Glancing from her office window, Lizzy watched for a moment in disbelief as a particularly fame-hungry starlet, famous more for her string of high-profile married lovers than for her acting, twirled on the carpet at the entrance as though she were the main attraction. Certainly, her dress was a spectacle—a body-contoured mesh of fine gold wire and crystals that turned her into a walking jewel. Still, despite the glitter, the starlet was outdone moments later by the arrival of the former beauty queen girlfriend of a Siberian media magnate. Though the night was particularly mild, she wore an enormous fur. Real, without doubt. And as she stepped in front of the photographers, she simply let the fur drop to the ground to reveal a red dress with a back that scooped as low as the top of her diamond-studded thong. She posed for a good ten minutes with her puddle of mink around her feet, her expression never changing from a mask of beautiful disdain or, perhaps, pity for those people whose boyfriends would not be in the running for a multimillion-pound painting that night.
But Nat Wilde’s team did not have time to watch the spectacle. Lizzy and the others set to work telephoning absentee bidders to make sure that they were ready to bid when the moment came. More junior members of the Ludbrook’s events team circulated with trays of the very best vintage champagne, following Nat’s instructions to make sure that no potential buyer was ever seen with an empty glass. They did their job so well that the starlet in the gold mesh dress was soon sitting on the lap of the head of a large retail chain, eyes glazed from drinking too much fizz on an empty stomach.
Lizzy worked the room, chatting to clients that she knew well. She answered questions for journalists and made sure that her team was ready to spring into action the moment it was required. She was nervous too. It wasn’t just Nat who needed to be on the ball that night. If Nat was like a shepherd, then his crew were like sheepdogs, ensuring that he didn’t miss a single crucial member of the flock. Lizzy, Sarah Jane, and the others would draw his attention to the buyers he should be watching out for as each lot came up. As the crowd started to take their places, Lizzy made a mental map of where the really big hitters or their agents were sitting. She briefed Nat in the moments before the auction so that he could be sure to address his funniest remarks to the right people. It was an important way to build trust and maintain relationships with those buyers who might leave that auction disappointed. It was all about guaranteeing that they came back.
By ten to seven all the seats in the auction room had been filled. It was standing room only. Lizzy scanned the people who had arrived late and had to remain on their feet. Nervously, she prayed that no one who might bid on The Virgin had suffered such an indignity. Satisfied that all was well, she took her place at one of the phones.
Yasha Suscenko slipped in at the very last moment and leaned against the back wall. Though he wasn’t buying that night, he wouldn’t have missed it for the world. This was going to be a very interesting sale indeed.
It started relatively sedately. A series of three small altar-pieces attributed to the studio of a minor Renaissance artist achieved a little over their estimate. Lizzy wasn’t surprised. They were very pretty. Had she had the price of a studio flat in Chelsea to spare, she would have liked them for herself. Just a little later in the sale, a similar lot went for even more. Already Lizzy could feel a crackle of energy in the room. It boded well for the big ticket items yet to come.
A portrait of a washerwoman attributed to one of the Caravaggisti was the first lot to go for seven figures. After that the numbers just mushroomed. A million here, a million there. Nat took the big bids without blinking; he could have been selling secondhand cars. The running total for the sale soon equaled the GNP of a small African nation. And then it was time.
“Lot number one forty-seven. The Virgin Before the Annunciation. A painting by Giancarlo Ricasoli.”
Nat read out the particulars of the lot just as he had read the details of all the others, as if he considered it to be no more remarkable a painting than all those that had gone before. But then he paused and smiled at the crowd, who looked up at him like excited children at a pantomime. They too knew that the real action was about to kick off.
“Who will start the bidding at sixty-five million pounds? Anyone? Sixty-five million pounds?”
