The wild beast of Wuhan al-3

by Ian Hamilton

  Her father’s email was, if anything, even more vague. Cruise goes better. Mummy and Bruce have made some kind of peace. I’m staying in Toronto for an additional week when we get back. I’m pleased that you and Michael connected, though I do find it a bit strange. At some point we need to talk about him.

  She read the message three times, questions popping into her head about Bruce, the extra week, and Michael. She started to ask those questions and then stopped. She was on a job and didn’t need more distractions. She simply wrote, Glad to get your news. See you in Toronto.

  Ava signed out of her email account and accessed Google. She typed in “Hughes Art Gallery.” There were more than sixty references, though none of them were less than two years old. If she hadn’t actually phoned the gallery she might have assumed it had gone out of business, which would have been sad, given that it had apparently been around for almost a hundred years.

  Glen Hughes’ grandfather had established the gallery, which his father had taken over and expanded in size and reputation. The business had been passed on to Glen and his brother, Edwin. Many of the Google references were from art journals, which spoke highly of the brothers. Their firm was as knowledgable about the art scene of the past 150 years as the big art auction houses such as Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams, and Harrington’s. The brothers — Glen most often — were described as specialists in the Impressionists, the Post-Impressionists, and the Fauvists. Kwong must have known them by reputation, Ava thought. That’s why he was so willing to take their word at face value.

  She read entry after entry citing Glen Hughes as authenticating this painting and casting doubt on that painting. She began to worry. This was an acknowledged expert she was dealing with, not a fool. The letters he had sent to the Sorensens were open to interpretation. Jan Sorensen’s position could be described as not much more than one man’s opinion. No, she told herself, it will work. She turned off her computer and headed for bed.

  She fell asleep without much more thought about Glen Hughes. But the emails from Maria and her father crowded into her mind, and it was her father who came to her as she slept.

  In recent months Ava had been having a recurring dream about Marcus. She and her father were trying to catch a plane or a ship in some unknown city on their way to some other unknown city. More often than not she lost him in the attempt. This night, for the first time, her half-brother Michael entered the nocturnal drama. Michael and her father were inseparable; it was always she who was getting lost, who was searching. She woke just as the three of them had reached an airport terminal, only to be shuffled into different check-in lines that meandered through different buildings, towards different planes.

  It was seven o’clock; she had slept long, if not well. Her father and Michael dissolved from her mind and Glen Hughes re-entered it. She rolled out of bed, boiled water in the hotel kettle, and made her first Starbucks VIA instant coffee of the morning.

  She quickly downed two cups, scanning the morning newspapers, and then thought about taking a calming run before she remembered that her tracksuit was at the cleaner’s. She pulled a Steinum sweater over her T-shirt and Brooks Brothers black linen pants and headed downstairs and out onto the High Street. It was another dreary day, without a patch of blue in the sky. She crossed the High Street and began to walk briskly up Church.

  The Hughes Gallery was half a kilometre from the hotel. It was larger than Ava had envisioned, taking up the equivalent of two storefronts. A large double door made of a dark wood separated two windows. On the left door the word hughes was affixed in brass letters; on the right door was gallery. Both windows had the name painted discreetly in the lower left corner. There was a solitary painting in each window, artists Ava had never heard of, their style distinctly abstract. She looked inside. The gallery ran so far back that she couldn’t see the end of it, only a jumble of statues and paintings.

  She turned and walked back to the hotel. The gallery was impressive and looked prosperous. That only reinforced the doubts she had about her ability to leverage Glen Hughes.

  The weather was starting to turn nasty; the wind picked up and the sky began to spit rain. Despite the sweater she felt a chill. By the time she reached the High Street the rain had intensified and she knew a run was now out of the question.

  As she walked into the lobby she saw her dry cleaning hanging near the concierge’s desk. It was ten to nine. Pretty damn good timing, she thought, as she carried it to her room.

  She hung up her clothes in the closet and went to the window. The rain was now lashing sideways.

  Ava made herself another coffee and then sat at the computer. She logged in to her emails with little expectation, but near the top of her inbox was one from the Hughes Gallery, saying Mr. Hughes couldn’t see her at eleven but was available at ten. She replied, saying she’d be there.

  She showered quickly, not bothering to wash her hair. Standing naked in the bathroom, she applied a touch of lipstick and a hint of mascara and dabbed her Annick Goutal perfume on her wrists and at the base of her throat. She brushed her hair and then pulled it back and fixed it with her ivory pin. She went to the bedroom and put on a bra and panties, her black Brooks Brothers shirt with modified Italian collar, and black linen slacks. The Shanghai Tang cufflinks looked perfect against the black. She fastened the gold crucifix around her neck and then added the Cartier watch. Then she slipped on the new alligator heels and stood back to look at herself in the full-length mirror. Professional and ready for battle, she thought.

  She heard thunder and walked back to the window. The rain was still pelting down. She packed the Sorensen letters in her Shanghai Tang bag and headed downstairs to the business centre to make an extra copy of the documents for Hughes in case the need arose.

