by Amy Myers
The latter sounded an extremely good idea, and forgers at least struck a more relevant chord with her. Nevertheless it was severely cutting down on the ‘now we talk’ time she would have with them.
She had no sooner walked out of the Louvre with them than as if by magic the car reappeared, and another high-speed terror drive took place. This time their destination wasn’t an art museum but a street hardly a stone’s throw from the Champs-Elysées. It was so narrow that the car took up almost the entire width. ‘You come back ten minutes,’ she heard Antonio instruct his personal Formula One driver. At the rate he drove, Georgia thought, that would give him time to reach Vincennes, have lunch and be back again.
The street resembled those to be found in any large town. Always behind the facade of the broad boulevards were the working people’s apartments, grey anonymous exteriors, large old wooden doors, tiny balconies where only pigeons added life. No sun could creep into this narrow road to breathe life into green plants. The trees of the Champs-Elysées seemed a world away from here where every dwelling looked the same and gave no clue to what went on within. Perhaps that was the point – it was ideal for forgers.
‘It’s been a long time, Antonio,’ Madeleine remarked. She still looked the ultra-respectable Englishwoman, and Georgia couldn’t imagine how and where Madeleine could ever have known this place. But then did she know the real Madeleine? According to Venetia Wain, obviously not.
‘Yes,’ Antonio agreed. ‘Which is the number? I forget.’
‘Number 13,’ his wife replied quietly.
‘Of course.’
Number 13 was a few paces along from where they were standing, a door like all the rest with only a brass number on the wall beside it to indicate its individuality.
‘Gloomy,’ Antonio remarked.
‘Are we going in?’ Georgia asked.
‘No. I do not know who lives here now, but inside once upon a time was the Louvre.’
‘Scusi?’ Georgia thought she had misheard.
‘Here were all the paintings of the Louvre, all the precious objects. Here was a palace, all the glories of the world. You have heard of Kranowski?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Great artist. Great faker. He had a family business here in the 1950s. He loved the past, did legitimate copies on commission, but preferred making his own. That way he created new great works. Domenico Kranowski was a great friend of mine.’
‘Although he was a faker?’
‘Is necessary to know fakers and forgers in antiques trade. I study their style, so I recognize them if they try to sell work to me. Domenico knew that. “I never fool you,” he tell me. “You are too clever.” So I know the Rossetti painting is not his. Kranowski was a lovely man. His father was a faker and his son. Kranowski wanted revenge on a country that did not protect his father. Jewish, you see,’ Antonio said matter-of-factly. ‘So he became an even better faker than his father, so that he could laugh very hard at all French experts.’
‘Was he finally exposed?’
‘Si. In 1961 and the family disappeared like magic. But it was not I who betray him. No one trust me if I do that.’
She saw what he meant. If Antonio was, as he claimed, a bridge between the legal and illegal art worlds, then he was right – although the bridge claim hardly tallied with Mike’s information from Interpol. ‘Could Lance have exposed him?’ Georgia asked. ‘If so, there could be a motive for a revenge killing.’
‘No, no. Lance was also great friends with Domenico.’
It all sounded very chummy. ‘Even though Lance’s job was to track down forgeries and fakes?’
‘Not like that at all. The villains not always the fakers. The fakers like their work. The bad men are those who set up con, find buyers, do deals. You heard of Israel Ruchomovski? He was master faker, great artist.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘He was a gold- and silversmith, over hundred years ago. He loved objects of the past, so fake his own. He was not a bad man, he was a very good man. He created the ancient Persian Tiara of Saitaphernes, a big golden helmet which the Louvre bought. You know what he said when he was praised for this lovely fake? He said, “This not good at all. My sarcophagus is much better.” This sarcophagus was on exhibition in Paris as ancient relic and winning much praise. Very funny, eh?’
‘Are you suggesting Ruchomovski might have forged the golden goblet?’ Georgia asked, confused.
