Priceless

by Olivia Darling

  “The little Madonna,” she clarified.

  “What was in the file?”

  “Just a copy of an entry in a museum inventory from the seventies.”

  Lizzy spent two hours chasing down the museum’s curator and persuading her to go down into the dusty archive and pull the inventory out again. The photocopied entry regarding the Madonna was faxed over just in time.

  “Thanks,” Sarah Jane said. “You really saved my butt. Look, I’m sorry about the Randon job. I was really surprised when Nat asked me to go with him. I mean, you’re the obvious choice,” she added, echoing Lizzy’s thoughts. “Seeing as how you know so much more about just about everything.”

  “It’s okay.” Lizzy shrugged. “I have plenty to do here. And in some ways, Nat has paid me the ultimate compliment by saying that I’m too important to leave the office if he’s not here in charge.”

  Sarah Jane frowned. She knew that this was a dig at her but couldn’t quite understand it.

  Lizzy forced herself to sit on her annoyance. Her department was a small department in a small firm, and Sarah Jane was popular with everybody. But Lizzy couldn’t help measuring herself up against the other girl. Sarah Jane was taller than her and thinner and had bigger breasts. Did Nat prefer bigger breasts? He’d always been very complimentary about Lizzy’s A cups. He’d called them “delicious” on more than one occasion and frequently sent text messages inquiring as to their well-being. Still Lizzy couldn’t help thinking back to that awful conversation she’d overheard while stuck under Nat’s desk. What was it Ludbrook had called them? Fried eggs? The truly galling thing was that Lizzy could have sued John Ludbrook from here till Christmas for sexual harassment had she not been in such a compromising position when she’d overheard the slur.

  The thought was preoccupying Lizzy as she and Olivia manned the phones at that evening’s auction.

  “Are you still there?” her client asked her as it neared his time to bid. Lizzy was miles away. “Er, hello?” said the voice at the other end of the line. “You’ve gone all quiet. I really don’t want to lose this picture.”

  The picture in question was the Renaissance Madonna whose provenance documents Lizzy had spent the afternoon tracking down. Right at that moment, Sarah Jane, wearing pure white gloves, was carrying the little painting onto the stage. She turned from left to right, slowly, showing everyone in the room exactly what they were bidding on. Nat gave the description and opened the bidding. There was a bid from the floor right away, and then Olivia jumped in with her phone bidder. Lizzy would have to wait.

  She waited in vain. By the time Olivia’s phone bidder had dropped out, the price of the painting had exceeded Lizzy’s bidder’s limit. He was not happy. Lizzy apologized, though what she really wanted to do was point out that he wouldn’t have gotten the painting even if he had had a chance to bid. It had been bid beyond his price. Simple as that. Still, she murmured a few words of condolence before she called her next phone bidder and put them on alert.

  The little Madonna was sold to Yasha Suscenko.

  “Who’s it for?” Sarah Jane asked him when the sale was over.

  “She’s so beautiful,” said Yasha, “I may have to keep her for myself.”

  His dark brown eyes moved from the painting to Sarah Jane’s face. She blushed.

  CHAPTER 31

  Yasha Suscenko should have been pleased. He took his latest purchase straight back to his office. Though the painting had been unattributed, Yasha had a feeling that there was a very talented hand behind it. A student of Ricasoli’s studio if not the man himself. Yasha knew that several of his rival dealers had had the same idea, which was why it had bust through its high estimate within seconds. To have secured it was a result, but Yasha had other things on his mind. Not least the black Bentley Continental Flying Spur that had been parked outside his building since his meeting with Belanov in Surrey. As surveillance vehicles went, it was far from discreet, but Yasha knew that was the point. Belanov wanted Yasha to know that he was being watched.

  In just a couple of days, he would be flying out to Moscow, to the palatial Rublevka Avenue home of Yuri Vasilyev, the man who currently owned the portrait Belanov wanted so badly. In the top drawer of Yasha’s desk was the Polaroid that Belanov had shown him. Yasha had studied it closely for anything that might enable him to tell Belanov that the trip would be a waste of time, but the damn thing looked real, and that meant that Yasha would have to bring it back to London for his master. If Belanov didn’t take the painting, someone else would, and if it ever reappeared on the market at twice what Vasilyev was asking for it now, Yasha’s head would roll.

