“Get out of town. Well, that is good news. Need a place to stay?”
Webster could hear him drawing energetically on a cigarette. “I think I may be someone’s guest. We’ll see.”
“Just say the word.”
“I shall.” Webster paused. “I wanted to run a name past you. It may not be your patch.”
“I love a name. Tell me.”
“Darius Qazai.”
Constance gave a great chuckle. “Darius Qazai? The Iranian Knight? Ah, my friend, you spoil me. There is no greater fraud in the Gulf. You may have contenders in London but here, in his quiet, oh-so-elegant way, he is without peer.”
A rational voice told him to be wary of Constance’s obsessions. “Really? You hardly write about him.”
“That, it grieves me to say, is because he is litigious, and I am, how shall we say, light on facts. If I had the facts I’d print ’em, and if he wasn’t so fucking keen to take all my savings I’d print any old shit. As it is we are at something of a stalemate. Tell me you’re about to break it. What’s he done?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe receiving stolen goods. Maybe ordering them to be stolen.”
“No.” Constance made the single syllable last. “What? From where?”
“Half a ton of ancient Assyrian relief. From Baghdad.”
Constance gave a triumphant laugh. “Ha! He’s a looter! A fucking looter. Why are rich men always so fucking greedy? They think they can own the world.” He laughed again. “Grasping little bastard.”
Webster did his best to calm him down. “We don’t know it yet.”
“Of course. Innocent until, and all that. You’re a better man than I, Ben. Who wants us to prove it?”
Webster had thought about this. Tell Constance and heaven knows how he might react; fail to tell him and his reaction would be all too predictable if the truth came out, as one day it surely would.
“He does.”
“Who does?”
“Qazai.”
“Qazai is your client?”
“He’s our client.”
Constance was quiet for a moment. Webster thought he could hear him scratching his beard. When he spoke again his tone was cool, the words clipped.
“So that superfine mind of Ike’s has come undone. I must say I’m surprised. So how does it work? Which poor unfortunate is Qazai fucking?”
“Himself.”
“Neat trick. Could you tell me what you mean?”
Webster explained, both the circumstances of the case and Hammer’s supple thinking about it. He tried not to sound apologetic.
“So your job is to demonstrate that he’s OK.”
“That he didn’t go looting. And that he’s basically OK. If he didn’t and he is.”
“And he pays you?”
“He’s paid us.”
The line went quiet for a moment.
“So he pays me to do my worst?”
“Exactly.”
Constance let out a vast laugh, so loud and close that Webster involuntarily moved the phone away from his ear.
“That,” he said, “is wondrous. I was wrong about Ike. He’s still a genius.” He paused for a moment. “Your sources will be protected, I take it.”
“Not a word.”
“Good, good. Then let me tell you about Darius Qazai.”
Constance set off. Because he was a showman he didn’t think to ask what Ikertu already knew, and much of what he said Webster had heard, but to hear it from a professional contrarian was refreshing. Slowly he moved to the point: Qazai was a fraud because he wanted the respect of the establishment but would take money from anyone. Constance was convinced that behind the pure white facade of Tabriz, Qazai was investing on behalf of people whose money was far from clean.
“Like who?” asked Webster.
“Well, I hear various things. Some Russian money, some African. All dirty. But these are rumors, and much as I like them I can’t support them.”
With his free hand Webster shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. They were straying from the matter in hand. “None of this has much to do with art, sadly.”
“Ah, but it might. When we’re done.” He sniffed, and Webster could hear the click and snap of a lighter as he lit another cigarette. “What do you want me to do?” he said, audibly blowing out smoke.
Webster told him about the Americans’ report, about Shokhor, about the unknown Swiss dealer. “I want to know about Shokhor. Anything you can find. Where he lives, what he does. If you know someone who knows him that would be fantastic.”
“You want to talk to him?”
“Next week, yes. See what you can do with the shipment as well. I’d love to know who it went to in Switzerland.”
