by Ian Hamilton
“I have no bloody idea. It could be anything. Maurice was a real pack rat — he never threw anything away.”
“Ms. Byrne, is it possible that I could stop by to take a look at those papers?”
“You’d come all the way from Canada for that?”
“Actually I’m in England right now.”
“Still, that’s an awful lot of trouble for Maurice’s leftovers.”
“Ms. Byrne, this is quite important to my client. He has some art that he thinks was painted by Mr. O’Toole, and he wants it confirmed. I am prepared to pay you for any assistance you can provide.”
“How much are we talking about?” she said swiftly.
“How about a thousand dollars?”
“We use euros here.”
“A thousand euros then.”
“All right, Ms. Lee, bring the cash with you and you can poke away in Maurice’s boxes to your heart’s content.”
“I’m going to try to catch a flight out of here this afternoon.”
“Do you have my address?”
“I do.”
“We’re about fifteen kilometres from the Dublin airport. Any taxi driver will know where Donabate is.”
“Do you mind if I drop by when I get in?”
“As long as you bring the money, you can come at midnight if you want.”
( 20 )
At a quarter to four Ava stepped outside at Dublin Airport into wet, cold, mean weather. She was beginning to think that all of Europe was sitting under one giant rain cloud. She pulled a Steinum sweater from her bag and put it on.
She had called Helen Byrne as soon as she could turn on her cellphone and was now officially expected. She lined up at the taxi stand; to her right was a mass of people huddled inside a fenced area, partially hidden by small trees. “Stupid smokers,” the woman in front of her said. “They call that area Sherwood Forest because of the trees. Those idiots would stand there even if it was hailing on them.” She was holding a large umbrella and moved it towards Ava so they were both covered.
“Thank you so much,” Ava said.
“Are you Vietnamese?”
“No, Chinese-Canadian.”
“There are lots of Vietnamese in Dublin these days. Them and Poles. Don’t know what restaurants and hotels would do without them. Shut down, probably.”
The line moved quickly, and Ava was in a taxi before most of the smokers had finished getting their fix. She asked the driver to take her to Donabate. “A pretty little town,” he said. “The surrounding area, Fingal, is just as nice.” Ava couldn’t see any of it through the rain and mist. “The town is on a peninsula overlooking the Irish Sea,” he went on. “It has some fine beaches.” Ava wondered how many days a year those beaches could be enjoyed.
The cab stopped in front of a small whitewashed cottage four doors down from a miniature Tesco and six doors from a Boots store. Ava paid the driver, walked up to the front door, and gave the brass knocker a solid rap. She pressed close to the house, trying to keep dry.
The door swung open wide and Ava almost fell inside. “You’re not what I expected,” a woman said.
Neither are you, Ave thought as she stared up at a tall, gangly woman wearing jeans and a red fleece top zipped to the neck. For some reason she had imagined a small, thin, grey-haired old lady. Helen’s hair was dyed blonde, dark at the roots, and combed over to one side. She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties, though it was hard to tell through the thick layer of makeup.
“You’re young,” Helen said.
“Not as young as I look.”
“And I thought you’d look more professional somehow.” Ava glanced down at her training pants and running shoes. “Did you bring the money?”
She passed Helen the wad of euros she’d withdrawn from the ATM at the airport.
“Come in,” Helen said.
Ava put down her bags in the narrow hallway.
“Do you want to go directly to the shed?”
“Please.”
The cottage was tiny, with no more than six rooms. They walked past two closed doors on either side to the back, where the kitchen door opened onto the yard. There was an empty pizza box on the counter. “That’s the shed; the door is open,” Helen said. “There isn’t a light in there and it will get dark in a couple of hours, so you’d better work fast.”
The shed couldn’t have been more than three metres square, big enough for a lawnmower and some basic gardening equipment. Ava pushed the door open and was immediately hit by a musty smell, the kind that damp paper generates. Geez, she thought, all that way for this.
Four rows of cardboard boxes were stacked against the far wall, three boxes high. She opened one and saw a row of neatly hung files, each of their tabs clearly marked. Her spirits rose. Then she noticed that the boxes were dated, starting with 1984–85 and the last dated 2004. She loved tidiness.
She scanned the tabs in the most recent box. Many of the files contained mundane documents, business expenses, bank statements. There was a file marked Jan Sørensen. She opened it and saw copies of all the correspondence that had gone back and forth between the two men. There was another marked Hughes Gallery. And one identified Derain. She opened it with a touch of excitement. Inside was a complete record of the life of a painting: the letter from Glen Hughes requesting the work; Maurice O’Toole’s reply; an invoice for the finished work, sent to an address she didn’t recognize; and a Polaroid photo of the painting itself, with the completion date and a title written across the bottom. You beautiful man, she thought.