  Yasha took the Polaroid out again as he sat at his desk, a glass of red wine before him. He studied the little photograph until he could hardly focus. Then he looked up. The Madonna he had bought that evening gazed down on him. In the soft light of his desk lamp, the painting glittered. The gentle glow of the bulb lent the gold leaf of the Virgin’s halo a truly heavenly aspect.

  In the cold light of day, however …

  It was the middle of the next morning when Yasha started to have his doubts.

  He saw something that Nat Wilde had missed. This painting was not genuine.

  “Fuck.” Yasha leaned back in his chair. It wasn’t possible. The painting had had a low estimate of fifty grand. Surely to God Nat Wilde would have done his homework on something that expensive.

  Focusing the lamp on the little Madonna once more, Yasha confirmed his suspicions by dipping a rag in alcohol and holding it close to the paint. At once the surface began to shimmer and dissolve. This painting was definitely not four hundred years old.

  What to do? Yasha knew that Ludbrook’s would be insured for this kind of eventuality. A clause in their contract specified that a buyer had up to four years to return a painting that had been mis-sold. And this painting had definitely been mis-sold.

  But it was easy to see why. The forgery was so good. Whoever had executed this painting had put a great deal of time and effort into creating something that would have fooled most people. It was the detailing in the face that gave it away to Yasha. There was a hint of modernity in the Madonna’s expression that made Yasha sure this wasn’t even a nineteenth-century fake. It was more recent than that.

  Something—an instinct—made Yasha go into his gallery and fetch down the Victorian milkmaid he had purchased a few weeks earlier. He hung it next to the Madonna. There shouldn’t have been anything to compare, and yet there was. Though in theory the paintings had been completed by different men who’d lived centuries apart and in different countries, there was a curious similarity of technique. If an artist’s brushstrokes were his or her DNA, then Yasha, with his well-trained eye, could see that the artist who had painted the watercolor and the painter who had finished the Madonna were closely related at the very least.

  Yasha picked up his mobile and began to scroll through the numbers for Ludbrook’s. But then he changed his mind. There was a much better way to deal with this.

  CHAPTER 32

  Afternoon, Lizzy.”

  Lizzy grunted a greeting at Yasha Suscenko. She had been grunting all day. Sarah Jane had tried to make a joke of the fact that Nat was taking her to the Côte d’Azur, but it had not lightened Lizzy’s mood one bit.

  “You look a little stressed out,” Yasha observed. “Perhaps a little tired.” He peered at her closely. “In fact, your skin is yellow. Have you seen a doctor? Could be your kidneys.”

  “It is not my kidneys,” said Lizzy. There was something about Yasha that made her feel confessional. Maybe it was his kind eyes. “It’s a fake tan gone wrong,” she admitted.

  “Ah. Thank goodness for that. You’ll soon be your beautiful self again.”

  Lizzy accepted the compliment with a wan smile.

  “Was Nat able to tell you everything you needed to know?” she asked, switching back into professional mode.

  “Not quite everything. No.” In fact, Nat Wilde had not been forthcomin
g at all, refusing to tell Yasha exactly where the Madonna had come from. Client confidentiality and all that. Did Yasha really need more than the documentation he already had? Nat had asked. The painting was unattributed, after all. There was nothing to be disproved.

  Yasha was about to leave but changed his mind. “Would you like to grab a bite to eat?”

  • • •

  Lizzy did a double take. Was Yasha Suscenko asking her out? Was she allowed to go? On the other side of the open-plan office, Sarah Jane, who had heard the whole exchange, raised her eyebrows in surprise. Lizzy looked to her for some kind of clue as to how she should handle it. Sarah Jane, who had often extolled the virtues of the young Russian with his extraordinarily masculine good looks, gave her a covert thumbs-up. And Lizzy suddenly felt as though she should go for it. If it gave Nat pause for thought, then good. She wanted him to know that he wasn’t the only man who found her desirable—assuming he still did.

  “That would be nice,” she said.

