The Improbability of Love

by Hannah Rothschild

  ‘Will you be along soon?’ The policeman asked.

  ‘No – I won’t. Tell my mother she should not contact me. I have had enough of her lies and her drunkenness.’

  ‘What about the picture, the damages?’ the policeman asked.

  ‘That is between the publican and her. As far as I am concerned, I never want to see either again. Thank you.’ Annie hung up.

  She expected to feel a sense of liberation – she had finally stopped enabling her mother – but there was no sense of triumph or relief. She just felt terribly sad. Evie had wasted her life and Annie had spent far too long worrying about her.

  Picking up her bags, Annie took the empty glass to the bar. She knew that however much time and distance she put between her and Evie, she would never escape the memories, never be able to answer her telephone without a sense of dread and foreboding. Still, she had a job offer in New York. Perhaps one thing would lead to another and she would start a new life in the US. The thought was suddenly thrilling. She had nothing to keep her in London apart from a job that she did not enjoy and a flat she did not particularly like. Walking down the Uxbridge Road, Annie made a plan. She would hand in her notice and accept the job offer in New York.

  The process of destroying the incriminating parts of the Winkleman archive was taking longer than Rebecca had hoped. She had bought two industrial-sized paper shredders, but with over twenty large leather-bound ledgers and sixty-nine trunks of records, and the necessity of working through the night discreetly after business hours, it meant that after four nights she had only destroyed the evidence for one year – 1946. Because Memling had so consistently raided the Bavarian mine, without checking and cross-checking three different sources, Rebecca could not be sure which works had come from war stock and which had been obtained from bona fide sources. Most of the pictures were entirely legitimate, with clear records of where they had been bought, from whom, for what and with equally detailed records of their sales. Memling was a meticulous record-keeper – every detail was logged: the minor country salerooms, even the underbidders, the auctioneer, bank accounts used, frames, and amounts spent on restoration and transport.

  In a filing cabinet in the safe, she found records of all of Memling’s journeys. Rebecca read that during 1946 her father had made several trips to Bavaria, three to Munich, one to Vienna and four to Buenos Aires. Was there anyone who had witnessed those trips or guessed why they had been made? She glanced at her twenty-first birthday present, the small Raphael oil, and then to her father’s gift to her on the birth of Grace, an exquisite Klimt painting now worth in excess of £12 million. Had he bought these or were they purloined as well?

  Rebecca thought about the families who were desperately trying to retrieve works of art; hardly a day went by without some heartbreaking story in the newspapers. One family, the Silvermans, once wealthy and powerful burghers of Germany, had lived out their days on benefits in Grimsby. Manny Silverman was still alive, ninety-eight, crippled by arthritis, hoping to get just one of his family’s missing paintings returned. Even the humblest Modigliani, the least valuable of Manny Silverman’s paintings, would buy his grandchildren a tiny annuity against the hardship of modern living. Manny had found a few posessions, two in German galleries, four in Russian museums, but neither country was prepared to return his inheritance. The war had ended, Rebecca realised, but the battles continued. To her relief, she could find no claims for restitution against pictures that her father had sold. Perhaps, Rebecca thought, she could use the millions that they had made to help those in need; she could launder her conscience.

  It was trying to establish the provenance of another work, a Titian, that gave Rebecca an idea. Logged in the gallery’s records in 1962, it was described as Man in Furs. It had no provenance and had the telltale initials KH next to it. However, in a later leger, Rebecca found another Titian, with identical measurements, a similar composition and with a perfect provenance called Man in Ermine. Was this the same painting under a different title? Had her father faked titles and provenances?

