The Wild Beasts of Wuhan (18 page)

On her way out, the concierge offered her a choice of umbrellas. She took the largest one, which had
wilson golf
printed on it. Even with the umbrella she felt the effects of the rain as it splattered off the sidewalk and wet her shoes and slacks. The walk felt twice as long as it had earlier, but when she got to the gallery door it still was only ten to ten. She tried the door but it was locked. She huddled in the doorway, the umbrella pointing towards the street.

“Come in, come in,” a woman’s voice said suddenly as the door opened behind her.

Ava slid in and was greeted by a tall, slim young woman with a mop of blonde hair styled into an über-chic Afro. She wore a short, tight red designer dress that showed off her long legs.

“You must be Ms. Lee. My name is Lisa. Mr. Hughes is in the back. Let me take you there.”

Lisa guided Ava through the space, which was filled with numerous paintings, statues, and ceramics. When they reached the other end of the gallery, Lisa opened a door and led Ava into the office area. All the doors were closed but one, which opened into an office where a tall man in a brown suit sat at a desk. He had thick dark blond hair and a long, thin face and pointed chin. When he looked up at Ava, she saw that his clear blue eyes were not close-set the way Helga Sørensen had described. Ava felt her stomach sink.

“Mr. Hughes, Ms. Lee is here,” Lisa said.

Ava stood in the doorway to the office.

Hughes stood and extended his hand. “I’m Edwin Hughes,” he said.

“Ava Lee.”

“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a chair across from his desk. “Would you like anything? Coffee or tea?”

“No thanks,” Ava said, noticing the painting on the wall behind him. It was the Tower Bridge. “A Derain?”

“Yes, that’s very observant of you.”

She continued to stare at the painting as she struggled to find a way to initiate the conversation.

“So, Ms. Lee, you represent a Hong Kong firm?”

“I do.”

“We haven’t done much business in Hong Kong. Japan has been kinder to us as a market.”

He has a lovely voice
, she thought.
And he paces his words quite carefully
. “I don’t mean to be impolite, but I was actually expecting to see Mr. Glen Hughes,” Ava said.

“My brother is no longer associated with this part of the business,” he said calmly.

“I see.”

“I assure you, whatever gallery business you were planning to discuss with him, you can discuss with me.”

“I’m not so sure that’s true.”

He looked quizzical. “Ms. Lee, you are sounding mysterious.”

“I’m sorry, this is awkward.”

“Awkward? That’s rather a strange word. It’s paintings you’re here to discuss, I presume.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Then there’s no reason to feel awkward. That is my business, after all.”

He said it matter-of-factly, and Ava responded in kind. “I was going to talk to your brother about the Fauvist art he’s been commissioning over the past ten years or so, the art he sold through the Great Wall Antiques and Fine Art Gallery in Hong Kong.”

“The most recent piece of Fauvist art was painted in about 1910, Ms. Lee.”

“I am aware of that. This gallery commissioned the works. They were fakes, of course, designed to mislead my client.”

“This gallery did no such thing,” Hughes said, his voice calm but his eyes hardening as he looked across the desk at her.

“I have a signed statement from one of the artists who was paid to paint them, and I have copies of correspondence between your brother and the painter discussing the project. The correspondence from your end is on gallery stationery.”

She sat back, waiting for a reaction. Instead he said, in the same even tone, “What foul weather has brought you and word of my brother to my door?”

“Your standard London rain.”

He smiled. “Would it bother you if I asked to see the correspondence?”

“No, I brought it with me,” she said, opening her bag. She passed him a set of copies.

“Can you give me a moment alone with these?”

She hesitated.

“I’m not going to do a runner out the back door,” he said.

Ava stepped into the hallway, trying to focus on the art that was hung haphazardly on every wall. But she couldn’t get her mind off the fact that it was Edwin Hughes she was speaking to and not Glen.

“You can come back in now,” Edwin said after a few minutes.