  “Now?”

  “Why not?”

  It was already half past six in the evening. A good hour after the official end of Lizzy’s working day. Ordinarily, she would have hung around the office until Nat left, but that night there was no point. He was taking bloody Sarah Jane to the Cap d’Antibes at the end of the week. The last thing Lizzy felt like doing was staying late to finish working on the presentation that he and Sarah Jane would give Randon.

  “You lucky girl,” Sarah Jane whispered as Lizzy passed by her desk to get to the coatrack. “I have been flirting with that man for years. Never a sniff of interest. Thought he might be gay. Report back, won’t you?”

  “Will you let Nat know that I’ve left?” Lizzy asked.

  “But not who with, right?” Sarah Jane tapped the side of her nose.

  Yasha took Lizzy to Scott’s. It was another small triumph for Lizzy, who walked past the restaurant on her way to and from the office every day but had never been inside its hallowed walls. A small clutch of paparazzi was hanging around on the opposite side of the street, suggesting that Lizzy would be dining among the stars that night.

  The maître d’ greeted Yasha warmly.

  “How did you get a table in here at such short notice?” Lizzy was impressed.

  “I have a standing arrangement,” Yasha explained. “It’s practically my office.”

  Lizzy tried to keep her poise as she entered the room. A very famous film star was handing over her coat to the cloakroom attendant just ahead of them. When Lizzy handed over her own coat, she folded it so that the label—Mango—was carefully hidden inside.

  Yasha guided her in front of him for the walk to their table. Lizzy thrilled to the touch of his hand on her elbow. His was a good table with a view of the whole room. Lizzy slid onto the banquette. Yasha ordered a couple of glasses of champagne.

  “You do like champagne, I assume.”

  Lizzy assured him that she would like nothing better.

  “So, tell me,” he said. “What did you think of that little daub I picked up at your nineteenth-century auction?”

  “I liked it,” said Lizzy. “It’s very pretty.”

  “Yes. It is. I’d be very interested in more paintings along the same line. Do you know if the person who consigned it might have others hidden away in the attic? Is it some old lady who might be pleased of a few more quid to spend in her twilight years?”

  “Well,” said Lizzy, “it’s someone who would be happy to have a few more quid, I should think.”

  “Can you tell me his name?”

  “I don’t know if I’m supposed to. The sale was done anonymously.”

  “You can tell me. I promise not to go over your head.”

  “Okay. It was another painting from Trebarwen. I can’t believe I didn’t see it when I was down at the house last year, cataloging things for the main sale. Louisa Trebarwen’s youngest son brought the picture in. He claimed that it was in the attic.” Lizzy frowned as she recounted the tale. “I really don’t know how I missed it. But his mother obviously had art hidden all over the place. I couldn’t believe it when he turned up with such a beautiful Renaissance altarpiece.”

  Bingo, thought Yasha. The fact that the same person had consigned both paintings added considerable weight to his theory.

  “It was in a safe-deposit box at a bank in Exeter. Been there for decades. Julian Trebarwen found it when he was tracking down some premium bonds. Talk about a windfall.”

  Yasha quickly put two and two together. This Julian Trebarwen must know someone who was faking art. And with some considerable skill.

  “So what do you think the Trebarwen guy is going to do with that big house?”

  “I don’t know. It’s such a beautiful place. I would want to live there. But there’s another brother, so I think they’ll probably sell it eventually and split the proceeds. Julian Trebarwen seems like the kind of guy who likes to be in the city.”

  “He’s in London?”

  “Yes,” said Lizzy. “Fulham, I think. Why do you ask?”

  Concerned that it might start to seem odd if he continued with the line of questioning “just out of interest,” Yasha said, “Just making conversation. And I’m sure there are more interesting things to talk about than a middle-aged Englishman who just inherited a fortune.” He fixed his brown eyes on Lizzy’s. She blushed. “Tell me about you,” he said.

  Lizzy was instantly tongue-tied. She found it hard to imagine that Yasha really wanted to know about her. Her path to this table at Scott’s on a Tuesday night had been utterly unremarkable. A middle-class childhood—a very happy one—in Gloucester. Good grades at school. A place at Bristol University to read art history with a whole load of very nice girls. Then an MA at the Courtauld. A few years interning at Christie’s, and now Ludbrook’s.