  Rebecca laughed – how could she have been so slow, so naïve? Faking documents was anathema to a trained art historian such as herself, but if she was to enter the world of subterfuge and cover up one of the greatest frauds in the history of art dealing, it was time to stop thinking like an academic and start behaving like a criminal. Many dealers, owners and even museums regularly amended history of ownership – she could do the same with the Watteau and create an entirely fictitious provenance that led people away from the gallery in another direction. She could easily fabricate a provenance for the painting which avoided the Second World War altogether by falsifying documents and records to look as if the painting had been holed up in a Scottish castle or an American robber baron’s house. Now that Trichcombe had been dealt with, his phone, computer and other records destroyed, who could ever link the painting to the young SS officer via the Berlin apartment block? Even if someone did trace Frau Goldberg, she no longer had the offending photograph in her possession. Then Rebecca had another idea. The company owned several Watteaus, all bought legitimately. All she needed was to substitute the records of one of roughly the same size and subject matter for the ‘Love’ picture.

  This time, Rebecca went to the drinks cabinet and opened a bottle of vintage Cristal – she had, finally, something to celebrate. Carrying her glass back into the strongroom, she pulled out the records relating to the family’s other Watteaus. There were seventeen drawings and though none were suitable, she made a quick copy on her smartphone of their provenance. There was one large oil bought earlier that year at Sotheby’s and she ruled that out, as its subject matter, a music party, was too well documented. Memling had acquired another picture in the 1970s, Soldiers at Valenciennes, a picture painted by a young Watteau, but this was the wrong size and subject matter. There was one more possibility, The Rejection, bought in 1951 and still in the company storeroom.

  Rebecca looked back through The Rejection’s history. The Marquis de Jumblie had bought it in 1869 from a sale in Paris of the collection of the Duke of Pennant. Pennant had, in turn bought it from Lord Cuddington, who had acquired it directly from the estate of Madame de Pompadour at Versailles. Rebecca closed the file and, holding up her glass, curtseyed to the memory of Louis’s mistress. All that remained now was to destroy The Rejection and switch the two provenances. It seemed barbaric to burn a picture worth around £5–£8 million but a small price to preserve a family’s reputation.

  Rebecca’s thoughts turned to Annie. Could she have known or was it really just a bizarre coincidence? Was there any way that Carlo had found out about Memling’s past and sent his chef to find the incriminating evidence? Rebecca discounted this theory quickly. Her husband was heavily implicated in fraudulent activities. The other possibility was that Annie had worked this all out for herself. Reaching up to a lever arch file, Rebecca took down Annie’s dossier and flicked through it. According to a hastily commissioned but apparently thorough report, Annie was just what she claimed: the adult daughter of an alcoholic, who had been unceremoniously ditched by her long-standing boyfriend and had come to London to try and create a new life. The private investigator had been through every one of her bank statements and phone records for the last five years and found no strange payments, no inexplicable numbers. It was a pathetic life, Rebecca thought. Enslaved to a man, cast out, losing your business and reduced to making your way as a chef, condemned to poaching fish day in and day out.

  Looking at the CCTV pictures of Annie leaving the junk shop, a new thought crossed Rebecca’s mind. She logged on to the company’s own CCTV database and punched in a random day that Annie had worked. Rebecca looked at footage of Annie at her hob, Annie chopping, cutting and filleting. Hitting the fast-forward button, Rebecca relived Annie’s days. The woman had a work ethic, that was for sure – she only left her kitchen to go to the bathroom. Nor was she wasting hours on Google or dating sites. Rebecca fast-forwarded through the CCTV images ev
en though she was not quite sure what she was looking for.

  Then by accident, Rebecca saw Annie bringing something into work; the package was the same size as the missing picture, about eighteen by twenty-four inches and in a plastic bag. Annie put the bag on top of the kitchen counter at one end. Later the same day, Rebecca saw herself enter the kitchen and search Annie’s drawers. To think the picture was right there, Rebecca thought. She spooled on through the next few days – the bag sat in the same place. The irony was not lost on Rebecca.

  On the Thursday, Annie left work with the plastic bag. It proved to Rebecca that the woman had no idea of the importance of what she was carrying. Had Annie had the slightest inkling, she wouldn’t have kept it so unceremoniously; if she was a professional sleuth, she would never have brought the painting into the lions’ den. Rebecca heaved a sigh of relief – it was a horrible coincidence.

