A Coffin For Two ob-2

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Behold,’ said Gavin Scott, dramatically. He switched on a single spotlight set into the ceiling, and whipped off the sheet with a flourish.

  Jan and I gasped, in unison. The colour of the picture seemed to explode into the room. It showed a golden desert stretching into the distance. In the background were the white skulls of four horses, with in their midst the unmistakable skeleton of a giraffe. A woman stood in the middle distance, dark-haired and laughing, yet somehow transparent, as if the reflected light of the desert sand was shining through her. Everything caught the eye, but in the foreground, as if he was marching out of the picture, was the dominant figure: a toreador, wearing a blue hat and carrying a red cape. His uniform was full of sparkling colour, but it was his face more than anything in the rest of the picture which grabbed the attention. He wore a smile, yet it was the saddest smile I had ever seen. His eyes were bloodshot and the left one was lightly hooded. From it, a single tear ran down his cheek.

  Jan and I rose together from the sofa, as if in respect for the work. We stared at it, both of us philistines when it comes to really fine art, but open-mouthed nonetheless.

  ‘What is it?’ I was able to gasp, eventually.

  ‘That, Oz … I can call you Oz, yes? … is the big question.’ Scott replaced the dust sheet. I was glad. I had heard the legend that men who looked at Michelangelo’s statue of David were likely to be driven mad by its beauty. Until that moment, I had found the concept laughable.

  Jan and I settled back into the couch opposite our client. ‘Earlier this year, in late June, in fact,’ he said, ‘my wife Ida and I, and our daughter, were on holiday in Begur, in Northern Spain. I believe it’s near where you’re based, Oz.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I agreed, ‘though I’ve never been there.’

  ‘We were visiting friends, an old agency client and his wife, who live there full-time. We played a bit of golf at the Pals club, where David Foy, my chum, is a member. One day when we were there we met an English bloke. We bumped into him again by coincidence in Begur, a few days later, and then a third time, at the golf club.’

  He paused, as if to let us absorb what he was telling us. ‘On the third occasion, he looked as if he was leading up to something. Eventually, he came out with it. He told us that a very exclusive dinner party had been organised for the next evening, at a very exclusive restaurant in a place called Peretellada.

  ‘He said that apart from the host there would be seven seats, and that every place would be filled by informal invitation. We asked him if he was going, but he said no, that it was miles too rich for his blood. It was for high rollers only, he said, because at the end of the night, there was to be an auction. A single lot, the nature of which would not be revealed until after the dinner had been served. He said that if anyone rather than an invited guest turned up, the dinner would be cancelled and the auction would not take place. Then he asked David if he would like the last seat at the table.’

  He smiled. ‘David’s the perfect host. Without a moment’s hesitation he said that he couldn’t possibly accept unless I was invited too. The guy went out and made a phone call, then came back two minutes later. I was in.’

  Scott picked up the jug and refilled our cups. ‘We didn’t tell our wives where we were off to, just that it was the local boys’ club. Instead we sent them and our daughter off to eat in a swank beach-front place at Llafranc, and headed out ourselves, in full evening kit. The restaurant in Peretellada was a very posh affair, inside a big medieval hall.’

  I nodded. ‘I know the one you mean,’ I said. ‘I tried to go in there in shorts once. Never got past the door.’

  Scott laughed. ‘I can imagine. Anyway, the dinner was in a private room. Our host was waiting for us in the cocktail bar, with champagne. He was an Englishman, and he introduced himself as Ronald Starr, “with two Rs” he said. The six other guests were from all over Europe. There was a Dutchman, a German, an Italian, a Belgian, a Swede, and a Swiss. Starr introduced us all. When it came to me he said that I was a late entrant, and that I had been allowed in because I was Scottish, and not English.

  ‘Once the niceties were over with, he led us through to our dining room. The picture was there, just as you see it now, covered up on an easel.

  ‘We made polite conversation over dinner, all of it in English, since that was our common language. No one spoke much to Starr, other than to be polite. I think that we had all decided by this time that he was in the property business, and that the picture would be of a villa he was trying to sell to the drunkest bidder.

