on about that? Can’t you just leave it alone? I’m doing what you want, aren’t I?’

  He came towards me and crouched down by my feet, the absurd headphones still ruffling his hair as he pulled me close.

  ‘I didn’t mean that. You forget, I know a lot about you. I’ve seen where you grew up, I’ve seen what you must have had to do to get out. I suppose what I’m saying is that I admire you, Judith.’

  ‘Really? You admire me?’

  ‘I said it, don’t make me flatter you. Now, I think we should go and celebrate your first major acquisition. What’s your very favourite thing to eat in Paris?’

  ‘Lobster salad at Laurent.’

  ‘Then I’ll get changed. I’ll even wear decent clothes. I’ve got a tie, can you believe it? And mademoiselle shall have her lobster.’

  But I’d already slipped off my skirt. The lips of my cunt were fat with desire, pulsing through the slit in the black mesh panties. I perched up on the table and opened my legs.

  ‘Or we could dine at home?’

  He pushed a finger inside me, so abruptly that I gasped, withdrew it slowly, a gossamer strand of cum stretching between us, brought it to his mouth.

  ‘We could dine at home.’

  25

  I’d debated about having the Richter shipped to my own address, and eventually decided in favour. Gentileschi was registered, my money was clean, and what I did with my own property after I received it was nobody’s business. It was a standard sale; there was no reason for Rupert to look up the buyer of a picture he hadn’t even sold. It would appear in the trades, in the account of the sale, but there was no reason to connect my company to me personally, even if the name Gentileschi did tweak a memory. Besides, Rupert had other things to worry about, as he was down a cool half-million since his game with Cameron hadn’t paid off. Renaud agreed. Once the paperwork arrived, ex
pressed from London after the sale, I was ready to contact Moncada. Another throwaway phone, a list of numbers from Renaud’s notebook.

  ‘How do you know these will work for Moncada?’

  ‘One of them will. I told you, I have good contacts.’

  ‘Yeah yeah. You and your famous contacts. But he won’t call me back on this thing. We’ll have to find a payphone.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘I found you can learn most things on the job, if you concentrate.’

  We took the Métro over to the eighteenth arrondissement, found a call shack on the Rue de la Goutte d’Or where immigrants could buy cards to speak to their families among piles of plantain and limes and stacks of cheap African headcloths. Renaud bought a card and waited in line for the phone while I started on the list. The first two numbers were dead, the third was answered and hung up, the fourth responded ‘Pronto’ but hung up again as soon as I spoke. I tried two more. Useless.

  ‘What can we do if he doesn’t respond? Is this all you’ve got?’

  Renaud had reached the last place in the queue. A lady with a complicated fan of melon-printed cotton on her head swung her enormous arse at him as though she was brushing off a tick, then went back to shouting in impenetrable Creole patois. The shop smelled of acrid sweat and treacle, a game show blared above the counter, half-watched by the five or six people waiting behind Renaud for the phone.

  ‘This could take forever. And even if we get him, this phone will be occupied till Christmas.’

  ‘Just keep trying.’

  This was pathetic. Did he actually want to get it done? I called over and over again until the mobile’s credit was exhausted. We went out for a coffee and a dry-mouthed cigarette, bought another phone, started again. More coffee, more cigarettes; my head ached with exhaust fumes and nicotine. I called until I didn’t need to look at the paper anymore.

  ‘Renaud, this is useless.’

  In his horrible jacket and shoes he fitted right in on the Goutte d’Or. We must have looked ridiculous, a pair of small-time hustlers from a film student’s patternbook. By five o’clock, we’d been there for three hours, Renaud had given up his place in the queue so many times that even the game-show-watching cashier had started to peer at us.

  ‘I want to go home. I want a shower.’

  For the first time since he had stepped into my cab at the Hôtel de Ville, Renaud looked ruffled, uncontrolled.

  ‘Wait here. I’ll make a call.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said wearily. I tried to watch his lips through a window display of Hello Kitty phone cases as he placed the call but he squared his back to me in the street.

  ‘Try these.’

  Two more numbers. The first one was dead. The second one rang, and rang.

  ‘Pronto.’ A woman’s voice.

  ‘I need to speak to Signor Moncada. Judith Rashleigh. I worked for Cameron Fitzpatrick.’

  Dialling tone. I took a few breaths, called back. ‘Please give Signor Moncada this number. I’ll be waiting.’ I gave Renaud a quick nod. ‘Maybe now.’

  Renaud stepped forward, removed the handset from an etiolated Somali man in a nylon robe and hung it up.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  Renaud was opening his jacket, pulling a badge from the pocket.

  ‘Police.’

  For a second, it was as though all the oxygen had been vacuumed from the room. Then the whole crowd scrambled for the door, knocking over an open sack of rice and a box of fake Ray-Bans. The cashier stood up, two huge fists bunched with rings on the counter.

  ‘Listen, monsieur, you can’t just come in here –’

  ‘You. Sit down and shut up. Better still, get in the back and stuff your fat face with fried chicken until I say so, or I’ll ask for your fucking papers too, OK? And then I’ll send you back to whatever fucking hole you come from faster than you can say “racial discrimination”, you fat fuck. If your smashed mouth still works well enough to speak. Clear?’

  We were left alone. The rice crunched under Renaud’s feet as he flipped the sign on the door to ‘Closed’.

  ‘There was no need to speak to him like that. And what’s with the badge?’ I muttered in English.

  ‘Spare me. This is important. And the badge –’.

  ‘Yeah, I know. Your famous friend at the préfecture.’

  ‘Just wait by the phone.’