Sixty-five million pounds! There was a moment of palpable shock in the room as the assembled people realized that Nat had started the bidding with a figure above the high estimate. A cool ten million above. It was a huge surprise. A risky strategy that could end up backfiring. Ordinarily, bidders saw the high estimate as the maximum they would have to pay, not the starting point. Lizzy and her colleagues shared worried glances as they waited for Nat to continue.
“Sixty-five million pounds,” he said again.
“Oh God,” said Olivia. “He’s lost it.”
If nobody answered Nat’s call, he would have to lower the starting bid. It would be an enormous humiliation.
But Nat’s gamble worked. After a few seconds when it seemed as though the sale had stalled at the first bid, three paddles shot up at once. Two on the floor and one at the back of the room. Sarah Jane’s phone bidder. Nat pointed at the person he considered to have been first.
“Sixty-five million, five hundred …”
The other bidder on the floor nodded quickly, eager to be the one with the bid in his hand.
“Sixty-six million.”
Sarah Jane had it now.
Nat was his usual unruffled self as the bids crept up in increments of half a million. Soon it seemed silly that anyone might have thought he had overreached himself by jumping straight in over the estimate. Sarah Jane looked faintly sick as she continued to bid for her client.
“Seventy-five million. Seventy-five million, five hundred thousand … seventy-nine million. Seventy-nine million, five hundred …”
“Oh God,” breathed Lizzy. “He’s going to do it.”
“Eighty million pounds,” said Nat.
The room erupted. Half shock, half awe. It was twice the highest price that had ever been achieved at Ludbrook’s. And yet Nat wasn’t finished. One bidder remained on the floor. Sarah Jane was still in the game too, taking another bid on the phone, looking perhaps faintly disturbed that every nod of her head sent the numbers up by the price of a small house in Clapham.
Lizzy was openmouthed as she watched the figures scrolling across the monitor above Nat’s head. She tried to count the zeros but could hardly keep up with the pace.
“Ninety million, five hundred thousand.”
These were hardly the kind of increments you’d find on eBay, thought Lizzy. She was deeply envious of Sarah Jane at that moment. Lizzy’s own phone buyer had folded his cards before bidding had even begun. He’d banked on the painting not reaching its estimate. Now Sarah Jane and the mysterious man at the center of the room were engaged in the most exciting bid-off Lizzy had ever seen.
“Ninety-five million,” said Nat. Sarah Jane relayed the news to her bidder and returned Nat’s look with a shake of her head. The gavel was poised to come down. In the center of the room, the other bidder’s shoulders relaxed, though not much. The patrons sitting around the leading bidder stared openly. What did a man who was about to spend ninety-five million pounds look like?
“Ninety-five million pounds for this painting of The Virgin Before …”
At the back of the room, one of the unmanned telephones started to ring. It was a loud, ugly sound.
Nat paused. He looked a little irritated. He did not appreciate this interruption to his moment of glory.
“I’ll get it,” said Lizzy, who was nearest. “Lizzy Duffy, Ludbrook’s,” she said. The room held its breath. “Right.” She nodded as the caller identified himself. “Are you sure? Well, I think I can. Hold on. I’ll just find out.”
Lizzy turned back toward the room and raised a finger to Nat, asking him to hang on just a little longer. There was a flurry of activity as she sent Marcus to confirm what was being said. Her caller was indeed regist
ered to bid. There was no reason why he shouldn’t.
“But it’s at ninety-five million,” Lizzy warned him. “That’s nine five. Six zeros.”
At last, Lizzy took the phone away from her mouth and shouted, “Ninety-six million,” at Nat.
The bidder in the room, who had been so sure that he had it, let out an expletive. The bidding was at ninety-nine million within a minute.
Lizzy’s heart was pounding as she relayed every second in the auction room to her bidder. On the other end of the line, his voice remained perfectly modulated and calm, and then Lizzy too began to relax into her role. She didn’t have to worry whether this particular buyer would be good for the cash. Of that there was no doubt.
Finally the man at the center of the room shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He was dropping out. Nat brought down the gavel.
