Charles Cumming - The hidden man

‘I see. Yes, the way that painting is presented here concerns me. You have this so-called artist, a man who leaves his clothes in a Tate gallery, and he is made famous for this. But then England has chemists, engineers, you have architects, and nobody knows their names. Why is this please?’

Tamarov looked very much as though he wanted an answer.

‘Well, it’s just laziness on the part of the media, laziness on the part of the public,’ Ben told him.

Raquel was laughing at something Macklin had said and he could feel her leg moving under the table.

‘People respond to modern art in the same way that they respond to sex.’

Tamarov frowned.

‘To sex?’

‘That’s right. To sex. They respond purely on the basis of appearance. There’s nothing deeper going on.

“Does this installation turn me on?” “How does this video make me feel?” Those are the kind of questions they’re asking themselves.’

Tamarov asked for a translation of the word ‘installation’ and Ben did his best to provide one. Then the Russian began nodding slowly, as if deep in thought.

‘Well, this is true,’ he said finally. ‘An appreciation of older paintings, the work of Matisse or Renoir, this is much closer to love. My feelings for them will become deeper, as they would for perhaps a friend.’

Ben could only smile awkwardly. It occurred to him that he was in the middle of a lap-dancing club holding a conversation about art and friendship with a money-laundering Russian gangster who could have murdered his father.

‘Your British culture is only about shocking people,’ Tamarov continued. ‘This is what happens when the morons take over. They play to the — what is the expression Sebastian is always using — the lowest common deconimator. Is this correct?’

‘Lowest common denominator, yes,’ Ben said, noting the clear reference to Roth. ‘And they are the lowest common denominator. I mean, what are their obsessions? Celebrities, gossip and fucking.’

When Tamarov smiled, it was strange to see a face so controlled, so basically intimidating, giving way to an amusing idea. It was the reaction, Ben realized, of a man who liked what he saw, a thought that appalled and gratified him in equal measure. He was doing a good job. Then there was a sudden commotion at the table, Macklin breaking off from Raquel and swinging round in his chair. Twice he shouted: ‘Hercule!’ in a voice loud enough to be heard above the music and Ben looked up to see a skinny, well-dressed man approaching the table, drunk and disoriented, with a stunning Indian girl in tow.

‘Sorry, Tom.’ Philippe d’Erlanger had only a faint Belgian accent and he was speaking quickly. ‘I am coming back from the toilet and I meet Ayesha and we do a little dance together and I was delayed. Hello, I’m Phil.’

‘Good to meet you.’ And now Ben was shaking the hand of a drunk Belgian who ran eastern European prostitutes out of a restaurant in Covent Garden. It worried him that a part of him found this exciting.

‘You are Mark’s brother, yes? Benjamin?’

‘Benny boy!’ Macklin corrected, a clammy hand going back onto Ben’s shoulder. He could feel the weight of it, the sweat, and wanted to throw vodka in Macklin’s face.

Raquel was laughing as he said, ‘That’s right, I’m Ben. Mark’s younger brother.’ D’Erlanger sat down.

‘So you work at Libra?’ he asked, noting a tiny particle of cocaine at the base of the Belgian’s nose.

‘Used to, in the past,’ he replied. ‘Now I own a restaurant. This is Ayesha, by the way.’

The Indian girl was perched delicately on d’Erlanger’s lap, her fingers playing gently in his hair. She looked at Ben and flirted shamelessly, eye contact that he felt as an energy moving right through his body. Her thighs were slim and dark, the left leg crossed over the right so that the light cotton of her dress rode up almost to the waist. Ben nodded at her and took a sip of his drink.

‘So you two were dancing back there?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it was very agreeable.’ D’Erlanger was grinning inanely. ‘They have a separate area where you can be more private. VIP, I thinkthey call it. Very Important Persons.’

He laughed uproariously at his own joke, but Ben noticed the exhaustion in his face, tired, jaundiced skin and bruises beneath the eyes. A nocturnal creature. Stress-driven. Greedy.

‘So this is better than Moscow, no?’ he was saying, this time to Tamarov. ‘More relaxed, I think.’

‘What do you mean?’ Tamarov asked.

D’Erlanger turned back to Ben. His attention was everywhere.

‘We’ve just been in Moscow,’ he said. ‘Have you ever been, Benjamin?’

Ben said that he hadn’t.

‘Well, I will tell you…’ he rubbed his nose, wiping sweat off his cheek‘… everywhere you go there are security persons, men maybe only twenty or twenty-five years old carrying guns and leather jackets, like they thinkthey are Bruce Willis or something. And not just in nightclubs, but in supermarkets, in cinemas, in shops. What are they called, Vladimir?’

‘Okhrana,’ Tamarov told him.

‘That’s right. Okhrana. The Muscovites are obses-sed with staying alive, with security. We go to one restaurant with Thomas and Juris — it’s called the Prado or Prago or something…’

‘Praga,’ Tamarov said.

‘Thankyou, yes, Praga, and this is a typical Stalin wedding cake near the Kremlin where you have maybe eight or nine different restaurants, themed and so on, and we cannot move because of all these clowns, these clowns with their Range Rovers and their bullet-proof vests and Walther PPKs…’

Again d’Erlanger laughed at his own joke. Ayesha smiled backadoringly, his oldest friend in the world. Then, when she thought that no one would notice, she stared intently backat Ben, a second moment of flirtation which tookhim by surprise. There was a promise of paradise in her eyes.

‘So Vladimir he books a table for us and we have to pass through metal detectors, body searchings, as if we are terrorists or something.’ Ben could hardly concentrate. ‘Can you imagine this at my restaurant, Benjamin? You come to eat at my place in Covent Garden and I have one of my waitresses take you into a backroom and maybe do a strip search before you can order a soup…’

Again d’Erlanger laughed hugely. Ayesha was still trying her best to look amused but Tamarov had a face like stone. Movement at the opposite end of the table ended the conversation. Mark had stood up and was excusing himself from the Thai girl. Seeing this, Ben said, ‘I’m just going to the bathroom.’ Nobody paid him much attention. ‘You going too, Mark?’

‘Yeah, for a piss,’ his brother replied, passing behind Macklin’s chair. Ben nodded conspicuously at Tamarov as he squeezed himself out and walked with Mark to the gents.

Inside it was quiet, two doors separating them from the rest of the club. Ben checked that they were alone as Mark washed his hands at the sink.

‘I have to talk to you,’ he said. There was a note of urgency in his voice. ‘Something’s come up.’

‘Not now, brother,’ Mark whispered. ‘This is hard enough as it is.’

The door swung open and a stooped, elderly man walked into the bathroom. Mark moved away from the sinkand locked himself in one of two cubicles. Ben pretended to look at himself in the mirror and adjusted his tie. The man left without washing his hands.

‘D’Erlanger has been to Moscow with Macklin and Tamarov. He must be involved in something out there…’

‘Ben…’

‘What were you talking to Duchev about?’ Mark came out of the booth. He was frowning.

‘What?’

‘You guys were talking about something while I was with Vladimir.’