Priceless (22 page)

“I think perhaps you are not so good an art dealer as I was led to believe,” said Evgeny Belanov.

Yasha didn’t like that at all. He tried not to rise to it.

“I will pay a great deal of money for the picture I want. A great deal. And I don’t care where you find it.”

The implication was clear.

“I’ll keep my eyes and ears open,” said Yasha.

Yasha didn’t like to have to deal with men like Evgeny Belanov. Belanov was no art lover. He was a small-time gangster who had become a big-time “businessman” in Putin’s Russia. This was a man who didn’t know anything about Ricasoli other than that having such a rare painting would mark him out as truly wealthy. Paintings were just another commodity. What he wanted so desperately one week would be back on the market the next if there were the slightest hint of a drop in its monetary worth. Yasha would rather have torn a Ricasoli canvas in two than pass it to someone he knew would not appreciate it. He had no choice but to try to find one, however.

Lie down with dogs and you’re going to get fleas. Yasha knew that. But the problem was, once you had lain down with the dogs, they weren’t always happy to let you get back up again. And Yasha had accepted too many favors back when he’d been starting out. He understood much better now how some debts could never be repaid and written off.

Indeed, a few days later the screen on Yasha’s mobile phone lit up to announce an incoming call. Yasha had turned the ringer off, but this was the one caller he couldn’t ignore. For Belanov, he was always at home.

Fifteen minutes later, Yasha was in a car on his way to deepest, darkest Surrey. All the lights were burning in one of the county’s biggest houses, a building that had once been a school but that had recently been converted back
into a private home, with room for one man, his second wife, their eleven-month-old baby, and sixteen bodyguards.

“Thank you for making the effort to see me so late in the evening,” said Evgeny Belanov when he finally received Yasha a full hour after he’d arrived.

Yasha nodded, though they both knew that it wasn’t as though he’d had a choice.

Yasha had met Belanov through his brother. Yasha’s brother Pavel had once pimped Oksana, the astonishingly beautiful woman who’d become Belanov’s second wife. To compensate Pavel for the loss of revenue following Oksana’s engagement, Belanov had sent some other business Pavel’s way. Drug business. In turn, when Belanov had decided that he wanted to leave Russia and make his mark overseas, Pavel had pointed him toward his little brother Yasha, as someone who might help him acquire the culture his education had not provided.

At first, Yasha was pleased. Belanov was the first of his truly rich clients. The commission Yasha had earned on providing art for Belanov’s apartment in New York had been enough to fund his move to London and the opening of the Atalantan. Yasha was more than happy to source the art for the fortress in Surrey too, sitting on the principles that objected to the fact that Belanov had robbed his fellow Russians to get so rich. Yasha consoled himself with the business of creating a truly wonderful collection. But then the trouble started. It wasn’t long before Pavel owed Belanov money. Belanov made it clear that he considered it a family debt.

“Come through into my office.”

Yasha followed Belanov into the basement of the house, where an office had been built in the former cold
store. The walls were thick and soundproof. This was a safe place to conduct any dangerous business.

Taking his seat on the opposite side of the desk from his host, Yasha sighed inwardly as he noticed a painting by celebrated Russian seascape artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky—a painting bought for several million dollars—propped up against a wall, vulnerable to clumsy bodyguards in big boots. Belanov followed Yasha’s eyes.

“It doesn’t look so good in here,” he said. “I think it will go in the pool house.”

Yasha nodded. No point arguing that it might be better kept somewhere less damp.

“Have you heard from your brother lately?” Belanov asked conversationally.

Yasha shook his head slowly, knowing at once that something was awry.

“Well, I’m not surprised,” said Belanov. “Having lost all his teeth like that, he probably doesn’t feel much like talking.”

Yasha felt a wave of fear but managed to stay as calm as a millpond on the surface.

“Silly boy,” said Belanov. “I told him he needed to manage his money more effectively. You have to service your debts first, isn’t that right, little Yasha? I mean, Pavel can’t keep expecting my wife’s enduring affection for him to excuse him from his obligations. In fact,” said Belanov, looking at the framed photograph of his wife on his desk, “it’s starting to count against him.” He turned the photograph over so that his wife was facedown on the blotter. “You look worried,” he said, focusing his gaze on Yasha.

“What do you want me to do?” Yasha asked, getting straight to the point.

“I want you to take a trip to Russia for me. To see a painting. A dear friend of mine wants to sell something
that I am interested in. But I’m only interested if it’s the real thing.”

“What is it?”

Belanov slid a Polaroid across the table. Picking the photograph up, Yasha’s eyes widened.

“That has to be a fake,” he said.

“Well, you’re going to find out.”

“And if it’s not a fake? If it is the genuine picture?”

“You’re going to bring it back to me. I’d like it on my yacht for my wedding anniversary party in August. That should give you plenty of time.”

“You’re asking me to move a painting that, if it’s real, is stolen and could be worth more than a hundred million dollars, across international borders? It can’t be done.”

“You’ll find a way. Leonid will go with you.” Belanov nodded at one of his men, who had entered the room quite noiselessly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. It’s getting very late.”

CHAPTER 29

I
n Cornwall, Serena and Julian were celebrating a pretty decent windfall. Good old Nat Wilde. He really could sell anything. Arriving with Serena’s share of the loot from the sale of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the milkmaid in cash, Julian also brought with him a bottle of vintage Bollinger. Feeling like she had just won the lottery, Serena held a fan of fifties in each hand and laughed at her amazing good fortune while Julian poured
the champagne into two flutes—a wedding present from Tom’s sister. Serena was glad she hadn’t smashed them over Tom’s head after all.

“I’ve got some more good news,” he told her. “We have our provenance for your little Madonna.”