  Renaud lit a fag.

  ‘It’s forbidden to smoke in here!’ the cashier called defiantly from behind the plastic shower curtain that served as a divider.

  ‘Want one?’ he asked me, ignoring him.

  ‘No, thanks. Stop behaving like a dickhead, why don’t you? You’re acting like you are a fucking cop.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m just nervous. There’s a lot of money in this for me. I’ll apologise to him, I really will.’

  ‘Whatever. Could you just sit down or something? Read a magazine, let me concentrate.’

  Renaud made a half-hearted attempt to scoop the rice into the sack, set the sunglasses to rights and took the cashier’s chair behind the counter, turning off the TV. We waited in silence for twenty minutes or so, until I was already planning where I’d hang the Richter, when it rang.

  ‘Signor Moncada? Judith Rashleigh.’

  ‘Vi sento.’

  He wasn’t giving me anything more. I launched into my little speech in Italian – God knows I’d had time to rehearse it. I mentioned that I had something I thought he might like to buy, gave details of the sale so he could check it, suggested we meet in Paris if he thought it would be suitable. The real thing. No mention of money, no mention of Fitzpatrick.

  ‘Give me your number. I’ll call you back.’

  It took another hour before he returned the call. We didn’t really have to hang around in the shop anymore, but by that time I’d sent Renaud out to McDonalds, and he and the cashier had set aside their differences and were chatting like pals, sluicing down mega Diet Cokes and watching a football match. The little phone buzzed in my hand. So tense with sweat that I almost dropped it, I waved the cashier frantically back behind the curtain, cupping my hand behind my ear to signal to Renaud that he could listen in.

  ‘No need. My Italian’s not that good,’ he whispered in English.

  ‘Have you a price for me, Signorina Rashleigh?’

  ‘As you will have seen, I acquired the piece for one point one sterling. That’s approximately one point five euro. The price I require is one point eight euro.’

  If he bought that, my half share of the 300K euro difference would amount to about 100K sterling. A fair price for the piece.

  Silence on the line.

  ‘My estimate is that the piece will be worth over two million euro in six months, more in a year.’

  I wondered how much Moncada really knew about the legitimate art market. If he was knowledgeable, he would know that this was a genuinely good deal, based on the way Richter held value and the general, steadily climbing prices for post-war art.

  ‘Very good.’

  I was rather impressed with him.

  ‘As before, then?’

  ‘As before.’

  I ran through my suggestion as to how we should meet, but he didn’t speak again. When I’d finished I let the silence hang for a breath, then said goodbye, using the polite, formal lei. I remembered my fear of Moncada, back in Como, but it seemed irrational now. Moncada would soon be Renaud’s problem. I’d be up on the money for the Richter, if it worked, and, besides, at the meeting Renaud would be there to protect me. Or if his affection wasn’t equal to that, he would certainly want to protect his fee for getting the Rothko back.

  All I had to do was wait for the picture to arrive from London, hand it over, do the business with the bank codes and it would be finished. Renaud would disappear and I’d be free. I wasn’t about to let myself get sentimental about the thought of him being gone, but there was a part of me, perhaps, that hoped the delivery wouldn’t be too quick. There was nothing wrong in wanting just a
few more days.

  *

  As it was, I found myself quite busy while we waited for the Richter to arrive, dismantling my life in Paris like a film running backwards. I found a specialist art moving company to take my paintings and the antiques; they would be held in temperature-controlled storage in Gentileschi’s name in a depository just outside Brussels. Reluctantly, I gave notice on my flat and called a second set of movers who would come to pick up the rest of my stuff when I was ready and transport it to a rented warehouse space near the Porte de Vincennes. When the guy turned up with the packing cases and bubble wrap, the concierge asked where I was going. I felt that I’d rather sunk in her estimation since taking up living in sin with such a scruffy character as Renaud, who definitely lowered the bon chic bon genre tone of the building, but she couldn’t bear not to be up on the gossip. I told her I was going to Japan for my work. It sounded as good a place as any.

  ‘And monsieur?’

  I shrugged. ‘You know. Men.’

  ‘You’ll miss Paris, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll miss it very much.’

  Perhaps because she asked that, I persuaded Renaud to become a tourist for a few days. Like anyone who lives in a city, I’d never seen it through a stranger’s eyes. So we went up the Eiffel Tower and out to Père Lachaise to push our way through the crowds of emo-ghosts at Jim Morrison’s grave, to the Conciergerie to see Marie Antoinette’s cell, to the Chagall murals at the Opéra Garnier, to a Vivaldi concert at the Sainte-Chapelle. We went to the Louvre to say au revoir to La Gioconda and walked in the gardens at the Musé Rodin. When I’d been a student I’d sneered patronisingly at the Japanese tourists who saw nothing of the art works beyond the perimeters of their Nikons; now they held up iPads to film the city’s treasures, so all they saw with their own eyes was the blank grey of an Apple tablet. Shuffling zombies don’t deserve to see beautiful things. We bought disgusting kebabs at Saint-Michel, smearing them down our throats as we sat on the fountain, mugged for pictures in the Métro photo booth. We even took a bateau mouche, eating a surprisingly nice dinner of onion soup and tournedos Rossini as we chugged beneath the illuminated bridges while a slim Algerian girl in a sequined red cocktail frock crooned Edith Piaf. Renaud held my hand and nuzzled my neck and though I could see we must appear as odd a couple as any of the horrors I had seen during my stay on the Mandarin, I didn’t mind. I did ask him about the affected monogram which still adhered stubbornly to all his limp shirts.