“Ben, I am on my way.” He laughed again. “I can’t believe you’re paying me to do this.”
• • •
TWO WEEKS AFTER QAZAI had signed his letter of instruction and agreed all terms—money up front in stages, his full cooperation throughout, access to all documents, Ikertu to explore wherever it liked—Webster called a meeting of his team in his office.
Hammer was there: they had finally agreed between them that he would deal with Qazai while Webster did the work, a neat arrangement that suited them both and might or might not endure. The contract with the client was no less shrewd. Ikertu would investigate the art smuggling allegations and report what it found. It would also run the rule over Qazai himself, and if it found other reasons to believe that he was less than impeccable it would meet its obligation to say so. Senechal hadn’t liked it but Qazai, to Webster’s satisfaction, had overruled him.
Hammer sat at the small table; to his right Rachel Dobbs; opposite him Dieter Klein. Dobbs, six feet tall in her low heels, a little drawn today, as most days, and Hammer’s favorite member of staff, was Ikertu’s most experienced researcher. Twenty years before, she had joined Ikertu as its third employee and was now the longest-serving bar Hammer himself, who adored her for her doggedness, her inspired ability to connect the apparently unconnected and her rigid sense of privacy. Here, in this most curious of offices, no one knew anything about her, beyond the fact that she was married (she wore a ring) and lived in the countryside near Leighton Buzzard (it had said so on her CV, and the company still paid for her season ticket). She was not a sociable person: she never attended the Christmas party, never drank with her colleagues, never talked to them about anything but work. At her interview with Hammer she had warned him about this, and he had loved her for it ever since. Occasionally, in meetings like this one, Webster would look at her thin face, the slight nose and the pressed mouth, the withdrawn eyes, imagine the different lives she might be leading away from this place and conclude that whatever one she actually lived she might be the most contented person he knew. She felt no need to share any part of herself, and if she was quiet it seemed to be less from shyness than from reserve.
Klein, on the other hand, was desperate to communicate his enthusiasm and terrified of making a mistake, particularly in front of Hammer. A serious young man, a graduate of the University of Hanover and business school in France, he had been in the job for almost a year and was still finding it difficult to relax. Webster liked him—he spoke countless languages, wrote well in all of them, understood complicated things quickly—but Hammer wasn’t sure, because he saw Klein as unworldly and unformed. “He treats every case like a dissertation,” he had once said to Webster, and that was harsh but true enough. For his part, Klein, wanting nothing more than to impress Hammer, as everyone did, and sensitive enough to see his doubts, was always on the brink of nervousness in his company, and today looked more than usually callow behind his serious glasses and blond beard. He was also slightly in awe of Dobbs.
Webster’s office was messier than it had been for some time. Documents in scrappy piles covered the desk, and on th
e walls hung overlapping sheets of flipboard paper on which he was slowly drawing a chart of the world with Darius Qazai at its center.
For now they were considering basics: Qazai, the sculpture, and connections between the two. Hammer raised his eyebrows and looked expectantly around the table. “So. What have we got?”
Dobbs slowly and deliberately opened up the folder placed squarely on the table in front of her and began to speak at a measured pace. She didn’t refer to the document once, didn’t even look down, but kept her palm flat on the first page as if drawing out the information.
“Every detail checks out, but it hasn’t got me very far. Shokhor is an Iraqi by birth but lives in Dubai. He has a company called Calyx that has a single-page website and claims to be in the textile business. The ship that’s meant to have transported the relief is called the Veronese and it does a regular circuit of the Gulf. The container was unloaded at Dubai and after that I can’t find any record of it. I spoke to a friend who put me in touch with an old customs investigator. He knows Calyx, and Shokhor, but claimed not to know what he’s bringing in because no one looks. On the manifest the consignment was listed as cotton clothing. I haven’t found anything to say it wasn’t.”
“Is that as far as it goes?”