  ‘For that reason no one drank much. We all finished dinner as quickly as was decently possible, all of us keen to see what the hook was, then get out of there. Pity, really, since it was a bloody good meal, and all the better because someone else was paying.’ He paused, with a grin.

  ‘Finally we all said, “Bugger the coffee and petit fours, let’s get on with it.” Starr nodded and said, “Fair enough.” He stood up and walked round to the easel, stood beside it and said, “Gentlemen, you have all been invited tonight to give you the opportunity to bid for a painting entitled, ‘The Toreador of the Apocalypse’, a hitherto unknown original work by Salvador Dali. The picture has always been in private hands, and I am here as the agent of the owner. There is no provenance, other than the signature, and naturally that will be reflected in the price expected. You may have ten minutes to examine the work and satisfy yourself as to the signature and to the quality. After that bidding will commence.” And then he whipped off the sheet and turned on the lights.’

  ‘What happened?’ Jan gasped, literally on the edge of her seat.

  ‘The German, the Swede and the Belgian each took one look, thanked Starr for dinner and left. I think David Foy would have gone too, but I was hooked. I know art, I was our creative director before I became full-time MD. I’ve studied Dali too. The signature looked absolutely authentic, and the sheer blinding quality of the work backed it up.

  ‘After ten minutes, Starr tapped the table and we sat down to bid. Bids were in dollars. He opened at one hundred and fifty thousand. The Dutchman nodded, but backed out as soon as the Swiss said a hundred and eighty. I came in at two hundred. There was no one else. I felt David Foy tugging my sleeve, but I ignored him.

  ‘The Swiss was a fat, arrogant, super-rich bastard, the sort who’d have paid a quarter of a million dollars just for a story to tell the folks back home. He wouldn’t have known a Dali from a Donald Duck. We went to three thousand in steps of twenty thousand. I had stopped thinking by then. He hadn’t. He kept adding more tens, just for the hell of it. Until he bailed out at my bid of four hundred thousand dollars, US. Two hundred and sixty thousand, in sterling.’

  I whistled softly. I had never been in a room with that much painting before, other than in an art gallery.

  ‘I didn’t tell Ida till the next day. Then I had to. We didn’t have two hundred and sixty grand in personal cash; our big dough is in property or pensions. So I had to make it a business purchase, and for that I needed Ida’s name alongside mine to authorise a banker’s draft, and have it DHL’ed out to us.’

  ‘How did Mrs Scott react?’ I asked, anticipating the answer.

  ‘She went crazy. We were bound for the divorce court, till she saw the picture, which had been locked up overnight at Peretellada. Then she was okay. She came with me next day, to meet Starr at the Hotel Aiguablava, pay him and collect it. We sent half our luggage back by courier and brought the Dali home in the back of the Range Rover. As soon as I was back in Scotland I got hold of a couple of my painter chums from the Arts Council and asked them if they would authenticate it for me as a Dali. That’s where the real problem began.’

  Scott looked at me, earnestly. ‘I know my stuff, Oz. The technique is right, the canvas is old enough. Instinct and experience tell me that’s a Dali. More than that; it’s a bloody masterpiece. The trouble is I can’t find anyone with the balls to agree with me.

  ‘The so-called experts say tha
t absolutely everything Dali did is catalogued, apart from doodles on napkins or on the back of menus. They say it’s impossible for a great work of that type to have existed in secret. They say that Dali was an egomaniac, and that everything he did was for his own greater glory, or that of his wife, Gala. That’s her in the picture, by the way, the ghostly woman: She’s a recurring figure in most of his mature work.’

  He paused again. ‘The art historians did tell me something though. Something that worries me. Dali gave up painting after Gala died. But there’s a rumour that before he died himself, he signed blank sheets of paper, and canvasses with backwash on them.

  ‘So far, there’d been no trace of any turning up, but the best guess that I’ve been given is that this is the first, that somewhere out there is a genius forger, and that the only genuine thing about “TheToreador of the Apocalypse” is Dali’s signature.’

