by Sam Blake
Researching Edward Croxley had given her an idea that needed some thinking about. She needed to do some proper research to clarify a few details, but she did her best thinking in the studio and the pool.
Chapter 18
THE LIGHTHOUSE BAR in The Hogarth Hotel was already getting busy. It was only five o’clock but it was Friday and London was obviously winding down into the weekend.
As the lift doors closed silently behind her, Vittoria headed down the dark wood corridor, candles already flickering in the recesses. Through the open glazed doors at the end, she could see the bar with its brass rails, soft lighting and row of high-backed leather stools. The room was beautiful, looked more like a salon on a luxury 1930s liner than a lighthouse, pale-grey velvet sofas clustered in gossiping groups, the staff hovering in period uniforms, making Vittoria feel like she’d stepped back decades. There was something utterly decadent about this hotel that captured the Bright Young Things and the Bloomsbury set perfectly. Behind the bar, mood lighting backlit colourful bottles that picked up the warm paintwork. Soft jazz filled the room, and the barman began vigorously rattling a cocktail shaker full of ice, adding to the feeling that she’d slipped back in time.
Vittoria glanced around trying to decide where to sit. First impressions were so important. She’d changed as soon as she’d checked in, was now wearing wide-legged silky black trousers and a casual black shirt with a loose tie neck and black lace panels on the shoulders. She’d pulled her hair up in a clip that matched her diamond ear studs. She was quite sure Croxley appreciated good jewellery and would be assessing her from the moment they met. She was also sure he would have checked her out online, but the small details were what contributed to creating an overall impression. She needed Croxley to trust her and believe everything.
‘Good evening, madam, would you like to sit?’ Meeting her as she stepped through the doors, a dark-suited man Vittoria knew to be the manager bowed slightly as he spoke, taking in the room in a wide gesture. Vittoria smiled. Fabulous, incredibly courteous service was another hallmark of this hotel, and who didn’t love being treated like royalty?
‘Thank you. The bar, perhaps?’ Crossing the parquet floor ahead of her, he pulled out a stool in the middle of the bar and Vittoria hopped up onto it.
‘And for madam, a drink?’
‘I’m waiting for someone, but can I have a glass of champagne, please?’ It was early but Vittoria wanted to make sure that she looked like part of the place when Croxley arrived.
Vittoria watched as the barman poured her drink, delivering it ceremoniously in a beautiful glass set on a thick paper coaster with a silver partner dish of nuts and olives.
Vittoria glanced over her shoulder at the huge nautical brass clock above the door. The hand clicked around to 5 p.m., and a man she recognised from his Facebook profile picture appeared through the street door to her right. She focused on her glass, picking up the elegant stem and taking a sip, pretending not to have seen him. He was every bit the art dealer in a long tweed coat that enveloped his angular frame, narrow pea-green trousers and a paisley silk cravat tied at his neck. Looking younger than his thirty-two years, he pushed his blond fringe out of his eyes as he caught sight of her.
Smiling, he approached. ‘Vittoria Devine, I presume?’ Vittoria turned in her chair and returned the smile as he continued, ‘Edward Croxley at your service.’ He inclined his head as she put out her hand to shake his. Very gallant.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me at such short notice.’
‘Not at all. You have a very interesting –’ he paused pointedly ‘– collection.’
‘Thank you.’ Vittoria smiled warmly. ‘Will you join me?’
Edward caught the eye of the barman and ordered a scotch. Pulling out the stool beside her, he slipped off his coat, throwing it over the back before he climbed onto it. ‘Now, tell me a little about your painting. How did you come by it?’
Vittoria took a sip of her drink. The ambient music in the bar was just loud enough for them to speak comfortably without anyone being able to overhear them except the bartender, who she was quite sure was listening. ‘It’s part of my husband’s father’s collection. We actually didn’t realise we had it until we were broken into recently. Several paintings were stolen – not many, thankfully – but when I went into the attic to fill the gaps on the walls, I found a stack of canvases in a corner.’
