Priceless (40 page)

“Are you familiar with the people in the big house?” asked the younger officer. “The Trebarwen house?”

“Yes,” said Serena. “I was friendly with Louisa.”

“And her sons?”

Serena stiffened. Already she was reacting to the changing complexion of the thing. There was no reason why the police would turn up to tell her that one of the Trebarwen brothers had been killed, was there?

“Which one?” she answered, stalling for time.

“Julian.”

“I met him, yes. At his mother’s funeral.”

“My name is Detective Constable James from the Arts and Antiques Unit of the Metropolitan Police. And this is DC Havelock. You wouldn’t happen to know where we could find him?”

Arts and antiques. Serena felt her cheeks flush as she heard the words. What should she do? She and Julian had agreed when they’d first started their little business that they would act dumb if ever questioned. Even regarding their relationship with each other. They’d deny everything to save each other’s skin. Art and antiques. It was obvious what this was about.

“Doesn’t he have a house in London?” Serena asked, continuing to play down her acquaintance with her former lover.

“He’s not there. And he’s not at the big house. We thought he might have come over here, you being his nearest neighbor, and told you if he was going to leave the house empty for any length of time. Perhaps he might have left a number you could call if you saw anything suspicious at the big house.”

“No,” said Serena. “I haven’t seen him in weeks.” That much at least was true. The business with Yasha and the fake Ricasoli had driven them apart. Julian had tried endlessly to make amends, but despite having come to no harm and made fifty grand in the process, Serena couldn’t entirely forgive him, and Julian grew tired of being the bad guy.

“Then we’re sorry to have disturbed you,” said DC James. “Enjoy the rest of your evening. Good night.”

DC Havelock actually gave a small bow as he left.

•          •          •

The policemen gone, Serena closed the door behind them and, for the first time since she had moved down to Cornwall, turned the dead bolt. She picked up her phone. Julian’s number was still in it. She wanted to call him right then and find out what on earth was going on. Serena could feel her throat tightening. She wanted to cry. She wanted Julian to tell her that everything was okay and this wasn’t about their paintings.… But she couldn’t just call him. If the worst had happened and this was about their joint venture, then the last thing Serena wanted was to make a call from her mobile, one that could be traced straight back to her. She’d just told the police officers that she and Julian had met only once, at his mother’s funeral.

But she needed to talk to him.

There was a pay phone in the village. Serena had often marveled that it still existed. She’d never seen anyone use it. She wasn’t sure it was still operational, but she had to find out right then.

Creeping upstairs so as not to wake her daughter, Serena looked in on Katie. She was sleeping soundly. Serena considered for a moment waking her up. She had never before left Katie alone in the house. The potentially horrifying consequences had made it impossible even to think about taking such a risk. But that was before two police officers had come by looking for Julian. Katie looked so peaceful. Serena calculated that if she took the car she could get to the pay phone and back in less than ten minutes. If Julian picked up, she would tell him to go out and find a pay phone and call her on her landline at home to tell her what on earth was going on.

Uttering a small prayer for Katie’s safety in her absence, Serena tugged on her denim jacket and got into the car. She was shaking all the way as she drove into the village and located the phone booth, which unlike every box
she’d ever been in before, had not been vandalized and didn’t smell of piss.

The phone didn’t take cash. She put her credit card into the slot and dialed Julian’s number.

“Please pick up,” she begged him,

Julian’s phone rang and rang and finally went to voice mail.

Serena put the phone down and bowed her head. She knew she shouldn’t leave a message. Where was he? What had he done to have a pair of policemen looking for him?

She had to keep reminding herself of that: they weren’t looking for her.

But if Julian had promised that he would keep her out of any trouble, he’d already failed in that promise by bringing Yasha to her door.

Serena tried Julian’s number one more time. Maybe he wasn’t picking up because he didn’t recognize the number. If she persisted, however, surely he would recognize the regional code and put two and two together.

No joy.

It was starting to rain. And Serena had to get back to the house. She had left Katie alone for almost fifteen minutes already, and every minute longer raised the risk that Katie would wake up and wander downstairs and fly into a panic. That was when things could go wrong.

The house was dark when she arrived home. That was a good sign, she decided, since Katie was well able to turn all the lights on and would have done had she been worried. Still, Serena ran from the driveway to the front door. Inside, all was silent. She crept up the stairs and hovered by Katie’s door. The soft, snuffly in-out of her breathing was the most comforting sound Serena had ever heard.

“I’ll never leave you alone like that again,” she promised.

After checking on her daughter, Serena continued up the stairs to the top of the house and her studio. Opening the door, she couldn’t help but imagine how it would look to a policeman investigating an accusation of forgery and fraud. All Serena’s practice pieces tacked to the walls. Her experiments with pigment and producing craquelure. The pile of Victorian end papers waiting to be transformed into paintings. And on the easel the painting she had been working on most recently—a little pastiche of Ricasoli for herself, for her own pleasure—with a book about the work of the artist open for reference right beside it.

It would have to go. All of it.

Serena started by taking down the sketches and paintings she’d pinned to the walls. She made a pile, with the large painting from the easel on the bottom to make it easier to carry the whole lot downstairs.

She would have to burn it. She lit a fire in the sitting room and fed the pictures into it one by one. It was hard to see her work going up in flames. There were little pieces there that she had been very proud of. But she couldn’t think of it like that anymore. More than anything else, the paintings and sketches could one day turn out to be evidence in a court of law.

