by T. M. Parris
“A binding contract?” asked Pearl.
“Absolutely.”
“A secret contract?” asked Hector.
“A private contract.” M. Bernard pursed his lips. “Confidential. Perfectly legal.”
“And what about these shares?” Pearl asked. “How can we control them if they’re locked in a vault here?”
“If you wanted to sell them or pass them to someone else, you would simply do that through a change to the share register at the company office. The shares themselves don’t need to move. Think of them as a commodity that can be bought and sold. Like gold. All cash started out as promissory notes in place of gold, didn’t it? It wasn’t necessary to pass the gold from hand to hand. It could stay locked in a bank and the cash did the work. As long as the gold remained safe, it could be traded over and over again. Of course, banks no longer work like that. But the general principle is similar.”
He waited. They were looking a little tired. M. Bernard was thinking about bringing things to a close.
“We will be your servants in all matters.” He was doing his half-smile again. “I’ve built this company over many years. Like you, I’m proud of its success. Your business is vacuum cleaners, and mine is trust. If you can’t trust us, our relationship cannot work. That’s why we provide every reassurance through contracts and paperwork, ensuring that you know that you remain in control. If we didn’t honour these contracts, our reputation would be ruined and our business could not continue. I like my work here. I want to keep doing this. As an added assurance, you may wish to have all our arrangements checked by an independent third party. Many of our prospective clients do that.”
They were both looking dazed.
“I see I’ve given you a lot to think about. We will send you some materials. Zoe!”
He gave Zoe instructions for things to send, and Zoe took their contact details. Handshakes, thanks, goodbyes, come back with any questions. Zoe took them down in the lift and called them a taxi. They chatted while they waited.
They were a nice couple. Ordinary. Down to earth. She kept telling herself that, but the truth was, all she could think about now was the money. All that money they had and didn’t even need. How did people do it? It seemed impossible.
They may look and sound ordinary, but the Howards were like all their clients. They came from a different world.
Chapter 9
Pippin had some warning, at least. Mme Boucher, his ever-present landlady, made some protestations downstairs, but the hearty male voice and fast heavy steps drumming the stairs told him she had relented. So the first rapping on the door of his room didn’t make him jump. He got up off the bed and opened it.
Gustave, from the shop. Pippin stared.
“I was hoping we’d run into each other again,” said Gustave. “I think we might find we have a lot in common.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“I followed you.” He didn’t look at all abashed. “From the shop.”
Pippin frowned. “I went for a walk.”
“I know.”
“A long walk.”
“I know! All the way along the promenade. You made my feet ache.” His expression was amused.
“I was enjoying the sunset. The colours, they were…” The words went out of his head, but he could see it in his mind. The Mediterranean wasn’t blue, it was green sometimes, or violet, a tinge of rose or grey in the changing light. The colour of mackerel, Vincent said.
“I understand. We’re lovers of art, the two of us. We appreciate these things. We see what others don’t see.”
He was carrying something, a tube wrapped in brown paper.
“I have something I want to show you. I’d like to know what you think of it.”
Gustave wanted to come in. Pippin’s heart thumped, his mind picturing the walls of the room behind him.
Gustave waited, eyes on him. “That vessel,” he said. “The one you brought to Max’s shop.”
Gustave had a naturally booming voice. It echoed down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs was Mme Boucher’s lounge, where she would be sitting quietly. Mme Boucher was a lady who took an interest in things. Pippin stood aside and beckoned Gustave into the tiny loft room, shutting the door behind him.
Gustave seemed to fill up the space, ducking under the low ceiling. The room had two chairs, wooden, upright and rustic with woven seats. Pippin sat on the bed, a narrow cot with a red counterpane. Next to him the lead-lined window was open, letting in the sounds of the old town below. The floor was plain floorboards, a washing bowl and jug sat on a square table in the corner and a towel hung on a hook next to it. But Gustave wasn’t looking at any of this. He was looking at the walls. Pippin watched the man’s eyes roam the heavy frames and their eclectic contents, one by one, large and small, the detailed pencil drawings, the bold abstract shapes. Pippin felt himself shrinking into the corner.
Gustave’s eyes stayed on a large piece hanging above where Pippin was sitting, an Impressionist study of a woman and child bathing by a river. Slowly, he raised his finger and pointed.
“That one. I’ve seen it before. Where is that one from?”
Pippin swallowed and fiddled with the counterpane.
“Was that in the family too?” Gustave’s tone changed from curious to knowing. “Belonged to your grandparents? The paperwork all destroyed in the fire?”
He sat on the chair, legs wide, and folded his arms. “Max told me that vase of yours is stolen. Lifted from a museum in Rouen.”
Pippin’s mouth was dry. “He’s wrong. It belonged to my grandparents.”
“He says it’s very old. Chinese, twelfth century BC. Worth a lot of money.”
“He’s mistaken. It’s just a trinket. A family heirloom.”
Silence. Gustave was examining him. He leaned forward.