‘In the attic?’
Vittoria took another sip. ‘I know, it’s ridiculous – people talk about “hidden assets”.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘The house belonged to my husband’s parents. His mother was an actress and very flamboyant. Her taste in art and mine were quite different, so when she passed away, I changed a few things around. Everywhere needed a lick of paint. I put a lot of paintings in the attic. Marcus must have forgotten about these, and I hadn’t realised there were more up there.’
‘There are more like this one?’ Vittoria could see Croxley was fighting to keep the surprise out of his voice. The barman delivered Croxley’s drink and, apparently using the interruption to digest what she was saying, he sipped it.
Watching him, Vittoria shrugged. ‘There are so many, really, I’ve no idea why his father bought them. The one I sent you a picture of was at the back of the attic behind Marcus’s school trunk. It was wrapped up in hessian with a couple of others.’
‘Others like this one?’ He was pushing the point, trying to sound nonchalant and failing badly.
‘Not like it – all different but there were four of them together. They’re all old if that’s any clue. I’ve no idea why they weren’t on show in the house, although some of them are rather hideous. From the dust they looked like they’d been in the attic forever. There are a couple of cubist-type oils, black and white, that are just grim.’
Edward smiled like he had a far greater knowledge. ‘They sound interesting. But I think I might know why they weren’t on show. I’d have to see the other paintings, but I believe your father-in-law was a colleague of Eamon de Valera’s? There are photographs of them together online.’
Vittoria shrugged. ‘Of course. They were members of the same club. Irish society is very small.’
‘Did you check up on the artist of the painting you showed me?’
Vittoria shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, we’ve had rather a lot happening recently. To be honest, I’d forgotten about it. I thought you could tell me?’
‘It’s by Camille Pissarro. Part of a series. Quite an extensive series but the majority of the others are in museums around the world.’
‘Really? You surprise me. It’s a nice enough painting but it’s not very exciting, is it? It’s so grey. Who wants a painting of a wet evening?’ She shrugged. ‘But I’m sure someone will like it more than me.’
Edward laughed. ‘I think we can safely say there are a few people who might like it. I have a contact who adores French art. He’s originally Chechen, I think; but he travels a lot and his niece is getting married in Paris.’ He took another sip. ‘I think I need to see it before I can discuss it with him, though.’
‘Of course, it’s in my room. Will I get it?’
Vittoria made to move off the stool. Croxley put his hands up. ‘It may be a little too public here. Could you bring it to my shop in the morning?’
His shop? That was an interesting interpretation.
‘Of course, where is it?’
‘Just a few doors down the road, Power’s Fine Prints. I’m closed at the moment … stocktaking … but I could meet you there in the morning? Just bang on the shutter, around ten o’clock?’
‘Perfetto.’ Vittoria smiled and lined the broad foot of her glass up with its coaster. ‘So tell me a bit about you, Edward Croxley.’
Chapter 19
VITTORIA HADN’T learned anything she didn’t already know about Edward Croxley the previous night, but they’d had a very pleasant chat during which he’d flirted mildly and made much of his connections in the trade.
And he�
��d been very interested in the other paintings Vittoria had ‘found’ in the attic.
They’d chatted about Irish politics and the effects of Brexit and about Sicily for about an hour, an hour during which she’d fed him all sorts of information about Marcus and his family, about the collection and just how extensive it was.
By the time they’d parted, Edward Croxley had been very firmly on her hook.
Now, as she stood at the top of the hotel’s grand steps looking out at Great Russell Street with the painting, well wrapped in several layers of plastic as well as its hessian shroud, under her arm, it was starting to rain.
Vittoria pulled up the collar of her coat and hurried in the direction of the shop.
She’d looked it up on Google Street View last night and discovered it was literally just a few minutes away across the junction, ‘Power’s Fine Prints and Books’ written in gold antique lettering, clearly visible against its bottle-green exterior.
