The Gilded Seal (19 page)

ceiling gilded mirror, Besson introduced her to Miles King

and Caroline Vernin, representatives from Sotheby’s and

Christie’s respectively. Both were young and sharply dressed

and had the same hungry look she had seen in realtors when

first trying to rent an apartment in Manhattan.

“The paintings arrived safely?” she asked, noting the tee-

tering piles of auction catalogues on the far side of the room

and the assortment of ash-filled wine glasses balancing on

top of them.

“We delivered ours yesterday afternoon,” Vernin confi rmed.

“I made sure that the paintings that

were on Agent

Browne’s flight were shipped straight from the airport as

soon as they’d cleared Customs,” King immediately fi red

back.

1 3 0 j a m e s

t w i n i n g

“Everything is ready,” Besson reassured her. “Now, tell

me, have you ever taken part in something like this before?”

“Is it anything like an autopsy?” she asked with a smile.

“Because I’ve done plenty of them.”

“
Précisement
!” Besson clapped his hands. “An artistic au-

topsy. Only no one has died.”

The memory of Hammon’s gaping eye sockets and the

bloody gash of his open mouth fl ashed into her head and for

a moment she thought of correcting him. Someone had died,

and it hadn’t needed an autopsy to explain the cause of

death.

“
Venez
. I’ll talk you through it.”

He opened a set of double doors and led them from the of-

fice into a large room, the damage caused by his stroke fur-

ther betrayed by his shuffling limp and the unnatural splay of

his left foot.

It was dark, sunlight peeking in around the edges of the

metal shutters. Even so, Jennifer could make out the elabo-

rate nineteenth-century plaster cornicing that suggested this

had once been the main sitting room. Not that there was any

furniture now. Instead, the room was almost entirely taken

up by a large chamber constructed from heavy-duty plastic

sheeting, leaving only a narrow path around its perimeter. It

reminded Jennifer of the forensic tents erected around a

crime scene, except here the plastic was clear, not white. A

pale inner glow was projecting various dark shapes against

the translucent material as if it were a screen.

“It’s a clean room,” Besson explained, sensing the ques-

tion she was asking herself. “It allows me to maintain the air

purity, temperature and humidity at the right level.”

He pulled on a white lab coat that reached just below his

shorts and then pushed his feet into a pair of bright yellow

boots of the type Jennifer had seen in abattoirs and mortuar-

ies before. It certainly explained why he was barefoot. He

handed each of them a similar coat and a set of elasticated

overshoes.

“Please don’t touch anything,” he warned, as he pulled on

a set of surgical gloves and then looped a pair of square-

framed reading glasses around his neck.

t h e g i l d e d s e a l

1 3 1

As soon as they were all dressed, he located a split in the

chamber wall and held it open for them. They stepped into a

small anteroom and then pushed through a heavy curtain of

overlapping clear plastic strips into the chamber itself, the

temperature dropping noticeably. Motion-

sensitive lights

blinked on overhead, their ultraviolet fi lters radiating a faint

blue wash.

The center of the chamber, Jennifer could now see, was

dominated by a large circular table. All four paintings had

been removed from their frames and mounted in steel cradles

that allowed them to be moved and rotated without having to

touch the canvas.

Seeing them side by side for the first time, she had to admit

that, of the two artists, she preferred the Chagall. There was

passionate energy there, an almost childish abandon of color

and movement that she instinctively connected with, com-

pared to the Gauguin’s rather self-conscious sense of control.

On one side of the table a fearsome array of mechanical

arms, bristling with cameras, lights and other unidentifi ed

appendages, hung down menacingly over the canvases, as if

the paintings were patients sitting nervously in a dentist’s

chair. Meanwhile the edges of the chamber were lined with

various unidentified pieces of electronic and analytical

equipment that gave off a low hum as LED lights of different

colors fl ashed wildly.

“Authentication typically requires two types of analysis—”

Besson put his glasses on as he turned to face Jennifer, the

explanation clearly aimed at her—“forensic and Morellian.”

“Morellian?”

“In simple terms: Does it look right? Is it consistent with

the preferred themes, style, composition and technique of a

partic ular artist? To be honest, that’s often enough. You just

look at it, and you know.”

“I think we’ll need the full set of tests on this one,” Vernin

cautioned him. “If I have to go back to my clients with bad

news, they’re going to want to see everything.”

“Mine too,” King added quickly.

“Then I’ll have to take samples.”

“Only swabs,” insisted Vernin.

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t w i n i n g

“That rules out AAS and ICPS,” he warned her.

“But you can still do X-ray, infrared, UV and TXRF,” she

pointed out. “That should be enough.”

“TXRF?” Jennifer frowned.

“Total reflection X-ray fluorescence spectrometry,” King

explained. “Just don’t ask me what it means.”

“It means you take swabs from the painting’s surface and

then examine the trace elements under X-ray,” Vernin said

impatiently.

“AAS and ICPS tests involve scraping off actual paint

chips and then burning them to analyze their resins,” Besson

said as he busied himself around the main computer. “Most

people won’t allow them. But it’s always worth asking.”

One of the robotic arms sprang into life, lowering itself

over the first Gauguin canvas and then tracking across its

surface. Jennifer watched silently as, with metronomic sweeps

of the cursor, the scanned image of the painting began to

take shape on the computer screen. When it was fi nished, the

table rotated automatically until the other Gauguin was in

position. Then it too was scanned in.

As soon as both paintings had been captured, Besson

called up the images on another set of screens, leaving the

computer to scan in the two Chagalls behind him. Adjusting

the magnification until it was possible to see the individual

brush strokes, Besson tracked across the surface of the fi rst

painting, switching at various points to the equivalent section

of the other painting to compare them.