“What? How?”

Julian had at last found a way to slip a note regarding the painting into the archives at Annabel’s museum. He’d told Annabel that he’d always wanted to make love among the stacks, and she had granted his wish for his birthday. Not his real birthday. That was months away. But Julian was desperate to get out of his arrangement with Annabel. The situation was becoming more and more complicated. It was clear she thought they were headed for the altar, and Julian really didn’t want to have to go so far as to jilt the silly cow.

So they made love in the stacks, and afterward, when Annabel scampered upstairs to answer her phone (which Julian was actually ringing from his mobile), he found just enough time to do what he really needed to do, which was place a copy of a letter purporting to be from the museum to his mother, thanking her for agreeing to the loan of the Madonna, in among the exhibition archive for 1973.

Serena was impressed, though of course Julian didn’t tell her exactly how he had come to achieve such a coup. She was still under the impression that his museum contact was a man.

“So you think we should go for it?” she asked him.

“Now or never,” said Julian. “I have to be honest. I’ve already let slip to Nat Wilde that I might have a Renaissance altarpiece in my possession. He’s very keen to know more.”

Serena put her hands to her cheeks, suddenly overcome
with a mixture of excitement and panic. “What exactly did you say?” she had to ask.

“I described your painting. I said it looked Renaissance to me but because I’m not an expert, I couldn’t be sure it was real. I said that I found it when I went to collect the contents of a strongbox from Mother’s old bank in Exeter. I told him I had no idea what it was but that when I thought about it for a little while, I vaguely recalled having seen it in a museum. Then it dawned on me that Ma and Pa must have lent the painting to a museum for a while. If only I could remember which one …”

“And of course,” said Serena, warming to the theme, “you’re going to remember the museum where you have your contact!”

“Exactly. And when Nat Wilde researches the provenance, he will find a record of the loan right where it should be.”

“God, you’re clever.”

“We’ll leave it to Wilde to make the final decision. If he decides the painting isn’t real, no problem. I never claimed that it was. But I don’t think he’ll come to that conclusion.”

Serena chewed her lip. “I wonder what sort of price he’ll put on it.”

“It’s unattributed, so it won’t be millions, but in the tens of thousands, I should think. It’s very rare to find works from that period in such good condition, after all.”

Julian picked up his champagne flute to toast her.

“To a formidable team,” he said.

Julian had no idea how much it meant to Serena when he referred to them as being a team. It was wonderful to feel part of a partnership again, especially since every day seemed to bring a new reminder of how she had failed in her partnership with Tom.

Divorce proceedings were well under way. From time to time, the idea that it was actually happening, that she and Tom were legally parting ways, still took her by surprise. But he had been living with Donna for well over eighteen months now. Tom’s mother, who still called a couple of times a week to talk to Serena and her granddaughter, had given up telling her favorite daughter-in-law that Tom would realize his mistake and crawl back. Instead, Joyce started to tentatively mention Donna in her conversations with Serena about Katie’s weekends in London, which was when Joyce got to see her. It was clear that Joyce was preparing herself for Donna to become Tom’s second wife.

“She’s actually really very nice,” Joyce muttered one day.

Well, that was more than could be said for Donna’s lawyer, who was now Tom’s lawyer too. Serena’s own solicitor was utterly cowed by the vile woman, who seemed to have made it her personal mission to ensure that Serena limped away from her marriage with less than she had brought into it. Serena noticed from the headed notepaper that Tom’s lawyer, Beverly Grange, was a Mrs., and Serena wondered how it was possible to remain married when you spent all day stripping people of any illusions they might have about the enduring nature of love and romance. Did Beverly Grange go home at night and tell her husband that she had just billed her client a year’s worth of school fees to settle an argument over a silver serving platter worth five hundred quid?

While the lawyers’ letters were flying back and forth, it suited Serena very well to have Julian turn up with a case full of cash. Mrs. Beverly Grange need never know.

But it was more than the money. Julian’s presence inoculated Serena against the worst of the divorce. As time
went on and Tom refused to come to a reasonable agreement as to how to split their assets, she knew that they were heading for court. And if they got to court, the gloves would be off. Tom had already warned her, in the heat of an argument, about his wanting to take Katie out of school so that she could accompany him and Donna to the Hamptons, that if it came to it, he would be more than willing to tell a judge how “mentally unstable” Serena was. As far as she could tell, this diagnosis of mental instability was based solely on the fact that she didn’t always agree with him, but as ridiculous and groundless as she knew it was, Serena worried that a judge would think otherwise.

On the other hand, Julian made her feel human. He made her feel beautiful. He made her feel talented. He made her feel loved. She trusted him. When they made love, Serena felt fully herself again. She was no longer the downtrodden wife who had sent her husband running into the arms of another woman with her dowdiness. She was the free spirit Tom had fallen for. Serena sensed that the painting of the Little Madonna had given her part of herself back too.

When he went back to London the next morning, Julian took Serena’s little Madonna with him, wrapped in the scruffy old cloth in which he had delivered the original piece of board, for extra authenticity. As she waved him off, Serena said a little prayer.
Please let my work be good enough to fool Nat Wilde
. Julian muttered a similar prayer. Not least because he wanted—no,
needed
—to break up with Annabel before the next weekend, when he had promised to go with her to her parents’ house. The prospect of sitting across a dinner table from Annabel’s father made him more nervous than his upcoming appointment to show the Madonna to Nat Wilde.

After a night with Serena and with a night of Annabel ahead of him, Julian wondered why so many men thought it would be good to have more than one wife. Personally, he was exhausted by the very thought. He understood why alpha-male lions seemed to spend so much of their time asleep.