  Yasha’s story was undoubtedly a better one. Where had he come from? His looks were straight out of a romantic novel. There was melancholy in his eyes. What had they seen? Lizzy had heard that Yasha drew his clients from the very top levels of Russia’s new elite. While walking through Mayfair, Lizzy had seen the huge black cars stopped outside Yasha’s gallery, disgorging hard-faced men she recognized from the business pages, flanked by even bigger, harder-looking men paid to protect them from new enemies and old friends.

  Nat had denounced Yasha as a small-time gangster. He claimed the Russian’s clients weren’t interested in art except as a way to clean their dirty money. Nat pointed to the sudden rise of Russian art. “It’s shit,” he said, with his trademark subtlety. “It’s been shit for centuries. It always will be shit. It’s just a way for cash to change hands.”

  But Yasha didn’t look like a gangster to Lizzy right then, and even if his clients were Philistines as Nat claimed, Yasha knew what he was talking about when it came to paintings.

  Had Lizzy asked him his opinion on the man, Yasha might have been as disparaging about Nat Wilde as the auctioneer had been about him. A lazy generalist. As far as Yasha was concerned, Nat might just as well have been selling secondhand cars as fine art. But Lizzy didn’t ask, and in any case, Yasha wanted to wind up the conversation.

  • • •

  “Shall we share a taxi?”

  Lizzy hesitated for a moment, but just a moment. Why not? she asked herself. Nat had never promised her anything. She had no doubt that he would even deny they had a relationship if asked. And so it didn’t matter if she went to bed with Yasha.

  But Yasha had other ideas.

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  Lizzy gave her address.

  Yasha relayed the details to the driver and explained that he would be taking the taxi back to his own home in Chelsea straight afterward. He took Lizzy home, getting out of the taxi to walk her to her door. But that was it. A kiss on the cheek. Nothing more.

  Yasha had everything he wanted from Lizzy Duffy.

  Outside the building that housed Yasha’s office and his apartment, Belanov’s goon had fallen asleep in the front seat
of the Bentley. Yasha tapped on the window and spoke to the man in Russian.

  “No snoozing on the job. I could have killed you.”

  The goon, Leonid, struggled upright while Yasha walked around to the passenger door and let himself into the car.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I won’t tell your boss.”

  Leonid shook his head. “I told him you need two guys for a twenty-four-hour operation. I can’t be expected to stay awake all night.”

  “You had anything to eat?”

  Leonid shook his head.

  “I’m going inside to make a few phone calls. After that, we’ll swing by McDonald’s,” said Yasha. “I need you to drive me somewhere. Got some errands to do before we leave for Moscow.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Julian Trebarwen was in the bath when the doorbell rang. He decided, since it was eleven o’clock, that he would not answer, but the caller was persistent. Knocking again and again and again.

  “All right, all right! I’m coming,” Julian shouted, having no idea whether anyone on the front step would be able to hear him. “Keep your hair on.”

  He rose reluctantly from the warm bath and groped in the direction of the towel rail. He had one slightly damp leg in his jeans when the front door quite simply popped open.

  “What the …” Julian looked over the banister in horror.

  “Oh,” said his visitor. “You’re in.”

  “Yes, I’m bloody well in. And who the hell are you? I’ve got my mobile in my hand. I’ll dial the police.”

  “I wouldn’t bother if I were you. You’ll only get us both into trouble. Finish putting your clothes on. I’ll make myself at home.” The stranger waved Julian away as though he were an old friend who had turned up slightly too early for supper.

  Julian hurriedly pulled his jeans up. This was no time to be persnickety about the fact that he wasn’t quite dry, though there’s nothing worse than stiff denim on damp skin. A complete stranger had just broken into his house! Well, that would have been bad enough, but as Julian tugged a shirt over his head, it dawned on him that the man now “making himself at home” wasn’t a complete stranger at all. His face had been somewhat recognizable. Which meant that this was more than a mere burglar. It had to be worse.