“Hello,” Zoltan said, extending his hand as he arrived at the top of the steps. Tarquin shook it, followed by Constanta.
Sergei perched himself on the wall opposite and watched them with cool indifference. He seemed to be squeezed into a bomber jacket one size too small, and Constanta made a split-second guess that he was probably a boxer. Zoltan, on the other hand, was dressed in a white linen jacket over a blue silk shirt with Armani jeans. His sport shoes looked expensive.
“Okay, this doesn’t need to take so long … we just need to know that we’re all on the same page,” Zoltan said in a friendly manner. “Firstly, though, I need to confirm your names. You are ‘Tarquin’ by your email?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Tarquin replied sternly.
“And you are …?”
“Constanta,” she said.
“Constanta. Good. Now, I want you to remember that in my company, you will have a new name. You will be known as ‘Anya,’ okay?”
“Anya? Why?” she asked.
“For security. You don’t need to ask why,” he said decisively. “It is your code name … remember it. Also remember that Sergei,” he pointed with his chin, “has been known to your parents in Romania for long time. You have old family ties. It may seem confusing to you, but you’re probably going to meet other members of our network. When you do, this is your connection to us, okay?”
“I don’t understand … but yes, sure,” Constanta said, bemused.
“You don’t need to say any more than this. It is for your own benefit. If anyone starts asking awkward questions about Sergei, just say you’re sorry, but you cannot discuss it. This will underline your professionalism.”
“Professionalism?” she repeated.
“Yes. You hunt people down. This is your profession … your training. If you want to be paid, then follow my instructions carefully. You do not discuss it with anyone! Are we understanding each other?” he said, staring at her.
Constanta looked at him and nodded.
“Okay,” he continued. “Firstly, as I mentioned on the phone, Oliver has made a copy of a piece of extremely valuable furniture. Royal furniture, to be precise; French royal furniture. Commissioned from one of the best German cabinetmakers of the eighteenth century.”
“Wow!” Constanta said, feigning surprise. “He has a cheek!”
“Yes, he does,” Zoltan said, his pale blue eyes burrowing into hers. “He has cheek and good dose of stupidity.”
“Why?” she said innocently.
“Because such a strategy was my idea, not his!” he said forcefully. He looked out over the river and allowed his eyes to focus on a passing barge.
“But this is irrelevant now,” he resumed after a few moments. “What we want is our rightful rewards. I shall now explain to you what his game is, because it is not what you think.”
“Oh?” Constanta said, genuinely surprised.
“No, it is not Oliver’s French showroom; not at all. Oliver has placed the cabinet in this house for one reason only. In order to give it a false history … and an entirely plausible one!”
“I’m sorry, I’m not with you,” Tarquin said, craning forward.
“Oliver is creating the illusion that this cabinet was always at the chateau … hidden … forgotten … and then rediscovered.” Zoltan said, looking at Constanta and Tarquin in turn.
Constanta’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
“This is why you saw it being put in old scruffy chest in roof of the house. He is creating the illusion that the cabinet is lost twin of its sister at the Wallace Collection. How, we don’t know yet, but there must be a connection with this house or the family that it once belonged to, and the cabinet. A connection that lends credibility to its being there. It was secreted away for reasons only known to Oliver at the moment; fictitious reasons, but ones which I can assure you will be very convincing. I know Oliver well. He will have done his research, and he’s seen an opportunity.”
Constanta gazed at Zoltan whilst her mind worked through the information.
“Okaaay,” she said, trying to formulate her question. “So he’s playing this trick, which I have to say makes a lot of sense, but … but surely the owner of the house will be the lucky guy, not Oliver?”
“Of course. This is exactly right. And this makes me think the owner of the house is part of the plot. He knows the game,” Zoltan said, enjoying watching the penny drop. “It could be that Oliver now owns this house … but I doubt it; that would work against him.”
“Fucking hell!” Constanta blurted. “The smart bastard!”
