by Alex Connor
“It’s good to see you after so long, Victor.” He paused, his manners serving him well. “Are you working back in London?”
“Not in the gallery. That option’s closed to me now. I’m doing some investigative work.”
“Indeed.” Oliver sipped his coffee. “In this area?”
Victor smiled, trying to ease the tension.
“I’m sorry to just turn up like this, Sir Oliver. It’s good of you to see me. Most dealers would have shown me the door.”
“Most dealers were very jealous of you,” Oliver said honestly. “I always liked you.”
Unaccountably pleased, Victor smiled again. “I learned a lot from you.”
“Maybe, but I’m old school, while you were the bright new hope. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have used the past tense.”
Victor shrugged. “We both know I’m finished as a dealer. My reputation’s ruined. Now I could uncover a new Van Gogh and everyone would swear I’d stolen it.” He paused. “But when I was in trouble, you spoke up for me. You didn’t have to do that. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened?”
“No,” Oliver said simply, shaking his head. “If you didn’t do it, no amount of my sympathy will make it hurt a jot less. If you did do it, then you’ve paid for it. Not just by your sentence but by being in the position you are in now.”
He wanted to say more but kept his counsel. He never believed that Victor would have deliberately dealt in fakes. It would have been too clumsy, too crude for him. And besides, why would he have threatened a career that was progressing so well? Other dealers might say that Victor Ballam had dealt in forgeries because he was greedy for the money, but Oliver had never believed that. They might have been greedy, but Victor? No; greed had never been one of his vices.
Instead, Oliver Peters had long believed that Victor had been stopped deliberately. But why? The answer was obvious. His ascent had been too fast, too glittering, for some of the art world grandees. He was too ripe for the age: photogenic, media-savvy, always the first to be called on for a sound bite when some sale hit the news. And he was incorruptible, brave enough to speak out about some of the less savory aspects of the art business. He made speeches. He made points. And he made enemies.
But there could be no murder, no dramatic disappearance. Victor Ballam had to be silenced by being disgraced. And what better fall from grace for the whiter-than-white dealer than to be exposed as a fraud? At his trial, people derided Victor’s hypocrisy, his hubris, and he got three-plus years in jail. The art world could have tolerated his success, but his judgment of them? Never.
“I didn’t believe that you did it,” Oliver said. “I want you to know that. I think you were set up.”
Victor nodded. “I know I was.”
“You know who did it?”
“No. Do you?”
“No; I would have told you.”
A moment passed between them.
“It was unjust.”
Oliver didn’t miss a beat. “Many things are in life.”
Victor held his gaze. Among all the dealers, he had always sought Sir Oliver Peters’s respect. And now, as he looked at him and saw the signs of illness, he felt a debt of honor he wanted to repay. If he was involved in anything dangerous, Victor wanted to protect him.
“I’ve been hired to investigate what happened to a call girl called Marian Miller. Just before her death she’d been traveling on Bernie Freeland’s jet.”
Oliver leaned back in his seat, cautious. “You know I was also a passenger on that flight?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here. I’m talking to everyone who was involved. Did you know that Bernie Freeland was killed in New York?”
“Yes.”
“And that Kit Wilkes has been admitted to the hospital with a drug overdose?”
“I heard about that too. A tragedy,” Oliver said. “I have to be honest with you: I don’t really socialize with Mr. Wilkes; we move in different circles. Of course I know of him as a dealer, but we’ve never worked together.”
Victor hesitated for an instant before continuing.
“One of the other girls who were on that flight is now missing. And another’s been murdered in New York.”
Shaken, Oliver reached for his coffee cup and took a long drink. Victor could see the shock on his features, the twitch of a muscle in his left cheek.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you all this,” Victor went on, “and I’m relying on your discretion.”
“Yes, yes; that goes without saying.”
“It’s unlikely to be coincidence that so many of the passengers are now dead.”
“Kit Wilkes is still alive.”
“Yes, but his condition’s critical. Bernie Freeland’s dead. Marian Miller’s dead. And now Annette Dvorski’s been murdered.”
“Good God.”
Victor held Oliver’s glance. “I was surprised to hear that you’d been on that plane.”
“My scheduled flight was canceled and I wanted to get home, so Bernie Freeland offered me a lift. We’d all attended an auction in Hong Kong.”
“You, Bernie Freeland, Lim Chang, and Kit Wilkes?”
Oliver nodded, but he was uneasy, wondering what else Victor was going to say. Why he was in his office, talking about dead passengers. So many dead passengers.
“Apparently there was mention of a painting, a lost Hogarth,” Victor began. “Did Bernie Freeland talk to you about it?”
Oliver fielded the question.
“I was out of place, uncomfortable. As you say, there were call girls on the jet. Bernie Freeland was a brash character, and he lived in a way that was alien to me. Most of the time I was regretting accepting the lift and just wanted to get home.”
“But you two talked during the flight?”
“Bernie Freeland’s drink was spiked,” Oliver replied, on the defensive. “He wasn’t making much sense.”
“But he did mention the Hogarth, didn’t he?”
Oliver winced.