After weaving between tourists and students on the broad pavement, Vittoria waited at the pedestrian lights. Bloomsbury was such a beautiful area, the buildings elegant, many, she was sure, passed on from generation to generation.
Like Lily’s shop.
The lights changed and Vittoria crossed the road and hurried along until she reached the shop. As Croxley had said, it was closed, dark-green steel roller shutters pulled down on the window and street door. Which seemed rather illogical to Vittoria and confirmed in her mind her earlier suspicion that Croxley didn’t want to run the shop as a gallery at all.
If he did, why close? Why not open at least for a few hours each day and sell some stock? The Powers had obviously been making enough money in this location for many years, so why stop?
It just underlined her theory that he had a different agenda. And she intended to find out exactly what that was.
Despite her black leather gloves, Vittoria had no intention of banging on the steel shutter. Rooting in her handbag, she pulled out her house key and used it to knock on it.
Croxley was obviously waiting for her. She’d hardly taken her hand away when she heard movement inside and the shutter began to roll up.
‘Good morning. Bit of a damp one.’ Croxley ducked out and glanced up and down the road as she slipped under the shutter. She hadn’t noticed last night because she’d been sitting on that high stool, but he was shorter than Marcus, maybe five ten. Everyone was taller than her, of course – unless she was en pointe, when she gained about six inches in height – but he was short for a man.
‘It is. London has a special kind of damp.’ She paused. ‘This is a lovely location.’
Holding open the inner shop door, Croxley smiled. ‘I adore Bloomsbury. Now let’s have a look at this painting.’
Vittoria smiled back at him. He was keen. Heading to the shop’s glass counter, she put down her package and pulled off her gloves before beginning to unwrap it. ‘I hope getting X-rayed in security didn’t do any damage. Mio Dio, I’ve only just thought of that.’
‘I’m sure it’s fine.’
Vittoria could almost feel Croxley’s impatience crackling through the air in the stillness of the shop. As she lifted the painting to take off the layers of bubble wrap and grey tissue paper, she took a quick look around.
She could see why Lily loved this place, from the handwritten cards under the prints cramming the walls, to the faded spines of the rare books displayed in the glass case beside the counter; it felt like an old friend.
‘There, that’s the last layer.’ Vittoria pulled back the hessian to reveal the canvas. Under the shop lights, the yellows in the street scene lifted, sparkling through the grey twilight that gave the painting its title. It was a mysterious view of the traffic in Montmartre, of windows lit to the night, of carriages driving through the rain. Vittoria suddenly had the feeling that this image held many secrets.
Vittoria heard Croxley exhale beside her like he was trying not to show his enthusiasm.
‘Can I look a little more closely?’
‘Of course.’ She stepped backwards as he pulled an eye glass out of his jacket pocket and picked up the painting, examining the back of the canvas. A moment later he turned it over, studying the brush-strokes in the painting itself.
Vittoria smiled to herself. One thing she knew for sure was that it would pass his examination. Eileen had explained when Vittoria first got in touch, pretending to be Marcus’s PA, that she used period canvases sourced from the location each painting was originally created in. Attention to detail was everything, right down to using the same tools individual artists had used, replicating the same brushes, even the type of animal hair the artist favoured. The types of people she worked for didn’t accept anything less than perfection. She was at the top of her game and expensive with very good reason. Like many things, it was all about detail.
The only way Eileen’s paintings could be identified as fakes, apart from analysing the paint itself, was if she wanted them to be – sometimes her collectors needed tiny changes in the new pictures so that they could tell the difference between the real ones and the reproductions. And sometimes they wanted perfect reproductions so that even an expert eye would be fooled.
Croxley’s voice brought Vittoria back to the shop. ‘Mm, very nice. I think you can get a good price for this.’
