Ian Hamilton - The wild beast of Wuhan

“Can I see it?”

Ava pulled a copy from her Double Happiness computer bag and passed it to Helga.

“The point is that they need to know that I actually know what happened, that I’m not guessing or making any charges that are unsubstantiated.”

“There is no money mentioned in here.”

“I didn’t think you would want them to know you’ve been paid to cooperate. Don’t you think it looks better all around if they believe you did this out of good conscience?”

“Better for you too.”

“Yes, that’s part of it.”

“So what about the money?”

“I’ll have twenty thousand wired to any bank account you want, once he signs.”

“Twenty is not enough.”

“I thought we had agreed — ” Ava said.

“No, I said that my husband and I needed to talk. That is how things were left. And now we have talked and twenty thousand isn’t enough.”

She’s good, Ava thought. “What number do you have in mind?”

“Eighty.”

She wants forty, Ava thought. “That’s more than you received for doing the paintings.”

Helga sat stone-faced.

“I’ll send you twenty-five.”

“Eighty.”

“Thirty.”

“My husband insists on eighty.”

“You need to meet me halfway. I’m quite sure my people will never approve eighty.”

“Halfway?”

“Forty. Mrs. Sorensen, I’ve already doubled my original offer.”

“All right, we’ll settle for forty.”

“Okay, I’ll send you forty, but I want Jan to go over these papers right away, fill in the blanks, and sign three copies. If he can do that in the next hour, I can have the money in transit to you today. It might even hit your bank account by lunch. If he dawdles, I won’t be able to get it out of Hong Kong until tomorrow.”

Helga Sorensen stood up and walked to the foot of the stairs. “Jan!” she shouted.

Ava heard footsteps above her.

“Come down here,” Helga said.

When he appeared, his wife grabbed him by the elbow and led him into the dining room. “We have to fill out these papers for the woman.”

Helga came back into the living room. “I need to help him,” she said. “I have this information filed and he doesn’t remember so well.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ava said. “But if you give me your bank information, I’ll get things started on my end.”

“I’ll be back.”

She disappeared up the stairs. When she came back a few minutes later, she handed Ava a blank cheque from a Torshavn bank. “I thought you had an account in Skagen,” Ava said.

“Haven’t used it in years,” Helga said.

But you didn’t close it, Ava thought. How lucky is that?

As Helga and Jan Sorensen began to fill in the gaps in the statement, Ava called Hong Kong.

“ Wei.”

“Uncle, it’s Ava.”

“Where are you, Denmark?”

“No, the Faeroe Islands.”

“Where is that?”

“Somewhere in the North Atlantic, between Iceland and Norway.”

“You had success in Denmark?”

“Some. I think I’ve located one of the artists.”

“Have you told May Ling?”

“No, and I’m not going to.”

“Probably best.”

“Uncle, I need you to call the accountant to organize a wire transfer. It’s for forty thousand U.S.”

“When do you want it sent?”

Ava looked at Helga and Jan huddled together at the dining room table, he writing intently as she read from various files. They were going to give her what she wanted. “Send it now and get him to scan the wire confirmation and email it to me.”

“I will have it done… Are you getting close?”

“Maybe once removed.”

“Keep me informed.”

“I will,” she said.

She hung up and pulled her notebook from the bag. She opened it to the page where she had listed the paintings. If she was correct in her assumption, Sorensen had started painting the fakes five years ago. The Wongs had stopped buying two years ago. During the three-year gap, they had bought seven paintings that Torrence thought were fakes. Those paintings were what she expected to see on Sorensen’s statement.

Helga came into the living room with Jan in tow. He looked sheepish, like a kid who had been caught doing something naughty. “Here,” she said, thrusting the papers at Ava.

Six paintings were named, the last six, in the exact order in which the Wongs had purchased them. Sorensen had been paid ten thousand dollars for each one. She turned to the second page and saw the name Glen Hughes, with a London address.

“How did this Hughes find you?” Ava asked.

“Through Maurice O’Toole,” Helga said. Her husband nodded in agreement.

“We got a letter from Maurice when we were still in Skagen,” Helga continued. “He said he had been doing some work for a dealer and that he was going to have to give it up. They were looking for a replacement and he wanted to give them Jan’s name. He wanted to make sure we were okay with it.”

“How did Jan know O’Toole?”

“They went to art school together and kept in touch afterwards. They had a lot in common, Maurice and him, both of them drawn to water, to seascapes.”

“And they could both copy.”

“Of course, it was part of their training. Jan told me he and Maurice spent many hours in galleries copying the masters. They were at the top of their class. When they graduated, they went their separate ways but always kept in touch with letters and cards. Jan had some success in Skagen but poor Maurice could not find a market for his work and became very frustrated, bitter. That is when he started to play around with forgeries. It was just a way to make a living, to get by until his own work made its mark. He wrote to Jan about it — that was before he started on the Fauvists. He developed quite a reputation, he did, in some parts of the art world. It wasn’t surprising that those people sought him out when they decided to concentrate on Fauvist art.”

“So why did he give it up?”

Jan spoke, his eyes welling. “He was dying — brain cancer.”

“Did you know that around the same time you got your first ten thousand dollars, O’Toole’s wife was sent a hundred thousand?”

“No. How would I know that?” she said.

“Why do you think it was sent?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. We were happy to get ten. It bought us this house. It got us out of Skagen.”

“How did Jan and this Hughes person connect?”

“Maurice wrote to Jan and explained his problem. He knew we were hard up for money and he thought Jan could pick up the assignment. That’s when Hughes wrote to us.”

“And you agreed?”

“Obviously.”

“Then what happened?”

“Hughes came to Skagen to meet Jan. He brought one of Maurice’s Fauvist paintings with him and asked Jan to duplicate it. It took him only two days. Hughes asked us to take over the project when he saw the result.”

“Did he explain what the project was? I mean, you knew you were doing something that was probably illegal. Weren’t you curious about what he was doing with the paintings?”

“We didn’t care.”

“No curiosity at all?”

“You have to understand how hard it was for us in Skagen. We lived hand-to-mouth, we never had enough money, and I was tired of Jan begging his brother for loans. We didn’t care what Hughes was doing with the paintings as long as he kept paying us ten thousand for each one.”

Ava could hardly imagine what it would be like to care for seven children. “How did Jan decide what to paint?” she asked.

“Hughes would write and suggest an artist, maybe a theme, and then leave it to him.”

“You sent him the paintings?”

“Yes, to London.”