“I don’t know your name,” he said. He had an expectant manner, as if he didn’t question that people would tell him what he wanted to know.
“Pippin,” said Pippin eventually, his voice cracking.
“Just arrived in Nice?” He looked round the room as if its modesty answered the question in itself.
Pippin shrugged.
“Why did you come here?” asked Gustave.
“The light, the colours. Lots of people come here for that.”
“You’re an artist?”
“No. But I – like beautiful things. Beautiful places. I move around. Sometimes I just have to—”
“Get away?” It was an accusation.
“No.” He sounded too defensive. “I go where I feel like going.”
“A free agent, eh?” Gustave was grinning. “You follow your soul?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, Pippin of the Soul,” – his eyes were moving over the walls again – “I think there’s another reason why you move around so much. I think you’re a thief. I think all these works are stolen. I think if I went downstairs and expressed concerns to your landlady, you may get a visit from the police. You may have to move on again. You may,” – his mouth twitched – “find that your soul takes you elsewhere once more. I expect she’s already curious, when she comes in here to nose around. She does that, doesn’t she? What must she think, looking at all this stash on the walls?”
Something in Pippin burst.
“What’s the harm? What problem are they causing in here? At least they’re appreciated. Not packed away in some store room, or in the east wing of some ignorant millionaire’s mansion, sitting there as trophies of wealth, no one even caring what they’re saying!”
He came to an abrupt halt. Gustave was smiling.
“That’s more like it! That’s the most honest thing you’ve said so far! So you liberate art, that’s how you see it? Free it from the prison of private ownership? You should put all these on display, then!” He opened his arms expansively.
“I’d like to. But…”
“Of course! You’d end up in a prison yourself. That’
s the world we live in these days. The laws serve the privileged and leave the rest of us paupers. Spiritual as well as financial. Deprived of even the sight of works which encapsulate the pinnacle of human expression. In this world, Pippin, feeding the soul is exclusively for the rich. You agree?”
Pippin eyed him carefully.
“You still have that vessel?” asked Gustave.
Pippin tried, he really tried, to keep his eyes directly in front, but something must have given him away. Gustave jumped up and opened a cupboard door. With no embarrassment he rifled through Pippin’s clothes and drew out the vase, still wrapped in the towel. He held it up to the light.
“How did you get this?”
A pause. “I stole it.”
“Yes, but how?”
“I grabbed it.”
“From the museum? How?”
“I just picked it up.”
“You broke in?”
“No, it was during the day.”
“The museum was open?”
“I knew the vase wasn’t alarmed. The security guard was looking the other way. I picked it up and put it inside my coat. Went straight out to the exit. I was outside in the street before they realised anything was gone.”
Gustave was transfixed. “But they must have been looking for you!”
“No one saw me take it.”
“Surely they had CCTV. They’d have gone through it.”
“I – looked different.”
Gustave’s eyes were bright. “You were in disguise?”
Pippin looked faintly ashamed.
“Even so, to just grab and go! Anyone could have stopped you.” Gustave was bubbling over.
“They didn’t. They don’t, generally. It’s a talent I have.”
“A useful one. But why rob a museum? Museums make art available to the people.”
“It was only on loan. Due to go back.”
“Back where?”
Pippin shrugged. “An anonymous owner. Private collection. Back into the darkness.”
“Someone’s drawer somewhere?”
Pippin smiled, a little sadly.
“Why did you take it?” asked Gustave.
“I liked it.”
“That’s all? Why did you try to sell it, then?”
Pippin sighed. “It’s like I said. I need money. I can’t pay next week’s rent.”
Gustave considered this. He pointed again at the Impressionist piece, the woman crouching naked, dressing or undressing the little boy.
“What about that one? I saw something about it.”
“It was in the home of a countess. She lives in a château full of beautiful things that only she sees. I got a casual job there, in the garden. I would take her flowers that I’d picked.”
“You befriended her.”
“We took tea together. She told me about her life. She was lonely. I could walk around the house as I wanted.”
“But you didn’t just grab it and run!”
“No. I replaced it with a photograph.”
“A photograph? That would never work!”
“It did work. I went to a specialist developer. It had to be the exact size, the exact colour. I had to have two or three made before it was right. It took time and money. One day I hid in the cellar and came out when everyone had gone to bed. I changed them over, and took the original.”
“Ha! Never to be seen again!”
“No, I went back the next day as usual.”
“Really?”
“I wanted to see what it looked like in situ, during the day.” Pippin nodded to himself. “It looked good. I moved on a couple of days later. It was three months before she noticed. Three months! The theft was reported, but not the method. She was too embarrassed.”
Gustave stared again at the painting, and the other works. Pippin could tell the story of each one. But Gustave moved on.
“What are you really here for? In Nice?”
“There’s a lot of art here. A lot of money. The two go together.”
“And you’re into the art, not the money.”
It was Pippin’s chance to explain what he was about. One artist epitomised this, one artist whose life would serve as an example.
“Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime. He lived in poverty, writing to his brother when he didn’t have enough to eat. He hated the commercial side of art. He lived for the expression, the colour, the composition. Now his paintings are priceless. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything. I could steal to order. Most people do. But I take what I like. Every now and then I sell something to get what I need. I don’t think these pieces belong to me. They don’t belong to anyone.”
“They belong to everyone.” Pippin could see Gustave’s mind working. “You like to liberate, set things free? Let me show you something.”
He took the wrapped cylinder and pulled something out of it, a canvas. He unrolled it on the bed. The canvas was nearly the width of the bed. Gustave turned to Pippin.
“What do you think?”
Pippin moved to see it in the light. “I don’t know this artist. Is it contemporary?”
Gustave didn’t answer: some kind of test.
“If it is, it’s in an old style. A homage, maybe.” Pippin’s eye roamed the expanse of vivid colour. “Oil, of course. It’s a landscape but oriented like a portrait. A church, on a hill overlooking a city. The colours are exaggerated. This sky, it’s the colour of blood. The sea is like Prussian blue, so dark. The size of the cross up here, it’s huge. Symbolic. Crowds of people. A crucifixion? But is this fire?” He circled with his finger a mass of orange and white, suspended in the air, it seemed. “Martyrdom? Burning at the stake? It’s like Chagall, only Christian.”
Gustave was gazing at it now, distant. “Their souls were liberated through the flames. That’s what the martyrs thought. The soul would fly up, while their flesh melted.”
Pippin shuddered inwardly. Then his eye fell on the signature in the bottom left. G. Fournier.
“This is your work?”
Gustave straightened, still looking at the canvas.
“Derivative. Unoriginal. Backward-looking. Lacking in strength of concept. Unpopular. Unpopular! See, Pippin, if you’re not one of the handful of darlings they all run after, you’re nothing. Either it’s worth millions or it’s worthless. That’s the art market. What about a range of tastes? What about paying an artist the cost of their time, something real? With a reasonable mark-up for making the sale? But no. Nothing’s real to the gallery owners, the art dealers. Nothing’s reasonable. They want to sew up the market. Keep the prices high, but make plenty of sales. Greed, Pippin, greed. It’s all artificial, controlled.”
Gustave was lost in the painting, deep in his reflections.
“Where did you study?” Pippin asked.
“Paris. Beaux-Arts. For what it’s worth. I learned a craft. It took years. But the product is valueless.”
“Is that why you left Paris?”
That brought him back. He turned from the painting to look at Pippin.
“Not really. That interests you, does it?”
“Well, you asked me the same question.” Pippin met his gaze.
Gustave laughed and swept his hand over the canvas. “Keep it!”
Pippin shook his head, taken aback.
“No, I want you to have it. It’s worthless, anyway. See, here?” Gustave touched his signature. “If that said Chagall or Vincent Van Gogh, what would this square of oil and canvas be worth? It’s vanity, Pippin. But you know that, I think.”
He moved to the door. “I’d like us to meet again.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. “There are some matters we could discuss.”
“You won’t tell anyone?” Pippin could hear the pleading in his voice.
“No, I won’t tell anyone. But we will talk more. Look after your soul!”
His boots hammered down the stairs.
Pippin sat in silence. He stared at the painting for a long time. T
hen he rolled it up very carefully and slotted it back in the tube. He lay on the bed, breathing steadily, waiting for his heart to slow back to normal.
Chapter 10
Fairchild made his way slowly up the steps of the Colline du Château. From here he could look down onto the strip along the Promenade and see directly into the balconies of the seafront apartments, each one a little box arranged with variations of plastic tables, sun chairs and plants. Most of them weren’t being enjoyed, though the day was warm and the scenery spectacular. He paused at a viewpoint and watched others look out at the orange roofs of the old town and the blue sweep of the bay. Watching, always watching. He couldn’t break the habit.
He was stupidly early. There could be no reason why anyone except Rose Clarke herself would know he was in Nice, or even France, but still he double-backed to check for shadows, and surveyed the tourists with their summery dresses and shorts and sunglasses, hard-wired to pick up on anything that didn’t fit. He’d already criss-crossed the Château gardens and still had time to kill.
What a ridiculous life he led. These people around him were enjoying time with friends and family, and he was acting like a spook. A spook with no mission or purpose. What he’d said to Zack wasn’t the whole picture. For the last six months he’d been torn between wanting to track Grom down and feeling the need to stay away. He was in suspended animation while his feelings oscillated wildly. Hide from everyone for their safety, or go after the man to end it once and for all? In the end, he’d done neither.
By everyone, Rose was of course top of the list. But now, ironically, it was Rose who’d asked him here. The phone call from the Negresco had shocked him. He tried to have eyes in landmark hotels, set people up who could help if he were looking for something or someone in particular. Rose was the first person to use his network the other way, as a means of contacting him.