Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (79)

“I imagine Monsieur Fleury was rather nervous that afternoon in mid-March,” he said.

“Panic stricken. A French policeman named Jacques Ménard had come to the gallery unannounced to question Fleury about Portrait of an Unknown Woman. He was afraid the entire house of cards was about to collapse.”

“Why did he contact you and not Phillip?”

“I’m in charge of sales and distribution. Phillip owns the galleries, but he keeps the dealers at arm’s length. Unless there’s a problem, of course.”

“Like Valerie Bérrangar?”

“Yes.”

“What did Phillip do?”

“He made a phone call.”

“To whom?”

“A man who makes his problems go away.”

“Does this man have a name?”

“If he does, I’m not aware of it.”

“Is he American?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“That he is a former intelligence officer who has a network of skilled professionals at his disposal. They hacked into Madame Bérrangar’s mobile phone and laptop, and broke into her villa in Saint-André-du-Bois. That’s when they discovered the entry in her desk calendar. And the painting, of course.”

“Portrait of an Unknown Woman, oil on canvas, one hundred and fifteen by ninety-two centimeters, attributed to a follower of the Flemish Baroque painter Anthony van Dyck.”

“It was a dreadful mistake on Fleury’s part,” said Magdalena. “He should have told me that he had handled the original version of the painting. The truth is, it was so long ago it slipped his mind.”

“How did the forger produce his copy?”

“Apparently, he used a photograph he found in an old exhibition catalogue. It was a minor picture produced by a nameless artist working in Van Dyck’s style. The forger simply executed a more skillful version of it and, voilà, a lost Van Dyck suddenly reappeared after centuries in hiding.”

“At the same Paris gallery where Valerie Bérrangar’s husband purchased the original version thirty-four years earlier.”

“The scenario wasn’t out of the question, but it was suspicious, to say the least. If the French art squad had opened an investigation . . .”

“You would have been arrested. And Phillip Somerset’s forgery-and-fraud empire would have unraveled in spectacular fashion.”

“With disastrous consequences for the entire art world. Fortunes would have been lost and countless reputations ruined. Emergency measures had to be taken to contain the damage.”

“Eliminate Madame Bérrangar,” said Gabriel. “And find out what, if anything, she had told Julian Isherwood and his partner, Sarah Bancroft.”

“I had nothing to do with the Bérrangar woman’s death. It was Phillip who arranged everything.”

“A single-car accident on an empty stretch of road.” Gabriel paused. “Problem solved.”

“Or so it appeared. But less than a week after her death, you and Sarah Bancroft showed up at Phillip’s estate on Long Island.”

“He told us that he had sold Portrait of an Unknown Woman. He also said that a second review of the attribution had determined that the painting was in fact a genuine Van Dyck.”

“Neither of which was true.”

“But why did he purchase his own forgery in the first place?”

“I explained that to you earlier.”

“Explain it again.”

“First of all,” said Magdalena, “Masterpiece Art Ventures didn’t actually pay six and a half million pounds for Portrait of an Unknown Woman.”

“Because Isherwood Fine Arts unwittingly purchased it from Masterpiece Art Ventures for three million euros.”

“Correct.”

“Nevertheless, Phillip handed over a substantial amount of money for a worthless painting.”

“But it was other people’s money. And the painting is far from worthless to a man like Phillip. He can use it as collateral to obtain bank loans and then sell it to another art investor for much more than he paid for it.”

“And by routing the original sale through Isherwood Fine Arts,” added Gabriel, “Phillip gave himself plausible deniability if it was ever discovered to be a forgery. After all, it was Sarah who sold the forgery to him. And it was Julian, a well-respected expert in Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, who concluded that the picture was painted by Anthony van Dyck and not by a later follower.”

“Julian Isherwood’s blessing increased the painting’s value significantly.”

“Where is it now?”

“Chelsea Fine Arts Storage.”

“I suppose Phillip owns that, too.”

“Phillip controls the entire physical infrastructure of the network, including Chelsea. And he was afraid that you and Sarah were going to bring it all down.”

“What did he do?”

“He made another phone call.”

“To whom?”

“Me.”



With a small portion of the money that Magdalena had earned working for Phillip Somerset and Masterpiece Art Ventures, she had purchased a luxurious apartment on the Calle de Castelló in the Salamanca district of Madrid. Her circle of friends included artists, writers, musicians, and fashion designers who knew nothing of the true nature of her work. Like most young Spaniards, they usually ate dinner around ten and then headed off to a nightclub. Consequently, Magdalena was still sleeping when Phillip rang her at one o’clock on a Monday afternoon and told her to clean up the mess at Galerie Fleury.