  Scott stood up and walked back round to the easel. He removed the dust-sheet again, and again the work leapt off the canvas at us. He pointed at the bottom right-hand corner. ‘Look at the signature. Look at that big “D”, distinctive, almost like the thistle in the Scottish Nationalists’ party crest. Look at the structure of it; it’s a work of art in itself.

  ‘I want you to go back to Spain and find out the truth for me, Oz. I have to know whether it is a terrific forgery, and I’ve been conned, or whether I’m right and it’s the real thing.’

  He smiled. ‘If it turns out that it is a fake, then its value will be written down to zero, and the business will have incurred a capital loss. It won’t be a total loss, since we can offset it against capital gains elsewhere, but I hate to think what I’m going to tell the shareholders at the AGM. Ida and I still own forty per cent of the company, but if I’ve blown a quarter of a million of their dough the majority could fire me.

  ‘On the other hand, if the Toreador is authentic, as my heart tells me it is, and you can prove it, then potentially, I’ve made millions, and I’ll be a hero.’

  Scott looked at me earnestly. ‘So, do you accept the commission?’

  I nodded. ‘Certainly.’ I reached into my document case, and produced two sheets of A4. ‘This is a letter of engagement, setting out our terms. If that’s okay, please sign both copies and keep one for your records.’

  He scanned them quickly, then picked up a pen from the coffee table and signed them both. He reached into his back pocket and produced a folded cheque, and a business card, which he handed over together with my copy of the agreement. ‘There’s three thousand, on account. My ex-Directory number here, and my mobile number are written on the back of the card. Keep me posted, regularly.’

  Scott stood up. ‘I have something else for you.’ He reached out and picked up a long buff-coloured tube which I had noticed, standing upright by the fireplace.

  ‘I’ve had the picture scanned and copied in colour. It’s in here, along with a list of the names of the other people at the dinner, as far as I can remember them. I can’t imagine that they’ll be much help though.’

  I took the tube from him. ‘Can you give me a description of Ronald Starr?’ I asked.

  He scratched his chin. ‘Nondescript is the best I can do. British, almost certainly English, middle-aged, medium height, medium build, dark hair going to grey, navy-blue blazer, grey slacks, white shirt, dark tie with a golf club crest.’

  ‘How did you know it was a golf club?’

  He smiled. ‘It had fucking golf clubs on it, didn’t it.’

  ‘Touche,’ I said. ‘There is one other thing. Can you remember the name of the English bloke who made the introduction in the first place?’

  Scott nodded at once. ‘His Christian name, yes. He told us his surname, but it’s gone, completely. But his first name I know for sure. He was called Trevor.’

  15

  ‘Scott might not have realised, but I saw you twitch,’ said Jan, as I drove us back towards Edinburgh. ‘That name, Trevor; it meant something to you, didn’t it?’

  I shrugged, as expressively as I could at the wheel of the Fiesta. ‘There must be a few English ex-pats called Trevor up and down the Spanish Costas. I just happen to have met one.’

  ‘Yes, but when he described the man: fifty-something, bald, cultured accent, walnut tan. You reacted to that too.’

  ‘Okay,’ I grunted, reluctantly. ‘I didn’t want to get Scott excited, that’s all. The description matches, virtually point for point. About five feet six, bald as an egg, and with the sort of tan that you see on a Brit who’s been in Spain for a few years. His accent’s affected, the sort you can adjust to fit almost any occasion. My manTrevor normally dresses like the second engineer in a down-market inshore fishing vessel. I’ve seen Pals Golf Club. Looking like he does, you wouldn’t get into the car park. But I suppose that his costume could be as adjustable as his voice.’

  ‘It’s a good starting point, then,’ said Jan, cheerfully. ‘Assuming that he is the same Trevor, he should be able to help you find this man Starr.’

  ‘That’s true. And I suppose I should be grateful; I hope this job’s always as easy. I’ll go in search of him on Tuesday.’ I paused. ‘Meantime, this is still Sunday, it’s after five o’clock, and I’m on expenses. Let’s go and eat somewhere … unless you’re expected home, that is.’

  Jan shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not expected.You’re on.’