When she sat down, he put his feet up on the desk and pushed back, his hands clasped behind his neck. She noticed the shoes — gorgeous brown leather wingtips. “First of all, Ms. Lee, if this correspondence is in any way genuine, and if the charges you’re making have any substance to them at all, then you need to be talking to my brother and not me.”

“The correspondence is on gallery stationery.”

“So you’ve said. And what does that mean? Someone stole or copied our stationery?”

“Your brother’s signature is on those letters.”

“So you claim,” he said. “And if it is, so what? He was commissioning work on his behalf, not the gallery’s.”

“He was representing the gallery, the business,” she said.

“Don’t dare to presume that you understand the nature of our business,” Hughes said, his tone rising just slightly. “My brother and I each had our own arrangements. Not everything we did was in tandem.”

“He was representing the gallery,” she insisted.

“I won’t acknowledge that because it is completely untrue.”

“The letters —”

“The letters are utter rubbish,” he said. “They don’t make any mention of fakes or forgeries. The last one, in fact, makes it very clear that he was commissioning copies for a client who knew what he was buying.” He paused. “Now here I am defending my brother, when that really isn’t my intent.”

“Then what is your intent?”

“To tell you that neither I nor this gallery had anything to do with whatever this is.”

“My client may think otherwise.”

“And what? Sue? Based on those letters? Go ahead.”

“A lot of money was spent on those forgeries.”

“And where is that money? I assure you, it isn’t in our bank account.”

“No, it’s in a numbered account in Liechtenstein.”

He paused, and Ava saw the first flicker of something other than confidence in his eyes.

“I know of no such account.”

“Who would?”

“Talk to my brother.”

“I’d love to. Where can I find him?”

“In New York.”

“You have a gallery in New York?”

“No, he has an office in New York. A few years ago we restructured the business and he opted to go to North America.”

Ava thought of the Google entries that were all more than two years old. “Two years ago?”

“Yes, about then.”

“There was no mention of his leaving the business in the research I did.”

“We saw no reason to make a fuss about it. We did it quietly.”

“And I didn’t see any reference to him in any new business.”

“He’s set himself up as a private art consultant, and he’s arrogant enough to believe that he doesn’t need to advertise his wares. He thinks those who need him will find him.”

“And how would I find him?”

“Ms. Lee, you surely don’t need my help to do that.”

“I imagine not.”

“But I have to tell you that when you do find him, you’ll get a very similar reaction to mine, though perhaps less polite. My brother has never been afraid to use lawyers, and if you even suggest any impropriety on his part he’ll have them down your neck.”

“What about unwanted publicity?”

“He couldn’t care less.”

“And you?”

He put his foot on the letters on the desk and slid them back to her with the heel of his shoe. “Good luck with my brother,” he said.

( 19 )

Ava was led to the Church Street entrance, where Lisa returned her umbrella. She felt as if she were being deposited on the street like trash.

The rain had let up, easing into a whippy drizzle. She walked back to the hotel, returned the umbrella to the concierge, and went directly to her room. The maid had been there already. The bathroom was sparkling, the bed was made, and a package of bonbons was resting on her pillow. There was still almost half a bottle of wine from the night before. Ava poured herself a glass and sat by the window.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so incompetent. At the very least, she should have been prepared for the possibility of meeting Edwin Hughes instead of, or even with, Glen Hughes. Ava took pride in being organized for meetings, prepared for any eventuality.
How could I have made such a mess of this one?
she thought.
I didn’t do enough research
. She should have confirmed which Hughes she was going to meet. She should have known the brothers had split. She should have known enough about their characters to know how to squeeze them. Instead she went in ill-prepared, with no discernible strategy other than waving around letters she already knew were open to too many interpretations.

Ava then thought about Edwin Hughes. He had been so calm, so sure of himself, that she found herself believing almost everything he had said, including the fact that her threat to sue him or his brother or the gallery didn’t concern him. She hadn’t intimidated him; she hadn’t even mildly rattled him. The only time he seemed interested in what she was saying was when she mentioned the bank account, and then he had basically thrown her out of his office. She thought of him shoving her letters across the desk to her with his foot.