She pulled down another box and opened it to find an almost exact duplicate of the first, except instead of Derain, there were tabs for Braque and Dufy. The Dufy file was as complete as the Derain. Ava removed the lids from two more boxes and found more of the same. Drops of water began to fall on her head and on the files. Great, she thought, looking up at a small leak in the ceiling. Ava thought about asking Helen if she could take the boxes into the kitchen and work there, and then thought better of it. She didn’t want the woman standing over her shoulder as she looked through them, and she knew she was going to have to make copies — lots of copies.
She made her way back to the house. Helen was standing in the kitchen with a bottle of beer in her hand. “Back so soon?”
“We need to talk,” Ava said. “I can’t work in the shed. What I’d like to do is take the boxes to my hotel and work there. It’s going to take me a day, maybe longer, to work through them, and I have to take notes and make copies.”
“What hotel?”
“I don’t have one yet, but give me a minute and I will.”
Helen nodded.
Ava called her travel agent in Toronto. “I need a hotel in Dublin, Ireland. I want a suite, something with a proper work area. Book it for two nights.” She turned to Helen. “So you’re okay with this?”
She shrugged and Ava saw she was doing her own calculations. “Look, we can do a different kind of deal, you know.”
“What are you thinking?” Helen asked.
“I’ll buy the files from you.”
“Now why would you do that?”
“I’ll be wanting to have some of the original documents rather than copies. Instead of doing this piecemeal, why don’t we strike a deal for the lot?”
Helen sipped her beer, her eyes suspicious. “Have you found something in those boxes, I mean, something valuable?”
“Ms. Byrne, you can go through each and every box before I take it away.”
Helen winced. “Not bloody likely. So, okay, assuming you want to buy them all, what kind of price are we talking about? I mean, you were willing to pay a thousand euros just to look at them.”
“Another thousand.”
“Ten thousand sounds better.”
“Ms. Byrne, without me that paper is junk,” Ava said.
“Five thousand.”
“I’ll give you two.”
Helen nodded. “When can I see the money?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Then the files stay here until then.”
“Please, Ms. Byrne, don’t make me waste my evening. Let me take at least a couple of boxes tonight. The balance can stay here until you get your money.”
Ava’s cellphone rang. She listened, said “Thanks,” and then turned to Helen. “The Morrison Hotel on Ormond Quay. Do you know where that is?”
“Centre of Dublin.”
“That’s where I’ll be. Come by tomorrow anytime after eleven with the rest of the boxes and I’ll have your money for you.”
( 21 )
Ava’s suite at the Morrison gave her a jolt of déjà vu. It had the same bold, bright minimalist look as the Fletcher Hotel — black-and-white furnishings with bright red cushions and duvet cover. But instead of looking down on Kensington Gardens, the view was of the River Liffey flowing slowly by.
She had the bellman put the boxes on the floor in the sitting area and dropped her carry-on in the bedroom. When he left, she took off her still-damp clothing and hung it in the bathroom to dry. Then she opened the Double Happiness computer bag and took out her notebook. She wanted to review her notes, try to create some kind of timeline, before attacking the files.
Her phone rang and May Ling Wong’s number appeared on the screen. Ava looked at her watch. It was past midnight in Wuhan.
I can’t avoid her forever, she thought. “Ava Lee.”
“May Ling.”
“It’s late for you.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I called Uncle and he said he hadn’t heard from you. It’s been some days now and I’m curious as to how you’re doing.”
“I don’t have much to report.”
“But you’re still looking — that must mean something.”
“It means I’m still looking.”
“I’m going to assume that’s positive.”
“It isn’t anything right now,” Ava said.
“Where are you? Physically, I mean?”
“Ireland.”
“Why?”
“Auntie, please let me do my job. I promise you, the moment I have something to report, I’ll call.”
The line went quiet. “Ava, I asked you not to call me Auntie,” she finally said.
“I’m sorry, May. I forgot.”
“Uncle said you were difficult to reach and reluctant to talk about the job at hand. I thought he was exaggerating.”
“He wasn’t.”
“I thought after our chat in Wuhan that we had built a trust.”
“May, this has nothing to do with trust, or friendship, or anything other than the fact that I refuse to speculate on how well things are going and when it will end. It’s better for you and better for me that way. You don’t have unrealistic expectations, and I’m not burdened.”
“Ava, if — and I repeat and emphasize the if — if you do find something I want you to promise you’ll let me be the first to know. I don’t want to hear it from Uncle.”
“I can do that,” Ava said.
“Then I’ll hear from you.”
“You will.”
Ava hung up and dialled Uncle’s number. If May Ling had been talking to Uncle, Ava assumed he was still up.
“Wei.”
“It’s Ava. May Ling just called me.”
“She phoned here four times today. I finally spoke to her tonight. She said she wanted to talk to me about our agreement. I think she was just testing, seeing if we were encouraged enough to ask for one.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her it was too soon to discuss it.”
“Thank you.”
“Is it too soon?”
“Yes. I don’t have enough to go on.”
“I thought London was going to be helpful.”
“Not yet. I handled it badly and now I need to find another reason to go back.”
“What is your plan?”
“I’m working on one. By tomorrow I might know.”
