Quintin Jardine - A Coffin For Two

‘Once the niceties were over with, he led us through to our dining room. The picture was there, just as you see it now, covered up on an easel.

‘We made polite conversation over dinner, all of it in English, since that was our common language. No one spoke much to Starr, other than to be polite. I think that we had all decided by this time that he was in the property business, and that the picture would be of a villa he was trying to sell to the drunkest bidder.

‘For that reason no one drank much. We all finished dinner as quickly as was decently possible, all of us keen to see what the hook was, then get out of there. Pity, really, since it was a bloody good meal, and all the better because someone else was paying.’ He paused, with a grin.

‘Finally we all said, “Bugger the coffee and petit fours, let’s get on with it.” Starr nodded and said, “Fair enough.” He stood up and walked round to the easel, stood beside it and said, “Gentlemen, you have all been invited tonight to give you the opportunity to bid for a painting entitled, ‘The Toreador of the Apocalypse’, a hitherto unknown original work by Salvador Dali. The picture has always been in private hands, and I am here as the agent of the owner. There is no provenance, other than the signature, and naturally that will be reflected in the price expected. You may have ten minutes to examine the work and satisfy yourself as to the signature and to the quality. After that bidding will commence.” And then he whipped off the sheet and turned on the lights.’

‘What happened?’ Jan gasped, literally on the edge of her seat.

‘The German, the Swede and the Belgian each took one look, thanked Starr for dinner and left. I think David Foy would have gone too, but I was hooked. I know art, I was our creative director before I became full-time MD. I’ve studied Dali too. The signature looked absolutely authentic, and the sheer blinding quality of the work backed it up.

‘After ten minutes, Starr tapped the table and we sat down to bid. Bids were in dollars. He opened at one hundred and fifty thousand. The Dutchman nodded, but backed out as soon as the Swiss said a hundred and eighty. I came in at two hundred. There was no one else. I felt David Foy tugging my sleeve, but I ignored him.

‘The Swiss was a fat, arrogant, super-rich bastard, the sort who’d have paid a quarter of a million dollars just for a story to tell the folks back home. He wouldn’t have known a Dali from a Donald Duck. We went to three thousand in steps of twenty thousand. I had stopped thinking by then. He hadn’t. He kept adding more tens, just for the hell of it. Until he bailed out at my bid of four hundred thousand dollars, US. Two hundred and sixty thousand, in sterling.’

I whistled softly. I had never been in a room with that much painting before, other than in an art gallery.

‘I didn’t tell Ida till the next day. Then I had to. We didn’t have two hundred and sixty grand in personal cash; our big dough is in property or pensions. So I had to make it a business purchase, and for that I needed Ida’s name alongside mine to authorise a banker’s draft, and have it DHL’ed out to us.’

‘How did Mrs Scott react?’ I asked, anticipating the answer.

‘She went crazy. We were bound for the divorce court, till she saw the picture, which had been locked up overnight at Peretellada. Then she was okay. She came with me next day, to meet Starr at the Hotel Aiguablava, pay him and collect it. We sent half our luggage back by courier and brought the Dali home in the back of the Range Rover. As soon as I was back in Scotland I got hold of a couple of my painter chums from the Arts Council and asked them if they would authenticate it for me as a Dali. That’s where the real problem began.’

Scott looked at me, earnestly. ‘I know my stuff, Oz. The technique is right, the canvas is old enough. Instinct and experience tell me that’s a Dali. More than that; it’s a bloody masterpiece. The trouble is I can’t find anyone with the balls to agree with me.

‘The so-called experts say that absolutely everything Dali did is catalogued, apart from doodles on napkins or on the back of menus. They say it’s impossible for a great work of that type to have existed in secret. They say that Dali was an egomaniac, and that everything he did was for his own greater glory, or that of his wife, Gala. That’s her in the picture, by the way, the ghostly woman: She’s a recurring figure in most of his mature work.’

He paused again. ‘The art historians did tell me something though. Something that worries me. Dali gave up painting after Gala died. But there’s a rumour that before he died himself, he signed blank sheets of paper, and canvasses with backwash on them.

‘So far, there’d been no trace of any turning up, but the best guess that I’ve been given is that this is the first, that somewhere out there is a genius forger, and that the only genuine thing about “TheToreador of the Apocalypse” is Dali’s signature.’

Scott stood up and walked back round to the easel. He removed the dust-sheet again, and again the work leapt off the canvas at us. He pointed at the bottom right-hand corner. ‘Look at the signature. Look at that big “D”, distinctive, almost like the thistle in the Scottish Nationalists’ party crest. Look at the structure of it; it’s a work of art in itself.

‘I want you to go back to Spain and find out the truth for me, Oz. I have to know whether it is a terrific forgery, and I’ve been conned, or whether I’m right and it’s the real thing.’

He smiled. ‘If it turns out that it is a fake, then its value will be written down to zero, and the business will have incurred a capital loss. It won’t be a total loss, since we can offset it against capital gains elsewhere, but I hate to think what I’m going to tell the shareholders at the AGM. Ida and I still own forty per cent of the company, but if I’ve blown a quarter of a million of their dough the majority could fire me.

‘On the other hand, if the Toreador is authentic, as my heart tells me it is, and you can prove it, then potentially, I’ve made millions, and I’ll be a hero.’

Scott looked at me earnestly. ‘So, do you accept the commission?’

I nodded. ‘Certainly.’ I reached into my document case, and produced two sheets of A4. ‘This is a letter of engagement, setting out our terms. If that’s okay, please sign both copies and keep one for your records.’

He scanned them quickly, then picked up a pen from the coffee table and signed them both. He reached into his back pocket and produced a folded cheque, and a business card, which he handed over together with my copy of the agreement. ‘There’s three thousand, on account. My ex-Directory number here, and my mobile number are written on the back of the card. Keep me posted, regularly.’

Scott stood up. ‘I have something else for you.’ He reached out and picked up a long buff-coloured tube which I had noticed, standing upright by the fireplace.

‘I’ve had the picture scanned and copied in colour. It’s in here, along with a list of the names of the other people at the dinner, as far as I can remember them. I can’t imagine that they’ll be much help though.’

I took the tube from him. ‘Can you give me a description of Ronald Starr?’ I asked.

He scratched his chin. ‘Nondescript is the best I can do. British, almost certainly English, middle-aged, medium height, medium build, dark hair going to grey, navy-blue blazer, grey slacks, white shirt, dark tie with a golf club crest.’

‘How did you know it was a golf club?’

He smiled. ‘It had fucking golf clubs on it, didn’t it.’

‘Touche,’ I said. ‘There is one other thing. Can you remember the name of the English bloke who made the introduction in the first place?’