by Rose Edmunds
‘The picture in the vault was a copy.’
‘But there is no copy of the self-portrait.’
‘Oh yes there is,’ said Stan. ‘Picasso made copies of the pair and gave them both to my father.’
‘That can’t be right though, I saw it. The original has the wine and the grapes on the table, whereas the copy has the books.’
‘Who told you that?’ Stan demanded.
‘The real Maurice Beresford.’ I triumphantly played what seemed to be an ace.
‘And which picture was he talking about?’ asked George.
‘The portrait of Fernande Olivier.’
‘Yes, I thought so,’ said Stan. ‘But you’ve got it all arse about face, because it’s the other way around for the self-portrait. The original has books and the copy has the wine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Come on—it’s obvious—use that dormant organ between your ears. If both paintings displayed the same items on the side tables, the artistic harmony of the pair would be destroyed.’
I gulped down a huge mouthful of wine as I processed the shock. I thought of all the effort needlessly expended, not just by us, but Ivanov and Lytkin, not to mention two murders, a shooting and a kidnapping.
‘So just to be clear, at the end of it all, the original painting is still missing,’ I said.
The two men eyed each other again.
‘No,’ said Stan. ‘I can tell you precisely where it is.’
‘Where?’
‘My father’s old house in Highgate—my other house.’
I found this second revelation, following hot on the heels of their other disclosure, absolutely staggering.
‘How long have you known this?’ I asked, when I’d recovered sufficiently to speak.
‘Forever.’
‘You mean, before we did our deal?’
‘Forever,’ Stan repeated.
‘But that’s crazy. We agreed if I located the self-portrait, you would give George the other painting. And all the while you had it. Wow, you really did set me an impossible task.’
‘Egg-zackly,’ he said, unwittingly echoing Ed’s pronunciation of the word.
And like his nephew, he saw nothing wrong with his cunning ruse. Meanwhile, I’d been a complete fool—I’d said at the outset that a hoarder and his belongings would never be parted, and failed to draw the appropriate conclusions.
‘But you made such a fuss about Strnad stealing it.’
‘He did steal the copy, and the Chagall. Besides, it’s unfair to blame me for a deception my father started.’
‘Your father?’
‘Yes, he said Picasso gave him copies of both paintings, but he turned up the original self-portrait during the war. Anyway, when he entrusted his art collection to Maxmilián Strnad, he pretended the self-portrait was the original, and told his friend that both it and the Chagall had special sentimental value. And what happens? His little prick of a grandson sells them.’
Which was ridiculous and radically different from my take on events. Maxmilián moved the two paintings to the vineyard because he understood how much they meant to his friend. Moreover, as they’d been removed in 1974 Rudi couldn’t have been implicated. But it would be useless to argue with Stan—even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, his alternative reality meant more to him than the truth.
‘So what happened to the original?’
‘My father took it to England, along with the study of the Fernande Olivier portrait. But he never hung them, either because they wouldn’t look well together, or because they triggered unhappy memories. When I came to Prague, I brought the Fernande Olivier painting with me, expecting to recover the copy self-portrait from the castle.’
‘And did you also realise that Jan and Josef were one and the same person?’
‘No of course not,’ Stan protested, but not convincingly.
I so wished I’d been aware of all this much, much earlier—preferably before I’d put my life at risk. But recriminations seemed pointless now.
‘Funny you don’t remember the self-portrait, isn’t it,’ I said to George. ‘Only the picture of the woman? Because I expect they hung side by side in your parents’ apartment.’
‘Yes—the memory is strange, but I’ve no doubt both paintings were there, and our father kept hold of them right through the war. And naturally, when he came across the original self-portrait in 1942, he took it, along with anything else of interest he could lay his hands on.’
‘You say naturally—but it was stealing, plain and simple.’
At this point, Stan interjected.
‘They owed him, and he rescued those paintings from certain destruction.’