Antonio gave her a charming smile. ‘Who knows? But I think not. Fifty years too early. I only point out that there is soul in fakes too. There is soul in the tiara, soul in the sarcophagus. What’s in a name, your Shakespeare says. You know the old joke, there are twice as many Monets in the world as Monet ever painted. So now we have lunch, eh? And then we go to look at Gawain painting again. We will look to see if it has soul.’
She had been counting on an informal lunch at Vincennes to shoot off her ammunition, but once again control had been taken out of her hands. In the small Italian restaurant with crowded tables Antonio had chosen, it was impossible to hold a meaningful conversation and Antonio was in good form cracking joke after joke. It was equally impossible to be annoyed. He reluctantly agreed she could pay the bill in return for their hospitality on her last visit, but when she asked the waiter for it, it appeared that there wasn’t one. It was apparently an honour for the restaurant to supply them with copious food and drink (on which she went more carefully than last time). Nevertheless she managed to fire one shot in the car on the return to Vincennes.
‘Have you seen anything more of Zac?’ she asked.
‘No, Mrs G.’ Antonio chuckled. ‘He only came to see me for news of Roberto. He our youngest son, who work in Vienna.’
‘A lovely city,’ Madeleine immediately replied. ‘Have you visited it?’
Georgia hadn’t and Madeleine’s prompt account of it carefully took the subject away from Zac, and try as she might she couldn’t work the conversation back again.
Once in Vincennes, Antonio was intent on rushing her straight up for her date with King Arthur, but he wasn’t getting away with this one so easily. She was going to use all her ammunition this time.
‘Before I see it again,’ she said firmly, ‘I have to confess to a problem with it.’
Both Madeleine and Antonio looked surprised. Too surprised?
‘If Lance dealt with fakes and you were both so knowledgeable about the world of fakes in Paris, Antonio, how can it be right that you can’t tell immediately whether it’s a fake or not, only whether it has soul.’
‘We do not recognize the style in this case,’ Antonio said promptly. ‘Even fakers have styles, brushwork, care of detail, use of colours. Chrome yellow is one. In a fake that shows more clearly than in a straight copy. This one very good, and could be Rossetti. We study Rossetti carefully, see no difference. And yet, not quite sure, you know?’ He flashed her a beaming smile, but she stood her ground.
‘But I still don’t understand why Jago wasn’t brought in on this?’
Antonio considered this. ‘We live in Rome when Lance show us painting, so maybe that M. Jago not see it. We told your papa on the telephone that he is right. Lance did not like Jago because of Jennifer. Jago probably never noticed and thought they were great friends. He was only interested in King Arthur, and thought Lance was too.’
Georgia pounced. ‘Thought? So Lance’s interest in Arthur wasn’t as genuine as Jago believes?’
‘Lance,’ Madeleine took over, ‘was interested in all sorts of things. He would pick up interests and drop them as new ones came along. Arthur stuck, because Jago was always so obsessed with it.’
‘Then why didn’t he show him the painting?’ Georgia persisted. ‘He told him it existed, but apparently Jago never knew it was actually in his hands, otherwise Lance would have been forced to show it to him before bringing it to you in Rome.’
‘Why?’ Madeleine asked guardedly.
‘Because of Jennifer.’ Their faces were ex
pressionless as she continued: ‘You agreed that Lance still loved Jennifer and vice versa, and that he kept up the relationship with Jago because of that. So he would not have risked being banned from the household through keeping Jago in the dark over something he was so obsessed about. He’d told him about the painting. Why not show it to him too?’
Antonio heaved a sigh. ‘This is a clever lady, Madeleine. We tell her, yes?’
Madeleine nodded, watching her husband closely.
‘The reason he did not tell Jago he had bought the painting is that he wanted to save it so we could all get a higher price from Jago when he found Mr Ruskin’s letter and script proving the goblet really existed. Jennifer agreed. Great joke. So Lance said he loved King Arthur too, and wanted to help him find the goblet.’
‘So Jennifer still loved Lance?’ Georgia asked.
‘She never spoke a word against Jago, but I think she did,’ Madeleine replied. ‘She sounded devastated when she wrote to tell us of Lance’s death. The last time I heard from her she was pregnant again and then we fell out of touch.’