  On her way out, the concierge offered her a choice of umbrellas. She took the largest one, which had wilson golf printed on it. Even with the umbrella she felt the effects of the rain as it splattered off the sidewalk and wet her shoes and slacks. The walk felt twice as long as it had earlier, but when she got to the gallery door it still was only ten to ten. She tried the door but it was locked. She huddled in the doorway, the umbrella pointing towards the street.

  “Come in, come in,” a woman’s voice said suddenly as the door opened behind her.

  Ava slid in and was greeted by a tall, slim young woman with a mop of blonde hair styled into an uber-chic Afro. She wore a short, tight red designer dress that showed off her long legs.

  “You must be Ms. Lee. My name is Lisa. Mr. Hughes is in the back. Let me take you there.”

  Lisa guided Ava through the space, which was filled with numerous paintings, statues, and ceramics. When they reached the other end of the gallery, Lisa opened a door and led Ava into the office area. All the doors were closed but one, which opened into an office where a tall man in a brown suit sat at a desk. He had thick dark blond hair and a long, thin face and pointed chin. When he looked up at Ava, she saw that his clear blue eyes were not close-set the way Helga Sorensen had described. Ava felt her stomach sink.

  “Mr. Hughes, Ms. Lee is here,” Lisa said.

  Ava stood in the doorway to the office.

  Hughes stood and extended his hand. “I’m Edwin Hughes,” he said.

  “Ava Lee.”

  “Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a chair across from his desk. “Would you like anything? Coffee or tea?”

  “No thanks,” Ava said, noticing the painting on the wall behind him. It was the Tower Bridge. “A Derain?”

  “Yes, that’s very observant of you.”

  She continued to stare at the painting as she struggled to find a way to initiate the conversation.

  “So, Ms. Lee, you represent a Hong Kong firm?”

  “I do.”

  “We haven’t done much business in Hong Kong. Japan has been kinder to us as a market.”

  He has a lovely voice, she thought. And he paces his words quite carefully. “I don’t mean to be impolite, but I was actua
lly expecting to see Mr. Glen Hughes,” Ava said.

  “My brother is no longer associated with this part of the business,” he said calmly.

  “I see.”

  “I assure you, whatever gallery business you were planning to discuss with him, you can discuss with me.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s true.”

  He looked quizzical. “Ms. Lee, you are sounding mysterious.”

  “I’m sorry, this is awkward.”

  “Awkward? That’s rather a strange word. It’s paintings you’re here to discuss, I presume.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Then there’s no reason to feel awkward. That is my business, after all.”

  He said it matter-of-factly, and Ava responded in kind. “I was going to talk to your brother about the Fauvist art he’s been commissioning over the past ten years or so, the art he sold through the Great Wall Antiques and Fine Art Gallery in Hong Kong.”

  “The most recent piece of Fauvist art was painted in about 1910, Ms. Lee.”

  “I am aware of that. This gallery commissioned the works. They were fakes, of course, designed to mislead my client.”

  “This gallery did no such thing,” Hughes said, his voice calm but his eyes hardening as he looked across the desk at her.

  “I have a signed statement from one of the artists who was paid to paint them, and I have copies of correspondence between your brother and the painter discussing the project. The correspondence from your end is on gallery stationery.”

  She sat back, waiting for a reaction. Instead he said, in the same even tone, “What foul weather has brought you and word of my brother to my door?”

  “Your standard London rain.”

  He smiled. “Would it bother you if I asked to see the correspondence?”

  “No, I brought it with me,” she said, opening her bag. She passed him a set of copies.

  “Can you give me a moment alone with these?”

  She hesitated.

  “I’m not going to do a runner out the back door,” he said.

  Ava stepped into the hallway, trying to focus on the art that was hung haphazardly on every wall. But she couldn’t get her mind off the fact that it was Edwin Hughes she was speaking to and not Glen.

  “You can come back in now,” Edwin said after a few minutes.

  When she sat down, he put his feet up on the desk and pushed back, his hands clasped behind his neck. She noticed the shoes — gorgeous brown leather wingtips. “First of all, Ms. Lee, if this correspondence is in any way genuine, and if the charges you’re making have any substance to them at all, then you need to be talking to my brother and not me.”

  “The correspondence is on gallery stationery.”

  “So you’ve said. And what does that mean? Someone stole or copied our stationery?”

  “Your brother’s signature is on those letters.”

  “So you claim,” he said. “And if it is, so what? He was commissioning work on his behalf, not the gallery’s.”

  “He was representing the gallery, the business,” she said.

  “Don’t dare to presume that you understand the nature of our business,” Hughes said, his tone rising just slightly. “My brother and I each had our own arrangements. Not everything we did was in tandem.”

  “He was representing the gallery,” she insisted.

  “I won’t acknowledge that because it is completely untrue.”

  “The letters — ”

  “The letters are utter rubbish,” he said. “They don’t make any mention of fakes or forgeries. The last one, in fact, makes it very clear that he was commissioning copies for a client who knew what he was buying.” He paused. “Now here I am defending my brother, when that really isn’t my intent.”

