Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (54)

“Which is why he had purchased them in the first place,” said Gabriel.

“Oui. Monsieur Toussaint wanted an exclusive arrangement. No more independent sales through the Paris auction houses or other dealers. He said it was far too risky. He promised to take very good care of Lucien financially.”

“Did he?”

“Lucien had no complaints.”

“How much money did he earn?”

“Over the lifetime of the deal?” Fran?oise Vionnet shrugged. “Six or seven million.”

“Spare me,” said Gabriel.

“Maybe it was in the neighborhood of thirty million.”

“Which side of the neighborhood? The north or the south?”

“The north,” said Fran?oise Vionnet. “Definitely the north.”

“And Monsieur Toussaint? What was his take?”

“Two hundred million, at least.”

“So Lucien got screwed.”

“That’s what the Spanish woman told him.”

“Miranda álvarez?”

“That’s what she called herself.”

“Where did you meet with her?”

“Here in Roussillon. She sat in the same chair where you’re sitting now.”

“She was a dealer?”

“Of some sort. She was quite guarded in how she described herself.”

“What did she want?”

“She wanted Lucien to work for her instead of Toussaint.”

“How did she know that Lucien was forging paintings?”

“She refused to say. But it was obvious she knew her way around the dirty side of the business. She said Toussaint was selling more forgeries than the art market could absorb, that it was only a matter of time before Lucien and I were arrested. She said she was part of a sophisticated network that knew how to sell forgeries without getting caught. She promised to pay us twice what Toussaint was paying us.”

“How did Lucien react?”

“He was intrigued.”

“And you?”

“Less so.”

“But you agreed to consider her offer?”

“I asked her to come back in three days.”

“And when she did?”

“I told her we had a deal. She gave us a million euros in cash and said she would be in touch.”

“When did the deal fall apart?”

“After I told Toussaint that we were leaving him.”

“How much did he pay you to stay?”

“Two million.”

“I assume you banked the million the Spanish woman gave you.”

“Oui. And six months later Lucien was dead. He was working on another Cézanne when he was killed. The police never found it.”

“I don’t suppose you told them that Lucien was an art forger or that he had recently received a visit from a mysterious Spanish woman who called herself Miranda álvarez.”

“If I had, I would have implicated myself.”

“How did you explain the thirty million at Credit Suisse in Geneva?”

“It was thirty-four million at the time,” admitted Fran?oise Vionnet. “And the police never discovered it.”

“What about the villa in Saint-Barthélemy?”

“It’s owned by a shell company registered in the Bahamas. Chloé and I keep a low profile here in the Lubéron. But when we go to the island . . .”

“You live well on the proceeds of Lucien’s forgeries.”

She lit another Gitane but said nothing.

“How many are left?” asked Gabriel.

“Fakes?” She blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Only the Chagall. The others are all gone.”

Gabriel laid his phone on the table. “How many, Fran?oise?”



Outside, Chloé was stretched like a Modigliani nude across the sunbaked paving stones next to the pool. “If only someone would pay her for doing that,” said her mother judgmentally. “Chloé would be the richest woman in France.”

“You were a front woman for a forger,” said Gabriel. “You didn’t exactly set a good example.”

She led them along a gravel footpath toward Lucien’s atelier. It was a small building, ocher in color, with a tile roof. The door was secured with a padlock, as were the wooden shutters.

“Someone tried to break in not long after Lucien was murdered. That’s when I got the dog.”

She unlocked the door and led Gabriel and Christopher inside. The dank air smelled of canvas and dust and linseed oil. Beneath an overhead skylight stood an ancient studio easel and a cluttered old worktable with shelves and drawers for supplies. The paintings were leaning against the walls, perhaps twenty to a row.

“Is this all of them?” asked Gabriel.

Fran?oise Vionnet nodded.

“No warehouse or storage unit somewhere?”

“Non. Everything is here.”

She walked over to the nearest queue of paintings and leafed through them as though they were vinyl record albums. Reluctantly she extracted one and displayed it for Gabriel.

“Fernand Léger.”

“You have a good eye, Monsieur Allon.”

She moved to the next row. From it she unearthed a pastiche of Houses at L’Estaque by Georges Braque. The next row of paintings produced a Picasso and another Léger.