“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 Sorensen, 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 Sorensen, 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 Sorensen’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.
As she ran, she replayed the past few days. She told herself it was time to call Uncle, May Ling Wong, and her travel agent and head on home. Ava was halfway through the second lap when a scrap of conversation she’d