‘And what about the other ones, the ones he bought at knockdown prices from Jews?’
‘And who are you to condemn him?’
Whereas previously, he’d been happy to denounce his father, now he took his cue from George in playing down his villainy. Still, I avoided answering him, being acutely aware that I’d strayed from the straight and narrow myself in recent months.
‘You must have been worried about disclosing the Picasso to HMRC,’ I said, now appreciating Stan’s earlier anxieties more fully.
‘I was, but you and George have done a fine job persuading me to confess to everything. Which means making amends—restitution, if you like. I’m a sick man—I could die at any moment, and I want to make sure any property I’m holding unlawfully is restored to its rightful owners.’
The sob story about being sick didn’t evoke my sympathy. This man would say anything if he saw an advantage in it. And I was not only flabbergasted by his unexpectedly noble sentiments, but also fearful of the consequences. If Stan followed through with his decision, there’d be extensive press coverage of the treasures uncovered in the Highgate house, and Lytkin would be enraged to learn he’d been fobbed off with a copy. I foresaw trouble for Hardacre and, more to the point, for Mel.
‘Good for you,’ I said. Even if his actions stuffed practically everyone else, it didn’t seem reasonable to criticise him for following my advice. ‘And at least Ivanov will be pleased to hear Lytkin doesn’t have the original.’
‘Oh,’ said Stan, casually dropping another bombshell. ‘I told him already—a few days ago.’
‘You did what?’
Were there no limits to Stan’s duplicity? Now I grasped the reason for Ivanov’s relaxed attitude, and my sense of him being way ahead of the game.
‘I tried to cut a deal with him, sell him the painting and have the money paid offshore where HMRC wouldn’t find it.’
‘Surely he wouldn’t deal, being the ethical oligarch?’
‘Funny how ethics can bend. But anyway, I’ve told him the deal’s off.’
Only a few moments earlier, I‘d been prepared to shrug off Stan’s lies and scheming. Now, as I took on board the many layers of deception, a rage was building inside me. Stan had endangered people’s lives and was indirectly responsible for a murder. His behaviour could not be brushed aside as a mere foible. But as I began to lay into Stan, George stepped in to defend him.
‘And you, by contrast, have behaved entirely honourably,’ he said. ‘You and Hardacre had no right to give the picture away.’
‘We forfeited it for the best of reasons—to save Mel’s life,’ I said. ‘And it was only the copy.’
‘But nevertheless worth around ten million. If you have a weakness, Amy, it’s a tendency to justify your position, no matter how untenable it may be.’
‘Must be all those arguments with HMRC,’ Stan chipped in.
This two-pronged attack rendered me speechless for a moment, and I would have protested, but George pre-empted my defence with a face-saving compromise.
‘Now if we’re prepared to overlook your activities,’ he said equably, ‘I’m sure you can forgive Stan for his minor deception.’
Minor deception my arse. Stan was as much a scheming self-serving liar as his scumbag of a nephew Ed. Stil
l, what was the point in working myself up into a lather? It wouldn’t change a thing.
‘OK—we’re quits. But I’m wondering—what will you tell HMRC about the copy self-portrait?’
‘Absolutely nothing,’ said George. ‘As far as anyone is concerned, it went missing in 1948 and hasn’t been seen since.’
‘And how does this fit in with your policy of full disclosure?’
‘Well,’ said Stan, with a satisfied grin on his face. ‘They won’t miss what I never had either, will they?’
38
We’d squared off everything except Lytkin, and I felt duty bound to inform Tom about the potential danger. Though a reptile like him deserved to be thrown into a crocodile-infested river, Mel was a different matter. Against all rational expectations, they’d managed to set aside their differences, though Mel had so far flatly refused to discuss her reasoning.
I called round at the Ealing townhouse on my way home, and found Mel ensconced on the sofa painting her toenails with a vile sparkly purple varnish and totally gripped by an old episode of The Bill.
