The Improbability of Love

by Hannah Rothschild

  Annie promised to phone the police, pick up a takeaway and be back in time to watch the late evening news.

  To Rebecca’s consternation, the search of Annie’s apartment had yielded nothing. No picture, no records or clues about a larger gang. Either buying the picture was an enormous and highly unlikely coincidence or, and this was both more likely and more frightening, Annie was part of an extremely sophisticated organisation. Knowing the art world better than most, Rebecca tried to think who had the resources and skills to set up this sting. What did they want? Rebecca was fully aware that the antipathy towards Winkleman Fine Art and her family spread beyond the art world. Many were jealous of their meteoric rise: Memling had arrived as a penniless refugee and was now worth several billion. As Jews, they were and would always be outsiders.

  There was another factor that drove people mad: the Winklemans’ world was hidden behind a veil of secrecy. As a private company it never published profits or losses and all employees were legally bound by non-disclosure agreements. The family never gave interviews or commented on events. They were meticulous, clever, informed, hard-working, private and utterly inscrutable. In a world largely populated by public-school types and academics, in a milieu where it was fashionable not to care about money and in an environment where long lunches and summer sojourns were the norm, the Winklemans, by applying order and discipline, easily outstripped their competitors. Memling also had the uncanny ability to find great lost works of art, known and newly discovered.

  Moving like great white sharks through the choppy waters of the international art world, Memling, Rebecca and their employees never stopped working. Their contacts and operatives ensured global information on a 24/7 basis: if a potentially interesting painting came up for auction in a minor saleroom in a godforsaken town, the Winklemans would know about it; when a family was thinking of selling a master work, Winklemans were the first to hear. Their pockets were deep and their nerve strong; they generally got what they wanted. Over the years Memling had created an exhaustive database of collectors and their chattels, including their age and health and their likely heirs; and their fluctuating net worth was constantly reassessed. If you were an impoverished nobleman with one good Joshua Reynolds or a hedge-fund ingénu with a few billion in the bank, you would almost certainly hear from Winkleman on a birthday or another significant event. One story, often retold, seemed to typify Memling’s way of doing business: while dining on his yacht miles from civilisation, the world’s fifth richest man, Victor Klenkov, was amazed to see a tiny boat come alongside. It was an emissary sent from Memling Winkleman clutching a bottle of vintage Bollinger and a small sketch by Degas. The card read ‘Many happy returns on your fifty-second birthday. I look forward to meeting you one day. Memling Winkleman.’ At the time, Klenkov had never bought a painting; the following week he spent his £15 million on an early Degas from Winkleman Fine Art.

  By employing the world’s greatest scholars, the company did not have to go far for attributions. If a painting came into their gallery, there was an expert on hand to validate it. Important pictures were written up in glowing terms and really important works were granted their own monograph. Winkleman’s also held the self-appointed but widely accepted right to authenticate work by certain artists.

  They dealt in paintings, sculptures, reliefs, tapestries and antiquities. The one area that Winkleman avoided was dealing in contemporary art, which Memling described as a ‘shooting poisonous snakes with a water pistol’. The company’s cut-off point was 1973, the year of Picasso’s death.

  In their Curzon Street gallery, the Winklemans put on acclaimed exhibitions with accompanying catalogues of a standard and quality that museums could only dream of. If a favoured artist’s price dipped, Memling would put a minor work into a public auction anonymously and bid against himself to raise the hammer price to new heights. This ensured a new benchmark, and soon after, one or two other works by the same painter, owned by Winkleman Fine Art, would find their way on to the market. In Winkleman’s hands artists became superstars and their works record-breakers.