“Well, not so clever, because you watched him doing it,” Zoltan said, allowing his guard to slip and smiling.
“And what now?” she probed.
“Well, now we have waiting game on our hands. Because Oliver has gone for such high-profile piece—such a magnificent artifact—he’s had to be extra careful as to how he presents it to the world. He would normally try and sell such a piece privately, through appropriate dealers who would approach institutions, rich private collectors and so on. But I think with this piece, he’s going to shout about it from the rooftops and act like silly school boy who’s discovered a Roman coin or a Saxon sword!”
“You mean, this would make it less suspect … more authentic?” Tarquin interjected.
“Of course. It will appear more genuine. Every dealer knows that big auction houses like Hardy’s charge large commissions on sales, and that someone ‘in the business’ would seek a different method to sell. But this implies sophistication, and this is last impression he wants to project. Don’t forget, it is not Oliver who’s at centre of the wheel here, it is the owner of the house. Oliver will be gone, out of the frame. But giving instructions from his command post.”
“So you think this person will sell more publicly … like at an auction?” she said.
“Yes, I do. He’s going to throw it at the world and say, look what I’ve discovered! The cabinet will be forbidden for export outside France—again it depresses its value—but again, it adds to its authenticity! It will be in the papers, on news. This piece has a twin at the Wallace Collection here in London; it was commissioned by Marie Antoinette.”
“How long, David, do you think the cabinet will remain at the chateau before Oliver plays his hand, as it were?” Tarquin asked stiffly.
“Who knows, it cannot be less than a certain time … say six months … but it could be lot longer. But I think not longer than say two or three years at most; it depends on many things. You must understand, the cabinet has to blend into house to look real … and this takes time.”
Zoltan glanced at his watch and caught the eye of Sergei.
“Okay, so we need to round this up, my friends,” he continued. “We need to know the way forward. On our part, we will be watching those websites which monitor valuable French artifacts. We will be watching all the auction houses and, of course, we will be keeping sharp eye on directory of ‘monumentes nationale,’ which is where the cabinet will be listed. My guess is that in six to eighteen months we will be hearing about it. I will then be in contact with you. I could call Oliver right now and tell him the game’s up. But what would be point of that? We need him to proceed as though it’s all fine … and then we strike. When the money is in his bank!”
Constanta’s eyes glinted. Zoltan resumed.
“After the sale and after funds have exchanged hands, I will call Oliver, tell him what I know, and suggest a meeting. He will have no option. Then we agree my percentage—which will include a slice for you both—and the deal will be done.”
“But how can we trust you to give us anything?” Constanta challenged.
“You can’t,” he replied sharply. “The exact whereabouts of the cabinet is not really of much importance any more. By showing Oliver the photos you sent me, he will assume that we’ve been to that place.”
Constanta looked bereft.
“But luckily for you, this is not way I work,” Zoltan
continued. “You did the ground work, you took some hits, you’ve shown initiative. You will be rewarded!”
“But how much?” she persisted.
“He can’t answer that, Constanta, the cabinet hasn’t sold yet, things can still go wrong,” Tarquin interrupted.
“Thank you,” Zoltan said, turning to Tarquin. “This is precisely right. We have to wait and see. Once the piece has passed through the hands of the experts and been sold at auction, then I can answer you.”
Constanta looked at him, the wheels of her mind whirring. He saw her conundrum.
“I regret to say, you can do nothing to put pressure on me,” he said. “Our organization is powerful … you just have to trust.”
He looked toward Sergei and made a “come here” gesture with his fingers. The big man came over whilst doing a quick scan of the immediate locality. He handed Zoltan a fat leather wallet, which he’d been concealing inside his jacket.
“Now, we decided to give you something for your achievements to date, which are considerable. This contains twenty-five thousand pounds in cash.”
Constanta took a sharp intake of breath and her eyes started watering.
“Fuck me!” she blurted, unable to stop a huge grin sweeping across her face. “Fucking bloody hell!”