“Call me then, one way or another. This is taking up a lot of time, and I sense you are getting frustrated. Sometimes we just have to walk away.”
As Ava hung up she felt a pain in her stomach. She had gone all day without eating, and now she was ravenous. She reached for the room service menu and ordered potato and haddock soup and a steak sandwich made from aged Hereford.
She opened her notebook on the coffee table in the sitting area and reached for the first box, the one with the most recent records. She worked steadily for an hour, stopping only to answer the door when room service called. She opened every file folder and looked at every scrap of paper, taking nothing for granted. Helen Byrne wasn’t wrong: Maurice O’Toole had been a hoarder. He kept not only bills and receipts related to his paintings but receipts for every household expense, bank statements, and copies of the cheques he had received. He would have made a good bookkeeper, Ava thought. What surprised her was how few sales he had made. In addition to the Derain he faked during that period, he had sold only ten of his own paintings, and they netted him less than the one Derain.
The second, third, and fourth boxes were more of the same. It had taken her close to four hours to go through the paperwork, and all she had when she was done was the same information Helga Sørensen had given her, though more detailed, and she had the photos of the paintings. But it was still only Glen Hughes’ signature on the letters requesting works “in the style of,” and there was no hint of any impropriety.
She pored over the invoices, deposit slips, and bank statements, hoping she could find something that might link Edwin to the forgeries or expose a bank account other than those she knew about in Liechtenstein and Kowloon. There was nothing. Maurice O’Toole was paid exclusively from the Liechtenstein account, most often by a cheque signed by Glen Hughes. There was no mention in the files of the $100,000 Nancy O’Toole had received from the Kowloon account. Ava made a note to ask Helen if Nancy had been as professional about record-keeping as her husband.
It was eleven o’clock and she thought about going to bed, but her head was too full of O’Toole’s files. Ava looked outside at the River Liffey, lit by streetlamps filtering through a fine mist. The heavy rain had abated but it still looked chilly outside. It had been like this since she had arrived in Europe, and her mood was beginning to take on the character of the weather. Every time she thought she had found a ray of sun, a dark cloud had smothered it. She sighed and reached for her Adidas jacket. She needed a walk.
( 22 )
Ava woke at eight and immediately checked her email. Maria and Mimi had both written again.
Ava, you can’t be so casual about Maria’s mother, Mimi wrote. This is an enormous event for Maria. She needs support, and she needs it from no one else but you. If you aren’t prepared to meet the woman, then I think you need to let Maria know and you need to tell her why. And I have to say that if she means what I think she means to you, you do need to do this.
Ava closed the message and sighed, thinking over what Mimi had written. Then she clicked on an email from Maria. I hope everything is going well. I didn’t hear back from you yesterday. Did you receive my email about my mother visiting?
Ava wrote, I’m getting caught up and just read your message. If you are happy about your mother visiting, then I’m happy for you. Will I get to meet her? Miss you. Ava.
Ava was startled when she returned to her inbox and saw an email from Michael Lee. She hesitated before finally opening it. When you have the time, call me, or better still could you arrange to come to Hong Kong? There are some things I need to discuss with you. It was signed, Warmest
regards, Michael.
Now what the hell is this about? she thought, and then remembered the remark her father had made in his message about wanting to talk to her about Michael. She wrote to her father, Why do you need to talk to me about Michael? And then for good measure, she added, And how did you ever get Mummy and Bruce to play nice? And why are you staying an extra week in Toronto?
She closed the computer and looked over at the boxes on the floor. She knew she was going to spend the day going through more of them, so she didn’t need to dress up, but she was rankled by Helen’s remark about not looking professional. She put on her black Brooks Brothers shirt and cotton slacks, fixed her hair with the ivory chignon pin, and even put on a little makeup.
She went downstairs to have breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant. From where she sat she had a view of the lobby, and at around ten o’clock a view of Helen Byrne pushing a baggage trolley through the front doors.
Ava went to meet her. “You’re early,” she said to Helen’s back.
Helen spun around, her hair wet, water dripping down her face. “I have some shopping to do, so I thought I’d take advantage of coming into town. But there’s all this goddamn rain.”
“I’m glad to see you, and actually I have your money.”
They rode the elevator together, Helen rubbing at her hair with the sleeve of her denim shirt. When they walked into the room, Helen left Ava with the boxes and headed directly to the bathroom. She came out with a towel wrapped around her head. “Eight more boxes,” she said. “The taxi didn’t want to take them, so I had to pay extra.”
Ava handed her the bundle of cash that she had withdrawn from an ATM the night before. Helen counted the bills, her lips moving as she did so.
“I meant to ask you,” Ava said. “Around the time that Maurice died, maybe shortly thereafter, Nancy received a lump-sum payment of one hundred thousand U.S. dollars. It was sent to her from a bank in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Did she mention anything to you about this?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“It was a large amount. From what I can see in those files, Maurice didn’t have any money. When you said he left her comfortable, I assumed they had money in the bank.”