“He did say something, but I dismissed it out of hand. All the paintings of The Harlot’s Progress were destroyed by fire a long time ago.” Oliver laced his fingers together, almost as though to contain the cat’s cradle of lies he had begun to spin. “You were in the art business, Victor; you know it runs on stories. There’s always talk of a new Raphael, a suddenly discovered Michelangelo—usually that tiresome cherub he was supposed to have faked.”
“But this painting was special, important—and dangerous,” Victor said carefully, catching a brief flicker crossing Oliver Peters’s face. He knew the story and suspected that the man facing him knew it too even if he wasn’t about to admit it.
“Dangerous?”
“It’s supposed to depict the Prince of Wales and Polly Gunnell, his whore who bore him a bastard son.”
“Oh, that old rumor,” Oliver said smoothly, flicking the words away with his hand. “A rumor isn’t a fact.”
“Well, someone’s taking it very seriously. I’ve already been threatened. Someone warned me off as soon as I got involved in this case.”
Oliver’s mind was working overtime. Who knew that the Hogarth was missing? He had prayed that the fact would remain secret until he could recover the painting. His mistake—his bad luck—he had hoped would never be exposed. But someone knew. Someone had warned Victor Ballam. How long before they threatened him too? How long before someone came, sent from the royal advisers? How long before he was reprimanded, relieved of his position, demoted, his reputation and his family’s security destabilized?
Oliver’s mouth was as dry as ash. “Who threatened you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would someone threaten you?”
“Come on, Sir Oliver; we both know it’s because of the Hogarth.”
“All this for a painting? Never.” He paused, uncertain if he was sounding convincing and piteously ashamed at having to lie. But what was his
choice? To tell the truth? And to Victor Ballam? Hardly. But once the lying had begun, Oliver was finding its acceleration breathtaking. “Bernie Freeland didn’t really know much about art. He was a lucky dealer, not an accomplished one. Not in English art, anyway. I doubt he would have known if the Hogarth painting was genuine. He might have been taken in by a fake.”
“What if he wasn’t taken in?” Victor replied. “True, Freeland was a businessman who became a collector; he didn’t have a connoisseur’s instinct. But he had a lot of money, and he could easily have paid to have the painting authenticated. I doubt he’d have bought a Hogarth unless he knew it was genuine.”
Victor broke the silence that followed. “When he mentioned the painting to you, what did you think?”
“That he was babbling. I thought he was ill.”
Victor changed tack. “My client—”
“Who is?”
“That’s confidential,” Victor countered, elastic with the truth himself. “But it’s someone who wants to find out why so many of the passengers on that flight have been killed and hopefully prevent the remainder from ending up the same way.” This time he saw Oliver flinch and pressed on. “You were such a disparate bunch, people with so little in common. True, four of you were art dealers, but not friends. You lived in different countries, had different nationalities, and moved in different circles. As for the working girls, they were simply hired by Bernie Freeland for the trip. Or did any of the last-minute passengers have sex with them?”
Outraged and showing it, Oliver snapped his answer. “No!”
“I had to ask.”
“No one had sex with the girls except Bernie Freeland.”
“So the only thing all of you had in common was knowing about the Hogarth.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Oliver said sharply, trying to put Victor off the scent. “Bernie Freeland was just rambling.”
“Freeland had got hold of the Hogarth, hadn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” Oliver replied coolly. “You seem to know a lot about what went on in that plane. Why don’t you tell me?”
Surprised, Victor wondered why Oliver was being so confrontational and then remembered Tully telling him that Peters was terminally ill. Perhaps no longer able to remain honorable, perhaps driven to getting the Hogarth himself and making a fortune to secure his family’s future. Remembering how he had had lost the Hogarth, Victor suddenly wondered if, indeed, Oliver Peters knew where the painting was. Perhaps it was in his gallery, behind the next wall. Perhaps in his bank.
Poised, Victor studied the elegant man in front of him. How many people really knew about the Hogarth? Had anyone had time to pass the information on? Had Lim Chang spoken to the Chinese? Kit Wilkes to the Russians? Oliver Peters to the British contingent? Kit Wilkes couldn’t have kept the secret for an hour. Could Lim Chang have resisted broadcasting such a coup? In the minutes after they left Bernie Freeland’s plane, how many busy little fingers texted messages and made phone calls?
Victor wondered whether the information became public property or remained contained. Whether knotted tendrils of communication reached out across the Internet from that tight little coterie, humming over phone lines and cable connections. From one manageable little bunch, did the news then snake its prolonged reach around the globe?
And if it did, could any one dealer, especially a man as sick as Oliver Peters, grab the prize for himself?
“Have you been in touch with Lim Chang?”
Oliver blinked. “Why should I be?”
“He was on the flight, and he must have heard about Bernie Freeland’s death,” Victor replied. “It would be natural for you two to talk.”
“Who authorized you to ask all these questions?” Oliver asked, suddenly taking out a small vial of pills. Without attempting to disguise what he was doing, he shook out two tablets and swallowed them with what was left of his coffee. “You sound like a policeman, Victor. Although the force doesn’t hire anyone with a criminal record, do they?” Ashamed of the jibe, he said, “Forgive my manners; I’m in a little pain.”