‘Tom’s playing the father of a boy killed by a stolen car,’ she explained for my benefit. ‘See the pathos he brings to the role, Amy. He’s magnificent.’
Pathos was evidently a new word in the Mel lexicon.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Should have won an Emmy. Mind you, he’s almost as good in real life, isn’t he?’
‘No need for sarcasm,’ she said, pausing the DVD.
Tom retreated, ostensibly to prepare coffee.
‘Still don’t get why you took him back,’ I said.
‘It’s none of your business, but Tom has told me everything, apologised for making me suffer, and I’ve forgiven him. That’s all you need to know.’
‘Wow, are you sure you’re OK, no bump to the head or anything? I mean, how can you after the way he treated you?’
‘He said he had no choice. And he did rescue me from the kidnappers, giving up a valuable painting.’
‘You wouldn’t have needed rescuing if it hadn’t been for him, as you said yourself the other day. And he gave up nothing—it wasn’t his.’
‘It’s my decision, not yours,’ she said, in an effort to shut down the debate.
To Mel’s credit, she seemed to have recovered incredibly swiftly from her ordeal, whereas I’d have been shaky and nervy for days. How come she was so tough?
‘But what about his wife?’
‘Oh,’ she said, with an eye roll. ‘That was a misunderstanding caused by you.’
‘By me?’
‘Yes, you accepted what the silly old biddy told you at face value. The woman with him was a friend.’
‘But he still abandoned you in Zurich, and you were never meant to find him, whatever crap you want to believe about him leaving clues.’
‘We’ve put it behind us,’ she said. ‘And I’m a good judge of people, remember?’
The subject was now closed, leaving me confused about the dynamic of their relationship. I’d originally imagined Mel had got off on conning a naive academic, but there had to be something else. She’d evidently seen something in him beyond the Beresford caricature from the beginning. In a way, it sickened me more to see her all lovey-dovey with this suave con man than with “Beresford” who, though hugely annoying, at least wasn’t a criminal. I utterly failed to see how she could trust Tom, although she’d doubtless been less than frank with him herself. All in all, in a strange way they deserved each other.
Tom reacted badly to the news.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he said, wringing his hands. ‘This is a disaster.’
There was no acting performance here, just genuine blind panic.
‘I don’t see why you’re so freaked out, because Lytkin now owns a painting worth around ten million and you have Mel.’
‘But it’s not the painting he thought he’d be getting. He’ll assume we conned him and we’ll be in big, big trouble.’ He turned to Mel. ‘We have to clear out of here, honey, or he’ll kill us both.’
I left feeling baffled, and positive I’d missed something obvious. Sure Lytkin would be mad, but Tom’s response seemed way over the top. Anyway, I didn’t probe since, to be honest, there was a limit to how much I cared. For once it was them, not me, in the firing line.
39
A week later Claudia, the Daily Globe journalist, contacted me. She’d heard about the Highgate discovery and planned a follow-up article. At first I was unenthusiastic, recalling the snide little digs at me in the original piece, but I warmed to the idea as her proposed slant on matters became clear.
The published article was fulsome in its praise of my investigative skills and the rapport I’d built with Stanislav Novak—I couldn’t have written a better eulogy myself. And it was accompanied by a flattering picture of me looking not only sane, but professional. Happily, the piece made no mention of the Beresford imposter, or Novak’s deception, but then disclosing these aspects wouldn’t have served anyone’s interests. The real professor had his moment of glory in authenticating the painting, and was far too embarrassed to admit being a victim of identity theft. Meanwhile, Novak lied as he always did.
For once, it seemed I had the upper hand in my own PR, and if I decided to launch myself properly as a private eye, this coverage would get me off to a flying start. But others had different ideas about where my future lay, not least Paul Murray, the headhunter who’d put me into Pearson Malone.