The real question was whether or not Edwin had anything to do with the Fauvist scam. On balance, she thought that he hadn’t. There had been only one signature on the letters sent to Sørensen, and that belonged to Glen Hughes.

The bottom line was that she didn’t have any leverage, even in theory, if the Hughes brothers were prepared to withstand lawsuits and bad publicity. And that was assuming that May Ling and Changxing would agree to sue. She felt, despite May’s claim, that Wong never would. His face was worth more than $70 million.

So what do I have?
she thought. “Sweet bugger all,” she said softly to herself.

She was close to packing it in. But she also knew she couldn’t give up until she had exhausted every lead. She decided to find out more about the brothers, something she should have done before. She phoned Frederick Locke.

“This case I’ve been working on, it’s led me into some complicated areas. I was hoping you could help,” she said.

“Where are you?”

“London.”

“You do get about.”

“I came here to see a man named Glen Hughes and instead found myself talking to his brother, Edwin.”

The line went silent. “Holy fuck,” he said finally.

“Is that good?”

“Are you telling me you think the Hughes brothers might be involved in this scam?”

“One of them anyway, maybe both.”

“You don’t know who they are, do you.”

“Only what I read online about Glen.”

“They’re huge. In our business they don’t come much bigger, outside of museums and national art galleries and leading international auction houses. Are you sure about all this?”

“No, I’m not, Frederick. That’s why I’m calling you. I thought you could tell me a bit more about them. For example, when I met with Edwin this morning, he said he and his brother had parted company.”

“Yes, that’s true. It was all hush-hush when it happened but it eventually leaked out. By the time it did, no one thought twice about it.”

“What was the cause?”

“No one actually said.”

“Were there rumours?”

“Some. There was talk of a financial falling-out. One of the brothers — I think it was Glen — was supposedly playing outside the sandbox, so to speak.”

“What is he doing now?”

“Running a business in New York as a private consultant to collectors,” Locke said, confirming Edwin Hughes’ claim.

She was writing while he spoke. Almost unconsciously she found herself underlining the words
two years
. “Frederick, it was that Jan Sørensen, the Sandman, who pointed me in the direction of Hughes.”

“So you found him?”

“Obviously.”

“And?”

“He painted a good number of the fake Fauvists.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have a signed statement from him.”

“Good God.”

“And he told me that Maurice O’Toole did the others.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Locke said. “I did some more research after our last chat and the boy did have that reputation. I spoke to someone who told me that Mr. O’Toole was a whiz with Matisse and did very passable Monets and Manets.”

Manet wasn’t on her list. She added the name.

“So, Ava, where does this leave you?” Locke asked.

“I’m not quite sure. I don’t have what you would call hard proof of anything. Even Sørensen’s statement isn’t supported in any concrete way other than that the paintings exist, and Edwin Hughes seems immune to threats of lawsuits or bad publicity. He tells me his brother will be an even tougher case.”

“Remember what I told you about our business being filled with hard men? Well, they don’t come much harder than the Hughes brothers.”

“I sense that.”

“So what to do?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” she said. “I need to do some more thinking. But look, thank you for the information. You’ve been very helpful. If I have any more questions I hope you won’t mind me calling.”

“Not at all. My days are quite repetitive and can be a bit of a bore. Call me whenever you wish.”

Ava closed her phone and looked out the window, down at the High Street and across to Kensington Gardens. The sky was clearing and people were walking without umbrellas. She decided to try to get in a run before the weather changed one more time. She quickly changed into her tracksuit and left the hotel.

Ava crossed the street, entered the Gardens at Exhibition Road, and then loped across the Serpentine to West Carriage Drive. She ran north from there until she reached the jogging path. Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens ran seamlessly into each other, separated only by the Serpentine. The total area was more than six hundred acres, just smaller than Central Park in New York, and the jogging path was five kilometres long. She normally would have done one full lap after the initial two kilometres or so she had run to the starting point. Today she needed to burn off frustration, and one lap wouldn’t cut it.