“Any joy?” King asked hopefully after fifteen or so min-

utes.

Besson, ignoring the question, crossed to the table and

tilted the two paintings upright. He stood for a few minutes in

front of each one, his left arm across his stomach, the other

supporting his chin as he contemplated them. Finally, with a

nod, he went to the right-hand Gauguin and placed his hand

on the top of the canvas.

“This one.”

“What?”

“It’s not right.”

“In what way?” queried Jennifer.

t h e g i l d e d s e a l

1 3 3

“It’s good. Excellent. But the confidence of the brush

strokes, the layering of the paint and the colors are far more

consistent in the other painting with Gauguin’s style at that

time. This one is a bit . . . soulless.”

King stepped forward and glanced at the painting’s identi-

fication label before giving Vernin a triumphant grin.

“One of yours. Unlucky.”

Jennifer nodded to herself. Hudson had been right, after

all. Razi’s painting was the genuine one.

“I’ll want those tests,” Vernin instructed Besson in a stern

tone, “And a second opinion.”

“Of course,” he nodded. “I suggest the Wildenstein Insti-

tute. Sylvie Ducroq is the Gauguin expert there.”

“What about the Chagall?” Jennifer reminded him.

Besson set about repeating the exercise he had run through

previously. This time, however, it only took half as long.

“No question that this is the original,” he announced, indi-

cating the painting to his right. “The other one hasn’t got the

right aging. The colors are too fresh, too new. It’s not as good

an attempt as the Gauguin. I expect it was done in China.

They still teach traditional oil techniques out there.”

“Fifty euro says that one’s yours too,” King challenged

Vernin with a smile.

“You’re such a child,” she sighed as she stepped forward to

examine the label before looking around with an anguished

look.

“Just not your day, is it?” King crowed.

Jennifer wasn’t listening. She was trying to understand the

significance of both forgeries ending up in the hands of

Christie’s Japanese client.

“The full forensic tests will take one or two days,” Besson

observed, pulling his gloves off with a loud thwack. “I’ll

email them through as soon as they’re done. I suggest you

hold off talking to your clients until then.”

“Agreed,” said King cheerfully, barely able to contain

himself. This was clearly the art world equivalent of the

Battle of Chattanooga. “Thanks for your help on this one,

Henri.” He shook his hand enthusiastically.

“We’ll see ourselves out,” Vernin said curtly, casting off

1 3 4 j a m e s

t w i n i n g

her protective white coat and striding toward the opening in

the chamber’s plastic folds.

“I’ll arrange for the paintings to be returned as soon as

I’ve finished,” he called after them, before turning back to

Jennifer. “Presumably you would like the ones you brought

over to be sent to your hotel, Made moi selle Browne?”

“The George V,” she confirmed. “Thank you.”

She shook Besson’s hand and then turned to follow King

and Vernin back to the offi ce.

“
Mademoi selle Browne. Un moment, s’il vous plaît
,” Bes-

son called her back, removing his glasses. “I didn’t want to

mention it in front of the others,” he said in a low voice, “but

there’s something else you should know about these paint-

ings, the Gauguin in partic ular.”

“Go on.”

“These aren’t just forgeries. They are perfect copies.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that whoever painted them must have had direct

access to the originals. The Gauguin is certainly the better

executed of the two, but they both combine small details that

the painter would only have been aware of if they had the

original in front of them. Maybe he or she has been a little

too clever?”

Jennifer gave a pained sigh. Far from simplifying the case

by allowing her to focus on the two forgeries and their history,

she now had no choice but to include the originals in her in-

vestigation as well. She was right back where she’d started.

“Not the answer you were looking for?”

“That would have been too easy.” She smiled ruefully.

He escorted her to the front door but as she stepped out on

to the landing, she paused, suddenly remembering that she

had one more question for him. Pulling a slip of paper from

her handbag, she asked, “Does this mean anything to you?”

Besson put his glasses back on and studied the number she

had copied down from Hammon’s fax machine.

“It looks like a Louvre accession number.” He frowned.

“Usually accession numbers have the date of acquisition fol-

lowed by a serial number, but the Louvre has its own system.

t h e g i l d e d s e a l

1 3 5

They like to be different. I’m not sure what it’s for, though.

Would you like me to fi nd out?”

She hesitated for a moment. If it was a Louvre number she

was keen to go there in person. On the other hand, there was

no guarantee anyone would be available to see her.

“That would be great.”

“Can I keep this?”

“Of course. Just let me know if you come up with any-

thing.”

Closing the door behind her, Besson stood for a few mo-

ments in the hallway, flicking his fingernail against his

teeth.

“So, was it her?” he asked in French, sensing someone

walking up alongside him.

“Yeah,” Tom sighed. “It was her.”

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y- S I X

10:32 a.m.

Let me get this straight,” Besson laughed, as he poured the

coffee. “You and the FBI agent . . .”

“It wasn’t like that,” Tom protested.

“No?”

“Well, not exactly,” he conceded in an awkward tone. “It

was complicated. I was helping her . . . She blackmailed me

into it, really. Anyway we were in Paris together and things

sort of just . . . happened. It was over before it began. You

know what it’s like.”

“Actually, no.” Besson grinned. “In my day we didn’t sleep

with cops, even the beautiful ones.”

“In your day, all the cops were men.”

“What did Archie say?”

“Not much.” Tom ran a hand through his hair.

“Liar!” Besson laughed again. “We both know how he feels