  For the first time in Rebecca’s memory, the Winkleman ‘system’ was useless and yet Memling was still insisting on eschewing outside advice. Sitting back in her leather Corbusier chair, Rebecca pressed the ‘do not disturb’ button on her telephone and, walking over to the door, triple-locked it from the inside. She started to pace backwards and forwards up the forty-five-foot-long library wall lined with shelves full of artists’ monographs, around a thousand books that she had read and studied. At the far end of the room, there was a huge elaborately carved wooden fireplace by Grinling Gibbons. Above the fireplace there was a small Raphael oil, an eighteenth birthday gift from her father, now worth in excess of £25 million. It was not for sale but served as a reminder to clients that the Winklemans were in this business for other things besides money.

  Rebecca turned and walked down the other side of the room, past the glass wall that looked out on to the main gallery. She could see out; nobody could see in. It was useful having a vast spyhole on to their public space, a good way to observe staff or potential clients. Rebecca knew most of the important buyers by sight and if they wandered in, she could be on the floor within moments to receive them. If trouble rumbled there were well-rehearsed procedures.

  Rebecca kept her eyes focused on her feet as she marched up and down the Aubusson carpet trying to make sense of her father’s overwhelming interest in the painting. His refusal to tell her details was not unusual: Memling had a maniacal love of secrecy. When pressed, he claimed that the less she knew the better; ignorance was her best protection. It was also a reflection on how he treated his daughter. Rebecca was the CEO of Winkleman Fine Art in name only: Memling controlled every decision. She was there by default, appointed seven years earlier following her brother Marty’s sudden death. At the time, her daughter Grace was still at day school and Rebecca worked for the firm as head of curatorial. She had done her PhD in Renaissance paintings at the Courtauld and had published four learned books on Florentine painting. No one had expected her to take over the business: she was just the daughter.

  Rebecca surprised herself and her colleagues: she was better suited to running a business than hot-headed Marty. Her brother had been a brilliant dealmaker, a quality Rebecca would never possess, but she was methodical, organised and highly knowledgeable. Though not particularly liked, she was universally respected in the art world as a person of acumen and superior knowledge.

  As she walked back and forth, Rebecca tried to empty her mind and concentrate solely on the picture. If Memling wouldn’t tell her why it was so important, she would have to find out for herself. For once, Rebecca did not feel like bowing to her father’s instructions and she questioned his judgement. She also realised for the first time in her memory that her indomitable, controlling father was vulnerable and frightened.

  Checking that her door was locked, Rebecca went to the fireplace and, twisting a griffin’s shield, stood back to wait for her secret safe to open. Known only to Marty, herself and Memling, this walk-in room, fourteen-foot square, held particular paintings and company records, including details of every sale made and every artwork that had ever passed through the company’s hands, including many that had been sold privately. Memling’s records dated back to his arrival in England in 1946, shortly after his liberation from Auschwitz. Aged fifteen when the war broke out, Memling had never finished formal education but, as he told Rebecca many times, his mother was an art-school teacher who delighted in her son’s enthusiasm. His treatment in the concentration camps (a period about which he never spoke) left Memling unsuited for regular work. Knowing, loving and dealing in paintings had been his only option.

  Closing the door of the safe behind her, Rebecca went over to the shelves containing the vast ledgers. Measuring four foot by three, each leather-bound book was specially made for Winkleman by a firm in East Berlin. Entry after entry, in careful, legible handwriting, gave the details of all p
aintings sold, where they came from, the price they were bought for and how much they sold for. There were a series of annotations or cross-references detailing known provenance, scholarship and other relevant facts. More than 1,150 paintings had passed through the Winklemans’ hands; most acquired in the last thirty years through auction or private sales. Studying these ledgers, Rebecca thought, would give any historian a fascinating glimpse of the art market and the history of taste. She lifted down the first book, marked 1946, and, turning over the heavy leather-bound cover, started to look through the entries. She didn’t have a photograph of the missing painting, just a description and a photocopy of the Jean de Julienne catalogue entry. Measuring eighteen by twenty-four inches, painted on canvas in oil, it showed a woman teasing her lover in a glade, watched over by a clown. The date was 1703; the artist was Jean-Antoine Watteau. Carefully turning over the yellowing pages, she ran her finger over each record, looking for entries marked as French eighteenth century.