His call was timely, as I desperately needed to knit the tatters of my life back together. And as an accountant, I understood my financial situation with crystal clarity. Once the house sale went through, I’d be left with a million in the bank. In theory this was a huge sum, but too little to fund an Armani lifestyle, especially once I’d bought somewhere else to live. With this in mind, I reluctantly agreed to meet Paul for drinks at the Shard.
I’d been told enough times that I’d never work in the City again for me to believe it, and the idea of returning to my tax career filled me with dread. But Paul, the eternal optimist, had found an opening at another firm paying even more than my job at Pearson Malone.
‘Your skill set would be fabulous for this role,’ he enthused, as we laid into our martinis.
In certain respects, the opportunity he dangled in front of me was tempting. Earning pots of money and having people’s respect once more would have been an easy fix, but for one big problem.
‘I’m Crazy Amy, or at least I’ve done crazy things—how the heck do I justify them?’
‘You’ve suffered from mental health issues,’ said Paul. ‘And now you’re recovered. End of story.’
It was easy for him to talk about my situation in the abstract, from the distorted viewpoint of one who’d never been similarly afflicted, but my reality was different. I had no wish to be labelled as “recovered from mental health issues”, which made me sound pathetic and a real loser.
‘That’s not how they’ll see it all,’ argued Paul, when I explained my reservations.
‘But you don’t understand. I am me—I am unique, and though I’ve been incredibly unlucky, I’ve dealt with everything the best I could. Yes, I’ve done crazy things but in crazy circumstances, and I must at least try and defend my position.’
Though only repeating what Rudi had told me, I was beginning to internalise his take on events, just as I now accepted I hadn’t killed Zowie. In addition, I had my drinking under better control and even Little Amy had been absent recently. If I pitched myself as a recovered head-case, all this progress would be undermined.
‘Yes,’ said Paul with a sigh, realising a second cocktail was required as a matter of urgency. ‘We both know the truth, but if you start blathering on to prospective employers about all the weird stuff that’s happened, they’ll send for the men in white coats to cart you away.’
‘I blew the whistle on a fraud,’ I objected. ‘Nobody likes a whistle-blower, but they need to understand.’
‘Much better to stick to the line I
’ve recommended, and if they ask you about the fraud tell them your exit agreement with Pearson Malone prohibits you from commenting. They’re an ethical firm and should respect your discretion. Besides, there’s much less stigma around mental health these days.’
‘Not true.’ I recalled my days as group head partner, with responsibility for all HR matters in my team—the pinnacle of my career. ‘Everyone pretends there’s no stigma against mental health issues, like everyone pretends there’s no sexism or racism. But it’s still all there bubbling away beneath the surface and, unless I can explain, people will find a cogent, lawful reason for denying me a job. Like if you want to fire someone, you can always find a rationale that’ll stand up in an industrial tribunal. That’s the way it is, as you’re well aware.’
I left the meeting relatively sober and vowing never to take another job in finance. The discussion had served to remind me what a piece of shit I’d been in my previous incarnation, where I’d been constrained by a set of carefully defined rules and controlled by others. I hadn’t clawed my way out of the toxic cesspit only to throw myself back in it. No—whatever happened next, I was determined to be in control, and the private eye route seemed a far better option.
As my thoughts gelled, a black Mercedes drew up down the road. In view of recent experiences, I should at least have been wary, but was so preoccupied I barely noticed it. As I approached it, a chunky guy with the now familiar Slavic features emerged from the passenger side, blocking my way. The driver stayed put.
‘Car for Ms Amy Robinson?’
‘I didn’t order a car.’
‘To take you to your appointment with Mr Lytkin.’
I shuddered. I never imagined he’d come after me for Hardacre’s error, but perhaps some unwelcome attention was to be expected after the piece in the Globe. It cast me in the light of prime mover, and Tom might well have encouraged Lytkin in this belief to save his own skin.
It could have been my imagination, but I fancied a gun was peeping out from under his jacket. Fear shot through my veins like a powerful narcotic, before something else kicked in.
Anger.