  I turned the car on to the Edinburgh bypass and headed east, towards the A1, then on down to the ribbon village of Aberlady, one of our old favourites, where we stopped at the Old Inn. Even on a Sunday it was busy, but they found a table in the corner and squeezed us in. We tossed a coin to see who would drive home. I lost.

  ‘So,’ Jan said, sipping a tasty Rioja, while I toyed with my Strathmore Lemon. ‘You’re back in business, Oz. I wonder if all your commissions will be like this one.’

  ‘I don’t imagine so. In fact I hope not. I’m not optimistic of getting a result for Mr Scott. That’s a hell of a picture, but there are some helluva good painters in northern Spain. If the rumour about signed blanks is true, then the best our client will do is to crystallise his capital loss, and throw himself on the mercy of the shareholders at the Annual Meeting.’ I paused. ‘It’s “our” commissions, by the way. I know what you said earlier, but if you’re going to be involved in BSI, I insist that it’s as a partner. The business must have someone in Britain, and you’re her. Financial Controller, and no arguments.’

  She smiled. ‘Hadn’t you better talk that over with Prim?’

  ‘Primavera will agree. So must you.’

  She looked at me, with a delicious smile. ‘Christ, but I can’t get used to you being decisive! Okay, I agree.’ She extended her hand; we shook on it.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if I’m in, we’d better take some decisions; for openers about how the business should be set up, for tax-sheltering and other purposes.’

  I made a face. ‘I’m not worried about avoiding tax. That’s not why we went to Spain.’

  ‘So why did you?’ asked Jan, quietly.

  I looked at her, across the table, as she started on her dressed Dunbar crab. Enormous, it was. Funny things have happened to the marine life down that way since they opened Torness nuclear power station.

  ‘Good question. Because it was there, I suppose. Because we could afford it.’ I laughed. ‘And yes, I suppose to avoid the possibility of paying tax on Ray Archer’s gift, even though we knew he’d have to show it as a trading loss, and that he could never declare it as a payment to us.’

  I took a spoonful of my Provencal fish soup. ‘I suppose there was another reason, on top of those. To give ourselves a start as a couple in completely new surroundings, away from all the influences we’d known until then.’

  ‘Like me, for example.’

  She took me by surprise. ‘No, of course not,’ I said, defensively.

  Something flickered in her eyes. ‘Okay,’ she said, in a voice which, whether she meant it or not, was loud enough to carry
to the next table. ‘Nor, I suppose, was it simply a case of suddenly finding yourselves moderately rich and deciding to indulge yourselves by lying in the sun and copulating all day long.’

  For a moment the territory felt distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I thought that was what I just said we decided to do.’

  She laughed, and at once I was comfortable again. I looked at her as she attacked her crab, and I remembered Saturday evenings, more than a decade in the past, and the seafood stall in Crail harbour; other generations of crustaceans, still steaming from the boiling pot. Jan and I as sixteen-year-olds, country kids with ruddy faces, and tight-muscled thighs from our beach and coastal walks, tearing into them, bare-handed, as later we tore heartily into each other. I snapped myself back to the present and turned my attention to my own meal, quickly.

  ‘It’s funny to think of a man like Gavin Scott being conned,’ said Jan, finished at last.

  ‘Not really,’ I countered. ‘Scott’s a gambler by nature, I’d say. Look at his track record in business. He staked the lot on buying Soutar’s and it’s paid off. Once a punter always a punter. On top of that he’s an art enthusiast; he’d call himself an expert. A painter and a punter combined: some combination.

  ‘You have to understand, love, that there’s a whole Dali industry out there. If you spend any time in Catalunya you can’t avoid it. It’s all around you. You’ll find Dali prints in all the souvenir shops, and you’ll find special prints of signed work in the more up-market places. There’s a Dali museum in Figueras, and it has hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

  ‘The great man is buried there, you know. In the cellar. I’ve seen his tomb. The museum itself is spectacular. It’s a work of art in its own right; by Dali, about Dali. Paintings, displays, objects: the whole experience draws you into it, makes you part of it.’