  Earlier, she had checked the company’s computerised database and found three paintings by Watteau that had passed through the company’s hands. One had been bought about ten years earlier at auction, one in the 1970s and the third had the special classification VZW (Vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg), designating a handful of paintings acquired during the Second World War. As always, Rebecca was struck by both the luck for the Winklemans and the inherent tragedy for the vendors of the VZW (pre-war) and NZW (post-war) classification. As Memling told his children, the rise of the Nazi party in the 1930s meant many Jews wanted to leave Berlin but lacked the means of escape. Knowing that Esther Winkleman was an art lover and that her husband Ezra earned good money as a lawyer, they sold their paintings to the family. After the war, even if they survived, few ever wanted them back. ‘We saved many lives,’ Memling told his children. The NZW moniker referred to the immediate post-war period when the bottom had fallen out of the picture market. Again the Winklemans came to the rescue of poor Jews who wanted to trade paintings for food and other necessities. Our business, Memling told his children, is built on unavoidable, legitimate sadness.

  Working quickly, Rebecca took down ledger after ledger looking for details of the missing picture. Her father had said the painting had left his ownership over twenty years earlier but refused to tell her when he had bought it or from whom. Rebecca combed the books up to the late 1990s but found no mention of any painting by Watteau matching the description. Rebecca was confused. Her father was a meticulous record-keeper and no detail was too small to overlook. Again she wondered why Memling was interested in a painting which he did not appear to own.

  When possible, each painting was photographed as well as described. Its condition, provenance and any known publications were listed and accompanied by an original bill of sale. No wonder Marty had wanted to write about these transactions: his dream was to tell the history of the demise of German Jews via the chattels they owned. Memling had been passionately against the idea; the war and its aftermath were still far too recent for him. It was one of the areas that father and son clashed on. Rebecca felt a pang of longing for Marty; hardly a day went past when she didn’t miss her brother. While she was neat, small and measured, Marty had been ebullient, vivacious and passionate. Rebecca understood art because she had pored over attributions and history; Marty felt it: he had never looked at a monograph or studied an underdrawing, he had just known instinctively what was great and how the painter had achieved his aim.

  Thinking that Memling might have made a rare mistake, Rebecca searched through the other paintings of that period, works by Pater, Lancret, Boucher and Fragonard. Again and again she was struck by the quality and rarity of the works that her father had bought. If Memling had kept only a half of his stock, they could have founded a world-class museum.

  Checking her watch, Rebecca realised that two hours had passed. She had a meeting in thirty minutes with a client visiting from Switzerland who wanted to buy a Cézanne. Picking up a ledger from 1974, Rebecca struggled to put the heavy book back on the shelf and, twisting her body awkwardly, caught sight of something taped to the underside of the sill. Putting the ledger down, she ran her hand under the shelf and felt some masking tape holding a small exercise book in place. Finding the torch app on her phone, Rebecca shone the light and tentatively peeled away at the edges of the tape until she could slide the book out without damage. Her heart leapt when she saw Marty’s familiar handwriting, the great messy curves that had driven his teachers wild. Memling used to joke that if his children had come back as painters, Rebecca would have been Ingres, careful and precise, while Marty was more late Titian, with daring and romantic strokes.

  Flicking through the notebook, Rebecca became confused by the references to about 125 paintings, including dates and notes on provenance. Why would Marty have created a separate system when Memling’s worked so effectively? Next to each entry, Marty had put symbols, letters and strange annotations, none of which meant anything to her. In the front of the book, written in capitals, was an address in Berlin.

  Using her smartphone, Rebecca photographed every page of the notebook before placing it back under the shelf. Instinctively she knew that the notebook and the missing picture were connected. Through the huge glass wall, Rebecca saw that her client had arrived and was looking at a late Turner hanging in the gallery. Picking up her telephone, she dialled her assistant.

  ‘Liora, cancel my meetings today and tomorrow. Tell John to deal with my client.’