‘Really? I do hope so.’ Vittoria bit her lip. ‘But it needs to be very discreet.’ She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘I’m sure I can talk to you in confidence, but my husband needs to raise some cash to fight someone who thinks they have some dirt on him.’ She pushed her hair behind her ear. ‘There’s a woman. She’s molto dangerous. She’s causing some problems for us. It seems to be the only solution, and there can be no paper trail.’
Edward nodded slowly, his eyes on the painting. ‘I think that can be arranged. But obviously—’
She cut in. ‘Obviously we’re prepared to increase your commission for a discreet sale. That goes for all transactions, not just this one.’
Vittoria could have sworn that if Edward Croxley had been a dog he would have started to wag his tail and pant. She could see a slight flush in his cheeks as he nodded again.
‘I think we can keep this all extremely quiet. The buyer I have in mind isn’t a man for publicity. He has an extensive but very private collection.’
‘Perfetto—’
As Vittoria began to speak, Croxley’s phone rang, loud in the empty shop. It was lying on the counter beside the wrapping that Vittoria had removed. He glanced at it and paled. A name had flashed up on the screen.
Now who was Sergei?
Vittoria smiled. ‘Take it, I’ll be a few minutes.’ She picked up the wrapping as if she was busying herself. Croxley hesitated, glancing at her, then picked it up. As if it was his mother calling, he pulled a face to her as he answered it.
‘Excuse me.’
She smiled knowingly as he turned around and took the call.
Glancing at his back, as she pretended to gather up the tissue paper, Vittoria pulled her own phone from her pocket and slipped it onto the counter. Punching in the password, she deftly began recording.
‘Really, I’m on it. They have to be here somewhere … Look, I’ve searched but I can’t get into the safe. They could be there. I need to ask him.’
There was a pause. Vittoria didn’t catch the next bit, but Croxley began pacing, listening to the caller. She didn’t need her master’s in psychology to see the stress he was under, to see that he was bluffing heavily to whomever he was speaking to. It was very obvious that his Russian friend, assuming Sergei was Russian, was putting him under a lot of pressure.
‘I know. I told you I’d sort it. I’m here, aren’t I?’ Croxley paused. ‘I know about the timing. I’m hardly going to forget, am I? Look, I’ll find all of them – they are just so small. If they’re not here, the next move is to ask discreetly. We can’t be too obvious – you know as well as I do what could happen if it gets out. I know they said they didn’t come f
rom the museum but anything from that area has blood all over it.’
Croxley stopped pacing, his back to her, he put his hand out to lean on a bookshelf. Vittoria could see his knuckles whiten as he gripped it.
‘I know. I’m on it.’
He finished the call and looked at the phone for a second, as if he’d forgotten that she was there. Vittoria tapped her own phone to stop it recording and slipped it back into her coat pocket. Swiftly wrapping the painting, she made a fuss of pushing it into its original protective plastic. She leaned over it, frowning. In the reflection in the glass case behind the till she could see Croxley still had his back to her.
‘Ooops.’ Deliberately interrupting his reverie, she jiggled the painting into its covering as if she was concentrating solely on what she was doing, as if she hadn’t heard any of his conversation. ‘There, all done.’ She glanced at him. ‘I’m so sorry – I hope I didn’t interrupt?’
Turning around slowly, Croxley shook his head. As if she was completely unaware of any underlying tension, she continued innocently, ‘So do I need to leave this with you to show your buyer?’
It took a moment for Croxley to register what she was saying, then his public smile was back in place. ‘Yes, yes, that would be great. I’ll give you a receipt, obviously.’
She laughed. ‘That seems a little ridiculous, honestly, but I’m sure Marcus will be furious if I don’t get one.’
Croxley was a very good actor. He smiled conspiratorially, as if he hadn’t just had a very heavy conversation with an aggressive Russian. Vittoria grinned back. She needed to process what she’d heard but she was getting a much clearer picture of why Croxley had wanted the shop.
There was something here.
Something very small and very valuable that this Sergei wanted.
And wanted badly.
Something Croxley couldn’t find.