“Sold at ninety-nine million, five hundred thousand pounds.”
“You’ve got it,” Lizzy told her bidder. “The painting is yours. Ninety-nine million, five hundred thou.”
“Good,” said her bidder, as though she had just told him that he had won ten pounds on the lottery. “Thank you very much. I’ll be in touch to tell you where the painting should be sent.”
Lizzy was left holding a silent phone while the room went crazy. Everyone knew that records had been broken, smashed like so much glass. Marcus offered Olivia a high five, and for once, amazingly, she shrugged off her uptight demeanor and reciprocated. James planted a kiss on Lizzy’s cheek.
“You’re amazing,” he told her.
“I didn’t do anything,” said Lizzy. “I just kept calm. Nat did it all.” She gazed toward the podium in something approaching admiration. Much as she hated him, he’d done a stunning job. Nat was accepting congratulations from people on either side of him, but at last he brought down his gavel and asked for silence.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said. “Much as I would like to crack open the champagne right this minute, we have another seven lots to go. Up next, this sketch by Rembrandt. Going cheap at a mere one million, five hundred thousand. Who’ll give me one million, five hundred thousand to start?”
The comparison with The Virgin must have made the Rembrandt seem like a bargain indeed. Eight hands shot into the air.
• • •
At the back of the room, Yasha Suscenko nodded in satisfaction. The matter was concluded for him now. But as he left the Ludbrook’s building and walked home through Mayfair, Yasha was surprised to see a police car pulling up outside his own gallery.
“Mr. Suscenko, may we have a word?”
CHAPTER 66
The success of the auction had created an air of extremely high energy at Ludbrook’s. Even those buyers who were disappointed, when they saw the paintings they had come to bid for go to other people at such high prices, were buoyed up by the knowledge that there was still money out there. The recession had not come to the art world. There would still be super-yachts in Monaco and jam for tea.
When all the members of the general public had been safely shuffled from the building, the Ludbrook’s team went upstairs to the boardroom, where, as usual, John Ludbrook had laid out champagne to celebrate their great success. He believed in congratulating his staff at every opportunity. Even the fact that the last fine art department party had ended in scandal with Sarah Jane and Nat’s elevator tryst had not changed his policy.
This time, everybody took the stairs. Harry Brown had stuck a handmade sign saying “out of order except for Nat Wilde” on the lift door. Even Lizzy had to smile.
“Congratulations,” she said to Nat when she caught up with him. “The tie must have worked.”
Nat flipped up the end and studied the monkeys. “I sincerely hope it wasn’t the tie,” he said. “Can’t bloody stand it. Red with blue monkeys. Can’t think why Sarah Jane thought I would like the damn thing.”
Lizzy knew exactly why. Because you call her “monkey,” she thought. Just like you used to call me your little monkey too.
Sarah Jane slipped her arm through Nat’s proprietarily. “Come over here. Harry has a little surprise for you.”
Lizzy let them wander off. She took just three more sips of her champagne before she placed her glass down on the boardroom table and headed for home. There was nothing more for her there.
Harry’s surprise was a bottle of the finest vintage champagne, Clos Des Larmes by Champagne Arsenault.
“Look,” he said, pointing out the vintage. “I even managed to get one from your date of birth.”
“1958?” Sarah Jane goggled, realizing for the first time that Nat really was the same age as her father. “1958? Are you sure?”
“Sarah Jane,” said Nat, “you’re only as old as the woman you feel.”
The revelation of his age didn’t unduly bother Nat. There was no sense in which anyone could accuse him of being past it. That night he was at the very top of his game. He had reaffirmed his position in the pantheon of legendary auctioneers. Right up there with the best of them. Under Nat’s gentle coercion, the emir of Qatar would have bought back his own oil at one and a half times the high estimate. Nat could sell anything to anyone.