“He’s trying to find out what happened to it. He probably can’t. And singling out a private flight to Switzerland from Dubai around that time? I checked. There are at least three or four a day.”
For the time being she was done. Webster smiled his approval.
“Any more?”
“One thing. I’ve done some work on Qazai’s companies as well. Tabriz is his big one. Dozens of funds, regulated in London, everything gold-plated. But he has another fund that invests his own money. It’s called Shiraz. Shiraz Holding AG.”
Webster nodded. Qazai had told him as much.
“Shiraz barely features anywhere. It’s based in Switzerland, unregulated—it can invest in whatever it wants. No one knows what it’s doing. Very low profile. But I found a claim in the high court from an investor trying to get his money back.”
Webster looked puzzled. “I thought it was all Qazai’s money.”
“Apparently not.”
“Who was it?”
“Some Swiss fund. It looks like another family office. The claim doesn’t give much away. They invested twenty-five million dollars in 2007 and wanted it back earlier this year. Qazai told them they couldn’t have it, that the fund was gated.”
“This year?” said Hammer.
Dobbs nodded.
Webster looked at Hammer. “He told us he needed cash.”
“He did,” said Hammer. “Do we know what happened?”
“They settled last month,” Dobbs said.
“Interesting,” said Hammer, with a slow, exaggerated nod to no one in particular. “Interesting.”
Dobbs, finished, closed her folder, and Webster thanked her.
“Dieter?”
While Dobbs had been talking Dieter had been surreptitiously going through his own notes, getting himself prepared. With a glance at Hammer he looked down at them again and began.
“Shokhor is not a prominent man. There is very little on him. There is almost nothing in the media.” He looked up. “I can go through the articles if you would like.”
“Are they interesting?” asked Hammer.
“Not really.”
“Let’s get to the interesting stuff.”
Dieter, abashed, turned his attention back to his notes.
“I have found two things. One is an article in the Paris Match that had a picture of Ava Qazai, the daughter, at the same party as a Yusuf Shokhor, who appears to be Shokhor’s son. They were photographed together. They seemed to know each other quite well.”
Hammer pushed his lip out. “Anything else?”
“Well. I found no links between Shokhor and Cyrus Mehr, the dead man. But one of his old companies—Shokhor’s old companies—I found it in the Cyprus corporate registry. It was struck off in 2001, but I thought I recognized its office address. And when I checked it was the same as a Tabriz company. Tabriz Investments Cyprus Limited. That was dissolved in 2003, but for four years they were in the same office building.”
“The same floor?” asked Hammer.
“It didn’t specify the floor.”
Hammer tapped out a tattoo on the table with his fingers. “Satisfactory. Definitely satisfactory.”
Behind his beard Dieter blushed and Webster, pleased, brought the meeting to an end.
He and Hammer stayed behind. Outside the sun was shining hard on Lincoln’s Inn and through the trees he could just make out groups of people eating their lunch on the grass.
“Well?” said Hammer.
“Why are you so hard on Dieter?”
“That’s not hard. You’re too easy.”
“I’m not sure he enjoys it.”
“He’s not meant to. But he’ll be better for it.” Hammer finished shading in a long spiral, like a spring, that he had been drawing in his notebook. “When are you seeing Qazai?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What have you got?”
“I’ve been trying to find the Swiss dealer. After the first Gulf War there was a guy in Zurich who was rumored to have returned some valuable piece to the Iraqis after it somehow came his way. There’s lots of chat about it on various blogs. I thought I might have a word with him.”
“Go and see him.”
“I might. I’m going to Dubai first. Visit Fletcher. See if Shokhor will grant us an audience.”
Hammer threw his head back and gave a deep groan. “Oh God. Fletcher?”
“You love Fletcher.”
“I love Fletcher like a brother, but the two of you should not be left alone with this case.”
“And I’m trying to find out how Mehr died.”
“I thought we knew how he died.”
“We know what the Iranian news agency said. Not much more.”
“Is it relevant?”