  Rebecca realised that all she had to do was splice the CCTV footage in a different way and she could make it look as if Annie had stolen the picture from the Winkleman storeroom. Without Trichcombe’s evidence and the old lady’s photographs, without the records in the family archive, this work belonged legally to the Winkleman family and had been stolen from their vaults. It would be Annie’s word against Memling’s – a temporary cook versus the Holocaust survivor who had donated so many millions of pounds to European museums over the last decades.

  What would a court deduce? That was easy. Annie would claim that she bought the painting on a whim from a junk shop. Could she explain where the junk shop was? It has since burned down, Your Honour. Really? Isn’t that something of a coincidence? It does look that way, Your Honour. Where is your receipt for the painting? I never asked for one – the owner was in a hurry to get to the bookmakers. Are you in the habit of buying presents but not asking for a receipt? Aren’t you a chef in full-time employment and a former businesswoman – surely you know the importance of getting receipts for the taxman? Yes, Your Honour. The person who sold you the painting perished in the fire didn’t he? That’s what the policewoman told me when I went back to the shop the next day. So you were at the crime scene the day before and on the day of the fire? It’s not like that. So what is it like? It was a coincidence, Your Honour, a horrible coincidence. Is it also a horrible co-incidence that there is CCTV footage of you putting a package that exactly matches the proportions of the missing painting, stuffed into a plastic bag, into your desk drawer? Your Honour, the same camera will reveal that I brought the package into the office that same morning – it had been at my house and I was taking it to the National Gallery to show to a restorer. Miss McDee, the CCTV camera does not show you coming into the building with the package. It must, Your Honour. No it does not – all footage from the CCTV camera between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. has been mysteriously wiped: the prosecution allege that you took the painting from the Winkleman vault during your lunch break and wiped the digital records before anyone returned. But, Your Honour, I have no idea where the CCTV camera banks are located. Access to the vault is limited only to Mr Memling and Ms Rebecca – no one else has the passcodes or keys.In Rebecca’s fantasy version, the judge turned to the police officer standing guard and commanded, ‘Take her down – fifteen years.’

  The newspapers would have a field day – lots of censorious pieces about alcoholism. Lots of Thelma and Louise, mother-and-daughter grifters stereotyping. The more stories, the less likely the truth was to come out. Real facts would be hidden behind a smokescreen of tabloid reporting. Rebecca felt no guilt about sending an innocent woman to jail. It was survival of the fittest, ensuring Grace’s future and the Winkleman bloodline. Rebecca understood the young Memling Winkleman better than he could have imagined. Another thought crossed Rebecca’s mind. She should auction the picture and donate the proceeds to some Jewish cause – if it fetched enough, perhaps she could even create a museum in her mother’s name – after all, she had been a Jew who had lost many relations in the Holocaust. It would not be an entirely cynical move: the Winkleman Centre for Survivors.

  Looking at the clock on her desk Rebecca saw that it was 3 a.m. She must get a decent night’s sleep to remain alert and clear-headed. Before turning in, she decided to walk around the block to clear her head. Stepping out into the mews behind the gallery, Rebecca felt small stabs of excitement – things were going to be different, very different. For the first time in her life she did not feel frightened – instead she felt a sense of strength and purpose. Walking along Curzon Street, she looked up at a plane and realised that it was not going to fall from the sky and crush her. A taxi drove towards her and this time, the driver was not going to lose control and mow her down. She let her thoughts drift to Grace – a few days ago Rebecca had spent an entire night worrying about her daughter’s affair with the Russian – now she thought of Grace’s love life with a sense of detachment and even a scintilla of amusement.

  As she walked, Rebecca felt a glow of purposeful determination. Until now her efforts had seemed unfocused – she had wanted to bring up her daughter and to write respected academic papers, and not get found out. From now on, her life would be devoted to ensuring that Winkleman Fine Art remained the world’s pre-eminent dealers in Old Master paintings.