Two shots left but these could easily be dud bullets. ‘Does the name Richard Hoskin meant anything to you?’ Georgia asked. ‘A professor, who says he knew Lance? Or have you heard of a young man called Michael? He was a visitor not long before Lance died, so Venetia Wain told us.’
She thought she saw a flicker of reaction in Madeleine’s expression, but if so it was gone so quickly that she could not be sure.
Antonio shook his head. ‘Sorry, Mrs Georgia, many people know Lance.’
‘Neither of them?’ she asked.
‘What lady Venetia tell you bound to be wrong,’ Antonio replied briskly. ‘Now we see picture. We decide if it true or false. Whether it speak to us like Mona Lisa.’
Georgia followed them upstairs and into the bedroom again. The painting impressed her as much as before. This time, she ignored the dying knight and King Arthur, and studied the goblet first. It seemed to glow with a life of its own, its relief just faintly discernible upon it, including something that might conceivably be an animal. It was the whole goblet that drew the attention, though. Both Sir Gawain’s and the King’s eyes were on it, not, it seemed to suggest, for the gold but for what it symbolized for them. It was, she recognized, the painting’s soul.
‘True or false, Georgia?’ Madeleine asked gently.
‘Are you asking me,’ she replied hesitantly, ‘whether I think this is a fake, perhaps a Kranowski painting? Is this what this is all about?’
‘No,’ snapped Antonio indignantly. ‘I tell you Kranowski did not paint this. You tell me what you think. With all my experience I still do not know. Does that goblet exist or not? Is this painting fake? Is the goblet fake? If the painting is genuine, did Rossetti believe the goblet existed? Tell me, please.’
Georgia drew a deep breath. ‘It does have soul,’ she said. ‘And that makes it genuine, but not necessarily a genuine Rossetti.’ She took a step into unknown territory. ‘What about the other paintings? When I came last time, you referred to paintings in the plural, and so has Jago.’
Instantly she was aware that the atmosphere had changed. Antonio was very still. ‘You make mistake, Mrs Georgia,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You mishear me. Only one painting.’
‘Lance might have known about others,’ Georgia persisted, interested to see where this might be going. ‘Which is why Jago referred to more than one. Perhaps Lance deliberately misled you?’
‘No.’ Another charming smile. ‘You understand? No.’
She did. It was a message that cooperation was over and it was time to leave – and to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Silly of me.’ She shook her head as if at her own stupidity. ‘If Rossetti was only in Paris for ten days he couldn’t possibly have painted more than one.’
The tension relaxed, as she had hoped, but as she got into the car to be chauffeur-driven to the Gare du Nord they insisted on coming with her. Not, she suspected, through politeness but because they wanted to be sure she left without questions to Mr Formula One. What, however, would those have been? About the paintings? About Roberto? About Lance? Or about Zac?
Chapter Nine
Questions span round Georgia’s head until it felt like a washing machine, and she longed to hurl them at Peter immediately she returned. Not a good idea, though. They needed to be thoroughly rinsed before she could present them coherently. Moreover Luke would be waiting too, and this time her account of Paris could, thank goodness, be less edited than her previous one. One purpose this had served was to relegate Zac to a compartment of his own in her mind, rather than have him obstinately keep popping up in the Benizi story. Although over that, she was uncomfortably aware, there was still a question mark over his role.
It was therefore not until the following morning that she went to find Peter. Conversation with Luke had been confined to a straight account of the day. He had had supper waiting for her, and once back home Zac had tiptoed out of her thoughts with only the faintest acknowledgement from her.
When she arrived at nine o’clock Peter was not in his office, and there was no sign of Margaret. For a moment she feared that he had had one of his ‘turns’. These were becoming less frequent now that the years were passing since Rick’s disappearance but nevertheless when they did occur they were violent and terrifying, leaving him shivering at horrors she could not share, but could well imagine. She hurried into the bedroom and was relieved to find it empty. Instead she tracked him down to the garden where she saw him already installed at his working table under the fig tree, Margaret doing her best to persuade him that breakfast was a good idea. It lay on a tray on a trolley at his side.