Only one little sketch remained. She couldn’t bear to burn this one. It was a sketch she had made of Katie while they were staying in Italy. It captured her daughter at her angelic best. Her head was bent over a book. Her profile was the perfect representation of childish beauty: tiny nose, the soft contours of her round cheeks.

Serena could not burn this one. Not her own daughter’s pretty face. Instead she tucked it into the family Bible.

•          •          •

The next morning Katie found her mother emptying the studio of the easel and paints.

“What are you doing, Mummy?” she asked.

“I thought we would make this into a playroom,” she said. “What do you think?” Katie was only too happy to go along with that. And with a dollhouse where her easel had once been, Serena felt much safer.

CHAPTER 57

F
ortunately for Nat Wilde, the potential embarrassment of the matter of the fakes that had been sold via his department was diluted by the dramatic news that a long-lost Ricasoli had suddenly resurfaced in London. The painting, known as
The Virgin Before the Annunciation
, had been revealed to the world by an anonymous Russian industrialist, who claimed to have found the picture in the attic of one of his houses in Ukraine. Believing it to be a clever pastiche and worthless, he had brought it from his holiday home to hang on the wall in his London office. Upon discovering that it was a genuine Ricasoli, however, verified by tests at the most respectable laboratories, the industrialist set about tracking down the family who had owned the painting before it was looted by the Nazis. He had found just two surviving members of the family, an elderly brother and sister in Warsaw. But the poor Wasowskis were never to know of the change in their fortunes. They died in a house fire just twenty-four
hours after the industrialist found out where they were living.

And so, at last, the authorities agreed that the lucky Russian would have the benefit of this incredible windfall. The painting was his. It was a real Ricasoli. He could tell the world. And he was free to sell it.

Belanov turned to Yasha Suscenko for advice on how to get the best price for
The Virgin
. An auction seemed the best idea, said Yasha. Indeed, as soon as the news of the painting’s existence broke, every auction house in the world went into a frenzy as they tried to work out in whose hands the Ricasoli lay and how they could persuade him to consign his precious painting with them. Sotheby’s or Christie’s seemed like the obvious choice. Their Old Masters departments eagerly awaited the call. But Yasha had other ideas.

“Forget the big boys,” he told his client. “Try Ludbrook’s or Ehrenpreis. These little guys will give you a better deal on the seller’s premium. Could save you millions.” Yasha knew that in reality the big boys would cut Belanov a very good deal indeed, but Belanov didn’t question Yasha’s wisdom on that point.

“What about the prestige?” asked Belanov. “Marketing?”

“Nat Wilde and Carrie Klein are both pretty hot on that.”

“Are you sure? How will people know about the sale?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Yasha told him. “You’re selling a Ricasoli. Serious collectors don’t care about the auction house’s name.”

Belanov nodded. He decided that Yasha was right. There was no danger that the painting wouldn’t attract attention, and he could drive a much harder bargain on fees
if he decided to sell through a smaller house. Plus, if he was honest, there were other, more emotional reasons for wanting to avoid the traditional channels.

Though he was considered to be one of the most frightening men of his generation both in the boardroom and the back alley, the über-rich Russian had never quite shaken the insecurity of his upbringing. The eldest of six children, he had been raised by a single mother in conditions for which the word “slum” was a little too generous. There had been no money for anything but the basics, and sometimes, not even for those. He left school as soon as he could and set to work to help provide for his youngest siblings. Fear of starvation had driven Belanov to take the first steps on the dodgy road that would eventually lead to his fortune.

However, though he would never say it to anyone, not even to his beloved wife, Belanov was intimidated by the cultured, overeducated people who thronged the European world of fine art. When he turned up to buy at auction, he often felt they were patronizing him and his choices. That was why he now sent Yasha Suscenko to do his shopping for him. As they discussed the future of the Ricasoli, Belanov couldn’t help remembering a woman he had met at one of the big houses and her condescending smile when he’d told her that he had recently purchased a painting by Jack Vettriano. “Biscuit tin art,” was how she had referred to the picture he had liked so much of a dancing couple on a beach. It didn’t matter to him then that he could have bought the entire auction house and had change for an Aston Martin. Her comment had left Belanov feeling humiliated. He knew he could never buy the sophistication and confidence that came from a childhood of privilege.

And so, by going with a smaller house, he would be
giving the likes of that woman the finger. Belanov didn’t have to follow tradition. He was part of the new order, and he was going to do things his way. He decided he liked the way that Yasha was thinking.

“Try Ehrenpreis first,” he said. “The Americans are less arrogant than the English.”

“I’ll arrange for Carrie Klein to come and see the painting,” Yasha said.

Carrie Klein was not expecting to be asked to pitch to sell the Ricasoli. Like everyone else in the art world, she expected to next see it in a Sotheby’s catalog. So when the call came to visit the bank vault where the picture now lay in state, she was almost lost for words. She moved an afternoon full of meetings to be there at the earliest possible opportunity.

As she sat in the back of a taxi, wishing the traffic away, Carrie considered the momentous impact this painting could have on her career. She knew that despite her efforts, Ehrenpreis London was still at best the fifth house people thought of when they considered buying or selling at auction. This painting, lost for so many years, could change all that in a second. Like everyone else in her business, she had pored over the pictures in the papers. She had read the laboratory reports that had been circulated covertly among interested parties. She had read about the painting’s history and had seen copies of the documentation that confirmed its provenance, including the entry in an inventory of art claimed by the Nazis during the Second World War. As the taxi drew up outside the exclusive private bank, Carrie was almost breathless with anticipation. If she were asked to put a figure on how much she could sell it for, what could she say except, “It’s priceless.”