More than a little, Victor thought. “No one wants to bring the police into this, Sir Oliver. It would come out about the prostitutes and who was on the plane. I don’t think anyone wants that kind of publicity.”
“Guilt by association.”
Victor nodded. “I understand why everyone wants to keep it private, and with the Hogarth back on the market—and we both know it is—secrecy’s paramount.”
Oliver was listening, surprised and wary. Was this man on his side? Was this convicted criminal, this ex-dealer, just grubbing about for information, or was he genuinely aware of the painting’s significance?
“Sir Oliver, there are many dealers who could make a fortune out of the painting. Others would want to destroy it to defend reputations—royal reputations, the line of succession itself.”
“I don’t have it,” Oliver said.
He had decided to fabricate his own version of events, at the same time appearing to help Victor. In this way he hoped he would find out more about what was going on and keep tabs on Lim Chang, whose request for money had played on Oliver’s mind. What if it was a trick? What if Chang took the half a million and returned to China with the Hogarth and the money? Perhaps his only protection was to throw in his lot with Victor Ballam.
Weary with anxiety and pain, Oliver said, “I don’t have the Hogarth. I was just an innocent party in this whole sordid mess. I was unlucky when I accepted Freeland’s offer of a lift. I had nothing to do with the death of the call girl.”
“I’m not suggesting you did.”
“They said she was killed by a client.”
“The police think so.”
“But you don’t?”
“No. I might have, but after Marian Miller’s death, when Bernie Freeland was killed and then Annette Dvorski was murdered, it was just too much of a coincidence. You all knew about the Hogarth.”
Still cautious, Oliver refused to be drawn.
“And even if you didn’t, people believed that every passenger did. Sir Oliver, I need to know exactly what went on, who said what. And who you’ve spoken to since.”
“Only Lim Chang.”
“He’s in London?”
Oliver was straining to concentrate. “Yes, he told me about Bernie Freeland’s death.”
“Does he know about the Hogarth?”
Oliver blinked slowly, thinking, then sighed, shaking his head. “There’s really no point in my lying anymore, is there?”
“No.”
“Anyone on that jet could have heard about the Hogarth.”
Relieved, Victor nodded. “Bernie Freeland did talk to you, didn’t he?”
“Yes. What he said was garbled, but he told me he had the painting. Someone had stolen it.”
“From where?”
I don’t know,” Oliver replied, wanting to shout out, From my bank. Stolen from me. My family. The Hogarth is my property, my responsibility, and I want it back. But he didn’t say any of it, because he knew he had to concentrate on recovering the painting. The thief was almost a secondary matter. “I just know that it was stolen and the thief wanted to get rid of it in a hurry. He sold it to Bernie Freeland.”
“What else did he say?”
“He was scared, worried that something might happen to him. He was right; something did.” Oliver paused, holding Victor’s gaze. “But you have to remember how it was. We were just coming into land. The journey had been stressful; we all wanted to leave the plane and go home. And then suddenly Bernie Freeland started lurching around and saying these peculiar things to me. He was whispering, but loudly, if you know what I mean. And at first I didn’t know what he was talking about.” Oliver paused, remembering. “By the time the steward had settled him in his seat, we were landing. He said that Mr. Freeland’s drink had been spiked but that he would be fine later. It was all so hurried, so odd.”
“But anyone on the flight could have heard about t
he Hogarth?”
“Well, some passengers were closer to us than others,” Oliver conceded, “but yes, I suppose everyone could have heard.”
“What about the staff on the jet?” Victor asked, remembering what Tully had told him. “Did you notice anything unusual?”
“I don’t remember the pilots. I didn’t exchange a word with them. Oh, wait a minute. One pilot came into the cabin briefly, but that was all. He was busy, preoccupied. Young.”
“That would have been John Yates,” Victor said, thinking aloud. “What about the stewards?”
“The younger steward was a bit embarrassed because of the way the girls were behaving. They were flirting with them, walking around in their underwear.” He paused, regarding Victor intently. “I’m very happily married, which is one of the reasons I’m trying to help you as much as I can. I don’t want my wife to find out who my fellow passengers were.”
“I understand.”
“It would be embarrassing for her and for my children. You of all people know how mud sticks,” Oliver said softly. “You asked me about the crew. I hardly remember the pilots, but I recall the stewards quite well. The older man was very efficient, seemed at home on the plane. I imagine he was someone who had worked for Freeland for a while. The younger man seemed excited, interested in the plane.” Oliver sighed. “But was there anything unusual about them? No, nothing.”
“What about the passengers?”
“Lim Chang was working most of the time. He was sitting across the aisle from me.”
“What was Kit Wilkes doing?”
“Reading, sleeping …” Oliver turned his thoughts back to Wilkes. “At least he pretended to be asleep, but I remember thinking that no one could sleep for so long.”
“Did he seem drugged?”
“Not to me. As I said, he was quiet. I always imagined people on drugs became very vocal.”
“But he looked well?”
