James Twining - The Gilded Seal

He’d lost weight since the last time she’d seen him, adding substance to the Bureau gossips who contended that he’d recently re-married and that his new, much younger and richer bride, had him on a treadmill three times a week. True or not, he still had a way to go; the material around the top button of his trousers was buckling under the stress of holding his stomach in. And if there was a new wife, she’d certainly done nothing to improve his taste in ties, this morning’s offering a garish blend of different shades of orange.

‘Morning, sir.’ She shook his hand.

‘Thank you for coming. I know it’s early.’

‘It’s not a problem,’ she said generously. ‘I normally go for a run at this time anyway.’

He gave her a look that was caught somewhere between sympathy and admiration, before gesturing first towards the older man, then his younger companion.

‘I’d like you to meet Lord Anthony Hudson, Chairman of Sotheby’s, and Benjamin Cole, his opposite number at Christie’s. Gentlemen, this is Special Agent Jennifer Browne from our Art Crime Team.’

‘Call me Ben.’

Cole gave a wide, teethy grin, his dark brown eyes searching hers out earnestly and then darting away when she tried to hold his gaze. She wondered if the others knew he was gay. Probably. He was immaculately dressed in a black suit and open-necked white shirt, the glint of a thin gold chain just visible in the cleft of his collarbone. She guessed he was in his early forties, although he looked maybe ten years younger, the healthy glow of his long pointed face betraying a daily routine of wheat grass, exfoliation, free weights, soya milk, pilates and expensive moisturiser.

‘But whatever you do, don’t call him Tony,’ he continued.

Hudson looked as jaded and shopworn as Cole was bright and fit, the dated cut and frayed corners of his pinstriped suit suggesting that it was some sort of family heirloom or hand-me-down. His eyes had almost disappeared under his eyebrows’ craggy overhang, while his cheeks were lined and drooping like a balloon that has had the air let out of it, and his lips were cracked and frozen into a permanent scowl. She placed him at about fifty-five; not quite retirement age, but definitely counting the days. She had the sudden impression that he was weighing her up, as if he was gazing at her through the crosshairs of a rifle on some distant Scottish moor and estimating the distance and wind speed before pulling the trigger.

‘I recognise you both, of course.’ She nodded, reaching out to shake their hands.

Hudson was a Brit, a blue-blood distantly related to the Queen who’d been shipped in to schmooze Sotheby’s mainly North American clientele with canapés and a touch of old-fashioned class. Cole on the other hand was a Brooklyn-born hustler who, despite barely being able to spell his name when he first joined the Christie’s mail room, had risen to the top on the back of a silken tongue and an unfailing eye for a good deal. The two of them neatly represented the social spectrum of both the auction world and the clients they served.

‘Then you’ll also know why I asked you to meet us here.’ Green waved semi-apologetically at their surroundings. Hudson shifted uncomfortably in mute agreement, his eyes fixed reproachfully on the thin coat of dust, straw and feed that had already settled on his gleaming handmade shoes.

‘I can guess,’ Jennifer confirmed with a nod.

A few years ago both Christie’s and Sotheby’s had faced anti-trust cases over allegations that they were fixing commission levels through a series of illicit meetings in the back of limousines and in airport departure lounges. Huge corporate fines and even jail sentences had resulted, although Sir Norman Watkins, Hudson’s predecessor, had managed to avoid incarceration so far by refusing to return to the United States. The stables, therefore, offered a suitably discreet venue for Hudson and Cole to get together, given that in the current climate they daren’t risk being seen in the same room, let alone meeting in private as they were now.

‘Anthony,’ Green turned to Hudson, ‘why don’t you explain what this is all about.’

‘Very well,’ Hudson loosened the inside button on his double-breasted suit jacket, the lining flashing emerald green. He bent down stiffly and picked up a gilt-framed painting that Jennifer had not noticed leaning against the stall.

‘ Vase de Fleurs, Lilas , by Paul Gauguin, 1885,’ he pronounced grandly, as he held it up for her to see. It was quite a small painting, featuring a delicately rendered vase of bright flowers against a dark, almost stormy background. ‘Not one of his most famous works perhaps, since he had not yet adopted the more primitive, expressive style that characterised his work after moving to Tahiti. Nevertheless it already betrays his more conceptual method of representation, as well as reflecting clear influences by Pissarro and Cézanne.’

‘Don’t worry, I don’t know what he’s talking about either,’ Cole laughed.

Hudson twitched but said nothing and Jennifer suspected he quite liked Cole and his irreverent manner; probably even slightly envied it.

‘You’re auctioning it?’ she guessed.

‘Next week. It belongs to Reuben Razi, an Iranian dealer. A good client of ours. So far, we’ve had a very positive response from the market.’

‘Is it genuine?’

‘Why do you ask that?’ Hudson snapped, pulling the canvas away from her protectively, his eyes narrowing as if he was again lining her up in his rifle’s crosshairs.

‘Because, Lord Hudson, I’m guessing you didn’t ask me up here just to show me a painting.’

‘You see?’ Green smiled. ‘I told you she was good.’

‘Don’t worry about Anthony.’ Cole clapped Hudson on the back. ‘You just hit a nerve, that’s all.’

‘Show Agent Browne the catalogue,’ Green suggested. ‘That’ll explain why.’

Cole flicked open the catches on his monogrammed Louis Vuitton briefcase and extracted a loosely bound colour document that he handed to Jennifer.

‘This is the proof of the catalogue for our auction of nineteenth and twentieth-century art in Paris in a few months’ time. A Japanese conglomerate, a longstanding client of ours, has asked us to include a number of paintings in the sale. One in particular, stands out.’ He nodded at the document. ‘Lot 185.’

Jennifer thumbed through the pages until she came to the lot mentioned by Cole. There was a short description of the item and an estimate of three hundred thousand dollars, but it was the picture that immediately grabbed her attention. She looked up in surprise.

‘It’s the same painting,’ she exclaimed.

‘Exactly,’ Hudson growled. ‘Someone’s trying to rip us off. And this time, we’ve bloody well caught them with their hand in the till.’

‘This time?’

‘Both Lord Hudson and Mr Cole believe that this isn’t an isolated incident,’ Green explained solemnly.

‘And that, Agent Browne,’ Cole added, suddenly serious, ‘Is why we asked you up here.’

Drumlanrig Castle, Scotland

18th April – 12.07 p.m.

It seemed less a castle than a mausoleum to Tom; a place of thin shadows, cloaked with a funereal stillness, where muffled footsteps and snatched fragments of hushed conversations echoed faintly along the cold and empty corridors.

It was an impression that the furnishings did little to dispel, for although the cavernous rooms were adorned with a rich and varied assortment of tapestries, gilt-framed oil paintings, marble-topped chests, rococo consoles and miscellaneous objets d’art , closer inspection revealed many of them to be worn, dusty and neglected.