Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (88)

At nine o’clock they took a break for dinner. Sarah arranged for a round of martinis to be sent up from the bar while Magdalena ordered room service from Perrine, the hotel’s acclaimed restaurant. At Gabriel’s suggestion, Evelyn invited her husband to join them. He arrived as the waiters were rolling the table into the suite. Tom Buchanan was affable and erudite, the very opposite of the wellborn polo player who had lived grandly on the shoreline of East Egg and fretted about the decline of the white race.

Evelyn swore her husband to secrecy, then gave him a detailed briefing on the remarkable story that had landed in her lap earlier that afternoon. Tom Buchanan took out his anger on his Caesar salad.

“Leave it to Phillip Somerset to come up with something like this. Still, one has to admire his ingenuity. He spotted a weakness and cleverly took advantage of it.”

“What weakness is that?” asked Gabriel.

“The art market is totally unregulated. Prices are arbitrary, quality control is virtually nonexistent, and most paintings change hands under conditions of total secrecy. All of which makes it the perfect environment for fraud. Phillip took it to the extreme, of course.”

“How is it possible that no one noticed?”

“For the same reason no one noticed that mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations were about to take down the global economy.”

“Everyone is making too much money?”

Tom nodded. “And not just Phillip’s investors. His bankers, too. And they’re all going to suffer enormous losses when Evelyn’s story appears. Nevertheless, I approve of your methods. Waiting for the Feds to act isn’t an option. That said, I wish you could give my wife an incriminating document or two.”

“You mean the inner-office memo in which Phillip spells out his plan to create and maintain the largest art fraud in history?”

“Point taken, Mr. Allon. But what about the documents stored in that warehouse on East Ninety-First Street?”

“Phillip’s current inventory?”

“Exactly. If Magdalena can say with absolute certainty that he has forged paintings on his book, it would be devastating.”

“Is the former federal prosecutor suggesting that I clandestinely acquire a comprehensive list of paintings contained in that property?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. But if you do, you should definitely give it to my wife.”

Gabriel smiled. “Any other advice, counselor?”

“If I were you, I’d think about putting a bit of pressure on Phillip’s finances.”

“By encouraging a handful of his important investors to take redemptions, you mean?”

“It sounds to me as though you already have a plan in place,” said Tom.

“There’s a man in London named Nicholas Lovegrove. Nicky’s one of the most sought-after art advisers in the world. Several of his clients are invested with Phillip.”

“We hedge fund types get very suspicious when investors pull their money. Therefore, it needs to be handled with discretion.”

“Don’t worry,” said Sarah. “We art dealer types are nothing if not discreet.”





56

Galerie Watson




The destruction of Masterpiece Art Ventures commenced the following morning at 10:45 a.m. London time—5:45 a.m. in New York—when Christopher Keller presented himself at Galerie Olivia Watson in King Street. The small placard in the window read by appointment only. Christopher hadn’t made one, wagering that a surprise attack would prove more successful. He pressed the call button and, wincing, awaited a response.

“Well, well,” breathed a sultry female voice. “Look what the cat left on my doorstep. If it isn’t my dear friend Mr. Bancroft.”

“It’s Marlowe, remember? Now open the door.”

“Sorry, but I’m all tied up at the moment.”

“Untie yourself and let me in.”

“I do love it when you beg, darling. Hold on, I can’t quite seem to reach the button for the damn lock.”

Several additional seconds elapsed before the deadbolt thumped and the door yielded to Christopher’s touch. Inside, he found Olivia seated at a sleek black writing table in the gallery’s main exhibition room. She had arranged herself with care, as though posing for an invisible camera. As usual, her chin was turned slightly to the left, the right side of her face being the one that the photographers and advertisers had preferred. Christopher had never had a favorite. Olivia was a work of art, regardless of the vantage point.

Rising, she stepped from behind the table, crossed one ankle over the other, and placed a hand on her hip. She was clad in a fashionably cut jacket and matching slim-fitting trousers, suitably summer in color and weight.

“Marks and Spencer?” asked Christopher.

“It’s a little something that Giorgio threw together for me.” She lifted her chin a few degrees and stared at Christopher down the straight lines of her nose. “What brings you to my corner of the neighborhood?”

“A mutual friend needs a favor.”

“Which friend is that?”

“The one who cleaned up your dreadful past and allowed you to open a respectable gallery here in St. James’s.” Christopher paused. “A gallery filled with paintings that were purchased with your boyfriend’s drug money.”