She shrugged when she saw Georgia. ‘You have a go.’
‘Ah,’ Peter glanced over his shoulder, ‘perfect happiness, Georgia. That’s what they say.’
‘And that’s breakfast?’ she enquired amicably.
‘Sitting under one’s own fig tree.’
She agreed there was something in the shape of the fig-tree leaves that seemed to make it a peaceful tree, as well as – in a good summer here – a fruitful one. The pile of books already before Peter, however, suggested that he had a mission in mind rather than a browse.
‘No Internet today?’ she asked, dropping a kiss on his head.
He waved a hand at the pile. ‘Books. What news from afar?’
She scented an opportunity. ‘Have your breakfast, and I’ll tell you.’
Margaret disappeared inside the house, and Peter actually took Georgia at her word, listening avidly throughout a bowl of muesli and a croissant.
He continued munching for a few minutes after she had finished, and then sighed. ‘So let’s sum up. The painting has almost certainly got to be a fake. This so-called evidence is far too tenuous.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Or, of course, the Benizis could be kidding you; they know the painting to be genuine and want to make a killing now that the King Arthur story is getting big again. His cup coming back to meet the saucer, so to speak.’
‘Very cute,’ she said disapprovingly. ‘And though you might be right in theory, I don’t see anyone having a plan that would involve waiting forty-odd years to come to fruition.’
‘What about cases of wine? Antonio Benizi works in a family business, there’s the next generation to think of.’
‘I still don’t buy it. They are traders. If they knew the painting was genuine, as soon as the Pre-Raphaelites became popular again they’d have flogged it. What’s interesting is what happened to the other paintings, if any. Antonio certainly didn’t like my asking about them.’
Peter frowned. ‘One lost Rossetti is possibly genuine, two or three make it look rather contrived, don’t you think? And aren’t we getting off the point, which is Lance Venyon’s death?’
‘I don’t know where the point is any longer,’ she said crossly. ‘It’s like a maze, every dead-end avenue adds to the fog of misdirection.’
‘As no doubt Antonio B
enizi intends,’ Peter observed.
‘Possibly,’ she conceded, then saw his expression. ‘All right, probably.’
‘How about certainly?’
‘If so, so what?’
‘That suggests the painting or paintings are fake, probably the goblet too, and led to Lance’s death.’
‘No,’ she argued. She wasn’t going to accept that she’d been completely hoodwinked by Antonio. ‘Even if the painting is fake, the goblet isn’t necessarily so. Aargh,’ she broke off in despair, seeing she was on quicksand now. ‘Where now? All roads barred.’
‘Nonsense,’ Peter said briskly. ‘What about gangs for starters?’
‘Gangs in the plural? Gents with hats pulled over their eyes?’
‘Gangs aren’t always villains. We have two of them. The Benizi Brothers, because whichever side of the legal line they tread, they most certainly constitute a gang.’
‘And the other?’
‘The gang behind the current art thefts, to which we tentatively put the Roy Cook name. There’s a remote chance the link between them could still be Lance Venyon.’
‘Via Sandro Daks. But is it a gang?’
‘Ask Mike. He’s due here in half an hour. He’s had a word with the Metropolitan Police. I hate to point this out, Georgia, but Zac too is a link between the two gangs.’
‘Mike must have been thrilled at that idea,’ she said hollowly, wrestling with this depressing notion. Mike had known and been wary of Zac almost as much as Peter, and been involved in his arrest.
She was right, although when he arrived, Mike grudgingly admitted, ‘For once, Georgia, your ex is telling the truth, though the Met is using him at a low level only. It’s only just beginning to unravel the scam. It’s been well thought out. Straightforward burglary with one or two nice but hardly earth-shattering pictures pinched. Sigh of relief from the owners, who then don’t bother to check their valuable paintings carefully enough. They’re the ones for which copies have been substituted. It could take months, even years, for them to come to light. Even if chemical analysis proves them to be forgeries, it would take a devil of a lot of proving that it was due to the burglary, since the path is well and truly grown over.’
