collector”.’
Gabrielle followed his gaze to Hoffmann. She swallowed before she spoke. Her voice was very quiet. ‘Is this you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Because if it is-’
‘It isn’t!’
The door emitted a chime as it was opened. Hoffmann looked over his shoulder. People were starting to leave; Walton was in the first wave, buttoning his jacket against the chilly wind. Bertrand saw what was happening and gestured discreetly to the waitresses to stop serving drinks. The party had lost its point and nobody seemed to want to be the last to leave. A couple of women came over to Gabrielle and thanked her, and she had to pretend that their congratulations were sincere. ‘I would have bought something myself,’ said one, ‘but I never had the chance.’
‘It’s quite extraordinary.’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘You will do this again soon, won’t you, darling?’
‘I promise.’
After they had moved off, Hoffmann said to Bertrand, ‘For God’s sake, at least tell her it isn’t me.’
‘I can’t say who it is, because to be honest I don’t know. It’s as simple as that.’ Bertrand spread his hands. He was plainly enjoying the situation: the mystery, the money, the need for professional discretion; his body was swelling within its expensive black silk skin. ‘My bank just sent me an email to say they’d received an electronic transfer with reference to this exhibition. I confess I was surprised by the amount. But when I got my calculator and added up the cost of all the items on display, I found it came to one hundred and ninety-two thousand francs. Which is precisely the sum transferred.’
‘An electronic transfer?’ repeated Hoffmann.
‘That is right.’
‘I want you to pay it back,’ said Gabrielle. ‘I don’t want my work to be treated like this.’
A big Nigerian man in national dress – a kind of heavily woven black and fawn toga with a matching hat – waved an immense pink palm in her direction. He was another of Bertrand’s proteges, Nneka Osoba, who specialised in fashioning tribal masks out of Western industrial detritus as a protest against imperialism. ‘Goodbye, Gabrielle!’ he shouted. ‘Well done!’
‘Goodbye,’ she called back, forcing a smile. ‘Thank you for coming.’ The door chimed again.
Bertrand smiled. ‘My dear Gabrielle, you seem not to understand. We are in a legal situation. In an auction, when the hammer comes down, the lot is sold. It’s the same for us in a gallery. When a piece of art is purchased, it’s gone. If you wish not to sell, don’t exhibit.’
‘I’ll pay you double,’ said Hoffmann desperately. ‘You’re on fifty per cent commission, so you just made nearly a hundred thousand francs, right? I’ll pay you two hundred thousand if you’ll give Gabrielle her work back.’
Gabrielle said, ‘Don’t, Alex.’
‘That is impossible, Dr Hoffmann.’
‘All right, I’ll double it again. Four hundred thousand.’
Bertrand swayed in his Zen silk slippers, ethics and avarice visibly slugging it out on the smooth contours of his face. ‘Well, I simply don’t know what to say-’
‘Stop it!’ shouted Gabrielle. ‘Stop it now, Alex! Both of you! I can’t bear to listen to this.’
‘Gabby…’
But she eluded Hoffmann’s outstretched hands and darted towards the door, pushing between the backs of the departing guests. Hoffmann went after her, shouldering his way through the small crowd. He felt as if it were a nightmare, the way she constantly eluded his grasp. At one point his fingertips brushed her back. He emerged on to the street just behind her, and after a dozen or so paces he finally managed to grab her elbow. He pulled her to him, into a doorway.
‘Listen, Gabby…’
‘No.’ She flapped at him with her free hand.
‘Listen!’ He shook her until she stopped trying to twist away; he was a strong man – it was no effort to him. ‘Calm down. Thank you. Now just hear me out, please. Something very weird is going on. Whoever just bought your exhibition I’m sure is the same person who sent me that Darwin book. Someone is trying to mess with my mind.’
‘Oh, come off it, Alex! Don’t start on this again. It’s you who bought everything – I know it is.’ She tried to wriggle free.
‘No, listen.’ He shook her again. Dimly he recognised that his fear was making him aggressive, and he tried to calm down. ‘I promise you. It’s not me. The Darwin was bought in exactly the same way – a cash transfer over the internet. I bet you that if we go back in there right now and get Monsieur Bertrand to give us the purchaser’s account number, they’ll match. Now you’ve got to understand that although the account may be in my name, it’s not mine. I know nothing about it. But I’m going to get to the bottom of it, I promise you. Okay. That’s it.’ He released her. ‘That’s what I wanted to say.’
She stared at him and began slowly massaging her elbow. She was crying silently. He realised he must have hurt her. ‘I’m sorry.’
She looked up at the sky, gulping. Eventually she got her emotions back under control. She said, ‘You really have no idea, do you, how important that exhibition was to me?’
‘Of course I do…’
‘And now it’s ruined. And it’s your fault.’
‘Come on, Gabrielle, how can you say that?’
‘Well it is, Alex, you see, because either you bought everything, out of some kind of mad alpha-male belief that you’d be doing me a favour. Or it was bought by this other person who you say is trying to mess with your mind. Either way, it’s you – again.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Okay, so who is this mystery man? Obviously he’s nothing to do with me. You must have some idea. A competitor of yours, is he? Or a client? Or the CIA?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Or is it Hugo? Is this one of Hugo’s funny public-schoolboy japes?’
‘It isn’t Hugo. That’s one thing I am sure of.’
‘Oh no, of course not – it couldn’t possibly be your precious bloody Hugo, could it?’ She wasn’t crying any more. ‘What exactly have you turned into, Alex? I mean, Leclerc wanted to know if money was the reason why you left CERN, and I said no. But do you ever stop to listen to yourself these days? Two hundred thousand francs… Four hundred thousand francs… Sixty million dollars for a house we don’t need…’
‘You didn’t complain when we bought it, as I recall. You said you liked the studio.’
‘Yes, but only to keep you happy! You don’t think I like the rest of it, do you? It’s like living in a bloody embassy.’ A thought seemed to occur to her. ‘How much money have you got now, as a matter of interest?’
‘Drop it, Gabrielle.’
‘No. Tell me. I want to know. How much?’
‘I don’t know. It depends how you calculate things.’
‘Well try. Give me a figure.’
‘In dollars? Ballpark? I really don’t know. A billion. A billion-two.’
‘A billion dollars? Ballpark? ’ For a moment she was too incredulous to speak. ‘You know what? Forget it. It’s over. As far as I’m concerned, all that matters now is getting out of this bloody awful town, where the only thing anyone cares about is money.’
She turned away.
‘What’s over?’ Again he grabbed her arm, but feebly, without conviction, and this time she wheeled on him and slapped him on the face. It was only light – a warning flick, a token – but he let her go at once. Such a thing had never happened between them before.
‘Don’t you ever,’ she spat, jabbing her finger at him, ‘ ever grab hold of me like that again.’
And that was it. She was gone. She strode to the end of the street and rounded the corner, leaving Hoffmann