  “Then what is your intent?”

  “To tell you that neither I nor this gallery had anything to do with whatever this is.”

  “My client may think otherwise.”

  “And what? Sue? Based on those letters? Go ahead.”

  “A lot of money was spent on those forgeries.”

  “And where is that money? I assure you, it isn’t in our bank account.”

  “No, it’s in a numbered account in Liechtenstein.”

  He paused, and Ava saw the first flicker of something other than confidence in his eyes.

  “I know of no such account.”

  “Who would?”

  “Talk to my brother.”

  “I’d love to. Where can I find him?”

  “In New York.”

  “You have a gallery in New York?”

  “No, he has an office in New York. A few years ago we restructured the business and he opted to go to North America.”

  Ava thought of the Google entries that were all more than two years old. “Two years ago?”

  “Yes, about then.”

  “There was no mention of his leaving the business in the research I did.”

  “We saw no reason to make a fuss about it. We did it quietly.”

  “And I didn’t see any reference to him in any new business.”

  “He’s set himself up as a private art consultant, and he’s arrogant enough to believe that he doesn’t need to advertise his wares. He thinks those who need him will find him.”

  “And how would I find him?”

  “Ms. Lee, you surely don’t need my help to do that.”

  “I imagine not.”

  “But I have to tell you that when you do find him, you’ll get a very similar reaction to mine, though perhaps less polite. My brother has never been afraid to use lawyers, and if you even suggest any impropriety on his part he’ll have them down your neck.”

  “What about unwanted publicity?”

  “He couldn’t care less.”

  “And you?”

  He put his foot on the letters on the desk and slid them back to her with the heel of his shoe. “Good luck with my brother,” he said.

  (19)

  Ava was led to the Church Street entrance, where Lisa returned her umbrella. She felt as if she were being deposited on the street like trash.

  The rain had let up, easing into a whippy drizzle. She walked back to the hotel, returned the umbrella to the concierge, and went directly to her room. The maid had been there already. The bathroom was sparkling, the bed was made, and a package of bonbons was resting on her pillow. There was still almost half a bottle of wine from the night before. Ava poured herself a glass and sat by the window.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so incompetent. At the very least, she should have been prepared for the possibility of meeting Edwin Hughes instead of, or even with, Glen Hughes. Ava took pride in being organized for meetings, prepared for any eventuality. How could I have made such a mess of this one? she thought. I didn’t do enough research. She should have confirmed which Hughes she was going to meet. She should have known the brothers had split. She should have known enough about their characters to know how to squeeze them. Instead she went in ill-prepared, with no discernible strategy other than waving around letters she already knew were open to too many interpretations.

  Ava then thought about Edwin Hughes. He had been so calm, so sure of himself, that she found herself believing almost everything he had said, including the fact that her threat to sue him or his brother or the gallery didn’t concern him. She hadn’t intimidated him; she hadn’t even mildly rattled him. The only time he seemed interested in what she was saying was when she mentioned the bank account, and then he had basically thrown her out of his office. She thought of him shoving her letters across the desk to her with his foot.

  The real question was whether or not Edwin had anything to do with the Fauvist scam. On balance, she thought that he hadn’t. There had been only one signature on the letters sent to Sorensen, and that belonged to Glen Hughes.

  The bottom line was that she didn’t have any leverage, even in theory, if the Hughes brothers were prepared to withstand lawsuits and bad publicity. And that was
assuming that May Ling and Changxing would agree to sue. She felt, despite May’s claim, that Wong never would. His face was worth more than $70 million.

  So what do I have? she thought. “Sweet bugger all,” she said softly to herself.

  She was close to packing it in. But she also knew she couldn’t give up until she had exhausted every lead. She decided to find out more about the brothers, something she should have done before. She phoned Frederick Locke.

  “This case I’ve been working on, it’s led me into some complicated areas. I was hoping you could help,” she said.

  “Where are you?”

  “London.”

  “You do get about.”

  “I came here to see a man named Glen Hughes and instead found myself talking to his brother, Edwin.”

  The line went silent. “Holy fuck,” he said finally.

  “Is that good?”

  “Are you telling me you think the Hughes brothers might be involved in this scam?”

  “One of them anyway, maybe both.”

  “You don’t know who they are, do you.”

  “Only what I read online about Glen.”

  “They’re huge. In our business they don’t come much bigger, outside of museums and national art galleries and leading international auction houses. Are you sure about all this?”

  “No, I’m not, Frederick. That’s why I’m calling you. I thought you could tell me a bit more about them. For example, when I met with Edwin this morning, he said he and his brother had parted company.”

  “Yes, that’s true. It was all hush-hush when it happened but it eventually leaked out. By the time it did, no one thought twice about it.”

  “What was the cause?”

  “No one actually said.”

  “Were there rumours?”

  “Some. There was talk of a financial falling-out. One of the brothers — I think it was Glen — was supposedly playing outside the sandbox, so to speak.”

  “What is he doing now?”

  “Running a business in New York as a private consultant to collectors,” Locke said, confirming Edwin Hughes’ claim.