Zoltan handed the wallet to Tarquin. “She seems happy, I think.”
Tarquin took the wallet and his fingers tightened around the handle.
“Thank you, I … don’t know quite what to say,” he said, looking Zoltan in the eye.
Constanta kicked him surreptitiously.
“You do not have to say anything, my friend, you play fair with me, and I play fair with you.”
He pulled a slim diary from his pocket and opened it at a back page. There were some words in Russian and the figure of £25,000.
“Sign here, please.”
Tarquin hesitated for a split second, realizing he hadn’t counted anything, but then scribbled his signature.
“Thank you, David,” he said.
“My pleasure,” Zoltan replied cordially, slipping the diary back into his jacket. “We will be in contact as soon as we have some news.”
“Multumesc David,” Constanta blurted in her mother tongue, momentarily phased by the enormity of events.
“My pleasure, Anya, and remember what I told you. Sergei is an old family friend and you are a professional man hunter.”
“Yes …yes of course,” she said, grinning stupidly.
Zoltan looked at her for a few moments, as though about to add something. Then he gestured to Sergei with his eyes, and the two men walked casually back down the steps and rejoined the third man.
* * *
The Gloucestershire sun beat down on Oliver with a rare intensity as he emerged from the glittering water and sauntered, dripping, across the hot paving stones and into the pool house. A minute or two later, a pair of brown feminine feet followed him, stepping silently and purposefully along the steaming trail of water he had left in his wake. Then they stopped.
Oliver had just removed his trunks when the light in the musty sweltering room dimmed suddenly. He turned in surprise to see Lily’s sylphlike figure silhouetted in the doorway. Her smouldering eyes locked onto his, blocking the vacuous words he was about to utter and rendering him speechless. She stood in that classic feminine pose, with one knee slightly bent, her head tilted to one side, her lips parted suggestively. There was no smile. Then very deliberately, her eyes still fixed to his, she adroitly unfastened her bikini top and let it fall in a flash of lilac to the floor.
Oliver suddenly found himself looking at Lily as though for the first time. Her naked breasts, so primal, beckoning and excitingly white against her tanned skin, caused a great welling of animal desire to plume up inside him. Before he had time to think about his nakedness, he became unashamedly aroused, and like a raw beast, moved quickly towards her.
Taking her temples in his hands, he kissed her passionately on the mouth, feeling the heat of her sun-kissed torso acutely against his cool flesh. Consumed with desire, he buried his head hungrily into her breasts, drawing in the warm scent of her skin and teasing the pink nipples to stiffen as he brushed them repeatedly with his nose and lips. She moaned as though in a dream, as his kisses moved down across her soft stomach, and forcing him to his knees. Without hesitation, he yanked her bikini bottoms down and, ignoring her murmured protests, pressed his face softly into the delicate orchid of her womanhood. She moaned and twisted … half pulling him up and half holding him down, her fingers working feverishly through his damp hair as feelings she hadn’t felt in years, blossomed in her groin.
“Fuck me, Oliver … fuck me now!” she groaned, as though in pain.
“I will … I will,” he said in a voice he didn’t recognize. “I bloody will!”
He stumbled to his feet and, curling his forearms under her thighs, hoisted her carefully up. She locked her legs around his waist and then sank onto him with a piercing shriek, driving her fingernails into his shoulders fiercely. Moaning uncontrollably, she then buried her face in his chest and started undulating in an aggressive animal rhythm … ever more feverishly … as he thrust her hard and breathlessly against the pine wall of the pool house.
Chapter 39 The Auction (one year later)
The suited official stood illuminated at the rostrum studying his notes, whilst above him the big hand of the clock clicked forward to ten fifty-five. The auction room buzzed with tension. For once, every seat was taken, and it soon became apparent that the crowd was split into tight parcels of representatives from various institutions vying to lay claim to the magnificent piece of the day—the Freiburg Cabinet.
