James Twining - The Gilded Seal

‘By all means.’ He nodded towards a secluded area at the rear of the gallery where a white leather divan had been provocatively placed at a forty-five-degree angle across the floorspace. Jennifer instinctively wanted to straighten it. They sat down and he turned to face her with his palms resting on his knees.

‘We should start with a few questions, if that’s okay?’

‘You are very beautiful, Agent Browne.’ Razi smiled, his nostrils flaring slightly as he spoke. ‘But I expect many men tell you that.’

Jennifer gazed at Razi unblinkingly. She knew that in his business, the ability to read people was the key to convincing someone to pay a hundred thousand for something worth fifty. She therefore took the compliment as a sighting shot to calibrate how he should play her, rather than a line. Having said that, from what she’d seen so far, Razi was also a performer. One who clearly liked to keep his audience slightly off-balance. Either way, her best policy was not to react.

‘When did you buy the Gauguin?’

Razi sat back resignedly and began to slowly crack his knuckles in turn. ‘About ten years ago. At the time, people said I overpaid, but a Gauguin is a Gauguin, whatever the period.’

‘And you never doubted its authenticity?’

‘Never.’ Razi was adamant, his hand movements becoming more animated. ‘Its provenance was beyond suspicion. The documentation proved it. I can supply you with copies of everything.’

‘So the existence of a second work has taken you by surprise?’

‘Absolutely.’ Razi gave a vehement nod.

‘The seller is a major Japanese corporation.’

‘It’s always the Japanese these days.’ He shrugged. ‘The economy’s not what it used to be. Russia, on the other hand – now that’s a market.’

‘Have you ever come across a forgery yourself?’

‘Not that I can recall.’ He gave another shrug.

‘And yet you buy and sell a lot of paintings, don’t you?’

‘It depends on what you mean by “a lot”.’

‘Lord Hudson said that you were a good client of his.’ She opened her file and consulted one of the typewritten pages inside. ‘I counted fifteen purchases and twenty sales in the past three years from Sotheby’s alone.’

‘Is that file on me?’ Razi’s tone hardened.

‘Parts of it, yes.’ Jennifer flipped the cover shut. Although it wasn’t exactly standard procedure, she’d brought the file in with her precisely to see how Razi would react when he saw it. So far, he seemed more offended than concerned.

‘Am I a suspect, Agent Browne?’ He drew back and glared at her.

‘No more than I am, Mr Razi,’ Jennifer said in a conciliatory tone. ‘But if we’re going to get a result, we need to have a fuller picture of you and your business. After all, this could have been done by a client or a supplier. Someone who bore a personal grudge and wanted to damage your reputation.’

‘I have no enemies.’ Razi shook his head firmly. ‘I left them all behind in Iran. Here, in America, I am with friends. Many, many friends.’

‘What about Herbie Hammon?’

Again she saw a flash of impatience in his eyes.

‘Herbie and I are … are very close.’

‘Close enough for you to break his arm?’ she pressed, thinking back to the paramedic’s deposition she’d read in the file while she’d been waiting. ‘Close enough for him to sue you for assault?’

‘The case never went to trial.’ His humourless tone belied his easy smile. ‘It was a simple misunderstanding. I never meant to hurt him…’ A pause. ‘Are you married, Agent Browne?’

‘No.’

‘No,’ he repeated. Jennifer found herself bristling at his tone, which implied she’d provided the answer he had been expecting. Was she that easy to read? ‘Well, Herbie and I are like a married couple, and married couples argue. Things are said and done in the heat of the moment. But they don’t mean anything. The important thing is that we always kiss and make up in the end.’

There was a long silence as Jennifer waited to see if he would continue. If nothing else, the mention of Hammon’s name seemed to have thrown him. It was an angle worth following up on, even if Razi wasn’t prepared to volunteer anything more himself.

‘Mr Razi, is there something you’re not telling me?’ she asked eventually. ‘Something that might have provoked someone out there to try to get at you?’

‘I’ve already said no,’ he said with a simple shake of his head. ‘Why, do you…?’ He glanced accusingly at the file on Jennifer’s lap and then snatched his eyes back to hers.

Jennifer remained silent. The truth was that she had more questions now than when she had walked in. Like why had Razi driven past his gallery twice before finally sprinting inside? Or, more to the point, what had prompted him to carry the revolver that she had glimpsed strapped to his right ankle as he’d made his way downstairs?

These were hardly the actions of a man who supposedly had no enemies. But then again, as the existence of two identical Gauguins had shown, in this world, appearances could sometimes be deceptive.

Alameda, Seville

19th April – 5.15 p.m.

The wooden gate creaked open, ripping the police notice forbidding entry in half and revealing a small courtyard. Tom stepped in warily, the walls of the two-storey building rising on all sides to frame a small slab of sky overhead, grey and sullen.

The ground was littered with broken tiles and shattered terracotta bricks. The dog turd on the large pile of sand to his left had been stepped in, the crumbling imprint of a ridged sole still visible. A pile of wind-blown rubbish had drifted into the far corner where Tom thought he could make out the fluorescent glow of a discarded condom. He shook his head angrily. Rafael had deserved better than this. Much better.

‘This way.’

Marco Gillez shouldered past him and strode into the middle of the courtyard. Tom paused to secure the gate behind them before following, fluttering his T-shirt against his body to cool himself. It was warm for this time of year, even for Spain.

Gillez was wearing an outfit that looked as if it had been lifted from a bad fifties musical – blue flannel trousers worn with a pastel green jacket and cream shoes that were in need of a polish. He had a long, pale face and small muddy brown eyes that were separated by a large nose that narrowed to an almost impossibly sharp edge along its ridge, casting a shadow across one half of his face like the arm of a sundial. His ginger hair and goatee had been dyed black, the resulting colour a dark mahogany that changed hue depending on the light.

‘There –’

He pointed with a dramatic flourish at an open doorway; his fingernails were gnawed right back, the cuticles sore and bleeding. Tom looked up and saw two holes on either side of the door frame, dark rivulets of dried blood running from beneath them to the ground. White chalk marks had been drawn around the outline of the bloodstains, forming a large, looping line like an untightened noose.

‘Cause of death: asfixia ,’ Gillez continued as he consulted a file produced from a small brown leather satchel, his voice coloured by a heavy Spanish accent. ‘The weight of the body suspended on the two nails made it impossible to breathe. It only took a few minutes.’ He ran his hand over his goatee as he spoke, smoothing it against his skin as if he was stroking a cat.

‘That’s why the Romans used to nail people’s feet too,’ Tom added in a dispassionate tone. ‘So they could push themselves up and catch their breath. It prolonged the ordeal.’

‘So it could have been worse?’ A flicker of interest in Gillez’s voice. ‘He was lucky?’