“Possibly not. Qazai gets accused of looting. So does Mehr, and dies for it. All in the space of a month. You tell me.”
5.
ON THE LOW TABLE in front of Webster the sweetmeats were beginning to pile up. When he had arrived at Qazai’s house he had been given tea and with it squares of nougat on flowered plates and almond biscuits flavored with rosewater. He and Qazai had been talking for half an hour now and three new deliveries had been made: a glass jug of orange juice and two small glasses, some fat dates, and a tray of baklava, the neat rolls of pastry shining with honey. Qazai’s housekeeper offered him more tea but he declined. He had thought at first that Qazai wanted to be interviewed at home because it was discreet, but now he wondered whether it was to make him feel at once intimate and uncomfortable. This was emphatically not a place of work.
The house stood on Mount Street, in Mayfair, and had grandeur but no charm. It was narrow for its five stories, slightly wrong in its proportions, consummately built. It looked like a hospital for the rich.
Inside, its Edwardian arrogance had been tamed. All but obscuring the dark mahogany paneling a dozen Persian carpets hung from the high ceiling while another, vast, covered the flagstones in the hall with flowering buds and arabesques. Two gauze blinds let in a soft, yellow light from the brilliant spring day, setting the reds and ochres of the walls aglow. The house was silent; the rugs seemed to absorb all sound.
Webster had been shown by the butler into the first room on the left, a large sitting room—also paneled, also hung with rugs, lit with the same warm light—where three deep sofas sat in relaxed fashion around a coffee table heavy with thick art books, many showing the stamp of the Qazai Foundation. The rugs had made some space for two paintings: one, over the stone fireplace, was of a Persian general in battle; the other, the only concession to
Europe in sight, was a Dutch street scene, three houses face-on and beyond them, just visible through an open door, two children playing in a sunlit yard. A vase of towering lilies in each corner gave off a strong, sweet scent.
The butler had explained that Qazai would be a few minutes and left Webster studying the contents of a glass display case that dominated one of the long walls. All manner of artifacts were there: pages of ancient Korans, their edges brown and eaten with age; a flask of brilliant-blue glass; a long, thin lacquer box, two lovers in an orchard painted on its side; a pottery lion, turquoise in color, its eyes and mouth worn to shallow impressions; and a dagger, the blade bright and glisteningly sharp, the hilt wrought in gilt with inscriptions in Arabic.
Qazai had kept him waiting just long enough to remind him who was the client, but not long enough to be rude. To Webster’s relief he was alone; Senechal was not playing chaperone it seemed. Qazai wore a double-breasted suit of fine navy wool with a faint chalk stripe, a white shirt and a tie of the darkest green, and was as polished and urbane as he had been after Mehr’s memorial service. He had asked after Hammer, after Ikertu, after Webster’s family, and before ushering him toward one of the sofas had talked him through the various pieces in the cabinet. Which was the most valuable, he had wanted to know, and seemed pleased when Webster, understanding the game, correctly chose the least showy of them all, a fragment of the Koran aged to feathery thinness by its passage from the Arabian peninsula over almost fourteen hundred years.
Webster began by asking about his past, about the history of his companies, and about his investors—for context, he had explained, so that he might understand the significance of his findings, but it was more to put Qazai at his ease, perhaps off his guard. Qazai had nodded and told him to ask whatever he liked. Webster began with questions about his father, the founding of the business, its financing, its first clients. Every answer was pristine, complete and convincing, worked to a shine through repeated telling and so smooth that when Senechal had finally joined them Webster had barely resented the intrusion. Qazai was clearly quite capable of looking after himself.
He had talked about his art—the collection, the foundation, his friendship with Mehr—and about his family, and very particularly about Timur, his son, the imminent heir to this great estate. Webster, sinking back into the great sofa, took notes awkwardly on his knee. Try as he might he couldn’t disrupt Qazai’s rhythm. There were no inconsistencies to explore, no grit of any kind.
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