They whispered excitedly amongst themselves whilst casting furtive glances at their competition. And, of course, there were the more sinister characters who preferred to stand at the fringes; those who hid behind dark glasses in Armani suits, telephones to hand.
Situated in a grand building on the Avenue Matignon in Paris, Hardy’s was well aware that this would be one of those electrifying days of high theatre. A day when the big beasts of the art world would unsheathe their weapons and duel for a prize which eight weeks earlier was never thought to exist.
Tarquin and Constanta sat towards the back, trying to remain aloof and unaffected. But the atmosphere demanded compliance; they were wired into the crowd as into a circuit board … its current pulsing through them, making their stomachs flutter with an ungovernable anxiety.
Suddenly Tarquin felt the sharp jab of Constanta’s elbow in his ribs and jumped involuntarily.
“What?” he said, looking at her furiously.
“Calm down, darling, take it easy!” she whispered to him. “I think I seen the guy from the house … in Troyes.”
“Which guy?” Tarquin said, confused.
“The young guy from the chateau … who was with Oliver; it’s him over there, I think,” she said, pointing with her eyes.
Tarquin looked along her line of sight between various heads and saw him … yes, definitely him … with a pretty, dark-haired girl. They were about four rows forward and more towards the edge. He was studying his catalogue intently, morosely even, whilst she glanced around the room happily, soaking up the drama, enjoying herself. Their moods seemed incongruous, and Tarquin wondered if she knew, or whether this was his secret.
“I can’t see Oliver,” Tarquin whispered.
“Don’t be crazy, he won’t be here … that would be way too risky,” she whispered forcefully. “Don’t forget, he’s meant to be in the background. I guess Zoltan wants to keep a low profile as well, but I bet you he’s got someone here to see how it goes.”
Suddenly, the baritone voice of the man at the rostrum burst into the room from every direction, giving him a stature way beyond his physical size.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, gazing around the assembled faces with an experienced eye. “Today is one those special days when something quite exceptional has become available for purchas
e. Something which was thought to have burned at the outset of the French Revolution … over two hundred years ago!”
A wave of excitement rippled through the room, and Constanta turned to Tarquin with a twisted smile, whilst putting her hand on his lap. The auctioneer gave a short talk on the history of the cabinet; of its commission by Marie Antoinette in the year 1786, of its twin at the Wallace Collection in London, of its unbelievable discovery at a chateau near Troyes. As he concluded, the atmosphere crackled with tension.
Then, it began. The auctioneer’s voice moved up an octave and the figures rolled from his tongue, injecting an urgency into the room and causing the assembled faces to stare at him, mesmerized by his mantra.
Beginning at the opening value of £500,000, he rose in increments of £100,000 in a professional delivery, staccato and precise. At first he struggled with the sea of subtle gestures in front of him, but as the bidding soared past £3,000,000, the number of participants rapidly diminished, until at £6,500,000 there remained only three.
Constanta’s hand, which had closed round Tarquin’s knee, was steadily tightening as the bidding continued, but now it reached an unbearable level. He pushed it away roughly; she hardly noticed.
Two men and a woman were fighting for the prize of the decade. A heavy, slick-haired man on the front row, a middle-aged woman in a scarlet jacket to the right, and at the back, a tall, lean man hidden behind dark shades. All three had telephones to their ears and were part of small groups.
“Eight million six hundred thousand pounds … £8,700,000,” the auctioneer barked hotly.
“Eight million eight hundred thousand pounds … £8,900,000 … £9,000,000,” he continued. The man at the front dropped out and a communal gasp rippled through the room. The figures continued to roll.
“Nine million five hundred thousand pounds to the lady,” the auctioneer continued. “Nine million six hundred thousand pounds to the gentleman at the back … £9,700,000 to the lady … £9,800,000 to the gentleman … £9,900,000 to the lady.” The lean man at the back pulled out suddenly.
The Freiburg Cabinet Page 32