Right then, his adrenaline and testosterone levels were through the roof. He held court, feeling like Alexander the Great, like Napoléon and Genghis Khan all wrapped up in one body. Everyone in the room wanted to talk to him and ask how it felt to preside over such a spectacular sale. The morning’s papers would be full of it. Nat had already made sure that the PR department had sent out to all the picture desks the right photograph of him standing on his podium. It was ten years old, but it would give people a rough idea of what he looked like in action.
But much as he liked the adulation, after a couple of hours, Nat was starting to get a little bored of the questions from younger guys who hoped to emulate him. Glancing across the room while some little twerp from the wine department expounded on the price he hoped to achieve for a bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild from the late Queen Mother’s personal cellar, Nat caught Sarah Jane’s eye. She made a subtle gesture with her head. Nat understood immediately. Moments later he excused himself to follow Sarah Jane to his office.
When Nat walked into his office, he found Sarah Jane sitting on the desk. She was already half-undressed. She had unbuttoned her sober white blouse to the waist, revealing the hot pink underwear beneath. The thought of that underwear had been tantalizing Nat all day, since the pink bra had showed quite clearly through the thin white cotton.
“Is this my reward?” he asked, reaching inside her blouse and cupping both her breasts in his hands.
“You certainly deserve one,” she told him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so impressive as you were today. You were magnificent.”
Nat grinned. “You say all the right things,” he said, dipping his head to place a kiss on the curved flesh of her bosom, held so proudly upright by her bra. Sarah Jane sighed and tipped her head back so that Nat could kiss her throat. As he moved lower again, she loosened her long brown hair from its restrained bun and let it tumble over her bare shoulders. Nat plunged his hands into the cascading curls and pulled her wet-lipped mouth toward his.
“God, Nat,” she breathed when he let her come up for air. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you all night. You’re making me crazy.”
It was exactly what he wanted to hear. “How crazy?”
“I just want you to take me right now. On your desk. So I think you should take this off for me.” She started to undo his tie. “Aren’t you glad you’ve got a new lucky tie?” she asked as she did so.
“I certainly am. I can think of only one thing that would make this evening better.”
“What’s that?”
“Will you model it for me? Like you did in that special birthday photograph.”
Sarah Jane gave her lover a slow, dirty smile. “With pleasure,” she whispered huskily.
Sarah Jane stripped in a second. Then she took the long sliver of red silk, pat
terned with those silly little monkeys, and quickly transformed it into a prop worthy of the dancers at the Crazy Horse in Paris. Wearing nothing else but her leopard-skin Louboutins (which she’d decided were her lucky shoes), she strutted around Nat’s office, stopping every now and then to grind her pelvis against a bookcase or the back of a chair. Remembering everything she had been taught in rhythmic gymnastics classes at her exclusive girls-only boarding school, she made the tie dance through the air. Then she let it loop lazily around her body. It encircled her waist, caressed her breasts. She gave a little shiver as it trailed across her rosy pink nipples. She let it slide between her legs, moaning as she pulled the silk taut against her carefully coiffed mons pubis.
“Oh yes,” said Nat. “Now, that is what I call a lucky tie.”
CHAPTER 67
While Nat was busy indulging in his reward for a very good day at the office, the party in the boardroom upstairs was interrupted by the arrival of three police officers, two uniformed and one in plain clothes. They stood at the end of the beautiful paneled room—a dining room back when Ludbrook’s offices had been a private house—like the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future. At first, only Harry Brown noticed they were there at all. The officers refused a glass of champagne from an overly attentive waiter. Instead they asked the waiter a couple of questions, and the waiter shrugged and pointed straight at Harry.
“Nat Wilde?” the detective asked.
“Not guilty,” said Harry reflexively.
“Could you tell me where he is?”
“Who wants to know?” said Harry.
“Detective Sergeant Simpson, CID. And this is Detective Constable James and Detective French. We need to speak to Mr. Wilde as a matter of some urgency. I wonder if we might step out into the corridor.”
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