  As Rebecca walked up New Bond Street, she caught a glimpse of herself in a plate-glass window: it was time to overhaul her appearance. Her suits and hairstyle were stuck in a previous decade and she needed to make a statement and get noticed as a woman of individuality, panache and style. Looking in one shop, she saw a sumptuous evening coat made from red velvet and gold brocade and decided to buy it. She would change her lipstick from pale pink to letter-box red and ask Grace to help her choose a new hairstyle.

  At the corner of the street was the billboard for the evening paper flapping in a cool breeze. The headline caught Rebecca’s attention. ‘The Painting, the Piss Artist and the Publican’. She stopped and stared at it. There was a photograph of the missing picture. Rebecca felt sick with fear – was she too late? Taking out her smartphone, Rebecca punched in the address of the pub and read the headlines quickly. Turning back, she hurried towards her office. Though the news potentially helped corroborate her story against Annie, there was work to be done on doctoring the footage as well as expunging certain aspects of the family’s records. She would not sleep until all the evidence was gone and the picture had an entirely new and wholly plausible provenance.

  Chapter 33

  I have been rediscovered. One is frightfully pleased: after so many years in the wilderness, it is delicious to bathe in the hum of praise, the murmurs of approbation and the glow of appreciation. I have had a little clean and have been hastily fitted with a perfect period frame. The auctioneer, the Earl of Something or Other, is using every trick in his book, all the selling ploys, to hot up my auction, which is scheduled to take place in July, two months hence. I have teams of girls in tight-fitting suits escorting the world’s collectors and museum directors to see moi. There are conservators examining every thread of my canvas. There are underwriters and bankers standing by, waiting to lend assistance to cash-soaked desperados longing for a piece of moi.

  Le tout art world will be there and most are predicting a record price. Everyone knows about mon histoire . . . my illustrious line of owners, Les Amants du Monde. Suddenly, thanks to moi, history is fashionable. Apparemment, even the lowliest are parleying in shopping centres about creativity and the likes of Voltaire, Louis and Frederick are bandied about with the frequency of soap stars. It’s de rigueur to drop the name Madame de Pompadour into casual conversation.

  Septimus Ward-Thomas solved the riddle of the face when he realised that someone had painted over Charlotte’s visage. You can only imagine the kerfuffle and foofaraw about whether to restore or not to restore. They even brought in psychiatrists and philosophers to debate the effect on Watteau’s mind. I wanted to shout and scream: the painter has been dead for almost three hundred years.

  Rebecca decided to publish the details of my lurid hi
story. Memling, in her version, was cast as a poor Jewish boy who, unlike his entire family, narrowly escaped death in a concentration camp. Taking his mother’s most prized possession, a Watteau, he had hidden out in a remote farmhouse during the war until his rescue by the Allies in 1946, where he was found clutching moi like some security blanket. Everyone agreed that it was far too good a story to make up. Except, of course, that somebody did.

  They are fighting over the film rights.

  A hairy man is making a documentary for the BBC.

  The Earl has commissioned my biography – about time too – by some fancy writer, a potter who is good with words and melodrama. There will be many mistakes, of course, but gratifying nonetheless. Right now I am hanging in state in Houghton Street. I have more visitors than a dead monarch. There are queues. Franchement.

  Next month I am to go on tour, like a campaigning general or a rock star, so they say. I will have my own aeroplane, handlers and guards. I will visit America (both coasts), the continents, Moscow, St Petersburg, Tokyo and Beijing. No one bothers with Europe any more – it’s finished. One never thought that Japan and China would get Western art. One is not always right. Once upon a time I thought Russians were barbarians. Come to think of it, I still do.

  The catalogue for the sale will be as thick as a horse’s rump – full of learned essays, details and photographs. There is to be a numbered collector’s edition of one hundred in hardback.

  The Tate, the National Gallery, the National Theatre and others, in a rare attempt at cultural harmony, are co-curating an hommage to The Improbability of Love – twenty contemporary artists, playwrights, singers and what have you of international repute are creating pieces inspired by moi. These works will be auctioned on the night of my great sale – the proceeds will also go to the Winkleman Centre for Survivors. Needless to say, Ms Winkleman is taking a commission on all this. She gets 60 per cent to cover loss and damages (whatever that means).