  ‘Can I help you with anything?’ Liora asked.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Rebecca said politely. Liora and everyone else in the office must never suspect that there was a problem. The business was built on a solid foundation of fear, respect and confidence.

  Before leaving, Rebecca checked that the security camera trained permanently on Annie’s kitchen was working. (She had installed other CCTV eyes around the office to make it seem as if everyone was being monitored.) A firm of private detectives was scrutinising every move that Annie made, as well as her phone calls and emails. Taking a permanently packed overnight bag and her passport, Rebecca slipped out of the back door of the office and hailed a passing cab. This time she would not be using the company’s jet.

  ‘Heathrow airport,’ she instructed.

  Barty and Vlad walked through the Chester Square house. It had already been done to the highest of specs and was bathed in endless variations of cream and beige.

  ‘It’s too hideous for words but we could make something of it,’ Barty trilled.

  ‘Looks good, new,’ Vlad said, stepping gingerly on the snow-white wool Wilton carpet.

  ‘No, darling. Not good. It’s common,’ Barty said sternly.

  ‘Common?’ Vlad asked. Barty used this word liberally. In the last few hours he had proclaimed many things to be common, including loving your mother, vitamin pills, sparkling water, pashminas, nights in, nylon knickers, Mayfair, business cards, sushi, scented candles, BMWs, the South of France, Courcheval, children named after jewels or suburbs, summer holidays and, worst of all, Vlad’s beloved leather jacket.

  ‘Common is to be avoided. It’s for ordinary people,’ Barty said, tut-tutting as he looked round the grand drawing room, which was painted off-white. ‘I loathe beige. It’s like living in a pair of unwashed knickers. I see red, I see swagged curtains, I see velvet sofas, I see pouffes, I see a great brass chandelier, I see Performance, Mick and Marianne, hookah pipes, cashmere shawls and kilims,’ Barty said, dancing from foot to foot, his enthusiasm building with each step.

  Vlad had no idea what the man was on about but had learned it was probably simpler to nod. He wondered if there were enough walls to tempt a Lyudmila kind of advisor into his life.

  ‘We need to set the scene, create a mood.’

  Vlad looked around. ‘White good.’

  ‘No darling, white is common – do listen,’ Barty said, looking up at Vlad’s broad torso.

  ‘How much house?’ Vlad asked, looking around. He didn’t particu
larly like it but Barty had already dragged him round six properties. Convinced that his suite at the Connaught was bugged, increasingly paranoid about noises coming out of Moscow, Vlad was keen to have a place of his own. The security firm had assured him that this mansion, with a small mews house at the back, was eminently protectable.

  ‘It’s twenty-four million on a lovely long lease and you’ll need to spend another five decorating it,’ Barty said in his most soothing voice.

  ‘OK. Let’s buy.’

  Unable to find a meter, Beachendon had parked half a mile away from his destination in a car park under the arches. At least, he thought gloomily, no one would torch or key the paintwork. A young man in a baseball hat sat in a booth reading a comic and, without looking up, handed a parking ticket to the Earl.

  ‘Which way is Whitechapel Road?’ Beachendon asked.

  ‘Down the street, two lefts, one right and straight on,’ the man replied, jerking his hand to the left.

  Stepping out in the road, the Earl pulled his velvet-collared navy-blue cashmere coat around him and, transferring his keys into one trouser pocket and his telephone into the other, wondered if he should have left his wallet in the car. The surrounding buildings were a mish-mash of styles and dates; a former Victorian factory next to a seventies office block, an eighties housing development and a spanking new academy school built in wood and stainless steel. A teenager walked towards him with a dog, a weapon of destruction, on a lead. The owner had pink and purple hair, a nose ring and an attitude visible from fifty yards; the panting dog’s head, white, almost triangular in shape, nodded from side to side as it walked, looking, the Earl surmised, for a shin to bite or a throat to rip. Wanting to put space between himself and his assailants, Beachendon wondered if he should cross the street; in the end he decided to brave out a confrontation with the girl and her animal. They passed without incident.